“Right then, where to start?” Spike mused out loud. Leaning back against the wall he began; quickly filling his audience in on his long-ago arrival in Sunnydale, hell-bent on claiming his third Slayer only to have her capture his heart and change his life forever. He glossed over most of it, sparing both his listeners and himself the intricate details of his and Buffy’s life together. He told them the things that he felt were important; Buffy’s death at the hands of The Master and Xander’s subsequent revival of her. Faith’s arrival in Sunnydale sometime later and the ensuing phone calls to the Council during which they had discovered that there had been another Slayer called at the moment of Buffy’s ‘death’. That particular Slayer had since passed on, resulting in Faith being called.

The new Slayer had been given over to Giles as it was deemed that he had sufficient experience, having previously been the Watcher of an active Slayer, and of course he was already conveniently located on the Hellmouth. When Giles had mentioned that there was nothing ‘previous’ about his Slayer he had been informed that once the Slayer’s gift had been passed on she was no longer the concern of the Council, as such, to them, she was the previous Slayer.

Faith had been a hell of a wildcat when she had first shown up, so full of anger and bitterness with an enormous chip on her shoulder and a distinct lack of respect for authority; but time, patience and the unconditional friendship that was offered to her had slowly brought the girl around. He told them how the final step towards gaining her acceptance and trust had probably come when, as the girl’s 18^th birthday approached, Giles had been contacted by the head of the then Watcher’s council and ordered to hypnotise and drug his Slayer, effectively rendering her helpless in order to place her in a controlled environment with a dangerous Master vampire in order to test her wits and ingenuity.

“Outrageous lies.” The young Watcher jumped to his feet, bristling furiously at the vampire’s allegations.

A smile spread slowly across Spike’s face. “Now there’s the Giles fire I remember. Looks like you’ve got a lot of old Ripper in you after all, boy,” he chuckled. With a sigh Spike dismissed the overwhelming urge to torment, although the boy really did make it too easy. Reminding himself that he still had a long story to tell he continued less derisively, “We’re not talking about the New Council, lad. This was the old, antiquated version that Rupert worked damned hard to fix when he rebuilt from the ground up. If I remember rightly the custom of ‘testing’ Slayers upon reaching their majority was one of the first things he abolished.” Robert’s mouth opened to respond and Spike cut him off quickly, his patience already wearing thin, “Now, am I tellin’ this story, or are you?” Spike’s gaze fixed intently on the boy until the young Watcher looked away and resumed his seat quietly, tight-lipped with barely-restrained indignation. 

“Right, we ready to listen?” The comment was directed at the new Watcher but Spike’s eyes flicked quickly to take in his lover’s reaction. Beth was sitting calmly, eagerly absorbing every scrap of information. When she caught him looking at her she smiled gently, encouraging him to continue while offering her silent support. She knew this wasn’t easy for him; he didn’t like to talk about his past which was why she was so attentive, uncertain as to whether he was likely to ever open up like this again.

“Now, as I was sayin’. Giles pretended to go along with the Council’s request; meanwhile he let the rest of us in on what was going on. Needless to say Faith passed her test, but at the same time I think old Rupes passed her test. That was pretty much the turning point for our Faith.” He laughed, a short, sharp bark that burst free of its own accord as he cast his mind back to some of the brunette Slayer’s antics, “Never tamed her, mind. She was untameable, that one. But she let herself trust, took a chance on getting hurt. An’ that’s where Xander comes in. What that little hellcat ever saw in Xander Harris I’ll never know, but whatever it was, they worked. Something about the two of ‘em together made perfect sense. All I know is Harris was one hell of a lucky bloke, an’ he knew it too: doted on her. Faith, an’ then later, the twins too, were his world.”

“Faith, Jessie an’ Alex—his girls, he called ‘em.  Proud as bloody punch of them he was, you could see it in his eyes.  Last thing anybody would’ve imagined is Faith or Harris as parents, but then the twins came along and it was like they’d been born to the role.” Spike’s eyes closed for a moment; there was so much he needed to explain that he really didn’t want to be touching on, the memories too bright, too harsh even after the passage of so many years.

Steeling himself against the ghosts of his past he continued, “Sweet little things they were, just coming up to six. Pretty little mites, lucky for them they took after their mum that way rather than their old man. Faith and Xander had been plannin’ this big do for ‘em. Was their birthday the next day but the party was scheduled for the weekend, what with everyone flying in from all round the world…” Spike smiled sadly at the memory. “Slayer ‘n I had just got back from patrol this night when the phone started ringing. Buffy answered it while I put the gear away, thinkin’ it would be Faith ringing about flight times and what have you for the party that weekend. Only it wasn’t anyone we’d expected might be calling.”

He gathered his thoughts, realising that he needed to go back a little further in order for them to understand. “See, years before the Slayer’d had the misfortune of going out with my Grandsire, poncy git who went by the name of Angel. His name was Angelus when I first knew the bastard, evil prick with a penchant for torture and mind games. Loved to single out a victim and torture them emotionally and mentally, slowly killed off their loved ones until he broke their mind then he’d start on the physical torture until he got bored an either killed ‘em outright or turned ‘em. Called it ‘art’ the git; was nothing but cowardice if you ask me. Give me a fair fight any day, nothing but fist and fangs over the ponce’s bloody games.

