I've Found Home Again
A/N: Alright, I'd run out of possibilities with my Hank plotline, but the story is definitely not finished. It's probably going to be a good deal longer than IINILWY, but hey. Thanks to all the reviewers, and if you feel like suggesting anyone else you want to come into the story, I will definitely consider it! Everything is Joss'.
"I have a holy calling, Dad," Buffy began, her head resting on Spike's shoulder while her father sat in one of the armchairs across from them. Spike had wrapped his arms around her and was looking at Hank and telling him very clearly with the look that if he made this any harder for Buffy than it already was, he would regret it. "I've been something called the Slayer since I was fifteen. I used to be the only one too, but I'm not anymore, which is probably the only reason I'm still alive."
"You're in some kind of cult?" Hank said, clearly puzzled.
"No, Dad, not exactly," Buffy considered it. "Not at all. I think you have to volunteer to join a cult. I didn't really get a choice. I guess you need some background info. Vampires exist, so does pretty much everything else you've heard of, except the Easter Bunny. Right?" She looked up at Spike.
"My lips are sealed on bunny-shaped demons," he smiled down at her, slightly sad, "Anya."
"Yeah," Buffy paused, then she turned back to her father, "I take it you don't believe me. No one does, at first."
"Buffy, I want the truth what was that- thing?"
"This is the truth, I can offer a lot of proof, Dawn could talk to you, Willow- who by the way, is my best friend from Sunnydale and not our maid- Dee- who's a Slayer, too- any of them could tell you I'm telling the truth. But I've learned two things in telling people this- you've got to make a vampire take a giant leap towards becoming dust, or you've just got to have one around. Seeing as I don't feel like dusting the only vampire in this house-" Hanks eyebrows went up and he shot Spike a look that clearly said 'is she insane?" Spike just glared back at him.
"We'll just have Spike show you how the whole thing works. Not to bad, really, once you get used to it. And don't do that growly thing you did when we had to tell Dee's dad, honey, it just creeps people out."
"Yes, dear," Spike said, sounding heavily resigned, he quickly slid into game face and looked defiantly at a decidedly scared Hank.
"Do you believe me now?" she asked, after giving Hank a few seconds to appreciate Spike's demonic façade, and let herself get used to the Slayer feelings that side of him always brought out in her.
"What is he?" Hank finally managed to stutter out. He was rewarded with a growl from Spike, who was still in game face.
"He's a vampire. Except not so much with the evilness any more because he got a soul. It's really kind of complicated for beginners. Let's just say that Spike isn't anything to worry about unless you hurt me or Dawn," she paused, "or, you know, screw around with his Passions tapes."
"I resent that!" Spike said, glad that she was lightening the moment a little bit. Even if it was totally inappropriate, he hated it when she was sad.
The next forty-five minutes were spent explaining to Hank as well as they could what Buffy's world was really like, and who she was.
"I'm not quite sure how to answer all that," Hank said, finally, when Buffy, tired of talking, had turned into Spike's shoulder, burying her face. He felt something suspiciously like tears, but understood that for some reason she didn't want to let her father see how the memories of the past nine years of her life made her feel. Maybe it was just to prove that she was a Slayer and she was strong, or maybe it was just all the memories assaulting her at once. Especially the ones about Angelus, he had tried to stop her, but she'd gone into detail on that, and almost exclusively that. Things like Oz, Riley and Cordelia had remained periphery, but Angel had taken front and center for a good fifteen minutes. Spike's Slayer-killing days had been let rest a little bit, and he wasn't going to take issue with it. "I think I need some time to think." Then he got up and left the room, making a hasty retreat up the stairs. Spike felt a sudden urge to throttle his fiancée's father.
"You did well, pet," he said, rubbing her back soothingly, "if nothing else, at least he knows now." She sobbed harder. Right, then, that had been the wrong thing to say. "It's alright love, he'll come round in time, with luck." This time she actually raised her head up to give him a withering glare before moving away from him. "What in the bloody hell do you want me to say, woman?" No one had ever made the mistake of calling him a patient man.
"I wanted a thank you, at least," she said, finally, "for saving the world and all that." Buffy started crying again and Spike's arms quickly went around her.
"Hush, love, it's all right. It's probably just going to take him a bit to get used to it, then he'll realize that you risk your life to save gits like him. It must be a bit difficult to grasp all at once, pet." She just pulled herself so she was entirely on his lap, continue to cry, words coming out occasionally, but not making any sense.
For the life of him, Hank Summers couldn't remember why he'd disapproved the previous night when he'd found beer in his daughter's fridge. She was a grown woman and God did he need the alcohol. These were his thoughts around the third beer when a bleached-blonde pissed off demon stormed into his room where he had taken the six pack.
