"It's not like we don't know what you're up to, Spike." Xander seemed to devote at least as much of his attention to the vampire as he did to finding his footing on the uneven forest floor using his flashlight.
"Oh? So why don't you enlighten me, Obi-Wan? Or maybe I've heard this bloody song before... when you didn't even have the decency to let a bloke pay his respects?"
"It doesn't get any less true... but you don't have to hear it from me, 'cause when Buffy gets back from her alternate reality, she is so going to kick your shiny white butt all the way into next week for creeping round her mother."
"Joyce is a friend. Are you understanding me yet, Cleatus? We can talk to each other like two adults. Conversations with more words than 'Can we have some more Cheesy Chips, Mrs Summers?' Just because you have a few fevered Mrs Robinson daydreams doesn't give you the right to stick your nose in. Maybe if you weren't so bloody worried about her an' Buffy, you might have managed to 'love, honour, cherish an' keep' the one woman you did have a right to get all splotchy an' possessive about."
"Okay," Xander snarled, pointing the torch in Spike's face and ruining his night vision. "One more syllable about Anya and-."
"And what?" Spike retaliated.
"And-. Eeep!" Xander yelped as the Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik leaped out at them with a growl that was far more intimidating than any of Xander's threats.
Spike stepped away from Xander and dropped into a fighting stance. The demon charged, barging Xander to the ground and lashing out at Spike with a high spin kick which the vampire ducked underneath. Spike closed with their opponent, landing several punches while Xander scrambled back to his feet and raised the rifle he'd been carrying to his shoulder. The vamp kicked hard at the demon, sending him staggering backward so that Xander had a clear shot. The rifle fired and a dart embedded itself in the demon's chest, but there was little, if any, immediate impact on the Glarghk Guhl Kasma'nik's fighting ability.
The waxy demon blocked Spike's next punch, following up with one of his own and a scything leg sweep that sent the vamp twisting to the ground as his footing gave way under him.
Xander flung a desperate punch at the creature, though the stinging in his knuckles told him that he had done more harm to himself than to it. Changing tactics, he tried to hit it with the butt of the rifle but it blocked the blow with a casual swipe of its hand, its metal gauntlet clinking against the gun. With a backhanded blow, the demon sent Xander tumbling back to the ground, just as Spike closed in again.
The two demons traded blows, Spike marginally quicker but possibly outmatched as far as strength was concerned, both displaying an agility that few mere humans could hope to match.
Xander didn't even bother to get to his feet again. He just picked up the rifle, braced it against his shoulder and waited until Spike kicked the other demon backward to take his shot. Still the anaesthetic in the darts seemed to make no difference.
The demon spun as he ducked under one of the vampire's kicks, but Spike was ready and grabbed it while it still had its back to him. With a sharp twist that would have broken the neck of a lesser opponent, he rendered it unconscious.
Xander scrambled to his feet and made his way to where Spike stood over the creature, trying to catch his unnecessary breath before he dealt with the task of restraining their captive.
"I altered his reality," the younger man joked.
Spike's head twisted to the side in amazement, wondering if maybe Xander had been stung too, and thought he'd taken part in a different fight, one where anything he'd done had actually made some bit of difference.
"Get it? I..." Xander stopped as he realised that not only was Spike not one of his joking buddies but that the vampire's scowl was none too friendly. Sure, Xander could get the demon back on his own if he had to, but... "Never mind."
Joyce slid a pair of mugs along the bench until one rested in front of Spike and one in front of Xander. Xander peered at the white froth on top of Spike's and couldn't help wondering why he didn't rate little marshmallows.
"I'll stick around until Red gets back from the campus with her make-Buffy-better juice an' make sure the wax job behaves himself," the vampire offered.
"Are you sure?" Joyce asked. "You've been so busy playing escort all day that you haven't had any sleep."
A look passed between Spike and Joyce that left no need for further words. Spike was staying.
