Chapter 2.16
Brandon looked around uncomfortably at the three “people" with whom he shared a hallway.
“Em, I don’t want to seem rude, but is it okay if I make this call in private?”
Lily shrugged. ”Sure, sure. Young man, he want to speak to pretty girl, no old demon grandma.” Lily put a world of disappointment into her tone, as if she were some neglected, old woman who yearned for the arrival of the census taker to ease her boredom. Then, she caught Brandon’s eye and winked at him, her face creasing into a smile. “You tell pretty girl Lily say we want to see her tomorrow’s night, with happy smile on face, puppy dog on lead and pretty boy on arm. We go here.” She gestured through to the flat’s living room. “You go there.” She pointed back out into the main stairwell of the apartment block. “You come later.”
Buffy and Spike followed the old lady into the living room and took seats on the sofa at the far end without ever letting go of each other. The slayer’s fingers continued to brush against Spike’s side and she hooked her left leg over his right as she turned to her companion. “So just how tee’ed off was Dawnie when you rang?”
“She wasn’t,” Spike answered. “She was just real disappointed, kinda hurt and doin’ her best to put a brave face on it, but headin’ for depression anyway. Just figured the idea she might kick him to the kerb would get the daft bugger on the phone sharpish.”
“Isn’t that kind of manipulative?” Buffy asked.
“Bitlet was hurtin’. Now she isn’t. Leastways, not about junior. The kid’s hers to play with anyway. He got himself shot and still came back. Quicker he realises his life’s not his own any more, the simpler it’ll be for all concerned. I just gave him a not so subtle nudge in the right direction.”
Buffy rolled her eyes in despair, not knowing what to do with him. Lily chuckled at the pair. “Sometimes is frustrating to be in love with such a bad man with such a good heart,” she told the woman.
Buffy couldn’t help but smile at the demon’s description of Spike. “Always,” she corrected the old woman before placing a kiss on the arch of Spike’s unmarred brow.
“So, is now a good time for your bad man to admit to ringing his poof of a grandsire earlier or not?”
“Spi-ike!” Buffy began in a plaintive tone, but then she just shook her head before letting it come to rest on Spike’s shoulder. “You’re a bad, bad man.” The reprimand might have had a bit more of an effect, if it wasn’t for the unspoken, ‘but I love you,’ that resounded into his being so that it swamped every part of him, only to be amplified and returned to his lady love.
Lily settled back into her seat with a contented sigh. There were times when being an empath demon was incredibly difficult. To feel another’s emotional pain as if it were your own, diluted, but no less real, would make some of her kind turn inward, isolating themselves. Lily strove to remain always open for those she could help, and it was in moments like these that she took her reward.
* * * * *
Brandon’s father had left very shortly after the boy himself, saying that he wanted to be at their home if Brandon headed back there and asking the girls to get in touch if Brandon made his way back to Revello Drive.
After that, Wes had been going to go and unpack the car and trailer, but the girls had all volunteered to help. The watcher had felt compelled to point out that Dawn probably shouldn’t be doing any heavy lifting and that someone should stay in case Brandon came back or anyone called. In the end, a compromise was reached where Dawn and Tara dealt with the aftermath of the meal, while Wes and Anya emptied the car and the trailer. Since Wes basically decided that he would just leave everything in the hall overnight, it really didn’t take that long to unpack. The time consuming part of allocating the boxes to the different rooms and setting things up properly would come later.
So, by the time Brandon rang to speak to Dawn, Wes had been informed that for the purposes of the evening he was now an honorary girl, and got to join in the fest of the lovelorn and their shared tub of ice cream.
“Summers residence.”
“Hi. Can I speak to Dawn, please?”
“Who’s calling?” Anya asked from her position at the kitchen counter, knowing full well the identity of the caller. She pointed at her watch and wiggled her fingers at the other three people positioned around the island. Each pulled out a five dollar bill and passed it to the former vengeance demon.
“It’s Brandon.”
