Author’s Note: Smooches to: Cordykitten, Katkin, Riahannon, Anna, PhotographyNut, albie, Jin, Angi, Avalon, smlcspike, vladt, Irina, basilio_the_cat, Verda, Akela, lilred-07, enchantedlight, and Slayer918. Thanks so much for reviewing!


Author’s Blooper: Oh, look! A bird! *Kayla goes back to chapter two and changes Aggie’s age from seventy-eight to sixty-eight* Ah man, looks like you just missed it. It was a magnificent specimen, too. It looked like it might have been the most wondrous Blue Footed Booby seabird. Better luck next time.


If there is a site where Aggie’s age hasn’t changed to sixty-eight…just pretend that it did for me, please. It’s a plot thing. *Pets the Booby* Good, Booby, distracting all of the lovely people reading this. Good, Booby.


Chapter Six – Spun Sugar and Warm Apple Tarts


When Aggie had said that she was going to show Buffy a place that had been Joyce’s own, Buffy had thought that maybe there had been a room in the mansion that Aggie had saved to show her last.


When Aggie had instead fetched her purse and rummaged through it for her keys and a pair of glasses, she found out otherwise.


Aggie ushered her out of the front door and out of the front drive to a parked car on the side of the street. It was an ugly, huge black hunk of metal with what looked like black chipped paint in the edges of all of the windows.


Buffy frowned at it, but didn’t comment—because she had quickly learned that Aggie and Spike were an odd pair and it was easier to just expect the unexpected and unconventional. She delicately sat herself in the front passenger seat and glanced over to Aggie in the driver’s seat. She had put on the pair of silver, oval-shaped glasses, and Aggie, noticing where Buffy’s attention was, explained, “These are my driving glasses. I don’t have terrible eyesight or anything, my doctor just thought that it was best as a precaution with my,” she gave a listless sigh and rolled her eyes, “advancing age. I promise I’m not a bad driver, if that’s what you’re thinking.”


That’s exactly what Buffy had been thinking. Wasn’t Spike supposed to do things like driving Aggie around? That’s what caretakers did, right? Drive their old blue hairs around so that the rest of the populace didn’t have to suffer driving behind the old lady that went 20 miles an hour in a 30 mile an hour zone.


Her voice sounded embarrassed as she had brought it up. Aggie just laughed and told her that she was old—not disabled. She said Spike took care of her to a certain extent, like helping her with heavy lifting and things like that, but otherwise she was fully capable of handling herself—but sometimes he did overly coddle her, she had admitted petulantly.


“Spike’s more of like,” Aggie stopped and thought of the proper words, “a roommate. He’s my best friend, and I happen to live with him.” During the conversation they made their way out of Crawford Street. Aggie gave an affectionate laugh. “I think that he’s more worried that you’ll think he’s a lazy bum, rather than he’s worried about having to help me out.” Her face sobered and she spoke with respect as she smoothly zipped through the street lanes, “He’s anything but useless, though.”


Buffy waited for her to elaborate but she didn’t. So instead Buffy turned to her window and watched the scenery of Sunnydale pass her by, curiously noticing the abundance of cemeteries in the small town. They were like Starbucks or McDonalds here, there were so many.


When finally they came to a stop, Buffy guessed they had to be in downtown Sunnydale. They were parked in front of a pay meter, facing dozens of shops that went up and down on both sides of the street. Buffy let her eyes roam, taking in the boutiques and cafés, clothing stores and hair salons. People were all about, totting shopping bags or small children along, briskly walking towards their next destinations, with a subtle hint of tense urgency quickening their paces.


Buffy frowned at that bothering detail, feeling a chill ripple across her skin as something…unwanted and sinister seemed to give off an unshakable presence over the sunny town.


Aggie walked in front of her, the glasses gone. “It’s just this way.” She beckoned Buffy to follow along.


Buffy took one more sweeping glance around, trying to figure out why the setting of this place seemed so…familiar to her, when she knew for a fact that she had never been here a day in her seventeen years of life. She mentally shook herself of the thought and walked along with Aggie.


They stopped in front of a shop whose glass windows and door were covered in black from the inside, letting no hint as to what lay within. Buffy looked speculatively at the closed-off looking space, her gaze landing on the white script that was etched onto the door.


J. Lowan’s Art Gallery


It was a simple and unremarkable statement, yet to Buffy it was a precious secret unlocked.


Lowan was her mother’s maiden name.


Her mom had been the owner of an art gallery.


