CHAPTER SIX
On Halloween night Spike and his young son make their way in fast clips down a tree-shaded street in what Buffy has deemed a "safe neighborhood", i.e. her old turf, Revello Drive and its environs. They stopped at a few apartments in the complex and were given the snot candy (Dum-Dum suckers, starlight mints and some sort of imported Mexican candy that smelled of oil and body odor which Spike tossed into the nearest trash bin). Now they've hit a gold mine. Fun Size Snickers, Hershey Miniatures, full-size Butterfingers from one gated house. At the end of his Hallmark-sanctioned begging, Daniel's grocery bag is dragging the ground.
"You having fun, Daniel?" Spike asks when he notices his son his suddenly very quiet.
"Yeah," replies Daniel after swallowing something.
"Hey, wait up a bit, Daniel. Are you eating your candy?"
"No," Daniel answers.
"Come off it, Daniel! I can smell the masticated caramel."
"Daddy, what's masti-
"Means you're lying to me. You ARE eating your candy! You know Mummy wants to look through it before you eat it. There are a lot of crazies out there. Some who may want to hurt you for no good reason. Now spit it out."
"But I've already swallowed it, Daddy!"
"Fine. Good. Just don't eat anymore. Until we get to Bev's house."
"Wwy won't."
"Daniel, you're eating something else!"
"It's one of the good ones. I know, Daddy."
Spike looks down at his son. The streetlight is hitting his innocent little face and with his lips rimmed in the verboten chocolate, he looks like a clown. He's probably been sneaking treats the whole night. Spike has to take a moment to damn himself as a father, but he also has to give props to his son. He's good at the stealth, which may aid him in days to come. But Spike doesn't want to think of days to come. Right now his son is five years old and enjoying the first Halloween he will remember when he's much older and rebelling fiercely. And tonight in his cape (Buffy's Little Red Riding Hood cape dipped in black dye) and his natural curly blond locks tamed back and stretched over his skull like a raked over wheat field, Daniel is not only the image of the character he is meant to portray, Malfoy, but also of his father in a younger day.
"Well, at least give me some candy," Spike says.
"What do you want?" Daniel asks, digging through his take.
"Do you have any Three Musketeers?"
Daniel draws a blank. "You look, Daddy."
Spike rummages through the gallons of Smarties, candy corns, and Mary Jane's before he finds the coveted candy in miniature form.
As the unique blend of chocolate, nougat and caramel caresses his taste buds, Spike hums to himself. "Are there any Krackel bars in there?"
"Are they the red kind?"
"Yeah."
"Uh huh, Daddy. Lots."
"Better save those for you Mummy. She has a real jones for them. On second thought, you'd better give me a handful. I don't want to have to hear her nattering on about how much chocolate she's been eating and how it's actually making her have hips for once in her life."
Now they are arriving at the house where Spike always has to take a pause and remember. He looks up at the gabled windows peering out like skull's eyes warning death, or, even worse, a non-invite. The house has changed very little, except for the swing on the front porch and the ivory vinyl siding. The door is the same; it once made Spike an outsider. Just to see it makes him lonely and scared, thinking he might see Buffy's hateful glare looking out at him from the space between the door and jamb. Instead there is Bev, the sixty-plus resident of Buffy's former home. She is resplendent in her gray hair and attempt at a costume. She is a housewife who has long not been a wife, but she is too tired to search for someone who might make her a wife again. So tonight she wears her usual elastic pants and big shirt combo and very great smile.
"Now it's officially Halloween!" Bev declares gleefully. "I was wondering when you two might show up." She bends to examine Daniel in his Halloween costume. "And who are you tonight?"
Daniel has spotted the bowl of goodies on the table inside the door and goes right for it, fisting the candy as fast as his little hands can grab for it.
"Well, you can see he's not dressed as Polite Boy tonight. He's Malfoy."
"Malfoy?"
"He's a character from the Harry Potter series."
