Back from vacation. Sorry about the delay, and i hope you enjoy!

Initially, despite his misgivings, Spike thought the Slayer would be all right confronting her mother, regardless of what bad blood lay between them. She was holding her ground, and making herself heard. But then, in an instant, she seemed to freeze when the woman grabbed her arms, she went rigid as though she couldn’t free herself, as though she were the child she had so resembled a moment before. He waited for a handful of painful seconds for her to wake up, but he couldn’t bear to see her like this; he had to intervene.

He did so with a growl, shifting thoughtlessly into his demon guise to wrench the woman away. It was all he could do not to snap her neck in the process. Instead, he forced himself to turn toward the Slayer and wanted to growl again when he noticed the wet traces down her cheeks.

He tried to catch her gaze and kept his voice low. “You’re OK?”

She stopped shaking, barely, and gave a weak nod that Spike didn’t believe. He followed the trail of a tear on her face with a finger. She blinked at that then frowned, as though just realizing that she was crying, and hurriedly wiped her cheeks. Her second nod wasn’t any more convincing than the first, but it would have to do.

Turning to face the woman again, he felt a jolt of savage satisfaction at the mixed shock and fear he could read on her features.

“You will not put your hands on her again,” he warned her, his tone conveying that the penalty for her transgression would be death. “That clear enough for you?”

The trembling woman looked past him, to her daughter behind him. Spike scowled. Did she expect help from the Slayer, now?

“Buffy? What…what is going on?”

When she answered, the Slayer’s voice was cooler than Spike would have expected given her recent tears. She sounded almost appeased, although Spike couldn’t see what would have soothed her.

“I told you before,” she said. “Vampires exist. And you’ve just pissed off one of them.”

Master vampire, he itched to correct her, but kept quiet save for a snarl directed at the increasingly pale woman in front of him. He was about to show her back to the door – even though breaking her neck still seemed like an appealing option – when the Slayer’s hand resting on his arm stopped him. The touch was as delicate as a butterfly’s wing caressing him, the softest touch of her hand he had ever been granted, yet Spike felt as though he had been branded with a hot iron. He looked at her, an eyebrow raised, and was glad when she met his eyes without flinching.

“Put the fangs away?”

It was half a plea, half a demand, and Spike complied easily. Her next words were harder to accept.

“Would you make tea for my…for Joyce and me? Please?”

It was twice in only a few minutes that she had used that small word – please – when asking something from him. Spike liked it on her lips, almost as much as he liked to see her defiant and stubborn. He had a feeling he would like it even more the day she uttered it while he was buried between her thighs. And because he liked it so much, he complied again, though only after throwing a warning glare and showing a flash of fangs at the woman whom, he had noticed, the Slayer didn’t even call her mother anymore.

He kept an ear out for them as he hurried to the kitchen and through the motions of putting a kettle full of water on the gas. Turning back to look at them, he saw the Slayer close the front door and suggest to the shaking woman that they sit down in the living room. Spike scowled a little at that, though he had known the Slayer intended for Joyce to stay a little longer at least if she wanted tea. He would much rather have been alone with her.

Joyce’s words were quiet and hesitant once she had sat down on the sofa next to her daughter, but they seemed to echo in the silence of the flat.

“I…I am sorry. So sorry. I should have believed you. I should have seen that you were telling the truth. And instead I had you locked up…”

She seemed to choke on the words even as a wave of icy anger ran down Spike’s back. What did she mean, locked up? The Slayer did not reply in any way.

“But I know, now,” she continued after a few moments. “I know you’re not crazy, you were never crazy. Vam…vampires do exist.”

The enormity of what she was saying seemed to hit her, and she fell silent once more. Behind Spike, the kettle started whistling and he busied himself in the quasi-automatic steps of warming the teapot, throwing in the leaves and water before stirring. He pulled out mugs as he waited for the flavor to infuse, and added a healthy dose of honey to one. He had noticed the Slayer liked her tea almost sweet enough to be undrinkable by a civilized palate.

By the time he poured the dark brew into the mugs, Joyce had started talking again, asking small questions that received diffident answers. Had she truly not known what her daughter was? But then, she hadn’t even believed vampires existed until a few minutes ago. The picture her words and questions formed in Spike mind cast some light onto the Slayer’s behavior in the past few days, and why she had been so upset by her mother’s presence in town. He would ask, once they were alone, but he was beginning to understand and his daydream of killing Joyce fast was turning into a need to see her in pain for a long time.

One mug in each hand, he finally walked out of the kitchen and almost missed a step at what he heard.

“Are you…are you a vampire too? It’s OK if you are, honey, I won’t—”

“I’m not,” the Slayer interrupted bluntly.

“But your neck…”

She made a gesture toward the scar on the Slayer neck that made Spike want to growl. He had warned her not to touch her daughter again. But the Slayer’s small fingers touching those marks, almost caressing them, gave him pause and he stopped a few steps behind them.

“Spike…” she started, and hesitated for a second before starting again. “We fought, and he bit me. He won. But I’m still me. Not a vampire.”

Something deep inside Spike stirred and he wondered what things would be like if he had turned her – or if he ever did. The temptation was obviously there, to have a companion again to cross decades and centuries with, but he wanted to know her heat before he truly considered it.

