The Cost of Butterfly Kisses
Rated ADULT
Warnings: Manipulation, Consent issues, Dom/sub

Part Two

"So, your little friends never figured out that you'd knocked up a demon?" Spike asked as he got in the DeSoto. Xander was busy hugging his own stomach like some sort of kicked puppy. He shook his head. The boy had grown up a lot in the last few years, but now he was back to looking fifteen and lost. It was a good look for him, all big wounded eyes and trembling.

"You lot are so close, and if you diddled your demon chit back when you were fifteen, that's a fair bit of time to hide this second life of yours," Spike mused. "Maybe I just haven't given you enough credit when it comes to your ability to lie." Actually, right from the start, he'd thought it was pretty queer that Xander would make the wish. The boy was thick as pig shite on some subjects, like the way Anya would dump him like yesterday's rotting trash when he stopped being useful. Yeah, the slayer was using Spike, but at least he knew it. He knew it, and that gave him the power and the time to bloody change her mind. The boy was just blind when it came to birds. However, when it came to demons, he'd survived more than most humans. The second Sweet had vanished, suspicions had circled around in Spike's head, but Buffy and the others had just immediately believed that Xander had really been that stupid.

"You using magic?" Spike demanded. Xander had gotten in the car, and he just stared at Spike blankly. Bloody fucking hell, if he had spelled the Buffy and the Bit, chip or not, Spike was going to pull his intestines out. Reaching out, he caught Xander's hand and used it like a leash to yank the boy closer. Xander gave a squeak of surprise, but he didn't fight. "Did you use some bloody spell to cover up for yourself?"

"What? No. I’m huge with the avoiding of spells." Xander smelled terrified, but he didn't sound like he was lying.

"Then why the fuck did they buy that rot about you being stupid enough to summon a bloody demon?" Spike neatly left out the way he had put his own suspicions aside the moment it was clear that Buffy and Willow had.

"They just did."

Spike let his eyes turn yellow.

"We have to go get Bonnie." Xander pulled against Spike's grip, but Spike didn't budge. The chip might not let him hurt Xander, but it sure didn't stop him from holding him tight enough that the boy wasn't going anywhere.

"Then convince me you haven't done something just as stupid as summoning Sweet," Spike said, his voice silky with danger. That was the voice that told smart little prey to run for their lighted homes and their crucifixes and lured foolish prey right into his arms.

"Spike, my daughter was in town. My daughter. I would not be summoning demons with my daughter in the path of the destruction. Putting myself in danger, sure, but not Bonnie."

"And Buffy and Willow? Are you using some sort of spell to cover up your dark little secret?"

"No." Xander put on his stubborn face—either that or he really was panicking. Bonnie would wait until Spike got this sorted, though. If he was going to take control, that meant he had to bring Xander to heel now, before Xander had time to try and think through some way to get out of their deal.

"Convince me," Spike said firmly, tightening his hold on Xander's wrist.

"I didn't. I don't need to." Xander voice grew louder and strained, like a guitar string about to snap. "Spike, we have to go get Bonnie. Please."

"Still not convincing me, pet. Maybe we should take this to the Watcher... tell him about your demon lover and your little girl and my suspicions that you're dabbling in a bit of black magic to smooth over your friends' memories."

"I don't need to!" Xander's voice broke like an adolescent boy's. "They look at me and they think, 'Oh, Xander's just sick and tired of being the normal one, the one without brains or powers or skills, and that's why he does all this stupid stuff. That's why he puts himself in danger. That's why he was willing to send the entire town to hell because he wanted a fun day with a singing demon.'" Xander's voice took on a hard, mimicking edge that Spike had never heard from him before. "'He thinks we're overlooking him,' they think and they whisper to each other just loud enough so I can hear. 'So we just need to pay more attention to Xander.'" His voice had a desperation to it, a mocking, self-hating desperation that Spike didn't think the boy could fake. He wasn't that good of an actor, and the pain was too raw.

"Any of that true?" Spike asked quietly.

Xander answered with a half sob and an impotent struggle to reclaim his hand. They silently fought for several seconds, Xander twisting and writhing and Spike simply holding on and waiting for the boy to wear himself out. With a heaving sob, Xander finally stopped and sort of sagged into the seat. "Maybe when I was fifteen. When I was fifteen and this all seemed like some comic book, I wanted to be the one with the cape and the secret identity, but I've seen too much Spike. I don't want that. I'm okay being the normal one, but they still think I'm Dawn; they think I'm too caught up in jealousy to see that being special is huge with the sucking side-effects. Enormous, life-altering, happiness-sucking, never-ending side effects. I'm not Dawn, and they just never noticed that I grew up at the same time they did." Xander stopped and turned to stare out into the night, and Spike held his wrist captive and waited. Boy wasn't done yet. Normally Xander wasn't one for speeches. He would make a quip or a bloody stupid comment and then bugger off to the back to clean some weapon, but this had been building for a while.

"They never really noticed much, so keeping Bonnie a secret wasn't exactly hard. I thought it would be. Senior year I pretty much lived in terror of Buffy finding out. I practiced speeches about not judging a demon by its cover. I worked mowing lawns on weekends so K'wana would have money to run for it if Buffy found out. Turns out, I didn't need to worry." He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the headrest. "Spike, please. Whatever you want here, I'll give it to you, but I have to go get my daughter." The whispered plea seemed to mark the end of Xander's talkative period and he fell silent.

"Whatever I want?" Spike asked, waiting for the stuttered caveats and the quick denials. Xander just sat with his eyes closed and his body limp like a doll that someone had only half-stuffed full of sawdust. A half-dozen good insults darted through Spike's brain, but it seemed unfair to kick a man when he was down, not that Spike had any compunction about fairness, but he didn't need a broken Xander serving him. "Just keep in mind that you made this deal," Spike said. He'd have to test the boundaries of just how far Xander would go later. Right now they needed to get to his little girl. "Which street?"

"Candlewood," Xander said, and Spike started the car and headed out into the night.

The DeSoto roared before Spike turned it off outside the small house where Xander had sent him. Other than giving directions, the boy had turned unusually quiet. Spike hadn't heard him this silent since the demons had stolen everyone's voice.

Xander gave him a quick and suspicious look before he got out of the car and hurried up the tattered lawn. The house looked normal enough, including a little ceramic garden gnome sitting in the middle of a brown lawn. Kwaini Demons generally tried to blend, even if they did look like the bloody ugliest humans ever. With a good glamour, they could trick most people into looking past the heavy eye ridges and the elongated nose that blended into their upper lip.

Xander knocked, and a demoness opened the front door. Spike got and leaned against the warm hood, a lit cigarette hanging from one hand. The one at the door was full demon and obviously didn't think much of Xander. Xander stood, his eyes down and his shoulders hunched, but his feet shifted constantly, nervously. Boy was a moron. Demons would never show him any respect unless he stood up and took it, preferably by rippin' their arms off and beating them about the head with 'em. Maybe another day he might have had the energy to work up to a decent glare or an insult or two, but today he didn't even seem to have the energy to bloody stand up straight. Idiot.

Throwing his cigarette into the street, Spike headed up the walk with all the swagger and arrogance he had at his disposal. Immediately, the demoness ignored Xander and focused on him.

"Right then, what's the problem. Don't have all day," Spike said, ignoring the demoness and focusing on Xander. Nothing showed your superiority like ignoring the bloody enemy. The demoness shifted nervously and wisps of fear curled into the air; Xander lost every bit of color out of his face.

"It'll just be a second, Spike. I need to get Bonnie." Xander sounded desperate. Wanker. They'd come for the girl, so it wasn't like Spike was going to drag him off without her. The whooping cough was nasty shite, and a little one didn't need to suffer through that when they could just take her to hospital. However, the fear from both Xander and the demoness made Spike's demon bask under on the feeling of power. This was familiar. This was comfortable.

"Please, Spike," Xander asked, his voice cracking like he was some fourteen-year-old kid. Spike shook his head. This one didn't just have a soft-underbelly, he ran around showing it to anyone who stopped and looked at him for more than two seconds. It was a wonder no one had eaten him. Actually, it was a wonder Spike hadn't eaten him. If Spike hadn't been distracted by Drusilla's illness, he would have considered Angel's little ploy a bit of a challenge.

"Simple enough," Spike said as he finally turned to the demoness. "I won't have Bonnie die of some fucking human disease. So, either you bring her out here so her da can take her to hospital, or I'll fucking burn the house down."

"You'd kill her too," the demoness said, but she looked worried.

"Yeah, but it won't be of some cough, will it? And I won't have to listen to my boy frettin' because some wanker kept him away, because he'll be visitin' her grave every day." Spike smiled. Now it was the demoness who was shifting nervously, her eyes going from Spike to Xander. Leaning against the rusting railing along the front steps, Spike ran his tongue along his lower lip and considered the demoness. She was full kwaini, her heavy brow ridges and bald head would never even pass for human. So, she was an aunt or grandmother, this one.

Taking out his lighter, Spike flicked the top open and allowed the small flame to flicker up.

"Spike," Xander said desperately, and the way he strangled the word and the fear pouring off the git must have convinced the woman that Spike wasn't kidding.

"K'wana!" the woman called. Another appeared behind her, and this one was definitely a half-breed. A crown of long black hair circled her bald head and her eyes were almost human, ugly by human standards, but almost normal, and she clutched a wiggling bundle in her arms. The deep kwaini wrinkles were softened so that she looked old, not deformed. Still, she wasn't what Spike expected puppy boy to go for.

"Xander," she said, her voice soft with hope and appreciation. The full kwaini demoness hissed her disapproval and turned back into the house.

"Is Bonnie okay?" Xander asked. He stepped forward and held out his arms. K'wana gently handed over the blue bundle of blankets in her arms. From the size, Spike was guessing the tyke was four or five.

"I don't know."

"She will be, mum," Spike offered. "The cough is bad, but the demon blood will keep her strong, and human medicine will make her well."

K'wana looked over at him, her dark eyes studying him up and down for a second. Spike didn't move from his spot leaning against the rail. If she wanted to check him out, it didn't make any difference to him. "My family doesn't like that she's growing so human." She ducked her head, clearly embarrassed by the fact that she had a spawn that didn't exactly fit the demonic mold. It had to be hard, not only having a child so weak, but having the family know that she'd chosen to mate with a full human. For demons, life was power, and linking yourself to the powerless was as good and declaring your own powerlessness.

Spike shrugged. "Seems like puppy boy wasn't all human himself when you two made her. Didn't any of that come through in the blood?"

She glanced over at Xander and then shook her head.

"We need to get her to the hospital, she's hot," Xander said, looking from Spike to K'wana with a sort of helpless anger.

"Right then, we're off," Spike said as he turned and headed back to the car. Xander followed without a word to the mother of his child. There was a story there, too. Spike started wondering if he'd been wrong about Xander sending money over to her, but that was the only thing that made sense given Anya's many vocal complaints about Xander and money. The git sure didn't have any other vices that would have claimed large chunks of money.

The bundle in Xander's arms started to cough as Spike started the car.