"Oh. My grandchildren love those books, but I just can't get into them. I've read a few, but they're not nearly as good as the C.S. Lewis books I read to my kids when they were little. No matter. Well, come on in. I've got some hot cider on the stove."
Spike and Daniel follow Beverly into the kitchen where the aroma of spiced apples and cloves dampens the air. The kitchen has changed very little as well, except for the "World's Greatest Grandma" apron hanging from the oven and the gingham curtains over the window. Spike remembers the night he came to this house to apologize for scaring everyone when Dawn went missing and was actually safe and sound in his crypt. What was that story Buffy's mother was telling him? He just remembers her laughter and the way she made him feel as though he belonged there. She may have even said something along the lines of, "Spike! So good to see you!" which he hadn't heard in a non-sarcastic tone in years.
"So how have you boys been? Any news?" Beverly asks, ladling a generous draught of cider into a ceramic mug.
"Well, Daniel's in kindergarten now," Spike says, "And doing really well."
"Oh! You like school, Daniel?" Beverly asks.
Daniel is still munching on a Baby Ruth so a hearty nod suffices as a "yes, very much, thank you."
"His old man misses him during the day, though," Spike says, hefting his son into his lap after taking a seat at the bar. "I've been in job search mode lately."
"Oh, really?" Beverly hands her guests two mugs of cider. "How's that going?"
"Haven't heard back from any of them yet. It's been about two weeks since the interviews."
"You should call them to let them know you're still interested."
Spike grimaces. "Thing is, I don't think I was interested in any of them, really. But I do think I should be working. Buffy was just passed over for a promotion at the Y that she was really counting on. We're looking into buying a house. Beverly, could you hit Daniel's mug with a shot of cold water from the tap in Daniel's mug? It's a little too steamy for him."
Beverly takes the mug and ferries it over to the sink. "Well, if you're wanting to buy a house, I've got a tip on one that's going to be on the market very soon." She jets a quick burst of cold water into the mug and returns it to Daniel. "This one."
"Really? This house?"
Beverly sits down on one of the bar stools and scoots close to the island. "When I moved in here six years ago, I thought this would be a great place for my sons and daughters to come on weekends with their children. But it just didn't pan out that way. They don't visit unless it's Thanksgiving or Christmas. Sometimes they scarcely remember to call me on Mother's Day. This is just too big of a house for myself. So I'm putting it on the market and moving into a retirement community in San Diego. That's probably what I should have done in the first place after Arthur died." She crosses herself and gazes over at the black and white picture of a young man in a naval uniform, circa 1945.
Spike's mind begins spinning. Buffy's house is for sale! "So you're really leaving Sunnydale?" he says, a little embarrassed at the unintentional pitch of excitement in his tone.
She nods. "I really am. Time to move on. It's taken me the better part of a decade to decide Sunnydale really isn't for me. I suppose it's fine if you're young and just starting out, but I don't really have anything keeping me here. Except a mortgage, which I will be happy to unload."
"Tell me, Bev. What do you think the value of this place would be in today's market?"
"Oh, I don't know. It was listed as $425,000 when I bought it in 2001. I've made some structural improvements since then. The foundation was crumbling from all the earthquakes so I had to have it rebuilt three years ago. I'd say it's worth about $475,000 now. At least, I hope."
"Damn," Spike says, realizing the impossibility of even making a down payment on a house such as this.
"Daddy, you said a bad word!" Daniel says, slithering from his father's lap and bounding into the foyer to retrieve more candy from the bowl.
"Daniel, not too much. You'll be awake until you're eighteen as it is," Spike says to no avail as his son helps himself to more Snickers bars.
"Oh, let him eat all the candy he wants! But not you, Spike. I can see you're getting a little pudgy," she says, clicking her tongue.
Spike is wondering if the ten miniature Krackel bars he devoured on the way to Beverly's house are already showing. He resolves to give the remaining ones to Buffy and go to the gym seven days a week starting the next day.