“Oh.” Anya let an uneasy silence fill the air between them for several seconds, waiting until she could almost hear the uneasy shuffle of the boy’s feet. Finally, she asked, “Have you called to apologise?” Tara shook her head at the way the former demon tortured the poor boy. Dawn simply helped herself to some more cool, creamy comfort food. Wes wondered if he’d ever been on the other end of one of these calls.
“Yes. Please, can I speak to her?”
“You’re not going to snap at her or call her family rejects?” Anya brought forth promise after promise from the young boy before she even passed the phone over. No, he wasn’t going to call any of her family or friends anything rude. Yes, he was going to take her to the party tomorrow night. Yes, he would take her anywhere she wanted to go tomorrow and do anything she wanted so long as he could afford it. Yes, he would hire a limo to take her to the formal and buy her a white corsage. Yes, he would do his very best to see she had one of the best nights of her life.
“I suppose I’ll see if she’ll talk to you.” She rested the phone on its side and then called out Dawn’s name as if she were in a separate room rather than right next to the receiver. “Phone. It’s him.” Dawn scooped another spoonful of ice cream from the tub and let it melt on her tongue before she picked up the handset.
“Hi. It’s me.” She climbed off her stool and took the phone out onto the back porch to get some privacy.
As the kitchen door closed behind her, Anya let out a sigh. “That boy is nearly as whipped as Spike. Why doesn’t Xander ring up and apologise like that?”
“You do know that what you just did was pure emotional torture?” Wes asked.
Anya nodded. “But Dawn found out exactly how far he was prepared to go before she had to speak to him, so now she can be all magnanimous and forgiving instead of worrying if he’s really going to be all anti-demon like Xander but try to cover it up.”
Wes looked round the table. “I’m beginning to think that thing about vampires being inherently evil was a mistake. It’s actually women.”
“Only to men, though. Tara would never do something like that to another woman. And now that you have seen this at work I must call upon one of my former colleagues to turn you into a woman.” Anya waited until Wes’s mouth fell open at her matter of fact tone before she smiled widely and blinked at him a couple of times. He turned to Tara, finding her having difficulty containing her amusement. Only then, was he really convinced that Anya had been joking.
“I think I stand firmly behind my last comment,” he muttered with a smile.
* * * * *
“Should we ask where Clem is?” Buffy asked his mother. “Or will he still be where we left him this morning?”
“He stay gone now till party time. Otherwise we find work for him.”
There was a quiet knock at the living room door before Brandon pushed it open and joined the group.
“So, did you get things sorted out with the Niblet, then?” Spike asked.
“Well, she said to tell Lily that she, the puppy and I will all be here tomorrow night. And she said something about wishing she could see Rose’s face.”
“Oh!” Buffy’s mouth formed a perfect circle as a thought occurred to her. “Would it be really rude if we asked whether we could invite someone else? There’s a friend of ours and sort of Wes’s, but he just got back into town from England yesterday.”
“Don’t know as Watcher senior would take kindly to bein’ described as a friend of mine, pet.”
“Well, maybe, Mr Smartypants, when I said ours, I meant mine and Dawn’s. Not everything revolves around you, you know,” Buffy teased. “Besides you and Giles aren’t just friends, you’re old roomies.”
Spike sighed. ”Do us a favour Lil. Just tell her she can ask the old codger. An’ park yer arse somewhere, kid. You’re makin’ the place look untidy.” Brandon took a seat on the sofa next to Buffy still looking slightly nervous.
Lily smiled. “I think maybe I should meet this old roomie of William and if he friend of Wes, he welcome.” She bustled over to a bureau that rested against the room’s side and pushed back the roll-top front. Pulling out the chair that accompanied the desk she sat down and called across to Buffy. “What is your friend’s name. Mr What?”
“Mr Giles.”
“Mr Giles what?”
Spike smirked. “That would be Mr Rupert Giles, Lil, love. He doesn’t use the Rupert on account he doesn’t want people to know he’s named after a cartoon bear with yellow tartan pants.”
