Chapter Four

Willow and Xander looked at Giles for an explanation; wondering why the man had told them Buffy was dead when she was clearly right there in front of them. Joyce met his angry eyes defiantly, nodding briefly when he asked through clenched teeth, “Spike? Spike did this?”

As Willow ran to embrace her friend, babbling about how glad she was to know Giles had been wrong about her death, the Watcher grabbed her arm and threw her back onto the couch shouting, “Stay away from her! Can’t you see she’s a vampire?”

Buffy’s face crumpled and she held out a hand pleading with her Watcher, “I’m still me, Giles. I have my soul and every thin-“ The man moved with a speed no one could have predicted, his stake on a direct line with Buffy’s heart.

Joyce’s cry went unheard, and her ordinary human reactions were too slow to halt the attack on her unprepared daughter. Buffy was so heartbroken at the sudden attack that her normal Slayer reflexes deserted her as she waited in shock for the man she loved like a father to kill her. Spike, however, having anticipated the strike, was already moving and he knocked the stake away from Buffy’s chest, carrying the Watcher to the floor as he did so. He quickly flipped the man over, pinning his arms behind his back and snarling at him.

“You stupid git. Give the girl a chance to explain.”

“I don’t need an explanation. It’s plain to see. You turned her. I cannot believe even you could have been so evil.”

Spike yanked the man up to a sitting position, keeping his arms pinned behind his back and snarled into his ear, “Shut up and listen, you bloody wanker.”

The vampire nodded to Joyce who, though visibly shaken, continued as though the interruption had not occurred. She kept one arm around her still shaking daughter as she went on.

“This was not Spike’s idea. I begged him. I blackmailed him. I used every trick I could think of to get him to agree to do it. He did it for me, knowing that Buffy’s first act as a vampire might very well be to stake him. He didn’t do it because he is evil; he did it because he is a compassionate man.”

Ignoring the Watcher’s audible scoff, she looked at Buffy’s two friends instead.

“Turned Slayers keep their souls. Buffy is no more dangerous to us now than she ever was. She is drinking pigs’ blood and has no interest in killing humans.”

Only the vampire noticed the guilty flinch at Joyce’s words and he knew that soul or no soul, Buffy would be fighting the desire for human blood her entire unlife.

“We will all have a lot of adjusting to do, obviously.” She spared a glare for the now-quiet man being held by the vampire. “But I’m sure we can work with this. I don’t know what we’ll do about school, but I still have my daughter and she is still able to fulfill her duties as a slayer, so I fail to see why this is not the best possible outcome of a horrible situation.”

Joyce finished her speech with her chin up and a final challenging look around the room. Spike maintained his grip on the Watcher, even though the man had stopped struggling and was just sitting quietly watching the interaction between Buffy and her friends. The newly vamped slayer gave them a tentative smile, but waited for them to approach her before relaxing and joining a group hug.

Joyce beamed proudly as the three friends appeared to fall right back into their normal behaviors, jostling each other for space on the couch and arguing over whether or not to watch a movie or go to the Bronze to celebrate. When she turned her gaze onto the watcher, her eyes narrowed and she knelt down to his level.

“I have to know you are all right with this, Rupert. I can’t be worrying that my daughter’s own Watcher is going to stake her.”

“I believe,” the man said primly, ”that it is too early for me to make that decision. I have seen that she appears to be harmless around you and her friends, but that doesn’t mean strangers would be safe in her company. Particularly bleeding strangers.”

“We’re not animals, Watcher,” Spike growled in his ear. “Contrary to what your Council of Wankers may have told you, most vamps have complete control of themselves unless they’re starving. The Slayer having her soul means she’s just that much more in control.”

“I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt for the time being,” the man answered stiffly, “but I will not forget that you were the one to turn my Slayer into something she hates.”

“And I won’t be forgetting that you tried to stake my childe,” Spike responded, his mild tone belied by the amber flashing of his eyes as he let go of the man’s arms and stood up.

“Thank you, Spike,” Joyce said sincerely.

