Buffy’s phone rang and, not too surprisingly, she answered it.

“Miss Summers?”

“Speaking.”

“Miss Buffy Summers?” The voice on the phone had a lovely English accent, which always made Buffy think of Spike but the man sounded as though he was around Giles’ age.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Buffy, the…” His voice dropped to a whisper, “Vampire slayer?”

“Yep, who am I speaking to?”

Sir Robert told her.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy replied, “You said that as though you thought I’d know who you are but I don’t.”

“I’m Lily’s father.” His voice broke, slightly as he said Lily’s name.

“Lily?” Buffy hadn’t heard of her but for some reason a vision of the dark-haired girl from her dream, swam before her eyes.

“She’s a slayer. Giles promised me she’d be alright but she’s gone through the portal, chasing after that damned vampire… No, that’s not fair, he really is a decent chap and she loves him so much but the baby’s due soon and she hasn’t come back… Giles won‘t return my calls, treacherous bastard…”

“Sir Robert, please, slow down. Tell me about this vampire.”

“Giles asked Lily to look after him, while he was in England because of what happened with the other slayer, in L.A. but Lily had her own agenda. She’d had a mental connection to him, starting when he got his soul back, right up until she became a slayer…”

A the mention of the vampire’s soul, Buffy’s heart started to pound.

“Sir Rober…”

“Just Robert, please…”

“Robert, this is very important, what is this vampire’s name?” She held her breath, silently praying that he wouldn’t say ‘Angel’.

“Calls himself Spike, although his mother gave him a perfectly good name…”

“And he’s alive?”

“As much as any vampire. Of course, he might not be, now…”

“You’re in England, yes?” Buffy said, making a decision.

“Yes, will you come?”

“I’ll be on the next flight. Give me your number, I’ll let you know when I’ll be landing.”

“Whatever you do, don’t tell Giles. If he’s up to something and he always is, he’ll try to stop you.”

“Oh, he and I will be having a little chat, one day but not yet, I’m too angry with him.” Buffy replied.

Buffy was seething with rage when she hung up the phone. How dare Giles do this to her again? Somehow, Spike was alive, Giles knew about it and he’d said nothing. He’d watched Buffy mourning Spike; all the while, knowing that Spike was still out there.

Did all her friends know? Once again, she was being treated like a six year old, kept in the dark for her own good. She threw some clothes into a holdall and, saying nothing about her plans, to anyone, headed out.

* * * * *

Buffy had time to think, on the flight. She knew that Dawn would be worried and promised herself that she’d call, as soon as she landed but she wouldn’t be telling even her, where she was.

Buffy could picture her future encounter with Giles. She would be angry and Giles would be so infuriatingly calm and reasonable. He would tell her, calmly and patiently, how these difficult decisions were essential to a good leader and how, obviously, Buffy - with all the mental capacity of a six year old - wasn’t the right person to make them.

* * * * *

Buffy was in Sir Robert’s library, sitting where Spike had sat, so many months ago. She was looking down at the photo of Lily, taken when she was manifesting Spike’s burns.

“I was with him, when this happened…” Buffy said, absently. She looked up at Sir Robert’s questioning look. “The burns. He’d just told me about getting his soul back,” She explained. “We were in an abandoned church, he was… it was like he was insane. There was this huge cross and he embraced it. It was so horrible. He just stood there, resting against it and there was smoke coming off him, his flesh was sizzling and it was like he couldn’t feel it. He just didn’t care.”

“You love him.”

“Yes. With all my heart.” Buffy answered, without thinking and realized that it was the first time she had really told anyone. She had always been so afraid of what people would think of her. As if it mattered. Now, here she was, telling an almost-stranger. A man whose daughter was actually pregnant, by the man that Buffy loved.

Sir Robert put his hand on her shoulder.

“He loves you, too.” He said, gently. “Don’t get me wrong,” He continued, when Buffy looked up at him questioningly. “He cares for Lily, loves her, even but it doesn’t touch what he feels for you. I could see it, in him. He’s been trying to move on, the way he believes that you have…only, you haven’t. Now that I’ve met you, I can see that.”

“Tell me about Lily.” Buffy said, not wanting to think about a scenario where Spike would have to choose between them.