Something bitter and cruel burned within her stomach when she realized that the black must have meant that it had been closed down at some point.


She walked closer to the lettering, forgetting that she was on a busy walkway, forgetting that there was anyone at all around her, and carefully traced them with the tips of her fingers.


“Buffy?”


The sound of her name startled her. She turned back to Aggie and mustered up a watery smile. “Thank you. You’re right I…I didn’t know.”


Aggie nodded and gazed at her searchingly. “Don’t you want to go inside?”


The air sharpened as Buffy absorbed this information. “Y-you mean it’s still open?”


Her great aunt smiled encouragingly. “Yes, sweetie, it’s still open. Your mother and I owned this together back when she lived in Sunnydale—I just never had the talent that she brought to it. I still own it now, but I’ve hired someone to do all of the book-keeping and smart stuff for me.” Aggie opened the gallery door and motioned for Buffy to enter. Buffy stepped forward—


And was plunged into night.


She whipped back around, disoriented by the clap of unexpected change from light to dark, only to see sunlight pouring in through the open doorway.


And then she was abruptly encased by the full illusion of night as Aggie closed the door behind herself.


Buffy’s breath caught as she looked around in wonder. It was like stumbling upon a whole new world. The walls and ceiling were a tapestry of the glittering night sky, somehow creating a feeling of warmth with all of the subtle hues of dark blues and purples and violets swirling within the ink black. She looked up fully at the ceiling as small white-gold stars and a half-circle moon caught her attention, realizing that they were used as lighting for the gallery as well as part of the sky scene. The carpeted floor below her contained lit pathways. Little glowing light-posts, that stood ankle-high, were evenly spaced to lead to the walls that contained dozens of canvases. Each canvas had a small, overhanging light shining on it to showcase it individually. And tinkling, instrumental music played softly from somewhere, creating an ethereal enchantment, like a fairy’s playground.


Buffy finally remembered she needed to blink when her eyes started to sting.


“Well… What do you think?”


Buffy turned to Aggie, whose face was glowing in the filtering light. “I don’t… This was my mom’s?”


Nodding, Aggie informed her, “Nothing’s changed except the canvases. Everything else is as Joyce had made it to be. This was her place, her fantasy world brought to life.”


Buffy absorbed everything around her voraciously, feeling that at any moment this place would be snatched out of her grasp.


It was all calm and serenity, giving the feel of security that nothing bad would ever happen in this place—which was odd. The dark was usually depicted as where the veil was dropped and the sins and bedevilment that the harsh light of day would have accusingly brought forth and condemned, could secretly roam free.


But not here.


This was everything right and good and innocent.


Its’ message was clear.


Not everything that came from the dark was bad or sinful. Some of the most profound purities resided in the night because they were less sought out, more deeply hidden, and less understood.


Her mother had depicted this in her creation of an eternally dark haven.


Eternal night.


“I’d been saving up for years, from about the time little Joycie was six and until she was eighteen. At first I was thinking of paying her way through college, but about around the time she turned twelve, I knew, I knew she had talent and could make it. So with my money, and a loan I’ve paid off since then, I bought this place for her eighteenth birthday, so she could fill it with her passion.” Aggie smiled in reminiscence.


“And it flourished under her care. We had discovered that a lot of Sunnydale had hidden depths and talents the likes of which no one had seen.” She giggled, Buffy presumed, about a private joke. “So we had a local theme. We’d let everyone from Sunnydale who wanted to submit a piece of artwork do just that, and we’d showcase it for a trial-run of two weeks to see how people reacted. But,” she amended, “within reason. Over the years I’ve had some odd ones come in. Recently, this boy tried to get his piece called Yellow Crayon on White Paper submitted. It was a piece of paper, with near-invisible scribbles, crazy-glued to a canvas,” she said in monotone. She then had a look of sympathy. “The poor guy looked so crushed when I told him I couldn’t accept his submission, that I gave him three passes for free non-alcoholic drinks and nachos at the Bronze. That seemed to make him hap-”


“She just gave all of this up?”


Aggie fell silent, her face going blank with surprise. She started to speak, then stopped, then started up again, talking slowly and carefully. “She went to LA and met your father, sweetie. By the time she had you, her life was there with her family. Most people outgrow their hometowns and want to start somewhere new.”


‘But why didn’t she come back here when the whole American dream-family thing didn’t work? Why did she stay in LA, getting one crappy job after another, when she could have come back here to a job that she loved, and to an aunt that was more than supportive?’


