Disclaimer: All characters and all things affiliated with Buffy the Vampire slayer belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and UPN.

Chapter Two

I'm so tense my shoulders are aching as I pull the rental car up to the house that up until I ran away was the only home I had known. Now my place is back on the East Coast with my wife and child.

Sighing, I turn the car off and sit while the car clicks and clanks in the process of cooling down. I sneak a peak at the house, expecting it to grow fangs and swallow the car and myself whole, but it just sits there. It looks normal, but inside of it I had some of the more horrible moments of my entire existence. The only thing that is keeping me here is the fact that I had some of the more wonderful moments of my entire existence in there as well.

Clenching my gut, I open the door, and snagging the overnight bag from the passenger seat, I get out of the car and walk up the sidewalk to the front door.

I lift my hand to knock, but it opens before my knuckles can hit the stained wood, and there he is, standing there and looking exactly as he did twenty five years ago.

I'm trembling, and I can't stop it. However, I'm not trembling from fear or joy or nervousness. I'm trembling with rage. Pure, white hot, unadulterated rage. I want to plant a fist into the middle of his smirking face, and I'm trembling with the effort to keep from lashing out.

"'lo." I seethe through clenched teeth. His scarred eyebrow lifts at my tone, but nods at me.

Wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible, I shove my way into the house and mount the stairs. He lets me push him aside, stumbling and pulling the door open wider to keep himself upright.

"Hey, no need to get pushy, pet. All you had to do was ask." His mocking laughter follows me as I turn and stalk to the room I know belongs to my Aunt.

As I reach her door, I halt and try to calm myself down so that when I turn the knob to the door and open it, I don't shatter the door on the hinges and make a knob-sized hole in the bedroom wall.

The smell hits me hard when I take in a steadying breath. Home. It smells like home. Twenty-five years and it still smells the same. The scent absorbs into my pores and eases the tension singing through my muscles. The lock I've put on my memories of the past disintegrates under the scent's assault and memories flash through my brain rapid fire, all of them happy and nostalgic.

Suddenly calm and gentle, I ease the door open and poke my head into the room. Another scent that is unique to my Aunt caresses my nose, but it's altered. It is tinted with the scent of death. I've spent most of my current life killing the evil that I had once admired and sought to emulate in my past life. I know the scent of death, and now it's in the scent of my Auntie and all of the calm that I gained with the scent of the house, I lose with the scent of this room.

My aunt is dying. It really is true.

Devastated, and needing to run away and forget everything again, I stand just in the doorway, eyes clouded over with pain.

"Spike?"

His name on her lips snaps me out of it, and now I'm angry again.

"No." I say, curt. I stalk into the room fully so that I can see her and she me.

"Billie." She whispers, just as struck by the sight of me as I am by the sight of her. It's been twenty-five years and while time might have once been kind to her, death had no qualms about distorting her frame and visage. She looked like an old woman lying in the bed and I had difficulty in recognizing her. The Auntie I remembered was fuller; fuller of form, full of life. The woman lying in the bed lacked both, as if it was only a technicality that she was alive – that her fate was death and her body was overeager to start deteriorating. I wanted to close my eyes, but I stared down at her while she stared up at me, tears wetting a trail down her weathered, sickly-colored cheeks.

"Yeah, Auntie. How're you doin'?" I force my feet to take the steps closer to her bedside when what I really wanted to do was run. I knelt beside her and took a claw-like hand into my larger, healthier one and ran my thumb over the veined, sick skin of the back of her hand in a tender caress when I wanted to drop the thing and burn my hand to get the feel of it off of my skin. The claw gripped my hand slightly, then the pressure was gone and it sat in my hand like an inanimate object.

She chuckled, which turned into a wheeze, then a coughing fit, and I could feel a twinge in my lungs in sympathy. Once she had settled down, she managed to choke "I'm doing just super green," in a hoarse voice. She took a breath and I waited. "I'm dying." She glared at me, and fisted a claw in my hand, angry. "What kind of question is that?"