“No problem,” he mumbled, wondering how he could gracefully leave the house without completely negating his earlier dramatic exit. He was saved from worrying about it when Buffy left her friends and came to stand beside him to add her own mumbled thanks to her mother’s.

While Joyce pulled Giles into the kitchen for some tea and a serious conversation about Buffy’s new status, the Slayer and her sire stood uncomfortably, neither one wanting to apologize for their earlier behavior and yet knowing that they should. With a final, exasperated sigh, Spike growled, “I shouldn’t have gone off in a huff like that. Almost got you killed. Not much of a sire, am I?” he added, looking down at his boots.


Recognizing the apology for what it was, Buffy softened her own stance and said, “You’re doing fine. I’m sure ‘how to sire a slayer’ isn’t in the vampire handbook. It’s probably going to take us awhile to work this out.”

“We’ve got time,” he said with a small grin. “You’re immortal like me, now.” A look of mock horror crossed his face. “Bloody hell! I made the bane of my existence immortal. What was I thinkin’?”

Buffy gave him a half-serious glare before she said, “And I have to look forward to being annoyed by you for the rest of my life? What WERE you thinking?”

“Guess we’re gonna have to learn to like each other a little bit, pet,” he said with a smirk.

“Well, we’ll at least have to learn to get along. We can’t be fighting all the time—“

“If it’s all the same to you, Slayer, I’d rather like you and fight with you than get along. ‘S more fun.”

She tossed her hair and turned around to go back to her friends, throwing over her shoulder, “Yeah, beating you up HAS always been one of my favorite things to do.”

He gave a half-hearted growl, smiling to see her laughing and seemingly carefree. In spite of his assurances to Joyce that she would have her soul and be fine, he’d really had no idea how Buffy was going to react to being a vampire and he breathed a mental sigh of relief that she seemed to be handling it so well.

The relief lasted until they left the house so that Buffy could practice with her new vampire enhancements and do a short patrol. Once away from her mother and friends, she slid into a morose silence, only speaking when she needed to ask a question.

The Slayer had to admit that having enhanced hearing and night vision was definitely a plus in her line of work. However, her ability to fool vamps into thinking she was an easy dinner was now gone as it took them no time at all to pick up on her lack of heartbeat and lose interest.

The only time all night that she seemed happy was when they encountered a group of the mayor’s minions and between the two of them managed to dust all but one. The one that got away made it only a few hundred yards before running into the stake Angel was holding. Spike felt his grandsire at the same time that Buffy was jumping to the top of a mausoleum to test her newly enhanced physical abilities. He quickly leapt up beside her and grabbed her arm to hold her still.

She had been spinning around, practicing her kicks when he landed beside her and she spun right into him, slamming hard into his chest. He held her by the arms until she caught her balance, not sure if he was willing to let her go. Buffy didn’t pull away, but remained still in his arms, her face tilted towards his, head cocked slightly in curiosity.

“What?” she breathed softly, wondering how much of what she was beginning to feel towards the blond vampire was sire/childe bond and how much was something she’d rather not put a name to. Remembering the expression on his face when she had walked naked across her room, she swallowed hard. With her newly acute vision, she could see that he was wearing a similar look as his face came closer to hers.

A renewed sense of Angel’s presence reminded him of his original intention and he shook himself slightly before whispering, “Let out your senses, luv. Can you feel that?”

“I feel…it’s like when I used to be able to feel vamps, except that…it’s Angel!”

She stared around quickly, moving away from him without even thinking about it and thereby missing the look of disappointment on his face. As she gave in to her new senses, she realized there was something more to this than just her former ability to sense Angel’s signature. Something both familiar and foreign at the same time.

“It…it feels like you. Only not.” She fumbled for words to express the sensation tickling the back of her neck.

“It’s family, luv. What you’re feeling is family. You’ll always know when one of us is around – Dru too. And as soon as the ponce gets close enough, he’s going to know it.”

“He’s going to wig,” Buffy said with a certainly that he couldn’t deny.

“Most likely,” he agreed. He prepared himself for the fight of his life, fully expecting his grandsire to try to stake both of them. Beside him, Buffy fell into a fighting stance, unconsciously imitating her sire’s prediction of danger.

