A/N : Wow, I can't believe how many reviews I've got on this so far! Thanx so much to; Spikesgirl2626, vanillagigglez, Girl version of Chandler, Aisling-Siobhan, Moonjava, SlaYeRGiRLkaL, EMBER91, Demonica Mills, lil-leti, Hellmouth2, OnlyHaveEyesForYou, Celestia Nailo, Freezyboncoolipants, Daniel Wesley Rydell, spikespet2002, Xtremely-Canadian, LiLi, GoldenAngl88, Brunettepet, sheilamarie, KaiNscara, and sunnyhell. You guys rock, you really do, but I am so nervous now that this fic will not be as good as you expect. Fingers crossed that I can pull off something worthy enough of your praise. Twenty two reviews on such a short intro chapter, let's see whta kind of response this much longer second chapter can get, at the very least it should answer everybody's questions and wonderings...
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 2
Spike winced as he put his hand to the back of his head and encountered more blood that he would've liked. As a vampire the red stuff was one of his favourite substances but when it flowed from his own body it was a much less satisfying experience. A group of demons had jumped him on his way from his crypt to Revello Drive, the price for fighting on the side of good these days.
It was almost a year now since he'd had this chip stuck up his brain, but even without wires and silicon in his head, Spike knew he'd be fighting demons only these days. Just a couple of weeks after the commando boys saw to it he never harmed humans again, the vamp they called Hostile 17 had gone through another change, and spent almost a week as a small child of five years old, along with Buffy. They'd grown so close in that short time and when the spell was over their love held firm. It changed too, from children's affection to something deep and meaningful between them.
They were in love, in every sense of the word, though there was one way in which Spike and Buffy had yet to confirm it. He tried not to mind too much that every time they got close to being...close she stopped him. He didn't doubt her love for him, wouldn't dream of it since she'd proved her feelings in other ways. She'd even explained her reasons to him, the last two men she'd given herself too had ended up hurting her so badly, she was so petrified of it happening again.
Spike sighed as he reached the front door of the Slayer's house. He had plans for their upcoming anniversary, one year since she'd showed up at his crypt and told him how the bed, the house, her life was too empty without him there. When she'd kissed him then the world had spun out of focus and nothing had been the same since, and Spike didn't mind at all. Life wasn't all blood and peaches what with him being the former Big Bad and her being the Slayer, but they got by, and even the Scoobies had adjusted to having him around.
Spike raised his fist to knock on the door, a little concerned by the way his head was spinning and the fact the blood was coming from his head at an alarming rate. What worried him even more was that no-one was answering the door, even when he knocked a second time and suddenly he heard a scream and an almighty crash of breaking crockery.
"Bloody hell!" he swore as he stepped back and kicked out at the door, smashing it clean of the hinges. He rushed inside, feeling overly woozy as he arrived in the Summers' living room.
The sight that met his eyes didn't make sense at all. A shocked looking Joyce, Giles, and Nibblet stood rooted to the spot by the kitchen door, and there in the living room sat four small children, a fifth standing before him that he recognised only too well.
"Buffy?" he said shakily, swallowing hard as the strangest feeling of nausea washed over him. A moment later the world went black as the unconscious vampire hit the floor with a thump.
"Spike!" the young blonde girl shrieked as she rushed to him and knelt down at his side, "Mommy, we have to help Spikey!" she told Joyce urgently but her mother could only stare.
"Buffy?" she checked, as the small blonde turned the vampire over on the floor, stroking his hair back off his face. The situation wouldn't be half so strange if not for the fact Buffy was no longer her twenty year old self, but no more than six or seven.
"Mommy!" she squealed, her tone so high that the others wondered how anyone but dogs could hear her, "Giles, please, there's something wrong with Spike. He's bleeding and we have to help him!" she complained, tears coming to her eyes.
"Oh, erm, right" Giles snapped out of his trance first and moved to help the little Slayer get Spike up from the floor.
"Watcher?" he said groggily as his eyes flickered open and closed, "What the soddin' hell is going on?" he asked, looking around with bleary eyes.
"Rupert, take him upstairs" Joyce told her boyfriend and he did as he was told. She faced Dawn next as Buffy followed the two men up to the bedroom.
"Dawn what did you do?" her mother asked, as the girl continued to stare at the four kids in the living room - a girl with red hair, two blondes, and one brunette boy.
"I didn't..." she stammered, "Mom, I just said I wish and...I can't have done this!" she gasped, "Can I?"
"Well, somebody did something and I can't imagine it was anything other than magic, I just..." she trailed off as she too stared at the children in the room, who had all been a good ten and more years older than this just moments ago.
Willow scrambled to the floor and began to pick up the scattered Doritos and corn snacks that had been previously dropped. A moment later little Tara was also on her knees helping with the task. As one of them reached for a piece of broken crockery, Joyce stopped them.
"No, sweetheart" she told the red-head, "You leave the dishes, you might hurt yourself"
"Yes, Mrs Summers" she nodded dutifully, smiling all the time.
