Things Change
Chapter Eight

Spike paced the floor of the Summers' living room restlessly. He was torn between telling Buffy her lodger was an evil sod called the Jackal or not saying anything at all. He didn't particularly want to admit he kicked the guy's ass, not when she thought he had changed, and there was definitely something weird going on with him.

From their brief meeting twenty-five years ago and the rumours he had heard before and after their encounter, he didn't think the Jackal was the type to sit down and take it like he had done. Spike didn't want to worry Buffy, who had been living a relatively quiet life for the past sixteen years, according to Willow; there had only been one near apocalypse since she went off the rails. He didn't want them all - especially Buffy and his children - to think he had brought trouble with him.

His children.

That made his mind up. There was no way he was going to be taken in by Edward. He wouldn't worry Buffy, he'd tell Willow - who now was quite the powerful and restrained Wicca - and call Giles about the Jackal, see if he knew anything.

Something nagged in him to tell Buffy, that she'd kill him if she found out he hadn't warned her.

He grabbed the address book by the telephone and flicked through pages of Buffy and Dawn's writing. He paused with a small smile over the handwriting he knew wasn't Buffy's or Dawn's, but Chrissy's, with a few lines that he knew instinctively were Todd's untidy scrawl. He shook himself and found Giles, wrongly filed under "E" in Dawn's writing. He assumed it was for "England" and wondered why women couldn't do a simple thing like fill in an address book without complicating things with new inventions for filing. He sighed and reached for the phone.

"Spike?"

He froze and shook his head, the phone dropping from his suddenly limp fingers into the cradle with a loud clatter. He put the book down and turned slowly to face the owner of a voice he knew so well. She stood as she always used to, her weight on her left foot, her right hand on her hip, her left arm hugging her stomach. She smiled her crooked smile and her brown eyes lazily took in the homey room. They lingered on the makeshift bed on the couch and then came to rest on him.

"Lydia?" he choked.

"Not exactly, babe," she said and came towards him slightly. He recognised the length of her hair - styled in layers to her chin - as the hairstyle she had treated herself to the day before her twenty-first birthday. She looked exactly that, not the thirty-four years she had been when she died.

"You're not real, Bambi," he whispered, watching her carefully as she wandered away from him and over to the table. She lifted up the duster, studied it with her tongue in her cheek and gave a low whistle.

"Bet you look hotter than hell in this, Spike," she commented, then turned to him and - in true Lydia Green fashion - changed the subject abruptly without any hint as to what made her change it. "Yup. You'd be right in thinking I'm not real," she frowned. "I think. In fact, I haven't got a clue why I'm here. Care to fill me in?"

"This isn't funny," he snapped. "Whoever the hell is doin' this, you stop it now or I'll tear you to pieces."

She smirked.

"Fantastic, that's the Spike I know and love," her face became uncharacteristically serious. "You came back, maybe you're not such a brain dead wanker after all. Or did you just come back 'cause I asked you?"

"Thought it was 'cause you asked me," he shrugged, falling into a familiar routine without even realising, it must have been the 'brain dead wanker' part, it was her favourite teasing insult for him. "But now I'm not so sure."

"Wanna know what I reckon?" she asked and pulled a picture from the coffee table. "I reckon you felt 'em, your kids. But I'm no expert, me not having any kids and all. Couldn't have any 'cause the only guy I ever loved was a vampire who apparently couldn't have 'em, unless the girl was part-demon of course."

"Lydia…" he started.

"Yeah, yeah," she waved her hand. "I know, I know. I didn't come here to go over old ground."

"Then why are you here? I thought you didn't know?"

"I don't," she shrugged. "But as I'm here, I might as well say I'm proud of you. For years you were on the edge and then you were fine, what scared me most about me dying was you going loony again. But you didn't, I'm right bloody proud of you."

"Thanks, doll," he whispered.

"I love you, Spike," she told him, she replaced the picture and walked over to him, sliding her arms around his waist in a familiar gesture that made him forget she was dead and he was in Sunnydale. Suddenly he was in the bar in New Orleans with her whooping over a great night's takings. "Even now, I love you. I don't have a body, I exist in dreams and memories and misty places just out of your reach, but I still love you, even though I don't think I've got a heart anymore. Know what I never got to do when I was alive?"

He shook his head and she leaned up and kissed him long and hard on the lips. When it was over, he looked down.

There was nothing there. He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. He turned around and pushed the phone properly into the cradle. He wondered what he was doing up, kissing thin air.

He couldn't remember. In fact, the last thing he remembered was answering the phone, tiptoeing upstairs, waking Ed and telling him there was a call for him. Then he remembered Ed packing hastily and running out, telling him that he had to go to England because his mother was ill. Spike couldn't think why he would still be up. He shrugged and sank back onto the couch, sinking quickly into a dreamless sleep.

Across town, Edward Thorpe leaned back in his chair and smiled.

"Spike, wake up," Buffy poked him in the ribs and he groaned and rolled over. "Spike! Wake up! Spike!"

"Lydia?" he asked blearily, but as his eyes focused on Buffy, he bolted upright and jumped off the couch. "Uh, Buffy, sorry."

"No problem," she shrugged, wondering why it felt like a problem.

"I just… I had a dream," he muttered.

"That's fine," Buffy held up her hands. "I just wanted to know if you wanted some blood."

"Yeah," he nodded and gathered the sheets together. "That'd be great."

"I'll take that," she reached for them and he handed them to her. "Why don't you go wake Chrissy and Todd?"

