CHAPTER SIX

On Halloween night Spike and his young son make their way in fast clips down a tree-shaded street in what Buffy has deemed a “safe neighborhood”, i.e. her old turf, Revello Drive and its environs. They stopped at a few apartments in the complex and were given the snot candy (Dum-Dum suckers, starlight mints and some sort of imported Mexican candy that smelled of oil and body odor which Spike tossed into the nearest trash bin). Now they’ve hit a gold mine. Fun Size Snickers, Hershey Miniatures, full-size Butterfingers from one gated house. At the end of his Hallmark-sanctioned begging, Daniel’s grocery bag is dragging the ground.

“You having fun, Daniel?” Spike asks when he notices his son his suddenly very quiet.

“Yeah,” replies Daniel after swallowing something.

“Hey, wait up a bit, Daniel. Are you eating your candy?”

“No,” Daniel answers.

“Come off it, Daniel! I can smell the masticated caramel.”

“Daddy, what’s masti-

“Means you’re lying to me. You ARE eating your candy! You know Mummy wants to look through it before you eat it. There are a lot of crazies out there. Some who may want to hurt you for no good reason. Now spit it out.”

“But I’ve already swallowed it, Daddy!”

“Fine. Good. Just don’t eat anymore. Until we get to Bev’s house.”

“Wwy won’t.”

“Daniel, you’re eating something else!”

“It’s one of the good ones. I know, Daddy.”

Spike looks down at his son. The streetlight is hitting his innocent little face and with his lips rimmed in the verboten chocolate, he looks like a clown. He’s probably been sneaking treats the whole night. Spike has to take a moment to damn himself as a father, but he also has to give props to his son. He’s good at the stealth, which may aid him in days to come. But Spike doesn’t want to think of days to come. Right now his son is five years old and enjoying the first Halloween he will remember when he’s much older and rebelling fiercely. And tonight in his cape (Buffy’s Little Red Riding Hood cape dipped in black dye) and his natural curly blond locks tamed back and stretched over his skull like a raked over wheat field, Daniel is not only the image of the character he is meant to portray, Malfoy, but also of his father in a younger day.

“Well, at least give me some candy,” Spike says.

“What do you want?” Daniel asks, digging through his take.

“Do you have any Three Musketeers?”

Daniel draws a blank. “You look, Daddy.”

Spike rummages through the gallons of Smarties, candy corns, and Mary Jane’s before he finds the coveted candy in miniature form.

As the unique blend of chocolate, nougat and caramel caresses his taste buds, Spike hums to himself. “Are there any Krackel bars in there?”

“Are they the red kind?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh huh, Daddy. Lots.”

“Better save those for you Mummy. She has a real jones for them. On second thought, you’d better give me a handful. I don’t want to have to hear her nattering on about how much chocolate she’s been eating and how it’s actually making her have hips for once in her life.”

Now they are arriving at the house where Spike always has to take a pause and remember. He looks up at the gabled windows peering out like skull’s eyes warning death, or, even worse, a non-invite. The house has changed very little, except for the swing on the front porch and the ivory vinyl siding. The door is the same; it once made Spike an outsider. Just to see it makes him lonely and scared, thinking he might see Buffy’s hateful glare looking out at him from the space between the door and jamb. Instead there is Bev, the sixty-plus resident of Buffy’s former home. She is resplendent in her gray hair and attempt at a costume. She is a housewife who has long not been a wife, but she is too tired to search for someone who might make her a wife again. So tonight she wears her usual elastic pants and big shirt combo and very great smile.

“Now it’s officially Halloween!” Bev declares gleefully. “I was wondering when you two might show up.” She bends to examine Daniel in his Halloween costume. “And who are you tonight?”

Daniel has spotted the bowl of goodies on the table inside the door and goes right for it, fisting the candy as fast as his little hands can grab for it.

“Well, you can see he’s not dressed as Polite Boy tonight. He’s Malfoy.”

“Malfoy?”

“He’s a character from the Harry Potter series.”

“Oh. My grandchildren love those books, but I just can’t get into them. I’ve read a few, but they’re not nearly as good as the C.S. Lewis books I read to my kids when they were little. No matter. Well, come on in. I’ve got some hot cider on the stove.”

Spike and Daniel follow Beverly into the kitchen where the aroma of spiced apples and cloves dampens the air. The kitchen has changed very little as well, except for the “World’s Greatest Grandma” apron hanging from the oven and the gingham curtains over the window. Spike remembers the night he came to this house to apologize for scaring everyone when Dawn went missing and was actually safe and sound in his crypt. What was that story Buffy’s mother was telling him? He just remembers her laughter and the way she made him feel as though he belonged there. She may have even said something along the lines of, “Spike! So good to see you!” which he hadn’t heard in a non-sarcastic tone in years.

“So how have you boys been? Any news?” Beverly asks, ladling a generous draught of cider into a ceramic mug.

“Well, Daniel’s in kindergarten now,” Spike says, “And doing really well.”

“Oh! You like school, Daniel?” Beverly asks.

