Forever and a Day by Lilachigh


Chapter Six Something Odd


Buffy froze as the small red-headed boy pushed the shotgun in front of him. She could see that his finger was on the trigger, but the weight of the weapon was too much for him and it was wavering from side to side.

“Slow down,” Spike said, not moving. “We’re quite harmless. Just orphans of the storm. This is Buffy and my name’s Spike.”

“Go away!” the boy said again and Buffy flinched as his finger trembled on the trigger.

“Jack - put the gun down.” It was the girl, Mandy, who spoke. “They can’t go anywhere. Their car is wrecked. They have to stay.”

His frightened gaze flashed across to her and slowly, inch by inch, he lowered the shotgun. When it was pointing to the floor, Spike moved with vampire speed, twisted it out of his grasp, unloaded it, put the cartridges in his pocket and laid the gun on the bar. “Phew, close call. That could have blasted a bloody great hole in us both.”

The boy had moved to the girl who put her arm round him, protectively. “This is Jack,” she said at last. “Don’t be angry with him. He was only trying to protect me.”

Buffy smiled at them. “Hey, we can understand that. It’s what we do, too. Try and protect people when we can. Do you think your folks would mind if we took a room for the night? We can’t do anything with the car until the snow stops.”

The children looked at each other, a silent question and answer passing between them. “Okay, I suppose,” Mandy said at last, pushing at the big round spectacles that kept sliding down her nose. “The best guest room is at the top of the stairs. Would you like something to eat.”

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Spike said swiftly. “Perhaps you could light the fire, like you suggested earlier. We need to dry our clothes. ”

Mandy nodded and knelt in front of the big log fire, striking matches, coaxing it into life. Jack just stood, saying nothing, just staring at them. Buffy shivered. There was something odd about the child, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. He looked okay; perhaps he was freaked out by the storm without his parents. This was a very lonely spot. Perhaps they didn’t have that many visitors.

Well, there was no way they could get to Emsworth and find Giles and Willow tonight. Their plans to hunt for signs of the plague that was heading for England would have to wait until the morning.

She followed Spike up the stairs into a small bedroom. Most of it was taken up with a monstrous bedstead, set high off the floor, brass gleaming from the headboard. Buffy giggled. “Wow! And wow again! I don’t believe this,” she said. “That looks as if it should be in a museum.”

Spike prowled round, opening doors. “At least we’ve got our own bathroom,” he said. “Get your clothes off.”

Buffy put her hands on her hips and stared at him, head on one side. “Oh, you romantic fool,” she said. “How could a girl resist an advance like that?”

Spike turned and grinned, the scarred eyebrow lifting over his cobalt blue gaze. “I meant, get out of those soaking wet things before you go down with pneumonia, Slayer,” he purred. “But of course, if you have other ideas....”

Sitting on the floor, Buffy kicked off her wet boots, groaning as the feeling began to flood back into her frozen toes. “Spike, I’ve no feeling in most parts of my body. Nooky will have to wait.”

The vampire flung himself onto the bed, crushing the patchwork quilt. He’d flung off his leather coat and stretched luxuriously. “Nooky, what a great word, pet. You been reading slushy novels while I’ve been away dead?”

A second later, the air whoofed out of his lungs as an icy limbed Slayer landed full on top of him. He wrapped his arms round her, only too aware that all she was now wearing was a black lace thong and a scrap of silk he supposed was a bra.

“God, Slayer, you’re colder than I am,” he muttered as her icy lips closed on his. He shut his eyes as they kissed. At least her tongue was warm and as it slid slowly across his own, teasing and beckoning, he groaned deep in his throat.

He tangled his fingers in her damp hair and let the sensations of her body lying on top of his, swirl round his mind. This was what he’d wanted, needed, desired. Just kissing and holding her made him feel more than alive.

Eventually she broke the kiss and gazed into his eyes. “Do you sometimes wonder if we’re dreaming this - this being together again? This is what happened night after night when you were gone. Then the alarm clock would ring, or Dawn would bang on the door and I’d wake up and you’d be gone.”

She shuddered, not just from the cold and pushed herself even closer to him. She had the dreadful sensation that if she let him go, he would vanish and she’d be left holding nothing but her wildest desires. “I don’t think I could bear it if I woke up from this, Spike.”

He stroked her hair gently back from her face, worried by the intensity of her tone. “Well, I reckon the odds on us having the same dream are pretty high, pet. And in my dreams you didn’t have cold feet. Ouch!” He yelled as she raised her knee in a non too kindly movement. “That could be called cutting off your nose to spite your face, luv. I need all of that to keep you satisfied.”

He rolled over so she was underneath him and nibbled with blunt teeth at the black silk of her bra, tearing it off and licking and sucking on her nipples as her legs widened beneath him, eagerly welcoming him in.

Then, just as her thighs rose from the bed to clasp his there was a knock on the door and Mandy’s voice said, “Shall I light the fire in your room?”

Spike stared down into the green eyes beneath him, eyes that were glazed with passion and a mouth that was now trembling with amusement. “Think we’re lighting our own fire, thanks,” he muttered, then rolled off his lover and struggled to find where he’d thrown his jeans.

Buffy wrapped herself in the quilt and sat, crossed legged, rocking with silent laughter as he hopped round the room, trying to pull the soaking wet denim up his legs. She watched as he at last opened the door, spoke briefly to the young girl and then shut it again. She frowned as he stood, silently, not returning to her. “What’s up?”

“Do you feel there’s something odd about those children?”

Buffy hugged the quilt even closer. “Well, the shot gun episode wasn’t the best welcome I’ve ever had in my life, but they are on their own and we’re strangers. Mandy seems OK. A bit old-fashioned, but - ”

Spike opened the door a fraction and listened. “There’s more voices downstairs now,” he said.

Buffy jumped off the bed and joined him. “Their parents back? That would be great.”

Spike shook his head. “Sounds like more kids to me.”

“That’s silly. It can’t be. Why on earth would children be out in this storm? Go down and see while I get dressed.”

Spike threw a wicked grin at her nakedness then padded away, cat like on bare feet to the top of the stairs.

Buffy closed the door and pulled on her clothes, grimacing at their clammy dampness. She couldn’t even find her underwear and smiled to herself. She sometimes wondered if Spike held stock in the major lingerie manufacturers. He’d ruined enough of hers.

She was attempting to braid her hair to get it under control when the door opened and Spike came in. She was about to speak when he held up a hand, urging her to be quiet. She watched gravely as he locked the door behind him, then held out what seemed to be a framed picture to her.

“What on earth - ”’

In two strides he was at her side, his hand covering her mouth. With his lips close to her ear he whispered, “Just look at the photograph, Buffy. It was on a ledge on the landing. The pub’s full of children. And I’m beginning to see why.”

Buffy took the photo frame and turned it to face her. It was a colour shot of a man and a woman, sitting in the pub bar, laughing at the camera, holding tankards of beer.

The woman was slim and dark, wearing big round spectacles that made her look like a sleepy owl. The man was broad shouldered, good-looking and had a shock of bright red hair. There was no mistaking who they were. It was a photo of Mandy and Jack. An adult Mandy and Jack.


to be continued.