112

All's Well

"Don't worry so much, Rose," Harmony advised. "Doesn't he always come back?"

Lorne approached rapidly. "I've been meaning to get a reading on you and the bleached one, sugarplum, but I've been up to my horns in work since I got back."

"A reading?" Rose asked weakly. "I think you're a little late, Lorne."

"Yeah," Harmony chimed in. "All the other guys just took off to get Drusilla."

"All of them?" They all turned to see Fred behind them, and she didn't look like she was a happy little camper.

"They were in a hurry, Fred," Rose hastily filled in. "They had to get there before Drusilla goes somewhere else."

"Aunt Fred is mad at Uncle Wes," Alaric chanted. He'd gone back to Harmony when his father had left.

"Not nice," Ariel scolded. She gave Fred a winsome look. "Pick me up, Aunt Fred?"

As Fred laughed and complied, Rose remarked, "It's a wonder they ever learned to walk. Their feet hardly ever touch the ground."

"Are we all just going to hang around here and wait for the troops to return?" Lorne asked. "Or are we going to get the munchkins home and get their dinner?"

Rose smiled at the way he'd included them all. "I ought to see if the senior partners will let me install a widow's walk on the roof," she said. "Since all the worry and pace sessions seem to take place at our apartment." She spared a glance for her children. "What would you like for dinner tonight?"

Alaric and Ariel exchanged looks. As Oz had predicted, they weren't really hungry after binging on ice cream. But if they didn't eat dinner, Uncle Angel would get in trouble.

Harmony smiled at the hesitation. She could smell the ice cream on them Fred, Lorne and Rose saw the smile and made a guess at what it meant.

"What have they been eating now?" Rose inquired resignedly.

Harmony tried to look innocent.

&&&&&&

"'Lo, Dru, hurt yourself?" Spike moved around, forcing her to move to keep her eyes on him, giving his allies the opportunity to slowly surround her.

"That naughty boy hurt me," Drusilla pouted, pointing at a very uncomfortable looking Val. "You will punish him for me, won't you, Spike?"

"Anything you say, Dru," Spike lied smoothly. He still maintained his distance. "How's Miss Edith?"

Drusilla smiled at him. "She's been missing you, my darling boy," she murmured. "We all have. But however did you get that nasty soul, poor boy?"

"I asked for it." Time to throw her a curve ball, Spike thought.

Drusilla laughed, but it was not a happy sound. More borderline hysterical. "My Spike would never ask for a soul," she declared. But something in her eyes said that she had her doubts.

"Haven't been yours for quite some time, Dru," Spike answered evenly. They had her completely surrounded now. He wondered who was going to make the first move. For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to. She didn't seem anything quite so much now as pathetic.

Drusilla let out an agonized wail. "No one loves me but Miss Edith." Then, she suddenly crumpled to the ground.

Spike didn't immediately go to investigate, it could be a ruse to get him to move in closer. At least, that was what he thought until he saw the trank gun in Wesley's hand.

The five men looked at one another sheepishly.

"I guess that none of us could actually bring himself to stake her," Angel muttered. He'd certainly had doubts himself. If Drusilla had actually been threatening at the moment, he might have. But not like this. It was too cold-blooded.

"What are you going to do with her?" Val asked tentatively. He still felt ill at ease among the inner circle. But he had spent some time with Drusilla, and even though she had tried to stake him, and had dusted his best friend, it just didn't seem right that such a helpless creature be destroyed. He wondered a moment too, that he should care about what was right.

"Psych ward?" Gunn asked.

"We can't have Drusilla committed to an institution," Angel protested. "She'd be out as soon as the tranquilizers wore off. They don't have the facilities to deal with a vampire."

"I mean the psych ward at Wolfram and Hart," Gunn supplemented his original answer. "And we do have what it takes to handle vampires."

"Then I suggest that we get her there before the effects of the drugs do wear off," Wesley put in. "It's very hard to judge dosages with a vampire's metabolism."

Spike picked up the recumbent form. When Drusilla had passed into unconsciousness, her grasp on her doll had loosened, and it seemed rather piteous just lying there on its own.

"Here you," he said to Val. "Pick that up and bring it along with. Make yourself useful for a change."

"You want me to bring her doll?" Val stood there, jaws agape.

"You heard the man," Gunn told him. "Bring the lady's dolly along."

