Waiting for Willow's impending arrival left Beth feeling impatient. She anxiously awaited the moment the stunning witch would grace her family's foyer with her magical presence. Seeing her graceful aunt now, she couldn't imagine how she used to be back when she was around Beth's age, an awkward teen in fuzzy sweaters. The two images did not mesh well at all. Buffy too was antsy to see her old friend again; they'd gone through some ups and downs throughout their lives, but they stuck strong in the end. And despite Spike's earlier hesitancy to allow Willow to live with them, he seemed to be warming up the idea as he prepared for her arrival as well.
"Look at it!" her father announced when she stepped out of her mom's car from the ride home from school. She was nearly bubbling with excitement for Willow's arrival tomorrow afternoon and had been nearly bouncing in her seat nearly the entire day. Spike too, as it turned out, was excited, but not for Willow.
"You bought a new car," Beth stated. "Or, I mean, new?" While the car was shiny and clean, looking like it just rolled off the dealership floor, it didn't look new. Judging from the shape and build, it was older than she was—hell, her mother.
Spike, on the other hand, seemed perfectly happy with his old-new car, walking around it as he admired it. "A beauty, ain't she?"
She raised a brow. She turned to her mother who was just now getting out of the car.
"Mum," she began, "he's got a new car."
"I know," Buffy groaned, "and he won't shut up about it. It's not a new car, Spike. It's old. Older than me."
"Ah, don't listen to her," he crooned, talking to his car.
"And you're talking to it, ho boy," Beth breathed.
He rounded the car, throwing his arm around her shoulder, anchoring her to her spot and cutting off her escape. Damn.
"I used to have a car just like this one back in Sunnyhell all those years ago," he began.
"Oh god, memory lane," she groaned, though to be honest, she didn't mind hearing all the old gang's stories.
"'Course, that one's gone under a heap of rumble, but she's just the same. All shiny an' black," her father sighed happily, looking very much like a school boy with a crush. Or, as it just might turn out, how men looked at new cars.
"And this one doesn't smell like Bourbon and sadness!" Buffy chirped, feigning happiness.
"What would you know? You were only in that car once!" he defended.
"And it's still a memory I've yet to bleach from my mind," she sighed with a shake of her head.
"So, why'd you buy another car? We only have two drivers in this family. Unless?" Beth asked with a growing smile and a hopeful light in her eyes.
"No," her mother said, bringing Beth back into cold, cold reality that wouldn't let her drive without a legal license. "We're letting Willow use your father's other car. Also, he's wanted another one of these things since just about forever."
"Thing?" he spat, voice raised. "This is a 1959 DeSoto Fireflite. It's not a thing."
"It's not alive now is it?"
"As fun as it is watching you guys getting all angry-voices over a car, I think I hear TV," Beth excused, extracting herself from her father's grip and running inside, leaving Buffy and Spike to sort out their differentiating feelings over her dad's car. She prayed to all the gods she could think of that it wouldn't end up with them making out in the backseat of his "new car!", going at it like a couple of teenagers. Wouldn't that just be the grossest thing ever?
She dropped herself off in the living room, feet up on the table without a care in the world. If she turned the volume of the TV up high enough, she could almost not hear her parent's arguing. Love, she supposed.
Thankfully, the packing had been completed, leaving a fully furnished home for them to live and grow in, or whatever. Buffy had gone out to buy some decor for the rooms; a rug here, a painting there. Spike didn't quite get the necessity of all the little "ends an' odds," but Beth appreciated her mother's attempts to try and make everything more homey. After all, they had a larger space to fill now.
The guest room was set up for Willow's arrival, who was leaving most of her furnishings in Scotland. It was no doubt she would need a lot of room for her magicks and books, which would most likely be kept in a place Beth couldn't easily find them, so not the library. Geesh, it was like if you messed up once, they wouldn't trust you for life! So she had a few bad magical incidents that otherwise could have been avoided had she not had access to the supplies, but that portal was not intentional. Okay, it was, but the results weren't. That part was the accident. And she wouldn't even go into the Hallway Incident. No one could prove she was involved, and dammit, she'd claim her innocence until her dying breath. No one could prove anything ever.