"Spike, hurry, please," Xander asked, his eyes on the child inside the blanket. Nodding, Spike floored the accelerator. Despite three near-wrecks and a hubcap lost on a curb, Xander didn't say anything until Spike pulled into the emergency lane at the local hospital.

A nurse in white came out. "You can't park here!"

Spike opened his door and stood by it as Xander scrambled to get out. "I think the little one's dying," Spike lied.

Xander made a noise like he was the one dying and froze right there in the drive as the nurse hurried over.

"I need a gurney!" she called as she pulled back the edges of the blanket. "Call pediatrics!" Spike got his first look at thick, dark curls spilling over the edges of the blue blanket.

"And get this car out of the ambulance lane," the nurse barked at Spike. Spike got back in and looked for a place to park. If this Bonnie was going to be his meal ticket, the least he could do is show a little interest in her recovery--and make sure the idiots knew it was whooping cough. If the girl died, the whole deal was going to go tits over arse.

Part Three

Spike stretched, arching his back and kicking his boots out into the aisle where he would trip any nurse who tried to pass through. Bright green eyes were watching him, inhumanly green. "You better then?" Spike asked.

The girl didn't answer. Instead her eyes traveled the room, taking in the bright cartoon characters painted on the walls and Spike. She might look human, but she sure as hell hadn't been raised by them. Her eyes were all suspicion and calculation. Most humans didn't learn that kind of wariness until they were grown.

"Asked ya a question, pet. Don't make me ask you again," Spike warned when she was silent too long, his voice soft, but his eyes flashing yellow. Didn't seem fair to go intimidating a tyke, that was more Drusilla's game, but Spike wasn't going to have her running out of here either. Like it or not, she was his meal-ticket, and he had a vested interest in keeping her safe and healthy.

"My chest doesn't hurt as much," she said slowly and carefully.

"The medicine should have you right as rain in no time," Spike nodded.

She seemed to be thinking for a second, and Spike watched her, not sure what to expect. Eventually those stunning green eyes found him. "Where's my mother?"

"No fucking clue. Probably back at the house," Spike answered, leaning back against the chair. It wasn't like she posed any danger, and having demon blood, he could snatch her up if he had to.

She swallowed, her hands clutching the pale yellow blanket. "My father?" she asked.

"At work. He wanted to sit here and watch you just keep breathin', but I pointed out that he had responsibilities." Spike stretched. "Had to really work to get him out of here. You have him wrapped around your finger, don't you?"

She considered him silently for several seconds. This one might look human, but she wasn't going to pass for human if anyone really looked at her for long. "You're a vampire," she finally announced.

Spike blinked. The girl had inherited her father's tact, that was for bloody sure. "I am," he agreed.

She tilted her head at him, and he could see the shadowed half-circles around her eyes where a full-blooded demon would have those ridges that made 'em look like mutated sheepdogs. But when she moved just a fraction of an inch, the shadows disappeared and she was a little girl with a round face and piles of long dark curls that she had clearly inherited from her father. Only her eyes stood out as inhuman.

"Grandmother says vampires aren't real demons. They're too much like humans because they take over human bodies and get their memories and everything." Her tone of voice made her admiration for her grandmother clear, and Spike had to control a growl that threatened to slip out.

Running his tongue along the inside of his lower lip, Spike leaned forward. "I figure you lot have families and grandmothers and give live birth, so you're more like humans than vampires are. We know better than to create offspring who are too small and weak to protect themselves."

She blinked and looked at him, but either she wasn't afraid or she didn't have the human scent glands. "I never thought of that," she said with a little frown. "You bite people and make full growns, don't you?"

"If I feel like it," Spike answered, suddenly not sure that he was controlling this conversation as well as he thought he was.

"My cousin said that I'm too much human," she told him in a sudden change of topic.

"You've got a lot of human blood," Spike said cautiously, not really sure why she would talk about that.

"He said I'm so much human that vampire would probably eat me. He said I would taste good. Do you plan to eat me?" She blinked up at him. Despite the question, there still wasn't any fear in the air. Either the girl was a little touched in the head or she didn't have any human glands at all.

"I figure your da would throw a wobbly if I did that."

"Are you my dad's new owner?"

Spike blinked. Clearly he had been spending too much time with humans because that was a logical question and yet, he hadn't expected it at all. "Complicated question, pet. That's something you shouldn't be talking about." She pressed her little lips together so that her mouth got so small that she looked like one of Dru's little dolls propped up on the white sheets.

Without warning, she stuck her hand out toward him. "Can you taste me and tell me if I taste human? Co'reck is really annoying and I want to tell him that he's wrong about me tasting like a human."

Spike took her small hand in his. "You shouldn't ever offer your blood pet, not to anyone."

She frowned. "But you came with Daddy."

"Yeah, but your da has some dangerous friends. You don't offer them anything, not even if they ask. Understand?" She got that doll-like frown again and then pulled her hand back slowly. Bloody hell, she wasn't supposed to be upset just because he wouldn't bite her. "Besides," he added, "you don't smell anything like a human. Smell always reveals the truth, and you smell so much like a demon that I'd have to be bloody starving before I'd touch you, and if I were starving, I wouldn't care what the blood tasted like; I'd eat Co'reck or any other full-blood demon to keep from turning to dust."

She giggled and pulled the sheet up closer.

"Bonnie?" a timid voice asked.

"Mommy!" Bonnie threw herself forward, but then she started coughing and ended up on her hands and knees in the middle of the bed, gasping for air.

"Bloody hell." Spike caught her as she just about ripped her own IV out with the force of the coughing.

"Bonnie!" The woman darted forward, and the headscarf she'd pulled over her head slipped back. Spike wasn't surprised the mother had come, but she was a bloody idiot for not using a glamour. She couldn't pass for human, not unless she ran into a blind man. "Sweetie, are you okay?"

Bonnie coughed as her mother helped her back into the bed.

"She'll be fine, mum. Just a bit of a cough, but she's demon enough to fight this off." Spike ran his fingers along the IV line, untangling the sheets from the delicate line.

K'wana made a little unhappy noise, something between a sob and a whine.

"Momma?" Bonnie asked between coughs.

"You're my girl. You're going to grow up as strong as a kita beast, aren't you?"

Bonnie nodded, and K'wana sank into the chair Spike had left, bending down to rest her forehead against the bed in a pose of perfect despair.

"I'm getting better, Momma. I promise." Bonnie's voice had just a little tremble in it.

"I know, Sweetie." K'wana sat up. "Granddame wants us to move back to hive."

Suddenly Bonnie looked a lot more demon. The curved patches around her eyes darkened into an imitation of an eyeridge and her eyes brightened. Spike moved closer to the door and kicked it closed with his boot. The last thing they needed was some screaming nurse. K'wana turned to look at Spike. "They won't accept Bonnie. They don't understand why I chose her father." Her face darkened, and Spike was guessing that meant distress.

"Xander's tougher than he looks," Spike offered. Didn't feel right to let the mother suffer so much. Spike liked torture as much as the next demon, but he preferred victims who weren't already quite so damaged. "I've seen him go up against Angelus and stop the wanker from finishing off the slayer when she was down and nearly out."

K'wana tilted her head. "How?"

"Damned if I know," Spike said with a shrug. "But he was in the battle for the high school against vampires and the mayor's minions, and he bloody survived. He helped the slayer fight a hellgod. The slayer died, and Xander was still there. I tried to kill the wanker. I knocked him upside the head with a microscope when I grabbed up one of his little friends, and he still survived."

"You didn't kill him?"

Spike shrugged. "Got distracted. But what I'm saying is that Xander might not be as bad of a choice as you lot seem to think. He wears that helplessness like a tiger's stripes, but if he were as helpless or as bumbling as he looked, he would have been some vampire's dinner a long time ago."

K'wana stood up, her hand still holding Bonnie's. "Bonnie won't do well at the hive. Xander needs to take care of her until we get back." K'wana's voice was steady, but Spike could read the lie like it was painted across her forehead. She wasn't coming back. The world lost its blues as his true face came out and his eyes yellowed. "Xander loves her. She loves Xander, even when everyone tells her that she shouldn't. Bonnie isn't even her name. Granddame named her Bo'yan'nea, and Bonnie was the closest Xander could come to saying it, and now she won't answer to anything else. He'll take care of her. I can't." K'wana's voice was high and sharp, her eye ridges in deep relief as they turned almost black. "They're going to be coming soon. Our house, it has a ghost and she likes Bonnie, so she agreed to hide the keys until I could come here, but they're going to come for me. Granddame is going to ask me to either bring Bonnie or renounce her. Please. They'll kill her. Please." K'wana's voice finally broke, and she gave a very human sob.

"Mommy?" Bonnie asked, her voice so small that Spike wasn't sure a human's ears could have heard. K'wana flinched.

"They say it's my fault a vampire knows where the house is. I've violated the rules. I'll live with that. Bonnie shouldn't." Her words came out in short gasps as she tried to catch her breath.

Spike looked, and Bonnie had pulled her hand out of her mother's grip. She was clutching the blankets around her, and she looked fully demon with dark ridges around her eyes swelling up and turning a deep bruise-purple. Spike moved to the end of Bonnie's bed. Bloody hell. Puppy-boy should be here to deal with this. It was his stupidity in shagging a demon that led to the whole mess, and now he should see the fallout when you went sticking your dick in where it wasn't wanted.

K'wana looked up at him. "Please," she whispered, and it was pretty clear she expected him to answer for Xander. Moron.

"The house... you have that magically off the grid?" Spike asked. This could still turn to his advantage.

K'wana nodded.

"How long?"

She hiccupped. "A century spell. It was just redone in the seventies."

Spike nodded. "The ghost... any problems with that?"

She shook her head, but the black was fading from her eyeridges.

"Who's taking over?"

"A clan of helpherin."

"Get back there and tell them they have one day to clear out before I show up and slaughter anyone who's left, got it?" she nodded. Turning she looked at her daughter, helpless despair still etched into her face.

"I'll protect her, mum, and Xander will love the stuffing out of her. Probably spoil her rotten by the time you lot get back."

K'wana looked at him and opened her mouth, and maybe she was about to tell him the truth—that she wasn't coming back. Maybe she was even going to die for her poor judgment. Maybe she was just going to be safely married off to someone with a kink for human hair. But Bonnie didn't need to hear any of that.

"Go on then, get out." Spike opened the door and waited as K'wana slowly moved out of the room, her eyes still on Bonnie until Spike finally let the door drift shut again.

Part Four

He stirred, sleep lifting from him sluggishly. A warm body rested next to him, which felt familiar. He looked over and there was a beautiful, pixyish woman with red hair and stunning eyes looking at him. "Hey," he offered in his most seductive tones. She returned his 'hey' with one of her own, but she had a confused look on her face, and he could understand the confusion because he didn't know her or himself. Definitely time to cut back on the drinking.

"Hello?" an older man with an English accent asked. A girl answered. "Who... who are you people?"

Well crap. Clearly he wasn't the only one with memory problems. A sexy blonde knelt down beside the girl, trying to comfort her, and his cup of weird was runnething over. "Okay, who are you freaks?" he demanded. If someone slipped him something in his beer, he was pressing charges.

The redhead looked at him. "You don't know me?"