Buffy’s thoughts were abruptly interrupted when a side door was opened, letting out a flood of fluorescent lighting, as a young man with dark hair, glasses, and a business suit came out. He startled when he saw them.


“M-miss Lowan. I-I did not expect you to come into the gallery today.”


British guy number two.


Aggie nodded and gestured to Buffy. “I wanted to show-“


“Miss Summers!” The man shook his head and briskly came forth. “Of course, how rude of me.” He extended his hand out to Buffy. She hesitantly placed her hand in his and let him give her a few pumps of the wrist. “I’m Wesley Wyndom Pryce, the gallery manager. Miss Lowan has told me much about you.”


She discreetly pulled her hand from his. His over-enthusiasm and the way he recognized her, without having had been introduced beforehand, gave her the wiggins. “Nice meeting you, um, Mr. Pryce.”


He gave her a reconciliatory smile. “Please feel free to call me Wesley, Miss Summers.”


“Okay, Wesley… And you can call me Buffy,” she said politely.


“Yes, thank you, Miss Su- Buffy.”


“Wes, you could go home early if you feel like it,” Aggie offered. “I’ll close up after Buffy and I are through looking at everything. I have a feeling she and I will be here for a while.”


Even with his hair so meticulously sculpted and his suit so crisp and lint-free, the man managed to look completely ruffled. “I- Well, that is, I,” he floundered, “…need to do a few things around here.”


“Oh, Wes, you old stick in the mud, leave it to us and go ahead and enjoy your evening.”


He opened his mouth to respond, but hesitated and seemed to lose his nerve. “Yes, thank you, Miss Lo- Aggie.” He awkwardly motioned to the door he came through. “I’ll just get my briefcase and wallet that I left in there and be on my way.”


Aggie smiled sympathetically, Buffy imagined she did so because of the complete lost case this guy seemed to be, and nodded.


Wesley gave them a nod in return and left for the private room, but abruptly stopped in the doorway and turned to them. “You know, I just realized that I left my briefcase in complete disarray. So I’ll just be in here organizing it. I’ll shut the door to better set the ambiance for Buffy’s viewing pleasure of the artwork.”


A little bewildered, Aggie replied, “Okay,” and Wesley promptly shut the door, taking with him the bright light.


Buffy turned to Aggie. “What’s up with that guy?”


Aggie shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I hired him a few months ago because he’s pretty good when it comes to business and organization skills, but, sadly, he lacks people skills. I’m hoping to get him out of his shell. I’ve been trying to give him advice and hints by letting him leave work early, so that he can go mingle with the young people, but he doesn’t seem to have taken my advice yet.”


Buffy nodded her agreement of Aggie’s assessment.


“Well,” Aggie stated amiably, “let’s take a look around, shall we?”


..::~*~::..


“Good Lord, that was close,” Wesley breathlessly spoke to himself in the empty viewing room. He took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped at his brow, and then placed it back into its’ proper place.


He eyed the disarray on the glass table before him.


The private collection that Agatha Lowan kept locked—and for good reason—eyed him back.


Quiet literally in some cases.


He bent and started putting the various sketches and oil paintings and other mixed-media artworks back into the large art folders that they belonged into.


It wouldn’t do for him to be caught snooping through the late Joyce Lowan’s private art collection of demonic creatures. He was already failing miserably at the other task appointed to him as it was. Being caught investigating things that were not top priority in his mission here in Sunnydale would surely be the tip of the ice burg and alert his superiors to what he had yet to establish.


And so, drawings of demonic eyes of various colors, ridged brows, horns, scales and other bizarre extremities steadily disappeared from view.


..::~*~::..


Buffy and Aggie had been in the gallery for about an hour, and Buffy had meticulously looked at each individually displayed painting thoroughly.


“How do they come up with this stuff?” Buffy asked in amazed curiosity, looking at a scenery landscape of a place that looked like it couldn’t possibly exist anywhere—even almost seeming to exceed the imagination.


Aggie looked at the painting that Buffy had stopped in front and gave a mysterious smile. “Some artists live in different realms than us normal people.”


Buffy absentmindedly nodded.


“So, do you have a favorite yet?” Aggie asked from the observing bench she sat on.


Buffy walked around, an searching look in her eyes, her pupils wide and fully dilated because of the soft canopy of darkness surrounding them. She finally looked over to Aggie, small frown lines appearing in her brow. “I don’t know. There are some really good ones here, but…”


Aggie got up from the bench and walked over to the side door to the room that Wesley had been in earlier before he fumblingly left. She opened it and stepped in. Her voice drifted from inside, “Come in here, Buffy. I think I know what you’re looking for.”