Joyce muttered something about cleaning up the mess as she went towards the kitchen, Dawn made to follow but her mother told her no.
"Dawn, could you stay here and keep an eye on the kids?" she asked her. The teen looked stunned.
"You want me to watch them!" she asked incredulously, "Mom, we can't just clean up and make everything better, something's happened. They're frickin' babies!" she half-yelled.
"Dawn, mind your language" her mother warned, "And I'm very aware that something strange has happened but right now my priority is cleaning up the dangerous mess in there. Then I'm going to check on Spike, Buffy, and Rupert, and only then will we be in a position to figure out what caused the..situation that's occurred" she said in full mother tone, "Now, go ahead, back into the living room, and make sure the kids are okay"
Dawn did as she was told, smiling a little at the concept her wish seemed to have come true. Okay so it was majorly weird seeing Xander as a child, what with her having crush on him and everything but he was so cute like this. Then there was little Willow, Tara, and Anya, who looked equally sweet if not a little inappropriately dressed in tops with plunging necklines and heels she was sure they couldn't walk on without falling and breaking their necks!
Anya was down from the chair she and Xander had been sharing and bending over to stare at the patch on the carpet where Spike had been bleeding.
"That vampire has made an awful mess" she stated, looking up at Dawn, "I'm certain your mother will be unhappy at having to replace such expensive looking floor coverings"
"Er, maybe" the youngest Summers replied awkwardly, the sight of so much blood turned her stomach and more so because she knew it had come from her friend. Spike was so great for Buffy, way better than Angel despite the fact he was a vampire too. He could love her unconditionally without a soul and he proved his feelings for her everyday with little romantic gestures and sweet words. Sometimes Dawn was almost jealous, but Spike was nice to her too and he was so great at being big brother. Seemed he was going to be playing that role for way more kids than just herself now she realised as she watched Xander surruptisciously pick up a couple of snacks from the floor and pop them in his mouth.
"Er, Xander, you shouldn't eat those when they've been on the floor" she told him, finding it so weird to have to tell a guy that ought to be six years older than her such a thing as this.
"Sorry" he said, looking terribly guilty as he swallowed hard.
"That's okay" Dawn nodded, "Just don't have anymore" she said, before realising Willow and Tara were standing by her, holding up handfuls of recovered food for the trash and Anya was seconds away from putting her hand in the bloody patch on the carpet.
"No!" Dawn snapped, startling Tara and making her drop broken Doritos and Cheetos all over the floor once again. In silence she scrambled to picked them up again and Willow helped her feeling bad for the blonde who had tears in her eyes. Dawn pulled Anya away from the mess on the carpet and pushed her back towards the chair where Xander waited. It was as she turned back she noticed Tara was physically shaking and Willow was talking softly to her telling her it as okay.
"Tara?" Dawn said carefully as she crouched down with the too younger girls, "You okay?"
"I-I-I dr-dropped them" she stammered, fighting tears, seemingly so afraid of getting into trouble far adding to the mess she'd been trying to help clean up.
"Oh, that's okay" Dawn assured her, turning around and fetching the waste paper basket, "Here" she told them to put all the snack they picked up from the floor into the trash and then turned back to Xander and Anya who were once again sharing a chair.
"...you're a very nicely shaped young man" she was telling him, as the poor boy struggled to put space between them, not at all thrilled at the prospect of having a girl touch him at all!
"This is crazy!" Dawn said to herself as she glanced around the room again, but she knew somehow it had to be her fault.
"Buffy, my dear, would you run down to your mother and ask her to bring up some medical supplies" Giles said as soon as he'd got Spike onto the bed, Buffy's own at her insistence.
"I have to stay with Spikey!" she protested in full whiney tone, but Giles held firm.
"Buffy the only way to help Spike right now is if you go and get the supplies from your mother like I asked" he told her and with a scathing look she finally did as she was told. As she left, pulling the door almost closed behind her, Spike exploded into a string of curses.
"Bloody buggerin' hell, Rupert. What the soddin' hell is going on here?" he wanted to know, sitting up fast and making his head spin all over again, still laying his head down was not really an option either, given the mess it was in and the way it throbbed at the back.
"I believe some kind of spell must have been cast" the Watcher explained as he took a closer look at Spike's main injury, "It is possible Dawn may inadvertently have caused Buffy, Xander, Willow, Tara, and Anya to revert to small children"
"You mean to tell me my girlfriend is...? That little chit really is Buffy?" he asked in astonishment, "How the bleedin' hell did the Nibblet do somethin' like that?" he wanted to know.
"She quite recklessly made a wish" Giles sighed, "Something far more dangerous when one lives on a Hellmouth than if one were to reside anywhere else of course. She was unhappy at being treated as a child, you see?" he explained, grimacing as his fingers became covered by the blood leaking from Spike's head, "She said that she wished Buffy and her assembled friends could understand what it was like to be younger siblings"
"And change-o prest-o, bite-sized Scooby club" the vampire sighed, "Reversible though right?" he checked, "I mean like me and the Slayer when we went through that tiny tots phase?"
