Author’s Note: I’d like to thank: Cordykitten, Jane, Katkin, Nicki, Jen, Toni, Xela, PhotographyNut, Anna, Missytheslayer, Avalon, smlcspike, SpaceLord, vladt, Mali, basilio_the_cat, Verda, Chouchou, Irina, Piper Halliwell, Becca1806, enchantedlight, and Amunett for reviewing last chapter! You guys are cool beans ;P


And Bec, thanks, as always, for taking your time to look at my writing.


Chapter Five – Piercing Golden Eyes


For the second time, Buffy woke up with her mind whirling. She had to blink the sleep from her eyes to catch up with the present, relaxing when she remembered that she was in her room in her Great Aunt Agatha’s home.


She slowly sat up and stared intently at the coverlet across her lap, mentally reviewing the only image she could remember of the dream that she must have continued after having fallen asleep the second time—the sleep she had succumbed to after having been gently rocked by Aggie.


Piercing golden eyes.


She could only remember that the disembodied eyes were the color of precious metal, but nothing else. She could recall that they were terrifying in their ethereal splendor; dark and glinting with possession—but softened by the sliver of reverence and awe that had shone through them.


She wanted to remember them always. And if not for the feral-look of them, then she wanted to remember them for their unearthly quality that reminded her of fairy tales and legends.


After a few more minutes of thinking over their almond shape and oddly colored irises, she cut herself off from her musings of her forgotten dream and let out a much needed sigh.


She felt different. Better, lighter and—dare she say it?—happier. The river of tears that had flowed down her cheeks and onto Aggie’s accepting shoulder had helped her more than anything else had since her loss. Everything didn’t seem as hard and she didn’t feel displaced. Thinking of Aggie’s smiling face, she knew with conviction that she still had someone that deeply cared for her.


Slowly, she let a smile of her own turn up the corners of her mouth. It helped to permanently add that spark of life to her eyes that had been, until now, flickering in and out like a dying flame.


She pushed the blankets off of her body and briskly got up from the bed. Turning to her belongings, she gave a decisive nod and began the process of putting her things into their proper places in her new room.


When she was finished, she looked down at her baggy black T-shirt and wrinkled jeans and decided that it was time to toss them aside. She rummaged through her drawers and came up with a baby-blue camisole and dark gray yoga pants. Content with the outfit meant for comfort and relaxation, she turned to the side table and paused when she saw the drawing of her mom, her now-prized possession. She picked the sketch up and held it up to the morning light streaming in through her window, admiring the coy curve of Joyce’s mouth and the soft curls of her hair that glinted with shine captured by the artist’s eye. She turned to her bureau after a time, carefully placing the sketch in the second-to-the-top drawer and then lightly covering it with socks.


Something about it, maybe the intimacy, made her feel that she should keep the paper, with the lovers’ one line of verse, sacred and to treasure it like a secret. A secret she had yet to learn, but was determined to find out.


Once she surveyed that she was done preparing her room, she turned to the door, intent on finding a bathroom to take a shower in, taking with her, her morning toiletries along with her clothes.


She walked into a solid wall when she exited her room.


Well, she had *thought* it was a solid wall—until it had jumped away from her as if she was riddled with a contagious disease.


“Oh bloody hel- I- I’m sorry, Buffy.”


She quickly looked up from her bundle of hygiene products that she had been rearranging in her arms and felt her stomach tie itself in knots as the air whooshed out of her lungs.


She had forgotten about Spike. Well, not so much as ‘forgotten’ as she had ‘repressed.’


He was standing in her doorway, reflexively fisting his hands on either side of him, before he finally settled for stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets. His head was tilted downwards almost shyly, but something else…something that looked like a struggle for…control? Words? Sanity? She didn’t know—but it made her doubt that he was just being bashful.


With the word ‘bashful’ her eyes widened and her cheeks filled with hot crimson color when she realized that she was clutching her teal green panties—ones that had cutesy little dark blue polka dots on them—in her right hand. She quickly crushed them into a ball to cover them as best as possible.


‘Did he see them?’ she frantically wondered. ‘Is that why he’s looking down? Great… With my luck he’s probably just trying to control his laughter.’


