Part 2
Hadn't that been a shock? Spike had been in the shop and strolled back to
see if, in all the commotion, anyone had thought to stop off at the
butcher's. Instead of finding the tiny refrigerator in the corner of the
training room, there was a huge 1950's monster blocking the passageway. The
boy had shown up early and had been working on the framed part of the
practice space. Xander had taken to working on the shop to stave off the
frustrating hours of unsuccessful research they had been doing since Glory
had arrived. In addition to installing a tiny galley kitchen the boy was
also working on the basement storage room and various display areas out in
the shops public area. Spike had tuned out the noise of power tools and
banging, assuming the whelp needed an outlet for his grief and frustration;
this was at least productive. The fridge hummed with power so Spike took a
look inside, not expecting the Slayer's minions to remember the pet vampire,
but hoping the cupboard wasn't bare. He stood there, mouth gaping in shock.
There were over a dozen bags of human blood. The good stuff, marked and
typed by the blood bank, and by the dates written on the bags, fresh. He
looked around in amazement.
Spike had kept a wary eye on the nibblet since they had lost the Slayer, and
the Watcher hadn't left her side. The store was closed but they were
cloistered in the office, taking care of making the arrangements for Buffy.
The witch and her mate hadn't arrived yet. Only the boy had been bustling
about, going in and out of the store since the daybreak. Beside the blood
the only items in the icebox were cases of the soft drinks he had seen the
boy hauling in on his broad shoulder earlier. A touch told him that the
ginger ale Dawn liked was chilled, and catching her eye through the window
of the office door Spike held up a can and inclined his head in query. She
nodded and smiled weakly at him. The Watcher was on the telephone and looked
almost as weary as she did. The office reeked of dust and dry leather
bindings when Spike slipped quietly in to bring Dawn her drink. Taking the
drink in one hand she reached out with the other and squeezed his long
fingers in her small grip. Her tears had dried and she looked up at Spike
from where she perched on the edge of the single chair, besides the one
behind Rupert's desk, with red-rimmed eyes that burnt into his heart. Spike
was still staring into those lost eyes when the Watcher ended the call. "How
about you, Rupes?" He asked. "Fancy a cuppa?" *Well, good now we're both
bewildered. Least I don't show it so openly*
When Giles finally managed to wrap his mind around the fact that William the
Bloody had just offered to make him tea he said, "Er…No. Thank you. Oh! I do
apologize. There has been so much…I'll ask Xander to restock the blood."
"Don't bother, looks like he already did." Spike stroked Dawn's hair before
heading out to the currently homeless microwave to fix himself a thankfully
palatable meal. Afterwards, he strolled back to where the whelp's racket had
been coming from all morning. Xander was stripped to the waist, in loose,
well-worn jeans and safety goggles. Sweat highlighted the movement of his
muscles along his broad back as he used a power drill to screw on brackets
to mount a shelf above the sink. He had framed the small room with speed and
confidence over the past weeks. Spike was surprised at the transformation a
few hours of that day had made. Prepackaged cabinets had previously been
hung but now their doors had been attached and the drywall was covered with
laminated tile. The floor and walls being finished made a world of
difference. The aisle space looked just wide enough to maneuver the
refrigerator back into the niche he had left in the far corner.
"Hey, super powered vampire guy, I was just going to shamelessly draft you
as grunt labor." Xander removed the goggles and ran his fingers through his
hair where the elastic had mussed it. Spike raised an eyebrow and considered
playing the ‘what's in it for me' card, but knew that if he didn't help it
would take Xander longer to do it. That would be time in which the
refrigerator would be unplugged and he had a vested interest in keeping its
contents safe.
"That mean you want my help moving the fridge?"
"Help? I thought you would do it, and the microwave too." Xander turned a
fake innocent look on him and actually batted those ridiculously long
lashes.
"Isn't that a union job?" Spike crossed his arms and wondered if he could
get the whelp to work for it.
"Spike, vampires don't get hernias." Xander reasoned. It felt good. Almost
like Herself would step in any minute to settle it between them.
"All right, Whelp, but you guide it from the other side, otherwise I'll be
forced to hear you whine about the scrapes to your floor." Together, they
made short work of it. Appliances installed, Xander alternated fussing about
with the finishing touches with drinking one of the sodas. Spike noted that
the boy didn't even look at the bags of blood when he grabbed his drink.
Spike heated a second unit of blood *No use letting the good stuff go to
waste, it won't stay fresh forever.* He sipped it, now that the need had
been blunted. Sitting on the counter, he watched Xander move about with
quiet confidence. Eventually the boy noticed his attention and looked up
from where he knelt attaching handles to the drawers and smiled
self-consciously.