Daniel is still munching on a Baby Ruth so a hearty nod suffices as a “yes, very much, thank you.”

“His old man misses him during the day, though,” Spike says, hefting his son into his lap after taking a seat at the bar. “I’ve been in job search mode lately.”

“Oh, really?” Beverly hands her guests two mugs of cider. “How’s that going?”

“Haven’t heard back from any of them yet. It’s been about two weeks since the interviews.”

“You should call them to let them know you’re still interested.”

Spike grimaces. “Thing is, I don’t think I was interested in any of them, really. But I do think I should be working. Buffy was just passed over for a promotion at the Y that she was really counting on. We’re looking into buying a house. Beverly, could you hit Daniel’s mug with a shot of cold water from the tap in Daniel’s mug? It’s a little too steamy for him.”

Beverly takes the mug and ferries it over to the sink. “Well, if you’re wanting to buy a house, I’ve got a tip on one that’s going to be on the market very soon.” She jets a quick burst of cold water into the mug and returns it to Daniel. “This one.”

“Really? This house?”

Beverly sits down on one of the bar stools and scoots close to the island. “When I moved in here six years ago, I thought this would be a great place for my sons and daughters to come on weekends with their children. But it just didn’t pan out that way. They don’t visit unless it’s Thanksgiving or Christmas. Sometimes they scarcely remember to call me on Mother’s Day. This is just too big of a house for myself. So I’m putting it on the market and moving into a retirement community in San Diego. That’s probably what I should have done in the first place after Arthur died.” She crosses herself and gazes over at the black and white picture of a young man in a naval uniform, circa 1945.

Spike’s mind begins spinning. Buffy’s house is for sale! “So you’re really leaving Sunnydale?” he says, a little embarrassed at the unintentional pitch of excitement in his tone.

She nods. “I really am. Time to move on. It’s taken me the better part of a decade to decide Sunnydale really isn’t for me. I suppose it’s fine if you’re young and just starting out, but I don’t really have anything keeping me here. Except a mortgage, which I will be happy to unload.”

“Tell me, Bev. What do you think the value of this place would be in today’s market?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was listed as $425,000 when I bought it in 2001. I’ve made some structural improvements since then. The foundation was crumbling from all the earthquakes so I had to have it rebuilt three years ago. I’d say it’s worth about $475,000 now. At least, I hope.”

“Damn,” Spike says, realizing the impossibility of even making a down payment on a house such as this.

“Daddy, you said a bad word!” Daniel says, slithering from his father’s lap and bounding into the foyer to retrieve more candy from the bowl.

“Daniel, not too much. You’ll be awake until you’re eighteen as it is,” Spike says to no avail as his son helps himself to more Snickers bars.

“Oh, let him eat all the candy he wants! But not you, Spike. I can see you’re getting a little pudgy,” she says, clicking her tongue.

Spike is wondering if the ten miniature Krackel bars he devoured on the way to Beverly’s house are already showing. He resolves to give the remaining ones to Buffy and go to the gym seven days a week starting the next day.

“Daniel doesn’t like me talking about getting a job or buying a new house,” Spike says. “I told him that I was trying to get a job so that we could have a better life and he told me that there was nothing wrong with the life we already have. And then he said that he didn’t want me to get a job because his friends’ daddies had jobs and his friends didn’t see their daddies and he was afraid that if I got a job he wouldn’t see me anymore.”

“Awww…What a sweet little boy. He just adores you, you know that.”

“I do,” Spike says, all smiles.

“When you first came here, what, four years ago? He was in his little Casper suit and so adorable. And he was holding so tight to your hand and you had to tell him to say, ‘Trick or Treat’ and he did. I thought he was afraid of me.”

“No, no. That’s how it was the first time out on Halloween when he was two. I had to prompt him with the password all night. He’s not shy anymore. He’ll go to anyone, any stranger and strike up a conversation. Buffy and I have to watch him constantly when we’re out in public. They’re a lot of crazies out there, we keep telling him.”

“There are more crazies here per capita than any other town, I think. But it’s always nice to have some nice safe company at least once a year,” Bev says, tipping her mug to Spike’s.

Beverly invited Spike into her home years ago. He was back from the desert, back from Indian learning and safe from the chip. He could have easily bitten her, killed her, made her one of his kind. He did not. She was playing Frank Sinatra on her old hi-fi that day and they listened to Frank sing “The Summer Wind” and Spike told her all about Buffy and why he had to find her. The words “love of my life” and “my reason to live” came into play that day and when the tears rolled and Beverly shared her own lost love story, they communed and Bev was safe and Spike was on his way to Sunnydale Heights to find Buffy again.

“Mmmmmrmmmmm! MMMMMM! RRRMMMM!” is the sound heard from the living room now.

“I’d better take him home before he starts destroying property,” Spike says.

“Oh no, don’t go. You just got here!”

“No,” Spike says, slurping his hot cider, wiping his mouth, and putting the mug back down on the countertop. “Daniel doesn’t know his limits, but Buffy and I do.”