She stood there doing a pretty impressive imitation of a guppy, while Spike, in turn, stayed quiet as well.


Finally, taking a convulsive swallow, Buffy realized that he had said sorry earlier and was probably waiting for her response. She almost winced at how long it had taken her to figure that out.


“That’s okay. Um, is there something that you…need?”


Spike finally looked up.


She wished he hadn’t.


It was like yesterday all over again. The knots in her stomach constricted to strangling proportions as she felt light-headedness curl all around her. But it only lasted seconds because he quickly looked to a point over her shoulder and her symptoms lessoned.


Maybe *she* was the ill one.


Spike’s voice was thick and gravelly when he spoke up. “Yeh, actually, I came here to apologize for the way I acted towards you yesterday. You see, I had a fever and wasn’t in my right mind.” He gave a shrug and met her gaze again. This time nothing happened when their eyes met—besides the involuntary inner-voice that cooed ‘ooh, pretty blue’—so she chalked the other time up to being a fluke. “I hope you can forgive me.”


She cleared her throat and nodded. “Sure. All’s forgiven. Are you…feeling better now?”


He seemed stumped by this question for a second, before shaking himself and overcompensating with, “Oh yeh. *Loads* better, in fact. Yep. All’s well and fine with me.”


“That’s good.” She gave a nervous smile.


Spike blinked at her, his face going slack. In a dream-like state he observed, “You look so much like her.”


The words seemed to surprise him just as much as they did her because he visibly blanched. He trampled over the previous topic by motioning to the bundle in her arms. “I see that you’re lookin’ for the bathroom.” He pointed to the furthest door that went down the center of the hallway. “’s that door there.” He stepped further away. “So I’ll leave you to it and, when you’re finished, Aggie said she’ll have breakfast on the table.” He gave her a parting nod and quickly left to parts unknown.


Once again Buffy was left staring down the hallway that Spike retreated from.


And instead of placating her, as his apology was meant to do, she was left feeling even more bewildered by him.


..::~*~::..


“Oh…hell.” Spike raked his hands through his hair, making the slicked-back strands spring back into the boyish curls, the way nature had dealt them to him. He slumped into the leather-backed sofa he was sitting on and stared out into the mansion’s library—that was, as of now, one of the brand new hidey-holes that he apparently needed to escape to.


From a seventeen-year-old girl.


He laughed at the ridiculousness, and yet complete seriousness, of it all. It was a laugh of hysteria.


He then frowned at the tremors running rampant through his body and the stiffness of his still-grasping hands. He turned his gaze to stare accusingly at the aforementioned appendages.


They had wanted to grab her, haul her to him and hold and glide over her as he savaged her neck.


‘And why the bleedin’ hell was that?’ he thought, not for the first time.


In the last twenty-four hours or so, he felt like his body had been taken over and hotwired. Jumpstarted to life and crackling with unused energy. Energy that needed to be expounded and used to eat up the distance to—


Buffy.


To Buffy.


Why to Buffy?


He thought back to her lithe, sleep-rumpled form and startled green eyes. He thought most importantly of the moment that she had asked him of his needs, if there was something that he needed from her, and how that had been the closest moment. That *soddin’ moment* had almost been *the moment* that he had taken a life for the first time since his stay here in Sunnydale.


He shook his head in derision. Did he need something from her? Uh, yeh, apparently so.


During their brief exchange the corded muscles and tendons throughout his body had tensed released tensed released tensed released along in synchronization with the siren rhythm of the rush of her blood pounding pounding pounding throughout her system.


He knew what he needed from her. Wanted from her.


Could never take from her because he was too inexplicably loyal and caring of the two women that were her family—one in body, the other in spirit.


And that’s what had saved her in the end. That reminder of who her family was. With that beautiful nervous little smile gracing Buffy’s lips he saw Joyce and felt shame.


He only hoped that the reminder that she was Joyce’s one and only daughter would remain, keeping her safe…from him.


..::~*~::..


Aggie looked over her shoulder when she saw Spike entering the kitchen area, taking a seat at the breakfast bar. “Hey, hun. Is Buffy awake?”


“Yeh, she’s takin’ a shower.”


