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Present Childe by Ariel Dawn
 
Gifts
 
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Disclaimer: Joss owns them, all I want is my very own naked Spike, preferably chocolate covered, but Joss won’t let me even if I asked nicely.

Author’s note: Some dialogue taken from “Gingerbread” Thanks to BTL for the fab betaing. Thanks to CM, McChick and Idk for the great reviews!
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Chapter 10: Gifts

“You were right, Willow,” sniffled the former slayer.

Willow looked on from the end of Buffy’s bed, sympathetic to her friend’s plight.

“How did I stay there for such a long time? Turning a blind eye to all the bad vampire stuff that was going on! Way to go Buffy! I mean that was why we broke up in the summer! I just got sucked into the badness once more!”

Willow nodded. “When you broke up in the summer though you still had your soul...” started Willow.

“Ya I guess, maybe.”

“I know you don’t eat people Buffy, but I can’t help but think that if Xander and I hadn’t been all supportive you would have been making with the people munching...”

Buffy stole a glance at her friend’s face for a moment before responding.

“You are right Willow,” Buffy finally admitted.

Willow inhaled sharply.

“You are right, that night, I was going to drain Jonathan. Faith stopped me, and then Spike made me mad. You sorta became my conscience Wills. And I’m grateful.”

Buffy smiled warmly at her friend. Willow opened her arms.

“Huggage!” ordered the red head.

“What are you going to do now?” Willow asked.

Pulling back from the hug, Buffy shrugged.

“I guess, just live my unlife as much as possible. I was a fool to think that he would ever kick Dru to the curb for me.”

“He loves you, Buffy I am certain of that,” offered Willow.

“But he doesn’t love me enough.”
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With Buffy gone from the mansion things returned to the vampire norm. There were no fights about one of their clan not feeding; there were no power struggles between the minions and Buffy. It was a relief. It was a disappointment.

Short of sending out minions to bring her back, or going after her himself, he spent every waking moment thinking about how to get her back. She wasn’t answering to his call, that signal that Sires could send to their Childer through their connection. She was asserting her independence and she wasn’t even a year old yet.

Drusilla had taken a turn for the worse. Her headaches were coming more frequently and stronger and more painful than they ever had before.

The wreath of intestines rotted, sending a stench into the mansion that even the minions couldn’t tolerate, but still Spike refused to take it down. It was a reminder of his loyalties, the stench an ode to his betrayal of his mate.

He went out to feed as usual leaving Dru in the care of minions, promising to be straight back once he’d fed. More often than not he found himself standing outside 1630 Revello Drive hoping to catch a glimpse of his Goldilocks, before feeling Dru’s call to him, sending him back to the mansion to soothe her painful head and chasing the pixies away.

Curiously, Dru made no mention of ‘Baby’ being away. It perplexed the leather clad vampire. Dru had been so adamant about her family and the inclusion and training of ‘Baby.’ With Buffy’s absence from the house, the crazed vampiress had made no mention of her at all. Buffy had become a taboo subject within the mansion’s walls.

Lying alone in their bed, Spike missed her. He felt as if a gaping hole had been punched out of his gut, not to mention his heart, and yet he felt powerless to do anything about it. Dru’s screams from the next room, calling for him to soothe her, brought him back to reality and briefly he considered putting his Dark Princess out of her misery.
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Christmas Day arrived with presents and eggnog at the Summers’ house. Buffy hadn’t see or talked to Spike in a week. Her mother had been trying to cheer up the vampiress with holiday fun, inviting Xander and Willow over for Christmas movie madness.

“Do vampires celebrate the festive yuletide season?” asked Xander out of the blue.

“Aurelians do,” noted Buffy as she took a sip of turkey blood. “It’s not a celebration of baby Jesus and Santa Claus and commercialism, it’s a ‘red goes really nicely with all these other colours’ thing. And there’s so many ornaments that you can make with body parts.”

Xander and Willow made disgusting face.

“Hey you asked,” noted Buffy. “Or maybe it was Drusilla’s madness,” she added with a frown.

“Have I said just how much I love that you are no longer in the den of blood drinking fiends?” noted Xander.

“Still a blood drinking fiend, Xan,” smiled Buffy raising her glass at her friend.

“Yes! But not in the den of...Now you are in the den of Scoobies. The Scooby den.”

With a smile, Buffy leaned over and gave Xander a hug.

Five more minutes into the holiday fabulousness of White Christmas and the song stylings of Bing Crosby that had brought Joyce out of the kitchen, and the whole group was startled by a knock at the door.

Reaching out her vampire senses she could feel that Spike was nearby. If her still heart beat, it would have been doing flip flops. She snapped a hurried ‘I’ll get it’ to her friends and mom before heading to the door.

Buffy opened the door, letting in cool night air and saw nothing. Frowning, she glanced down, and her eyes saw the object placed on the doormat.

A package.