Lily was in the middle of writing out an invitation for the watcher when Rosa came running into the room.
“Unker Will! Auntie Buffy!” The girl ran round the end of the sofa and climbed straight onto Spike’s remaining leg that hadn’t already got Buffy’s slung over it. “I told mommy that you would come before bedtime.”
“Well, kitten, sometimes Uncle Will has to help Auntie Buffy when she’s got important things to do, but if we had to break a promise we’d always do our best to at least ring. And you know I wouldn’t break a promise unless I really, really had to.”
Spike took in the maroon and gold pyjamas that the little girl was wearing, emblazoned across the back with the legend “Gryffyndor”. He shook his head at the little girl. “Everybody wants to be a white hat these days.”
“Silly! All the best characters are in Gryffyndor.”
“Are not. That Snape guy’s a right interestin’ bloke.”
“He’s mean. I don’t like him.” Buffy sat up watching the dialogue between the two with a huge smile on her face.
“He saved Harry during that snitchy game of theirs in the first book.”
“He picks on Harry and he’s head of potions but he can’t even use shampoo properly. And if you went to Hogwarts you’d be in Gryffyndor, too. All the bravest people are in Gryffyndor.”
Buffy giggled at the look of absolute shock on Spike’s face as he fishmouthed “Take that back, munchkin. Only the goody-goody types are in Gryffyndor. I’d be head of house in Slytherin.”
“Shan’t. Auntie Dawnie told me all the stories about the nasty woman who was inside the nice doctor like Voldemort was inside that professor and how she was trying to find her and how even when she held you prisoner for days and wouldn’t let you eat or sleep, you wouldn’t tell her where Auntie Dawnie was. And about how you looked after her and her mommy for Auntie Buffy and how you fought the nasty old man demon and you nearly won but he cheated and pushed you off the tower and even though you were hurt real bad and your heart broke because you thought they’d taken Auntie Buffy away for good instead of her just being trapped in another dimension for a while you still looked after Auntie Dawnie. You would too be in Gryffyndor.”
“I guess it was too much to expect your Auntie Dawnie to just read to you like a normal person?”
“This was better,” Rosa insisted. “She can’t do voices like you do, but ‘cause these were about you and Auntie Buffy and her I knew what you all should sound like.” The young girl suddenly noticed the youth beside Buffy. She seemed to study his face intently for several seconds, before she made her eyes cross slightly and stuck her tongue out at him.
“Rosa! Apologise right now.” Her mother scolded her from the doorway of the room where she’d been leaning to watch Spike’s discomfiture. “That’s not polite.”
Rosa watched the boy. “Sorry.” She turned to her mother. “I just wanted to see if he was Auntie Dawnie’s boyfriend. She said her boyfriend had pretty eyes like your jade tiger and long eyelashes, but I couldn’t tell if he had a cute smile or not because he wasn’t, so I thought maybe if I stuck my tongue out he would and then I’d know.” She turned back to the youth. “And see… He has. Hi, Brandon.”
“You could have just said hello and maybe he would introduce himself,” her mother sighed at the little girl’s logic.
“I guess I’m just a little late with the formal introductions,” Buffy excused herself. “Brandon, this is Rosa. The lady in the doorway is Marie, her mother. Lily is her grandma and her Uncle Clem, who is apparently in hiding at the moment but who you should get to meet tomorrow night, is going to be Spike’s best man at the wedding. And for those of you who hadn’t already worked it out, this is Dawn’s boyfriend Brandon.”
The little girl smiled at her mom as if to say, “Told you so.”
Spike cleared his throat slightly and looked back and forth between Buffy and the little girl a couple of times.
“Me?” Buffy asked, half-awed and half-excited at the idea.
“Honey, your Uncle Will and I have got a real big favour to ask you and your mommy. See, we just realised that we’ve got lots of grown up lady friends to help us out being bridesmaids and stuff, but we only know one special little girl who could be our flower girl. So, do you think your mommy would let you stay up late the night we get married so you can do that for us?”
