Title: Family Matters part 1: The Letter
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
E-mail: spam@hagden169.fsnet.co.uk
Summary: In LA, a mysterious woman summons Fred and Gunn, saying she can help them find Angel. Meanwhile, in England.
Rating: PG-13.
Pairing: Giles/Spike, Fred/Gunn, others later.
Spoilers: For the ends of Buffy season 6 and Angel season 3. Also contains some things gathered from spoilers on seasons 7 and 4 respectively.
Warnings: Pre-slash, unusual Mary-Sue.
Author Notes: This is Mary-Sue. I freely admit it. But it's not quite the normal kind.
Story Notes: None.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Joss etc gets it, I get nothing, not even chocolate money.
Dear Miss Winifred Burkle and Mr Charles Gunn,
I have been informed that you are currently the mainstay of an organisation headed by a distant relative of mine, one 'Angel'. I believe I may be able to assist you in this, your time of crisis. Please allow my agent (the one who bears this letter) to accompany you to my present home, where we may talk freely. Yours sincerely,
Alice Malone.
"Excuse me," Gunn said to the blue-skinned demon who had brought the note, "I want to speak to my- friend, alone."
"Of course, sir," the creature replied. "My mistress warned me that it may be so."
"I think we should go." Fred folded her arms, having made her opinion clear as soon as the door shut behind them.
"What if it's a trap?"
"We get out again."
"And supposing we can't?"
"And supposing she really can help us, and we don't go?"
"Why couldn't she come here?"
Without noticing it, Gunn had raised his voice. The blue-skinned demon rapped on the door.
"Yes, err."
"Ranguger, sir. My mistress is unable to visit, due to her illness. Coming to Los Angelus was a great strain, and it has weakened her greatly."
Fred looked at Gunn, and smiled. She knew when she'd won.
"We'll come," Gunn told the demon, "but we're travelling in my truck, okay?"
"If you wish. Is there room to stow my carpet in the back, sir?"
"Carpet?!"
"Flying carpet, sir. The transportation device by which I arrived."
"How.." Fred began, but Gunn cut her off.
"I'm sure we can make room. Let's go."
Ranguger guided them to the centre of LA, to an up-market hotel, and into one of its most luxurious suites. No one took any notice of the fact that he was blue, and Gunn supposed that they all cultivated selective blindness.
Once inside the suite, Ranuguer asked them to wait in the main area while he went and tended to his mistress.
"I suppose they must." Gunn began, but tailed off as they realised they could hear the woman's voice.
"Of course, rangy. No, I'll stay lying down, thank you. Put the lamp on, and show them in." The quavery voice was weak, but in had a timbre of command.
A bald, blue head appeared round the door.
"Please come in now, sir, lady."
Fred took Gunn's hand as they entered the dim bedroom.
"I'm pleased to meet you at last. Please forgive me for not shaking hands, but the arthritis is bothering me again."
For a moment, the old woman's grey hair and wrinkled skin was highlighted by the clear white light from the next room, but then Rangy shut the door, and they where alone with her, lit only by the warm glow of the bed side lamp.
"I trust that Rangy gave you a pleasant trip?"
"Yes, thank you, m'am," Gunn responded, managing to remember his manners. He was still half-expecting a trap.
"Alice, please, and have no fear, young man. It becomes you to protect your pretty young lady, but there is no danger here."
"Who are you?" Fred asked.
"That is a long story indeed, but maybe one you need to hear. You may find it advisable to seat yourselves."
Fred pulled a chair up to the bedside, but Gunn remained standing.
"Very well. Stand if you so desire," the woman said, and Gunn noted that her eyes were still closed. She lowered her voice as she went on, from the high one that could be heard in the next room, to a private one intended for only these four walls.
"I usually see better this way. Among other things, I'm a telepath. However, what you came to hear is the story of my connection to Angelus.
