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Author's Chapter Notes:
Where we learn a little about Joy.
Reunions / Part 16

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The music was loud enough to hear and dance to, but not so loud that it would shake the building or be heard outside. Spikes boys and girls, at least the older ones, were mixed with the slayers in the middle of the room dancing to the pounding beat and burning off the adrenalin they had built up in their systems. Some of the younger boys and girls were hanging around the edges dancing with each other or watching the older kids dance. The youngest of the kids were sitting off to one side watching the dancing and talking. No one was sleeping tonight.

Because of the life they led and the dangers they had to face it wasn’t unusual for Spikes kids to be up all night and sleep during the daylight hours. Daytime meant safety, darkness meant danger. Daytime was the time for sleep and for the older kids to go out and do the things that were necessary for them all to live. Darkness was the time to be ready for fight or flight. Spikes kids were different from other kids their ages, they knew the truth about the night, when things go bump you really did need to be afraid.

Spike was sitting on his cushion close to the door with Dawn sitting next to him, leaning against his shoulder with one arm tucked under his. Willow was sitting on the floor near Dawns feet. Faith and Robin were sitting opposite her at Spikes feet. Joy was currently sitting in Robins lap as she watched the interaction between all the others and Spike. She had been in everyone’s lap at one time or another and no one seemed to mind when she wanted to sit in their lap or move on to someone else’s.

Willow and Spike were the only ones who were truly aware of what she was doing. Besides being a telepath, Joy was also an empath and could sense the emotions in others. The fact that she was sitting in Robins lap and seemed perfectly content to stay there had made Spike feel a lot more at ease. He knew that he and Robin would never be ‘best friends’, or maybe not even ‘friends‘. There was to much between them for that, but Joys reaction to Robin was proof that there wasn’t any danger or hostile feelings.

There were two empty brandy bottles on the floor and Spike was passing a third one he had just opened to Faith when he asked, “Tell me how that works again, I still don’t get it?”

Willow smiled at him as she fiddled with a little blue stone that Joy had given to her earlier. “It’s simple, I put something into the bag, say the magic words and presto. As long as I don’t take the original out of the bag I can keep pulling exact copies out, for as long as I want.”

“No, no, I get that part” Spike said as he nodded his head. “What I don’t get is how you can keep putting stuff in the bag. Look at the silly thing, it’s barely bigger than a loaf of bread.”
“That’s the neat part” Willow said with a grin. “I’m not putting things into the bag, I’m putting them into separate realities, like little pockets. There are thousands of them and anything small enough to fit into the bag will fit into one of the pockets. All I do is say a magic word and a pocket opens up inside the bag. When I say another word I can pull the original thing out of the pocket or say a different word and pull a copy out of the pocket. It’s Simple!”

“So” Spike said as he tilted his head and looked over at Willow with an inquisitive look on his face. “if I gave you some money and you put it in the bag, you could keep reaching in and pulling out more and more money?”

Willow got a thoughtful look on her face before answering. “Well I could, I guess, but I wouldn’t. You see, the copies aren’t really real, they fade away after about a week or so.”

“So” Spike said with a puzzled look on his face, “think about all the things you could buy with it before it faded away.”

“Conscience bother you much?” Faith asked as she raised her eyebrows and looked over at Spike with curiosity.

“Yeah, it does” Spike replied seriously, “more than you’d ever believe Pet. But when you got forty kids to take care of and a few dozen more like the ones we saved tonight, you’d be surprised how much a conscience will let slip through the cracks when your trying to feed hungry people.”

“How bad is it” Robin asked after several moments of silence “the money thing, or getting enough food for everyone?”

Spike looked over at Robin and shrugged his shoulders. “We get by, most of the time. Some of the kids have part time day jobs, that helps. We have some friends in the city that help us out regular like too. Sometimes we even take special jobs, protecting things or people as they move through the underworld. But a little extra never hurts. That’s why I let Red here bribe her way in the other night. It’s been a long time for some of these kids since they had pizzas and burgers and ice cream.”

“That’s not how we meant it Spike” Willow hurried to say. “I mean, I guess it was a bribe, in a way, but it wasn’t a bribe bribe. It was more of a friendly bribe. You know what I mean?”