-.-
Beth was camped out on the porch by noon the next day, armed with a sandwich and watch, waiting for her parents to come home from the airport. It wasn't that long a drive (she would know, she checked). She also knew that she should be doing her math homework and probably working on her science project (but like plants? Later), but was too excited to do anything that involved her undivided attention. Except, say, keeping her eyes on the road and not even looking down to take a bite of her sandwich.
Just when she was getting bored, she saw her father's "new car!" come around the corner. Plate and half-eaten sandwich ignored, she jumped up and hurried over to the driveway. Just as Willow was getting her first breath of Bellevue air, Beth enveloped her in a hug.
"Bethie!" Willow squealed, hugging the girl. "Oh, I missed you!"
"I am so glad you're gonna live with us! It was so strange not having you around," Beth admitted, as she pulled back to look up at her aunt.
"Ah well, it was strange not having you around," Willow countered with a grin. "You're like a daughter to me and then you were all gone and in Washington without me! And look, I think you've grown!"
"It's only been two months, Red," Spike told Willow, getting out of the car.
"And what a long two months it's been," Willow noted.
"Beth's been doing some sort of growing though," Buffy said.
"Yes, I heard you're having fun at your school. And friends! I heard friends as in plural!" Willow cheered.
"Yeah, her name's Nadja and her cousin Zack," Beth updated her. "Turns out they're a family that also practices magic."
"Really?" Willow asked, interested. "You think they are any Wiccan groups around here? Maybe a coven in the area? Ooh, wouldn't that be neat?"
Beth could have sworn Spike muttered something about his daughter being a magic magnet while he got the luggage.
"She just told me that her entire family's pretty adept with the sparks and lights," Beth replied. "But a coven would be majorly cool. Could I join a coven?"
At the same time Willow said, "Sure, why not?" Spike shouted "No!"
"Maybe when you're older," Buffy placated, throwing a tired look at her husband. "Right now, let's get inside and have Wills move herself in to her room. We've already got a lot to do around here and I need her to be as prepared as possibly soon as can be."
Beth brought Willow into the house arm in arm, followed by Buffy and Spike with the bags. He looked none too happy about playing pack mule, but Beth was too busy telling Willow about Bellevue and Nadja. She decided to leave out her interest in the disappearances, figuring Spike and Buffy would only play it down. Besides, she was pretty sure the two of them were tired of hearing about it. It was best if she kept the noise between herself and Nadja and now, it seemed, Zack, though he also was somewhat bored by the topic. At least Nadja was still on full board.
"Nice house," Willow complimented, standing in the foyer while doing a 360 to take in the whole room. "Classy."
From behind, Spike dropped the luggage to the floor to make his statement. Unfortunately for him, no one cared.
"So, where am I staying?" Willow asked, looking towards Buffy.
"Here, it's through the, uh—"
"Lounge," Spike and Beth said together.
"Right. Lounge. Here, follow me," Buffy told her.
"You should probably take those," Beth said, looking at the luggage.
"You could help me," Spike reminded her.
"Nah," she sashed with a shrug. "I think you're doing fine." She walked off to go look at the guest room, leaving her father to collect the bags, grumbling under his breath the entire time.
The guestroom was a nicely sized room playing host to a queen-sized bed, a desk, and tall bookcase, which Beth hoped would be filled with neat little do-dads and knick-knacks Willow had collected. She knew better than to expect Willow to be allowed to put her books there. That was too easy and Spike was too much of a fun-killer. Well, Beth could always get in good with Zack.
The window in the room overlooked the backyard, right over the Jacuzzi they had bought as Beth's persistent sets of "ohpleaseohpleaseohplease." While begging was not becoming for a young lady, she liked to break expectations.
"Ooh, a Jacuzzi!" Willow cheered, noticing it when she looked out the window. "That's relaxing."
"Yeah. I like to use it after a long night of slaying," Buffy told Willow. "It's very calming."
"Not what you said about it last night," Spike muttered and Beth looked up at the ceiling with a look of pure annoyance. Willow wore a look of warning, but at this point it wouldn't do much good. Beth had heard much worse.
"Yes, well ah, I think I'll be using it for much different means," Willow chuckled nervously. "Also, children, Spike."
"I am not children," Beth told her hotly. "I am a young woman."
"You say that now, but in a few years you'll look back and think 'Wow, I really was young, huh?' It's just what happens," Willow claimed wisely.