"Daniel doesn't like me talking about getting a job or buying a new house," Spike says. "I told him that I was trying to get a job so that we could have a better life and he told me that there was nothing wrong with the life we already have. And then he said that he didn't want me to get a job because his friends' daddies had jobs and his friends didn't see their daddies and he was afraid that if I got a job he wouldn't see me anymore."
"Awww…What a sweet little boy. He just adores you, you know that."
"I do," Spike says, all smiles.
"When you first came here, what, four years ago? He was in his little Casper suit and so adorable. And he was holding so tight to your hand and you had to tell him to say, 'Trick or Treat' and he did. I thought he was afraid of me."
"No, no. That's how it was the first time out on Halloween when he was two. I had to prompt him with the password all night. He's not shy anymore. He'll go to anyone, any stranger and strike up a conversation. Buffy and I have to watch him constantly when we're out in public. They're a lot of crazies out there, we keep telling him."
"There are more crazies here per capita than any other town, I think. But it's always nice to have some nice safe company at least once a year," Bev says, tipping her mug to Spike's.
Beverly invited Spike into her home years ago. He was back from the desert, back from Indian learning and safe from the chip. He could have easily bitten her, killed her, made her one of his kind. He did not. She was playing Frank Sinatra on her old hi-fi that day and they listened to Frank sing "The Summer Wind" and Spike told her all about Buffy and why he had to find her. The words "love of my life" and "my reason to live" came into play that day and when the tears rolled and Beverly shared her own lost love story, they communed and Bev was safe and Spike was on his way to Sunnydale Heights to find Buffy again.
"Mmmmmrmmmmm! MMMMMM! RRRMMMM!" is the sound heard from the living room now.
"I'd better take him home before he starts destroying property," Spike says.
"Oh no, don't go. You just got here!"
"No," Spike says, slurping his hot cider, wiping his mouth, and putting the mug back down on the countertop. "Daniel doesn't know his limits, but Buffy and I do."
Daniel rushes into the kitchen with a sofa cushion. "A HA! I've found you! Now you are going to die! 'Cause I've got the shield of incredicibitynessfulity and you can't kill me!"
"And we're so afraid," Spike says, putting his hands up in mock arrest. "I don't remember the shield of incredicibitynessfulity being in Harry Potter."
"ARRR…ARRR! The shield of incredifiltibulity!" Daniel says, defending himself against his father's nay saying,
"Oh, so the name of the shield changes when it's put up against a worthy foe." Spike wrests the cushion from his son's hands. "Put this back."
"But it's the shield of---
"Put the shield of incredi-whatever it may be back on the sofa of what it was."
"I found it in the land of Freshinay!" Daniel says, reaching for his "shield" from his father's hands.
"I hope that land is ten seconds away from where we are now because that's how long you have to return the shield of incredi-whatever to its native soil. Starting now." Spike tosses the cushion back to his son, "10, 9, 8, 7…"
"But it's my shield!"
"…6, 5, 4, 3…"
"I need my shield! For evil!"
"2-1! Put it back or else!"
Daniel doesn't know what that mythical "or else" is because it's never gotten to that point. Sometimes he thinks he might be brave enough to go beyond the bounds of "or else" but now is not the time because the veins of his Daddy's neck are showing and he is afraid of the "or else". The cushion is returned to the sofa and it is time to go.
"We'll see you next year?" Bev asks hopefully from the door as Spike and Daniel leave.
"If not before then," Spike returns, giving a promising thumbs up.
"Your house is for sale," Spike tells Buffy first thing when he and Daniel get back to the apartment.
"I don't have a house. Hence the house-search." Buffy plops the dusty volume of a book on demon plagues of the 14th century she has been reading into the usual hiding spot in the broiler compartment of the stove, which has never been used for any other purpose other than storing books Daniel shouldn't see and the pans that Buffy never can find a use for. "Try to keep up, honey," Buffy says petulantly.
"Sweetheart," Spike says, putting his hands on her deceptively puny arms. "Your house. The house where you first lived in Sunnydale. The house where you and I first sort of cohabitated, though I don't think you ever made mention of that to anyone for fear of impeachment."