“Well, the coma, you already know about. After she became a slayer, she tried to put Spike behind her, as it were. We didn’t have a big vampire problem, in fact her biggest threat was being caught with a weapon. The police have really cracked down on that sort of thing.” He added, at Buffy’s frown. “Then, Wells turned up, with a ‘Slayer Kit’, gave us a big song and dance about destiny and flowering womanhood and explained all the gadgets. The GPS watch, of course, is now useless because it can’t track across dimensions…” He paused and swallowed, obviously thinking of his little girl, lost in another reality.

Buffy thought of her own ‘slayer watch’, sitting on her dressing table in Rome. Good luck tracking me, Andrew, she thought. She’d paid cash for her flight, too…

“I’m getting ahead of myself, sorry. Wells told her that, as she was already slaying vampires, she didn’t have go to the college in Rome; she had been nervous about meeting you… and, of course, she had a lot of demon knowledge, gained from Spike, so, she elected to stay here.

“Things were going fine, quiet, even. Then, six months down the line, Giles showed up. He said he had a special assignment for Lily.”

“Spike?” Buffy asked.

“Spike. He explained that Spike, an ensouled vampire, was in L.A., fighting evil and might be coming to England. He said, that if that happened, he wanted Lily to look after him.”

“I don’t get that, why would Spike need looking after?” Buffy asked.

“Because of the ‘Dana incident’.” Sir Robert replied, as though it was obvious.

“Something else I’ve been kept in the dark over, I guess.”

“She was psychotic, in an institution, when she became a slayer. Due to a mistake in her medication, she escaped. Spike tracked her down but she overpowered him. A sane slayer, would have dusted him but Dana, imagining him to be the man who kidnapped and tortured her as a child, drugged him and made sure he could never touch her again. She cut his hands off.” He finished, at Buffy’s questioning look.

Buffy blanched.

“They were re-attached.” Sir Robert reassured her. “Hardly left a scar.”

“He told you all this?” Buffy asked, thinking the Spike she knew wouldn’t want to talk about, what he would consider, his weakness.

“It was all in Wells’ file. Giles gave it to Lily to read, when he gave her the assignment.”

“There’s a file. Of course.” Buffy muttered, “Wait, Andrew knew?”

“He was there. Wrote a file on Spike’s activities. Giles has been keeping all this from you, yes?”

“Yes and God knows what else. All I knew, was that Andrew was being sent on various assignments, around the world. Damn Giles. He’s been like a father to me but I wish he’d stop trying to make all my decisions.”

“He was your watcher, when you were first called?”

“Well, not my first but from fairly early on.”

“And your …ah.. biological father?”

“Ran off with his secretary.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say, that a father’s job is not to make decisions for you. As far as I’m concerned, a good father should let his daughter decide for herself and be ready to pick up the pieces, if it goes wrong. I may not have been happy that Lily was in love with a vampire but I had to trust her judgement. At least the vampire in question had fought for and won his soul…”

“That never seemed to make a difference, to my friends. Mom liked him, though.” Buffy said the last part, almost to herself. “Tell me about the portal.” She said, looking up.

“That opened a few weeks after Giles had visited. Not that I’m implying a connection, the stone circle’s been there for millennia. There’s a poem and, knowing about the existence of slayers, it’s rather obvious that it refers to spilling the blood of seven slayers, on the centre stone, on consecutive full moons. Someone had already started doing that, months before Giles came. We knew nothing about it, until visitors started turning up.”

“Visitors?”

“Demons, to start with. Apparently, some travel around, using pre-existing portals. Lily handled the rowdy ones. She’s a superb fighter - her connection with Spike - but she won’t kill for the sake of it. If a demon’s peaceful, she won’t harm them.”

“That’s good. It’s one of the things we try to teach at the college, so many slayers think that demon equals bad but reality’s never black and white.”

“Things became much easier, when Lorne showed up.”

“I’ve heard of him, friend of Angel‘s?”

“Yes. He’s an empath and he’s set up a bar in the village. He knows whenever the portal’s used.”

“He’s guarding it, now?”

“No, Garri is. He’s a friend of Lily’s, they were at school together. He’s a warlock. Since Lily went through the portal, he’s been down there, every night; throwing sunlight spells at any vampires that come through.”