"Who am I, you ask. Well, my name is Alice Malone, and to you, I am a distant relative of your friend, Angel. The thing is, my physical body is half-demon, half-vampire. I have a soul and a conscience, and some awareness of the effects of my actions, but I don't always trouble to consult them. More years ago than I care to count, I -or perhaps it was a Childe of mine- turned a young man by the name of Heinriech. You may have heard of 'the Master', slain by Buffy Summers. He was my Childe.
"In the many years between his turning and final death, he Sired lots of Childer, and one of those was Darla. I believe- no, I know, for I saw you in my visions- that you have met her.
"Now, when I saw what a monster I have created in Heinriech, I tried to give him balance. I alterned the Order of Aurelius, into an order that would give vampires turned into it the ability to always choose which side they fought on, as best suited them. When Darla's Childe, Angelus, rejected the Order, that is what he was leaving, though he may not have understood it in those terms.
"If my visions serve me rightly- and it's rare that they should fail- then you have a few small problems. One, you can't find Angel: two, you can't find Cordelia; and three; you're estranged from Wesley. I think I can help with some of those, and possibly with some other things, in return for a small favour."
"I knew this was coming," Gunn comments, in his best jaded-world- weary-seen-it-all-before voice.
"You don't know what it is yet, Mr. Charles Gunn, so refrain from leaping to hasty conclusions. As you see, I am living in hotels these days, of necessity, but I dislike it, and I would like to feel that my family, my Childer, had a home they could go to. What I want you to do is to allow me to stay in the Hyperion for a short while, and to gather my family- including Angelus- about me there."
"Angelus? You mean, Angel without his soul?" Fred burst out, standing. "You can't do that!"
"You are right. I have no desire to rid Angel of his soul, and I am sorry if my use of his older name upsets you. To an old lady, these things become confusing."
"But who else do you include as family?" asks Gunn, remaining jaded for as long as possible.
"Well. I've called them. They'll come. Even your friend will come. Now, let us consider the human. Cordelia has been taken by the Higher Powers, and they will return her in due course. When she comes, I will be able to help you find her, but until then I can do nothing. Wesley, on the other hand, simply needs to be given a chance to make amends. Can you give him that?"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In England
Giles POV
He was very upset over that incident with the demon-ghost. I've seen him upset before, and I put his tantrums on a scale, like the Richter scale for earthquakes. These days, a big one really can shake my world, so I guess it's appropriate. This must have been at least a 5: 'Damage, may cause walls to crack and fall'. He sulked for days, but he didn't actually leave. I live in dread that he will go.
His soul hasn't really changed him that much. He is more human, but as a human he was barely more than a teenager- he won't tell me exactly how old, his age is one of the things he's picky about, but I guess twenty at most- so he still has the hormones, the mood swings, and the emotions that come with being teenaged, as well as the poetic depths of his soul.
A near contempary of his, Oscar Wilde, once said, "All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," (and he would know, his was fairly terrible). It amazes me sometimes that William doesn't spend all his time writing poetry. I know he sometimes does, but he mostly burns it.
Once I woke up in the middle of the night to find his space in the bed empty, and crept out into the kitchen to see him huddled over the table, carefully writing on a sheet of paper by candlelight. He must have heard me coming, because he blew out the candle and took me back to bed. The next morning, there were paper-ashes on the table, so I guess he burnt the sheet when I was asleep again.
Anyway, I have to find some way to make it up to him. I've made my plans and laid my traps carefully. Firstly, I phoned Willow in Sunnydale, one evening when he'd gone out for a walk, or a fight, or something. I asked her to buy the tapes of 'Passions' that he'd missed, and send them over. Amazingly, they were here within days.
Secondly, I chose an evening when nothing could disturb us- or so I thought. This notion of being undisturbed appears to be one currently foreign to my life. We were meant to have some quality time alone this evening. I spent much of the day at work (Bath's public library, whatever- hours-they-need-me, isn't great, but it's better than no work at all) and got home about five, just in time for the telephone to ring- Charlene. She had to go up to York to see her mother, suddenly taken ill, and wondered if we could look after her kid, a young boy by the name of Rowan, so that her husband could go with her.