For one second, he considered bluffing. Telling a beautiful woman that you didn't remember her was all kinds of stupid. However, the next question she was going to ask him was her name, and getting caught lying to a beautiful woman was even more stupid. "Not a clue," he admitted.

"But you were just all like, 'oh hey,'" she said in a very insulting tone. Suddenly she wasn't looking quite as pretty.

"Yeah, 'cause I thought you were a girl," he pointed out. He could see his mistake the second that came out and he tried to recover, "and I'd remember, but—"

"Well, I am a girl!" She grabbed her own breasts like she needed to check, and something was definitely wrong with this whole picture. She stuttered on. "I'm ... not sure ... who I am exactly, but—"

He didn't wait for the redhead to finish; he blew up. "Okay, why was I on the ground? And why are you all staring at me? Is this some kind of psych test? Am I getting paid for this?" He had a vague memory of sitting in a small room with a monitor and a man in a tweed suit. He had to answer questions in order to get paid for test results, and he'd needed that money badly. He felt a vague sort of panic at the idea of money.

The English man got up. He looked a little like the man from the small room with the monitor, like he was a college professor or a university researcher or something. "It's not just you. Does anyone remember anything?" he asked in a tone that made it clear he was used to dealing with emergencies calmly and responsibly. Unfortunately, everyone answered with a shake of their heads.

"Well, maybe we all got ... terribly drunk and this is some sort of, uh, blackout," he suggested, which seemed not so responsible. The girls looked a little young for drinking, all except for the blonde with the straight hair that went all flippy at the end—the one standing near the English guy. She looked old enough to drink.

The youngest one, the brown-haired girl answered. "I don't think I drink."

"I don't see any booze," flippy-hair pointed out. She felt her head. "I don't feel any head bumps. I don't see Allen Funt."

"Who?" the English guy asked. He had been about to ask the same, but the flippy-haired girl waved English off, and he didn't want to get dismissed like that, so he kept his mouth shut.

If his weird cup runneth over before, it was now running over and threatening to flood the whole house. What the hell was going on? "Okay. I'm not panicking. I'm not. I'm not," he firmly ordered himself. Everyone turned to look at him like he was doing something strange. He was the only one having a normal reaction to waking up without any memory. "Stop looking at me like I'm panicking!" he snapped.

"Hey, hey, take it easy, guy," the blonde bombshell reassured him. "Okay, no one's hurt, right? And, and none of us look all hatchety-murdery, so ... we're probably safe. Here. Wherever here is." That was probably the worst case of reassuring he had ever heard.

The redhead wandered the room, her fingers brushing over jars and vials lined up on the shelves. "Look at this stuff on these shelves. Weird jars of weird stuff," she said. "Weird books with weird covers, like 'Magic for Beginners.'" Her face lit up. "Oh!"

"This is a magic shop. A-a-a real magic shop." A woman he hadn't noticed before stood up. Her light brown hair was pulled back and she had large doe-like eyes. Even without his memories, he was starting to feel just a little lucky because waking up in a room full of beautiful women was not the worst thing that could happen.

Blonde bombshell spoke up. "Well, maybe that's it. Maybe something magic happened—" she started, and clearly she was the dumb blonde. Before he could say anything, the English dude was all over that.

"Magic! Magic's all balderdash and chicanery. I'm afraid we don't know a bloody thing... except I seem to be British, don't I?" he asked like that hadn't been obvious already. "Uh, and a man. With ... glasses. Well, that narrows it down considerably." The blonde bombshell wasn't the only dumb one in the room.

The young girl turned to the bombshell. "I don't like this."

"It's okay, don't worry. We'll take care of each other," she promised, brushing the hair back from the girl's face. He had a memory, but it couldn't be real. The woman he remembered wasn't human; she was some sort of alien. She smiled, and a little girl with dark curls rose up in his memory. She ran toward him with chubby arms and legs, and he swept her up into his arms and he felt.... he felt whole. He looked around. Where was his little girl? What if something happened to her? But something warned him to not tell these people he had a little alien child somewhere. He couldn't trust them, not with that. Maybe they'd threatened to turn his alien child over to Area 51 government goons and he'd put some sort of memory whammy on all of them. Maybe he had a memory ray gun somewhere.

The English man was nodding now. "We'll all get our memory back, and it'll all be right as rain," he said in a tone that made it clear he was hoping that would happen.

Flippy hair gave a little squeal. "Look!" She held up her hand and he could see an engagement ring on her hand. "I'm engaged." She looked at the English man, and he blinked at her, but he didn't offer any denials. "It's a lovely ring," she told English like she was congratulating him on his taste in jewelry.

"Nothing like a little cradle-robbing in the morning," he muttered as he watched the two of them. English really was a little old for flippy-hair.

"Old?" English demanded. "I'm young enough to still get carded."

Before he could apologize, at the very least apologize for talking loud enough for anyone to hear, the redhead clapped her hands. "Carded! Driver's licenses!"

Thank god. Clearly the redhead had the brains in the group. He felt through his pockets and pulled out his identification. "It's me," he offered them a look at his card. "'Alexander Harris.' Cute picture. Hey, I exist," he finished with a cheeky grin.

The redhead smiled back. "I'm Willow Rosenberg. Heh, Willow. Funny name.

"I think it's pretty," the doe-eyed beauty said shyly.

Willow smiled back. "Whadda you got?"

"Tara, and look, I'm a student at U.C. Sunnydale."

"Me too! Hey, maybe we're study buddies."

"Jackpot," Alexander said as he pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. That was even better than a memory erasing ray gun. "Anyone want to find out who's on the saved number list?" He pushed memory 1 and the little screen showed the word 'home' in block letters. "I'm calling home."

"But you're here," the blonde-bombshell who didn't have a name yet pointed out.

"I'm... I'm called Rupert Giles," English continued with the introductions as Alexander listened to the phone ring.

Flippy hair smiled at him. "Rupert," she said in a tone of voice that made it clear to Alexander that she was the sort who was going to be practicing saying her first name with his last name just as soon as she figured out her name.

"Oh, hey, I have a name on my jacket. Harris," Willow said about the same time a voice answered the phone.

"Wot?" an English voice demanded.

Alexander frowned. Were they in England? "Is this the home of Alexander Harris?" he asked politely. He suddenly realized that he didn't know what he was supposed to say.

"Harris?" the voice asked. The aggression was still there but so was confusion.

"I believe so," Alexander answered.

"You... believe so?"

"Are you able to do anything other than parrot back my words?" Alexander asked in frustration. He wasn't sure why, but the voice from the phone created a general feeling of anxiety and frustration. Surely that wasn't a good sign.

"Bloody hell. What the fuck has gotten into you, Xander?"

"Xander? I go by Xander?"

"Xander?" Rupert echoed. Clearly he did not approve, but a man with a name like Rupert had very little room to complain about others' names.

"Yes, you bloody well go by Xander. Who else is there with you, mate?" the voice asked.

"Rupert and Willow and Tara and two others," Xander said. The youngest one held up her necklace.

"Dawn!" she provided.

"Dawn's there?" The voice on the other end sounded truly concerned now. Maybe they were friends. "You lot stay there."

"But—"

"Stay there!" he said firmly. "None you you set one bloody foot out the door. In fact, lock the door and make sure no one sets one foot inside, either. I can sort this mess out when I get there."

"Do you know what happened?" Xander asked.

"Bloody fucking magic is what happened. I don't know how many times I have to point out that magic always goes tits over arse, and still Red has to go stirring that pot. I'm on my way." He hung up before Xander even had a chance to ask him his name or point out that he didn't know where they were. Hopefully the man on the other end knew.

"Well?" Rupert asked.

"He says that Red always stirs the magic pot and that he'll fix it when he gets here," Xander said absent-mindedly. "He sounds upset."

"Do you think he's a brother?" Willow asked. "Because the coat I'm wearing says 'Harris' so it might be yours or your brother's. Maybe I'm dating one of you." Xander looked around. Willow was the only one who fit the name "Red" and the thought that she had erased his memory made him just a little uncomfortable. "We did wake up all snuggly-wuggly," she concluded.

"He was English, so I don't think we're brothers."

"I'm Anya!" The woman with flippy hair announced loudly. "My key fits this lock. And, uh, the forms ... next to the cash register say that," she paused as she read, "Rupert and Anya own the shop together."

Rupert looked at her in surprised. "This is *our* magic shop?" he asked. Xander felt for the man. Anya wasn't exactly tactful, and being both engaged to and working with her was going to wear thin pretty quick. "Uh, well, that's very, uh, uh, progressive of me," he finished weakly, clearly trying to recover from any horror that he might have shown.

"Did he say what my name was?" the blonde bombshell asked.

Xander shook his head. "No, but he was not at all happy that I didn't seem to know myself. And he acted like he knew exactly where we'd be. I really hope he's right because if none of us are where we're supposed to be, then he's going to be running around looking for us in places where we aren't."

"In which case he can simply call you on the portable phone," Rupert said dismissively, and something in Xander's memory nagged him. He didn't like being dismissed.

"Yes, but it might slow him down too much," Xander said defensively. "And he said we should lock all the doors and not go outside, so there may be some kind of danger we don't understand."

"Da-danger?" Tara asked. Willow edged closer to the woman like she wanted to reassure her but she wasn't sure how.

"Did he say what kind of danger?" Anya demanded even while she moved to the door and threw the locks. This place did have some pretty impressive locks. "Is this running for our lives danger or be careful because the IRS could take away everything you and your loving fiancé have spent a lifetime building up?"

"I don't know, but I get the feeling he's coming here as fast as he can," Xander moved to the counter and leaned on it.

Dawn moved to his side. "That's so sweet. He's rushing over here to be by your side. I bet he's your lover."

"Dawn!" Bombshell hissed in a horrified voice. Xander only managed to squeak out a weak, "what?" that was totally lost under the sheer volume of the bombshell's shocked response.

"I bet they are!" Dawn defended herself.

"That is so rude."

"Boy, you're a pain in the posterior," the bombshell said at the exact same time Dawn offered an equally unhappy, "Boy, you're bossy!"

Both froze and stared at each other for a second.

"Do you think we're—"

"Sisters?" The blonde finished Dawn's sentence. They smiled at each other and then threw themselves at each other in a hug.

"Still not gay," Xander protested. Both girls turned to look at him with a sort of fond exasperation that was somehow familiar.

"There is nothing wrong with being gay. Many great men were gay like Liberace and that guy who painted things." Anya's version of support was not exactly supportive. "Besides, it's not like you even know. We won't know you're gay until your gay lover shows up, scoops you into a hug and then offers to have comfort sex on the counter."

Xander immediately started choking. Over-share. Serious over-share.

"Now, dear," Rupert said. He was cleaning his glasses and looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"It's just the truth. People should not be so afraid of the truth," she defended herself. "If magic did this, I wonder if magic could undo it." She walked over and pulled a book off the shelf.

"Maybe we can tell when his roommate shows up," Dawn offered. "If he's wearing pink or purple or ruffles, that would mean he was gay, right?"

"Way to be insulting," the bombshell muttered, and this time, Xander agreed.