“Sounds useful, a friend of mine tried to develop a spell for that. I hope this Garri’s being careful.”

“He did a lot of research on the stones - local legends, rune translations - he wants to go through and try to rescue Lily but a person needs slayer blood, to pass and we don’t have access to any, not since Lily went.”

“She’s really carrying Spike’s child?”

“Yes, there’s no doubt that it’s his. She was… untouched… before him. We put it about that he wasn’t the biological father, apparently vampire’s babies command a high price - being so rare - so we had a fertility clinic deny involvement.”

“Huh?”

“Worked like a charm. They deny it, everyone thinks they’re lying.”

“Else why mention it? Brilliant.” Buffy said, admiringly.

“We thought so, unfortunately we hadn’t bargained on Spike being kidnapped and dragged into the portal. When that happened, I knew that nothing would stop Lily going in after him.”

“If she’s alive, I’ll bring her back.”

“Oh, she’ll still be alive. Lorne is adamant that Jennifer Anne will be born healthy. What I’m afraid of, is that Lily will be killed after the birth.”

“When’s she due?” Buffy asked, gently, fearing that she was about to see this sweet, kind man, cry.

“Two weeks or so. She told me, before she went, to get in touch with you, if she failed to return. She said that you could be trusted and you would be strong enough, it‘s taken me a while to track you down…” He turned away, abruptly and rummaged in a drawer. He handed Buffy an envelope. “She wrote you a letter, before she left.”

Dear Buffy (the letter said),

If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. Sorry to sound melodramatic but there’s no point glossing over it.

This feels awkward, I know so much about you and you know hardly anything about me. My dad will have told you, by now, about the connection between me and Spike. Try not to dwell on any of the things that you inadvertently shared with me, while you were with Spike - I was only with him from the time he won his soul, until I became a slayer. I came to love him, through sharing his feelings and his belief in you was overwhelming.

Don’t think badly of him that he fell straight into bed with me. He knew that you’d moved on and he was desperate to prove that he could do the same and, vampires are always attracted to family members. Usually, they kill them, the blood being such a strong lure but, of course, Spike had to be different. He left most of his family alive and so, generations later, here I am.

Now, it’s the generation still to come, that I have to worry about. I know what you’re thinking, if I’m so worried about Jennifer Anne, why jump through a portal to rescue Spike? Answer, because I love him and he is Jennifer Anne’s parent as much as I am and she’ll need him.

Back when Mr. Giles phoned to tell me when and where Spike would be entering the country, I went to sing for Lorne. He hadn’t been here long, then but word had soon got around about his talent. He told me that Spike would love me and I would be happy with him, for the rest of my life. My being a slayer and Spike a vampire, I assumed that Lorne was referring to the obvious difference in our life spans. He won’t say but I now believe that I won’t live through the birth. For the sake of our child, Spike must live.

I’m so sorry to put this on your shoulders, Buffy but I feel there is no other choice; if anything should happen to Spike, I would be eternally grateful if you would raise Jennifer Anne. Of course, my father will want to be involved but you are strong enough to protect her. Lorne says that she is destined for greatness, whatever that means. I’m sure that there will be enemies, that she will need to be kept safe from.

If you decide to pass through the portal, be warned that the ‘master’ vampire, over there, is Lilith. According to Dalton, she has the strongest thrall ever! She lives in that dimension’s version of my father’s house and, obsessively protective of her ’life’, she never leaves. She kills and sires slayers. She has minions track them down, capture and bring them to her. Both Kendra and Faith are there. Slayer minions have strong thrall of their own. Be very careful.

I’m sorry to have to tell you that Lilith, before she was turned, was Spike’s mother. She was the only person he ever, willingly, sired. Whatever happens, over there, he’s bound to be emotionally scarred.

I feel I should say that Spike still loves you. Yes, he’s fond of me but I know, from the time I spent sharing his consciousness, that what he feels and will always feel, for you, is so much greater. Had he not been on the rebound, from you, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Even though we have never met, Buffy, I remember how it felt to love you.

Lily

* * * * *

The sun was coming up, when Buffy climbed onto the Rune stone.