“He bit you,” Joyce repeated, sounding horrified. “He could have killed you, couldn’t he? It’s what they do, isn’t it? But you live here? Is he forcing you? Do you—”

“He doesn’t force me to do anything,” the Slayer interrupted.

Spike snorted to himself as he glanced at the two mugs in his hands. There was indeed little doubt as to which of them made the other dance to a merry tune. With a shake of his head, he started stepping toward them again, unnoticed by the two women.

“Then why?” Joyce insisted. “He could hurt you.”

“He won’t. I know he won’t. I feel safe here. With him.”

At those words, it took all of Spike’s self control not to drop the mugs, shove Joyce out of the door and take the Slayer to his bed to shag her senseless.


All Buffy needed was one look toward Spike as he approached the sofa to know he had heard her. Troubled, she looked away under the pretext of pulling upright the coffee table they had knocked sideways when fighting earlier in the afternoon. She had not wanted him to hear that she trusted him, even if it was true. That would give him ideas – another quick glance confirmed as much – and she would have even more trouble convincing him that whatever he wanted to happen between them was a bad idea and needed to be stopped.

She already had trouble convincing herself.

With a quiet word of thanks, she accepted the mug from him, and watched her mother’s eyes widen as she hesitantly did the same. Joyce was clearly scared of Spike.

“Could you leave us?” Buffy asked in the same gentle tone she had used when asking for tea.

His refusal was a flat and unequivocal “no,” uttered as he flung himself in the armchair behind Joyce. She turned to look at him, uncomfortable even though she said nothing. He looked at her with a frown before his gaze slid over to Buffy. Her mouth was open and she was ready to argue with him, once again, about privacy, but the small, soft smile barely tugging at his lips stopped her. He wasn’t trying to annoy her, she realized, nor did he want to eavesdrop on what would be said; he could have done as much from the other room. He wanted to stay for the same reason he had stepped between her and her mother, earlier. To protect her.

The irritation she had felt vanished, replaced by sweetness due only in part to the warm honeyed tea sliding down her throat.

“I’m not going back with you,” she said, calm but firm, bringing her mother’s attention back to her. “Los Angeles is not my home anymore.”

Without even taking a sip from it, Joyce put her mug down on the coffee table, spilling a little tea as her hands shook.

“Why not?” she pleaded. She started reaching out toward Buffy, but the light growl coming from behind her stopped her. “I understand, now. I know you were telling the truth. Things are different now.”

Buffy washed away the bitter taste of betrayal with another sip of tea. Her mother had apologized, but she couldn’t help but feeling that those few words were far from sufficient to erase months of nightmares.

“Your father and I separated,” Joyce continued when Buffy didn’t answer. “We’re getting—”

“I don’t want to know.” In a way, she already did. Hank would have been there too, if they had still been together. “It doesn’t concern me anymore. There are things I have to do. Important things, and I need to be in Sunnydale to do them.”

She paused, just long enough to glance at Spike and understand that he would only keep quiet until they were alone, then focused on her mother again. Her next words weren’t as hard to pronounce as she had thought they would be, but they soothed something deep inside her, a cut that had been bleeding for two years now.

“I can’t go back with you, mom. Not ever. Not after what you did to me.”

Apologies flowed, along with regret and some tears, but Buffy refused to let any of it touch her. Her eyes drifted back to Spike, who returned her gaze pensively.

“You should go home,” she said after a while, when Joyce started repeating herself. “I’m not going to change my mind, and there’s nothing you can do to force me to come with you. If you send the police to get me, I’ll run away again, and this time you can be sure I won’t call you and give you a way to track me.”

Joyce nodded, although reluctantly. “Can I come back and see you?” she asked.

Buffy wished she could have accepted, but she didn’t have it in her. “I don’t know.”

Leaving her empty mug on the table, she stood, and Joyce did as well after a second. Although clearly shaken, she started once again to reach out toward Buffy, maybe for a hug, but a noise behind her startled her and she stopped to look back at Spike. He returned her look blankly, and whatever she read in his eyes seemed to dissuade her from hugging Buffy.

They walked to the door in silence and exchanged quiet goodbyes. When Buffy closed and locked it behind her mother, she wasn’t surprised to find Spike behind her. She could see the questions in his eyes, and she knew he would press until he had answers she wasn’t ready to give. Not yet, when her mind was still reeling from a confrontation she had imagined many times, although in her dreams it had never gone as smoothly; in those scenarios she had always ended up running, or locked up again.

With a slight shake of her head, she placed a finger across his lips and gave him an apologetic smile before gently pressing her mouth to his in a chaste kiss. He tried to deepen it, but she stepped aside, and offered him another smile.

“Thank you,” she murmured, meaning the words more than she had ever meant anything, and stepped back to her room to get ready for patrol.


Of course, Spike followed the Slayer when she went out. She didn’t talk to him, or welcome him in any way, but neither did she flat out refuse his presence. He asked a few questions about what had transpired with her mother, but she declined to answer, leaving him frustrated enough that he let her continue without him.

No more than half an hour had passed that he was back by her side. He’d get his answers, eventually. He’d get everything he wanted, in the end, he was sure of it. Every day that passed with her remaining in his flat, every look they shared, every touch or kiss, as small as it may be, bound them together. It wouldn’t be long now before he could make her his.