I couldn't really say no, could I? I'm much too helpful, that's my trouble. William was still asleep. He only sleeps in the day if I go out, and when I'm out all day it can be up to an hour before he wakes once I do arrive. Subconsciously or not, it seems to be some sort of protest at being left alone.
He emerges from the bedroom as I put the phone down. "Who was that, Rupes?" he asks, sleepily.
"Charlene. She needs our help again."
"Our? You mean your help."
"No, our help." I step forward and kiss him on his forehead, bending down slightly and running my hands through his shoulder-length, tousled hair because he won't tip his face up to me.
"Can't. Daylight, you know?"
"What makes you think it involves going out?"
"Let me get a drink before you quiz me." He pulls out of my grasp- telling me that the tension of Thursday's events still stands between us- and heads for the blood bags in the kitchen fridge.
"I'm not intending to quiz you. Do you want me to tell you, or not? He'll be here soon, anyway, and you might want to know what's going on."
"He'll be here soon? You mean someone is coming here, to disturb our precious time together?"
"I'm afraid so. Charlene and her husband have to go up to York, to visit her mother, and they don't want to take Rowan with them, so I've said he can stay here for a couple of days, in the spare bedroom."
"A couple of days? We have a what- four year old? Staying here for a couple of days?"
"He's six, yes, and I can hear them coming up stairs now."
William swears quietly, swallows the last of his blood, and heads back into the bedroom to do something- maybe just to avoid Charlene.
They don't hang around long, and it is only a few minutes before I am showing Rowan his room. "You'll be staying in here. I'll move your bags for you, and you can get settled in. William, have you met Rowan?"
"I'm just about to," he shoots back. He has changed the cotton slacks and shirt for black jeans and t-shirt, more Spike than William. I'm accustomed to adapting quickly from one to the other- certain social situations, or where he is threatened or upset, and he rapidly falls back on the defensive patterns of Spike's behaviour, bleached hair or no.
"Rowan, this is William- or more often, Spike." It'll confuse the child, but there's not much I can do about that. I have to let William know I can acknowledge that change in him.
"Spike, this is Rowan."
"Hey, kid," he says. Thank goodness it's not actually rude and doesn't contain swearwords.
"Hey," Rowan says a little nervously.
"Do you want a drink, Rowan?" I ask. Spike's making me nervous, too.
"Um.. Yes please," Rowan says, so we head through to the kitchen. Spike follows us, and I realise that I'll have to be careful- William is just immature enough to get jealous of the attention I have to give Rowan. Okay, so it's quite likely that he is already. I also realise I don't know how much Rowan knows about William, vampires, etc. The fact that his mother is well educated in the area and very accepting doesn't mean that the child knows anything about it.
"Orange juice or milk? Spike?"
"Milk, please," Rowan tells me. Thankfully he isn't as smart-alec as I would have been at six, and doesn't reply 'Yes, I'd like Spike, thank you.' William- who is all mine, mostly- doesn't deign to reply.
I pour milk for Rowan and put the kettle on for me. While it boils, I turn round. God knows what we're going to do with a six year old for however long it takes. My lover seems to have had the same thought. He is leaning against the doorpost, body tense and hard beneath the tight fitting clothes, and he looks entirely too.but I'm getting distracted here. Maybe that's why he's dressed like that.
"So, Rowan, what do you like to do?"
"It's a really great choice you've got here. You can watch dull British telly, practise handstands against the bookcases or thump Rupert," Spike informs the lad, when it looks like he might hesitate.
Apparently Rowan is capable of smart-alec answers. He asks Spike, "Can I watch telly while I'm practising handstands?"
"Only if you promise to kick Rupert when you fall over from the boredom," Spike replies. I can see that those two are natural conspirators, and with William in this childish mood, I dread to think what might happen. He might get jealous, or he might gang up on me. Or possibly both. I think I should at least try and quell this uprising early on.
