Chapter One
Beta’d by Oracleholly
Even though his staggering run was nearly three times as fast as a normal human, his young body ached all over; he had been beaten, burned and tortured before he had made his escape when explosions rocked the base.
As the first explosions hit, the sixteen-year-old male had grabbed the only clothes he could find, a set of surgery scrubs, and began to run. Scanning the room quickly before leaving, he found the gift his father had given him on his twelfth birthday. Luckily, due to all the confusion, he made it outside the compound, only to discover the true mystery…the signs all said Sunnydale. But his dad had destroyed Sunnydale 17 years before!
In the way only the grievously injured can, he locked his mind on all the stories his parents had told him as a child, and he ran. If this was Sunnydale, California, then the only safe haven he knew of this late at night was 1630 Revello Drive, his Grandmum's house.
His lumbering, staggering run finally took him to Revello Drive. Unfortunately the last remaining reserves of his energy were dwindling from all the injuries he had sustained, and his body was no longer able to keep up his superhuman pace falling into a more sedate stumbling walk. He prayed that he was not discovered by the denizens of the night. There was no way he could fight them in the shape he was in, and Dampyre blood was said to be a true delicacy.
His blood smeared the front door as he beat on it with all of his might. He was terrified for the first time in his young life that all of this could be just another mind game courtesy of his captors. As the door opened, he spied a face he had never seen outside of pictures. “Grandmum?”
With that last thought, he collapsed unconscious onto the floor.
Joyce looked at the young man sprawled in a heap halfway inside her front door. He appeared to be a younger version of that Spike vamp. She picked him up and half carried half dragged him to the couch. The older woman had seen more than a few strange things in her life on the Hellmouth, and after
finding he had a pulse, dressed and tended the boy's many injuries.
As that task drew to a close she picked up the phone and dialed a well-known number. “Giles I need Buffy and her friends here. Yes, immediately. Spike is here and he seems to be human.”
Spike had escaped the bloody Slayer’s prison. The bloody bitch! He was making his way across campus to her dorm, for a bit of revenge when he saw them, literally hundreds of human soldiers converging from all around him. Now Spike loved a good fight, but starving and out numbered he had simply used his speed to get away. Of course they were still after him, and soon they had him cornered in an old athletic stadium.
He fought bravely, but that was what he did. Fighting like a cornered, wounded tiger, he had soon brought the enemies number down by nearly half; however, in the one split second he had paused to assess the battle, a soldier got in a lucky shot. It was a near miss as the taser barely hit him, but it was enough of a hit to make him lose control of his body. The electric shock incapacitated him to the point where he could see and hear the enemy, but he could not fight back.
Spike readied himself to die this indignant death, one where he couldn't even give a verbal attack at his killers. He refused to show any fear. He was the Big Bad, and he would die a warrior even if his enemies were cowards that hid behind their silly toys. He awaited the inevitable as only a true
warrior could with a sneer on his face and a curse in his heart.
However as the cowardly 'heroes' closed on him stakes in hand, his demon began to rejoice. It sensed family close and coming fast. Feeling family was a surprise really considering the only family the bleach blond fighter knew on this side of the ocean was Peaches and his deluded sire. Never the less he felt someone, two female someones.
Sensing two female family members wasn’t in itself a surprise, but Spike heard their heartbeats as well as the two slammed into his enemy delivering a barrage of kicks and punches.
The nearer one might have been all of thirteen, a red-haired beauty with piercing blue eyes. She was the wind and the earthquake, ethereal, but at the same time, filled with a type of earthy beauty that made his heart swell.
The older exuded old power, power that seemed to call to him. As she swirled between two enemies, he saw her face. He knew not whether to faint, laugh, or bloody piss on himself. It was Buffy the Bloody vamp slayer! But her hair was longer and darker, and she danced even better than the last time he had seen her. If this was the Slayer, he was almost glad he had found the soldiers and not her.
Buffy spun away from one of the Initiatives looking over at her youngest Erin. Both her daughters were daddy's girls, but Erin was by far the worse. The fourteen year old had taken one look at this universe’s version of her father and attacked the soldiers in a rage. Buffy was scared her youngest
would take a life, but as the last soldier fell to the women of Clan Summers-Davenport, no one had died.
Buffy moved quickly picking up this Spike, all the while reminding herself THIS was not her husband, not her mate.
“C’mon Blondie Bear, I'll take you to casa del Summers to clean you up.”
"Joyce, are you sure?" Rupert Giles had lived on the Hellmouth for a few years, but this seemed more extraordinary than most things he had seen, "Spike a human?"
