Simmer Till Done

"Rose, do you have any problem with me taking the kids out from time to time?" Oz asked when he showed up for work the next morning. He'd been doing some thinking and came to the conclusion that the apartment, spacious though it was, must be a bit confining for such energetic little people.

Rose smacked her forehead. "I knew I forgot to tell you about something yesterday," she apologized. She pulled a box off the top of the entertainment center. "This is what Spike refers to as 'gadding about money'," she explained. "If you want to take them somewhere that requires money, there it is. Also, the keys to the car, since it already has their car seats in it." She paused in thought a moment. "What else was there? Oh yes, if you're going to be outdoors for a while, make sure they have plenty of sunblock on. They can go out in the sun, but they burn very easily. The current theory is that they'll grow out of that. The going out in the sun part, not the burning."

Oz listened to her monologue, absorbing it all. "So if I were to take them to play in the park I'd need to keep them in the shade, right?" he asked, giving a specific situation to show that he understood the generalities.

Rose nodded. "I think that covers it," she said, and began looking for her briefcase. "Oh, and if you do take them out, please don't..,"

"Feed them a bunch of junk food?" Oz thought that was a pretty safe bet.

"Exactly." Rose beamed at him. "You'll do fine." She glanced at the time. "Spike, what's taking you so long? You're going to be late."

Spike emerged from the children's bedroom with his arms full. "Give your mum a kiss," he directed, and for a few moments, it was a group hug. Then, Spike reluctantly set the twins down. "You two behave and mind what Oz tells you."

"And no more trips to the offices," Rose added in tones much less indulgent than Spike's had been.

&&&&&&&&

Nathan was taking a stroll through the park for the lack of anything better to do. Watching the people pass by, scurrying mindlessly about their pointless little lives. He felt above it all, certainly above them, bunch of clockwork toys the lot of them. And children. The place was absolutely crawling with them. He wondered how many of the adults escorting them were actually their parents, or just the hired help. Considering the times, the hired help seemed a better bet. There was a case in point. Toddlers, male and female, so close in size they had to be twins, with clothes that suggested an upper middle class income. While the small man tending them was wearing clothes that had probably never been fashionable and now were somewhat worse for the wear. Nathan wondered how he had gotten a job looking after small children. He was about to move on, he'd only noticed them because of the striking differences, when he paused and looked again. The man looked a bit familiar. Where had he seen him before? Then it struck him. Sunnydale. One of the Slayer's little clique. Nathan paused to take in a bit more of the scene.

&&&&&&&

The twins were seated in the baby swings, side by side, and Oz was using a hand apiece to push them. The kids were having an absolute ball.

"Higher, Oz," Alaric demanded.

"Me too," Ariel put in.

"You're high enough," Oz said firmly. Maybe he was being a little overly cautious, but these were very special kids. And he had the feeling that if something happened to them, Spike would be the least of his worries. Sweet little Rose would probably take him apart a piece at a time.

"Stop," the twins ordered, in perfect unison. And something in the inflection of their voices caused Oz to take them seriously. As they came towards him on the backswing, he caught them with his arms.

"What's the deal?" Oz asked quietly.

"That man over there is thinking about you, Oz," Ariel murmured.

"Which man?" The park was a busy place, and there were plenty of people of both sexes and all ages.

"The one that's standing half way behind that tree," Alaric clarified. "He thinks he remembers seeing you somewhere else."

"Sunnydale," Ariel affirmed. "He's a bad man, Oz."

Oz started lifting them out of the swings. "What say we head back for home?" he suggested. The man had been too far away for him to see clearly, and there were too many people in between for him to catch a scent. And a bad man from Sunnydale didn't really narrow things down. Every nasty sort you could think of had been drawn to the hellmouth. But if the twins were right, and he had no reason to doubt that they were, it would probably be best if they were to make fast tracks.

&&&&&&&

Nathan watched the man grab the kids and rabbit off. He wondered what had put the wind up him. He was pretty sure he hadn't been seen, and he'd only seen the man from a distance. Perhaps it wasn't the same person, and something else had spooked him. He shrugged. His business wasn't with him at present anyway. He had other matters to attend to.

&&&&&&&&&

Angel tried to make heads or tails of the document he was perusing, but try as he might, he just couldn't make any sense out of it. It almost looked like it had been written in a foreign language. He paged his temp.

When she entered his office, he started right in. "Alicia, do you even use the spell checker when you type up documents?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't really need it, sir," she said airily. "I'm a very good speller. Even with the Latin in the legal terms."

"Then what exactly is this?" He handed her the document.

She paled a moment, then blushed rose red. "Oh no," she moaned. "I must have had my right hand on the wrong keys."

"Fix it," Angel ordered shortly. "And next time, look at what you've done before you lay it on my desk." He turned back to the rest of his paperwork. He really was missing Harmony.

&&&&&&&

"I don't know," Fred said, munching on her sandwich as she and Rose sat at lunch. "There just seems to be something missing."

Rose glanced down at her person, since that was what they had been discussing. "I'm pretty sure that I'm fully clothed, Fred," she answered. "What else could be missing? My briefcase? I don't usually bring it to lunch."

"The kids." Fred snapped her fingers. "It's been so long since I've seen you anywhere without them that you just don't look right all alone."