"What?" Xander asked.
"What brought on the urge to redecorate?" Spike gestured with his mug at the
transformed room.
"Just figured we'd be all here more, couldn't…." He paused awkwardly and
brushed the hair and added softly looking down, "I just need to keep busy.
You didn't notice all this crap before?"
"Wasn't exactly welcome lately. This monstrosity wasn't lurking about when
we regrouped here after that road trip to the Crusade." Spike nodded at the
old refrigerator.
"Had this set aside, got a friend who works down at the Goodwill store. I
was waiting for things to settle down, thought I'd draft Buffy into doing
the heavy labor." Spike watched Xander sneak an appraising glance up at him
under those dark lashes, asking if Spike understood but seeming to doubt he
would.
"Yeah." Spike answered both the words and the look and contemplated the
contents of his cup. *Boy tries to hard to be strong, to be everything his
friends need.* "Yeah." He added again.
"You look good." Xander blurted out, then followed up with a burst of
babble. "Better. I mean better. You look better than before. I mean more
like your old self, less like Glory's punching bag. I mean…"
"I know what you mean, Whelp." Spike interrupted before Xander wound himself
up so tight he exploded. "This helps." He nodded to the mug.
"Yeah, I read that somewhere." Xander offered up a paler version of his
usual bright smile and continued. "Giles would be so proud, I managed to
retain something from all the research sessions." Xander washed his hands at
the sink and said he was going to see what the others wanted to do about
lunch. He hadn't mentioned the blood, but Spike was sure now that he was the
one who had supplied it. It wasn't just that he wondered where the boy had
laid his hands on one of Sunnydale's hottest black market items. What really
had Spike's brain ticking away was the fact that in the slightly more than
twenty-four hours since losing the Slayer he had thought to get it at all.
It occurred to Spike that having someone like Xander in his life, who went
to such lengths for his friends, would not be such a bad thing.
~~~~~~
Later on the witches arrived, smelling of tears and grief. Willow and Giles
held counsel on what would be best for Dawn in the office. Spike noticed
that the demon chit still had not arrived. He had been watching for her
since the boy showed. Now that the others were all here, he wondered which
one would be the first to ask. She wasn't coming. He had known in that
instant when Xander had looked up at him when he was attaching the handles
to the drawers with the pain in those eyes.... the boy was frantically
trying to be strong enough for everyone else to lean on, but felt he had no
one to turn to himself. He eavesdropped shamelessly when he saw Red go back
to the new kitchen, where Xander was cleaning up after lunch. After suitable
praise for the transformation she was the one to ask the question.
"Where's
Anya?"
"Ah…" In the reflection of the office window, Spike saw Xander wipe his
hands on his jeans and lean back against the counter. "She… This all…." He
looked away from the concerned witch. Not the subtle avoidance he might be
hoping for since he faced a bare wall in doing so. "She's gone." He said
finally, turning wounded eyes back at her.
"Gone?" Willow said in confusion, and then looking up at her friend seemed
to register his pain through the fog of her own grief. She wrapped her small
frame against his and squeezed him into a hug. "She'll be back." She said
with fierce conviction.
"I don't think so." Xander's voice was hardly more than a defeated whisper.
Spike longed to pull the bitch's intestines out slowly while she watched.
That desire didn't strike him as odd, that he wished to inflict pain on her
for the distress she caused a boy he himself had taken great pleasure in
manipulating in the past. The whelp was Buffy's, so he was now his. Spike
was going to take care of them all whether they wanted it or not.
"What's going on?" Dawn whispered in his ear, taking it for granted that he
was listening in on the activity in the back.
He thought about asking what she meant, but she always saw through him
anyway so he whispered back "Demon bint's skipped town."
"For good?"
*How should I know?* Instead of asking, he hugged Dawn against him and they
both turned their attention to the back. After a while, Spike said. "Might
be for the best if you just follow your boyfriend's lead on this. See how he
wants to handle it."
"He's not my boyfriend." She said, not sounding at all annoyed by the
implication. She hugged Spike back and after a moment murmured into his
chest. "Why does everything have to change?"
~~~~~~~~
They kept the service simple; Dawn insisted they have it after sunset. Spike
had expected a sparse crowd, only friends of Joyce and Dawn. Buffy had spent
all her time performing her Slayer duties, other than the overstuffed Boy
Scout she had been shagging, he never saw her with anyone but her minions.
Cars lined the quiet cemetery, mostly California plates but some from out of
state. Young people, somber, well-dressed and carrying weapons, came out of
the evening darkness. Dawn kept Spike close to her and he pitied the fledge
that crossed path with one of these stake-wielding humans.