“Mommy?” The little girl’s deep brown eyes looked over to her mother imploringly. “Please, can I?”
“No more rude faces?” her mother bargained. “You have to be good from now right up until then.”
“Promise.” Her mother nodded, smiling as the little girl ran across the room to express her thanks in the form of a hug. Then, the girl started dancing round the room singing, “I’m going to be a flower girl,” in a sing-song voice, until all of a sudden she stopped dead. “Auntie Buffy, what’s a flower girl?”
Chapter 2.17
“I so need a shower.” Buffy pulled a strand of mud splattered hair down in front of her eyes. Their patrol, after they had dropped off Brandon at his father’s house, had proved to be considerably more detrimental to her clothing than their encounter at the bus station earlier that evening.
“Uh-huh.” Spike agreed with her, but it didn’t deter him from continuing to hold one very muddy hand in his own rather cleaner one.
“You could at least have helped.”
“I held your coat. I’m still holding your coat. And with the cheering. I like to think I gave you some very constructive advice.”
“Well, maybe if I’d known what goolies were and my feet hadn’t been mired in nine inches of mud, then I could have kicked him in them.”
“I did everything but wave pom-poms. ‘Sides if I’d joined you in all that mud neither of us would have ended up bothered about catching our semi-aquatic friend. And I can definitely help with the shower thing.”
“Gross. What is it with men and icky stuff?”
“So the idea of me all wet and slippery does nothing for you?”
“Soapy bubbles slippery? Maybe. Stinky, muddy slippery? That’s just stinky.”
“Not even a little bit?” Spike’s lower lip curved into a slight pout.
“Can it, id-boy. You are not going to get me all hot and bothered when my two hundred dollar boots are oozing mud out of the seams and making squelching noises every time I move. And I smell.”
“C’mon, love. You could be encased in Fyarl snot and smell like beef dripping and I’d still want you. At least it’s not as bad as the smell of those veggie burgers you used to cook.”
“I didn’t think we told you about the burgers.”
“What didn’t you tell me about the burgers?”
“That they were veggie.”
“Puh-lease. I have got a nose.” He half-towed her the last few yards before the turn for the path leading to the front door.
“But Willow analysed them and everything. We thought they were human.”
Spike snorted his amusement. “I suppose on the Hellmouth stranger things have happened, but it really didn’t occur to you to ask the one person you know who could tell you exactly what human flesh smells like. I spent hours next to those bloody vents waitin’ for you to sneak out the back. I think if they were servin’ up long pig, I might just have mentioned it to you… after I emptied the freezers. If nothing else it might have got you to quit.”
“Hey. It’s not my fault we weren’t big with the talking.” Spike gave her a quizzical look. “Okay, yes, it was my fault we weren’t big with the talking.”
As they approached the front door Spike seemed to slow. “Look, love. Why don’t you head on upstairs and get in the shower, rinse off what you can and then run yourself a nice, hot bath with plenty of bubbles?”
“I thought you were volunteering for back scrubbing duty?” It was Buffy’s turn to pout.
“Let’s just say that something came up… other than the obvious. Leave the door from the bedroom open and if I don’t come up before you finish, I’ll just be out back.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t a slayer something?” Buffy almost whispered.
“Not an ooglie-booglie in sight, but if I haven’t got it sorted by the time you get out the bath, it might turn out to be a Buffy something.”
“You need a kiss for luck?” she asked, even as she raised herself up on tiptoe.
“Always.” Spike’s hands cupped her face unmindful of the mud splatters that adorned it, as he drew her into a deep and tender kiss, still tinged with the copper of her very special blood. Spike pulled his keys from his pocket and opened up the front door for her, draping her coat over the banister at the bottom of the stairs before he backed out of the door, pulling it gently closed between them and finally breaking their locked gazes.
