Author's Note: Thanks to my beta Kar and all my readers and reviewers. Closing in on the end of this. I do apologize for the slow posting and I really appreciate you all bearing with me and continuing to read and review.


Chapter Seven

His skin still stung from the light that streamed in from the gallery windows. His cheek burned too, from where she'd gently touched him and asked if he was alright. Spike glanced at Buffy, sitting stiffly next to him around the Magic Box table. Her eyes darted over him and then away. It was more than he'd expected, really. His girl wasn't the type to throw herself into his arms, even before she'd cut him off.

"Why does everyone I date turn out to be evil?" Xander lamented, and Spike bit his lip to keep from commenting. Buffy had made it clear that she didn't want to hear any comments about this Xander's sex life. He hoped she appreciated his admirable restraint, under the circumstances.

"Let's concentrate on how we locate Andrew and his coconspirators, shall we?" Giles suggested dryly. "Perhaps Spike could be of some use."

"How's that?" he asked cautiously, searching old Rupert's face for some sign of sarcasm, but the watcher seemed sincere. It was a bit disconcerting, actually, how at ease they all seemed with his presence. Just for kicks he dropped his arm across the back of the slayer's chair to no discernable reaction from the congregation.

"You might assist Oz in tracking them," Giles proposed.

"I am not a bloody blood hound!"

Buffy kicked him under the table. "Would you please cooperate?" she huffed. "I've been gone for days now. I'm probably going to have to find a new crappy job, and I miss Dawn, and I want to go home."

"Maybe I could do a locator spell?" Willow suggested, not quite looking at Buffy.

"I think you've done enough, thanks," Buffy replied tartly.

"What about the robot?" Anya asked. "She should have some sort of homing signal or something, right? We could sic her on Warren."

"I am not permitted to hurt Warren. Unless he requests it."

"No, of course you're not," Buffy sighed. "And also, if that means what I think it means, I am double killing him."

"Guys," Xander broke in. "You're making this way more complicated than it needs to be. Warren lives on Elm, in his mom's basement. That's where they hang out."

"Also," Willow added. "Maybe we shouldn't be talking about an an-play in front of the obot-ray?"

Anya nodded and quietly turned the robot off and dropped its limp form into one of the chairs to smile vapidly at them. It was more than a little disconcerting. "So we just corner these wankers and drag 'em back in chains?"

"I'm really not seeing why not," Buffy agreed.

-----------

Celia slept heavily on the mattress between them and Buffy felt pleasantly sleepy herself. The hot ache in her breasts was gone, and with her daughter's cheek against one damp nipple and her husband's leg pressed against hers it was hard to remember that they were actually potentially in some kind of extreme danger.

"Was this all here before? I don't remember."

She closed her eyes, thankful that he didn't remember. It had taken her a day or two to find him after Willow did the soul spell. She'd found him by the screaming. Generally, there weren't a lot of screams coming from inside crypts, and she'd gone in expecting to find something to slay. Instead she'd found Spike, bloody and bruised with deep gashes on his chest where he'd clawed himself raw, red hands clamped over his ears. Immediately she'd felt responsible and tried to confront him. But it wasn't until she'd come back with a Styrofoam mug of cow's blood and her sternest slayer manner that he'd responded with anything other than more screaming.

"He's spruced it up," was all she said. "For her, I guess."

"Of himself. Always did like a comfy bed."

Buffy licked her lips, thinking of their own bed back home and how it wasn't all that dissimilar to the one they were lounging on. "Did he get that from you, or did you get that from him?" she asked quietly.

He sighed and dropped back onto the pillows, facing the ceiling. "So I'm going to have to go through this bit with you as well as her?"

She carefully shifted Celia up on a pillow and sat up to look down on him. "She thought you were like him?"

"Isn't that what you just said?" he pouted back at her.

She sighed, regretting that she was sometimes so bad with words, especially the important ones. "No, you're not like him, not really. But you're not William reawakened from a century-long sleep either."

"No," he agreed quietly. "No, I'm not." He pinned her with his eyes. "What did you think of him?"

She smiled at him. "He seems so sad."

"So does she." He pressed his palm against hers. "Not looking to trade then?"

Buffy laughed and snuggled back down beside him, gathering her daughter up again. She knew she should be gathering up the gang, letting them in on the new situation. Also they needed to get diapers. And she would do all that, just as soon as she’d had enough of basking in having her family back.

Spike kissed her temple and whispered nice things in her ear. When his arm came around her, she traced the flesh just under his sleeve, the little cuff where his skin went from lightly sun-kissed to pale. She could feel his heart beating against her back. Her daughter's heart thudded against her chest. She wouldn’t trade all that for anything.

----------------


They left the slightly battered boys in her watcher's capable hands and then Buffy took Spike back to the other couple's house to wait because she didn't really know what else to do. Also, if she was forced to spend another ten minutes with Willow, she might say or do something unwise. Her arms still hurt from whatever her double's friend had done to prove she wasn't a demon.

"Don't see why you're letting old Rupert have all the fun is all," Spike complained, for like the fiftieth time.

"Spike. You are a professional slayer hunter--"

"Retired," he broke in.

"Whatever. You should know that watchers are taught more than just how to catalog books, okay. Giles knows what he's doing in an interrogation."

He huffed and wandered off while she helped herself to a soda and tried to think of something to do to pass the time, alone in a house, with Spike, in a way that did not involve any sort of bodily contact. Because she was way too happy to have him around. She closed her eyes and let her head drop against the arm of the couch.

She had expected him to explore the place or go sniff the laundry or something, but she could feel him hanging there. When she opened her eyes he was sitting in the chair across from her, staring. "What?"

"Giant picture of them all on the mantle above your head," he pointed out quietly. She craned her head, and there the three of them were, glowing and fair in the sunlight. "Looks good on you, motherhood."

She snorted. "Yeah, I'm doing a bang up job with Dawn. And it's doing wonders for my complexion. Or maybe that's from all the time I spend hiding in the dark." He made a noise and she rolled her eyes. "I wasn't talking about you, you egomaniac. It's my job description."

"Wasn't my idea to keep it a secret," he muttered.

Buffy curled her hands into fists and took a few deep breaths. "You don't even like my friends. Actually, you hate my friends! Why do you care if they know?"

"I care because you care."

"Yeah, but I'm not supposed to care, right? I'm supposed to stay in the dark with you, isn't that what you said?"

He stood, towering over her. "Well, sometimes I'm bloody stupid, aren't I?" he thundered before stalking off toward the back of the house. She heard a door slam, and then a moment later she heard the door again.

Like now, she mused with a wry smile, almost feeling bad for him that his dramatic exit had been ruined by the daylight. Without a word she wrapped ice in a towel and pressed it against the singes on his cheek, refusing to meet his eye. Eventually she did look up and smirked at him. He cradled her hand in his and pushed until he could just brush his lips against her wrist.

"Don't read too much into this, okay," she warned him. "But I did kinda miss you, you big dope."


-------------------

My goal is the have the final chapter up no later than a week from today.