Buffy's eyes fly open wide. "My house!"
"That's the house I'm talking about! Now who's the one not trying to keep up?"
Buffy begins flinging her hands as though they are on fire before clasping them together as in prayer. "Oh my God! Oh my God! My house! But I didn't see it in the classifieds today."
"Bev is moving."
"Bev is moving?"
"To a retirement home."
"Oh my God! Do you know how perfect that house would be for us? With the bedrooms and the space and the not smelling so much like kitty litter? You and I could have Mom's old room and Daniel could have my old room and Dawn could have her old room when she visits! Oh, I can't believe that it's on the market! It would be perfect for us! I always wanted to get it back!" Buffy says, leaping into Spike's arms. She braises his cavernous cheek bones with kisses, her legs wrapped around his waist and he wants to stop her, he really wants to stop her, but he hopes with all hope that she will come to realization all by herself which she almost always does.
"Mommy, come look at my candy!" Daniel asks from the entrance to the kitchen.
Spike can see that realization he was hoping for make quick work at dissolving the elated expression on his wife's face. She slips from his grasp and finds her footing on the shoddy linoleum floor which will not shine, no matter the promises of Swiffer Wet and Swiffer Wet Jet when Swiffer Wet proved all wet. The drip of her kitchen faucet sounds like a canon fire and catches her attention as shellfire would. She is where she is now and it is far removed from Revello Drive and the sanctity of home with Mom and kid Sis and Xander there to fix everything when it broke down. Mom is gone, kid Sis is in college and Xander moved away years ago.
"It's too much," Buffy says as she takes Daniel's hand and follows him into the living room.
"Well, maybe," Spike says, wishing that Daniel's candy bag contained a winning lottery ticket.
"No, it's too much," Buffy says again as she and Daniel sit on the floor and he empties his grocery bag of goodies. She digs through it, as an Untouchable in India, sorting through the ashes of cremated remains on the banks of the Ganges, hoping for a gold filling or even better, a gold ring. "Looks all good. No pin pricks. No visible signs of unwrapping except yours, you bad boy!" She playfully slaps her son's arm, seeing that most of the bag is littered with crumpled wrappers. "But I don't see any Krackels," Buffy says in dismay as she leans the weight of her posterior on the back of her shoes.
"Daddy has them," Daniel says.
Buffy looks up at her husband with such hope in her eyes, Spike knows she is saying, "I still believe in you and I still believe that you and I will get that house, if not my house."
Spike smiles down at his wife. "Yes, I have them." And he plops the Krackels one by one into Buffy's open palm.
She opens the first one and covers her tongue with the candy, letting it melt slightly before munching on the crunchy bits and swallowing it, all with a satisfied smile.
The next day, Daniel is surprisingly up before his parents, even after his bedtime came two hours late under the influence of his chocolate overdosing. Buffy elects to get up first, since Spike was up with him all hours. Spike snuggles back on his pillow. Minutes later, Buffy returns to their bedroom. She is holding the newspaper. The obituaries. He doesn't know why she awakened him until she points a finger to a face he doesn't recognize until he reads the text underneath.
Beverly York Christian died in her home on October 31.
The folks at the Sunnydale Press are used to late notice obituaries. They keep the presses open for deaths that occur after other newspapers have shut down for the night. There are too many deaths after sunset not to.
"You OK?" Buffy asks, passing a hand through her husband's hair.
He shrugs her off. "Yeah."
"You sure?"