"To be perfectly frank I'm not entirely certain" Giles admitted, "This all occurred just moments before you came through the door and you did steal a great deal of attention" he smiled wryly.
"Not on bloody purpose, mate" Spike snapped, "Though bloody's the right word, dunno why my head won't stop"
"There is rather a nasty gash here, it's not healing as fast as one might expect, but I'm sure it'll be fine" Giles explained as he looked to the door, wishing Buffy would hurry up with the supplies. As if she'd heard his thoughts she immediately came scrambling through the door with a couple of towels under one arm and a first aid box under the other.
"Thankyou, Buffy" her Watcher said as he took the things from her and worked on cleaning up Spike's head. All the time the young girl stared at the man who was her boyfriend just an hour ago. Now he wasn't sure where he stood with her, she was six maybe seven years old after all and he wasn't. In this form she was cute but naturally not attractive in a womanly sense, Spike would've staked himself on the spot should he have had the same feelings for mini-Buffy that he did for her adult self, that would be wrong on every imaginable level!
"What happened, Spike?" she asked him, hazel eyes shining with tears she could barely hold back, "Tell me what hurt you and I'll go slay it" she promised him earnestly.
"Er, Buffy" the vampire said awkwardly, feeling very strange in calling this little girl by the name of his would-be lover, "Sweetheart, you can't slay what hurt me, I already did that, just got a couple of lucky blows in 'fore I had the chance" he admitted, "Bloody hell, Watcher, go easy!" he growled at Giles, "Stings like a bugger that does" he told him as his wound was disinfected.
"One would think at the age of over a century, you would be a little less childish" the man who was older only in appearance snapped, as Spike drew away from the cotton padding being pushed on his aching head.
"Want me to do it?" Buffy offered and in perfect unison the two Englishman told her no.
There's was no way to be sure if the little girl was capable of doing it right was Giles' argument, where Spike was just uncertain how much of Buffy was still her and therefore very wary of letting her close to him. At this age, little girls could have big crushes on the men in their lives and given the nature of their relationship when she was a grown up, Spike didn't fancy having little Buffy getting all googly eyed around him, that would be a whole new level of weird.
"Right, all done" Giles announced as he taped the bandages over Spike's wound, "I imagine you'll feel light-headed for a while, it might be best if you were to stay here for tonight, especially whilst...everything else is going on" he said, with a slight glance at Buffy.
"Yes, you have to stay here" she agreed with a firm nod, "I can help look after you, and Mommy too, we'll help you get better" she grinned.
"Sure you will, luv" the vampire smiled uneasily, glad he usually avoided saying the blonde's name anyway. He couldn't call her Buffy, couldn't think of her as such, not like this, "Er, you think you could run down and ask Mum if there's some blood going spare in the fridge?" he asked her, though the very thought of eating made his stomach tighten awfully, he wanted her out of the room "Feelin' a bit peckish, I am"
"One mug of blood, coming right up" she smiled sweetly as she headed for the door. As she left, Spike sighed.
"That ain't gonna be at all awkward now is it?" he said to Giles, "Little Bitty Buffy having eyes for yours truly" he sighed, "As the lady herself might say, it's just a touch wiggy knowing my woman is three feet tall and still has a thing for me"
"Yes, I imagine it must feel somewhat...inappropriate" the Watcher agreed, "Still, Buffy will no doubt spend less time with you when she realises she has other children her own age to play with"
"Good luck playing Daddy dearest with that lot" Spike smirked, "I mean the mini-witches might be alright, quiet and sensible and all, but the snack size version of the whelp and demon girl, that's just a frightening concept, even for a vamp like myself" he admitted with an involuntary shudder.
"Thank you so much for the confidence boost" Giles said sarcastically, pushing the bandage down on the back of Spike's head with unneeded force, making him yelp, "We don't want that coming unstuck in the night do we" he said as he turned and walked towards the door, blue eyes glaring at his back he just knew it.
Still, Spike was right, Giles was all to aware of that fact. Trying to control not one but five small children until such time as when the spell or whatever it was that had caused this could be reversed was not going to be a simple task. With Dawn just a child herself really and Spike at least temporarily indisposed, it seemed he and Joyce were to be the parental figures.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs Giles realised what a truly horrifying prospect that was as Anya chased Xander round and round the couch screaming something about orgasmic pleasures, whilst Tara cried and Willow and Dawn did their level best to comfort her in one corner. All were ignoring the fact that large amounts of mess still adorned the carpet, slowly getting crushed by small bodies and stamping feet.
"Oh good lord" the Englishman sighed, removing his glasses and running a hand over his face, "This is going to be a nightmare"
To Be Continued...
A/N2 : So as you've seen here, nothing very romantic is going to happen between any of the main characters, cos that'd be so entirely inappropriate, but I'm hoping I can right a good story that is not all about the coupleyness. Please let me know what you think of this chapter by reviewing - thanks.