"I could stay, too," Xander added. "Once I get those things from the magic shop for Willow."
Joyce gave him a grateful smile. "It hardly seems worth coming all the way back over here when you live so near to the campus, and Buffy's sleeping so she doesn't need the company, but it was nice of you to offer."
Somehow Xander couldn't enjoy his hot chocolate all that much after that and he gulped it down. When he left to perform his glorified doughnut run, he had to listen to the sound of Joyce and Dawn's laughter as Spike came up with increasingly outrageous suggestions for what Joyce could do now that the gallery had been sold. The thought of his own empty apartment was a near physical ache.
Willow smiled at the picture Buffy and her mother made as she entered the slayer's room. Buffy was wan and her eyes still had a haunted look that came from the inability to distinguish between reality and delirium. Joyce's eyes already seemed shadowed, but there was something inescapably right about her being at her daughter's bedside, clasping one of Buffy's hands in both of hers.
"Got yummy antidote goodness for you!"
For a second Buffy's gaze was blank and then she seemed to focus properly on the witch. "It took a little longer than I'd hoped. No magic and all. Went boom twice, but then I got it. Just... When it's cool, drink it all down, and... everything should go back to normal."
"You never stop coming through," Buffy said, her voice weaker than normal. "Thank you, Willow."
The red-head turned her attention to Joyce. "Make sure she drinks all that. I'll go let Dawn know that everything's going to be okay."
Spike appeared in the room's doorway, his body language showing clearly that he was hesitant to enter. "How is she?" he asked in little more than a whisper.
"Come in, Spike," Joyce invited. "She'll be fine." Willow brushed past the vamp as he picked his way carefully around the edge of the room to stand by the opposite side of the bed from Joyce.
"You alright?" he asked in a concerned tone, no louder than his previous question.
Buffy grimaced, though whether it was due to the taste of her first sip of the antidote or Spike's voice was hard to tell at first. However, when she stared unblinkingly in any direction other than his, he began to think he had his answer. "You need to leave me alone. You're not part of my life."
"Fine, then," Spike responded sharply, as he almost always did when he was hurt. He turned to leave and made it halfway to the door before he turned again looking angrier than ever.
"You know, but I hope you-."
"It's not her talking, Spike," Joyce interrupted in a calm tone. "At least, I hope not. Wait and see what she has to say when she's herself again. And then, if she wants to be that rude to someone who's just captured a dangerous demon for her, you can yell at her all you want with my blessing."
"I'll be in the basement if you need me for anything, Joyce." The despondency of his tone, now that it was no longer masked in anger, was unmistakeable and Joyce prayed that it had been the venom talking, that her Buffy couldn't be so deliberately cruel.
Buffy paused often as she sipped at the huge mug of antidote, but when she did, Joyce gently chivvied her into taking just a few more mouthfuls until eventually it was all gone. Her mother took the empty mug from her hands and Buffy rolled over onto her side and closed weary eyes. Soon, it would be over. Either the antidote would work, or if it didn't then at least she would know which world was real.
Spike had been back in the basement for over half an hour when he heard Willow's footfalls in the rooms above. With a sigh, he pushed himself up from where he'd been sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and made his way upstairs.
"Any news?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe as he watched Willow start a pot of coffee.
"She's sleeping."
"So we still don't know whether we can get rid of Madame Tussaud's evil monster?"
"Not yet."
"An' the other stuff?"
"Mom says I can have my old room back if I can't get into dorms. And, according to Giles' answering machine, he's out of town until next week. Maybe he finally got invited to that annual watchers' retreat in the Cotswolds."
Spike gave a snort of disbelief. "Think he could cope with that much excitement? Anyway, they didn't invite him before he resigned. Doubt they'd ask him now."
"Maybe he's gone to see Olivia."
Spike shook his head. "Livin' with some lefty sociology lecturer in Notting Hill."
"Why do you know that and I don't?" Willow asked.
