**~**
Five days later, Friday, September 23rd, 2011:
Spike looked up from the telly, cursing under his breath as he heard someone coming down the garden steps. Buffy, Bess, and Faith were supposed to be at one of the innumerable meetings in the Slayer Salt Mines … err, the Council, that is; the kids were all supposed to be in school. He and his little Testa Rossa were supposed to have the afternoon alone. Free to watch the telly in peace and bloody quiet!
“No!” ‘Kenzie squealed with a delighted giggle – her voice joyful rather than stern – when Spike paused his recording of the season premiere of ‘The Walking Dead’.
“Agree with ya on that one, Princess,” he muttered as the screen froze in a moment when a half-rotted corpse was tearing out someone's throat. Spike looked at the on-screen vision and smiled a bit in reflection. Ahh, the good ole days. He briefly thought of reclaiming a bit of his youth with whoever it was about to disturb his ‘gore-time’.
“Papa! No!” MacKenzie admonished him, reaching a hand out from her perch on his knee towards the TV.
“Shhhh, pet,” Spike cajoled, bouncing her lightly. “Now what ‘ave I told ya ‘bout that? If your mum hears ya saying that, it’ll hurt ‘er feelings. C’mon now, try again: ‘Mama’ … You say it now,” he instructed firmly.
“Papa! T.T.!” the nearly-year-old red-head retorted, giving him a dour frown, still reaching toward the T.V. … not the T.T.
Spike sighed and shook his head. “Most stubborn Summers yet, I’d wager,” he reflected as the door to the garden opened and Troy hobbled inside.
Spike stood up, cradling the baby on his forearm, and started toward the larger man. “Bess ain’t ‘ere – got one a’ them Slayer pow-wows,” he announced as he walked.
“I know,” Troy replied, holding a hand over his ribs. “Man, those steps are killer with broken ribs.”
Spike snorted. “Tell me about it,” he agreed.
Troy staggered to the nearest chair, half bent over protecting his ribs, and sat down with a moan of relief and pain. “How many times have you had your ribs broken?” he wondered as Spike leaned on the arm of the chair opposite Bess’ beaten and bruised suitor.
“Can’t count that high,” Spike replied.
“How many times by a Summers?” Troy continued.
Spike snorted. “Still can’t count that high.”
Troy started to laugh but caught himself. “Man, that hurts.”
“Didn’t they give ya any feel-good pills?” Spike wondered.
Troy nodded. “Yeah, took one … four days ago. It’s hard to go to class when you keep seeing giant butterflies dive-bombing VW Bugs.”
Spike quirked a brow. “Good stuff, that.”
“No doubt,” Troy agreed. “I just hate seeing innocent Volkswagens getting indiscriminately mutilated.”
Spike smirked at him, then settled down into the chair he’d been leaning on, jiggling the baby idly against his chest. “So, ya know Bess ain’t here, reckon that means ya came to see someone else.”
“You reckon right. Came to see you,” Troy agreed.
“So you’ve accomplished your mission. Congrats! If you’re done ogling me, I got a show t’ watch,” Spike dismissed him, standing back up.
“Mr. Weckerly, I … Please, I know you don’t like me, but … could I just talk to you a minute … about Bess?” Troy asked in earnest.
Spike sighed, rolled his eyes, and settled back into the seat across from the beaten man. Both of Troy’s eyes were purplish-black all the way around, but they were no longer swollen shut, his nose had been broken, his jaw was swollen and bruised, as were his lips. His arm was in a cast from wrist to elbow and, though Spike couldn't see it, he knew he must have some sort of wrap around his ribs. The big man looked like death warmed over. Spike had looked that way a time or two in his life.
“I told ya before that Summers women weren’t t’ be trifled with. Lucky she didn’t kill ya, Indy.”
“I get that,” Troy agreed. “She … says she’s sorry about it. Says it won’t happen again. Says … she loves me.”
Spike’s brows rose, wrinkling his forehead. “Does she, now?”
“Yeah … I just … Well, I was wondering … she seems sincere, but there was a lot about her that I didn’t know before, and … now I feel like maybe there’s still more I don’t know.
“So, I was wondering if you had any more … Summers women insight that you’d care to share with a novice,” Troy finished with trepidation.
Spike pursed his lips to conceal a smile. “Ya didn’t take the advice I gave ya before,” he pointed out.
“I see the error in my ways and assure you I’m not one to repeat my mistakes,” Troy replied seriously.
Spike nodded thoughtfully for moment, then looked down at the confounding baby in his arms. He wondered momentarily if one day he’d be having a similar talk with another young man who’d been beaten senseless – with either words or fists – by his youngest. It seemed almost inevitable.
