(Author's Note: I'm glad you appreciate the Angel angst because it won't come from the usual source at all.)
Spike had spent a week making preparations. He'd enlisted the Scoobies, even a reluctant Giles, and Joyce. He'd arranged for the plumber and the tile guy and he'd paid them both an obscene amount of money to get the job done in a single day.
It was Tara's birthday, however, and money was no object.
When he'd first brought up his plan, Willow had reacted with horror, she hadn't known her lover's birthday was only a week away and immediately dashed off to buy presents. Everyone else wanted to know what to buy Tara. Spike had spent several precious minutes coming up with present ideas for other people before he got to the subject of his own.
It was brilliant and it was beautiful. It was a huge, lion-footed, antique tub and it was going to replace the cheap, generic shower/tub combination in the upstairs bathroom of the house.
Buffy was in love. And she was also insanely jealous. She coveted that tub. But she helped Spike and Xander carry it upstairs anyway. She wondered if Tara would be willing to share the wealth a few nights a week after patrol.
* * *
Buffy went shopping with Xander and Anya, an experience in itself, for Tara's presents. None of them felt they really knew Tara well enough to find a good gift. But the ones Spike had suggested seemed logical enough and they were all annoyed that they hadn't come up with them themselves.
Buffy found a fluffy towel set and a cozy bathmat to go with the new tub. Xander bought a basket of specialty teas from the teashop on Main and Anya bought a box of candles from the Magic Box.
When everyone else rolled their eyes Anya had responded, “You can never have too many of these. Really, you can't. I once had an entire room full and I still ran out after three hundred years or so.”
Buffy and Xander decided to let it go.
* * *
Angel sat in his office staring blankly at the wall. He'd just given up what was quite possibly his last chance at being human. He couldn't be weak and continue to fight the good fight. It was a simple, unavoidable fact. Which had been cruelly pounded home over the last few hours.
He thought about Buffy, just like he always did when feeling miserable.
Then he thought about Spike, and if what Willow said was true, what that meant exactly.
A soulless demon had given up the joy of the hunt willingly.
Well, he supposed the Tara girl was a cause of sorts, but really she was no actual impediment. He grudgingly admitted that if anyone was stubborn enough to actually do it, it was Spike.
He'd spent so much time thinking of the value of his soul and what it did for him, and his childe had just waltzed in and out did him.
And then had gone to the Slayer, not his family. Angel felt a powerful urge to see William again, the favored childe, the golden boy.
Sometimes Angel could close his eyes and remember precisely what William's skin sounded like when Angelus shredded it with a cat o' nine tails and that always sent his soul reeling.
Angel remembered his time with William the Bloody with a certain amount of cold dread. Not because of what horrible things they had done together, but for the truly hellish things Angelus had done to get William to do those things.
The boy hadn't come out of the ground completely evil. There was a certain element of humanity about him that even Angelus' torments could not beat out. And beat him, Angelus did. His childe had never been keen on torture, something Angelus had excelled at and reveled in. William had preferred a quick and clean kill.
William had come to them still innocent. That hadn't lasted an hour.
Angel sat up feeling a new purpose run through him. He was going to go back to Sunnydale, not to Buffy, that way lay madness. But to go to William, make amends for the past and recruit him in Angel's own cause. He wanted no other fighting at his back. William was a warrior to be feared, but he was an ally that could be trusted.
Angel waited anxiously for the sun to set.
* * *
Tara party was in full swing. Spike had set up white Christmas lights in the trees in the yard and Chinese paper lanterns along the eaves of the house. The glow gave the garden a feel that was magical and almost fey.
Tara had gushed over the tub and jumped up and down and threw herself at Spike, she been ecstatic about the hand painted tea set Joyce had given her (on a not so subtle hint from Spike) and she was very pleased with everything. Willow had made the cake, it was blueberry with cream cheese frosting and everyone ate far too much.
Tara was quite confident that this was her best birthday ever. Not that the one previous in Spike's company hadn't been amazing, but now she had an actual party and she'd never had that before.
* * *
Angel watched the festivities longingly from the shadows; his prodigal childe was plucking at a guitar in the center of everything with Buffy all but sitting in his lap.
Spike had always had the ability to enjoy himself in large groups; he blended in surprisingly seamlessly when he so chose. He made friends quickly and people often liked him and felt sympathy for him despite their best efforts not to. You couldn't help but feel something for Spike, whether you thought you hated him or loved him he brought out passion in people like no other. He made life interesting and that made it difficult to picture a world without him in it.
Even Darla was known to spare him the odd kind word on very rare occasions. Darla had never had patience for any of Angelus' other childer, save maybe Drusilla. She'd hated Penn with a profound zeal. But Spike was almost acceptable at times.
Angel watched the people he could never call friends laugh and eat and just be together. Buffy's mother handed Spike a mug of what smelled like chocolate with a warm smile.
Angel felt a twinge of envy. Buffy's mother had never liked him, not for minute.
He slipped back into the bushes and made his way back to the hotel. Now was not the time to approach them. But he had time, all the time in the world. He was tired of being alone and he now had a family member almost in the same boat that he was.
He'd been waiting for something like this for years and he hadn't even realized it.
* * *
Spike felt a cold shiver go down his spine, he glanced around the yard but the feeling was gone almost as soon as it had started.
Buffy was warm and giggly in his arms and it was difficult to think of anything bad when he had that.
He pressed a kiss behind her ear and heard her breath catch, she turned and caught his mouth and any other thoughts faded from his minds as smoothly as ripples on water vanished after a breeze.
* * *
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