Finding Home Part 4

Title: Finding Home Part 4

Author: Velvet Crypt

Disclaimer: Joss is God. I own nothing.

Spoilers: Season 4.

Summary: A conversation.

“Boys?” Jessica called downstairs.

“Yeah, Mom?” Xander’s voice answered.

“I need to go to the store for dinner. Someone want to play escort?” She could almost hear the groan she knew followed her announcement and she smiled. Silence reigned for long moments, but she waited patiently. Eventually she was rewarded.

“Be up in a mo’, luv.” The vampire’s voice floated up to her.

__________________________________________________

“Rummy,” Spike announced smugly, laying the cards on the bed between them. Xander growled and tossed his cards to the bed as well. Spike began counting points as Xander glared at him. “What?” He said innocently. “I told you there wasn’t a card game made that I couldn’t beat your pasty white ass at.”

“But how?” Xander demanded. “I taught you how to play it two hours ago. You lost the first game. Only the first game. You’ve kicked my ass every goddamn hand since then. No one is that lucky!” Spike smirked.

“Luck has nothing to do with it, pet. You are just way too excitable to be a card player.” Xander looked affronted. Spike chuckled and spread out Xander’s hand. “Look, here. Why’d you pick up that 7? You put at least 40 points worth of cards in your hand just to hang on to it.”

Xander shrugged, still mad. “I thought I could pull the 6 and 8 and make a run.”

Spike looked incredulously at him. “All that for a bloody 15 points?” Xander crossed his arms and sat back.

“So?”

“So, you can’t play the game by stockpiling every card in the deck on the remote possibility that you might draw its mates before I go out.” Xander snorted.

“That’s the point of the game, fangless. To hold cards til you draw their ‘mates’.” Spike rolled his eyes.

“You started with a 4, 5, and 6 of hearts. Why didn’t you put them down?”

“Cause I had a 6 of clubs, too, and I thought I could get a third 6 later.” Xander mumbled. Spike sighed. Xander glared at him again. “So how do you know I had a 4, 5, and 6 of hearts…cheater?”

The vampire grinned. “Evil here.”

Xander kicked gently at the vampire’s leg before gathering up the cards to reshuffle them. “Asshole.”

“Boys?” Jessica’s voice tumbled down the stairs. Xander looked up to the open door.

“Yeah, Mom?”

“I need to go to the store for dinner. Someone want to play escort?” Xander visibly winced.

“What’s wrong, mate?” Spike frowned.

“God, I hate going to the store with my mother.” Xander moaned.

“Why?”

Xander looked around conspiritally, then whispered, “She’s a bargain shopper. She prices everything against how many cents per ounce it is. She touches every piece of fruit, every vegetable. She has some weird freshness test for every one of them. She never takes the first box. She won’t pick up anything that is dented, scraped, or torn even if it’s the very last one.” He shuddered. “It’s a fricking nightmare.”

Spike shook in silent laughter. Xander frowned. “I’m serious. It’s horrible.”

“Be up in a mo’, luv.” The blonde called out, not taking his eyes off of the boy in front of him. “I’ll go with her.” He said in a normal voice. “Wouldn’t want to place my savior in mortal agony.” Xander kicked at him again, but Spike was pleased to see the grateful light in his eyes. With a final smirk, Spike clomped upstairs.

_________________________________________________

“So, you’re the sacrificial lamb, hmmm?” Jessica smiled as she negotiated the ancient car through the stoplight.

Spike shrugged. “Don’t mind. I actually like to cook. Don’t have much call to do it for myself…not to mention, no electricity in m’crypt. Part of the fun of cooking is the shopping.” Jessica took her eyes off the road for a moment to look incredulously at him.

“You just don’t strike me as the chef type.” She admitted.

Spike raised the corner of his mouth. “You don’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d take a vampire shopping either, luv.”

Jessica nodded grudgingly. “Touché, Spike.”

“So what’re we after?” He changed the subject, then wondered if it was for the good or not, as Jessica’s head dropped a bit and she slumped in her seat minutely.

“Not much, really.” She answered in a monotone. “I was just going to get some hamburger. Maybe a box of Hamburger Helper. We…we don’t have all that much to spend.” Spike could tell she was mortified at having to admit to lack of money, especially to someone she didn’t really know.

He found he didn’t like that. He didn’t like that she was upset, that she felt ashamed. She’d been good to him. She didn’t have to be. She could have let him die out there. Or dumped him back out on the porch when she found out what he was. But instead, she’d saved his life. She’d made him feel welcome. He closed his eyes briefly, wondering what the hell he was doing, and then sank his hand deep into one of his inside pockets.