"Finish your milk before you begin practising handstands or you'll spill it," I say, and.
"Or pour it down your nose," Spike adds, causing Rowan to giggle hysterically- a course of action also rather likely to end in spilt milk.
Behind me, the kettle has boiled, and against my better judgement I turn away to make my tea. Everything will look calmer, more manageable viewed from the other side of a cup of tea. It always does. My grandmother said so, and I believe her- practical experience notwithstanding.
As I warm the pot and brew the tea, I hear their conversation continue. I suspect I'm missing something, not having the visual element, but I refuse to turn round before I have a warm cup in my hands.
When the giggling stops, there is a pause, then Rowan asks, thoughtfully, "If I poured enough milk down my nose, would it start spilling out my ears?"
Pause. Then, "Only if your brain doesn't soak it up, like a sponge," Spike says. His voice is the ultimate voice of reason, the patient tone he once told me that he used to reserve for Drusilla.
It works brilliantly on Rowan, who responds, "My brain's more like an indoor golf ball than a sponge."
I pour my tea out and turn around.
"Then it probably would run through. Do you like cartoons?" Spike is asking.
"Oh yes! Tom and Jerry are the best, but I like the others, too. Can we watch cartoons?" Rowan looks up at me.
"Yes," I sigh. It'll give me a bit of a chance to get straight, if they both stare at the dreaded goggle box.
They watch television all afternoon and on into the evening. I sat and watched them some of the time, from my favourite armchair.
William (or is he Spike again, despite the long honey-blond hair and the neater clothing? Who knows?) watches avidly, and comments frequently.
"Stupid mouse," he says when they're watching Tom and Jerry, "daft cat, can't you see he doesn't love you?" The comments are sometimes insightful- as when he tells Morticia Addams to stop denying it and sleep with Wednesday (although I do wonder what Rowan made of that)- and sometimes inane- "Fool, Geordi, you should stick it up with chewing up," when Star Trek: the Next Generation comes on.
Rowan watches carefully, and replies to the things they say. He often knows what's going to happen long before the characters do. "He'll fall," he says gleefully to Jerry, when Tom is still looking at the river, not having seen the bridge, let alone started to cross it. His dark brown hair is cut short, and contrasts with William's long blond mop.
At bedtime, we tuck Rowan up on the couch, and William and I curl up in bed. He doesn't speak to me, but lies facing away from me. I hate it when it gets like this, when he withdraws inside and into Spike. All I can do is wait, and hope that he talks instead of actually running off and leaving me forever, as I fear he will. When Morpheus takes me, I dream of being alone, that William has gone and I have to explain why.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Midnight. Spike's POV.
I can't ignore it. I haven't felt the call often, and never this strongly before, but I can't ignore it. I don't want to leave Rupert, but he can't come. He's the one who said we could care for Rowan, after all. He's got to stay.
This isn't the little call that Dru used, "Come here, my Spike," or even the command that Angelus could issue, "Here, boy," as if I were a dog: this is something older, deeper, and quite as inescapable. I phoned up for ticket to LA as soon as I woke from the dream, and now I'm packing.
I'll write him a note. It might not help, but it should soften it a bit. If I can explain that it's family and I can't stay, he- well, he'll just have to take it.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In a box, somewhere in the depths of the ocean, Angel rouses himself from a hallucination.
{He was warm, smiling, with his friends, even Wesley. He remembers food, candlelight, the touch of Cordy's lips on his.}
"I'm coming, Sire," his lips mummer into gently swirling cold water, and he strains harder against the bonds that hold him. They begin to strain and creak, rotted by the water.
If a salty tear leaks out of his eye, it goes unoticed in the great mass of the ocean, a world's worth of sadness. If the few fish who manage to live this far down observe the strange creature that sets out to walk towards where he guess the shore must be, they do not comment.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In Willow's dorm room, Drusilla pulls a blanket off the bed and goes in search of someone with a car. She knows she has to go- the voice is clearer than any she's heard before.