Spike sighed and looked back at Troy. He didn’t really hate the git, in fact, he’d gained a modicum of respect for him since the mission to Arizona. He just didn’t want Bess hurt, her trust destroyed, her self-esteem crushed.
Finally, after being silent for a full five minutes, long enough that Troy had begun to think he wouldn’t get any answer at all, Spike spoke, “Summers women are smart as bloody whips – not always book-smart, but cunning, could even say devious at times. They’ll look ya in the eye and lie to you straight out – if it serves some purpose they deem worthy. Mostly that means they’re trying t’ save the world or some rot like that.”
Troy cast a questioning glance at Spike.
Spike shrugged and sighed.
“That’s about the only time they’ll flat-out lie to ya – for the greater good and all that. Or at Christmas,” he added hastily. “Christmas is a time of tall tales, all in the name o’ the little Christ child. Never quite followed that logic, but … no matter.” Spike waved a hand dismissively.
“Generally, though, rather than lies, their strategy is silence. Try t’ make you guess what’s goin’ on in that pretty, little noggin. Got fairly good at it over the years, I did, but Buffy can still stump me at times – and Bess … well … she’s a bit of a sticky wicket.
“Reckon she told you ‘er story, start to end, so ya know she was a child o’ the Victorian age – o’ the Gilded Age in America. She lived most of her life shut away from the world – in a hell dimension of man’s own making – then she got brought back, so t’ speak, into a world so changed that she might’ve been in a different dimension altogether.
“Was like time-travel for her, I reckon; going from carts and horses t’ cars and airplanes, from town criers to the internet…”
“From the prudish, ‘Lie back and think of England', straight past free love to safe sex,” Troy interjected.
Spike inclined his head in agreement. “Outwardly, she handled it brilliantly. Bloody fool I was on that. Was just that patented Summers-silence, and when it finally exploded – which it always does sooner or later – it took a long while t’ clean up the fallout.
“Add to the Summers’ stubborn silence the power and aggression of a Slayer and you got yourself a handful o’ deadly wildcat. Top it off with the violence and strength of a vamp, and you’ve got a rabid wolverine on your hands, mate.
“So, you want t’ know if you can trust what she tells ya now, that it, Indy? Wonder if she really loves ya or if she’ll turn on ya again?”
Troy shrugged. “I … don’t really know what I’m asking. I believe her – I think she really means it … today. I guess I just wondered if someone like me – a regular guy – could…”
“Survive ‘er?” Spike interjected.
Troy shook his head. “No, sir. I wondered if I could really make her happy – in the long run – because that’s all I really want to do, sir.”
Spike stopped his gentle rocking of the baby in his arms a moment as he took Troy’s question in and considered it. It wasn’t until ‘Kenzie began to fidget that he remembered she was there and began bouncing her gently against him again.
Spike ran his free hand back through his hair and shook his head. “Not sure anyone can tell ya that but her, Indy. Seems to me she’s told you as much just by not runnin’ off – which I half-expected after the tiff you had.”
Troy snorted. “Tiff? That was a ‘tiff’?”
Spike shrugged. “On the verge of a row,” he acquiesced. “There was a time when I’d’ve said no way a human could make a Slayer happy … let alone a Slayer-vamp,” Spike admitted. “Got a question t’ ask you – a right personal one: has she ever bit you … drawn blood with her fangs?”
Troy furrowed his brow and shook his head. “Why would she? She eats … pig’s blood, right?”
“Yeah,” Spike agreed. “For sustenance, but there’s more to a bite than food value.” Spike’s brow furrowed as he considered this. “She didn’t even bite you when you were fightin’, did she? Didn’t even show ‘er demon to you, did she?”
Troy shook his head. “Not that I saw."
"Have you ever seen her in her full demon regalia?" Spike wondered.
"Yeah, I mean ... she showed me when she first told me about ... what she was – a long time ago."
"But not, for example, when you're practicing that safe sex you alluded to?" Spike continued.
Troy shook his head. "No. Does that mean something? Is that important?”
“Not rightly sure, Indy. Could be she was more in control than I gave ‘er credit for when she beat ya senseless – which wouldn’t bode well, t’ be honest.”
**~**
Spike caught up with Bess on patrol later that night. He’d followed her through two cemeteries, keeping his distance and watching. She’d staked two newly-risen vamps before they’d even made it out of the ground. There had been no fight, no Buffy-esque puns, no ‘spot of violence’ like he and Buffy used to revel in when they’d been the ones patrolling all those years ago.
As he watched her now, in a third cemetery, she faced a vamp that had obviously been out of the ground for more than a day or two. Likely he’d come to claim some recently-turned, but not yet risen, minions buried nearby. Bess fought well – as well as Buffy, he’d wager – but where his Slayer was invigorated – ok, turned on – by such encounters, Bess seemed stoic and businesslike.