“I know what you mean Love, an don’t think I’m ungrateful for all the stuff you gave the kids. With all you gave we’re in pretty good shape right now. But sometimes it hurts” Spike said as he laid his hand over his heart “to see them doing without so much, and never a complaint from a one of them. Their good kids, they deserve better than they got out of this life.”

Joy, who had been sitting quietly in Robins lap, squirmed out of it and went over to Spike and sat down across his lap. She put her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. Spike wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. She started cooing quietly to him and after a few moments Spike started cooing back.

Everyone sat quietly for several minutes while Spike and Joy held each other as they cooed quietly to each other. Dawn and Willow were use to these demonstrations of love and affection between the two of them. Faith and Robin were seeing it for the first time and although they weren’t shocked or surprised they were deeply moved by the bond that was so apparent.

Faith had been holding on to the bottle of brandy since Spike had handed it to her. She took a long pull off the bottle and passed it to Robin, who took a swallow and passed it on to Willow. Faith, who was never one to put off doing what needed to be done, cleared her throat and said quietly “Tell us about Joy.”

Spike had been sitting with his eyes closed as he and Joy held each other and cooed into each others ears. When Faith spoke his eyes opened and he looked at her and then at the others. He took in a deep breath and held it, a look of pain and then of determination to face the inevitable crossed his face. He whispered something in Joys ear and she looked up at him, nodded her head, gave him a kiss on the cheek and with his help got up from his lap. She looked at the four people sitting around her and gave them all a sad little smile, then walking away from them went over to join the other small children watching the older ones dancing.

Once she was gone, Spike pulled his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket and lit one up. He drew in a deep breath of smoke and held it in his lungs for long seconds then let it slowly out. Dawn, who had been sitting next to him, moved forward and turned sideways so she could see his face. Willow took a sip off the brandy bottle and held it out toward Spike. Dawn took it from her hand and passed it to Spike. Spike took the bottle in his hand before saying “Been waiting for that for two days now. This lot” Spike nodded his head toward Dawn and Willow “been dancing around all polite like dodging the question they been dying to ask.”

“You know me Spike, no manners” Faith said with a small smile to take any sting or criticism out of her words. “But we need to know the truth about her.”

Spike looked at each of them, Dawn, Willow, Robin and Faith, and could see that it was time. He lifted the brandy bottle to his lips and took several long swallows, then passed the bottle to Faith. He sat back against the wall and took another long drag off his cigarette.

“I got a friend named Anne. She was a friend of Charles and Angel, before I ended up here in L.A.. She runs a shelter for kids that need help. She was a friend of Tyron too. Anyway, once I was able to get up and walk again, after the … fight, I started helping Tyron to look out for the people in the neighborhood and the kids on the street. Tyron had a group of youngsters that were trying to keep the vampires from taking over his home turf and had been doing pretty good at it for awhile. But after Angel was kil…, after Angel was gone, things started getting harder. More vampires were showing up in the city all the time. We’d rescued a group of kids that were sheltering up in an abandoned building and ended up taking them to Anne for safety.”

Spike lit up another cigarette before continuing to talk. “At first Anne didn’t trust me all that much, being a vampire an all, but after awhile we started to get along alright. It turns out that I had met her once, years earlier in Sunnydale where I tried to kill her, so it made sense her not trusting me an all. Anyway, with us getting along better an all that, what with us saving kids and sending them off to her for help, she started telling us about more kids in the area that could use a little looking out for now and then.”

“Joys mother was an orphan or a runaway, don‘t really know, living on the streets when she showed up at Anne’s place pregnant. Anne had been helping her out as much as she could, but the girl wouldn’t come into the shelter to stay and wouldn’t go into foster care or anything. After the baby was born she was even more afraid to get help, afraid someone would take her baby away from her. About five years ago Anne sent word to Tyron and asked us to keep an eye on the girl and her baby cause she was living in a neighborhood that was seeing some vampire action.” Spike took another long drag off his cigarette and seeing that Faith was still holding the brandy bottle took it back from her and took a long swallow, then passed it back to her.

“The girl had started going to places for food an stuff for the baby and ended up coming back from someplace after dark. Me, Tyron and a couple of his boys were on our way to her place to check on her when we heard her screaming. She should have known better, but she’d gone down an alley to get to the back of her building and some vampires jumped her. By the time we got to the alley the girl was dead and one of the vampires had the little girl cornered and was playing with her, like a cat with a mouse. We jumped them right away and dusted them, but like I said, it was to late for the girl. When Tyron tried to approach the little girl she started screaming and ran right past him and wrapped her arms around my leg and held on tight.”