Daniel rushes into the kitchen with a sofa cushion. “A HA! I’ve found you! Now you are going to die! ‘Cause I’ve got the shield of incredicibitynessfulity and you can’t kill me!”

“And we’re so afraid,” Spike says, putting his hands up in mock arrest. “I don’t remember the shield of incredicibitynessfulity being in Harry Potter.”

“ARRR…ARRR! The shield of incredifiltibulity!” Daniel says, defending himself against his father’s nay saying,

“Oh, so the name of the shield changes when it’s put up against a worthy foe.” Spike wrests the cushion from his son’s hands. “Put this back.”

“But it’s the shield of---

“Put the shield of incredi-whatever it may be back on the sofa of what it was.”

“I found it in the land of Freshinay!” Daniel says, reaching for his “shield” from his father’s hands.

“I hope that land is ten seconds away from where we are now because that’s how long you have to return the shield of incredi-whatever to its native soil. Starting now.” Spike tosses the cushion back to his son, “10, 9, 8, 7…”

“But it’s my shield!”

“…6, 5, 4, 3…”

“I need my shield! For evil!”

“2-1! Put it back or else!”

Daniel doesn’t know what that mythical “or else” is because it’s never gotten to that point. Sometimes he thinks he might be brave enough to go beyond the bounds of “or else” but now is not the time because the veins of his Daddy’s neck are showing and he is afraid of the “or else”. The cushion is returned to the sofa and it is time to go.

“We’ll see you next year?” Bev asks hopefully from the door as Spike and Daniel leave.

“If not before then,” Spike returns, giving a promising thumbs up.

“Your house is for sale,” Spike tells Buffy first thing when he and Daniel get back to the apartment.

“I don’t have a house. Hence the house-search.” Buffy plops the dusty volume of a book on demon plagues of the 14th century she has been reading into the usual hiding spot in the broiler compartment of the stove, which has never been used for any other purpose other than storing books Daniel shouldn’t see and the pans that Buffy never can find a use for. “Try to keep up, honey,” Buffy says petulantly.

“Sweetheart,” Spike says, putting his hands on her deceptively puny arms. “Your house. The house where you first lived in Sunnydale. The house where you and I first sort of cohabitated, though I don’t think you ever made mention of that to anyone for fear of impeachment.”

Buffy’s eyes fly open wide. “My house!”

“That’s the house I’m talking about! Now who’s the one not trying to keep up?”

Buffy begins flinging her hands as though they are on fire before clasping them together as in prayer. “Oh my God! Oh my God! My house! But I didn’t see it in the classifieds today.”

“Bev is moving.”

“Bev is moving?”

“To a retirement home.”

“Oh my God! Do you know how perfect that house would be for us? With the bedrooms and the space and the not smelling so much like kitty litter? You and I could have Mom’s old room and Daniel could have my old room and Dawn could have her old room when she visits! Oh, I can’t believe that it’s on the market! It would be perfect for us! I always wanted to get it back!” Buffy says, leaping into Spike’s arms. She braises his cavernous cheek bones with kisses, her legs wrapped around his waist and he wants to stop her, he really wants to stop her, but he hopes with all hope that she will come to realization all by herself which she almost always does.

“Mommy, come look at my candy!” Daniel asks from the entrance to the kitchen.

Spike can see that realization he was hoping for make quick work at dissolving the elated expression on his wife’s face. She slips from his grasp and finds her footing on the shoddy linoleum floor which will not shine, no matter the promises of Swiffer Wet and Swiffer Wet Jet when Swiffer Wet proved all wet. The drip of her kitchen faucet sounds like a canon fire and catches her attention as shellfire would. She is where she is now and it is far removed from Revello Drive and the sanctity of home with Mom and kid Sis and Xander there to fix everything when it broke down. Mom is gone, kid Sis is in college and Xander moved away years ago.

“It’s too much,” Buffy says as she takes Daniel’s hand and follows him into the living room.

“Well, maybe,” Spike says, wishing that Daniel’s candy bag contained a winning lottery ticket.

“No, it’s too much,” Buffy says again as she and Daniel sit on the floor and he empties his grocery bag of goodies. She digs through it, as an Untouchable in India, sorting through the ashes of cremated remains on the banks of the Ganges, hoping for a gold filling or even better, a gold ring. “Looks all good. No pin pricks. No visible signs of unwrapping except yours, you bad boy!” She playfully slaps her son’s arm, seeing that most of the bag is littered with crumpled wrappers. “But I don’t see any Krackels,” Buffy says in dismay as she leans the weight of her posterior on the back of her shoes.

“Daddy has them,” Daniel says.

Buffy looks up at her husband with such hope in her eyes, Spike knows she is saying, “I still believe in you and I still believe that you and I will get that house, if not my house.”

Spike smiles down at his wife. “Yes, I have them.” And he plops the Krackels one by one into Buffy’s open palm.

She opens the first one and covers her tongue with the candy, letting it melt slightly before munching on the crunchy bits and swallowing it, all with a satisfied smile.