He beamed at her and she lowered her eyes at the 60-mega watt smile that seemed to make him look like a different person.

"Thanks," he said and ran upstairs.

She rolled her eyes.

"No problem," she sighed.

Spike crept quietly along the hall and paused outside the door to Buffy's room. He knocked gently and leaned toward it.

"Dawn?"

"Mmm?" came the groggy answer.

"I think Buffy's making breakfast."

"Mmmm? Oh, God."

He chuckled and moved away when he heard her bumping around in her sleep mussed state. He moved down the hall and reminded himself to tell Buffy that Ed had left before he came to a nervous stop outside the door to Joyce's old room. He could hear his children talking and bent closer to listen.

"Anyone ever tell you you've got a fertile imagination, Chris?" Todd asked wearily.

"It's not my imagination, Todd," she hissed, then her voice fell to a hushed whisper. "C'mon, Todd, I just feel weird knowing my dad's a vampire!"

Spike stepped back as through burnt and stood riveted to the stop. Through the crack in the door, he could see his daughter pacing, hugging a fluffy bear to her midriff, her hair pulled into a plait and wearing fuzzy pyjamas. He tried to move, to stop hearing, but the conversation flowed out to him, taunting him.

"You don't mind Angel," Todd countered and Spike felt his anger flare. They knew Angel and suddenly it all made sense. The blood Chrissy gave him was for when Angel visited, Angel knew his children well enough for Todd to use him as an example! What was he, their Godfather? He felt sick at the thought and more than ever wanted to punch Angel's stupid, soul-having, child-stealing face in.

"That's 'cause Angel has a soul, didn't leave Mom when she was pregnant and people don't go missing when he comes here!" Chrissy hissed in return.

The words battered Spike around the head. Yeah, they knew the Buffy and Angel story all right and by the sound of it, the prancing great poof visited often.

"Ok, one, Spike has a soul too. Two, Angel did leave Mom, but yeah, not when she was pregnant 'cause she wasn't part-demon when they were together. And three, don't you remember Monica went missing when he visited when we were like seven?"

"Monica wasn't a person and she was run over by a truck across town, Angel had nothing to do with it. And are you trying to upset me?"

"It was nine years ago, Chrissy!"

"I loved that dog!"

Spike turned on his heel, he'd heard enough. He loved them both more than he ever thought possible and though his son seemed to like him, his daughter obviously didn't want him around and seemed to want Angel to be her dad more than him. It would kill him to leave, but he couldn't stay knowing she felt like that. If she didn't need him, didn't want him… He stomped down the hall, Dawn appeared in the doorway of Buffy's room.

"Hey, Spike," she said. "Where're you going?"

"Tell your sister Edward left last night, there was a phone call. His mum's ill and no, he didn't leave a number, but he said he'd be back soon," Spike told her flatly.

"Spike, what's wrong?" she asked, touching his arm.

He glanced back at the door to his children's room. "Nothing, Bit. See ya."

He pulled free of her clutching fingers and walked downstairs.

She stood and listened to him go into the living room and ran to the top of the stairs in time to see him run outside with his leather duster wrapped tightly around his head. Her eyes glowed with a fiery anger and she stormed towards her niece and nephew's room. She banged the door open, making them jump and halting their conversation abruptly.

"What. Did. You. Do?" she hissed.

Edward leaned back in the velvet chair and sighed happily.

So things weren't going to plan, it didn't matter. All that mattered was he had solved the problem of the vampire, he'd be dispatched soon enough, but until then, he knew nothing, which was a plus.

He felt great, being so long without his powers had been torture, but he had done it for the great Glorificus.

He had been so very young when he had heard of her, a mere teen. He had known he wasn't good enough, so he followed the dark arts, falling deeper into them, casting a spell to become powerful and immortal. He had lost most of his soul in that casting, but he didn't really care. It had been done. He was known as the powerful and feared Jackal. And it was amazing. For over a century he waited, having found prophecies that told of her arrival on the Hellmouth. He had sought it out; tamed a flesh-eating demon to dispose to the nutcases she left once she had fed.

He was nothing if not a forward thinker.

Then he had found he couldn't go to Sunnydale to aid her in the search for the Key, but he got out there in time to raise her from the body of her human vessel. She had come alive in the morgue and she had smiled seductively at him before collapsing against him. He had poured all his power into her, and it made her strong, no where near as strong as she had been, but strong enough to travel to England with him while he infiltrated the Council.

Once there, he had carefully destroyed all writings on her. Despite the fact he was nothing more than a snivelling mortal again whose only attribute was his immortality, he was confident the Council wouldn't notice the texts were missing.

He had been fired for improper use of the Dark Arts - he now chuckled at their incredible stupidity. But he had told Buffy he was fired for becoming too involved in his cases; he felt it made her warm to him.

He had brought his Goddess to the place of her defeat a year and a half ago after he had blown up Hunter and his acolytes, and had been working with Buffy her and brats ever since.

As in England, he worshipped his Goddess every night, constructing elaborate ceremonies to exult her and feeding her only the finest of people. He liked to think he was more than just her minion, she certainly acted like he was and he knew she needed him, now more than ever. But when he had performed the ritual that would give her the power she had wielded in her dimension, he would rule their Hell at her side, humble beside her, but fearsome and merciless towards their subjects.

He couldn't wait.

All he needed was the correct alignment of the planets; the right moon…

And those bloody kids.