&&&&&&

The twins, having eaten, predictably, practically nothing, were now showing off their skills on the keyboard to Lorne, who was, or at least, pretended to be totally engrossed in their efforts.

"They didn't used to exclude me from the fighting," Fred grumbled. "I used to be right in there whacking away at some of the nastiest, gooiest monsters you can imagine."

"Did you really enjoy it all that much, Fred?" Rose asked. "Or is it just raising your feminist hackles?"

"It made me feel like part of the team." Fred wasn't entirely ready to be mollified. "Okay, so it was pretty gross some of the time. And dangerous a lot of the time. But they didn't treat me like a china doll."

"I can't imagine actually wanting to be wading in gore," Rose said with a shudder. "I'm more than happy to leave that up to someone else."

"And you'd rather walk the widow's walk?" Fred asked pointedly.

"Two points," Rose put in. "One being that I'll never be a widow because if Spike dies, I do too."

"What's the second point?" Harmony felt she'd been quiet for long enough. And, she really wanted to know.

"Don't you have to be married first before you can become a widow?" Rose inquired. "Spike and I never really felt a need to go through a formal ceremony."

Harmony sniffed. "You two are more married than some people I've known who did have a wedding certificate."

Lorne looked up from the children's activities for a moment. "You listen to her, Rosebud," he advised. "Marriages are made in the heart, not in front of some judge or minister."

&&&&&&

He pushed his glasses back at the sound of the knock on his office door. He didn't like being interrupted when he was in the middle of something. But, he allowed that it could be something important. "Come in," he called out.

It was a semi-official looking person with the ever present clipboard, and he wondered what the visit was about.

"I have a delivery for you, Mr. Giles," said the man with the clipboard. "Would you please sign here saying that you accept delivery?"

"Precisely what are you delivering, and from whence does it originate?" Giles was being cautious and not about to sign anything until he knew what he was signing for.

"The.., er, package is out in the hallway," the delivery man replied. "That was all the farther we got it. It is kind of big."

Giles curiosity was piqued now. "And who sent it?" he prompted.

"It's from a Mr. Angel, CEO of Wolfram and Hart's L.A. offices," came the reply.

"I want to see what it is before I sign for it," Giles said firmly. He'd been waiting, rather impatiently, he had to admit, to hear from Angel on the matter of Ethan Rayne. Now, instead of Ethan, Angel was sending him god knew what. No doubt an attempt to mollify him.

But the outside of the package did little or nothing to enlighten him. Just a large, oblong box. It did have some rather interesting looking, if inexplicable controls on the outside. Giles walked around it, viewing it from every angle, and still couldn't make head nor tails of it.

"Excuse me, Mr. Giles." The dreary man with the clipboard again. "Mr. Angel sent a note along with it. It may explain what is in the package."

"Well why didn't you say so in the first place?" Giles snapped irritably. The note read 'I don't know when your birthday is, and it's too early for Christmas, but I know that it's something (or someone) that you've been wanting. A.'

Giles read the note through about three times before it started to sink in. "I'll sign for it."

&&&&&&&

"Babe, if you hide any more stuff in here, I'm not going to have any room left," Spike protested as a package-laden Rose came into his office. "How much stuff did you buy anyway?"

"These aren't mine," Rose replied. "Everybody else thought it was a good idea too. Besides, you hardly ever do anything but sleep in here, darling." She stopped to kiss him. "It's only for a few more days."

"Don't see the point in hiding their presents," Spike grumbled half-heartedly. "Or even wrapping them. They're already going to know what's inside."

"But they still enjoy the fun of it," Rose said. "And you did say you were going to have your men remove all the weapons from the practice room, didn't you? Fred and Harmony are going to be coming down to decorate it for the party."

"Yes, luv," Spike replied with a long-suffering sigh. She'd only asked a dozen times. "It still seems like an awful lot of fuss. They're only going to be two years old."

"But they're only going to be two once," Rose pointed out.

"And three, and four, and five, and so on," Spike added. He pulled her close for a cuddle. "Told you that you were going to be a wonderful mum, didn't I, pet?"

"You think I'm overdoing it, don't you?" Rose accused with the beginnings of a pout.

Spike rapidly thought over some of the birthday parties he'd heard of that the rich and famous threw for their own kids when said kids were too little to appreciate it. "I guess not," he conceded.

"I just want to make it a special day for them," Rose explained.

"You make every day special for them," Spike vowed. "For me too."