"Coming, mummy, coming."
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
E-mail: spam@hagden169.fsnet.co.uk
Summary: In LA, a mysterious woman summons Fred and Gunn, saying she can help them find Angel. Meanwhile, in England.
Rating: PG-13.
Pairing: Giles/Spike, Fred/Gunn, others later.
Spoilers: For the ends of Buffy season 6 and Angel season 3. Also contains some things gathered from spoilers on seasons 7 and 4 respectively.
Warnings: Pre-slash, unusual Mary-Sue.
Author Notes: This is Mary-Sue. I freely admit it. But it's not quite the normal kind.
Story Notes: None.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Joss etc gets it, I get nothing, not even chocolate money.
Dear Miss Winifred Burkle and Mr Charles Gunn,
I have been informed that you are currently the mainstay of an organisation headed by a distant relative of mine, one 'Angel'. I believe I may be able to assist you in this, your time of crisis. Please allow my agent (the one who bears this letter) to accompany you to my present home, where we may talk freely. Yours sincerely,
Alice Malone.
"Excuse me," Gunn said to the blue-skinned demon who had brought the note, "I want to speak to my- friend, alone."
"Of course, sir," the creature replied. "My mistress warned me that it may be so."
"I think we should go." Fred folded her arms, having made her opinion clear as soon as the door shut behind them.
"What if it's a trap?"
"We get out again."
"And supposing we can't?"
"And supposing she really can help us, and we don't go?"
"Why couldn't she come here?"
Without noticing it, Gunn had raised his voice. The blue-skinned demon rapped on the door.
"Yes, err."
"Ranguger, sir. My mistress is unable to visit, due to her illness. Coming to Los Angelus was a great strain, and it has weakened her greatly."
Fred looked at Gunn, and smiled. She knew when she'd won.
"We'll come," Gunn told the demon, "but we're travelling in my truck, okay?"
"If you wish. Is there room to stow my carpet in the back, sir?"
"Carpet?!"
"Flying carpet, sir. The transportation device by which I arrived."
"How.." Fred began, but Gunn cut her off.
"I'm sure we can make room. Let's go."
Ranguger guided them to the centre of LA, to an up-market hotel, and into one of its most luxurious suites. No one took any notice of the fact that he was blue, and Gunn supposed that they all cultivated selective blindness.
Once inside the suite, Ranuguer asked them to wait in the main area while he went and tended to his mistress.
"I suppose they must." Gunn began, but tailed off as they realised they could hear the woman's voice.
"Of course, rangy. No, I'll stay lying down, thank you. Put the lamp on, and show them in." The quavery voice was weak, but in had a timbre of command.
A bald, blue head appeared round the door.
"Please come in now, sir, lady."
Fred took Gunn's hand as they entered the dim bedroom.
"I'm pleased to meet you at last. Please forgive me for not shaking hands, but the arthritis is bothering me again."
For a moment, the old woman's grey hair and wrinkled skin was highlighted by the clear white light from the next room, but then Rangy shut the door, and they where alone with her, lit only by the warm glow of the bed side lamp.
"I trust that Rangy gave you a pleasant trip?"
"Yes, thank you, m'am," Gunn responded, managing to remember his manners. He was still half-expecting a trap.
"Alice, please, and have no fear, young man. It becomes you to protect your pretty young lady, but there is no danger here."
"Who are you?" Fred asked.
"That is a long story indeed, but maybe one you need to hear. You may find it advisable to seat yourselves."
Fred pulled a chair up to the bedside, but Gunn remained standing.
"Very well. Stand if you so desire," the woman said, and Gunn noted that her eyes were still closed. She lowered her voice as she went on, from the high one that could be heard in the next room, to a private one intended for only these four walls.
"I usually see better this way. Among other things, I'm a telepath. However, what you came to hear is the story of my connection to Angelus.