The next day, Daniel is surprisingly up before his parents, even after his bedtime came two hours late under the influence of his chocolate overdosing. Buffy elects to get up first, since Spike was up with him all hours. Spike snuggles back on his pillow. Minutes later, Buffy returns to their bedroom. She is holding the newspaper. The obituaries. He doesn’t know why she awakened him until she points a finger to a face he doesn’t recognize until he reads the text underneath.

The folks at the Sunnydale Press are used to late notice obituaries. They keep the presses open for deaths that occur after other newspapers have shut down for the night. There are too many deaths after sunset not to.

“You OK?” Buffy asks, passing a hand through her husband’s hair.

He shrugs her off. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

He doesn’t know. He really doesn’t know. Mourning is something unusual to him, at least in his incarnation as a vampire. When he heard Joyce died he did mourn because she was so nice to him. Beverly was nice to him as well. But Joyce was Buffy’s mother. Was he so enamored of Buffy that he grieved for Joyce out of respect for Buffy or did he really think highly enough of her to bring flowers? Years later, when he was remembering Joyce’s search for little marshmallows in her cupboards when he requested them for his cocoa, he had his answer. Yes, he did mourn her in that he missed her comfort and how she treated him like he wasn’t a freak. And when he and Buffy were married he could almost see Joyce dabbing tears and he missed her then as well, in that he wanted her validation of their vows to each other. But this morning’s death. It’s a hard smack that shock delivers and it’s one that comes out of nowhere, like something that’s been delivered by a phantom hand that not even the undead can deflect. So on November 1, All Saint’s Day, the demon who masquerades as a human, who lies in the Slayer’s bed, doesn’t know what to say or think.

“Have you told Daniel?” Spike does manage to ask.

“No, I didn’t tell him,” Buffy replies. “Should I?”

“Not now. I’ll tell him later. After school. I think that’s best.”

Buffy squeezes his hand and he feels the fire of their union. She can pass off the tough stuff to him and he can handle it when she cannot. She goes and readies her son for school.

When Spike does tell Daniel after school that Beverly has died, Daniel doesn’t tear up. He asks his Daddy if he can go and play at Matthew’s house. Spike knows that Daniel won’t miss Bev until the next year when he finds she’s no longer living where he used to go see her and strangers are in her place because there’s no way on the Hellmouth that his parents could afford to live there.

Three nights later, Buffy and Spike sit on a marble slab in a cemetery. It’s been a slow night. On Halloween, night creatures lay low and the newly risen are few and far between the nights following. But there is one, at least one, who will rise. And now Spike feels compelled to tell Buffy about the day Beverly first let her into her new home on Revello Drive.

“My next meal,” Spike says in the hush of the night with dozens and dozens of dazzling stars overhead and a brilliant moon. “And I wasn’t thinking about the leftovers on her stove.”

The moon makes her husband appear bluish, he is so pale and the moon is so insistently bright. Everything he is saying is so clear, as clear as the moonlight on his face. “You wanted to kill her?” Buffy asks Spike.

He nods. “I did.”

He is expecting revulsion from his mate. He is constantly anticipating that there will be some part of his past that, once divulged, will disgust her to the point that she won’t be able to love him anymore. She is silent. She stares out across the graveyard and he can’t read her gaze, either peripherally or straight on.

“I know it’s a bit strange, even to you, the Slayer. Or perhaps even more so to you. I have this entire past of a century of killing and debauchery. I mean, it’s not as though I listened to Journey or played Dungeons and Dragons before I met you. I was really and truly evil. I killed without conscience because I had none. But Buffy, you have to know. When I made that pledge to you after I came back to you six years ago, when I told you that I wouldn’t kill, I meant it. And I haven’t killed. I have been tempted, but not now. It’s different now. Sometimes I think there is something guiding me. And it’s not just my love for you, as great as that is. There’s something else. I feel it. And I can’t name it, can’t put my bloody finger on it. But it’s real. I just have to wonder if, in the process of becoming a father, a husband and a would-be member of the workplace, all the things that humans are, I’ve grown something that all humans have.” He takes his wife’s hand, though her gaze and, seemingly, her thoughts have not moved from the freshly dug grave that is her job tonight. “A soul.”

There’s not so much as a sniff from his wife. Then the hairs raise on her back and she stiffens. All the times she denounced him as an animal he has reason to call her the same when he sees her zeroing in on her prey. She rises and then crouches carefully.

“She’s coming,” Buffy announces.

A bit of earth is being tossed about from clawing hands beneath the dirt. Spike can see the small stand with the index card with the name of the deceased and the day she died, or the night she died. He was with this woman the night she died. Years before, this woman let a vampire into her home and she was safe. The night she died, she let two vampires into her home. One called her friend and let her live. One called her food and killed her.

Spike sees her briefly as a monster. They are so disoriented when they rise. It’s a new world they arrive in, one in which blood is the first urge. Bev’s premiere thirst for blood is the Slayer’s so Bev’s unlife is short-lived. Her torso is exposed, Buffy finds her heart, and Bev is dead again.

