Chapter Two
"What do you mean, 'I'm their legal guardian'?!"
Travers stifled a groan as he sat back in his chair and tried once more to explain. "You signed the papers, they belong to you."
Spike could not believe what he was hearing. An hour ago, his life had been simple. He was the lead singer of Cellar Dwellers, who liked to party and drink and live the rock star life to the fullest. Now, this lawyer was sitting here, telling him that he had basically just signed his life away because his sister had left him her three little brats?!
"You - you tricked me!"
"I did no such thing. I tried to tell you, but you weren't listening!"
"Well they can't bloody well stay here!"
"But they have nowhere else to go." Travers calmed himself a bit and then said, "It's like I told you. You are their only living relative. If you don't take them, they'll be put into foster care. Your sister didn't want that. That was why she specifically left you as their guardian in case of her death."
Spike sighed at the mention of a foster home. He never actually had to do a tour himself, but he did know those who had. It was like playing Russian roulette with kid's lives. Sometimes they got sent to a good home, sometimes they didn't. Well, really, he couldn't imagine them not ending up in a home better than this. He was never home, and, when he was, it was definitely not a kid friendly environment.
Walking over to the office doorway, Spike peered into the living room at the three children seated on the couch.
The two girls were facing one another, playing some version of patty cake that he had never seen before. The oldest one was laughing at the youngest, who seemed to be concentrating with all her might to get the hand movements down correctly.
The boy sat off to the end by himself, staring at the television that was playing some brightly colored show. Damn, cartoons sure had gotten a lot more violent than when Spike was a kid.
Could he really do that to them? Could he really split them up and put them into foster care? They had already lost their mum and da'. Could he really live with himself knowing that he had caused them to loose each other too?
But still…
"I don't know a thing 'bout raisin' kids," the bleached blond said, turning his attention back to Mr. Travers.
The old man smiled at the younger, knowing his intentions even before Spike did himself. Travers could see it in his face. Though he might have wished he had later on, the rocker was not going to split those kids up.
"No one does when they start out, son," the older Brit assured him, rising to his feet. "And those who say they do are damn liars."
Giles, who had been reading over the aforementioned, signed document while they talked, looked up at the youngest Brit. "You're actually considering taking them in?"
Spike glanced over towards him at the comment, but didn't say anything or give any indication of what he was thinking. However, to Giles, it told him everything he needed to know.
"That is remarkably mature of you."
"Yeah, well, don't be gettin' all proud papa just yet. I haven't-."
"William Barrett! You get your punk ass out here NOW!!"
Anya? Oh, God. Cameron!
Spike quickly came into the living room and looked to the foyer where the voice had bellowed from. There stood his agent, her eyes blazing as she directed the fires of hell on the singer with her gaze. Never once in all the time he had known the little woman had he ever been afraid of her, but at that moment he wondered if perhaps the kids would end up in foster care anyway because Anya killed him.
"Spike!" he heard Xander call from outside. "Watch out! Anya's…"
The brown-haired man skidded to a stop a little behind the agent, causing Oz to nearly run into him.
"…here. How did she beat us here?" Xander turned and asked the green-haired bass player who could only shrug in answer.
The two men stood as far away from the young woman as they could, like she was some rabid pit bull that might turn on them at any moment. But Anya already had her intended victim and didn't even seem to notice that they had arrived.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Anya asked dangerously.
Slowly, she began to stalk the bleached blonde as she came into the living room. Defensively, Spike began to move backwards, trying to put as much space and furniture between him and the angry agent.
"Anya, I can explain-."
"You blew off Cameron Michaels. Cameron Michaels, Spike! The host of RTV's top-rated show. He can make or break your career. And you blew him OFF!!!"
"Wow, you ditched on Cameron Michael?" Spike's eldest niece asked, looking rather amused and impressed. "That's pretty cool."
Anya blinked, her anger towards the bleached blonde temporally forgotten as she stared at the young girl on his couch.
"Who's this?" she asked, looking at the child before turning her attention to the man she had been yelling at. "Who's she?"