Buffy walked into a rather small, brightly lit room that contained a leather sofa, a glass coffee table, a wide filing cabinet, and a large safe. Aggie turned to the filing cabinet and pressed the release lever on a drawer, making it roll outwards. She took a large folder out of it and closed it.


“Here.” Aggie sat on the sofa and opened the folder. Buffy sat next to her and peered down at sketches, all labeled with Joyce’s signature. Some of them were landscapes, but most were portraits. “Joyce liked to draw what she knew. She had a very realistic style; almost photograph-like.”


Buffy reverently turned through every aged paper, that had been kept in mint condition over the years, trying to imagine her mother’s steady hand, with pencil gripped, scratching away until the papers breathed life and became something of beauty.


Aggie stopped her when she came to a colored sketch of a young couple in dated clothing. The man had light brown hair and was ‘dressed to the nines’ in a dark gray suit, trilby hat, and a salmon colored tie. He had an arm thrown comfortably over the woman’s shoulders. She had wavy blonde hair and was wearing a conservative, yet feminine, white dress and a dazzling smile.


“That’s my brother, Thomas Lowan.” Aggie turned her face to look smilingly into Buffy’s eyes. “Your grandpa. And that’s your Grandma Meredith.”


Buffy stared at the sketch. She did recognize them. Her mom had kept an old photograph of her parents framed at their apartment in LA—and it looked exactly like this sketch. Buffy could remember catching her mom looking wistfully at the mantle where the photo had been kept, and then when Joyce would see Buffy watching her, she would always be extra mom-ish and cuddly—after having been reminded that she had lost her parents at the age of two because of an automobile accident. The photograph had gone to rest with Joyce.


Buffy cleared her throat. “My mom used to talk about them.” She turned to look at Aggie and said to be understood, “You know…as if she had known them. But…she couldn’t have because she had lost them so young.” Her voice caught as she compared her own situation with that of her mom’s. Her gaze implored Aggie’s. “Did you tell her about them? Did you give her memories to have of them?”


“Yes, sweetie,” Aggie said with a fragmented smile of happy remembrance and loss. “Your grandpa and his wife were good people. Losing my big brother was one of the hardest things to have happened to me.” She looked down. “Especially knowing Joycie would never get to know the kindness of their hearts.” She picked up the paper and held it out to Buffy. “Here, you should have this.”


Buffy softly took the sketch of her grandparents from Aggie, realizing that her pile was growing when she remembered the sketch at the mansion in her room. “Thank you.”


“You’re very welcome, my darling girl.”


Buffy smiled brokenly at Aggie, unable to speak as she heard her mother’s soothing tones cooing the same endearments, weaving the same feelings within Buffy of security and love. She turned back to the sketches, swiping covertly at one of her eyes when she felt moisture build.


She idly admired the rest of the images, tracing the curving strokes of charcoal and pencil and the blends of kaleidoscopic colors. But her attention was arrested by the last sketch in the pile.


“Who’s this?” she asked Aggie, as she swept her gaze over a handsome young man with glasses, blue jeans and a form fitting white t-shirt, who had the edge of one sleeve rolled up to hold a pack of cigarettes, giving him the look of a ruffian. He cut an imposing image with his self-assured posture resting against a book shelf that tapered off as it neared the edge of the paper. And his dark gaze was one of the utmost intensity.


“That,” Aggie said, sounding surprised, “is Rupert ‘Ripper’ Giles.” She muttered something that sounded to Buffy like ‘forgot that was there.’


Buffy’s gaze stayed intently on the drawn figure, as she saw a flash of the sketch of her young mother that lay in her dresser come to mind. “Did my mom know him? Or was he just one of her subject models?”


“He was a friend of Joyce’s. He was from England and left to go live back there some time ago. I don’t think Joyce and he stayed in contact after Joyce moved to LA,” Aggie said, as if wanting to close the subject.


Buffy’s imagination ran wild, and what she was thinking made sense and fit. This guy from England came to Sunnydale and swept her mom off her feet. They had a whirlwind romance full of passion, drawing sketches of each other and whatnot, only for something to go wrong. So wrong that Joyce left for LA and Rupert left for England. Thoughts of England made her suddenly think of Spike, prompting Buffy to make a connection between the two Englishmen. She asked, “England? Is Spike related to this guy? Like his son or nephew or something?”