Bout twenty years after I was turned he went and got himself cursed with a soul by a bunch of brassed off gypsies and changed his name to Angel. Anyway he didn’t take it too kindly when she broke things off with him, an’ even less so when she started seeing me. Long story short he left town after Buffy told him she’d stake him if she ever laid eyes on him again. So the last thing we expected twenty odd years down the track was his voice on the other end of that line.”

Spike looked at Robert, waiting until he was certain he had the boy’s undivided attention before continuing, “You probably learned most of this next bit during your training, but for Beth’s sake I’m gonna go over it again.”

“The council was under attack; their Headquarters had been destroyed along with a considerable portion of their main library and the majority of the Council hierarchy. Potential slayers around the world were slowly being picked off with no indication of who was responsible. The girls would just show up dead, most times their necks were snapped, some had taken tumble out a window, off a bridge or somesuch, one or two had died messily; pretty much butchered. There was no pattern, and the attacks were intermittent, sometimes losing several in a month sometimes nothing for a few months and then another one would wind up dead. This had been going on for coming up two years and Giles, the Scoobies, and the remaining watchers were doing their utmost to rebuild and try to keep the remaining potentials safe.

Willow found a spell that was supposed to solve at least one part of the problem. Way she explained it was that it would call on the Slayer essence within the current, active slayer in order to activate all the potential slayers throughout the world, making them less vulnerable to attack and throwing the odds a little more in our favour. Her reasoning was, why have just one Slayer or even two when we can have a couple of hundred. So the spell was done, Faith’s slayer essence was divided out, called on or whatever it was that Red did with it and we suddenly had a whole swag of baby slayers popping up around the world.”

“Did it kill her?” Beth asked worriedly.

“No, love. She was fine. Casting the damned thing near killed Willow; Wolf-boy was none to happy about that, but no one had forced her to do the spell. She’d found it, researched it and was determined that she should be the one to perform it.

So we had the Slayer ‘n I livin’ in Sunnydale, Faith and her brood guarding the Cleveland Hellmouth, Rupert and Jenny had set up shop in London and, along with what was left of the old council, they were building the new council. Training as many of the new slayers as could be found, establishing a new headquarters, rebuilding the library as best they could, and redefining the council’s ‘laws’. Dawn, Slayer’s little sis, was living and working in London and she leant a hand where she could. There was also a whole swag of ‘roving watchers’, mostly the Scoobies and junior Watchers, runnin’ around the world locating the newly called slayers and bringing them back to England.”

Spike ran a shaking hand through his hair; he had given them as much background information as he figured they needed to understand what came next.

“Anyway, back to that phone call. Angel’s voice coming down the line after twenty-odd years was, as I said, unexpected.”

~

His eyes closed; the scene replayed across his mind’s eye like it was yesterday.  Buffy’s face, all colour draining from it as she sank helplessly to her knees, her suddenly nerveless fingers losing their hold on the phone. He’d heard the poof’s words from the other side of the room. His grandsire’s maniacal laughter still echoing down the line as Spike gathered his slayer in his arms, Faith’s name falling in a stricken whisper from her lips.

Hello, lover. Miss me? Did you get the presents I left for you? Sweet meat they were too, ‘course they weren’t half as sweet as the real thing.  Nothing in this world like a slayer. That juicy hot cunt and fine sweet blood, mine for the taking. Quite a little wild-cat too. One hell of a ride. The way she bucked and thrashed beneath me, I could have ridden that one all night if I’d had the time, made each exquisite moment last an eternity. Would have been a shame to keep the little ones waiting too long for their birthday present though, patience is never easy at such a tender age. I wonder if they taste as good as their mother? What do you think?

Spike had slammed the phone down, quickly dialling the Harris’ number as he clutched Buffy tightly against him. Xander’d answered on the third ring, Spike was both amazed and dismayed at how clearly he remembered the details after all these years; the little girl laughter echoing in the background, Buffy’s soft sobs against his chest, the bright, cheerful tone of Harris’ voice.

“Hello.”

“Xander, is Faith home?” He’d hoped the call had been nothing more than a cruel, vicious prank, even though he’d known deep in his gut that it wasn’t.

“Not yet. What’s up?”

Spike drew breath, calming himself as he searched for the words. How do you tell a man over the phone that his wife may well be dead at the hands of a brutal monster?

The sound of laughter had grown closer as the too-excited-to-sleep twins had run up the hall past their father to the kitchen door, maintaining their vigil as they waited for their mother’s return from ‘work’.

“Daddy. Why is mommy sitting on the swing?” Jessie wondered.

“Wait, no, sweetie, you know you aren’t allowed out after dark. Look, man, I gotta go. I’ll call you back.”

Xander had hung up before Spike could stop him and after shooing his girls back into the living room he’d headed outside to spend a quiet moment under the stars with his wife.

~

“He’d killed her,” Spike told them, his voice resonating with fury, pain and disgust. “The bastard had tortured her for the bleedin’ fun of it, raped her, mutilated her body and left her tied to her babies’ swingset by her own entrails.”