* * * * *
“Hey, sweet pea.” Spike took a seat on the back step of the porch leaving about a foot gap between him and the girl with the red-rimmed eyes and tear-damp cheeks.
He glanced briefly in her direction before gazing off into the darkness as he spoke, giving her the privacy to cry or pull herself together as she wished. “It’s the quiet times that get you. When there’s people around and stuff to do, you can pretty much lose yourself. I mean, you don’t really forget, not for more than a couple of minutes at a time, but you can pretend you do.” He pulled out his pack of cigarettes, looking to the girl for permission before he lit one. Then, after a second’s consideration he held the pack out, quick to play the gentleman and raise his lighter to the tip when Tara accepted one and put it to her lips.
She coughed slightly as she took the first deep breath into her lungs, but with the second she blew a series of delicate smoke rings that drifted off and upward into the night sky widening as they moved away from them until they dissolved into nothing.
“How did you know?” she asked, tilting the hand that held the cigarette to demonstrate what she meant.
Spike shrugged. “Father like that, make any kid with a lick of spunk like what you’ve got want to rebel a bit, but you’re not the type to do anythin’ hurtful. So smoking, maybe a bit of pot, nicking that brother’s bike and clearing out for the day to leave them to wash their own skivvies an’ cook their own dinner… I mean that’s why you learned, isn’t it? The only way you could get out of that house free and clear where he couldn’t find you. ‘M I right?”
“That obvious, huh?” Tara gave him a watery smile.
“That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. You’re one of the strongest people I know. And the most wonderful thing about you is you never let it make you hard. I bet your mother must have been really something.”
Tara’s smile softened. “She was. I mean, my father he tried to break her, to curb the demon as he called it, but she never let him. She was beautiful.”
“An’ so’s her daughter.” Spike shuffled a little closer and brushed away the last traces of her tears with the ball of his thumb, using his clean hand. “I meant what I told junior tonight. All you girls are special, but if we’re talking on a straight personality thing, much as I love Buffy you outshine her by far. You know who you are and what you believe in. You have a purity to you that should drive a demon like me to despair, but instead I can’t help but love you for it. I took a beatin’ for the Niblet that time, but what you gave up was far worse an’ yet people seem to forget about it. Great wet sod that I am, you remind me of me mum. An’ in a way that’s what this all comes down to, your mum, Joyce, mine maybe if Buffy’s right, and Red’s.”
Tara gave the vampire a curious glance. “I don’t get you.”
“Red turning out like she did. There was bugger all you could do to stop it. The behaviour patterns were all coded in way before you arrived on the scene.
The only thing her parents ever told her was bad was coming second in anything instead of first. They never paid attention to anything she did unless it was shoved under their noses, so she was never punished for anything, hence the idea that cookies make everything better and if you can hide the evidence then no one needs to know if you screw up. She was only ever praised for excelling at things. It’s no wonder when she got into magic that all she could think about was learning to be the most powerful witch around. It never even occurred to her that magic’s different from chemistry or physics, that you can know too much and not enough at the same time.
They never let her close. They never loved her the way your mum loved you, or Joyce loved Buffy an’ the Niblet. An’ so she never really learned about being happy because you can make the ones you love happy. Her only happiness was in pleasing herself an’ she never hurt for them or got hurt by them, because one way an’ another, it’s the people you love that hurt you the most.
So, when dog-boy upped an’ left, she just didn’t have a clue. She couldn’t see that these things just have to be borne one day at a time, so she tried to make it go away. An’ she’s never changed. Whenever anything hurts she just tries to magic it better. An’ if you ask me that’s why she brought Buffy back. It’s just that she’s got so damn powerful there’s nothing much as could stop her these days.
Factor in Harris and the fact that the stupid wanker basically let her do his thinking for him for eighteen years till Anya appeared on the horizon, and I’ll admit that Buffy probably helped that along a bit, too, so that she thought she had the god given right to make decisions for everyone because they’re just stupid sheep and she’s the shepherd an’ you have her benevolent dictator syndrome covered, or theoretically benevolent anyway.