I smiled. There, that was recognizable. Here was my aunt. But, at the same time, dread filled me. This really was my aunt, this thing that had been so changed by time and disease. "Apparently a stupid one."

"Apparently." She agreed, a smile changing her face, making it brighter, though not bright enough. Never bright enough; not anymore. My aunt is dying. Her flame is fading.

"I'm so glad that you came." She says, her face serious, though tears are leaking down her face again.

"He called me," I explain, and she squeezes my hand, knowing how painful that call was for me, even as I realize that he's downstairs and could come up here at any minute. I don't know what I fear more in that moment. Watching Auntie die or confronting him.

"I love you, so I came."

Her eyes get soft and I feel a wash of love for her fill me. "I love you too, Billie. I'm glad he called. It's one of the reasons why I harped so much about it." She smirks and I roll my eyes, knowing she did no such thing. She could always wrap him around her little finger. All she did was demand that he call once and a second later he would be on the phone. Nothing much has changed, as far as I can see. Only me. I'm the only thing that seems to have been touched by time. Well, other than the obvious aging of my Aunt and her soon-to-be death. Depression returns and she frowns at me. "I wanted to say goodbye to you. I don't want to have to come back as a ghost because of unfinished business." Her voice is dainty and disgusted and I can't help but smile sadly. "And I want you to know that I love you, have always loved you, and will always love you. I'm proud of you."

Tears fill my eyes and I take deep breaths to control the need to sob. I look everywhere but her face as I try to pull myself together enough to form a response that isn't thickened by grief.

"I have a wife. And a daughter. She's fifteen and is turning into a real beauty. She's smart, but would rather spend her time obsessing over boys and being popular than grades. She... thinks she's a freak."

"Do you have a picture?" She asks, softly, wanting to see the niece she will never know. I fumble for my wallet, but manage to pull it out and show her the pictures in the plastic sleeves tucked within the folds. She laughs and studies each picture, and I wish I had thought to bring more. I yearn for the photo albums sitting in the living room at home. I know she's yearning for them too. I show her my wife and my daughter and various recent pictures taken for school or for pleasure. Tears are coursing down her cheeks like a river, and I feel that my cheeks aren't all that dry either.

"She looks just like her." She whispers, overjoyed, awed.

"I know." I mumble, and wrap my hand around her claw again.

"You have the look of her too." She says as I pull out a recent high school photo of Elizabeth grinning cheekily at the photographer. Her mother and I are always baffled at Betha's lack of ability to give us decent photos – she always manages to look like she's going to do something wicked like flash the photographer if he doesn't snap her picture soon enough. I place the picture in my Aunt's hand and she presses the photo to her chest, right over her heart.

"Keep it." I say, hoping that we've changed the subject effectively enough. I don't want to talk about her. It hurts too much. It's been so long and the pain has changed; morphed, but it's still there. A wound that has healed over, but never healed quite right.

"Tell me more." She entreats, and I'm more than willing to comply. I tell her about my life since I left. I tell her about the adventure that was my wife, and the birth of our daughter. I tell her about Elizabeth's childhood and my profession and why she thinks herself as a freak – that she has more of a right than the other teens in her class. I don't tell her that I understood how Betha felt; that I felt guilty because my freakishness was apparently genetic; that because I was who I was, I couldn't give her the proper childhood and teenage life she deserved. I don't want to upset my Aunt so I keep those thoughts to myself.

He comes into the room after a couple of hours and tells me to leave, that she needs her rest. A part of me wants to rebel simply because he has said to do it, but looking at my Aunt and how tired she is – more tired looking than when I had arrived, I accede.

He follows me out into the hallway, wishing her goodnight softly. I glare at him while he closes the door and makes his way to the stairs. Looking back at me, he jerks his head to indicate that I follow and, grudgingly, I do.