He came up with a roll of cash and held it out. Jessica took one look at it and nearly swerved them off the road. She pulled it back into control and eased off the side of the road. She stopped the car and turned to look at him.

“What is that.” She demanded.

Spike fought the urge to fidget under her gaze. “Its money, luv.”

“I know its money, William.” She snapped at him. “I want to know how you got it.”

Spike couldn’t remember anyone calling him William in that tone of voice since his own mum passed on. He wasn’t sure yet whether the strange feeling in his chest was irritation or…something he wasn’t ready to put a name to yet. “It’s mine.” He said defensively. ~Good going, William. You sound like a bratty grade-schooler caught stealing a cinnamon stick.~

Jessica just looked at him.

“I swear, mum, it’s mine!” He repeated. ~Oh. Bloody. Buggering. Hell. Did I just call her mum?~ “I’m sort of…well off.”

“Really.” Her tone dripped sarcasm. “If you’re so well off then why do you beg your blood off of Xander and his friends?”

Spike frowned. “Well, it’s not like I can cause mayhem anymore,” he said sulkily. “Gotta get my jollies somehow, don’t I?”

“So you…get your jollies…by begging food from a bunch of people who hate you?”

“Hey, now! No need to be nasty about it!” He shot back, wondering why it bothered him that she didn’t believe him. “I just…I…well, I have to go over there to get it…and…well, it’s something to do, in’it?” He finished softly.

Jessica sat a moment, and then laid a hand on his thigh. ~What kind of lonely life he must lead to be willing to expose himself to humiliation and begging just to be with other people.~ “Of course it is,” she murmured, patting him briefly before starting the car up again and pulling into traffic. “So, where exactly did you get this ‘enormous wealth’?”

She knew. He bit the inside of his lip. She knew how desperate he was. The lengths he went to not be alone. Bloody observant chit. But she seemed willing to let it go, and he sent her a silent thank you for that.

“Well, my family was quite well off, actually.” He settled into his tale. “Shipping and such, you know. New money, though. Not old enough to have it respectably sunk into land or heirlooms. After I was turned…” He smiled wryly. “Well, let’s just say, my Sire had a habit of making sure there was no one for his childer to go back to.” He could see Jessica frown out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t want to get into the hierarchy of a vampire family right now, so he pressed on.

“Angelus, my Sire, killed them all. He and Dru and Darla, while I stayed home like a good little fledgling. I found out a few days later when I snuck away to see them again. They’d no one to release the family money to, so they buried them in these nasty little peasants plots on the outskirts of town.”

Jessica could hear the pain and anger that resonated through his brutally plain words.

“I found someone willing to forge papers for me in the name of one of my distant cousins. I showed up at dusk the next day claiming to have just heard of their deaths. Long story short, I showed them the papers, they gave me the fortune.” He leaned his head back against the headrest, wishing he could light up a cigarette right now. “First and only thing I did with that money for the next 120 years was buy proper headstones. Couldn’t very well dig them up, y’know. Disrespectful. But I made sure they were remembered.”

He fell silent for long moments, eyes closed, fingers twisted in his duster, until Jessica parked the car in the grocery store parking lot. Then he opened his eyes and looked right through her, sending a chill into her bones. “I knew Angelus would take it from me if he knew. He took everything from me. Possessions, dignity, freedom.” He bared his teeth in an imitation of a grin. “I didn’t even tell Dru. Knew she’d run back to Daddy with it. It was all I had left of them. I couldn’t let him take it too.”

Jessica nodded at the pleading in the blue eyes. “I know, William.” She whispered. “You did the right thing.” She assured him, not really sure what she was assuring him over, but willing to say nearly anything to take that pained look from his eyes.

“I didn’t touch it until the damned Initiative took away my ability to feed myself. I started pulling the money over here from England then. Putting it in banks, investing it.” He laughed shortly. “Who’d’ve thought Spike, the bleached menace, had brains enough to invest, hmmm? But I did. I’ve doubled it ten times over what I started with.”

Jessica bit her lip, and then spoke. “It’s your legacy, William. I can’t have you buying hamburger for the Harris family with your legacy.” Spike tilted his head, an honest smile gracing his face.

“It’s just money, mum. It’s currency bathed in the blood of my family. It makes me sick sometimes to spend it.” She caught her breath at his honesty. “My mum would have liked you.” He continued. “She was a spitfire, that one. She’d’ve liked Xander too. Could never resist someone who likes to eat as much as Hollow-leg Harris. I think she’d be pleased to see the money spent on such as you two.”

Jessica worked her mouth, but nothing emerged. Finally she gave up and just smiled at the blonde. “Come on, William.” She said simply. “Let’s go shopping.”

__________________________________________________