"Who am I, you ask. Well, my name is Alice Malone, and to you, I am a distant relative of your friend, Angel. The thing is, my physical body is half-demon, half-vampire. I have a soul and a conscience, and some awareness of the effects of my actions, but I don't always trouble to consult them. More years ago than I care to count, I -or perhaps it was a Childe of mine- turned a young man by the name of Heinriech. You may have heard of 'the Master', slain by Buffy Summers. He was my Childe.
"In the many years between his turning and final death, he Sired lots of Childer, and one of those was Darla. I believe- no, I know, for I saw you in my visions- that you have met her.
"Now, when I saw what a monster I have created in Heinriech, I tried to give him balance. I alterned the Order of Aurelius, into an order that would give vampires turned into it the ability to always choose which side they fought on, as best suited them. When Darla's Childe, Angelus, rejected the Order, that is what he was leaving, though he may not have understood it in those terms.
"If my visions serve me rightly- and it's rare that they should fail- then you have a few small problems. One, you can't find Angel: two, you can't find Cordelia; and three; you're estranged from Wesley. I think I can help with some of those, and possibly with some other things, in return for a small favour."
"I knew this was coming," Gunn comments, in his best jaded-world- weary-seen-it-all-before voice.
"You don't know what it is yet, Mr. Charles Gunn, so refrain from leaping to hasty conclusions. As you see, I am living in hotels these days, of necessity, but I dislike it, and I would like to feel that my family, my Childer, had a home they could go to. What I want you to do is to allow me to stay in the Hyperion for a short while, and to gather my family- including Angelus- about me there."
"Angelus? You mean, Angel without his soul?" Fred burst out, standing. "You can't do that!"
"You are right. I have no desire to rid Angel of his soul, and I am sorry if my use of his older name upsets you. To an old lady, these things become confusing."
"But who else do you include as family?" asks Gunn, remaining jaded for as long as possible.
"Well. I've called them. They'll come. Even your friend will come. Now, let us consider the human. Cordelia has been taken by the Higher Powers, and they will return her in due course. When she comes, I will be able to help you find her, but until then I can do nothing. Wesley, on the other hand, simply needs to be given a chance to make amends. Can you give him that?"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In England
Giles POV
He was very upset over that incident with the demon-ghost. I've seen him upset before, and I put his tantrums on a scale, like the Richter scale for earthquakes. These days, a big one really can shake my world, so I guess it's appropriate. This must have been at least a 5: 'Damage, may cause walls to crack and fall'. He sulked for days, but he didn't actually leave. I live in dread that he will go.
His soul hasn't really changed him that much. He is more human, but as a human he was barely more than a teenager- he won't tell me exactly how old, his age is one of the things he's picky about, but I guess twenty at most- so he still has the hormones, the mood swings, and the emotions that come with being teenaged, as well as the poetic depths of his soul.
A near contempary of his, Oscar Wilde, once said, "All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," (and he would know, his was fairly terrible). It amazes me sometimes that William doesn't spend all his time writing poetry. I know he sometimes does, but he mostly burns it.
Once I woke up in the middle of the night to find his space in the bed empty, and crept out into the kitchen to see him huddled over the table, carefully writing on a sheet of paper by candlelight. He must have heard me coming, because he blew out the candle and took me back to bed. The next morning, there were paper-ashes on the table, so I guess he burnt the sheet when I was asleep again.
Anyway, I have to find some way to make it up to him. I've made my plans and laid my traps carefully. Firstly, I phoned Willow in Sunnydale, one evening when he'd gone out for a walk, or a fight, or something. I asked her to buy the tapes of 'Passions' that he'd missed, and send them over. Amazingly, they were here within days.
Secondly, I chose an evening when nothing could disturb us- or so I thought. This notion of being undisturbed appears to be one currently foreign to my life. We were meant to have some quality time alone this evening. I spent much of the day at work (Bath's public library, whatever- hours-they-need-me, isn't great, but it's better than no work at all) and got home about five, just in time for the telephone to ring- Charlene. She had to go up to York to see her mother, suddenly taken ill, and wondered if we could look after her kid, a young boy by the name of Rowan, so that her husband could go with her.