"Maybe we should just all do a whole lot of nothing until the man with the memories shows up," Xander suggested as he looked around the room. Tara nodded, immediately on board. Willow and Anya both had stubborn expressions, but both of them nodded when he kept looking at them.

"Good idea," the bombshell agreed, pulling her sister off to the side. Xander had called them freaks earlier, and he wasn't sure that was a strong enough word. An awkward silence fell on the room. Willow wandered the aisles looking at the strange supplies lined up on the shelves, and Tara's eyes followed her. Anya searched under the counter for record books and then seemed to get sulky when Rupert demanded equal time to look them over. And the bombshell and Dawn were having a whispered argument in the corner, complete with guilty looks in his direction. Clearly, Xander was the odd man out here, and somehow that was a familiar feeling. Damn. Did his life really suck so much that feeling miserable was somehow comfortable?

A pounding at the door jarred him out of his morbid thoughts.

"Open up!"

"We're closed!" Anya yelled back.

"It's Spike!" Inside the shop, everyone looked at each other in confusion. "Bloody hell, I'm the one Harris called for help!"

"OH!" Anya hurried over and unlocked the door.

Standing with the streetlight behind him was Spike. He had bleached hair slicked back and a long, leather coat that billowed out to show a deep purple shirt and well-worn jeans. Purple, Xander thought, why did it have to be purple? If the man was wearing all black, he would be less gayed up, but with his black nail polish and purple shirt, he was definitely on the gay side. And he lived at the number Xander had labeled 'home.' Oh he was so very, very gay. But at least he had some taste in men. This Spike was easily as beautiful as all the women in this room, and this room was definitely overloaded with beauty. Was he wearing eyeliner?

"Oi, nice job with this mess, Red," Spike said as he came in and pushed the door shut behind him. "Bit, you alright?" Spike asked, looking at Dawn. Xander walked closer and studied the man. He was older than Xander, maybe 25 or 30. At least there wasn't an age gap like with Anya and Rupert. Spike turned to look at Xander, his head tilted to the side in confusion.

"Mate, you alright?" he asked quietly, like the question was intimate.

"Freaked out," Xander answered honestly. "I'm just glad you were home to answer the phone." Xander patted the pocket with the cell phone. Spike's eyes darted down the pocket and his eyebrows went up. One was scarred, bisected by a line that looked like a tiny river dividing the brow.

"Sure enough." Spike sounded distracted and he studied Xander so closely that Xander could feel himself squirm under the gaze, his body reacting to the interest. Clearly Spike was the sexual aggressor in this relationship.

"They're so gay for each other," Dawn announced grandly, "I told you so."

"You told them he was gay?" Spike looked around like any of them had answers.

Dawn nodded. "Yep, with a lover who was at home and scared because he was hurt and who knew exactly where Xander was going to be. That's not a hard one to figure out." Spike's eyebrow did a dip and dance before going up even higher. The man was expressive.

"Right then, time to get the memories back," Spike said without actually answering Dawn. He turned to Willow. "You're going to have something on you—a piece of paper with names or a small branch with tiny pink flowers or a crystal or orb. We need it."

"Me?" Willow's voice went up an octave.

"I would think that if someone would be powerful enough to cast a spell this big, it would be me. After all, I own the shop," Anya pointed out. Then she sidestepped and caught Rupert's arm, hugging it closely, "Rupert and I do, anyway. But then, I'm sure I'm far too mature to make a mistake with a spell, isn't that right, Rupert?" she looked at him, and Rupert had a deer-in-the-headlights look.

"Yes, I'm sure it is," he offered vaguely.

Spike looked suddenly thoughtful, and the expression worried Xander for some reason. He hated not having his memories.

"So, you're attracted to Rupert? No one else?" Spike asked.

Anya looked at him oddly. "Rupert is very ruggedly handsome."

Spike pursed his lips. "You're not attracted to Tara or Xander over there?"

Anya barely gave either of them a glance. "I like older partners."

"Older?" Rupert demanded with some offense.

"No worries, you aren't old," Spike offered him without taking his eyes off Anya. "So, you're setting your cap for Rupert?"

"Why?" Anya let go of his arm and looked at Spike suspiciously. Xander had to admit that he was feeling a little suspicious himself. "Oh god," Anya breathed as she turned on Rupert, "we're breaking up, aren't we? Are we getting a divorce? I bet you took back my wedding band, and I'm wearing the only piece of jewelry I have left from you. What? Did you have affairs with other women? Were you bringing them into our bed?"

"I... I..." Rupert turned so red that Xander was concerned for him, and the nameless bombshell stepped forward, clearly about to get involved. "For all we know, you could have been acting like a tart, sleeping with every git who walked through that door," Rupert finally gathered the words to counterattack.

"If I did it's because you drove me to it!" Anya pulled off her ring and threw it at him. "I'm not giving up the store, I don't care what you do. It is half mine, and I will work here and make you miserable every day for the rest of your life."

Rupert looked stunned.

"That was bloody amusing. I hope you remember that here in a second, pet," Spike said. As he walked past, Spike gave Xander's arm a pat.

"Pig," Anya said to Rupert, her eyes shining with tears.

"So, you find what we need?" Spike asked Willow. She opened her hand and a black crystal lay in the middle of it. "I've never seen it before."

"You'll remember it in a second," Spike promised. He took the crystal and dropped it on the floor. Bringing up his boot, he brought it down with a sharp crack. Xander staggered back as all his memories slammed into him. Bonnie, the house with the demon spell that exempted it from mortgage or electric or water bills, the ghost that would float toys in front of Bonnie to try and cheer her up. And now they all knew... they knew that he had a home that he shared with Spike. Xander couldn't breathe. His chest ached with fear.

Tara started crying softly.

"Tara." Willow said the word with such helpless desperation that it pulled Xander out of his own fears. Oh god. The conversation. They were talking about trying to fix what they had done to Buffy, and Willow had promised to not use magic.

Tara shook her head and headed for the back room. Willow made a little sob, but she didn't follow.

"Buffy," Xander turned to her, "we wanted to help, to make it easier, but none of us agreed to..." Xander waved his hand.

"Do the brain whammy?" Dawn filled in. Buffy looked too shell-shocked to even answer. She sat on a stool and just stared into space as time returned all her memories—including where they had ripped her out of heaven.

"I'm telling you, pet, that is one disaster waiting to happen," Spike said, bumping Xander's shoulder and poking a thumb toward Anya.

"Hey!" Anya protested. "My ring!" She went diving under the counter in search of it.

"Speaking of 'hey,' why was Spike at your apartment?" Dawn asked.

Xander froze. It was all about to fall down around his ears. If he had to choose between his friends and his daughter, he would choose Bonnie—no question. But he didn't want to lose his friends.

"I wasn't," Spike answered for him. "Xander's been working his arse off to put a down payment on the shittiest little house I've ever seen. He let me stay there in return for keeping the demons from thinking it was condemned and abandoned." Spike shrugged. "Have to say, though, this is not the most loving relationship." Spike looked from Xander to Anya.

Xander flinched, well aware that Spike only wanted to get Anya out of the way. With Anya gone, Xander would be totally under Spike's thumb. Xander and his paycheck. But Xander had to admit that a little part of him was okay with that. He was tired of trying to be all things to all people. He wanted to go home to Bonnie. Three nights now, he'd laid next to Anya while she wheezed herself to sleep, and he'd worried about Bonnie, about Clem's babysitting skills, about what Spike would do in order to take control, because Xander did understand that Spike needed control. The more creative Spike had to get in order to assert his control, the more danger they were all in.

"I wanted to bring something to the marriage," Xander whispered, feeling like a heel. "But..." he stopped. Anya was looking at him with a slowly growing dismay. Xander knew he had to do this. He had to protect Bonnie, and there was a little part of him that wanted to escape from the trap he'd built for himself when he proposed. He loved Anya. He did. He just couldn't marry her. He'd really thought he could propose and then get killed by Glory, and no harm done.

"You bought me a house?" Anya sounded confused.

"He bought a death trap for rats," Spike corrected her. Xander glanced over. The house looked rough outside, but inside, it was beautifully kept with carved beams that told the story of Bonnie's demonic ancestors. But if the girls thought he had rats, they were less likely to drop by for coffee.

"Xander?" Anya called.

He looked at her, desperate for the world to just open and swallow him whole.

She gave a little hiccup. Xander let his gaze fall to the ground. He couldn't do this; he couldn't hurt her.

"Bloody hell. Even I can smell disaster coming in this relationship. Let it go before you two end up hating each other," Spike counseled.

"Spike!" Buffy objected. Spike walked over to her side, and he looked at her with this longing that Xander couldn't understand. How could Spike, as evil as he was, want someone as pure as Buffy? Or maybe getting pulled out of heaven had made Buffy something less than pure because she wasn't pulling away from him. God, what had they done? And the worst part was that Xander still couldn't bring himself to be sorry. He was a selfish bastard who wanted Buffy alive.

"Face it, pet, when she didn't have her memories, she wasn't attracted to him at all," Spike said with brutal honesty. Xander flinched away from that truth.

"Xander is a very good provider, and very good in bed," Anya said, but even she wasn't sounding sure now. This was Xander's cue, his chance to simplify his life. He had to. Bonnie needed him now like she never had before, and all her mature comments about understanding why he had to leave didn't change the fact that he should be there.

"You should keep the apartment," Xander said quietly. "I'll leave you with two month's rent."

"Xander." Anya whispered his name, but Xander didn't look up. He just headed out into the night, his heart aching and guilt like a stone in his stomach because, god help him, he was relieved.

Part Five

"Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg. Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker got away, hey!" Xander sang as he pulled the heavy duct tape off the box of Christmas decorations. Bonnie laughed and reached out to pull on a plastic pine needle sticking out the corner of the box.

"Jingle bowels, jingle bowels, Daddy lost a..." she stopped.

"Peg," Xander sang. Bonnie giggled. "And you have been spending too much time with Spike. You are too young for bowel jokes."

"I'm not a baby," Bonnie said. She pulled on the needle, and it broke off. "I'm a growing girl."

"You are growing, but you're still a little girl," Xander disagreed. Sometimes it bothered him just how fast she was growing up. He'd looked up kwaini demons not long after he'd found out that his night of primal wildness was going to have some long-term consequences, and according the book, Bonnie was going to grow up fast... faster than a human, anyway. Xander had never had a chance to really talk to K'wana about it because any discussion seemed to come back to the family's despair that Bonnie was turning out more human than demon. Xander reached out and caught one of Bonnie's dark curls, and she smiled at him. Sadly, he didn't remember much about his night with K'wana. It was a long night stained with lust and fleeting memories of sweating flesh and sharp teeth. The last of the tape ripped away and the box came open, surprising Xander.

"I declare victory!" Xander said as artificial tree limbs popped up. His Christmases always sucked, but now that Bonnie was in a mostly human home, he was determined to give her some happy memories of the holiday.

"You're silly. The box isn't dangerous enough to defeat," Bonnie told him seriously.

"Oh yeah? Wait until you see how hard this is to put together," Xander pointed out. He pulled a branch out. "Every branch has a little bit of color on the end. We have to put up the big pole in the center and then match all the colors, and if we're wrong, we're going to have the ugliest Christmas tree in the whole world."