“You wanted to kill her at one time,” Buffy says, looking up at her husband, still with that hardness of a predator in her eyes. She wipes the dust from her clothes. “Now we’re even.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
Buffy pulls into her usual space at Sunnydale Heights and immediately notices the late model Honda Civic in the third space reserved for their apartment. It’s after eight on a Friday night and such a sighting is not unusual at this hour or on this day of the week. By the time she enters her apartment and sees that a bottle of merlot has been uncorked on the kitchen counter and there are sounds of laughter coming from the living room, she comes to the conclusion that the other woman in Spike’s life has come for a secret rendezvous.
Spike has not tried to hide the fact that this woman is second only in his affections for Buffy. They have known each other for almost a decade and Buffy is perfectly fine with their relationship. As a matter of fact, it’s comforting for her to know that Spike connects with another human being, as much as he connects with her, with certain limitations.
She sees the woman curled up on the sofa next to her husband and crosses her arms. The woman’s hair is brown and thick and is held back by an elastic band, a reminder of her younger and more childish years that she won’t relinquish, though she blew out twenty-one candles on her last birthday cake. Her face is maturing, waning from the full moon of adolescence into something more refined, but still completely youthful. She is enjoying one of the perks of her age, swilling deep red wine from a tumbler usually reserved for milk and orange juice in the morning. Buffy’s husband is having the same and the two of them are laughing together there on the sofa. Daniel is there too, providing the entertainment for the evening. It’s his usual repertoire of half finished knock-knock jokes and attempts at singing Frere Jacques.
“Sunny lay matina, sunny lay matina. Din din don. Din din don,” Daniel finishes.
“My son the bi-lingual,” Spike comments proudly as he applauds. “Too bad it’s French. Never could stand the sodding Frogs. But it’s true what they say about Frog legs. They taste just like chicken.”
“You know what he’s going to ask now,” the woman says, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
“Daddy, you eat frog legs?” Daniel asks, true to form.
“A few times I did. They’re a delicacy in France.” And he actually has fed from the amphibian and the human kind and they both taste like chicken.
“What’s a delicacy?” Daniel asks.
“Means something you could just eat up!” the woman says, scooping the little boy from the floor and feigning to be dining on his leg. “Munch munch munch!”
“Oh, stop. Stop!” the little boy begs through giggles.
The woman gathers him up in her lap, crossing her arms over his small chest and kissing him on his cheeks. “I’ve missed you, Little D.”
“I told you not to call him that,” Buffy intones. “It’ll stick and before you know it we’ll all be calling him Little D. And his name is Daniel.”
The woman smiles as she hugs the child tightly. “Hey, big sis.”
“Hey little sis,” Buffy says, returning the smile.
Yes, Dawn is home.
In the kitchen, with a second bottle of merlot opened and being poured, Buffy lifts her glass for a fill.
“I didn’t expect you until Thanksgiving,” Buffy says, taking of sip of the wine, with guilt in her gut. “This wine is supposed to be for Thanksgiving dinner, by the way.”
“Oh, come on, Buffy. I’m legal now. And I need something to cleanse my palate of all the Beast Light I drink at school.”
“Hopefully not too much. That stuff’s lethal.”
“Hey, I go to the occasional frat party. And that’s all they serve. I go to Discount U, remember? Besides. I didn’t have much to do this weekend. Nothing much was going on. Just thought I’d come home and see how you were doing without me.” Dawn takes a deep sip of her wine and afterwards her eyes are not only bloodshot, they’re sad.
This tells Buffy that Dawn’s most recent boyfriend is now the most recent ex in Dawn’s life.
“Roy didn’t work out?” Buffy asks.
Dawn takes another sip of her wine. “Roy cheated on me.”
“No!” both Spike and Buffy express at the same time.
“Yeah. He was doing some girl in the north annex of the dorm. But I’m OK with it. I think we were just about done anyway. I mean, I never imagined that I would end up with someone named Roy.”
“Yeah, but at one time you imagined your perfect happiness with someone named Travis,” Spike says. “Don’t know where you were going with that one.”
“Oh! I saw him on TV! On C-SPAN!”
“I had no idea C-SPAN aired showcases on poofs,” Spike sniffs
“No, Travis is a Senate page now. Or at least he was during the summer.”
“That bloody wanker. I’ll bet he didn’t include kidnapper on his resume for that job.”
“He’s still really sorry about that.” Dawn sees that Buffy and Spike are both looking at her as though she has just admitted to spending a two- day spa treatment with Saddam Hussein. “What, I’ve just talked to him! Through IM. Nothing else. We haven’t seen each other face to face since I was in high school.”
“But you’re talking again?” Buffy asks.
“Travis is Travis. He’s not his parents. That’s something I have to remember. And that’s something you guys have to remember. Travis never would have done what he did if it weren’t for his crazy parents. Actually, his mother was the crazy one. His Dad’s all right.”
“You Summers women,” Spike smirks as he takes a drink of his wine. “So bloody forgiving of your men. Dr. Phil would have a damn field day with you. The co-dependency and all.”
“Spike, I said I was talking to Travis again, not moving in with him or making wedding plans.” Dawn steadies her glare at her sister. “Everyone deserves a second chance.”
There is so much Buffy can say in retort. Spike has committed many unforgivable acts, but never to Buffy. Sure, a decade ago he wanted to kill her and sure, he plotted to bring down the Scoobies by turning them against each other at one time, but he never harmed Buffy’s family. Buffy can withstand the blows of the creepiest demon that wriggles out of the Hellmouth, but she cannot bodily replace the members of her family and bear the blows for them. Spike may have been a threat to Joyce when viewed by an uninvited Angel, but never in a million years, which vamps have, would Spike have harmed her. Flowers delivered to her door after her mother’s death with no card confirmed that. And he has guarded Dawn, always. Buffy invited Spike into her house to protect Dawn and he did so because, she thought, he adored Buffy. Turned out he loved Little Bit as well, which meant the world to Dawn because she was so lately realized as The Key and uncertain about her life as The Key. And it meant the world to Buffy because she knew then it wasn’t all about her.
Travis stole their child. His conscience intervened before the child was sacrificed, or else Spike would have eviscerated him and, Buffy thinks, she would have as well. Buffy cannot forget the sight of the empty cradle. The imprint of the baby’s head. The child was gone, taken.
Buffy is ready to voice her opinion when she hears it in the words of her husband.
“Travis did a terrible thing,” Spike says, massaging his wife’s shoulders. “I forgive about as easily as Joan Rivers lets a knock-off fly on the red carpet of the Oscars. I’d break him into ten easy pieces if he showed up today. Do you really think he’s worth a second chance?”
Dawn takes another drink. “He’s really sorry.” “Come on, Dawn. Are you sure you’re not rebounding off a bad relationship with Roy?”
And there’s that protective instinct. Buffy saw it a little when Spike was first living with them, when the threat of Glory was great and he was as strong as the Slayer. The night he talked to Dawn on the phone when she was at the sleepover. He was her big brother for life in that one conversation.
And Dawn is still seeking his guidance. She is hypnotized by the sweetness of Spike’s tweak of her chin. He’s never touched her with anything other than loving hands.
“You’ll do the right thing. It’s in your blood. You don’t have a choice. You’ll do the right thing because it’s in you,” Spike tells her.
“Because I’m the Slayer’s sister?” Dawn pouts.
“No, because you’ve got good sense, you idiot. Familial ties have nothing to do with you making good choices. You’re your own person.”
“Spike’s right,” Buffy concurs. “You are your own person. I didn’t say that enough when you were growing up, but you are. And I trust you to do what’s right. Always.”
“Aw, Buffy, that’s sweet!” Dawn goes for an ultra-hug and almost begins to sob.
“And you are cut off from anymore alcoholic beverages tonight, Dawn,” Buffy tells her little sister.
“Am I getting to schmaltzy?” Dawn asks over her sister’s shoulder.
“No, you’re getting too drunk. And I’m still your big sister.”