A package that was badly wrapped with red shiny wrapping paper and had a gift tag on it that said simply ‘Goldilocks’.

She tuned out the noise of the movie, of the people in her house, of the cars on the street, lost in the contemplation of what Spike could have possibly gotten for her for Christmas.

With an eagerness that she had not exhibited since she fled from the Crawford Street mansion, Buffy tore open the package, revealing a shoebox. Carefully she opened the box, gasping at the contents.

“Buffy what is it?” asked Willow over her shoulder.

“Vampire dust,” said Buffy looking sadly down at the contents of the box.
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From his position on her neighbour’s lawn, hidden behind a tree, he could smell her tears. He knew that if he walked over there she would not reject him, but he didn’t want to be the one to capitulate, he’d already done enough of that this night.

She would have to come to him. Like she should. This was just a peace offering really, he tried to convince himself. A peace offering that cost him so much.

But she was worth it.
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Buffy walked through the wet grass of a local park. She didn’t even know why she was out there really. Confirmation perhaps. That box at Christmas had really thrown her for a loop. It had taken all of her will power to not dart up out of the house and fling herself into Spike’s arms.

It must have been so hard for him, so terribly painful, she thought. But shouldn’t I feel his pain too? she asked herself. She didn’t know why the mating bond or even the Childe/Sire bond between her and Spike wasn’t as strong as she supposed it to be. It even worried her a bit.

She wanted confirmation. Confirmation that Drusilla was dust from the minions. She thought she had been following one into the park, but a heartbeat to the left distracted her.

“Is it a vampire?” came her mother’s voice from her left.

Buffy turned her head to look at the source of her mother’s voice. Yep, Mom is in the park in the dark carrying a thermos of blood. You would think that she would learn what attracts vampires after all this time.

“Mom? What are you doing here?” Buffy asked incredulous, grabbing her mother and pressing her into the shadows.

“I brought you a snack. I thought you might get hungry and I didn’t want you to go snacking on the locals.”

Buffy exhaled a disappointed sigh.

“Mom, I don’t need to be monitored all the time. I haven’t killed anyone since I’ve been turned. I mean there were a couple of Spike’s minions, but that doesn’t count.”

“I’m sorry Buffy,” said Joyce. “I just...I want to believe you. It’s just, you are a vampire Buffy...vampires, they drink people’s blood. You said you were going for a walk...” she trailed off as Buffy stared at her in disbelief.

“And that means I’m off to scour the neighbourhood for the freshest blood, just because? Thanks for the confidence booster there, mom.”

The pair continued in silence traversing the playground past swings and a sandbox. Absently Joyce stooped down and picked up a discarded toy truck that had been left in a puddle. Glancing around the park, Joyce’s eyes lighted on something across the park.

“Oh god...” whispered Joyce, her eyes wide.

Buffy turned her head in the direction her mother was looking. There, on the merry go round lay the bodies of two children, a boy and a girl, arms outstretched with a symbol drawn on their hands.

“Buffy... What happened?” asked Joyce as the two of them approached the bodies. “Was it vampires?”

Buffy knelt down to look at the children. Touching their cold palms, Buffy wrinkled her nose and backed away from the two children.

“Demon, mom. These two children, they aren’t children. They smell like demons.”

“These little kids are demons?” asked Joyce. “Who would kill demon children?”

Buffy shrugged. “A Slayer?”
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Secluded in their house, safe from the demons and the vampires, Buffy patted her mother on the back as she sniffled, the deaths of the two demon children weighing heavily on the brain.

“They were little kids. Did you see them? I don’t care if they were demons or not. They were so tiny.”

“I saw,” said Buffy tenderly, knowing that her mom was taking this particularly hard.

Joyce shook her head sadly. “Who could do something like this? Was it Faith? She was such a nice girl. What would make a girl kill children?”

“I’m so sorry that you had to see this. But I promise that everything is gonna be okay.”

“How?”

“I don’t know mom. I really don’t know.” Buffy leaned over her mother and gave her a hug.

Joyce’s quiet sobs filled the kitchen.
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At school the next morning, the January light causing Buffy to hide from the windows, Buffy confronted Willow about what her mom had seen.

“I have to know what did that Wills,” said Buffy, taking books out of her locker. “My mom is taking this really bad.”

Willow nodded sympathetically. “There wasn’t anything unusual about their deaths? Marks?”

Buffy shook her head. “No, but it’s not like they were human to begin with. They were demon children. I could smell that much.”

Willow nodded again, getting out a piece of paper and writing the information down on it.

“Wait“ she started, her brows drawn together in thought. “I...I remember something. There was a mark. Not a bite mark, a symbol.” Buffy grabbed the pen out of Willow’s hand and drew the symbol she had seen on Willow’s paper. “It was on their hands.”

Willow looked at the symbol with shock.

“Oh Buffy!”

“What?” asked the former Slayer. “Do you know what it is?”