Bonnie pulled the first branch out, and then she froze, her eyes darting to the front door. Xander twisted around, watching the yellow streetlight shine in through the narrow slot window set into the door for a second before the lock turned and Spike came thumping in the room. It was early for him to be home.

"Hey, Spike," Xander said cautiously. If he was being honest, Spike was pretty easy to live with... easier than Anya anyway, but every time the vampire walked into the house, Xander could feel his guts knotting inside him. Bonnie was here, so damn vulnerable because her demon blood made it possible for Spike to hurt her, and Xander was intensely aware of the fact that he wasn't fast enough or strong enough to protect his daughter—not from Spike and not from all the other nasties that went bump in the night.

"Pet," Spike said, an endearment Xander was quickly growing to hate. It wasn't even that he hated the name itself. Anya's pet names for him tended to be on the therapy-inducing side. But Xander wasn't sure if Spike was showing some sort of weird, twisted sort of affection where he appreciated that Xander kept him in beer and smokes or if Spike was calling him a lower life form. And even worse, Xander couldn't do a damn thing to stop him.

Spike collapsed into the recliner looking absolutely exhausted. There weren't any big bads on the horizon, just some random harassing from the idiot triplets, so Xander wasn't quite sure what had left Spike looking like he'd just got beat on by his bookie friend again. Xander never would have guessed that a few Siamese kittens would have cost so much, but that was still less than one of Anya's spa days.

"Anything wrong?" Xander asked. He pushed himself up and moved to the center of the room.

Spike looked up. "Yeah, I don't see you getting me a fucking beer."

Xander flinched. He had always insisted that he was not going to grow up to be his father. So instead, he grew up to be his mother. Xander glanced at Bonnie, worried, but she was just sorting branches with the same intensity she used for everything. Rather than risk a fight in front of Bonnie, Xander headed for the kitchen.

When Xander had first moved to the house, he'd had nightmares about just what Spike would demand. Instead, Spike was way less with the demanding than Anya had been. If the refrigerator was stocked with human blood and ale and there were Jack Daniels, cigarettes, and Wheatabix in the cupboards, Spike was usually pretty damn content. Clearly not tonight.

Xander hurried through the carved mahogany arch that led into the kitchen. This was the one room that definitely wasn't human designed. Every inch of wall space was covered in carvings and the stove was a heavy iron monster built with wood-burning warmers to use for spell-making. If Willow wasn't already so far gone into the spell-making and if Xander wasn't trying to hide Bonnie from his friends, he'd love to show it off to her. But those medieval touches did look a little strange next to the full-sized modern refrigerator tucked into an inconvenient corner where you couldn't open the door all the way without hitting a stone pillar.

Going over, he pulled out beer and human blood, putting the second into a mug and then heading for the microwave. Spike was generally in a better mood after feeding, so if Xander wanted some happy Christmas memories, he was going to have to get the bloodsucker happy. His mother had always gone for the beer, but Xander figured if he brought Spike too much beer without some blood, they really were going to recreate the Harris household Christmas.

It was weird, sometimes Xander hated Spike, and other times he almost felt something almost sympathetic. He could weirdly understand Spike's frustration. Actually, he remembered the frustration because he'd spent all of sophomore year in a fruitless chase of Buffy. But still. Ick. As a vampire, Spike should be chasing vampires or demons or something. Not Buffy. There was wrong and then there was 'oh this is so going to end with someone's eviscerated guts in a steaming pile at their feet' wrong.

The microwave dinged, and Xander grabbed a box of Crawfords Garibaldi biscuits and stuck it under one arm before grabbing the beer in one hand and the mug of blood in the other. If the beer and the blood didn't cheer Spike up, hopefully the really crappy English cookies would.

Turning the corner, Xander found Bonnie standing at Spike's knee. His first instinct was to grab her away because if Spike was channeling Tony Harris, this was not going to end well. But instead of lashing out, verbally or physically, Spike smiled at whatever she had said and ran a finger over her cheek.

"Killed a Mohra once, poppet. Nasty buggers, those. Face like they just crawled out of their graves, those."

Xander opened his mouth, but then he snapped it shut again. Yeah, he would be happier if Bonnie never, ever heard about another big bad, but with Spike in the house, that wasn't going to happen. Instead he headed over and put the various treats on the table next to Spike's chair. Looking at the blood and the cookies, Spike's scarred eyebrow twitched, but Xander just headed back toward the Christmas tree. Bonnie had started pulling out the branches and organizing them by the color on the end, but she had all the red and and orange-red together. The colors looked the same, but red branches were long things for the bottom of the tree and orange-red were short and stubby.

"Bonnie, Spike looks really tired. Maybe we should leave the living room to him and we could go play with your video game," Xander suggested.

"How did you kill it?" Bonnie asked, crawling up onto his lap. Shit. Whatever he didn't want Bonnie to do, Bonnie pretty much did. Up until a month ago, Xander had really spent a lot of time blaming his parents for being unparental, but at this point, he figured they probably had done the best they could because getting a kid to listen obviously required talents that were not in the Harris gene pool.

Spike leaned forward. "It attacked Dru. It didn't even wait until she was looking, and it took an ax to her. Caught her right above the hip." Spike pointed to Bonnie's side. "She went down caterwauling, and I didn't have anything bigger than a knife on me, so I ripped one of the beams off the side of this shed and started swinging." Spike's got a gleeful look in his eye as he picked up his blood.

Bonnie's eyes got big. "You're strong."

That made Spike smile even more. "Bloody right I am, poppet. And I caught him right in the back of his knee. That's the trick, pet. If you don't know exactly how ta kill 'em, make sure you disable them so they can't come after you."

"Spike, this really isn't child-approved conversation," Xander tried to protest. Spike looked at him and gave him a look that might have been a grin or a sneer, Xander wasn't sure which.

"Not like Bonnie doesn't know about the things that go bump in the night, pet. I figure you lot only survived as long as you did because you bloody educated yourself. We don't want our girl ending up demon kibble because she doesn't know how to handle herself." Spike reached over and opened the cookie box.

"I'm going to grow up to be as strong as you," Bonnie announced firmly. Xander could feel hot jealousy turn his stomach sour, but then it wasn't like he had a whole lot of strength for her to admire. Bonnie's mother and grandmother had pointed that out often enough, and sometimes Xander could hear echoes of those women in Bonnie's voice. Spike tilted his head.

"Not likely, pet. Kwaini aren't as strong as vampires. But vampires aren't as strong as Mohra, and that big bastard that touched my Dru died, even if he was stronger than me."

"Because you disabled him," she said happily, pronouncing the new word carefully.

Spike laughed. "Didn't even come close, poppet. The wood broke, and there I was with a big, nasty demon with an ax and all I had was a bit of wood. And my sire was still down, crying out that I should rip the wanker's head off, like I hadn't already been trying to do exactly that. I bloody loved Dru, but sometimes she did tend to dwell on the obvious."

Spike offered Bonnie a cookie, and she took it and nibbled on in as she watched Spike. While Spike watched her, his expression softened. For a brief second, he wasn't the big bad.

"What did you do?" Xander asked, curiosity getting the best of him.

Spike let his hand rest on Bonnie's leg as she nibbled on her cookie. "I drove the broken end of the beam right into his stomach."

"Okay, please let's not get into descriptions of guts," Xander begged. Bonnie was eating, and Xander did not need to see any of her dinner or that cookie make a return appearance.

"What's the matter, mate? Weak stomach?"

Xander looked down toward Bonnie. Spike followed Xander's gaze and then rolled his eyes when he realized that Xander was concerned about Bonnie's stomach. Xander had no doubt that Spike cared about Bonnie, but his version of care and nurturing was not exactly child appropriate.

"Wanker," Spike said softly. He gave Bonnie a little slap on the back, and she came over and crawled onto the couch, laying on her stomach with her top half in Xander's lap. He rested a hand on her back.

"I don't mind evisceration stories," she offered, and it Xander really didn't want to even think about the fact that she didn't have to sound that word out. Disabled was a new word, evisceration she'd heard often enough to say comfortably. Sometimes Xander was sorry that he didn't just take Bonnie and run when she was a baby. He could have protected her from all this, but he'd been an idiot and he thought he could be a good father without giving up his life.

"Did that kill the demon?" she asked Spike.

"Ask your da," Spike said. Xander blinked for a second.

"What?"

"You spent the last six years mucking around with the slayer, fighting all the big bads. Did a broken bit of beam in the stomach kill the Mohra?"

Xander thought about that for a second. "Red crystal thingy right here?" Xander asked, tapping his forehead.

"That'd be it."

"You have to break the crystal or they just come back bigger and badder than ever," Xander said. "Not that they're exactly warm, fuzzy kittens the first time you try to kill them."

"True enough." Spike nodded. "Bloody wished someone would have told me that the first time I met it. I killed that git three times before Dru managed to tell me to break the stone. Every time it came after me, I thought the demon's bigger, badder brother was back for revenge."

"Wow." Bonnie's eyes were all big. "But a Mohra isn't going to come back from the dead and come in here, is it?" Bonnie looked at the front door with sudden suspicion. Given her age, the idea of demons breaking into the house should have terrified her, but Xander guessed the rules were different since she was a demon.

"No worries, poppet. No demon is coming through that door without my permission." Spike picked up his beer and took a big drink.

"Maybe we could start putting the tree together," Xander suggested. If Spike's mood was improving, he definitely wanted to be busy doing something other than aggravating him into getting pissed again.

"I bet I can put my half together faster!" Bonnie sang as she darted for the box. "Red, yellow and and blue are on the bottom."

"I guess that leaves me with all the branches at the top," Xander agreed.

"I'm going to beat you, Daddy," Bonnie said joyfully. Xander smiled and grabbed the center pole, setting it in the base so they could start putting the tree together. Yeah, Spike was stronger. Spike had all the cool demon stories that obviously impressed Bonnie's demon instincts, but Spike couldn't put a Christmas tree together with her or be her father or read her a story when he was trying hard not to cry about her mother. Those were Xander's jobs. And this was one job Xander was determined to not screw up.

Part Six

Xander yawned. The tree was looking definitely... odd. Bonnie had put almost all of the decorations on the bottom, and when Xander tried to move them, she got that bright-eyed stare that meant she was going to silently endure whatever you did even if she was miserable. So Xander had left most of them there. The living room twinkled with the Christmas lights from the tree, and the television droned so softly that Xander couldn't hear what it was saying, but the guy on it was happily chopping vegetables.

Spike took another drink of his beer.

"She's got you right round her finger, pet," he said mildly. Bonnie was asleep on her stomach under the tree. Xander's attempt to explain Santa Clause had been met with enthusiastic plans for traps and dungeons and stealing the reindeer until Spike had finally stepped in and explained that it was all some human rot to cover up for spoiling their children. Xander hadn't been able to tell if Bonnie was disappointed or amused, but she'd fallen asleep not long after that.

"Yeah, and you're just completely unaffected," Xander said sarcastically. Bonnie had spilled her milk over Spike's knee, and his jeans were an odd sort of gray from the dried stuff. Spike just shrugged.