&&&&&&&

The chief psychiatrist was checking on the new inmate in cell 17. She intrigued him. He'd never seen an insane vampire before. And her ramblings were unique, to say the least. There was a recorder in all the rooms, but even he wasn't allowed to hear any of these tapes. They went straight to the CEO's office. He wondered why, but was too fond of his well-paying job to ask. He'd also been informed that she was a psychic. A very interesting combination, and an extremely intriguing case. He considered the possibility that her insanity might be curable, but he had been forbidden to make the attempt. She was merely to be restrained and cared for. He was about to walk away when he heard her begin to speak.

"We're having a party today, Miss Edith," Drusilla crooned to her doll. "For the pretty little babies. Do you think they'll invite us?" She started swaying back and forth and humming 'Happy Birthday'.

&&&&&&

If Alaric and Ariel were spoiled on a regular basis, on birthdays, it was squared, maybe even cubed. It was only the second one, after all. The training room was festooned with streamers and balloons. The twins were bouncing from person to person, chattering like magpies and impatiently waiting the moment they could open their presents.

"Hi, kids, happy birthday." Harmony knelt down to hug them.

"Hi, Auntie Harm," the twins chorused, swarming over her. Harm always brought them fun things.

There was another person hovering nearby, distinctly uncomfortable. Harmony gave the children a prompting look.

"Hi, Uncle Val," the children said unenthusiastically. They still didn't much care for him, and put up with him only for Harmony's sake. Alaric still took every opportunity to call him a wuss. It had taken a lot of patience and prompting to get them to call him uncle.

"Happy birthday," Val said. He knew better than to try to hug them. The one time he had, due to Harmony's prodding, the kids had vamped out. Not just for Harmony, but also because Spike was his boss, he tried to stay on their good side. It was the only reason he'd gone out and spent a respectable sum of money on their gifts. He held out two small packages.

This present was a surprise, or at least, had been until now, because the twins seldom bothered to read Val's mind. They did now, just to find out what was under the wrappings.

"Game boys?" Alaric and Ariel exchanged glances. Maybe he was going to shape up after all. "Thanks, Uncle Val."

&&&&&&&

Spike and Rose stepped back a bit, to watch the merry chaos from a little distance. Wrapping paper was strewn about on the floor. Angel had provided the cake, courtesy of the executive dining room, and it was enormous. The twins were positively bouncing off the walls, and everyone was having a good time watching their antics.

"They seem to be enjoying themselves," Spike observed. He wrapped his arms around Rose's waist.

"I hope so," Rose replied, snuggling back against them. "By the way, darling, in case I forgot to mention it, thank you."

"What for?" Spike wasn't aware he'd done anything that merited thanks of late.

"For coming back home to me," Rose murmured. "It was the longest few days of my life. I never want to be without you again."

"You won't be, babe," he assured her. "But you don't have to thank me for that. My motives were purely selfish. I couldn't stay away from you." He started backing up, pulling her with him.

"What are you doing?" Rose's eyes were riveted on the adults playing 'keep away' with balloons. The twins were running maniacally, trying to catch them.

"Just a few more steps," Spike coached her without telling her what he was up to. He eased them back into his office and locked the door, then turned her around so he could kiss her.

"Now?" asked Rose, a little breathlessly. "During the children's birthday party?"

"Probably the best time," Spike mumbled into her hair. "They're completely distracted."

&&&&&&

The game had halted for a few minutes, since some of the participants were a little winded.

"Where are Spike and Rose?" asked Fred. "I could have sworn they were standing over there just a minute ago."

Everyone's eyes swiveled in the direction of Spike's office. The humans were at a disadvantage, but three vampires, and a werewolf had the advantage of very acute hearing. And the twins just listened in telepathically. They started grinning. Angel covered his eyes with a hand. Oz shrugged and.., was Oz. Harmony giggled and nudged Val, who just stood there staring at the door.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me," Gunn said. "The middle of the kid's party and they decide to have a nooner?"

&&&&&&&&

Four years later

Stenslow wadded the papers in his hands into an unsightly ball. "Wolfram and Hart used to be one of our more valuable allies," he snarled. "But ever since that damned vampire took over, they have been a stumbling block to our interests. We need to find a way to dispose of the vampire."

"With all due respect, sir," his aide suggested timidly. "The problem may not be with the vampire, per se, but with his soul. Maybe we don't have to get rid of the vampire, sir, just his soul."