As soon as she picked up her first magic book, it was a foregone conclusion that one day she’d push things too far.”
Tara obviously considered most of what he had said, but balked at the last statement. “I don’t know. It changed after the resurrection spell. She changed.”
“Consequences, pet. There’s always consequences. You ask something huge like you guys did and the price is goin’ to be huge as well, but Red was too damn sure of herself to believe that.”
“Maybe I should have talked her out of it.” Tara looked guiltily at the vampire, knowing that if she had he would never have found the happiness that was now his. “Maybe I should have told Giles.”
Spike gave her a rueful half smile. “I have every faith in you, pet, but with the best will in the world you couldn’t have stopped her. She’d have been out with the Tabula Rasa crap as soon as she thought you weren’t on side. An’ selfish bugger that I am, now that Buffy’s back and happy, I can’t say I’m too fussed about what Red’s set herself up for. I mean there was a couple of times when I knew where Buffy’d been, an’ she was stuck in that bloody awful job, an’ I just couldn’t seem to get through to her, that I would have quite happily strung the bitch up for bringing her back and then ignorin’ her like she did. But now she seems to be happy…”
“She is happy, you know. And it’s because of you. I mean the stuff with Dawn and you being kidnapped and everything, it all gets to her, but her aura… You can tell that she’s basically content, more than content.”
“Well, I guess, if it’s workin’, then this frog’s goin’ to have to keep doin’ his damnedest to convince her he’s actually a prince.”
“Or maybe we all need to convince the prince he isn’t a frog,” Tara responded.
Spike shook his head and drew deeply on a cigarette that had half burned down unnoticed between his fingers while he talked. ”I try not to kid myself, pet. I’m not a good man, and she deserves way better than I can give her, but I think I have it in me to make her happy an’ if that’s all I do for the rest of her life, then maybe I won’t have made such a hash of things after all.”
“Don’t you see? If Willow had cared a quarter as much about making me happy as you care about making Buffy happy, then we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
“Probably not, puss cat, but I happen to think that the reason you an’ Red didn’t make it, other than her obvious character flaws, is that all them goddesses of yours have someone special in mind for you, but it just isn’t their time, yet.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Because it would be a sin to put someone as loving and beautiful as you in this world and then not give her someone who can really appreciate her.” The vampire placed a chaste kiss on the girl’s forehead.
“Now, how do you fancy washing the taste of that cigarette out of your mouth with some cocoa? I’m led to believe that there’s some chemical in chocolate that’s the same as your brain produces when you’re happy, so not only does it taste nice but it’s medicinal, too.”
Tara looked over at the vampire, as she rose to her feet letting him slip an arm around her shoulders to guide her back into the house. “Did you have little sisters when you were growing up?”
Spike shook his head. “Only child. Father died when I was young and after that there was just me and mother. She never remarried. If I had had though, I’d have wanted one like you and one like Bit, a dove and a wild thing, both with hearts as big as the sky.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’ve got the soul of a poet?” Tara asked.
Spike smirked at the irony of the comment. “No, love, I don’t think they ever did.”
* * * * *
Buffy looked round the room that had been hers for years. It looked so different with her mother’s furniture instead of hers. Tara’s knick-knacks, few as they were, adorned the room’s surfaces and the blankets that Buffy had covered the windows with had finally been taken down when the sun dropped behind the houses opposite. It had taken them all most of the day, barring a couple of hours for the visit to the tailor and Spike’s coiffure, but now everyone was in their new homes.
“Seems strange, doesn’t it?” the Wiccan asked, nodding not only to what was now her room, but also the house across the street. Some phone calls to determine which stores actually sold beds and other basic furniture from stock rather than ordering them in, had resulted in some rushed shopping on Wes’s part before he was due to drop off the U-haul trailer at their nearest branch, but he now had most of the basics covered. There hadn’t been anything arranged the previous night, but somehow everyone from the two houses and later Brandon, too, had ended up pulling together, first to get Wes settled in, then to move Buffy’s things into the master bedroom and get Tara’s things from the dorm.