Even though it put him in danger of being in Anya's reach, Spike slowly moved closer to the children. Besides, he was pretty sure she wouldn't hurt the preteen crowd. After all, they were the next generation of consumers that she was always trying to target.
"Anya, this is my niece, um…" God, had they even told him their names?!
Any admiration that the prepubescent had for her uncle after finding out he ditched on LiveWire's host vanished when he was unable to recall her name. Instead, the even, tight frown returned as she turned back to the agent and introduced herself.
"I'm Dawn." She glanced down the couch to her sister and brother. "That's Tara and Andrew."
"Hey," Andrew said nervously, having nowhere near the courage that his older sister seemed to posses. He looked as if he wanted to disappear into the couch, especially when Anya turned to look at him.
Tara was even worse. When the attention was on her, she moved right up against her big brother, trying her best to hide behind him.
"Niece?" Xander finally spoke up, coming into the living room. He was standing right beside their agent, his fear of the woman temporally forgotten. "Since when did you get a niece? And why don't they sound all British-y?"
"Apparently he got one about twelve years ago," Oz said, watching the kids from off to the side.
This was the bass-player's way. Observe the people presented, size them up by their responses, then proceed to not say anything to them anyway.
"And we're from New York," Dawn answered, but she was pretty sure no one was listening to her.
"I only found out 'bout 'em an hour ago." Spike sighed as he came around the couch and flopped down into the matching armchair. "And guess what my dear sis left me…"
"You mean they're yours now?" Anya asked, assimilating the information into her brain.
Nodding his head, the singer said, "Yeah. Apparently, I'm now their legal guardian."
The agent stared at him for a long moment, her mouth hanging open slightly. Spike couldn't decide whether she was about to pass out, or perhaps start screaming at him again for his stupidity.
"Um, Giles, you might want to take the kiddies into the kitchen." Before Anya castrates me, he added silently.
The older Brit nodded his head, knowing why the younger one wanted them gone. The spectacle put on by the agent was only a slight taste of what she could really be like once her anger took over.
"Come along, children. Let's get you something to eat," he said, spreading his arms out like a mother hen gathering her chicks.
The two youngest followed without question, but Dawn looked as if she were ready to protest. She turned a heated glare towards Travers, who had been silently watching from the office door. Returning his own stony glare, he jerked his chin in a silent order for the child to follow. After making that loud, annoyed sigh that only teenagers could do while rolling their eyes, she got up and left the room.
When the children disappeared with Giles into the kitchen, Travers spoke up.
"Perhaps I should be on my way. I will contact you tomorrow to go over the rest of your sister's affairs," the old man said, basically fleeing out the door.
Damn coward.
Too bad he couldn't do that.
Spike turned back to Anya and prepared himself for the worst as she began to speak once more.
"This is…wonderful!"
'What?'
"What?"
"What?!" Xander and Oz echoed in unison.
However, the woman had not heard any of them. "Spike, don't you understand? You've stumbled onto a publicist's wet dream!" A starry glaze appeared in her eyes, the same one she had whenever she had a brilliant idea for marketing her clients. Lifting her hands, she spread them in front of her. "Can't you see it? 'Rocker Takes in Nieces and Nephew After Parents' – It was parents right?"
"Yes."
She returned to the pose. "'Rocker Takes in Nieces and Nephew After Parents' Tragic Death.' You'll be on every magazine cover from here to Timbuktu! It's like the ultimate way to get publicity that cannot back fire because you are the hero. The kind hearted uncle who takes in these poor children."
"God, Anya," Xander said, staring at the woman in disbelief. "If I loose an eye in a wining accident, would you say that it was my way of speaking against alcohol?"
The agent rolled her eyes. "Oh, get off your high horse, Harris. I'm just stating what will most likely occur once the press finds out about this. I mean, yeah, it's bad that their parents died and everything, but it's not like we can help that they made Spike look like this really great guy by leaving him their brats."
"Looks like those sensitivity classes are really paying off," Oz said dryly, adding his own disapproval to the whole idea in his own stoic way.
"Anya, have you forgotten that this means I will actually have to raise these children? How the bloody hell am I supposed to do that?"
"I don't know," she said dismissively, lost in her own thoughts of how this whole thing was going to work to their advantage. "Do what you rich people always do: hire someone else to do it."