Aggie nodded and flipped over a pancake to reveal the cooked golden side. She then went and took a mug out of the microwave and placed it in front of Spike. “You best hurry up now and drink that before she gets out.”


Spike gave a murmur of agreement and then downed the perfectly warmed pigs’ blood. He lulled his tongue along his palate and raised his scarred eyebrow. “Cinnamon?”


Aggie nodded. “I don’t know—it just makes it seem more like a breakfast food to me. Humor me; I’m an old woman who wants to make sure her youngin’s get nurtured properly.”


“’m older than you, Aggie,” Spike needlessly pointed out.


“But you look like my grandson, so I’ll treat you as such. Now be a good boy and wash that mug out in the sink for me, please.”


Spike smirked. “Whatever you say, grandmum.” And then frowned as he went at his task of washing. “Hey, but you need to stop runnin’ and hoppin’ about so much, acting like mother goose, if Buffy is to think that ’m your caretaker. She’s gonna think ‘m some git that just lazes about while you do everythin’ around here.”


“But you are.” Aggie joked good-naturedly.


Spike gave her a look. “All ‘m sayin’ is...tone it down a bit. I know that you’re as healthy as an ox ‘n all, but just let me do some of the things you would normally do so she believes me to be your nursemaid instead of the creature of the night that I really am.”


Aggie sighed. “You’re right. I don’t want to scare her away before she even gets used to living here. And you, I’m afraid to have to say, are a little scary.” A teasing smile suddenly lit her face. “So…are you going to take over the duty of watering my plants in the Sun Room?” Spike gave her an ‘oh-aren’t-you-just-bloody-hilarious’ tight lipped smile and came forth with a hand held out. Aggie eyed it for a moment before grudgingly putting the spatula in his palm and taking his unoccupied seat at the breakfast bar. Suddenly pensive, she continued, “I think she got out some things last night that she had been holding inside for a long while. That poor, little darling… I only hope that we can help fill that void that comes with losing a mother. It’s truly one of the hardest things most people ever go through.”


Spike turned away from Aggie to slip the fully cooked pancake out of the pan, and answered, “Yeh, it is.” He cleared his throat, trying to break up the build of emotion.


“What-“ Aggie hesitated. “Are you alright, Spike? Ever since yesterday you’ve been acting strangely. I thought…I thought that you’d be happy to meet Buffy for the first time.”


“I am,” Spike quickly asserted. “I am. It’s just,” he paused, thinking of what to say that would at least omit the sinister part of the truth, “I was…startled. Things really sunk in. I had always hoped that we’d get to see Buffy one day. I just always envisioned Joyce would be here with her.” His sentence grew more somber at the end when he realized how right that statement actually was.


Aggie gave a sad, understanding smile. “I miss her, too.”


A silence filled the room as they both got lost in their own thoughts and memories. They were finally interrupted at the sound of hesitant footsteps coming nearer and nearer.


Spike spun back around to the stovetop. Aggie turned in her seat to face the blonde teen. “Good morning, sweetie. Why don’t you come on over here and take a seat next to your Auntie.” After Buffy sat in the seat next to her, Aggie waved a hand in Spike’s direction. “Betty Crocker, here, is going to finish cooking breakfast for us.” She leaned in conspiratorially and loudly whispered. “Don’t worry, though. Once you pick off the blackened edges everything tastes *just* fine.”


Spike turned and waved the spatula menacingly, glaring at Aggie. “Oi! ‘m a bloody great cook! Taught Emeril everythin’ he knows. So you just shut your gob, Aunt Gemima, and let Betty Crocker do some culinary magic.”


Buffy gave an impulsive laugh at their playful banter, causing Spike’s concentration of not looking at her to slip. Their gaze met and held. He put his self to the test, daring himself to look at her, but not to react. He let his gaze sweep down to take in her flushed cheeks and the way she bit her plump bottom lip to stifle her laughter. He wasn’t satisfied with his results, yet he wasn’t entirely disappointed either—she wasn’t dead after all. Even though he was undergoing extreme discomforts, he felt that he had enough of a grip on his urges to at least *appear* normal.