"I don't know how long she's going to last." He confides, shooting a glance up the stairs in her room's direction as if trying to gauge if she can hear him. He returns his attention to me and automatically my eyes dip to his collarbone. "You're the first of the family here. Funny. What with how fast you ran out of here a while back." His voice is ripe with mockery and venom.

I glare at his collarbone.

"Even 'bit's ever loving brats aren't going to come until tomorrow."

That's it, I've had enough. I glare up into his eyes for a moment and while he's reeling, I quietly flee down the stairs and into the kitchen. It doesn't take as long as I'd like for him to recover and follow me like a shadow. He leans arrogantly against the doorjamb while I pour myself a healthy portion of bourbon.

He's quiet now, not jabbing me with any of his snarky comments, most likely because he got a nice long look at my face. Not the expression, but my obvious parentage. I'm thankful that he's brooding because his words always seem to slice under my skin no matter how insignificant.

Pointedly ignoring him, I saunter (though a little stiffly) into the living room and grabbing a photo album off of a wall shelf, I settle down on the sofa, my glass of bourbon on the coffee table.

I sigh and flip the photo album open on my lap. I pick up my glass and take a swallow, faintly remembering some of the actions depicted in the pictures underneath the protective covers.

My mum holding me, the both of us are smiling from the depths of the same eyes. It's the one feature that I own that I take solace in. She's wearing a skimpy T-shirt that is tight on her and emphasizes her curves. My child-hand is clutching the cloth above one of her small breasts.

Me grinning like a loon in a diaper, his big clunky black boots, and his leather jacket. Mum in the background wiping tears from her eyes. I was told years after the picture that I dressed myself up like that and when he tried to reclaim his stuff, I threw a temper tantrum.

Mum again, but this time caught in the act of feeding my chubby face. I'm not a large part of the picture, which is something that is a reoccurring theme in most of the albums. My father loved my Mum a lot, and everything he did was proof of that fact. This time she's wearing a black T-shirt that is loose on her - I recognize it as one of my father's, and she's wearing nothing else but a pair of black knickers. Her hair is up in a ponytail, wisps curling into her face, framing it delicately. The look she's sending the camera is irritated and amused at the same time.

"Inn't she beautiful?"

He's been in the foyer, in my peripheral vision the entire time, but somehow I had forgotten him for a moment. I can't help the reflexive flinch I feel at his voice. His voice spurs in me two conflicting emotions: love and hate. The love isn't so strong, but it's instant. The hate is overwhelming, however, easily overshadowing the momentary flash of love for the man behind me.

"Yeah," I say, not bothering to turn around or acknowledge him in any other way. He snorts and saunters into the room. Then, to be confrontational - like always - he sits in a chair right across from me. I could have continued to ignore him if he had chosen to sit on the sofa beside me.

He lifts up his boot-clad feet and slowly clunks them onto the coffee table, making a great show of plunking first one then the other on the glass table, just within my vision. Ah, what grace and manners! Auntie would have flipped and yelled at him if she saw him. But Auntie is lying upstairs in her bed, dying. I hate him even more.

"So, nothing to say to your dear ol' Dad?"

"I have no father" I say, through clenched teeth.

"You bloody well do, Junior." He instantly retorts his voice firm and whip-sharp.

I take a deep breath to remain calm and unaffected. He lapses into silence and I can only hope he'll remain so for the rest of my visit.

"She really was beautiful." He says, his voice thick with emotion. My heart clenches and I try to keep my eyes dry. "Like sunshine. Bright, sensual and it bloody hurts when you get too close. Everything about her was beautiful."

I bite the inside of my cheek as I feel my eyes, nose, and throat prickle dangerously.

"Except for her name. That didn't really inspire poetry. Really, I don't now what Joyce was thinking when she named her Bu-"

I slap the album closed with a bang, throw it onto the cushion beside me, and, glaring him into silence, I stand up. He stands up with me, his expression livid.