"Spike?" Xander asked when the vampire stood up.

Spike stopped and looked down at Xander. Xander had long ago figured out that Spike was in a better mood for answering questions when he was both full of blood and standing over Xander. It was either a Spike thing or a vampire thing. Although actually, now that Xander thought about it, Larry had this weird way of being nice to Xander after knocking his face into the dirt in sixth grade, so maybe it was a bully thing.

"Wot?"

"Is there some sort of big bad in town that's got everyone stressed?" Xander hated that he had to ask Spike this. Spike was supposed to be the outsider, and he was one of the insiders, one of the three musketeers, only lately.... Xander refused to let his thoughts wander too far down that road. If he did, he was going to end up angry with Buffy for shutting him out or angry with Willow for thinking that Tara and her friends weren't enough or angry with himself for being too stupid to notice they were all falling apart.

Spike looked at Bonnie for a long time before he answered. "Just the human kind, mate."

Xander nodded. He wasn't even sure if Spike meant the idiot trio and their stupid techno tricks or Willow herself.

"Besides, not like you could do shit about it either way, is it?" Spike demanded.

Xander reached out and rested his hand on Bonnie's back as he looked at her. He didn't need to answer because Spike already knew the truth. Xander wasn't good at fighting, and after what had happened since Buffy died, he was starting to think he wasn't very good at friendship either. Xander got to his knees and gathered Bonnie up into his arms.

"She needs to be in bed," Xander said softly as he stood. Spike stood in his way for a second, just to show he could, and Xander waited. He was too tired for these games to even bother him anymore, and maybe that's why Spike stepped to the side and let him pass.

Shifting her onto his shoulder, he opened the basement door and headed downstairs. Most of the house was in two levels below ground. When the clan had lived here, Bonnie had shared a large room with her year-mates—family members born in the same year. But when Xander took over the house, he didn't want her in there alone. Sometimes she asked Spike things that made it pretty clear that her year-mates had been pretty cruel, and Xander wanted her to think better thoughts when she was in her room. Instead he had redone the smaller room next to the one he had claimed.

He went in now, flipping on the light. Bonnie had picked the color—a vivid turquoise with yellow trim that made Xander's eyes hurt and led to Spike commenting that the girl had clearly inherited her father's fashion sense, but Bonnie loved it.

Xander settled her into the bed, but before he could leave, she reached out and caught his shirt.

"Daddy?" She sounded sleepy.

Xander knelt down next to her bed. "It's late, honey. You should be asleep."

"Are you really going to buy presents and put them under the tree?" she asked.

Xander frowned. "Of course I am. I've gotten you presents every Christmas."

The way she stared up at him told Xander that she hadn't gotten any of them. He closed his eyes and cursed K'wana and Bonnie's grandmother and every other demon who'd ever lived here. Yeah, maybe Xander hadn't been able to get the best presents, and maybe he got her things that were a little weird from a demon's perspective, but they were his presents to his daughter.

Xander opened his eyes when Bonnie slipped her hand inside his. "It's silly to say they came from Santa," she told him seriously.

Xander ran his fingers through her curls. "I just want you to have a good Christmas."

"I will," she said seriously. "If Santa Clause is just a story, then is Jesus just a human story too?"

Xander stopped. Oh shit. She was six; he shouldn't have to deal with the big meaning of life stuff yet. He wasn't prepared for this. As much time as Xander spent thinking about hell and hell dimensions and curses, he really didn't spend much time thinking about God and Jesus. She just laid there and silently watched him. The weird thing was that he could walk out. He could leave without answering and she would never complain. Xander hadn't realized how odd that was until he really thought about what ten-year-old Dawn had been like when she first came to town.

Xander got up and sat on the edge of Bonnie's bed. "I don't know," Xander finally admitted. Yeah, he sucked as a father, but his goal was to do everything the opposite of his own father, so the very least he could do was admit when he was clueless. "I know he was a great man—someone who died trying to get people to see that they should be good and nice. I know that he was someone who I would have really liked, but I don't know if he was a God or just someone really, really good."

Bonnie nodded. "Someone who makes people..." she tilted her head, "not really happy, but helps them be not so sad," she finished.

"Gives them hope," Xander suggested. She nodded and pushed herself up on one elbow.

"Can I ask for something for Christmas?" she asked, and then she sucked in her upper lip and chewed on it, shadows appearing under her eyes and her face markings darkened.

"Of course you can," Xander rushed to reassure her. "I can't always promise to get it, but you can always ask, honey."

The shadows faded and she gave him a smile, but it was a sly one that she seemed to have picked up from Spike. "Can I have snow for Christmas?" she asked.

"Honey, it doesn't snow in Sunnydale."

"It did one year!" Bonnie crossed her arms, very willing to debate this point, and Xander had to admit that she was right. It had snowed. He'd been laying outside in a sleeping bag, and the snow had drifted down. According to Buffy, it had been a miracle sent to keep Angel from dusting himself. If Xander was going to make a miracle, he wouldn't do it to save Angel, but that had been Buffy's story, and her and Willow had swooned over it.

"I don't know how to make it snow, then," Xander told her.

"Have you done a snow dance yet?" she asked.

"A snow dance?"

Bonnie nodded, and her dark curls danced around her face. "Yeah, you know..." she looked at Xander like he should know, but he could only shrug. He could do Snoopy dances, but snow dances or just dancing in general were not really his thing.

"You dance outside naked around a bowl of ice to make it snow the next day," she explained. Xander opened his mouth because he was not getting naked in front of his daughter. The world could come to an end, and that was one rule he was not budging on. Spike could tell his evisceration stories and he would even bend on the whole letting Bonnie have raw steak, but he was not getting naked in front of his daughter. Maybe she recognized his expression, because she hurried to keep going.

"Seriously. My family did it all the time!" she promised him. "Mommy started it."

"Your mom?" Xander frowned. K'wana usually just did what her own mother told her to do. It was one of the many reasons why they spent so much time fighting. Xander looked at Bonnie, confused. Her lower lip started to quiver, and he narrowed his eyes. Then she started giggling. "You little liar," Xander said, scooping Bonnie up and holding her upside down. She squealed and grabbed his belt. Xander tickled her, and she screamed some more. Upstairs, boots moved across the floor, stopping at the top of the stairs.

Xander dropped Bonnie back onto the bed where she lay gasping, holding his hand in her two small fists. "You loon," Xander called her. She smiled up at him, but then her smile slowly faded.

"So, if I ask for something really big, you won't get mad?" she asked again.

"I won't get mad, honey. I don't have a lot of money, so I can't promise you that I can get it, but you can ask." Xander could only hope she was going to ask for something he could afford. Around Christmas, he could always pick up a couple of extra shifts at the construction site. Clem was a cheap babysitter, and the guys at the site loved having someone to pawn all their unwanted kittens off on. Xander was just going to try very hard to not think about what happened to those kittens.

Bonnie looked up toward the ceiling. "Every time Spike comes home smelling like that woman, he's unhappy. Can you make her stop being mean to Spike?"

Xander frowned. "Woman?" An unhappy little bubble was forming in his chest.

Bonnie nodded. "Whenever they have sex, Spike gets unhappy. It isn't nice to make people unhappy, and you're really good at making people be nice." Bonnie sucked her lower lip in and chewed on it as she looked at him. Xander wished he could pretend that Dru was back in town or that Spike was lusting after the waitress down at Willy's—not that Willy had one. He wished he could come up with any explanation other than the obvious one. That, and he wished Bonnie didn't know what sex was.

"Maybe you're mistaking the smell. Maybe Spike only wants to have sex." Xander cringed even as he said it. First he had to have the Jesus talk, and now he was going into sex with his six year old. He was breaking even Tony Harris' record for number of inappropriate comments in one night. All Xander had to do was threaten to sell Bonnie to some Romanians, and he could call himself a proper Harris man.

Bonnie shook her head. "Human sex smells really strong," she said, wrinkling her nose. Xander made mental note of that one. Oh shit. He'd come over after having sex with Anya on Bonnie's first day out of the hospital. Xander's cock went on full retreat and insisted it wasn't coming out for the next twelve years. "She has lots and lots of sex with him," Bonnie kept right on going.

Xander patted her leg, not entirely sure how he was supposed to tell his daughter that she was completely creeping him out.

She got a thoughtful look on her face. "Maybe the sex makes Spike unhappy, but grandmother said that humans and vampires and primal were all funny about having sex all the time and really, really liking it. She said it made them slow and stupid because they got all worn out, and she said mommy wasn't thinking right because her reproductive organs were too human."

Yep, Xander was officially into therapy-land.

"I'll see what I can do, sweetie," Xander promised, getting up and giving Bonnie a quick kiss on the forehead before he retreated.

"Good night, Daddy!" she called happily. From her tone, it was pretty clear that she expected Xander to wave some magic wand and make this all better.

"Good night, Bonnie-girl," Xander answered from her door before her turned her lights off.

Well fuck. Spike and Buffy were having sex.

Part Seven

Xander stood in the middle of his room trying to decide exactly what he was supposed to do. Oh yes, he'd just stop Buffy from making Spike sad with all that sex. Fuck. Xander was actually a little more concerned about Buffy. If the great evil, blackmailing one was getting his feelings hurt, that wasn't exactly a great tragedy in Xander's book, but what was Buffy thinking?

Xander had no idea what to do. In the past, he would have called Willow and she would have come over and they would have talked, and in the end Xander still wouldn't have known what to do but it wouldn't have mattered because Willow would have done something. His job would have been done the second he put Willow on the trail of the emotional bad. But now. Shit.

Distracted by his own thoughts, Xander didn't notice Spike until the vampire and slammed into him from behind, putting Xander face first into his own orange satin comforter. Xander cried out, but Spike's hand caught him by the back of the neck and pushed him into the mattress. Flailing, Xander tried to free himself, but Spike was too strong, and since Spike was only technically holding him and not hurting him, the chip was not big with the helping.

With his face pressed to the bed, Xander's lungs started to ache, but still Spike sat on him, either ignoring the pain of the chip or crowing about the fact that he had finally found a way to kill Xander.

"Think about Bonnie, mate," Spike hissed in his ear, and Xander went still. Bonnie. Every bone in Xander's body wanted to fight. His lungs were burning with a need for air, but Xander forced himself to relax his muscles. If he fought, Spike was going to feel a need to prove to Xander that he had the upper hand, and he could do that entirely too easily. After a couple of seconds, Spike moved the hand on his neck, and Xander turned his head to gasp in air. Black and orange dots floated in his vision.

"Right then, we need to talk." Spike shifted, but his weight was still on Xander's back, pinning him to the bed, which was pretty much reminding Xander of every nightmare he had when he'd found out that Spike was going to live with him. But Xander's daughter was still sleeping in the next room, so Xander didn't complain. "I heard what Bonnie said, mate."

"She's a little girl, she doesn't know what she's saying," Xander tried, desperate to defend his daughter. When Spike's fingers came to rest on Xander's lips, he shut up with a shiver. He was so very screwed.