I couldn't really say no, could I? I'm much too helpful, that's my trouble. William was still asleep. He only sleeps in the day if I go out, and when I'm out all day it can be up to an hour before he wakes once I do arrive. Subconsciously or not, it seems to be some sort of protest at being left alone.
He emerges from the bedroom as I put the phone down. "Who was that, Rupes?" he asks, sleepily.
"Charlene. She needs our help again."
"Our? You mean your help."
"No, our help." I step forward and kiss him on his forehead, bending down slightly and running my hands through his shoulder-length, tousled hair because he won't tip his face up to me.
"Can't. Daylight, you know?"
"What makes you think it involves going out?"
"Let me get a drink before you quiz me." He pulls out of my grasp- telling me that the tension of Thursday's events still stands between us- and heads for the blood bags in the kitchen fridge.
"I'm not intending to quiz you. Do you want me to tell you, or not? He'll be here soon, anyway, and you might want to know what's going on."
"He'll be here soon? You mean someone is coming here, to disturb our precious time together?"
"I'm afraid so. Charlene and her husband have to go up to York, to visit her mother, and they don't want to take Rowan with them, so I've said he can stay here for a couple of days, in the spare bedroom."
"A couple of days? We have a what- four year old? Staying here for a couple of days?"
"He's six, yes, and I can hear them coming up stairs now."
William swears quietly, swallows the last of his blood, and heads back into the bedroom to do something- maybe just to avoid Charlene.
They don't hang around long, and it is only a few minutes before I am showing Rowan his room. "You'll be staying in here. I'll move your bags for you, and you can get settled in. William, have you met Rowan?"
"I'm just about to," he shoots back. He has changed the cotton slacks and shirt for black jeans and t-shirt, more Spike than William. I'm accustomed to adapting quickly from one to the other- certain social situations, or where he is threatened or upset, and he rapidly falls back on the defensive patterns of Spike's behaviour, bleached hair or no.
"Rowan, this is William- or more often, Spike." It'll confuse the child, but there's not much I can do about that. I have to let William know I can acknowledge that change in him.
"Spike, this is Rowan."
"Hey, kid," he says. Thank goodness it's not actually rude and doesn't contain swearwords.
"Hey," Rowan says a little nervously.
"Do you want a drink, Rowan?" I ask. Spike's making me nervous, too.
"Um.. Yes please," Rowan says, so we head through to the kitchen. Spike follows us, and I realise that I'll have to be careful- William is just immature enough to get jealous of the attention I have to give Rowan. Okay, so it's quite likely that he is already. I also realise I don't know how much Rowan knows about William, vampires, etc. The fact that his mother is well educated in the area and very accepting doesn't mean that the child knows anything about it.
"Orange juice or milk? Spike?"
"Milk, please," Rowan tells me. Thankfully he isn't as smart-alec as I would have been at six, and doesn't reply 'Yes, I'd like Spike, thank you.' William- who is all mine, mostly- doesn't deign to reply.
I pour milk for Rowan and put the kettle on for me. While it boils, I turn round. God knows what we're going to do with a six year old for however long it takes. My lover seems to have had the same thought. He is leaning against the doorpost, body tense and hard beneath the tight fitting clothes, and he looks entirely too.but I'm getting distracted here. Maybe that's why he's dressed like that.
"So, Rowan, what do you like to do?"
"It's a really great choice you've got here. You can watch dull British telly, practise handstands against the bookcases or thump Rupert," Spike informs the lad, when it looks like he might hesitate.
Apparently Rowan is capable of smart-alec answers. He asks Spike, "Can I watch telly while I'm practising handstands?"
"Only if you promise to kick Rupert when you fall over from the boredom," Spike replies. I can see that those two are natural conspirators, and with William in this childish mood, I dread to think what might happen. He might get jealous, or he might gang up on me. Or possibly both. I think I should at least try and quell this uprising early on.