"To get things straightened out here, I don't like you and I don't want you in this house. You make Buffy and Dawn unhappy, and you just tick me off. But I've been told I have to have you here and I have to treat you with some respect. Now, normally, I'd listen to the Slayer, but you've crossed a line. Your daughter- she may be many other things but that's what she was first- is downstairs crying, why? Because you won't thank her for saving the world a few more times than most people have."
"Look, Spike I don't really think this is any of your business," Hank interrupted his soon to be son-in-law.
"Trust me, it's my business. Now you are going to take yourself down those stairs, thank her and apologize to her until I am satisfied. And you are going to mean it. March." Hank shook is head firmly. Spike took a moment to reflect that was the first time in the past hundred and fifty odd years that anyone but Buffy had refused him when he took that tone. "You didn't have a choice, mate."
"I prayed my whole life that my daughters wouldn't get involved in my world," Hank said, turning to look at Spike. "Or rather my father's world. He was a Watcher, fourth generation in the family. I was in training to be one too, until I met Joyce. I realized that I wanted to have a normal life. Then, of course, it turned out that I was a bit of a bastard and ruined whatever chance at a life she had at all. Pinned her down with two kids and ran off to do whatever I wanted."
"So, you realize that, at least," Spike said, trying to appear unruffled. He realized, of course, that he was failing miserably, and gave up quite quickly. "Your father was a Watcher?"
"Hardest day of his life when I decided to go to law school, even Harvard Law. Probably especially Harvard, Dad always wanted me to come back here, learn to do what you people do. And then when Buffy was born- then Dawn- it just seemed like there were other people saving the world. 'Cause it hadn't ended yet." Hank looked up at Spike, who was looking possibly even more repulsed than he had before this speech.
"Other people doing it? Speaking as one of those people, I'm very sorry I bothered," he looked down at Hank, composure regained. "I don't care what daddy-dearest issues this has brought up. You will go downstairs, and you will make things right with your daughter or you will find yourself with an extremely short life expectancy." Spike fixed him with a look and actually lifted him off the bed by the collar of his blue shirt, "and I'd advise you stop drinking. There is nothing Buffy hates more than the smell of beer. Well, except me, but I'm a special case."
"Right," Hank said, deciding discretion was the better part of valour. "I do love my daughters, you know." He didn't know why he felt he had to apologize to this vampire, maybe all his father's teaching had left him after all these years. Or maybe it was seeing the way Dawn had talked to Spike this morning- animated, giggling, a hand on his shoulder, looking so much closer to him than she ever did to her own father.
"I'm not the one who needs to know that, mate," Spike said. "They are."
"They know," Hank said, dismissively. "Fathers love their daughters. Simple as that, they just know." Spike looked at him as if he had suddenly grown antlers.
"You actually believe that tripe?" Spike said, with a laugh, "Dawn and Buffy have no bloody clue whether you even remember them, Hank. After Joyce died were you there for them? No. Were you there for them after Sunnydale, in any way other than financial? No. And did you even know the hell her life was for a year after that? And the summer after she was in tenth grade- the girl was depressed and you bought her shoes. You may love them in your way, but they've no clue."
"Well, do they love me? Did either of them ever once come to visit me after Joyce died? Did they ask for me to come and help out?" Hank asked, rising up off of the bed to stand level with Spike, noticing, for the first time, that he wasn't actually all that tall. He just gave off the impression, Hank even had about an inch on him, not that he'd ever consider getting into a fistfight with the vampire.
"Would you have come?" Spike spat back, angrily. Then he quickly bit it back, "alright. I'm not your problem right now, and I want you to go fix things with your daughters before either of us start throwing punches." He then looked at him, "if you've known about all this your whole life, you probably don't want me any were near Buffy or the Bit. Let me give you a bit of advise on that one- don't air those thoughts around either of them. Me, I couldn't care less, but they tend to get kind of jumpy."
"Jumpy?" Hank enquired, looking slightly puzzled.
"It's a nice way of saying they stop liking you for a little while."
"You're a bit conceited aren't you?" Hank said, only half joking. He smiled at the vampire who loved his daughter (he wasn't going to question it after this display).
"A bit, yeah," Spike agreed, looking over at Hank. He admitted, privately, that if Hank earned his Slayer's forgiveness, Spike might concede to getting along with the man. Might.
Spike had made a retreat to the upstairs library (sparse library, mostly full of books he'd picked up at used bookshops in markets that stayed open all night and a few rare books he'd made trades for in the demon markets) after his talk with Hank. He had found Dee sitting in her bedroom looking hopeful about not having to do anything that day.
"Read something, pet, it's good for you," he had called on his way past. He was a very caring teacher, really.