Spike sat there smoking his cigarette while the others sat around him in silence. They knew that wasn’t the end of the story and waited for Spike to continue. Faith and Robin sat stoically without any expression on their faces, both had seen to many deaths over the years to be shocked by the death of another. Willow had her head bowed as she played with the little blue stone. Dawn didn’t say anything either, but she reached out and put her hand on Spikes knee. When he looked up at her he could see tears in her eyes.

“That’s when it happened, when she touched me” Spike finally continued. “When she touched me I could feel everything she was feeling, her pain, fear, loss, everything. I could feel that as she held on to me she felt safe, that I would protect her. I could feel that she knew what I was, she knew I was a vampire, just like the monsters that had just killed her mother and would have killed her, but she knew I would keep her safe, she trusted me to protect her. That’s what I’ve been doing the past five years, protecting her and loving her. She’s part of my heart now. She’s the best part of whatever I am or will ever be.”

Spike found the last bottle of brandy, ripped the seal off and opened the bottle. He took a long drink and sitting the bottle down lit another cigarette. “We couldn’t do anything for the girl, so we took the little one back to where we were staying and sent someone to fetch Anne. Tyron called the police and reported a dead girl in an alley, that’s all we could do for her. When Anne got to our place she tried to take Joy, she was going to take her back to her place and call Family Services or someone. When she touched the girl to take her away, Joy sent a mental bolt of something into her head and knocked her out cold. She wouldn’t let anyone but me touch her or hold her. I could feel that she was sorry for hurting Anne, but she didn’t want to leave me. Once Anne woke up she agreed to let the girl stay with me until she was calmer. We figured that once she did calm down it would be safe for Anne to take her away. But after a few weeks turned into a few months it just never happened.”

“Also Niblet, just so you know” Spike said as he reached out and laid one hand on top of Dawns, “I named her after your mum. Anne said the mothers name was Sarah, she never knew her last name, but she didn’t know the little girls name at all. Sarah had never told Anne or anyone else the girls name, she just called her ‘baby’. I didn’t do it right away, give her your mums name that is, but after I found out when she was born, the date and what time, I asked her if I could call her Joyce and she agreed. I didn‘t think you‘d mind to much.”

“Why would I mind? I don’t understand” Dawn choked out as a tear ran slowly down her cheek. “What does date and time have to do with giving her my moms name?”

Spike picked up the brandy bottle and took another drink then passed the bottle to Dawn. “Take a drink, your going to need it” Spike told Dawn gently. When Dawn had finished taking a large swallow, Spike took the bottle back and took another drink himself

Spike glanced at the others sitting around him waiting for him to continue. “When you look at Joy how old do you think she is, six, maybe seven? She’s actually older than she looks. In a couple of days, day after this one, at noon, she’ll be eight years old.”

When he looked around at everyone Spike could see that the significance of what he had just told them hadn’t registered. “I told you Sarah went to Anne when she was pregnant. On May 20th, 2003 Anne helped deliver Joy at noon, at her shelter.”

Willow was the first to understand. He eyes got big and her mouth formed an O. “Remember why we went to the Hellmouth late that morning” Spike asked them all? “We wanted the sun to be at it’s brightest in case any of those Turok-Han vampires got out of the building. Buffy, the potentials and I went down into the Hellmouth while Willow and the rest stayed above us to cast the spell that was suppose to awaken the slayer powers in all the potentials. Well, from what I can tell it did more than that, it awakened the slayer powers in all the potentials around the world. By my best guess the spell took affect just about noon, the same time Joy was being born.”

“Oh my Goddess” Willow exclaimed. “But, but it can’t be! I checked Joy the first night I saw her. She doesn’t have any of the emanations the other slayers show.”

“You can’t even detect me in this room if I don’t want you to” Spike said as he lifted the cross hanging around his neck on a chain. “Joy wears one under her dress, you just haven’t seen it yet.”

“Oh my Goddess” Willow repeated in a hushed voice of wonder.

“Sarah gave birth to Joy, but Willow’s spell and Buffy’s slayer powers made her what she is now.”

“Are you saying she’s a slayer” Faith asked?

“I think she’s a slayer and more than a slayer. I think she’s a Guardian” Spike said emphatically.

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