Dawn told Buffy and Spike that she was visiting only to allow her sister and her brother-in-law a little time together, outside the house, without having to worry about Daniel. They chose for their date a familiar place, far from their current living space. A place set back in time, so that just by entering it they felt the flush of history staining their faces.
Now, with moonlight streaming through the open window, both naked on the floor, the hardwood floor they are rolling on doesn’t seem to hurt as they climax simultaneously.
Afterwards they lie together under the tartan blanket which served as the spread for their picnic of Buffalo wings, blooming onion and potato skins, all purchased from the local Outback on the way to their date. All of that devoured, Spike buries his mouth in his wife’s neck and kisses her as she pulls the blanket up around her shoulders.
Buffy sighs contentedly. “I had forgotten what this was like.”
Spike stops mid-kiss. “Oh, come on. Just this past week we did it on the bathmat outside the shower, the kitchen table, the sofa. Almost in the lift, but some fool kids got on. What more do you want?”
“Not the sex, silly,” Buffy says, wrapping Spike’s arm around her and settling her chin down on his chest. “What it’s like to stare out this window.”
“It is a nice window. Nice view. The tree outside seems a bit larger than it used to.”
“I can’t believe that it’s been six years since I had a bed here and I would lie on it and dream about a life like my neighbors,” Buffy says, letting her fingers run the length of her husband’s arm. “I would see them come home with their briefcases. You know, they’d be bringing work home with them. But there would be weekends when they wouldn’t have briefcases. They’d have suitcases already packed and they’d put them into their cars and drive away. I’d just think about what that would be like. To be carefree just one weekend out of the year. I’ve never had that. Ever. Not since I was fifteen.”
“You’re not feeling carefree now? This is our night off.”
“Our night off,” Buffy laughs. “There are vampires rising while we lie here.”
“Yeah, and we’ll get them another night. We always do.” Spike dips his head to her breasts and laps at her right nipple. “This is our night, pet.”
“‘As long as there have been vampires, there has been the Slayer. One girl in the world to find them where they gather and to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.’” Buffy says.
Spike lifts his head from his wife’s breast and exhales a defeated breath. “Fine. I want some nookie and all you want to do is talk shop. That ‘she alone must fight’ doggerel is crap and you know it. You’ve known it since you first got your feet wet here in Sunnydale. With yappy Xander, latent lezbo Willow, Uncle Tom Giles. And let’s not forget, the least likely candidate for Up With People, your ex, Angel.”
“So you’re saying, as far as Slayers go, I’m weak? That I need other people’s help to be successful? If you want nookie, insulting me isn’t a way to get it,” Buffy says, rolling over on her side and away from Spike.
“Oh, for Christ’s bloody sake, Buffy. All I’m saying is that you’re the first Slayer in centuries to get it, you little, but always adorable, prat.” He sweeps a hand over her shoulder, a gesture which she rejects in a shrug. “It’s rubbish for one girl to stand against the evils of the world. That’s why so many before you died before the quarter century mark. You’re the first one to say, ‘Hey, I need a little help in this.’”
“I never forged my own weapons, I never slept on a bed of bones.”
“You’re feeling inadequate when you fought a god. A god, Buffy! Surely you’ve read mythology. Men who’ve fought gods have been turned into constellations, to remind stargazers of their vanity. You fought a god. And lived to tell about it. And you’re a star because of it.” He kisses her still furrowed brow. He kisses her again and murmurs against her forehead. “I married you.”
“Little helpless Buffy who needs legions of people to help her fight evil because she’s not like the Slayers who came before her.”
“I married you because I love you. I married you because I wanted to become one with you. I married you because I didn’t want you to be the ‘she alone’ and come up against the likes of me one night. Forget the Big Bads of the world. The real opponent of the Slayer is the one who wants to make himself a legend by bagging the Slayer. I know. I know.”
And she does know. And she is more than a little disturbed every time he brings the subject up, which isn’t often. Sometimes months go by before she’ll be sitting across from him at the kitchen table and he’ll be critiquing a move she made in the graveyard and he’ll liken it to what caused the defeat of the Chinese Slayer (whose name he never knew because he didn’t speak Chinese) or the New York Slayer (Nikki, he thought, but he is always unsure about the spelling). He wants to keep her alive. He loves her with all the intensity of the sun, which he will never know. He knows and loves her.
