It was raining again a week later. Sitting in the window of a coffee bar in Chelsea, Spike waited. London rain always made him think of his first months as a vampire, when he always seemed to be out skulking in filthy weather, bruised from Angelus' fists, hungry because he was still learning the proper way to hunt and not be caught out. He'd stopped dressing like a gentleman, changed his accent, tried to act like he'd always been a tough from some rough district like the Borough, even though Angelus and Darla mocked him for his pretence. He'd hated that they knew anything about him, even though they'd made him. Wanted to bury his human past as deep as it would go.

All kinds of memories had surfaced since the encounter with Illyria that cleared his disordered mind. Things he hadn't thought of in a hundred years came back to him, as if called in from the far corners of distant dimensions where she'd scattered his wits with her time-bending tricks. He was ready to share some of it with Buffy. It only remained to do what he'd planned this evening.

Willow and Xander materialized on the other side of the glass, beneath the awning. She gave him a little wave, as if this was a random meeting. When they came in, Willow stepped right up to him and folded him in her arms. "I am so glad for you, Spike. Congratulations! Didn't I tell you it would be okay if you just followed your heart?"

"You did."

Darn tootin'."

He glanced at Xander, from whom he still didn't expect much. That Harris had come to his summons was by no means to be taken for granted, so he was surprised when he offered to shake hands, and seconded the congratulations. "What are we here for that's secret from Buffy? If it's about planning a bridal shower, we could've done that from the castle."

"Asked you both here because we're goin' to see my solicitor."

"You have a solicitor?" Willow said. "How can a vampire have a solicitor?"

"Brabant an' Company have always handled things for the Aurelian line. They're an old old firm."

Xander said, "What things?" He was frowning again, after his initial softening.

"Property. Wills. That's what I'm up to tonight. Need to make some arrangements, an' I want you to know 'em, an' be my witnesses. Let's go, they're just round the corner."

They followed him out into the early-evening stream of passersby. Despite the rain, the high street was busy with people doing errands on their way home from work. Willow conjured a big black umbrella for her and Xander. Spike just flipped up the collar of the coat, and hastened. He hadn't been to this address since soon after the Second World War, but the quiet square of late 17th century houses was substantially unchanged, as was the light glamour that cloaked the facade of Brabant & Company, to conceal it from the notice of ordinary humans. Willow let out a little grunt of surprise and appreciation when she perceived the magic; Xander seemed bewildered about why they were turning in at a spot that he clearly didn't perceive at all.

The clerk who received them was the same fresh-faced young man in a tailored grey suit who'd opened the door to him and Drusilla in 1946. "Sir. Come in, sir."

"I don't like this," Xander muttered. "Why isn't Buffy with us, anyway?"

"Gonna tell her all about it later tonight. They wouldn't let the slayer in here, anyhow, no matter how I vouched for her."

Xander bridled. "They wouldn't—"

Willow hushed him. "They're all vampires here," she murmured. "But we're not in any danger. Are we, Spike?"

"This place is all business. They don't feed on the premises."

Willow nodded. "I guess there's something to be said for continuity across generations, in a firm of solicitors."

"That's their specialty. The affairs of old families, both undead an' human. Brabant's been lookin' after the Aurelians since the Master was a young 'un."

They were ushered into a study, the walls lined in ledgers, books, and document boxes with marbelized fronts. The heavy drapes were drawn against the night, coals glowed in the grate. The Brabant behind the desk was also the same one Spike had met before. They exchanged greetings, introductions. Xander was still hinky as a wet cat. Willow looked fascinated.

Old Brabant steepled his fingers. "Well, William The Bloody. You've changed your circumstances since last we met."

"A bit, yeah. Still an Aurelian, though, soul or no."

"Of course. I wasn't suggesting otherwise." His answer was completely smooth, level, and yet Spike knew the old demon must be repressing some shudder of disgust at the idea of his soul. Not that he cared. "I have your letter here. I understand you are contemplating an alliance."

"I'm gettin' married. To the slayer. Buffy Summers. You know about her."

"We do keep track of these things, yes." Brabant had queer milky eyes, and blinked them very slowly. If he was curious about how it came to be that William the Bloody was announcing his intention to marry a vampire slayer, he didn't betray it.

"Then you also know that Darla an' Angelus are no more."

"You're the head of the family, now, indeed." Brabant tapped his pale fingers together. "Miss Drusilla—"

"Miss Drusilla an' me have parted ways. I'm not responsible for her any more."

"I was going to say that Miss Drusilla has not drawn on her account in a long time. We've been unable to trace her. The requisite time hasn't yet elapsed to declare her no more, but it's likely. Of course, due to her ... eccentricities ... she was never in line to be head of the house."

"Don't know anything about her whereabouts, an' I'm not likely to. Don't need to touch what's hers, in order to provide for my new wife."

"Of course not." Brabant leaned forward. "In what sense will be you taking this 'wife'? A conventional turning, of course, entails—"

Xander jumped up. "Turning!"

"Settle down, Harris." To the lawyer, he said, "You know I'm not proposing to turn the girl. Taking her round to the registry office to marry her like a regular fellow, in front of her friends."