To the surprise of both, the older member of the Aurelian family stopped below the crypt and looked up at them calmly.

“Come down,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to stake you.”

“Know you’re not GOING to,” Spike grumbled, gesturing for Buffy to let him go first. “The question is, are you going to TRY?”

Buffy landed lightly beside her sire, and Angel watched while they jostled each other for position, each trying to protect the other from the possible danger presented by the souled vampire. He soon tired of watching the girl he thought he’d lost forever and the grandchilde he wished he could lose forever trying to protect each other from him.

“Stop all that jumping around,” he growled. “I’m not going to stake either one of you.”

“Why not?” Spike inquired suspiciously.

Angel gave a heavy sigh and rolled his eyes. “Because I’ve spoken to Giles and to Joyce and given them my word I would leave you two alone unless—until,” he said more forcefully with a glare at Spike, “you give me a reason not to.”

“I have my soul, Angel,” Buffy said plaintively. “Why would you want to stake me?”

“I was actually thinking more about staking him,” he gestured at Spike. “I would think you’d want to thank me for getting rid of the vamp that turned you.”

“As opposed to the one who just killed me and left me to die in front of my mother?” she replied with an edge in her voice.

The souled vampire looked at her with a hurt expression in his brown eyes. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that, Buffy. I tried to tell you not to offer me your neck. You know what demons are like – I couldn’t control it.”

Spike’s muffled, “Bollocks!” was unnecessary as Buffy was already scoffing at Angel’s excuse for draining her.

“I’ve only been a vampire for a few hours and I already know better than that.” Her face fell and she added sadly, “I trusted you, Angel. I trusted you to only take what you needed.”

“Buffy, I was sick. I was dying. Angelus….”

She held up her hand for him to stop. “Please don’t give me that Angel/Angelus crap again. Spike doesn’t have a soul to keep his demon down and I would trust him with the lives of my mother and my friends no matter what the circumstances. Just…just stay away from me for awhile, okay?”

With a parting glare at his smirking grandchilde, Angel nodded and turned away, too lost in his own misery to notice that Buffy had turned around and punched Spike in the face.

“Ow! What the hell was that for?” He vamped out and snarled at her.

“That was for making fun of Angel behind my back!” she snapped back at him, her own eyes glowing amber. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

His automatic retort was short circuited by the tears he saw her trying to blink away and he dropped his hands to his sides. One look at the stubborn tilt to her chin and he knew she did not want him to know she was crying, so he busied himself pulling out a cigarette and lighting it while she struggled for control. As soon as she had taken a deep, unnecessary breath and begun walking home he fell into step beside her, smoking quietly.

They walked in silence until they reached her house, stopping on the front porch and sitting in unison on the top step.

Buffy waved her hand at the smoke drifting towards her, growling when Spike just took another drag and blew a smoke ring at her face.

“’S not like you’re going to get lung cancer, Slayer,” he said mildly.

“That is sooo not the point,” she grumbled, unconsciously moving closer to him until she was leaning on his shoulder. When she realized what she’d done, she sat up quickly, sending a sideways look at him to see what kind of reaction her unexpected behavior had evoked.

“I…I don’t know why I did that,” she stammered.

“Wasn’t complainin’, luv,” he answered quietly.

“Why not?” Her curiosity was sincere. “We still hate each other, don’t we?”

He cut his eyes at her and threw the cigarette out into the yard, waiting until it had sputtered out to answer her.

“Can’t speak for you, Slayer, but I don’t think I gave you unlife just so I could go on hating you a little longer.”

“I thought you did it for my mother.”

“Did. Just turns out it might have made my life a bit more interesting too.”

It was as close as he was going to come to admitting to himself or to her how glad he was that she was still in the world.

Instead of responding, she rested her head back on his shoulder and the Slayer of Slayers and his newly risen childe sat together quietly enjoying what was left of the night, leaving until later the tedious business of sorting out their new relationship.

The End


A Mother's Plea now has a sequel - Born To Be My Baby - now on the verse.