Disclaimer: I don’t own any of this, I owe it to Joss and Mutant Enemy…
Author’s Note: please review!!! I want to hear your opionion, good/bad/indifferent, thanks for reading, this has been my first fic, so I hope its not crap.
He took the tunnels back to Wolfram and Hart for two reasons, he didn’t want to attract any attention carrying a dead demon and he needed to be alone in a place he felt comfortable. He didn’t feel too steady on his feet for a while after that… what the bleeding Christ was that? “Bloody magic. I could be done with all of this if it weren’t for that soddin amulet, stuck here with the bloody poof. He didn’t feel like talking to Peaches, so instead, dropped the demon in a chair in Wes’ office and lit up a cigarette. Wes still wasn’t the same after losing Fred. Hardened. He only had happiness for those few weeks. Spike could relate but he’d take a stake to the heart before admitting it.
“Woman was attacked by this thing here. Tried to bleed her into an urn, I must’ve forgotten it. Victim had cuts on the chest and inner forearm. See what you can figure out. I think I’ve seen this type before, in Prague, I think they’re usually in packs. Ugly buggers.”
Wes looked up from his files. The demon was oozing on the carpet. “Take it down to the goddamn lab, Spike.” Spike looked at him quickly, neither of them wanted to go down there.
Wes sighed, his lips pursed. “Just leave it there”, he said in a quiet controlled voice. Work was good, it would keep his mind off her. Spike shrugged and left. His head was still reeling. He decided to go sleep it off, Nora’s little mind-meld stunt had knocked the wind out of him.
Wes just walked around the demon a few times before noticing the insignia carved into the palms of it’s hands. It was common enough practice to do so for ritual, but there was a code in this. These were two of six symbols commonly used in the black arts. They symbolized a legend thought to relate to, you guessed it, an apocalypse, though there is a sacrifice of what was translated as, “The one who will bleeds fire will be that which will bring power to the unholy through the blood and entrails, ingesting the power of the sacrifice to bend space and time”. The sacrifice of the brusht-saan , would be especially gruesome. These demons revered this sacrifice, more as legend, than an actual thing in existence, but after only a few hours of research, it was apparent that the first stage of the ritual had begun.
Back at her apartment, Nora wrapped herself in a fleece blanket, weak and bloody. She didn’t have the strength to get up and take a bath. When she finally did get up it was to answer the phone. It sparked and fell out of her hand, just as a broom fell over on its own from its resting spot next to the fridge. Someone unexpected was coming and there was a warning in her heart. ‘Oh god, what if he says anything?’, she thought of Spike mentioning the incident to anyone at W&H. She’d be cooked. Some evil employee would get her stuck on an autopsy table from another firm branch or something. She wanted out. Her mind ran over the night. She had made such an ass of herself. ‘What was I thinking?! I held his hand?’ This was getting strange, yet she didn’t remember ever thinking it strange at the time to join hands, just as she had’nt thought twice before having him help her save Mrs. Andrews. His soul held a lot of power. She could feel it, and she had needed a lot of force to bring back the old woman. She smirked remembering how strong his hands were, broad palms and a good grip. She shook her head, ‘good job genius, get all gooey over a bottle blond without a pulse.’ Nora made herself eat and went to bed with some herbal tea.
Spike sat, playing some Crash Bandicoot to get the Jack Daniels flowing through his throbbing arm. ‘Damned witch’, he thought and took another generous swig. He got up to make some frozen hot wings and cursed to see he was out. On his way down to the 24hr convenience store, he saw heard a muffled scream in a nearby alleyway. “perfect, I like a good fight. Just me and good old JD”, he said aloud. Alcohol always made him more game for a fight than was good for him. Turning the corner, it was surprising to see three of the same species of demon bleeding another woman in the same fashion. The first demon’s neck cracked with a noise that was more than satisfactory to the trained killer, the other two weren’t such the rookies. They put up a decent fight, while one was out cold, Spike decided he could get some information out of the second. In all it’s garbled whining, Spike made out “sacrifice, brusht-saan, and blood of fire.” He ran the demons through with some discarded rebar and bought his favorite brand of frozen Hot Wings. ‘Fuck’, he thought to himself, ‘this sort of shit always happens to girls like Nora.’ He furrowed his brow at himself, why should he get all sentimental over her? ‘Bollocks’, he thought,’it was that bloody spell or whatnot of hers. Witches always turn people’s brains wonky…god knows Red did.’ Willow…Buffy. He missed her so much. Thought how she’d be doing in Europe, meeting new slayers. The urge to hop a plane and go to her was almost uncontrollable, but it isn’t his time. She’d be unreachable. She said he last words to him in the Hellmouth, It would be hard finding new ones again. Nora crossed his mind once more, and lingered there in lieu of his goddess-like slayer, and remembered her brown hair smelled of lavender.