A very unsettling thought of her mom and this Rupert guy having Spike as a lovechild flared to mind. The idea of Spike being related to her by blood kin was something she did not want to contemplate.


Aggie laughed, “No, Spike isn’t related to Rupert, and he’s much too old to be his son. Goodness, he’d have a coronary if he heard you even suggest that. He and Rupert had never gotten along well.”


Buffy let out a breath, surprised at the vast momentum of her relief. “Oh. So, you just, um, happen to know a lot of English people?” And how old exactly was Spike? she thought. He looked like he couldn’t be older than his late twenties or early thirties.


Aggie looked contemplative. “I guess I do.” She gave a huff of a laugh and moved to put the sketches back in the folder. Buffy gazed at the bottom of the pile, where she knew Rupert’s portrait was to be.


She wanted the mystery man to be him. With a vehemence that unnerved her, she wanted it to be him.


Because then she wouldn’t have to worry about it being someone else, she thought, as she envisioned a face with breathtaking angles, lush pillowy lips, and eyes as deep and unfathomable as the ocean.


..::~*~::..


Four days later, a very harassed looking Spike lent against an ancient oak tree in Restfield Cemetery, taking healthy drags off of his cigarette and blowing smoke into the cool night air.


“Rough night?”


Spike cut his gaze over to Clem and glared. “Try rough week.”


The loose-skinned demon winced in sympathy. “You owe someone kittens?”


“No,” Spike scoffed.


“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”


“No.”


“Oh,” Clem hummed in what Spike thought was an aggravating way. “So it’s one of those nights.” Clem ticked off his wrinkled and clawed fingers as he spoke. “You’re a great catch. She didn’t deserve you. Anyone who makes you feel inferior isn’t worth it. If I was a female I’d totally date you. And…” He stopped, obviously struggling for another Spike-pick-me-up. “Oh yeah. Your great personality well suits your compact, yet well-muscled body. Do you feel better now?”


“No.”


“I see. Then this is one of those heavy-duty stings that you go on sometimes.” Clem sighed. “Is tonight supposed to be one of your anniversaries with her or did you see something totally ordinary that suddenly reminded you of her?”


Spike scowled in confusion and crushed his spent cigarette under the heel of one of his black Doc Martens. He hadn’t really been giving his full attention to Clem, he had just replied ‘no’ in what seemed like the right pauses while something—someone—else consumed his thoughts.


Consumed his thoughts, tore at his composure, and ate at his very being.


Or, wait, it was he who wanted to eat at her being. His mistake.


“No.”


“’No, what?” Clem asked. “No, it’s not one of your anniversaries with her or, no, nothing ordinary reminded you of her?”


“The first and the second.”


“So this isn’t about your ex?”


“Looks like,” Spike said as he closed his eyes and slumped further against the tree he was leaning on.


He suddenly sprang up to stand at his full height, a mad fervor in his eyes. “It bloody well doesn’t make sense, Clem. The second I came close enough to soddin’ greet the little bint somethin’ just,” he raked his fingers through his hair and shook his head, “happened to my demon. It woke up. She- the bloodlust is there for her. But not for anyone else ‘cos I’ve been huntin’ all week, checkin’ to make sure. And still there’s nothing.” He pointed a finger at Clem accusingly. “Except for her.”


Spike’s eyes went glassy as he dropped his hand and stared into the shadowy depths of the cemetery. “She gives off this scent. It’s all…spun sugar and warm apple tarts.” He whipped his head back around to look at Clem, his irises flashing gold, his voice gravelly, “But it’s the coppery scent that makes her different. It doesn’t put me off like all other humans do… It’s there. Below her warm, soft skin…seducin’ me and tellin’ me to want things that I shouldn’t,” he ended softly, his eyes going back to sky blue.


Clem blinked, breaking his wide-eyed stare. “Who are we talking about?”


Spike lent his head back as a low rumbling sound came out of his throat. “Buffy. Aggie’s niece.”


“Oooh,” Clem said in comprehension. “That cute little button that Aggie showed me pictures of a while back?” Spike just looked at him. Clem cleared his throat, “Right. Uh, so… You want to eat her? Is that what I’m getting out of your ramblings?”


‘Eat her.’ The words caused a squirming, tingling sensation in Spike’s lower abdomen and threatened to bring his sex to full, straining arousal. Mentioning Buffy, her blood, or compromising her always brought this on.


“Yeh.”


“So… Why don’t you?” Clem asked in bafflement.


Spike balked. “Because it’s Aggie’s niece, not some stray kitten. I can’t just very well off the girl. Aggie would shove a missile up my arse and launch me to the bloody sun.”