"You're not a regular fellow," Xander said. "Buffy's not really going to be married in the legal sense, not to you—you're dead."

"Know that. Which is why we're here." He turned back to the solicitor. "I'm claimin' my portion of Darla an' Angelus's estates. Want to give all the income to Buffy, for her to draw on all her life an' be able to pass on as she likes. An' for my own, want to make a will, so she or her children will have it if an' when I go to dust. There won't be any Aurelians to provision after me. Not makin' more. I'll be the last."

Brabant nodded. If any of this astonished him, he wasn't showing it, but then he was paid, and very well, to be unastonishable. He rose and excused himself, leaving the three of them alone with the soft crackling of the coals.

Willow was shaking her head. "I can't believe you have money. You've had money all along? Then why did you—"

"I always preferred gettin' along on my wits to drawing on my allowance like a bloody ponce." Another thing Darla and Angelus used to mock him for—they'd always been happy to pay cash for their comforts—warm rooms, fancy clothes, wine, horses—if they could be had no easier way, whereas he'd relished the underground shadowy existence. The freedom of not pretending to be anything else than a demon.

"Where does this money come from?" Xander asked.

"Where does any old family fortune come from? Comes of grubbing round in low places, exploitation and theft. But it's been ours for hundreds an' hundreds of years, an' now it'll be put to good use, lookin' after Buffy."

"She's not going to take demon lucre," Xander blurted.

Willow said, "If you always had access to money, why didn't you help her when she needed it back in Sunnydale?"

"How d'you know I didn't try?"

"I ... oh. I guess I don't."

"Offered, 'course I did, but she insisted on going her own way then. Wouldn't even listen." He pouted. "'Course she was right. At the time."

"How much money are we talking about here?" Xander said.

"Not the king's ransom, but enough for her to have a proper home an' nice things about her. Enough so she needn't take the Council's shilling."

"What do you have against the Council? We're the Council."

"She can suit herself there," Spike said. "Just sayin', she'll be free to choose."

"See," Xander complained, "I knew this was fishy. He's trying to separate her from her friends. Just like always."

"Uh, if that's true," Willow said, "Why'd he ask us to come here? I think it's perfectly natural that Buffy and Spike don't want to start married life at Saint Trinian's."

Xander looked blank at this; Spike laughed. "That's about it. Buffy's always been a oner. Don't think she really fancies bein' part of the pack. Even though she's the queen of it. An' she wants her own house. Think she's missed that."

Brabant came back into the room then, with a long wide brass box under his arm. "My clerk will be in shortly with drafts of the documents you requested. Meanwhile, your letter also mentioned that you wished to review the items you keep with us on deposit. A gift for your bride?"

"That's about it."

The lawyer set the box down on a round table in the corner, with a velvet cloth, and switched on a lamp.

Spike slid the cover up. Suddenly he wasn't so sure this was a good idea.

Xander said, "What's in there? Your trophies?"

"Not trophies. Things I took from ... when I left home." He hadn't looked in this box since the first time he'd been here, with Darla and Angelus, just a few days after he'd been turned. It was Darla who had persuaded him to leave the things at Brabant's for safe-keeping, rather than traveling with them, and once done, he'd hardened his heart against the impulse that had led to his taking anything out of his mother's house in the first place.

He was very much aware of Xander and Willow's attention as he lifted out the box's contents. Packets of letters wrapped in ribbon, photographs in frames. Some books. A gold pocket watch wrapped up in felt. A silver rattle, tarnished black. A leather jewelry case. He'd brought all these things out of the house after he'd staked his mother, prompted by Drusilla who told him that once he crossed the threshold, he'd never be able to go back in.

The catch on the leather case stuck; he fumbled with it.

"Let me," Willow said. She said a couple backwards-sounding words, and the box opened easily. She gasped. "Oh my God. This is ... treasure."

The jewelry, so long unseen, struck him as lustreless, disappointing. He'd somehow expected that the sight of it would summon up the essence of his mother when she was whole, and wholly herself, her sweetness and devotion. That it would connect him to her, carry her forward into this new association he was about to make. But it was just lay there, dull, reproachful, reminding him of his own foolishness and mistakes.

"Can I?" Willow asked, reaching to touch. "Are you going to give all this to Buffy?"

"Not ... not all. Most of this isn't her style. There ought to be some rings, though, will need those. And then I thought ... you'd help me see if there's ... perhaps she'd fancy the pearls." He found himself unwilling to touch anything, but Willow was reverently lifting the pieces out, ear bobs and brooches first, then, in the compartment underneath, bracelets and necklaces. The rings he was thinking of were at the very bottom, knotted into a thin handkerchief with his mother's initials embroidered on the corner by her own hand. She'd never taken them off in life, but she'd removed them when she rose up, undead; it was Dru who had come across them lying on the mantelpiece in her room when it was all over, and she'd been prowling about the house. It only occurred to him now to wonder why his mother had left them off, and why Dru had neither begged them from him or appropriated them without asking. Perhaps she simply hadn't fancied them, or what they symbolized.