"What, going to run away again? It too much for you? Too much pain, suffering, and melodrama you want to curl up and die? Why did you run away, baby? Why didn't you ever come back to visit? Why didn't you ever write, ever pick up the bloody phone and give us a ring? 'Bit missed you something awful, did you ever think of her? Did you ever think of the family you left behind when you turned tail and ran off like a coward? I thought you were stronger than that, William."

I see red the moment that name slips from his lips. That isn't my name. That will never be my name. It's his name. His shroud that he wrapped around me the moment I was born.

"Don't call me that name!" I roar and throw myself at him. He doesn't expect it and my fist connects with his jaw, snapping his head back.

"That has never been my name!" He staggers backwards, trying to dance away from my flying fists, but I've been fighting vampires for a living and while I don't have super human strength I fight dirty. It's the only way I've survived this long.

He falls onto the hardwood floor and I follow him down, kneeing him in the stomach and ramming my head into his nose, breaking it.

"You are not my father, and I am not your son. Your son died the day his mum did. I'm who's left and I don't like you very much." I seethe, and feel the rage twisting my features.

I have paused in my attack to verbally thrash him and he takes the opportunity to gain the upper hand. I curse vehemently while his fist blackens an eye and the breath is knocked out of me by way of the wall rushing to meet my back.

Chuckling low in his throat, he touches his tongue to the roof of his mouth and crooks his finger at me, beckoning.

He lets me punch him in the face, and while he's recoiling I push past him and lunge for the stairs.

"Oh, I'm not done with you yet, luv."

That's the only warning I'm given before I'm not only face down on the stairs, but sliding down them as well, towards him, towards my most hated enemy. The stairs are anything but forgiving as I slide down them, feeling their blunt edges press into and grind my muscle and bone as he pulls me by the ankle. I wait until he stops reeling me in to grab a better hold of me to lash out with my leg and kick him in the face. However, this time he anticipates it and catches my flying leg, pushing it aside.

He picks me up and throws me into the living room. I'm thankful I land on the couch, but not quite so thankful I land on the photo album as well. The sharp corners poke into my back, reminding me of the fact that I'm no longer seventeen and as able to take one of his beatings.

"Getting a little slow there in your old age, William."

I growl, then scream a battle cry as I rush him. We stumble into the dining room where I pin him to the bare dinner table, and punch him repeatedly in the face. He reaches up, grabs my shoulders and smacks his forehead into my nose. I stagger backwards, my hand covering my abused nose while it drips onto my white sleeveless undershirt.

He watches the blood. I sneer at him. He notices my expression around my hand and looks unrepentant. He knows what he is; he's fine with it. He loves being a monster. He revels in being a soulless demon walking around in a human corpse drinking the blood of the innocent. In fact he frequently boasts his being a vampire. My father is a bleeding vampire.

"Too bad that chip in your noggin' won't let you eat me. I wish you would. Then I could haunt you for the rest of your miserable unlife," my words are mumbled, but I know he understands me. To piss me off he watches the blood dribble through my fingers and plip on the wood floor, licking his lips hungrily. I storm off into the kitchen for a pack of ice and paper towels.

He follows me.

"It's been so lonesome without you here, William. Your Aunt, she's a riot, but I hate being around her. She's dying."

"Why not just put her out of her misery and eat her?" I mumble as I rip a paper towel up to twist and stick in my bloody nose. I pull my shirt away from my chest to inspect the damage then attack the blood with a sponge and cold water.

"What is bloody with you and me eating people?! I can't eat humans! I've got a chip. It won't let me. What part is not computing?"

I don't bother to answer. I'm too afraid a lifetime of hurt and pain would spill out if I say anything else. And then he'll have won. He'll know that although I'm nearly forty-five, there's still that little boy inside of me in desperate need of his father's acceptance and love.

" 'Sides. I'd never do that to Little Bit. I love her too much."