Downstairs, Buffy had managed to pull herself together enough to move from crying on the couch to going into a very hard workout downstairs to try to bring on some endorphins. When Hank walked into the room she ignored him, delivering a kick to the head of one of the dummies and looking speculatively at the fencing swords they kept on the wall. Spike had disappeared once she'd become coherent again, saying something about going up to the library to read over some ancient prophecy. Though she was pretty certain he'd been lying- Spike had always been a terrible liar.
"What do you want?" She said finally after her father had been watching her for five minutes or so. "If Spike bullied you into apologizing I don't want to hear it." She flared out one last time at the dummy before turning to face Hank.
"He did. But I figured out I kind of owed you one anyway. And maybe an explanation about a few things," he looked over at her. "Whatever else you might be, you were my daughter first."
"Spike said that," Buffy accused, protective walls going up around her. She would not let this man ruin her life- again.
"Yes, he did. But he was right," Hank said, grinning his little-boy grin that didn't reach his eyes.
"Stop it. You can't just pretend to like my boyfriend and offer to reveal some made-up deep truth about yourself and make everything all right again, Dad." Buffy snapped, "that hasn't worked since I was sixteen."
"What if I told you the truth?" Hank asked his daughter, "about a lot of things. Like why you never met my father, or why you've never seen my passport."
"Look, Dad, I know all about the weird and the wacky. You are pure human. Don't try and fool me," she snapped.
"Maybe it would be best if I introduced myself first. I'm Hank Winters," Hank said to the fuming Slayer, "and I've know about the Slayer since I can remember."
"That's nice, Dad, you ignored me because you knew what I am, and now your going to come and make nice? What are you, a Watcher? Or better yet, one of those nutjobs who spends their life hunting down Slayers so they can kill them and call forth new ones because the vamps are getting bored? Or, maybe you're one of those oh-so-pleasant people who thinks that Slayers are just little girls with pointy sticks who need help killing the vampires because we only have super strength and you all have Y chromosomes which are so clearly more important. But, there's also the Initiative- I wouldn't put it past you to be one of them. I mean, if marriage means nothing to you, your soul must mean even less. And if you can get a decent price from the government why not go for it?" Hank stood across from her as she ranted, getting progressively more excited and stepping towards him. "And Winters? Even if you are telling the truth I know more about disguises than to go from Winters to Summers."
"I was kind of hoping we could do this without yelling, Buffy," Hank said, after a few moments had passed. "I hate it when people yell at me. But you were right with the first one- my family were Watchers and I was in training. When I met your mother I told her I was a law student and got kind of interested in it, so I went with it. I didn't change my name to hide, just to get my father angry at me."
"And you didn't get in touch at all with the Watcher's Council? When it was still in existence, I mean. Once a Watch-"
"The Watcher's Council was destroyed?" Hank spluttered, interrupting his daughter.
"Blown up, three or so years ago. I pretty much run the new Council- Demonology Council, if you want to get into it. Most people still call it the Watcher's Council, though, and a few of the mouthier members call it Buffy's Council, or the Slayer's Council," she cocked her head at him. "The upper echelon's of the old one were all killed in the explosion. I had to reconstruct."
"Do you think we could start this whole father-daughter relationship over again? It's kind of become a bit obvious to me that I've done it wrong."
"Yeah, you did. But I've screwed up a lot of relationships over the years and I always get forgiven. I guess I could give it a try," Buffy said after considering him for a moment.
Spike clunked down the basement stairs in heavily a few hours later, he hadn't heard anything from there since the violent punching had stopped and he was really hoping to find everyone still in good health.
"... And then, because it just seemed like the obvious thing to do Dawn tries to stake him with a cardboard box- it just crumbles and the vampire starts laughing hysterically, which gives Dee the opportunity to get a real stake- even though Spike's still cracking up against the wall instead of helping like he was supposed too." Spike heard his Slayer's voice saying, he slowed down and paused to listen.
"I still can't believe the council is paying a vampire."
"I still can't believe Spike's willing to work for honest money. OK, it is still the Council so a bit corrupt and no one knows where the cash comes from but still. I mean- he's got to be the best pickpocket in the world."
"Thanks, love," Spike said, making his presence known. "I take it you two had a bit of a chat?"
"We did," Buffy said, "and we've fixed up a few things."
"That's great, sweet," Spike said, coming the rest of the way down the stairs and kissing her on the top of the head before sliding into the seat next to hers on the leather couch they had in the corner near the fridge. "I might even be able to get to like him now."
"I'm sure that makes him feel so much happier," she laughed, "makes me feel a bit offended though. Thought you'd be all righteous and he's-a-horrible-father for months. Don't you love me anymore?" She giggled as he swooped down and put kisses along her collar bone.
"Of course I do, pet," Spike replied, "why don't you finish up your story for your father- I should get that window fixed sooner rather than later." And with that, he left the two to reconcile.