In an act of normalcy, Spike met Buffy’s gaze again and gave her a slow, rakish grin. “How do you like your eggs, pet?”


Buffy self-consciously licked her lips. “Scrambled, please.” He nodded and went back to cooking, while Buffy’s fuzzy mind finally comprehended that with living with Aggie, she was also going to be living with Spike too. Which she suddenly found she felt fluttery and nervous about, after having been on the receiving end of his charm for the first time.


“So how are you feeling this morning, Buffy?” Aggie warmly asked. “Did you sleep well on the mattress that we got you? The saleslady at the store said that it’s a really good one.”


Spike spoke with his back to them. “*Please* tell her that you like it. Her friend Betsey told me that they spent a whole day lookin’ for the perfect mattress—and Aggie, here, had acted all ‘Princess and the Pea’ about findin’ the perfect one for you.”


“’Only a true princess could have such delicate skin as to feel a pea through forty layers of bed sheets,’” Aggie airily quoted, and then hopefully questioned, “So was the mattress to your liking, sweetie?”


Buffy could see that she was just going to have to get use to all of the kind gestures and extra efforts that Aggie went through to see to her comfort. One of those kind gestures which included how Aggie hadn’t brought up that she had rocked her as she had cried herself to sleep. “The mattress felt fine, Aunt Aggie. Even better than the one I had in LA. Thanks for getting it for me.”


Aggie smiled in relief, but then looked worried again. “And your room? Do you like how it’s decorated or-“


“It’s fine, Auntie,” Buffy said earnestly. She slightly tilted her chin down as if to indicate the previous topic. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, and the room is beyond what I expected. It’s way princess-worthy.”


Seemingly unable to contain herself, Aggie rose from her chair and hugged Buffy to her, much like when Buffy first came through the front door. Buffy awkwardly half-sat, half-lent off of the tall chair she was on, but was none the wiser to it as Aggie dotted loving kisses on her forehead, temples, and the crown of her hair. “No, *your* better than to be expected, Buffy. No, no, don’t be shy. Let me lavish you with affections. I half-expected I’d never get to meet you. Love you so much, sweetie.”


Buffy’s heart burst with warmth at Aggie’s declaration. And she thought of how two of her deeply held secret wants had already been met by Aggie: to be lovingly held and rocked to sleep at night, and told upon morning that she was loved and cared for.


Buffy raised her arms from her sides and wrapped them around Aggie, so that her face was pressed cheek to cheek with her great aunt. Buffy was faced toward the kitchen and caught a soft, reverent look on Spike’s face. It was full of adoration and starved longing, as if he too wanted to be a part of it. He must have felt her gaze, because his eyes met hers, and, surprisingly, the soft look remained. At that moment she felt a sudden sorrow, looking at this pale, oddly beautiful man, and being desperately clung to by this warm, caring woman. And with a certainty she didn’t fully understand, she knew that heartache and loneliness had driven these two individuals to this place and to each other…and now she was one of them too.


Aggie’s praise went on. “My beautiful, beautiful Buffy. Isn’t she just lovely?...”


Spike still hadn’t broken away from Buffy’s gaze. He said something, as if in answer to Aggie’s rhetorical question, but it was lost in the litany of Aggie’s voice.


And unlike the time that Mandy had told her she was a beautiful girl, she actually wanted to believe it this time…and wanted to have heard if Spike thought so too. Because her world had gone completely topsy-turvy, and right-side-up was upside down and feeling numbed to everything suddenly wasn’t appealing anymore.


Aggie slowly withdrew from the embrace and gave her a self-deprecating smile and crinkled her nose, “I promise I don’t always get so sappy like this, so you won’t have to be afraid that I’ll try to spontaneously hug you in front of people and embarrass you.”


“Lies,” Spike dead panned.


Aggie glared at him, and he responded by giving her a genuine smile that made the glare instantly smooth from Aggie’s face as if she couldn’t hold that expression for a long time anyways, because it didn’t really belong to someone so kind as her. She retaliated by demanding of him, “Where’s our food? Look at us,” she indicated she and Buffy, “can’t you see that we’re wasting away every second that you deny us our meal? Emeril would have fed us by now.”