"Who are all these people?" Spike was glad that Dawn had asked. He was,
after all, a Master vampire; it wouldn't do to seem impressed by the army of
mourners.
"Children of the Hellmouth," Xander answered with a trace of his glib humor.
"Sunnydale High Class of 1999, Buffy was voted class protector. Remember?
They might not have a handle on the whole Slayer deal, but they know that
there are things that try to kill us and that Buffy stood between them and
those things. We had the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class."
One by one they stopped and offered Dawn their condolences. Xander greeted
each by name and introduced Dawn to them by how they knew Buffy. "This is
Jeff. He was on the swim team, and Buffy stopped him from eating the coach.
This is Marcia. She was in Mr. Whitmore's Sex Ed; Buffy kept her egg baby
from brain sucking her. This is TJ. He worked out just where to position the
explosives so that the school would bury the Mayor." It went on and on.
Spike noticed when he stopped by the grave in the nights that followed that
the people remembered their protector and mourned in their own way. Candles
and flowers, bits of poetry and CD's were left at what was becoming a shrine
to the young woman. It would never make it into the Watcher Chronicles but
no Slayer had been so embraced by and her community. Spike made sure that
the candles stayed lit and took the poetry and CDs home to Dawn.
~~~~~~
The blood kept being restocked and the boy checked on Spike daily the same
as he did the witch and the Watcher. It became so he could set his watch by
when the whelp showed up with the girl, usually with dinner for all and the
news of the town. Xander was surprisingly well-connected and kept up a
steady stream of gossip to Willow and Dawn on who was engaged and pregnant,
who had flunked out of college and who was moving and to where. Gradually it
was not only the boy's chatter at the dinner table, but the girls joined in
with questions and comments. Xander ceased to have to work so hard to make
them smile and participate. Spike thought they were going too easy on Rupes.
The Watcher was drinking heavily and would lock himself in the office for
hours at a time. The kids had practically taken over running the store and
on occasion had left Spike running the till. Which was just wrong- he was
evil, not a shopkeeper.
Spike had taken to spending most of the day in the shop. Usually one of the
minions was about for company and Dawn spent most of her time after school
there. But he was alone with Rupes when the call came in from the Watcher's
Council. Although he went into the back to take the call, Spike was more
than able to overhear the conversation. They were rather vocal with their
opinion of ringing a fellow Watcher and reaching a vampire. When Spike had
asked whom he should say was calling that tosser had snapped, "Who is this?"
Spike had calmly drawled, "This is William the Bloody, you wanker. Who the
hell wants to know?"
After the call Spike and Giles spent the next twenty minutes exchanging
candid views of the Watchers and their impending visit. Spike was almost
grateful for the chip; otherwise he would have ended the argument in a
rather colorful manner. The Whelp arrived with Dawn. The boy acted as if
they weren't still hurling insults, until he seemed to notice the girl
shrink into herself watching the adults with a quivering lip. He surprised
Spike by interrupting him mid-tirade. "Hey, chip dip. Come on, it's Friday,
lets get hunting."
"It's daylight, moron." Spike snarled eager to get back to his argument.
"And we're burning it." Xander persisted. "Come on, so little time, so much
ground to cover."
"What are you raving about?" Spike couldn't believe the boy had actually
grabbed his arm and was pulling him toward the back.
"No work tomorrow. I want to sweep the tunnels, the Initiative caves, and
the old high school before sunset, then we can hit the usual spots. Hurry up
- if we hit all three spots before dark I'll spring for one of those onion
things you like at the Bronze."
It was an obvious attempt to distract him. It was also an attempt to stop
what had upset Dawn, so Spike went along with the whelp. Spike spent most of
the time they were roaming the tunnels, caves and corridors waiting for the
boy to comment on the argument, or at least to ask about it. Irritatingly,
the boy ignored it and didn't seem any different than their normal nights of
patrol. They ended up back at the Bronze and the boy was still refusing to
get drawn in; he even had the audacity to laugh when Spike missed a shot in
their pool game. Finally, after barking at the boy and infuriatingly
sounding like he was confiding in the whelp instead of ordering him to do
something about the Watcher, Spike was able to get him to listen to his
point. And with a few stuttered words didn't the cur have him feeling
sympathy for the drunken sod. *Damn it, I'm evil.* They left the club and
Spike dropped his real concern into the conversation and waited to see what
would happen. He looked the whelp in the eye and told him the Watchers were
coming and that they had better not find out that Dawn was the Key.
Part 3
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