"You can't love. You're a monster. You have no soul." I don't know if I mean the words, but it sure sounded like it when they came out. Good, I hope that hurt him.

He's silent. Finally. Thank God.

I push past him to return to the living room and retrieve my things. I wasn't going to stay downstairs anymore, no matter how much I hate knowing that Auntie is in the other room slowly slipping away. No, now I am going to hole up in the guestroom, hearing Auntie cough and moan for her husband, for my mother, for my father.

Or at least that's what I plan. My father has different plans and he isn't the kind of man who gives in easily. He slams me up against the wall next to the stairs, his vampire face on. His jaw tightens as the pain the chip brings him for hurting humans electrocutes his brain. He even shouts painfully through his teeth, but his grip never falters.

"I loved her, I did. I loved your Mum more than I loved myself, my own undead life. I would have put my unlife on the line for her. I did. Over and over I saved her tight little ass, but she still died."

"Why did it have to be her? Why couldn't you have died?"

"I wish I had. There isn't one day that doesn't go by that I don't think about her. Remember her. I close my eyes and there's her face just staring at me, smiling. I sit for hours and just think about what she smelled like, what her voice sounded like, what she felt like. I remember all of the times that we made love like wild animals and I can hear her pant, her moan, her calling my name out as she slides over the edge. I remember our first time. I remember our last time. I remember making you."

He pushes away from me and then falls down onto the steps, his vampire face sliding off to reveal the hurt, vulnerable human face staring blankly at his hands, fingers curled towards the palms, his fingernails still painted black. I slide down the wall quietly until I'm resting on the stairs as well. It's odd how comforting it is to know that he will never change: that he'll always remain the same - the one constant in my life.

"She was the light to my darkness. She was the right to my wrong. She was the Slayer. We were supposed to have danced to the death. Either kill or be killed. But that wasn't our dance. I tried to help her live as long as she possibly could. Did you know that I've killed two Slayers? I couldn't kill her. Oh, I tried. But she kept kicking my ass. She never dusted me, though. Dropped a bloody organ on me, but never staked me. I asked her to. I even tried to dust myself." He snorts wetly then wipes at his running nose and leaking eyes.

He takes a deep breath, steadying himself, then lets it out in a short burst. "You know, you're special." He announces, looking me straight in the eye

I raise an eyebrow at the change in his monologue. He stares at me, his expression intense.

"You've got her eyes."

I know this. I've been told this zillions of times while growing up. I've seen it for myself in pictures. Big, wide, hazel eyes that change color with whatever we wear. I've even got her natural hair color - the same color as Auntie's hair. She's not really gone. She's living inside me.

"Vampires aren't supposed to be able to have children." He announces, once again on track.

I snort harshly. "Yet, here I am."

"Well that's a bit of a long story."

I wait silently for him to continue, not willing to admit that I want to hear this. His head cocks to the side as he looks at me, and then a slow, genuine smile pulls up the edges of his face. He shakes his head and the soft smile is gone.

"Your Mum died. Acutally, she's died three times. The first time she was killed by the Master, but was brought back to life by CPR before too long. The second time around she was killed by Glory and Red cast a spell to bring her back. She'd been dead for one hundred twenty seventy days. But something happened when she was brought back - she was brought back different. She wasn't fully human. I could hit her without the chip going off. But she smelled the same, walked, talked, acted, and was the same. I didn't notice anything was different until I hit her good and didn't get my brain fried. We found out that because her body was reanimated by Red's magic, she wasn't just a human anymore. She wasn't a demon either. It was that little piece of magic that was dormant inside of her that allowed us to make you."

"What?" I can't believe this. I mean, yeah, I get the whole brought back from the dead, not human thing, but what did that have to do with the fact that vampire semen is dead semen and therefore can't impregnate a live egg? It's the same thing as shooting blanks. In fact that's what vampires did: shot blanks.