"'Cause you can afford your own booze, whereas I have been known to leech off the watcher on occasion, which goes hand in hand with listenin' to him get drunk at the same time... or quite a bit quicker, in fact."
"You want a coffee when it's ready?"
Spike seemed to be considering for some time before he nodded his head. "Sure. You'd better bring it downstairs, though." He pushed back upright, getting ready to move. "Can't leave that thing on its own for too long or it'll pull the house down around your ears."
He was almost at the basement door when Willow called out again. "How do you take it?"
Xander didn't wait to see if anyone answered his knock, but opened the door instead, poking his head around the side. "Hello! I'm back! Clean and with the better smell now."
"Not by much," came a muffled yell from the direction of the basement.
"We're in here," Willow answered.
Xander followed her voice and found Dawn with her in the living room.
"Hey there!" he offered as a greeting as he shrugged of his jacket. "How're my girls? You manage to get all that antidote-y goodness to the Buffster?"
"We did, but she's been sleeping ever since."
"But you expected that, right?"
"The website wasn't real specific. We were lucky it gave instructions for the antidote," Willow admitted.
"Spike said that she probably hadn't slept properly since she got stung so it wasn't anything to worry about," Dawn added, making Xander grimace just at the sound of the vampire's name. "Not that he's one to talk. The only thing keeping him going is coffee and nicotine and he ran out of cigarettes yesterday."
"Why doesn't he go home then?"
"He doesn't want to leave the Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik and we can't get rid of it until we know that the antidote worked."
Xander snorted. "Any old excuse. I can make with the hostile containment until Buffy's up and about and ready to kill it."
"Time to go home, Spike." Xander announced as he made his way down the stairs into the basement, the tranquiliser rifle dangling from his hand.
"Yeah? Why's that?" the vampire asked, closing the paperback that Joyce had loaned him and tucking it behind his back. "I don't look like I've turned into Andy Pandy."
"And again with the huh?" Xander's look of disdain as he came to stand with the toes of his boots almost touching Spike's feet pretty much said that he didn't really care either. "Look, the guy's here. He's chained up. Buffy'll be back to her demon-slaying bestest in no time. I can keep an eye on him till then. We don't need you any more."
"So that's it? Soon as I've done the dirty work I get told to bugger off. Bet you haven't run this past Joyce."
"No, and we're not going to. Joyce is busy looking after Buffy and regardless of what you might think, you are not going to use Joyce as a way to get into this house."
"How many times do I have to tell you? You might run Buffy's social diary. She might let you say who she can see an' who she can't, but Joyce has a mind of her own an' she wouldn't take kindly to some git who's so far up his own arse he'd see more sun on the dark side of the moon tryin' to turf out one of her guests."
"You gonna let Joyce fight your battles for you?"
Spike snorted. "Against you? She wouldn't even break a nail..." Spike seemed to slide to his feet with a sinuous grace to stand nose to nose with the younger man rather than getting up like a mere mortal. "But no. I'm not about to let her fight my battles, an' I'm not about to let some lightweight wanker with a pop gun that hasn't even got the power to penetrate this damn thing's hide fight them either, or were you too dense to even realise that your contribution amounted to diddly squat?"
"What d'you mean? I shot him twice. They stuck in."
"Yeah, sure they did. Why not take a look an' see where they went?"
Xander ripped open the demon's shirt, pulling it to either side until after close examination he found evidence of two small puncture marks. "See! Told you I hit him," he said pointing to the dents in the demon's waxy skin.
"Yeah. They've scabbed over real nice haven't they?"
Xander looked again. "No-o," he answered sounding confused.
"That'd be because they didn't bleed, Rainman. And if the wounds don't bleed, the stuff on the darts doesn't get into the bloodstream. Face facts. Your comfortin' old phallic symbol is basically impotent. Puts on a good show but when push comes to shove you can't rely on it, or on the guy carryin' it."