He doesn't know. He really doesn't know. Mourning is something unusual to him, at least in his incarnation as a vampire. When he heard Joyce died he did mourn because she was so nice to him. Beverly was nice to him as well. But Joyce was Buffy's mother. Was he so enamored of Buffy that he grieved for Joyce out of respect for Buffy or did he really think highly enough of her to bring flowers? Years later, when he was remembering Joyce's search for little marshmallows in her cupboards when he requested them for his cocoa, he had his answer. Yes, he did mourn her in that he missed her comfort and how she treated him like he wasn't a freak. And when he and Buffy were married he could almost see Joyce dabbing tears and he missed her then as well, in that he wanted her validation of their vows to each other. But this morning's death. It's a hard smack that shock delivers and it's one that comes out of nowhere, like something that's been delivered by a phantom hand that not even the undead can deflect. So on November 1, All Saint's Day, the demon who masquerades as a human, who lies in the Slayer's bed, doesn't know what to say or think.
"Have you told Daniel?" Spike does manage to ask.
"No, I didn't tell him," Buffy replies. "Should I?"
"Not now. I'll tell him later. After school. I think that's best."
Buffy squeezes his hand and he feels the fire of their union. She can pass off the tough stuff to him and he can handle it when she cannot. She goes and readies her son for school.
When Spike does tell Daniel after school that Beverly has died, Daniel doesn't tear up. He asks his Daddy if he can go and play at Matthew's house. Spike knows that Daniel won't miss Bev until the next year when he finds she's no longer living where he used to go see her and strangers are in her place because there's no way on the Hellmouth that his parents could afford to live there.
Three nights later, Buffy and Spike sit on a marble slab in a cemetery. It's been a slow night. On Halloween, night creatures lay low and the newly risen are few and far between the nights following. But there is one, at least one, who will rise. And now Spike feels compelled to tell Buffy about the day Beverly first let her into her new home on Revello Drive.
"My next meal," Spike says in the hush of the night with dozens and dozens of dazzling stars overhead and a brilliant moon. "And I wasn't thinking about the leftovers on her stove."
The moon makes her husband appear bluish, he is so pale and the moon is so insistently bright. Everything he is saying is so clear, as clear as the moonlight on his face. "You wanted to kill her?" Buffy asks Spike.
He nods. "I did."
He is expecting revulsion from his mate. He is constantly anticipating that there will be some part of his past that, once divulged, will disgust her to the point that she won't be able to love him anymore. She is silent. She stares out across the graveyard and he can't read her gaze, either peripherally or straight on.
"I know it's a bit strange, even to you, the Slayer. Or perhaps even more so to you. I have this entire past of a century of killing and debauchery. I mean, it's not as though I listened to Journey or played Dungeons and Dragons before I met you. I was really and truly evil. I killed without conscience because I had none. But Buffy, you have to know. When I made that pledge to you after I came back to you six years ago, when I told you that I wouldn't kill, I meant it. And I haven't killed. I have been tempted, but not now. It's different now. Sometimes I think there is something guiding me. And it's not just my love for you, as great as that is. There's something else. I feel it. And I can't name it, can't put my bloody finger on it. But it's real. I just have to wonder if, in the process of becoming a father, a husband and a would-be member of the workplace, all the things that humans are, I've grown something that all humans have." He takes his wife's hand, though her gaze and, seemingly, her thoughts have not moved from the freshly dug grave that is her job tonight. "A soul."
There's not so much as a sniff from his wife. Then the hairs raise on her back and she stiffens. All the times she denounced him as an animal he has reason to call her the same when he sees her zeroing in on her prey. She rises and then crouches carefully.
"She's coming," Buffy announces.
A bit of earth is being tossed about from clawing hands beneath the dirt. Spike can see the small stand with the index card with the name of the deceased and the day she died, or the night she died. He was with this woman the night she died. Years before, this woman let a vampire into her home and she was safe. The night she died, she let two vampires into her home. One called her friend and let her live. One called her food and killed her.
Spike sees her briefly as a monster. They are so disoriented when they rise. It's a new world they arrive in, one in which blood is the first urge. Bev's premiere thirst for blood is the Slayer's so Bev's unlife is short-lived. Her torso is exposed, Buffy finds her heart, and Bev is dead again.
"You wanted to kill her at one time," Buffy says, looking up at her husband, still with that hardness of a predator in her eyes. She wipes the dust from her clothes. "Now we're even."