When the vamp was dust, Bess searched out the freshest graves, and sat down to await the arrival of the now orphaned minions. Spike sauntered up to her as she waited, walking casually, as if he’d just been out for an evening stroll.
Bess looked up at him and gave her father a wry smile. “Wondered how long were you gonna watch me,” she said as he got near.
“Always been a sucker for a pretty girl kickin’ ass,” Spike excused, leaning on a nearby headstone as he tucked his thumbs casually into the pockets of his jeans, splaying his fingers out below them.
“Uh-huh,” Bess grunted. “Why do I think this is more than that?”
Spike shrugged. “Couldn’t help but notice you never go into game face when you’re slaying.”
Now it was Bess’ turn to shrug. “Is there something wrong with that?”
“No – just curious is all. That last one gave you a bit of a row. Thought the demon might’ve given ya the edge, is all.”
“I’m still here and he’s not. Don’t think I needed any more of an edge, do you?”
“Point,” Spike agreed. “It’s just that, to quote a great man, ‘Sometimes when you cage the beast, the beast gets angry’,” Spike continued.
“What great man said that? Shakespeare? Confucius? Einstein?” Bess wondered, her brow furrowed and head tilted in consideration.
“Wolverine.”
“The X-Man … from the movies?” she scoffed.
“What!? Bloody brilliant that,” Spike defended, scowling.
“Your boy came by the house t’day,” he offered, changing the subject abruptly.
“Troy? He’s not a ‘boy’.”
“Is t’ me,” Spike retorted. “He wondered if a human could make a Slayer-vamp happy. Worried that he’s not enough for ya.”
Bess rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Seems like he should’ve asked me that, not you. What would you know about it?”
“Known a few Slayers in my day – and more vamps. Haven’t known any humans that could really … keep up with their darker natures.”
“Angel and Cordy seem fine,” Bess pointed out.
“Cordy’s not all that human – even before she got the demon-upgrade from Wolfram & Hart she wasn’t all that human,” Spike insisted.
Bess snorted. “I don’t think ‘Fashionista’ is actually a demonic infliction.”
“You didn’t know Cordelia back in the day,” Spike informed her. “Bloody scary she was if ya got between ‘er and next season’s fashions.”
Bess laughed. “I guess. So, what does that have to do with me, exactly?”
“You can’t hide it forever, pet. Can’t keep the demon locked up and not expect it t’ turn on you one day,” Spike advised.
Bess looked at the ground and shrugged. “We’ll see,” she countered.
“Not all that darkness you feel is the vamp. Ya gotta know, some is the Slayer … got more than one demon inside you,” Spike continued.
“I know – I can tell the difference,” Bess asserted. “They aren’t really the same, ya know. They’re like different sides of the same coin, similar, but they are different.”
“Not really fair to the boy to keep your nature from him, is it?”
“Pretty sure I gave him a good taste of it the other day,” Bess contended.
Spike shrugged noncommittally. “Didn’t bite him … didn’t even go into game face that he recalls.”
“And again I say: I won. Didn’t need the demon,” Bess shot back.
“What are you afraid of?” Spike wondered. “He’s too bloody stupid t’ run off – why are ya hidin’, pet?”
“I’m not hiding – I’m right here, totally un-hidey,” Bess contended, holding her arms out from her sides. “And I’m not afraid of anything. I’m stronger than any Slayer on the planet and 99% of the demons. There’s nothing for me to be afraid of.”
“Drop the tough-chit act and talk t’ me,” Spike admonished. “I’m bloody tired of dancing with you.”
Bess bit back an angry retort and looked back at the ground for several long moments. Luckily, the newly-made vamp she’d been waiting on chose that moment to reach a hand out of his grave as he struggled for the surface. Bess jumped down from her perch on the headstone and took his hand in hers, helping him up.
“Thanks!” the well-dressed young man said as his vampire face cleared the soil.
“You’re welcome,” Bess replied as she slammed her stake into his chest. He looked momentarily shocked, then burst into dust at her feet. She put her stake away, clapped her hands together to remove the dust that clung to them, then calmly took her place on the headstone again.
After a moment, she drew in a deep breath and huffed it out loudly before looking up at her father. “I’m not consciously denying the demon, Spike,” she assured him. “It just … it became second nature … hell, first nature to keep it down in the dungeon. Don’t you remember the rules? I do. I can’t forget them: ‘keep the demon down, no fighting, no biting...’ It's like a mantra in my brain – ingrained in me like ... like the need to breathe is to a human.
“I can barely force myself to do anything but ‘missionary position, vaginal first’, for God’s sake! I don’t see any reason to try and change my demon’s inclination now. It’s there – I know it’s there – but it’s not fighting me, not anymore. It did for a while … like the first fifty years … but not anymore.”