Joyce gave a long-suffering sigh. "Yes Rupert, and he seems to be younger as well, much younger. He looks to be around fifteen or sixteen, and Rupert the injuries…he is covered from head to toe in cuts, burns and bruises. Rupert, I think he has been tortured."
Cleaning his glasses, Giles looked over at Xander. "I'll be there shortly Joyce. I am sending Xander for Buffy and Willow." He hung up the phone.
"You heard?" he asked the gangly teen.
"Yeah, human Spike badly injured at Casa del Summers," the often obnoxious boy answered, "On the way to get the Buffster."
He left the Watcher’s apartment shaking his head.
Past Buffy and Willow were leaving the party as they saw a very familiar Desoto turn the corner on two wheels. Buffy ordered, "Get behind me Willow!"
The redhead moved behind the Slayer and began looking for stakes. Before either of them could get prepared, the car skidded to a halt just in front of them and the passenger door flew open. Inside much to their astonishment was another Buffy, as well as a young redhead nursing a seemingly comatose
Spike.
"Get in." The older version said in a growling whisper.
"Oh yeah," Wills exclaimed, "So not getting in with the walking, stick-a-bottle-in-your-face, kidnap, almost cost you your best friend and your boyfriend vamp. Cause you know evil and all that, oh, oh besides, not really trusting the whole second Buffy thing and the leather, so not you…well maybe you, but not our Buffy…not with the black hair and thigh high boots, plus the whole poofy shirt, and dagger sticking out of your belt, well really kind of piratey."
The redheaded girl in the backseat sarcastically stated, "Man mum, you were right Auntie Willow has always been a babbler." The young girl grinned at the two shocked younger versions of her mum and Willow outside the car.
The older dark haired Buffy focused intently on her younger counterpart. Dark Buffy asserted, "Listen, the guys in military gear you’ve seen around campus, they hunt supernatural beings. As of about an hour ago a shithead from my, our time joined them. He knows all about the Slayer, her best friend the witch, Xander, Giles, and even mom." The two teens felt great annoyance emanating from dark Buffy toward them as she continued, “He hates us all, but you," pointing at younger Buffy, "and Spike top his list."
The younger Buffy made a quick decision and got in the car followed by a much more reluctant Willow. "Why does he hate Spike? What did Spike eat his mom or something?" Younger Buffy snapped back waspishly
"Nope," the young girl holding Spike's head in her lap answered, "Spike has two things he wants but can never have. Mum," pointing at the woman in the front seat, and then pointing to herself, "and three beautiful children."
"Oh bloody buggerin’ hell!" came from the barely conscious Vampire.
Rupert Giles was a learned man, first in his class back at Oxford and watcher to one of the longest-lived slayers in recent history, but what he saw before him had him stymied.
It was in effect Spike, well at least Spike in looks and size. The similarities between the two were unheard of. In spite of the differences, the only sensible conclusion he could reach was the same as Joyce’s earlier one, that Spike was now Human. Yes, human with numerous injuries apparently recently received from torture, since the cut on his eyebrow was new, and suffering all the worst wounds his demon had faced. He wondered at the fact that the former demon seemed to call to him; he felt the
overwhelming need to protect him. Perhaps the Powers that Be had done this so the former Vampire could finish redeeming himself.
Giles was lost in these thoughts as Joyce returned to the room carrying soup and sandwiches, evidently for the now human Vamp.
"What? You don't want me?" Erin gave the past version of her father the same weepy eyes and pouting lip that reduced her father to instantly caving, and it seemed to work on the younger version just as well.
"Oh no it’s not like that sweet bit, three kids, bloody well kind of a dream. But married to ‘Miss Got A Bloody Stick Shoved Up Her Ass - I Love The Buggerin’ Droopy One - He's My Bloody Soul Mate.’" He looked at his present version of Buffy as if she were a bug under a microscope. "No bleedin’ way!"
"What you think mum has girl cooties?" the young auburn haired girl asked with her dad’s famous smirk.
"Spike, me, you, sex, never gonna happen," past Buffy said through clinched teeth.
This earned a snort from the Buffy driving. "Oh yeah, you know he can smell it when he turns you on right?
"Ewwww, Buffy never gets turned on by Spike!" Willow made a gagging noise, "Cause he is evil."
"Can smell you to love," Spike curled his tongue behind his teeth.
"Red, you've wanted a taste of the Big Bad as long as the Slayer." His smirk was infuriating, and his remarks shut the two college students up.
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