"You want me to hire a soddin' nanny?!"
***********
"So, what? You're like the butler or something?" Dawn asked, trailing behind Giles into the kitchen.
Andrew and Tara had already seated themselves at the island before their big sister came to join them.
"No, I am not the butler," Giles said rather evenly as he pulled on an apron to start to prepare the children something to eat. "I simply take care of the affairs around the house, but I am most certainly not William's butler. Or yours for that matter."
"Yeah, I can see the big difference there," Dawn said sarcastically which caused the Brit to glare at her. She threw him a sweet, 'bite me' smile.
Yes, this child was definitely related to William.
"What do you three want to eat?" he asked, ignoring the oldest look.
"Pizza," Dawn answered quickly.
Andrew said right after her, "I want a burger."
The youngest pushed herself high on the barstool and leaned over to whisper something into her brother's ear.
"And Tara says she wants tacos."
Giles blinked at the order. Who did they think he was? Some short order cook? "Three ham sandwiches it is."
Sighing, the oldest rolled her eyes then said, "You'll have to make Tara's a peanut butter sandwich. She doesn't eat anything that she knows is pork."
"Why not?"
"Oh, because a certain brother kept referring to his pork chop as 'Babe, the other white meat,'" she explained.
A guilty look passed over Andrew's feature with a nervous smile before he found a particularly interesting spot on the ceiling to look at.
"Very well. I think we have some peanut butter in the pantry."
When the older man disappeared into an adjoining room, Dawn turned to the two younger children who sat at her side. She jerked her head back towards the living room, silently ordering that one of them to go and investigate. Her two siblings nodded in agreement before Andrew got up to do the job.
"I hope this is still good," Giles said as he reappeared in the kitchen, eyeing the large jar of JIF suspiciously. When he put it down, he noticed that there were now only two children waiting instead of three. "Where did Andrew go?"
"Um, he had to, ah, go to the bathroom," Dawn answered, trying to lie as smoothly as she could. "He'll, ah, be back in a minute."
"Perhaps I should go with him and show him where it is," the older man said, starting to make his way after the boy.
"NO! I mean, no. H-he'll find it. He's, um, like a blood hound when it, ah, comes to finding…places." The brown-haired girl smiled innocently at Giles, with Tara following suit.
The older man raised an eyebrow at this act. Though it had been quiet a few years since he had dealt with children this age, he did remember it pretty well. They were trying to pull something on him, but what he didn't know.
"Dawn!" they heard the young boy exclaim as he came charging back into the room. When he found Giles was back, he skidded to a stop on the tile floor, nearly causing him to spill onto the ground. That same nervous smile the child had had all night once again emerged on his face as he looked to the older man.
"Did you find the restroom alright?" Giles asked, though he knew that had not been what the child was doing. Especially considering that the nearest bathroom was on the other side of the house…in the opposite direction that he had come from.
"Restroom?" the boy repeated, not following.
"Yeah, Andrew. You went to find bathroom, remember?" Dawn said, her tone clearly saying 'play along.'
"Oh, right, yeah. I found it, no problem."
Normally, Giles would have busted them both for lying, but the kids had been through a lot lately, so he'd give them a break just this once. Next time, though, they would learn why their mother and uncle used to refer to him as Ripper.
"What would you like on your sandwich?" the British man asked, letting the subject drop.
Letting out a breath of relief, the young boy headed back to the counter where his sisters sat and retook his stool. "Cheese, please."
"Dawn?"
"Mustard," she said before leaning in close to her little brother. "What did you hear?"
"Not much," he whispered back. "But I guess he's going to keep us 'cause he said something about getting a nanny."
"A nanny?!"
Dawn winced at how loud her voice had gotten, then glanced over her shoulder to make sure Giles hadn't heard her. Sure enough, the 'non' butler still had his head stuck in the refrigerator so he couldn't have heard. Sighing, the preteen turned back to her little brother.
"Just what we need, another stranger telling us what to do," she said with a frown. "Well, we'll just see about that. Won't we?"