The vampire saw the brunette's blow coming and easily ducked under it, steeling himself for the agony of the chip as he swung a punch toward Xander's ear. His fist was halfway there when he realised the pain wasn't going to come. He pulled the blow with an inch to spare. He had been joking when he'd talked about wishing the chip gone, trying to get a rise out the red witch. It was too much of a coincidence to think that someone hadn't opened their big mouth, though. Xander threw another punch and Spike absently grabbed his wrists holding him in place while he thought. With the chip, Joyce might forgive him for getting involved in a fight with Xander. After all, everything would have been in Xander's favour and even if he managed to inflict some minor damage it would cost him far more. Without the chip, the sympathy card goes to the poor human, being picked on by the supernaturally strong demon. And besides, Joyce believed in him. Finally, Xander stopped struggling.
Spike pushed the young man away from him, but he took care not to do it so hard the twit would hurt himself, just enough that he had to take a couple of backward steps to regain his balance.
"You're not even worth the bother," Spike drawled before he sank back into his previous sitting position and picked up his book. For what seemed like a minute he felt Xander's eyes boring into him, but he didn't lift his eyes from the page and finally he heard the slight scuffs as the carpenter pivoted on the balls of his feet and headed back up the stairs.
"Mom?" Buffy stared at the woman in the chair beside her bed. She had all but convinced herself that her mother's reappearance was the last ditch attempt of a broken mind to patch up its insane world. "Mommy?"
Joyce's eyes flickered open. "I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean to drift off. How are you feeling?"
"Mommy?"
Joyce moved to sit on the edge of the bed and brushed a stray hair from Buffy's brow. "I'm back, honey. Spike explained it to you. Do you remember?"
Buffy's arms made their way around her mother and though she was careful not to crush her, it would have taken another slayer to pry her free. Eventually, she pulled back slightly. "M-mom. I- I m-missed you so much," Buffy stumbled to get her words out through the tears that enveloped her. "I t-tried. I tried so hard b-but I-. Nothing worked."
"Shhh, honey. I know. I know." Joyce pulled the girl into her arms, holding her like a huge ragdoll as she sobbed out all the tension she'd held inside for so long.
"I've... I've. Everything's such a mess. We're barely making the bills. Dawn's schoolwork-. I-I. There was someone. It was bad."
"Buffy, I know about you and Spike. We can t-."
"What? What's he been saying? There's no me and Spike."
"Buffy!" Joyce interrupted again far more firmly. "Spike hasn't said anything. He didn't have to... and I understand that you broke off the... relationship, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't lie to me. I'm not about to pass judgement on you for being with him. I do, however, think you owe him several apologies. You need to consider exactly what his place is in your life because, if you keep fooling yourself that he doesn't have one, then one of these days you might wake up and find him gone. If he means something to you, even if it's just as a friend, then you need to make sure that he understands that and so do your friends."
"It's not that simple, Mom."
Joyce gave her daughter a look that said if she continued she would only be digging herself in deeper.
"Look, Mom, he was setting himself up as some demon mega arms dealer."
"An arms dealer who doesn't even have a phone? One who would have been eaten in his sleep if Riley hadn't realised at the last minute that you were there too? I would ask whether you had ever heard Spike's side of things but I already know."
"You saw something," Buffy accused. "That's not fair."
"And you're not stupid. If you had given Spike a chance to explain, you would have worked it out long ago."
"I was still using him," Buffy insisted, sure that here, at least, she was in the right.
"If that was all it was, then I doubt you would have been crying in the ladies' room at Anya's wedding. If using him was the problem, then surely the solution was for you to stop using him, not to pretend he's subhuman whenever your friends show up. I know that you know better. Remember, Willow could never have made that antidote that you thanked her for, if Spike and Xander hadn't caught the demon. I hope now you're back to normal you're going to apologise to him for the things you said and thank him for all he's done."
Buffy looked as if she might argue, but then she nodded her head instead. "Okayyyy."