Spike considered this a few moments, then asked, “What about the Slayer’s demon? You keeping that chained up with the vamp?”
“That would be kinda kinky, wouldn’t it?” Bess joked, shaking her head.
Spike cocked a questioning brow at her.
She rolled her eyes and sighed.
“Look, I’ve lived with my demons a lot longer than any other Slayer out there and I know what they need, what they want, and how to handle them. Are you telling me that Buffy has never, ever just been a girl … a woman with you? Is she always dark and violent? Always the Slayer?”
“No, not saying that,” Spike replied.
“And you – are you telling me that you’ve never been gentle and loving with her? Are you saying you go for the jugular every time you screw? That your demon takes over as soon as your dick gets hard?” Bess wondered.
“‘Course not,” Spike shot back.
“Well, so what’s the diff?” Bess wondered. “I lived a long time with cold, hard, violent sex. Sex with no feelings attached. Bodies connecting without tenderness, without love, without compassion, without warmth. It was lonely and desolate, and my demons and I have had it up to here with that crap!” she contended, holding her hand up as high as she could reach over her head.
“Can I call on my demon to help me if I need to?” Bess brought up her game face in an instant, her fangs extending, her blue eyes glowing golden. “Yeah, I can – she’s here, ready to fight if I need her.” She shifted back into her human visage. “But mostly, I don’t need her and she’s fine with that.
“I don’t know if one day they’ll want more – if I’ll want more – but right now, me, myself, and I – the girl, the Slayer, and the vamp – are all happy with exactly what we’ve got. When I’m with Troy I feel loved. I feel safe and warm and happy. I feel everything that I never felt in all those years and … it scares the shit out of me that I’ll lose it,” she admitted, wiping away a stray tear that came unbidden to her eye.
Spike took two long strides toward her and pulled her into a hug. Bess dropped her face against his chest and returned the gesture, wrapping her arms around him.
“You’ll always be loved, pet. You know your mum and me love you – your brother and sisters love you.”
Bess nodded against him. “I know. I just … it’s different.”
“I know, luv. I know it is, but never feel like you’re alone. You don’t need t’ hide from us. If you feel like … like you’re losing control o’ your demons, come to us – we really can help. Know you think we’re a bit set in our ways…”
Bess let out a very unladylike snort at that.
“… but we’ve been livin’ with our untamed demons a while. They’ve never been held in check by anything but our own will … our own souls,” Spike continued. “Had to learn to indulge them just enough t’ keep them happy, but not so much to lose control of them. One day yours might need to be given a bit o’ rein … a bit of freedom. We can show ya how to do that and not lose control. Maybe not scare off the wanker.”
Bess nodded against him again and sniffed back her tears before pulling out of his embrace and sitting back on her headstone. “I get it, I really do,” she assured him. “I'll tell you if I think things are … changing.”
Spike nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “So, he makes ya happy?”
Bess nodded.
“And you love the git?”
“His name is Troy,” she corrected, nodding.
“Yeah, yeah … still a wanker git,” Spike groaned. Then, growing serious again he said, “You know he’s gonna age and you’re not.”
“Yeah, or he could get hit by a car tomorrow or I could get staked tomorrow. I can’t … I can’t worry about tomorrow,” she told him. “When tomorrow comes, then I’ll deal with it – we’ll deal with it. I’m not gonna borrow trouble before it knocks me in the head.
“And, plus, when you married Buffy, she wasn’t all non-agey. Willow told me that happened after she died and got brought back with some hell-god blood. So … nice to meet you, Mr. Kettle.”
“Shirty little minx you are,” Spike grumbled. “‘Ave half a mind t’ turn you over m’ knee and give you a right thrashing.”
Bess laughed. “As if!”
“Don’t think I can?”
“I know you can’t.”
“Big talk for a little girl,” Spike growled.
“I’d prove it but Buffy would be mad if I beat you up too bad,” Bess contended.
“Yada, yada, yada,” Spike mocked, raising his hand and mimicking a sock puppet talking. “Some excuse is better than none, I reckon,” he declared as he began to saunter away from her.
“I love you, Dad,” Bess called after him, her voice suddenly somber.
Spike stopped and looked back over his shoulder at her. “Love you too, Buttercup. Tell that boy o’ yours … Troy that he owes me one.”
“For talking to me?” Bess wondered.
“No, for makin’ me miss my gore-fix this afternoon! Don’t know when I’ll ‘ave another chance t’ watch it. Your mum says it’s too violent for the bits, and she hates the yummy sound-effects they do when they’re ripping and tearing flesh. Says it gives 'er nightmares.”
Spike snorted and started walking again. “Bloody rich that, comin’ from the Slayer.”
**~**