**********
Willow sighed as she walked down the aisle, staring at the assortment of different candies and chips. Let's see, she needed comfort food and lots of it. Not for herself, of course, but there was an upset blonde back at the apartment waiting to start a night of 'Why all men, especially famous ones, should be dragged out onto the street and shot at dawn.'
It hadn't helped that they had turned on the TV only to see that man – well, Buffy had reclassified his evolution status as a scum-sucking parasite – was going to be featured on the ex-waitress's favorite show, LiveWire with Cameron Michaels, either. Willow had barely kept her friend from drop kicking the television when the bleached blonde's picture was shown. And Buffy was a whole lot stronger than she looked, too. The redhead was sure that she was going to have bruises in the morning.
God, Willow hoped Buffy didn't find her Cellar Dwellers CD in the stereo. She could replace a CD easily, but that stereo had been a graduation present and was expensive.
Musing to herself, the redhead walked the length of the isle. "Let's see: Snickers, Three Musketeers, and Doritos. What else?"
Her eyes scanned the shelves until they came to rest on a small box stuck off to the side.
Animal crackers? She didn't even know that they still made those. Willow remembered that she used to love them as a kid, but it had been at least ten years since she had had any. Well, since most of this stuff was for Buffy, the redhead was sure the blonde wouldn't mind if she picked something up for herself.
As she grabbed the box, another hand appeared seemingly out of nowhere and covered hers in an attempt to take the same product.
"Oh, sorry," she and the owner of the hand said together.
The young woman looked up and felt her jaw drop. There, knelt down with her, was Daniel Osborne.
Oz smiled at the redhead before him who was staring at him like he was some sort of sign from heaven she had been praying for but never expected to get.
He and Xander had just left Spike to listen to Anya go on about how wonderful his sister was for leaving him her three kids and how much publicity they were going to receive. That was Anya for you. She didn't mean to be so insensitive, well most of the time anyway. And she probably would start to feel bad for the kids once she stopped thinking about how much money they were going to bring in for the band and herself.
After dropping Xander off at his apartment – not all of them could afford nice houses like Spike since they didn't come from 'old money' – Oz had felt like getting a late night snack. So, he headed for the one place he knew carried his favorite cookie, the animal cracker, Bob's KWIK Stop. However, he never thought that someone else would want them, let alone anyone as cute as this girl.
Slowly, the two rose up, still staring at one another. Willow was surprised to find out that he was hardly any taller than her. Funny, for some reason, she always pictured him taller. Even when she saw him that morning in the restaurant, she had thought so. But, he had been sitting down and was pretty far away from her when they left.
"So, you like animal crackers?" he asked.
Willow blinked from the question before glancing down at her hand that held the box. "Huh? Oh, um, yeah. I like animal crackers." 'And flowers and pretty rainbows. God, he must think I sound like I'm five!' she thought, barely suppressing a groan.
"Me too. Although, I've always wondered if the other animals were jealous of the monkey."
"Huh?"
"Well, he's the only one that gets to wear pants. Just seems like maybe the other animals would have liked to wear a shirt or pants too, you know," the green-haired bass player explained.
"I, ah, guess I never thought about it," she said, glancing down at the box in her hand once more.
"Most people don't, but it's a big issue in the animal world." He paused for a moment, and watched her smile. "I'm Oz."
"Oh, I know who you are - but not, like, in that stalker-y kind of way that I just said it, I just mean, I know who you are because you play in that band, Cellar Dwellers, which you already know the name of 'cause it's your group, so no reason for me to remind you of the name, which I think is kind of cool but I don't know what it means and-and I have a tendency to babble so just shut me up whenever you feel like because if you don't I'll probably ramble on until I pass out from lack of air which would be bad because of obvious reasons and-and…"
The redhead felt her face burning from embarrassment but just couldn't make herself shut up. However, Oz just chuckled slightly, but not in a mocking way, it was in more of 'I think it's cute' kind of way.
"I'm Willow," she finally just stated.
"Nice to meet you." He looked down at her hand that still held the package of cookies, then asked, "So, Willow, do you want to share a box of animal crackers?"
"Okay," she said dumbly.
Buffy was going to have to be on her own tonight.
**********