Spike had sent Buffy out with Wes on one of his trips to pick up a bookcase and a desk and chair for Tara’s room as a surprise gift, mindful of the fact that the Wiccan’s end of year exams must be fast approaching and she would need a proper place to study. The desk she had found had a matching chair and a tooled, maroon, leather top, which had obviously been lovingly cared for as not a single blemish marred its surface despite its age. It was made from a rich dark wood that matched her mother’s bed. Once, it had graced the office of the local bank manager, before homogeneity became the order of the day and it was sold off simply because it didn’t tie in with the latest theme. It was a little on the large side and the room seemed slightly overcrowded but homey as a result. She had had to settle for a plain pine bookcase, but she thought the Wiccan would prefer the natural material to a more finished looking product made of melamine. Actually, she knew that she could have brought back a wooden orange box for the girl to store her books in and Tara would have been pleased at their thoughtfulness, which was part of why Buffy was so pleased to find something like the desk which she knew the Wicca would love.
Funnily enough, even though Buffy and Wes had been the ones to unpack the furniture from the trailer Tara had known without asking, exactly whose idea the gift had been, and the first of many tearful hugs had been for her freshly bleached and trimmed male housemate.
“Good strange, I hope,” Wes commented as he and Spike made their way back into the room each carrying several cans of soda, which were swiftly passed out between the room’s occupants though Spike didn’t bother.
“Definitely good strange,” Buffy answered for all of them before moving to stand where Spike could wrap his arms around her like an animated stole. “For the first time since mom died, it seems like we’re a family. All of us.” Her gaze rested on Tara in particular and Spike’s arms tightened into a hug for an instant in acknowledgement of her words, knowing that they were meant for him, too. She lifted her free hand and wrapped it over his before turning to Wes. “And of course it’s a novelty to have neighbours who don’t avoid us, let alone ones we’d call friend… and I’m not just saying that because of the spa we found hidden away in your back yard.”
“It’s only mostly because of the spa they found hidden away in your back yard,” her fiancé teased.
“Spike. Stop it. He might believe you.”
“I think he’s already had some pretty fair indications of how much he’s appreciated round here, pet. He’s bright enough to work out when I’m just yankin’ your chain.”
“That would be most of the time, I believe,” his fellow Englishman responded.
“See. Now, who’s first for the shower? ‘Cause I make it about an hour an a half to go before we’re all due at Lily’s. An’, Wes, do us a favour and take the kid across to yours when you go. That way, I can concentrate on gettin’ ready without havin’ to worry about what state of undress him and the Niblet are in. She can ring an’ let him know when she’s decent again.”
Tara glanced round the room, seeing both couples seemed reluctant to part. “I guess I’ll take that first shower.”
“Then, I guess we should all give you some privacy to get ready.” Wes was the first to excuse himself from the room, but the others soon followed, dispersing to make their own preparations for the party.
Spike drew Buffy into their new bedroom. “Happy?” he asked indicating her furniture that now filled the room.
Buffy’s reached up with a fingertip that was damp from the condensation on the soda can she had been holding and traced the outline of his lips. “Let’s see, today’s been quite the day. I’ve got a wonderful man who has shown he can be nearly as considerate to my friends as he is to me. I’m going to have a wonderful dress and so are all my bridesmaids, assuming, of course, that Willow is speaking to me again by then. I have my loved ones around me and a night with friends ahead. I think that’s enough to make anyone happy… Providing Xander doesn’t do anything to mess things up tonight.”
“I have a feeling Anya will be keeping him on a tight leash. I don’t think you need worry.”
“Then, yeah, Will,” she replied pushing him gently backward until his legs pressed against the side of their bed and he pulled her with him as he tumbled backwards. “I’m happy.” She nestled her head against his shoulder curling up on the bed next to him like a contented kitten until it was their turn for the shower.