"Finish your milk before you begin practising handstands or you'll spill it," I say, and.
"Or pour it down your nose," Spike adds, causing Rowan to giggle hysterically- a course of action also rather likely to end in spilt milk.
Behind me, the kettle has boiled, and against my better judgement I turn away to make my tea. Everything will look calmer, more manageable viewed from the other side of a cup of tea. It always does. My grandmother said so, and I believe her- practical experience notwithstanding.
As I warm the pot and brew the tea, I hear their conversation continue. I suspect I'm missing something, not having the visual element, but I refuse to turn round before I have a warm cup in my hands.
When the giggling stops, there is a pause, then Rowan asks, thoughtfully, "If I poured enough milk down my nose, would it start spilling out my ears?"
Pause. Then, "Only if your brain doesn't soak it up, like a sponge," Spike says. His voice is the ultimate voice of reason, the patient tone he once told me that he used to reserve for Drusilla.
It works brilliantly on Rowan, who responds, "My brain's more like an indoor golf ball than a sponge."
I pour my tea out and turn around.
"Then it probably would run through. Do you like cartoons?" Spike is asking.
"Oh yes! Tom and Jerry are the best, but I like the others, too. Can we watch cartoons?" Rowan looks up at me.
"Yes," I sigh. It'll give me a bit of a chance to get straight, if they both stare at the dreaded goggle box.
They watch television all afternoon and on into the evening. I sat and watched them some of the time, from my favourite armchair.
William (or is he Spike again, despite the long honey-blond hair and the neater clothing? Who knows?) watches avidly, and comments frequently.
"Stupid mouse," he says when they're watching Tom and Jerry, "daft cat, can't you see he doesn't love you?" The comments are sometimes insightful- as when he tells Morticia Addams to stop denying it and sleep with Wednesday (although I do wonder what Rowan made of that)- and sometimes inane- "Fool, Geordi, you should stick it up with chewing up," when Star Trek: the Next Generation comes on.
Rowan watches carefully, and replies to the things they say. He often knows what's going to happen long before the characters do. "He'll fall," he says gleefully to Jerry, when Tom is still looking at the river, not having seen the bridge, let alone started to cross it. His dark brown hair is cut short, and contrasts with William's long blond mop.
At bedtime, we tuck Rowan up on the couch, and William and I curl up in bed. He doesn't speak to me, but lies facing away from me. I hate it when it gets like this, when he withdraws inside and into Spike. All I can do is wait, and hope that he talks instead of actually running off and leaving me forever, as I fear he will. When Morpheus takes me, I dream of being alone, that William has gone and I have to explain why.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Midnight. Spike's POV.
I can't ignore it. I haven't felt the call often, and never this strongly before, but I can't ignore it. I don't want to leave Rupert, but he can't come. He's the one who said we could care for Rowan, after all. He's got to stay.
This isn't the little call that Dru used, "Come here, my Spike," or even the command that Angelus could issue, "Here, boy," as if I were a dog: this is something older, deeper, and quite as inescapable. I phoned up for ticket to LA as soon as I woke from the dream, and now I'm packing.
I'll write him a note. It might not help, but it should soften it a bit. If I can explain that it's family and I can't stay, he- well, he'll just have to take it.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In a box, somewhere in the depths of the ocean, Angel rouses himself from a hallucination.
{He was warm, smiling, with his friends, even Wesley. He remembers food, candlelight, the touch of Cordy's lips on his.}
"I'm coming, Sire," his lips mummer into gently swirling cold water, and he strains harder against the bonds that hold him. They begin to strain and creak, rotted by the water.
If a salty tear leaks out of his eye, it goes unoticed in the great mass of the ocean, a world's worth of sadness. If the few fish who manage to live this far down observe the strange creature that sets out to walk towards where he guess the shore must be, they do not comment.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
In Willow's dorm room, Drusilla pulls a blanket off the bed and goes in search of someone with a car. She knows she has to go- the voice is clearer than any she's heard before.
"Coming, mummy, coming."