"I think I'm a little more mature than kids my age," she said dryly.
"I thought you said you weren't 'children,'" Spike countered.
"I—don't try and use that to undermine my argument," Beth huffed. "It's just a saying."
"Anyway," Buffy broke in with an eye roll, "if Spike wants to regress to a pubescent teenage boy, I'd like it if he could do it when his daughter isn't around. So, how do you like the room, Wills?"
She smiled. "It'll be a nice change from the great big castle I lived in. I like it. Nice and cozy."
Buffy smiled in return. "I'm glad you like it. Now, who want's lunch?"
-.-
At ten that night, Spike and Buffy headed out to patrol, Spike impatient to leave as all he wanted to do was drive around in his "new car!" Willow seemed perfectly fine with using his old one. It was, after all, one helluva car, Beth had to admit. Why he would give it up for some only 50s car—memories be damned—Beth couldn't understand.
"So, Bethie, you wanna have an Auntie-niece night? We could do our nails! Or, ooh, talk about boys. It is boys, right?"
"There aren't any boys. Or girls. Or anyone for that matter," Beth responded with a wry smile.
"Well, we can still do our nails."
"Did Dad give you the low-down about me and magic?" she asked.
It was Willow's turn to give her a wry smile. "He gave me the third degree about it, asking what it was I had with me. I didn't even have the heart to tell him I'm shipping most of my stuff through the mail."
"He's really unhappy about me and magic being within a mile of each other again," Beth sighed dejectedly. "I mess up once—"
"You tried to send a girl through a portal with an unknown destination," Willow reminded her.
"I know! No one ever lets me forget! And I was twelve. Two years ago! I've grown since then," Beth defended. She slumped down on the couch, arms folded over her chest.
Willow sat down beside her with a sympathetic look in her eyes. "I know you think magic is all peachy-keen and intriguing. So did I. I wanted to learn it all and not just the good stuff. I wanted to do it all to prove I could, I guess. I raised Buffy from the dead, my goddesses, I was full of it. But that's the danger. The power, it's, well, it's all-consuming. I knew a witch who could balance the good within her and that's what I'm trying to be, but the bad's still there. It's always there."
"You mean Tara," Beth supplied, looking up at her aunt to see the sadness etched into her face. "But you do a lot of good now. You released all the slayers and stuff. Look at all the good you did. Deaths by demons are at an all-time low," she reminded her aunt. "And besides, I have all of you breathing down my neck to make sure I never abuse magic. I don't think I could do bad even if I wanted to."
"Well, since I don't think I could keep you away even if I tried, let's start off simple," Willow compromised. "Like with auras and meditation."
"I could always stand for a little more patience, I think," Beth mused.
"See? Even if it's not all flashy lights and floating pencils, you can still learn things. Besides, it's important to find your center and all that blah before you start working your mojo," Willow explained.
"Like with nature?" she asked. Willow always went on about being in touch with the planet and Gaea or whatever. Beth thought it sounded kind of kooky, but magic was all with the hocus-pocus, so it kind of fit, she guessed.
"Yeah, with nature. Birds and trees and roots. That stuff," Willow agreed. "Don't worry, we'll work up to the fun stuff. But first, it'll be like school. You have to learn about plusses and minuses before you can work do matrices and calculus."
"Only you'd relate fun to math," Beth chuckled with a shake of her head. "So an auntie-neice fun night, right? Howsabout you and I swing through the kitchen and bake cookies?"
"Scrumptious chocolate chip cookies with lots of ooey-gooey cookie dough to lick off our fingers?" Willow asked with a grin. "Race you to the kitchen."
Beth shot off the couch with a grin, running after a laughing Willow. Knowing that her aunt was going to be around made Beth feel a little more comfortable in her own home. Willow's love was without condition, knowing that no matter what Beth was, she would love her niece until the end of time. While Buffy and Spike no doubt loved their daughter with all their heart, they worried about her. They worried about her fitting in and making friends and finding herself in a world that never bothered to make room for her. But Willow, Willow already made her a space, whether she knew it or not. And Beth loved it. With magic, maybe she would find a place to be, a way to be useful to everyone. No longer would she be the weird little daughter of a slayer and ex-vampire, fighting against all who opposed her to fit in. With magic, Beth could be a member of something so much larger than herself. And goddesses would she love it.