“Oh,” he gave a dramatic pause, “now you’ve gone and done. You bints better be prepared to be amazed by my,” he glanced at the pan of scrambled eggs he had turned off minutes before, “…cold scrambled eggs.” He put the eggs on the same plate that the pancakes were on and turned to the microwave. “Right. They’ll just be another mo’. Talk amongst yourselves, ladies.”


Taking his command to heart, Aggie turned to Buffy and spoke hesitantly, “I guess now is as good a time as any… I wanted- I wanted to talk to you about school, Buffy.” Her whole being gave off concern. “I can’t keep you out for more than a week by state law. So…will you be okay with starting at Sunnydale High next Monday?”


Buffy internally groaned—but knew that the issue of attending school would be inevitable. “Yeah,” she reluctantly answered, “and, hey, at least Christine Bennett won’t be there,” she added to make herself feel better and to sound more sincere.


“Who’s that, sweetie?” Aggie asked in confusion.


There was a beat of silence and then, “Hank didn’t tell you how I got expelled?”


With blatant dissatisfaction, Aggie answered, “That man never really told me much of anything, sweetheart.”


Spike suddenly set a plate of pancakes and eggs in front of both of them, a sprig of parsley set as garnish on each in an attempt to redeem himself. He had the remaining pancakes—about five or six, she couldn’t tell—on a plate meant for him.


Buffy now had both pairs of eyes giving her their full attention. She squirmed in her seat. “I kind of, sort of…punched her. Bu-but only after she called me a nutcase that no parent would want to have to deal with,” she added as an appeal to her case.


The room was silent.


And then.


Indignant anger.


“I hope you bloody well knocked her lights out, pet! Made her see lil’ birdies fly ‘round her head!”


Aggie vigorously nodded. “Yeah. I saw this nifty combo on WWF the other night. Spike, do you remember which one I’m talking about? It went sort of like…”


Buffy stared at their comical display incredulously.


And then smiled.


..::~*~::..


After breakfast Aggie and a somewhat-reluctant Spike had given Buffy the tour of the mansion as Aggie had said they would the day before. They had gone through everything down-stairs first, showing her the sitting room and formal dining room, the corridor that led to the three bedrooms—Buffy and Spike’s bedrooms on one side, Aggie’s on the other—the two bathrooms located downstairs, the modest-sized library, and even a ball room that was built by the original owners with the intent of regal entertaining. Less of the upstairs had been shown, because Aggie admitted, there wasn’t much going on up there except dust bunnies because they really didn’t have any use of all of the space. But she and Aggie had gone up anyways. Spike, having evasively said that he had needed to make an important phone call, had left for his room. Aggie had shown her the room that she used to make and store her embroidering and quilts that she did as a hobby, and also a room that’s ceiling and outward wall was made completely of glass, giving it the name, The Sun Room, which faced out to show the enchanting wildness of Aggie’s garden.


The garden which she and Aggie were now viewing from one of the stone benches outside.


There were flowers of every color. Some Buffy knew the names of, such as buttercups, daffodils, roses, tulips, and violets, but most were exotic flowers that she hadn’t seen before. A pond, filled with smooth white stones at the bottom, was the main feature that had foliage bordering around it just to the point of overgrowth, which made the garden all the more natural and free. There were vine and flower entwined trellises bordering the fences, an herb garden, and a dominating ancient willow tree that provided endless bounds of shade. It was a chaotic beauty that made Buffy’s eyes jump from one thing to another and back again.


“I have a surprise I want to show you,” Aggie suddenly spoke, a sound not unlike childish eagerness coloring her voice.


Buffy slowly turned away from the beauty of Aggie’s garden to look at Aggie questioningly.


“Well,” Aggie amended, “at least I think it will be a surprise for you. I don’t think Joyce ever told you about it, and I know you certainly have never been there…”


Her curiosity peeked, Buffy anxiously asked, “My mom never told me about where?”


A secret smile played indulgently upon Aggie’s mouth. “Well, it’s a place that I guess you could say was…her own.”


Suddenly, there was a clamoring inside Buffy that never wanted anything more than this feeling that she had to go and see wherever it was that Joyce had held special.


“Take me there?”


TBC