"Good. I'm glad that's settled. Now, do you want anything to eat? Some juice?"
"One third grapefruit, two thirds orange?" Buffy asked hopefully.
"If you've got both," Joyce answered, reminding Buffy that she hadn't exactly been around long enough to do the shopping.
"In that case, make it water. And maybe some soup?"
"I'll see what I can do..." Joyce said, pausing in the doorway. "And I'll buy you a day or two to think about what you want to say to Spike before you see him."
Buffy's look of relief was obvious. "Thanks, mom."
"That's what moms are for." Joyce made it a couple of feet before Buffy called her back.
"Mom? Has anybody worked out what we're going to do about Halfrek?"
"It's all being taken care of, honey. Just relax and get your strength back."
"Xander's kind of tee-ed off at Spike, huh?" Dawn asked as she passed Willow one of the two mugs she'd prepared and took a seat next to her on the steps of the back porch.
Willow shrugged. "Xander's pretty ticked off at himself... which means he's ratty... which means Spike snarks back and Xander gets worse. They pretty much push each other's buttons."
"Do you think Anya will come back?" Dawn asked.
"To Sunnydale?"
Dawn copied Willow's earlier shrug.
Willow seemed to contemplate for a couple of seconds before she replied. "I'm not sure if I would. Apart from her job, she hasn't really got anything to come back for."
"Xander's an ass," Dawn opined. "If a guy did that to me I'd... Well, I probably wouldn't do anything, but I'd wish some horrid STD on him or something. Or leprosy. Leprosy's good."
"Xander didn't do it to hurt her."
"I don't think it matters what he intended. I think if I ever get engaged I'll make him sign a contract to say if he ditches me at the altar I get everything he owns. And if he turned 'round after he did that and said that maybe we could date, I'd stick a knitting needle in through the corner of his eye and wiggle it around just to see if they missed anything when they did the original lobotomy."
"I was going to ask if Buffy knew what sort of books you were reading, but I guess now I get to ask if your mom knows?"
"I know. That's so cool. I wonder if mom'll do the book club thing again."
"Sure she will."
"Maybe if Anya does come back, you and her could be roomies?" Dawn suggested, remembering that her mother's return effectively left Willow looking for somewhere to stay.
"Maybe... If I've gone to hell without realising."
"Anya's not that bad. She was kinda fun to work with when I was doing the working off my debts thing. I wish..."
"What?" Willow asked.
"I wish we just knew that she's okay. I kinda miss her."
The breath that Hallie had been holding came out in a slight sigh. Couldn't the brat even make a proper wish? She obviously had the vindictive streak. It just needed her to put it into words.
"You really miss Anya?" Willow scrunched up her face
"Sure! Remember halloween, when she showed me how to do the dance of capitalist supremacy... and she'd have let me go to her wedding shower if Buffy hadn't been such a prude. I hope she does come back. And I hope she meets someone else and Xander has to watch but that he finds somewhere else to do his moping about it."
The first that Hallie knew of the vampire's presence was when he reached round from behind her and yanked her pendant from her neck. Taking his prize with him, Spike stepped out of the shadows by the fence and walked across the lawn toward the back porch.
"What are you doing?" Halfrek ran after him, but he stuffed the pendant deep into his pocket out of reach.
"I do believe that the usual course of action would be to smash it."
Spike was almost at the porch now and Hallie grabbed at his elbow, holding him back enough for her to get in front of him, the porch light illuminating her human features. "William, if you ever loved me, I beg you, give me the necklace."
Spike's mouth gaped in surprise as he looked into her face. "You were the love of my life... an' you know it," the vampire replied. He watched the flicker of hope that showed on her scheming features before he pulled himself free of her grasp. "Lucky for me I developed better taste after I was dead." He walked up the steps and onto the porch, waiting for the two girls to join him before he opened the back door.
"You can't do it, William!" Hallie called out desperately. "If you smash the pendant, you reverse your wish! The slayer's mother goes back into the ground."