A car door slammed outside and the front door was opened. Before anything else, giggles and the sound of little feet was heard running into the house, “Daddy! Where are you?” “We’re in here sweetcheeks”, Spike called and looked at Giles, who was obviously tense and overwhelmed.
Giles’ mind raced through what to expect of the child. Before he could guess what she would look like, she was in the doorway. Giles would never forget his first sight of her, almost berating himself that he should have guessed. She was just plain girl. Dark hair in pigtails, fair skinned with a band of freckles across her nose. Her knobby knees peeked out from under a blue gingham sundress with embroidered watermelons. She jumped onto Spike’s lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. He was glowing. It was obvious she was his world.
“Hi!” she said without any hesitation. She walked up to Giles and stuck out her hand to shake. “I’m Aubrey. You’re not a stranger because you’re with daddy.”
Giles smiles, “W-well, of course. Very nice to eh, meet you” and took her small sticky hand in his. “I am Mr. Giles, but you can just call me Giles, if you like.” Spike was surprised how well the older man handled himself around Aubrey, he looked her in the eye and talked to her as if she were a “grownup”.
“Daddy talked about you. A watcher. He said you’d come. You and daddy talk the same. ‘Britishdt’ ? I have a goldfish. His name is Henry. You can come and see him. Do you like tap dancing? I like to tap dance…” Spike cut in, “’xcuse me Aubs, not that Giles doesn’t want to hear about Henry, but where’s your mum? I think he should meet her before he meets Henry.” She shrugged. “Outside”. “Well why don’t you go get her, tell her Mr. Giles is here, ok muffin?” Aubrey cocked her head to the side, “Mommy knew. Mommy always knows. She said Mr. Giles will like her tacos.”
Aubrey bounded out of the room, it didn’t seem as though she knew how to locomote any other way.
“Will?! Could you give me a hand with these groceries? Its starting to rain.” An attractive woman came through the door with grocery bags in her hands, and Giles realized Spike had gone to the bathroom. “Goodness, let me help you with those…”
Nora just looked at him for a moment as he took some of the bags from her. “You’re so very different than what I expected!” and said, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’m Nora. Callahan. You must’ve already met Aubrey, she’s left your hand sticky.” Her hand was warm and Giles’ felt something when he shook her hand. Soothing warmth.
Nora said sincerely ,“I think you should stay for dinner, Giles. You need to see our family before you tell us who our daughter really is.” Giles could only nod. Spike, politely insisting he stay for dinner, concern in his voice, who was this man in Spike’s body? Where was the killer once obsessed with Buffy? Oh God, Buffy, he’d have to tell her. She couldn’t just stumble into Spike on some parent’s night at the institute years from now. She had obviously thought of him in the first years after the ‘new era’ of slayers were called, but she now led a full life, and Giles worried about how he might bring back too many memories of her hardest seven years.
Aubrey was easy to categorize, but her mother had a very calm, knowing way about her. Well, he did say she was a healer, he thought, but then it was also just confidence. Buffy emitted a similar energy when happy.
Dinner was…normal. Giles saw a man, seemingly in Spike’s body passing him the salad bowl. Aubrey listened patiently while Giles and the other adults were talking, and had instead diverted her attention to becoming very proficient at slipping large amounts of food to Chuckles, the big black dog during the meal. Giles tried to take it all in and it slowly began to sink in that Spike, or William was just as human as himself or his daughter.
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