She turns to him, traces the trench under his cheekbone with her thumb, sees the predatory glare that can be viewed as that of a hunter, but if he is on the hunt tonight, it’s just for some confirmation that she will love him always as he does. She remembers the first time she ever saw that look and remembers how she felt. She saw it the first time when she was in chains and the thought of him loving her was repulsive to her. But now there’s something else that’s occurring to her. Something that’s making her giggle. The first time she ever lusted for him.
“You probably don’t remember this,” Buffy says, laughing still. “When you were first living here. You took a shower one time. You left the door a little bit open. And as I was passing by, I saw you getting out of the shower. And I just about died.”
“Why? Because I was so abhorrent you didn’t want me near a place where you were naked at least once a day?”
“No. I just...” Buffy has to laugh again because it all seems silly now that she had such thoughts about her now husband at one time. “I was mad at first because you were naked and if Dawn had been the one walking down the hall and looking through the open doorway, she would have seen her first naked man. I thought, how dare he! But then you moved the towel away from...you know. And I saw how big you were. And for a while all I could think about was, ‘I saw Spike’s penis. I saw Spike’s penis.’ And I didn’t think eww. I though ahh.”
“So you were impressed,” Spike says, peering under the blanket and congratulating his little corporal for his early, unheralded reconnaissance mission. And he sees that it’s up for another tour of duty.
“Well, yeah. Who wouldn’t be? But I wasn’t a good judge. I mean, I’d been with Angel and I didn’t see much of his, because we only had that one time. And Parker. Well, I don’t even want to talk about him. And Riley, he was just such a Wonder Bread Guy I expected to see colored dots on his, but there was nothing special ops about his undercover agent. But God, when I saw you...I almost thought that if we ever did fuck, you’d kill me.”
“You thought I’d kill you,” Spike says, positioning himself between her legs. “By fucking you. Spike would off Slayer #3 by fucking her.”
“I didn’t think that literally. But I just thought that as big as you were and as little experience as I had, you’d be a challenge.”
“And when I did fuck you?” Spike asks as he spears her in one long, satisfying stroke.
Buffy gasps at the sudden invasion. Her eyes meet his. She sees that same look in his eyes. He claims her all over again; just like he did the night they made love for the first time in this very room. No matter the officiating minister who made them man and wife, no matter the bling that shows the world they are married, they were coupled forever the first time they lay together. “You were just right,” she says, letting her head loll back. “Goldilocks found a bed that was just right.”
The bed is gone. They are making love on the floor and it is as perfect and true as the first time. Maybe even better now because they don’t have to think about it. It just happens. And in the craziest places.
Even home.
Afterwards when they are clingy, exhausted and dizzy in each others arms, they don’t speak for a long time. Hours of recreating memories have left them speechless about anything going on in the present and for a while they are so locked in the past that Buffy is breathless thinking of the intensity of the first time she called Spike William in the heat of passion. But as this phantom presses down on her, she is aware of others strolling the hallways. Just down the stairs is the room where Spike and her mother sat uncomfortably and for the longest time trying to make small talk. In that same room, a few years later, Buffy found her mother dead. In another room Buffy once pressed a wooden spoon to Spike’s chest and nearly killed him. And in this same room, Spike threatened to take blood from Dawn, meant nothing of it, and fucked his future wife in the room where they are now, all in the same night.
“Honey,” Buffy says after a long time with Spike nuzzling her neck. “I don’t think I want to live here again.”
“You don’t?” he asks, smoothing her hair.
“No, because I want a place where we can make memories all our own. Just having Dawn home these past couple days, it’s like it was before she went to college. With the inquisitive child figured in. But it all fits. I don’t think we would fit in this house, not because it’s too small, but because it already has too much in it.” She lifts her head and her lips connect with her husband’s. And after the kiss, as they still remain close, Buffy tells him, “It doesn’t matter where we live, as long as I can go to sleep with you every night and wake up next to you every day. That’s still the best thing.”
“You know, I’ve never gotten over the guilt of not being there when you woke up after the first time,” Spike feels compelled to say.
“Get over it,” Buffy says, kissing him again. “You’ve more than made up for it.”