"Nice bluff, pet!" Spike passed the pendant to Willow as she ducked under the arm he was using to hold the door open. Dawn slipped inside as well, lifting the heavy sledgehammer she had searched out earlier. "See, me an' Red, here, we already worked out that you must've played tricks with my noggin after that. Now, it might be that that was the last wish you granted, or there might have been another one since then. Either way, my girls are safe from any more mischief you might want to brew up an' we're still a damn sight better off than we were a couple of days ago!"
"You don't mean that! You could be free. You could have all the warm, fresh human blood you wanted." Hallie bobbed and shifted as she spoke, trying to see past Spike, or even better get past him, but she might as well have tried to push start a double decker bus on an uphill slope. Spike wasn't going anywhere. She watched as Willow set the stone on top of a heavy wooden chopping block and Dawn brought the hammer crashing down.
The Glarghk Guhl Kasma'nik's body lay on the porch wrapped in an old tarpaulin. Soon, Spike would leave and take it with him. He planned to dump it in the sewers near the home of a pack of scavenger demons. It wouldn't go to waste, but for now he found himself sitting on the kitchen counter with a cup of cocoa in his hands and Joyce and Dawn for company.
"She is goin' to be alright, isn't she, Joyce? I mean that stuff the witch brewed up did the trick, right?"
"She'll be fine. She's just not really up to having visitors yet and she's got some things she needs to think through. If you could maybe cover patrol for a couple of nights until she gets back on her feet..."
"You're sure?"
"Trust me, Spike. Give her some space, and maybe, when she comes to you, you'll get a pleasant surprise."
Dawn giggled. "Buffy is totally going to freak when she realises that you two are plotting behind her back."
"Then don't bloody tell 'er," Spike responded, but there was no sharpness in his words, just laughter.
It was three days later before the knock came on his crypt door. For once, she waited for him to open it before she entered.
"Um, hi! Mom said that I should swing by and say thanks for like helping with the demon and doing patrol an' stuff."
Spike gave a sigh. At least she was being polite but it was obvious she didn't want to be here. "Tell yer mum it was nothin'. Not a problem." He pulled the crypt door open again and waited for her to take her leave.
"We're kinda having this thing on Saturday night. Mom and me are cooking dinner and then maybe a few drinks. Kind of a welcome home. You can come if you want..." Buffy kicked at a couple of chipped pieces of concrete that had come away from the floor.
"That'd depend."
For once Buffy couldn't read his face. He still hadn't realeased his grip on the door.
"Why?" he finally asked.
"Why what?"
"Why am I getting the invitation? Because your mum made you to be polite? Because you're overwhelmed with gratitude? Or maybe because at least one of the Summers women actually wants me there? An' if so which one?"
Buffy grimaced and ducked her head, watching him through her fringe. "How about if we all three want you to be there? Provided you promise not to argue too much with Xander... and I made him promise, too. It's not just you." she quickly added.
"In that case you can tell Joyce I'll be there with bells on."
"Okay, I'll... see you then... Unless, maybe you wanted to swing by the house tonight and tell mom yourself and then we could do the patrol thing?"
Spike tilted his head and squinted at the slayer. "Is this like a date?"
Buffy raised her head. Part of her wanted to reply, "Do you want it to be?" but she wasn't really ready to take that step, not yet. "It's two friends doing something they enjoy, together, but say if one of those friends was to be looking for a crumb, then there might be... one. A crumb."
"Just a crumb?" Spike asked, his tone teasing now.
"Maybe a taster," she said, walking backward until she stood in the doorway. "One of those tiny little samples they give away in supermarkets... some day."
"But not today..."
"Not today," she agreed, her tone more serious. "I think maybe we should try friends for a while..." The silence stretched like an over-tightened piano wire. "Ninish?" she finally suggested.
Spike nodded, and was surprised to see her smile in return before she disappeared into the sunlight.