Willow looked up at her friend and gulped.
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The thought that Willow had seen the symbol before in a magic book had made Buffy think Witches had done this. But most of her experiences with witches were the good kind though, right? Buffy had gone to class and Willow had said she would check out the library for leads on the symbol.

When lunch rolled around, Buffy took her thermos of pig’s blood and headed into the cafeteria joining her friends along with Oz and Amy at their table.

“Hi, Buffy,” greeted Willow, with a smile, cutting off Xander for some reason.

“Buffy!” Xander stood up nervously. “What’s up?”

“I’m not going to eat you Xander,” responded Buffy. “You can calm down.” Buffy took Xander’s chair making the young man find another from a neighbouring table.

“So did Willow tell you?” continued Buffy.

“Tell us what?” asked Xander.

“A murder. Somebody killed two little kids,” said Buffy opening up her thermos.

“Oh no,” said Amy, shocked.

“They were, like seven or eight years old. My mom found the bodies last night.”

“Oh my god,” gasped Amy.

“Kids?” questioned Oz.

“Why was your mom there?” asked Xander.

“More bad. She picked last night of all nights for a surprise bonding visit,” Buffy lied. She couldn’t admit that her mom had gone out to make sure she hadn’t killed anyone.

“God, your mom would actually take the time to do that with you?” asked Willow in awe.

Over her mug of blood, Buffy shot her friend a look.

“That really wasn’t the point of the story, was it?” asked Willow sheepishly.

“No, the point is, she’s completely wigging.”

Buffy felt a presence behind her and turned, the scent in the air telling her who it was before she even looked. There stood her mother, looking distraught, but not crying.

“Who’s wigging?” asked Joyce.

“Umm...Everyone? Cause of what happened?” covered Buffy quickly.

“Oh, it’s so awful. I had bad dreams about it all night,” answered Joyce.

“Hi, Mrs. Summers!” greeted Willow cheerfully.

“Oh, hi, everybody,” noted Joyce absently.

“Hi,” answered Xander, digging into his lunch.

“Hi, Mrs. Summers,” greeted Amy.

“Buffy have you talked to Mr. Giles yet about who could have done this?” asked Joyce.

“Mom!” gasped Buffy knowing full well that her mother knew that Giles was not the man to talk to while she was all vamp-like.

“I took at look at the symbol, Mrs. Summers,” interrupted Willow. “I saw the symbol in a spell book once.”

“A spell book. So witches did this?” asked Joyce.

Amy and Willow looked at each other concerned.

“Oh I...I know you kids think that stuff’s cool. Buffy told me you dabble,” explained Joyce.

“Right,” agreed Willow nervously. “Absolutely. That’s me. I’m a dabbler.”

“But anybody who could do this isn’t cool. Anybody who could do this has to be a monster. It’s...”

“You know what?” asked Buffy cutting off her mother’s rant. “Uh, would you guys excuse us for a little bit?”

Buffy grabbed her mother’s arm and led her out of the room.

“Uh, nice to see you all,” Joyce called back to the table of Buffy’s friends.

Out in the hallway, Buffy and Joyce came to a stop.

“Are your friends gonna help with the investigation too?” asked Joyce right away.

“Mom, I really think...Maybe this isn’t the best place to talk about this,” Buffy said as she gave a wilted smile to those passing them.

“Are you embarrassed to be hanging out with your mother? I didn’t hug you...”

“No. It’s just...This hall is about school and you’re about home. Mix them and what little I have of a normal world dissolves.”

“It’s just, I keep thinking about who could have done such a thing. I have to help.”

Buffy gritted her teeth in frustration and willed herself to calm down, before she got vampy. “Well, I’d suggest going into the library to help Giles with research, but he’s not too happy with me being vampy. He might have some choice words for the mother that harbours her vampire daughter.”

Joyce nodded. “I called everybody I know in town. I told them about the dead children. They’re all just as upset as I am.”

“You called everybody that you know?” asked Buffy shocked.

“And they called all their friends. And guess what? We're setting up a vigil, for tonight, for City Hall. The Mayor is even gonna be there. Now we are gonna get some action.” Joyce smiled, pleased with herself.

Buffy looked at her mother with awe. “Mom you do realise what I said last night was the truth right? These kids that were killed, they were demons. You can’t have the whole town up in arms about demon children killed.”

“Why not?” asked Joyce. “Buffy since you’ve been turned, the world has been opened up to me. I know that the population of our town is a lot more than humans. The good demons need to take action too. You could talk to Spike, get the vampires involved too.”

Buffy shook her head. “Oh I don’t think that’s a good idea at all, mom. The minions will probably just start eating people.”

“But you’re a good vampire Buffy. Surely there are other good vampire’s out there.”

Buffy’s memory briefly flashed back to Angel, whom she had sent to hell. He had been good until she had fucked the soul out of him.
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tbc...
 
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