Buffy and Spike get home late, or late for the two of them since they’ve been married with child, with the clock aiming towards the right side of 11:00 pm. In high spirits as they cross the threshold, they are immediately quieted by Dawn’s grave expression.
“Guys, we have a problem,” Dawn tells them as they enter the apartment.
“Is Daniel OK? Is he sick?” Buffy asks, sending her purse to the floor and willing herself not to ask, “Is he gone?”
“Daniel’s fine. Now. But he wasn’t about two hours ago.”
“What happened?” Buffy and Spike ask together.
“Holy shit,” Dawn says, pressing her palms against her denim clad thighs. “Don’t freak out, but remember when we were having the big discussion about Travis in the kitchen last night? He heard the word kidnap and he wanted to know what that meant.”
“Oh God...” Buffy says. “What did you tell him?”
Dawn puts her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and shrugs. “What I could. That it means someone takes someone away.”
“And, of course, he asked if he had ever been kidnapped,” Spike asks.
“Yeah,” Dawn replies, staring shyly at the floor. “But when I told him what it meant, he knew that he had been kidnapped at one time. He heard enough of the conversation.”
“Was he upset?” Buffy asks.
“No, not really. Because I told him something.”
“Oh God, Dawn.” Buffy gasps. “If the V word came up or the S word came up---
“No, no, nothing like that. I told him that he would never be taken from us again because we love him and we’ll keep him safe forever. But you know, he didn’t keep asking why he was taken. I didn’t know what to tell him. So I just said that he was so cute someone else wanted him to be his son and it didn’t work out. You two took him back and everything was fine.”
“But did he believe you?” Buffy asks.
Dawn’s lips form a straight line. “He stopped asking me about it fifteen minutes ago. He wanted me to tell him everything would be OK and I told him everything would be OK until he went to sleep,” Dawn says in a voice reminiscent of the spirits Buffy and Spike visited that night at the old place. The brown irises of Dawn’s eyes are suddenly adrift in tears and she looks skyward as she pretends she’s not starting to cry and fans the telltale moisture away with her hands. “But I know one thing. I’m not going to talk to Travis again. That talk I had with Daniel brought it all back. How angry I was and how angry I still am that Travis used me to get to Daniel. I love that little boy. I love him so much. And I can’t imagine what my life would be like without him these past five years. As much as I get irritated with his questions and as much as I dislike having to share my old room with him, he’s just the best kid.”
Buffy and Spike don’t have to be told that. They couldn’t have asked for a more loving and dutiful child. They have to offer smiles to each other in silent congratulation of a job well done.
“But, oh well,” Dawn says, collecting tears in the crook of her index finger. “How was your night? Did you guys have fun?”
“Yeah, we did,” Buffy says, catching her husband’s hand. She gives Spike a sly wink.
That wink makes plain what their evening entailed, much like the pink robe did in the aftermath of Buffy and Spike’s afternoon delight while Dawn was at school. She now feels that she’s really home.
“Where’d you guys go?” Dawn asks.
“Oh, we found a place where there were some spooks,” Spike says, his gaze locking with his lady love’s.
“So, on your night off, you were ghost-busting?” Dawn asks.
Buffy looks deep into her husband’s eyes. She almost giggles again remembering the story she told. But she almost sobs again remembering the vacant stare in her mother’s eyes as she lay in the living room of the house they cannot afford and have decided they couldn’t live in again. Oh, how Dawn cried when she found out...
“You can’t kill ghosts, Dawn,” Buffy says. “They linger on, good or bad. But sometimes they do show us the way.”