"One night we were talking 'bout us, the future, what we could and couldn't have, and of course kids came up. She mused that she would have liked to been able to have one, and I mused that having a little me running around in the world before I was turned might have been nice. Even if my line had died out in the next generation, it would have been nice to know that the line didn't die with me. The conversation went on to other things, but in the backs of our minds we were thinking 'bout it. And at one point there was a very intense wish in one of us, at least, to have a child. So intense it triggered the magic inside her and created you: her egg, my seed, and Red's magic."

"So then why am I human? Why aren't I a vampire-human hybrid?"

He rolls his eyes as if I am being incredibly dense. "I'm a demon in a human corpse. That doesn't affect the DNA. It's like a man losing his arm then having a child - the kid's going to have all his digits just as it would have if the father still had his arm."

We don't say anything after that. I'm digesting what I've been told, he's reliving the memories of Mum. I'm kinda jealous. I wish I could have more memories. I wish I could close my eyes and see her smiling at me. Remember the sound of her voice, the smell of her. I remember the warmth. I remember the love. It's a human thing. Humans move on, humans grow up, continue living their lives and change. Demons don't change. It's not in their nature to be able to have emotions or change. He is able to obsesses, be infatuated, but love? He's about as demony as it gets. He'll never forget. He'll spend his last days, whenever and if ever that is, with a memory of her as acute as the moment she left us.

I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but right now, this very moment I wouldn't mind a solid memory or two of my mum. I was only ten when she died. Not too young to not know her, but not old enough to have a normal childhood without her. I'm forty-three now. That's a long time to maintain a crystal clear memory. But here he sits, mourning her, missing her. Poor sod.

It's nice in a way. I know that she's getting her dues. She's properly missed here - he's doing enough missing for the entirety of the state and then some. No one in all of history is missed as much as Mum, and it's all because of him. I hate him. Or, at least, I'm used to hating him. He makes it so easy to hate him. I'm surprised Mum was patient and loving enough to put up with him for as long as she did. I don't remember her being too patient.

Auntie's voice calls out from her bedroom, beckoning him. He calls after her, his voice soft and reassuring, telling her he'll be there in a bit, no nothing is wrong, we are just talking.

"I'm not stupid and I'm not deaf. I know what fighting sounds like. You were beating on each other."

That startles a laugh out of me. He mumbles to himself as he lets himself into her room and shuts the door behind him. I hear them talking through the door, but its only sound, muffled.

I sit on the stairs and stare at the banister. I've been running from him my entire life. Well, a good portion of my life, and all of my adult life. I've got a wife and a cute daughter. They know nothing about him. They think he's dead - well he is. They think I'm an orphan, which is what I feel like sometimes. They had never known of my Aunt until I left for California.

When I was little I used to pretend I was him. I developed an accent - his. I stole his duster and wore it or slept on it. I slicked my only-slightly-wavy hair back with Vaseline and puffed on candy cigarettes. He let me try a sip of his blood once, when Mum wasn't looking. That was one thing that didn't stick. Mum refused to let me dye my hair peroxide blonde, though I argued long and hard that both of them dyed their hair, why couldn't I? However, Mum-logic came into play and she grounded me with no answer to my question other than a shouted "because I said so."

Then Mum died, and I realized who and what my father was and suddenly I didn't want to grow up to be like him anymore. I started to hate him and what he stood for, and then when I was 100% legal in all 50 states of America and stomaching the hatred was just too much for me, I ran. Ran as fast and hard as I could. I settled on the other side of the continent and met my wife, married, had my daughter and would have continued to live blissfully ignorant of what my father was doing if Auntie hadn't gotten sick.

I heave myself up and shuffle into the living room where my glass of brandy is, spilled all over the couch from our fight earlier. I flip the pillow and cushion over to hide the damp stains and then make my way into the kitchen for a refill.

Changing my mind, I put the glass in the sink and take the bottle of brandy up with me to the guestroom.