"It does feel a little strange, spending so much time away from them," Rose mused. "But they are going to have to meet more people than just those that work at Wolfram and Hart. And I can't put them in a daycare center. Can you imagine the looks I'd get if I told them they get a cup of blood in the afternoon before their naps? They'd probably call the police on me."

"Or have you committed," Fred remarked. "How are they taking staying with a nanny?"

"Very well, really," Rose admitted. "They already adore Oz. And he seems to be good at dealing with them." She giggled. "You should have seen the look in his eyes when the children told me he was a werewolf. He obviously doesn't know what goes on in this place if he thinks that's a big deal."

"You've got to admit that your kids would creep a lot of people out," Fred commented. "Including some of the ones here. Most people don't feel comfortable with having their minds read."

"You're looking at one of them," Rose muttered. "And Spike is another. Don't get me wrong, we love them, but sometimes, they peek into our heads at the most inopportune times."

"What do the doctors say about them?" Fred inquired.

"That physically, they are typical, healthy eighteen month old children," Rose replied. "As for the other stuff, they won't even begin to speculate. I think they'd like to lock my babies in a lab and experiment on them." She looked a trifle alarmed at the thought, even though nothing had come of it, so far.

"Angel wouldn't let them do that," Fred assured her. "Nobody, certainly no child should be a lab rat. But you couldn't very well take them to a human doctor. Not knowing who or what they are, they'd be running tests all over the place just to try to figure out why they drink blood."

"Have you and Wesley discussed having children?" Rose decided to get off the topic of hers. If she avoided thinking about them as much as possible, then she didn't miss them quite so much. But they'd been the center of her activities since they'd been born, and creating a little distance, however necessary was a wrench.

"We decided that we're not ready," Fred answered. "I'm not sure we ever will be. We're both so busy that we just thought it wouldn't be fair to our kids."

"It's a shame," Rose commiserated. "I think you'd make a good mother, Fred." And in the back of her mind was the thought that Wesley would apologize profusely to her for spoiling her children once he had some of his own.

&&&&&&&&

"What do you think about it?" Angel asked. He swept the staff in a low arc.

Spike nimbly hopped over it. "That was pretty damn lame," he commented. "As to what I think, I think that you try to see things that aren't there. There is such a thing as coincidence, you know." He tried to jab his staff into Angel's midsection, but Angel was ready for it and flipped it away with his own staff.

"I have trouble believing in coincidence when it comes to your kids," Angel went on, making a lightning strike attack, which Spike parried. "I mean, doesn't it seem a little strange that someone as suitable as Oz should show up just at the time when Rose decides to go back to work?"

Spike aimed a blow at Angel's head, which Angel ducked. "There isn't much of anything that seems strange to me after spending a few years living on a hellmouth," he replied. "Guess after all I've seen, having wolf-boy show up just when we needed someone to look after the kids is no big deal."

"And I think you're too ready to take things on faith that should be questioned." Angel swung his staff again, and connected with Spike's ribs, barely. Spike dodged and blocked the shot, just not quite quickly enough.

"I think you're a nancy-boy who spends too much time brooding," Spike snapped. "Bloody well get over it, will you? Yeah true, Oz showed up just when we needed him. But a lot of other people showed up too. Suppose Rose had hired one of them before Oz came along?" He used his staff almost like a pole-vaulter would, to launch himself at Angel, and his feet caught Angel squarely in the chest, knocking him over.

"That move wasn't by the book," Angel complained. "I think you cracked a couple of my ribs."

"I never read the book," Spike remarked with a smirk. "You want a hand up, or are you just going to lay there until you heal?"

&&&&&&&

"Oz staying to dinner again?" Spike asked, coming up behind Rose as she stood at the stove and wrapping his arms around her waist.

"It was the children's idea this time," Rose replied. "But I didn't see anything wrong with it. Do you have a problem with it, love?"

"Not as long as he can stand your cooking, pet," Spike teased. While she had been on her extended leave, Rose had put some effort into learning how to cook, and could do a creditable, if not outstanding job of it. He rested his head on her shoulder, just breathing in the scent of her.

Rose stopped what she was doing for a moment to lean back a bit and close her eyes, just reveling in the feeling of being in her beloved's arms. Then, she straightened back up. "I'll never get dinner done with you hanging on me like that," she said fondly. "And some of us do have to eat."

"Sure you don't want me to lend a hand?" Spike asked. He just liked being around her, and any excuse would do. Or even no excuse at all, except that he liked being around her.

"I'm sure," Rose replied. "I appreciate that you want to help just to be near me, darling, but the fact of the matter is that when you help, it usually takes me twice as long as if I just do it myself. It must be because you insist on stopping to kiss me all the time."

"What difference can a few minutes make?" Spike gave her earlobe a playful nip, but then dutifully started to leave.

"The difference between dinner and a burnt sacrifice," Rose answered. She picked up a wooden spoon and smacked his backside with it. Before she could put it down again, Spike was back with his arms around her.

"You keep doing things like that, luv," he warned. "And I'm not going to care if the kids are still up and Oz is here. Because dinner will be very late indeed." He spun her around to face him so he could kiss her, and made quite a thorough job of it.

The kiss was finally interrupted by a hissing sound coming from the stove.

"I think you've got something boiling over, sweetheart," Spike remarked, finally releasing her.

"I know," Rose replied. "And I think the spaghetti is boiling over too." She turned down the heat on the burner.

"I guess I'll just have to go on simmer till later as well," Spike said ruefully. "I'll leave you to it then, babe."