Clem chuckled at the imagery, but quickly sobered when he saw the serious look on Spike’s face. “Why don’t you turn her then? That way you’ll get what you want and she’ll still be around, so maybe Aggie won’t be as mad at you,” he suggested.


“I—“ Spike stopped as he fully absorbed Clem’s suggestion. For some reason in the past six days, as long as he had now known Buffy, he had never thought of that option. It had always been don’t-drain-girl-dry-and-dead. But it made sense that he wouldn’t think to turn her—he hadn’t, after all, turned anyone since 1976.


And suddenly there was a person he could turn.


A lieu of images, alluring and forbidden, became emblazoned before his eyes.


Buffy as his childe. Her lustrous golden locks wrapped in his hands as he supped from her neck. Her lithe limbs writhing with his own. He, licking trails up and down her sugar, tart skin. Rapture written across her lovely face as he penetrated her with cock and fangs. Blood welling, bruises forming, scratches—marks of his possession. His ownership. She would say, moan, scream ‘Sire.’ They would reach fulfillment together time and time again. He would hold her and wouldn’t be alone, and she would whisper in his ear, “Forever.”


But even as a part of him was screaming ‘yes, make it so!’ another part was shouting ‘no’ in horror and righteous fury.


Because he knew her. Granted, he had only known her for a little less than a week and had been avoiding direct contact with her, but he observed her. He saw a light in her eyes and an upward curve that Aggie had helped bring back to her pretty pink lips. He saw the sorrow that would take time to heal in her. He saw her laughing with Aggie, and talking, and biting her lip—as he found she did in nervousness—whenever her new school was mentioned. He saw pink flush her cheeks every time he caught her looking at him, and anticipated the acceleration of her heartbeat. And, whenever she was brave enough to hold his gaze, he saw a question for him there, a yearning, making him believe that if he looked long enough into her liquid emerald eyes, he could see the essence of her soul.


So for the same reasons he stopped himself from draining her, he also stopped himself from turning her.


He couldn’t stand to see the color from her cheeks drain away, or the veins run cold in her body—and he was certain that he would suffer just as much as Aggie would if her soul were to diminish and leave nothing but a brutal, uncaring creature in its wake.


He knew her…and he cared.


He knew he shouldn’t. He was after all a soulless creature. But somewhere along the lines the ‘brutal’ and ‘uncaring’ image just didn’t fit him anymore.


It probably happened around the time I started hangin’ around with humans and guardin’ an unprotected hellmouth by slaying baddies in the cemeteries, he thought despondently.


“Spike?”


Spike snapped out of his thoughts to find himself slumped to his knees in the grass, his hands sinking into the soft earth. He looked up into Clem’s concerned face.


“I can’t turn her, mate.”


“Hey, that’s fine. I was just throwing something out there.” Clem scrutinized his face. “You don’t look too good, buddy. You’ve got gaunt purple shadows under your eyes, making you have this whole deader-than-undead thing going on for you.”


Spike gave a rueful chuckle as he stood up. “It’s hard to sleep when blood’s callin’ you to work its’ will in the very next room.” He stopped dusting himself off and frowned. “An’ when I do sleep, I wake up from dreams that I can’t remember. Every day since Buffy’s been here.”


Clem made an ‘hmm’ sound and then said, “Alluring scent, you want to get close to her but at the same time you don’t, and mysterious dreams. Maybe it’s a spell.” His wrinkled face alighted, “Or maybe she has mystical powers. You know, because of the women in her family and all. Or maybe she’s part demon. My Cousin Phlegm said the same things about this woman that he was going to date, so he wanted to know if he should still go for it—and I told him he should totally still go for it because she was hot.”


“Oh, yeh? What happened,” Spike asked, intrigued despite himself.


“She turned out to be a real live siren and lured him to her cave and ripped him to shreds with her talons.”


Spike gaped. “Bloody hell.”


“I know.” Clem seemed to think something over. “No one really liked Phlegm, though. So the fam wasn’t too shaken up about it.”


Giving a derisive snort, Spike replied, “Nice.”


“Or, you know what Buffy could be?” Clem started up again.


“Clem?” Spike said.


“Yeah, Spike?”


“Stop helpin’ me.”


TBC


Author’s Note: Next chapter will bring Buffy to Sunnydale High, a slew of characters will make their first appearances, and Buffy’s going to be in for a surprise—and suspicion. Please review, my lovelies. It warms my lil’ muses’ heart.