It was stupid to think she'd somehow known they were eventually to belong to someone else.

Spike unpicked the knot, and there they were: a narrow plain gold band, and a ruby in a plain gold setting. His father had been relatively poor when he gave these; later in life, when he'd prospered more, he'd given his wife better jewels. But she'd never wanted any other rings than these.

Spike said, "Maybe Buffy would prefer a diamond."

"This is your mother's engagement ring Her wedding ring?" Willow said. "I think Buffy will be very proud to wear these. Not that ... not that I'm trying to talk her out of having a diamond. Don't tell her I persuaded you not to get a diamond!"

Spike smiled. "I'll keep schtum about that, don't worry."

Xander was examining a jet brooch. "Is this—it looks like there's hair beneath this crystal."

"My father had that made from my sisters' hair, when they died. But my mother seldom wore it. Didn't like to be reminded."

"You lost two sisters?"

"They died when I was an infant, from scarlet fever. Grew up by myself." He took the brooch from his hand. "Buffy wouldn't like this fusty stuff." He glanced at Willow. "What do you think about the pearl choker, for a wedding present? Or these gold pieces?" His throat had gone tight and painful; the necklace and earrings Willow held were the ones his mother had worn nearly every day, in the last three years of her life. He'd bought them for her himself, six months after her husband's death put him in possession of the Pratt family estate. At the time he'd thought she would go out into society, marry again, but it wasn't long afterwards that she took sick.

"These are very nice. The pearls are wonderful, for special occasions, but the gold—yes, I could see Buffy wearing these all the time."

He wondered if he could see it, if he could bear to. He glanced up; Willow was completely focused on the baubles, but Xander was looking at him, a quiet regard that penetrated.

Quietly, he said, "Or you could sell the whole lot and get her something new, something that's just hers."

Spike felt a throb of gratitude, that Harris, Harris of all people, understood his struggle. But the suggestion brought his ideas into line. Sell all of it? He couldn't do that. Not after having preserved it for so long. Not when he considered how his mother—his real mother, not the demon he'd caused to infect her—would've been so proud of him. For his journey back to his soul, to his love. He couldn't introduce her to Buffy, but he could connect these two women, the supreme women of his life, with this gift.

"The gold for Buffy's bride-gift, yeah, that'll do." He glanced over the rest, his eyes alighting on a pair of garnet ear-bobs. "An' these for the Bit." He slipped them into his pocket. "Leave the rest for now."

Brabant returned then, followed by his clerk bearing print-outs of the long legal documents.

Angel and Darla had left behind considerable nest-eggs, the income from which would, as he'd hoped, provision Buffy for a comfortable life. Willow, glancing over his shoulder as he inspected the papers, let out a little whistle.

"You never thought I'd bring more to this marriage than my good looks, did you?" Spike said. "You approve? Satisfied that I'll take care of your friend as she deserves?"

"I think Buffy will be floored."

"It's only right, isn't it Harris, that the demon lucre should go to the slayer in the end? That's justice, isn't it?"

"I guess so," Xander said.

"She'll be free now, to agree or disagree with Rupert an' you lot, however she sees fit. An' never be in such a corner again that she's forced to grub away at somethin' she hates."

When the documents were perfect, they followed the old lawyer into a different room to sign and witness them. Along with the clerk who administered the pens, there was a mage who performed a simple spell, pressing two small flat clear jewels to the base of Spike's throat as he chanted. The jewels began to glow.

The mage handed one jewel to the clerk, who affixed it with melted wax to the bottom of the will, and the other to Spike, who put it in his pocket with the rings.
"What's that do?" Xander said.

Willow answered. "It provides proof of death. When ... if ... Spike dusts, the glow will die, and then the will can be executed."

"Right," Spike said. "Buffy won't be left to wonder, should anythin' happen to me when she's not there to see it with her own eyes."

As they left the lawyer's premises, the clerk met them at the door with a case. "The things you wanted to bring away are here. The remainder were returned to your lock box."

Willow unfurled the big umbrella. The rain was still coming down in gusts. "Thanks for including us in this."

"Yeah," Xander said. "It means a lot, to see you taking this so seriously."

"Never been nothing but serious about the slayer."

"Right," Xander said. "We know. But this ... this is a whole other kind of serious." He frowned. "You're not gonna make the mistake I made, right?"

"Gonna marry the girl, an' stick by her."

Willow's glance grew nervous. "No one doubts that. Xander ... you don't really doubt that."

"S'all right," Spike said. "Harris just wonders sometimes how he slipped up himself, yeah? But he'll get another chance to nail it. You will, you know."

"Will I?"

"S'early days," Spike said, smiling. Relief was coursing through him, making possible all things, including compassion for Xander. "Look, I was supposed to meet our girl at the station for train back to Bath, why don't you lot come with me an' we'll all have a drink? Expect she'd like to have you there, when I give her this ring."

"You're going to do that tonight?" Willow's eyes lit up.

"No time like the present. Don't say anything about the necklace an' the earrings—those I'm keepin' for our wedding day."