"That's where you're wrong, pet. Your little girl's a demon, isn't she? That means she's not some blind chit who can't tell a vampire from a zombie, and you need to start giving her a little more credit. It also means that the slayer is not going to be amused if she finds out about your little secret, is she? She'll be even less amused if she finds out that Bonnie's the one who summoned Sweet and nearly got the Bit taken off as a demon queen." Spike's voice practically purred in Xander's ear, and Xander knew when he was beat. It was actually a pretty familiar feeling. He closed his eyes and just waited on whatever Spike was going to say or do.

When Xander didn't answer, Spike sat up, his hand back on Xander's neck, but at least this time he wasn't pushing Xander's face into the mattress. "I won't let you hurt Buffy," Spike said.

Xander had told himself to just submit and hope this was over fast, but that made him snort. Yeah, like he was the one who was going to hurt Buffy. Spike's fingers tightened on Xander's neck until Xander gasped and Spike threw himself off the bed with a low growl, his hands going to his head. Clearly Spike had reached the limit of the chip's willingness to let him physically intimidate Xander.

Spike turned and looked toward Bonnie's bedroom, and the brief flare of gleeful vengeance Xander had felt died in his chest.

"Please, no. Spike, I'll do whatever you want. Don't hurt her. Please. Just tell me what you want, and I'll do it." Xander scrambled up so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He could survive whatever Spike wanted because he was human. The chip wouldn't let Spike kill a human.

Spike's eyes narrowed and yellowed, and fear was an animal crawling around in Xander's stomach and scraping at his ribs. Spike straightened up, his spine rebar straight as he glared hate at Xander. "You bloody knob. You really think I'd go in there and hurt her because her father is a fucking moron?"

Xander frowned. Clearly he had missed some important piece of information because Spike was saying that like it wasn't possible, and that was pretty much exactly what Xander had been thinking.

"I was making sure she was still asleep, ya nit." Spike walked over and grabbed Xander's arm, yanking him to his feet, and Xander tried to keep all his limbs to himself. He didn't think Spike would be amused by protesting and flailing, and he definitely did not want to annoy Spike. Not now.

"Move," Spike hissed, pulling Xander out into the hallway. Biting down on insults and fears that wanted to crawl out his mouth, Xander let Spike manhandle him down the hall, down another set of stairs into the second basement and then to the end of the corridor where Spike had claimed the grandmother's room. It was a smaller room, but the lavishly carved woods and high-end electronics were definitely better than the rest of the house.

Spike pushed him into the room and the put himself in the doorway so that Xander was trapped. Yep, there were all Xander's nightmares right on schedule. First Angelus and then Dracula and now Spike—Xander was actually getting pretty tired of having every local vamp try its hand at intimidating him. It wasn't like he was even particularly hard to intimidate. For example, right now he was totally intimidated. Xander hugged his own stomach and just waited.

Spike pulled a pack of cigarettes out. "Go on then, get it out of your system."

"Get what out?"

For a second, Spike glared at him, and Xander fidgeted under the glare. Clearly Spike was not amused by the 'play dumb' strategy. "Whatever shite you have to say, you say it here, to me, not to Buffy." Spike pulled out a cigarette and poked it in Xander's direction.

"Okay, first, I really don't want to talk to you."

"Didn't ask if you wanted to, pet," Spike cut him off, and this time Xander was totally sure that 'pet' pretty much meant that Spike was calling him a lower life form. "I'm telling you have to."

Xander opened his mouth on the verge of saying "or what." But he knew the "what" already. He didn't answer because he really didn't have anything to say, not without putting his foot in his mouth or his daughter in the middle, and those were things he would rather avoid.

Spike huffed in disgust. "And what she said isn't true. The slayers got a lot on her mind, but I'm not bloody unhappy and I'm not walking out on her. Not like you lot who put yourself first over and bloody over again."

"Hey!" Xander might have said more only Spike was slightly right. Buffy had died, and their first thought was for their friend, but thoughts two, three, and four had turned pretty quickly to themselves. How were they supposed to survive? How could they go on knowing that the white hats didn't always win--that good and strong and beautiful didn't mean you were going to survive? And where did that leave the rest of them who weren't as good or as strong? Xander sat down on the edge of Spike's bed. Shit and more shit. He'd give anything to just not have this conversation right now. He fingered the black silk sheets and wished he could just rewind his whole life and try it over again.

"Spike, I don't know what's going on between you two," Xander said wearily.

"You want diagrams?" Spike's lewd words didn't really match the tightness in his body or the way his fingers nervously flicked at his pack of cigarettes.

"Okay, just no." Xander stood up, and he would have started pacing only Spike took a step forward so he commanded the center of the room and Xander retreated back to the side table where an overflowing ashtray and a bottle of Jack Daniels covered the inlay pattern. "Spike, maybe we can just pretend this isn't happening."

"Right, so you can go try to talk Buffy into staking me?"

Xander sighed. Okay, maybe a little part of him was thinking that, but a bigger part was wondering how he could avoid the issue all together, and mostly he was just worried about Buffy. "Spike, I'm not going to tell her to stake you."

"She wouldn't anyway, ya know. The slayer likes what I can do for her." Spike leered gleefully, and Xander tried to not think about what Spike might mean by that. Looking Xander up and down with disgust, Spike made a noise that made it pretty clear he found Xander lacking in more than one department. "A great bullock like you can't make her feel like a real woman the way I can," Spike announced grandly.

"Do I even want to know what a bullock is?" Xander looked up and tried to paste on a stupid grin. It always worked to distract the girls. Spike was not one of the girls.

"A bullock. A ruddy steer. A bull with the testicles cut off to make him nice and malleable. That's what you are, and the slayer doesn't fucking need a half-man." Spike moved forward, his body liquid grace that made every little prey instinct in Xander's body scream for him to run, chip or no chip. Instead he stood there caught between wanting to verbally strike back and wanting to just curl up and hope Spike finished with the verbal not-fun so Xander could go back to his room and start working on pretending that none of it mattered. After a second, Spike snorted and then turned his back on Xander, stalking over to the other side of the room where he finally lit his cigarette. "Not your business, mate."

And Spike was right on that one. Xander didn't exactly have a whole lot of room on the 'don't sleep with demons' self-righteous train.

"So, last chance. Say what you have to say right here and you get it out of your system." Spike blew a long plume of smoke up into the air.

Xander wanted to just shut up. This whole night could be over if he would just shut up, but shutting up was one thing that he really, really sucked at. One of many, actually, but it was pretty near the top of the list. "This is so going to end badly," Xander blurted.

Spike snorted again. "Right, and she'd be better off with you?" The disgust in his voice slapped at Xander.

"Okay, I'm weirdly agreeing with you that I wouldn't be good for her," Xander admitted. At least that short-circuited Spike's anger and made his hand drop down to his side. He cursed and pounded at his leg when he almost set his jeans on fire. Xander waited until Spike finally turned his attention back to Xander. "She doesn't want me. She's always gone for big and impressive, and I'll admit that you're on the impressive side. Impressive and lithe. But this... this is not ending well, Spike."

Spike was almost preening at the compliments now, and Xander sighed. He wasn't sure if Spike was the most arrogant or the most insecure vampire in all of history, but he really did have issues. And Buffy issues did not need Spike issues to deal with right now.

"Buffy is not really okay with the whole losing heaven thing." Xander stopped. Shit. He was too tired to have this conversation or to deal with his own guilt over conspiring in that bit of stupidity. The night after he'd figured out that their spell had forced Buffy to dig herself out of her own grave, he'd gone out and gotten so drunk that he threw up all over himself and woke up in an alley, half-surprised to find the majority of his blood still in his body. A few bruises and a nose bleed suggested he'd channeled some Tony Harris at some point during the night and picked a fight with someone, but at least Xander had managed to avoid picking a lethal fight with a blood-sucking demon.

"You mean the way you lot ripped her afterlife to shreds because you were wankers who didn't know how to stand on your own bloody feet?" Spike demanded with a sort of cruel glee that made Xander want to curl up and die.

"Yes, that," Xander agreed wearily.

"If you lot would have kept your word and gotten this bloody chip out, I could have taken over the hellmouth and protected the Bit."

Xander didn't point out that Spike's version of protecting Dawn would have included killing large numbers of people in order to make minions. Yeah, that was not exactly on the Scooby "to do" list.

"She's not okay, Spike," Xander said, struggling to make his point, which wasn't easy when Spike was being a giant pain in the ass.

"Bloody noticed, mate. But she has me, and that's more than she had when you wankers first pulled her out of heaven."

"Okay, that's the thing. Spike, she could have Willow and me..." Spike's eyebrow went all the way up. "In a non-sexual way. She could have us friend-wise. We're here for her."

Spike snorted again.

"And she doesn't really want us here for her." Xander kept right on going. "Pretty much anything and anyone she loved, she's pushing away as fast as she can. She pushed Dawn off on Giles until he thought he had to leave just to get her to pull her head out of her ass."

Spike's eyes yellowed, and Xander figured that he had a few seconds before he got tossed out of the room or possibly just tossed around. Spike was reaching a breaking point, and Xander really didn't want to test how far he could push the chip, so he hurried to make his point so that he could just flee. Fleeing would be good.

"She's pushing away anyone she cares about, so if she's pulling you close, that means that she doesn't care about you. You're like the anti-love relationship. Spike, Angel was her first love. Angel. The big, stupid, doe-eyed idiot. The man who thinks that a daisy he picks out of a cemetery is a romantic gift. The big man of mystery who made it snow in Sunnydale and has the big quest to be, I don't know, a saint or something. You remember Angel, the dude who avoids any invention after 1920 with the exception of hair gel and hair spray? That guy? The guy who is pretty much not you? That's who she loved, and I'm pretty sure that who she still loves, so she's going for pretty much Angel's opposite, which is you. It's like it's backwards day in Buffy's brain so she's hugging what she doesn't love and pushing away what she does."

Xander finally stopped and really looked at Spike. He was in full gameface and furious yellow eyes glared at Xander.

"Which might be why she's so happy making you miserable," Xander finished weakly. He should have just kept his big, stupid mouth shut. Who was he to call Angel stupid when clearly he had far fewer working brain cells?

"Right, and you're worried about my feelings," Spike said sarcastically.

Xander opened his mouth, prepared to make a smart-ass comment, but then he closed it. He sighed. "If I were a good person, maybe I would be. I know you were there when we needed you. You love Dawn, and that's creepy and slightly horrifying, but it counts for something." Xander took a deep breath and tried to gather thoughts that were scattering away from him.

"But I'm not that good of a person, Spike. I'm watching my world pretty much fall apart. Dawn is turning into Robin Hood only with less giving to the poor and more taking from everyone. Willow is..." Xander stopped. He had no words for Willow. "And Tara is hurt and Giles has exiled himself, so he's off doing the falling on his own sword thing trying to save Buffy—either that or he's trying to protect himself because she was emotionally draining him, I don't know which. And my daughter is trying to pretend she doesn't miss her mom and that she isn't hurt, and that is totally freaking me out.

"Spike, I don't have the energy to care about anyone else. You're right. I don't care about you. But I care a lot about Buffy, and when she figures out that she's having sex with you because she doesn't love you, that is not going to be pretty."

Spike moved so fast that Xander didn't have time to retreat before he was backed up against the wall, Spike's forearm against his chest pinning him as neatly as a butterfly to a collector's box.

"You got it all out now?" Spike asked. Xander's stomach did a few summersaults, ended with a half-twist and then curled into the smallest space possible. This close, Spike's yellow eyes and long fangs were pretty much entirely fucking terrifying, and Xander had seen enough demons that he was not terrorized easily anymore.

"Yep," Xander agreed. Little baby nightmares started crawling through Xander's brain.

"Don't want to hear a word out of you ever again, pet. You don't say shite to me, you don't say fuck-all to Buffy, and you don't say anything to anyone else you can think of with that tiny little brain of yours." Spike tapped Xander's forehead.

Xander opened his mouth and then closed it again. This was his deal. Bonnie was safe as long as Spike was happy, and if he wasn't, he was going to bring Xander down into the misery with him. Closing his mouth, Xander nodded. He was just going to have to pretend that he didn't know.

Spike pushed a little harder, pressing until Xander had trouble breathing. And then he turned and walked toward the connected bathroom.

"Get the fuck out of my room, Harris," he snapped.

Happy to obey, Xander darted for the door. Yep, it was definitely time for some avoiding of the vampire. Xander and Bonnie were going to be spending some long hours at the park, and this conversation was going into Xander's top ten list of stupidest moves ever, right after sneaking into a frat house and before facing down a soulless Angelus armed with one stake. Xander really honestly wasn't sure how he'd lived this long, but he'd better figure out how to play nice with Spike or he wasn't going to last much longer--chip or no chip.

Part Eight

Xander picked at the hem of one of his few good shirts. He'd had meetings at work today--the foreman had asked him to explain to the boss why they were having problems with the materials. Xander still wasn't sure whether Frank really trusted him or whether he was afraid the boss was going to fire someone on the spot and he just didn't want to be the one standing in the spot at the time.

"I can't do this," Willow sobbed. Xander scooted closer and put his hand on her back awkwardly. He wasn't sure the proper words of comfort when your friend was the one who had totally screwed up instead of the one getting dumped on because of someone else's screw up. He had lots of practice with that last one. It seemed like Willow was always taking the blame for him or Jesse in school, and then Buffy had shown up and Willow had suddenly become half of the Buffy-and-Willow team of destruction. If it weren't for the fact that Willow's test scores made the whole school look smarter, Snyder would have put Willow in detention right along with Buffy. But now... now it was pretty much Willow's fault.

"She doesn't love me anymore." Willow's voice trembled with emotion. Either that or withdrawal from dark magic looked a lot like withdrawal from heroine. One of the guys on the site had come to work all shaking, and Frank had chased him off with an order to get into a clinic and not touch a power tool until he could stop shaking.

"I know that's not true. She loves you."

"She hates me," Willow sobbed.

"Maybe a little," Xander admitted. When Willow flinched back, he mentally kicked himself. Good job with the not-so-comforting. "But she loves you too," Xander hurried to add. "There's lots of love there. If Tara didn't love you, she wouldn't be so angry."

Anya looked up from the box of supplies she was counting in. "He's right," She said, shocking Xander. They'd never agreed this much when they were dating. Then again, when he looked back, he'd spent a whole lot of his time telling her how bad she acted, and she'd retaliated at pretty much every turn, publicly and privately. Yeah, his technique in bed had definitely improved, but no man appreciated bullet listed critiques of his performance.

"Like I am really angry with Xander right now," Anya said in a voice that didn't actually sound angry. "If I didn't still love him, I would say that we should have broken up a long time ago because our life goals are incompatible and every time I took a quiz in a magazine I would have to lie about Xander's traits in order for it to tell me that my relationship was healthy. If Tara didn't love you, she'd just move out without caring." Anya delivered her little speech, and then closed the box. "Xander, watch the front while I go to the bathroom, and if a customer comes in, try to keep them from seeing Willow. Crying is bad for business." Before Xander could even gather a thought, Anya was striding away.

Willow sniffed, and Xander scooted closer to her. "That was actually Anya's version of comforting," Xander pointed out.

"Fifty percent less comfort," Willow said quietly, the joke falling flat. Her hand was still trembling, and Xander reached out to take it in his own.

"Tara adores you."

"She doesn't trust me." Willow stared down at her lap, and Xander had the feeling that she wanted to pull her hand back away from him. He held on tighter, in part because he really didn't know what to say. Tara had good reason for not trusting her after all the lies. Xander was feeling a little of the not-trust himself. After Willow had wiped all their memories, Xander thought she would go cold magic turkey. Instead she seemed to be making bigger mistakes. He couldn't figure out why she had gone to Rack for the big magic upgrade because her normal magic was enough to get her in big trouble.

"She just needs time to learn to trust you again," Xander finally said. At least, he hoped that was true. That's what he was feeling.

"You don't understand. You've never loved anybody like I love her." Willow stopped and chewed on her lip, her eyes darting to the back where Anya had disappeared. "I'm sorry," she said softly, "but it's not the same. You and Anya were never going to make it. Not really." As soft as Willow's voice was, that was her stubborn tone.

"I know," Xander agreed. Willow's eyes darted up to him, probably checking to see if he was lying to make her feel better, but Xander had pretty much came to the same conclusion. He loved the idea of Anya, the idea that someone needed and loved him. He really liked the sex. But no matter how much he tried to be okay with her choices, he couldn't. He never stopped resenting her for wanting money and every time she said something horribly demonish, he cringed. It was funny, Spike was demonish all the time, and that didn't bother him, but Spike was safely lodged in the demon part of his brain. Anya was in the human part of his brain, so he wanted her to act like a human. That was probably not fair... not fair and not nice.

"Tara looks at me, and I feel so bad." Willow whispered as she finally moved toward him, leaning into his shoulder. "You can't know what it feels like to have someone you love look at you like you're the biggest screw up in the world."

Xander closed his eyes. Shit. He did know that. From the time he was five years old, he'd known what it was like to have someone look at you like you weren't worth their time because you were the little kid... the geeky kid who wasn't good at sports and clearly wasn't going to be a chip off the old block.

And now... now sometimes Bonnie stared at him with this blank expression, like she was trying to hide her feelings to avoid upsetting him, and Xander just felt like the worst father in the world. Bonnie probably wished Xander wasn't her father at all. Spike was big and impressive, and Xander was just the stupid human who brought home the groceries, and when his daughter asked him for something, he couldn't do anything. Not anything at all. It would all be so much easier, he thought despairingly, if he could just be honest about who and what he really was.

He was a father who was terrified that he didn't know what he was doing. He was the blackmail victim who brought his paycheck home to Spike and then tried really hard to not notice the human bitemarks on Spike's shoulders or arms. Spike with his vampy senses might think that was love, but now that Xander was paying attention, he was more and more convinced that Buffy was losing it. And yet, he couldn't be honest about any of it. He didn't trust Willow, not with her addiction, and not now that her own fears were swallowing up her life. He didn't trust Buffy, not around his daughter. Buffy was being unBuffyish, and Xander didn't know what to expect. And with Giles gone...

Xander sighed. It left no one. Spike wasn't someone he could rely on and Dawn was too young to burden with this and Anya.... Xander looked in that direction. Anya seemed pretty happy to be out of the personal relationships. She didn't even pretend to care about Willow or Tara or Buffy, not anymore. Even when Xander was engaged to Anya, he couldn't trust her to keep his secrets, and now that they were broken up, he really couldn't tell her about Bonnie or the Spike and Buffy wrongness.

And so, he was left muddling around through the confusion. He'd never been good with this part. He was the comic distraction, not the one who fixed things—that was supposed to be his girls. So he slipped his arm around Willow and sat there in silence.

Willow sniffed. "I put Dawn in danger."

"Which is huge with the bad."

"Tara moved out." Willow whispered so softly that Xander almost didn't hear her.

"Oh, Willow." Xander stopped, not sure what to say. Tara had a reason for wanting a little space, but Xander still ached at the thought of Willow alone through this. Well, not totally alone because she was living with Dawn and Buffy, but still.

Willow pushed away from him, and Xander moved his arm to let her. His side felt cold. "I shouldn't be in here. You know." She waved toward the shelves. "There's a lot of magical stuff in here. Buffy and Dawn are going to demagicfy the house tonight and tomorrow. I promised that I wouldn't do even little spells."

"I can walk you home," Xander said, standing up. Willow was already shaking her head and walking backwards.

"You don't need to."

"Ah, but my self-esteem is tied up in my ability to play the part of the white knight protecting my girls."

Willow ducked her head. "I'm okay."

"Door to door service is my middle name, which his still weirdly better than the middle name my parents picked." Xander took a step forward and then stopped as Willow flinched back. "Unless you want some space," Xander finished weakly.

She looked up at him. "I really need some. It's not you," Willow hurried to add, and there wasn't a phrase in the world more likely to make Xander feel like it was him. However, he plastered on a fake smile.

"No problem. I'll just annoy Anya for old times' sake." Xander took a step backwards. Willow nodded again and then turned and darted out the door without looking to either side.

"Ahn!" he called.

The door to the employee area opened and Anya sighed loud enough for him to hear her all the way across the room. "Since we are no longer dating, I have revoked your right to yell at me from across a room. It's rude. And as you have spent much time and effort to explain to me, others do not appreciate rude behavior."

Xander cringed. "Sorry, Ahn. I just wanted to let you know I was leaving. You know, so if there was a customer, you'd be out here. I won't yell at you again." Xander headed for the door. He was just screwing up all over the place.

Anya stepped out and called his name. When Xander turned, he almost thought he saw pain on her face. "You're an idiot," she said, and Xander didn't contradict her. With a huff, she put her hands on her hips. "Tara has got to be feeling at least that bad."

Xander frowned. This was just a giant mess, and after striking out with helping one half of the Willow-Tara disaster, he wasn't sure he wanted to get called useless again. Of course, his other option was to go home, and while he loved Bonnie, he tended to distract her from her lessons. He didn't need to have Clem give him another crap look. According to Clem, Bonnie was a genius, which clearly meant she had not inherited Xander's brain genes; however, her mom's family had not been big with teaching her about human culture and the human world. She'd learned more demony things... things that made Xander wonder if he shouldn't find a good demonic therapist, either for Bonnie or for him. Clem, who adored all things human, had made it his project to teach her about humans.

"I could stop by the dorms," Xander said. He supposed it wouldn't hurt. He turned and headed for the door.

"Xander?" Anya called when he had the door open. Xander turned to look at her. "Do you still hurt?" she asked, her head tilted the way she sometimes did when human ideas confused her.

Xander thought about that for a second. "A lot," he agreed.

"Good." Anya looked pleased as she turned and went back into the storeroom, closing the door with enough force to tell Xander that he'd been dismissed.

Great. If Xander could just get himself rejected by Tara, he'd have a perfect hat trick without the hat. Maybe he could show up at Tara's dorm room claiming that he needed to know what 'hat trick' actually meant. Yeah, like that wouldn't be pathetically transparent. Then again, Xander was starting to think everything he did was some variation on pathetic.

TBC

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