A/N : Sometimes it feels like these fics just write themselves, and I've had a couple of good days with them lately so you guys get the reward! Fast updates seem to be generally well received and I always like to do my best for you reader types. I really appreciate all the reviews, the compliments are of course great but I also appreciate the constructive criticism and honest opinions you share with me. Thanx so much to; Ape18, Mita427, katie, SiriusSpikeLover, LiLi, Spuffy2008, KelleyTheSelfToastablePopTart, Sandra, DoWnEr, TammyDevil666, funkydevil206, Emma, alba's room, EMBER91, Baby Girl Geller-Green, Brunettepet, spuffygrl, velja, and Moluvsnumber17. Now, on with the chapter - hope you like.
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 16 - Past, Present, and Future

"Mornin' sweetheart" Spike grinned as he came into the kitchen and found Buffy at the stove making pancakes, still wearing just a kimono-style dressing gown over her nightwear.

"Hey you" she smiled as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, "Spike! Stop it!" she was soon complaining though half-heartedly so as he kissed her neck and completely distracted her from her cooking.

"Is it my fault you look so damn sexy in the morning, pet?" he said giving her a look, "Or that I love you so much it's driving me crazy?"

"William Giles you say the sweetest things" she sighed as she put down the spatula, turned in his embrace, and put her arms around his neck as she kissed him. His hands slipped inside her dressing gown and she moaned a little in pleasure just as the kitchen door swung open.

"Eew, guys!" Dawn complained, "Are you trying to scar me for life or something!" she said, turning her back on the disturbing scene, but unable to keep from smiling.

"Sorry, sweetie" Buffy apologised as she pulled away from her man and tied her clothes around her body once again, "It's all safe, you can turn back now, no more parental PDAs" she smirked.

"The scene might be safe" Dawn rolled her eyes as she turned back and hopped up on a stool by the counter, "but whatever you were cooking's kinda not" she pointed.

"Damn!" Buffy complained as she realised the pancakes in the pan were now burnt to a cinder and completely inedible.

"Bloody hell, luv" Spike laughed lightly, "Never known anyone who can ruin food like you" he chuckled.

"Stop it!" she pouted, swatting him across the arm, "I can't help it if I'm not all domestic girl"

"It's okay, Mom" Dawn assured her with a smile, "I was just thinking how much I wanted cereal this morning anyway, weren't you Dad?" she asked Spike, giving him a look that said he should agree.

"Oh yeah, cereal, definitely" he agreed over-enthusiastically and Buffy half-smiled.

"You're very sweet" he told them, "Both lousy liars, but very sweet" she declared as she took the skillet over to the waste bin and tipped the charcoaled contents in.

As she looked down at the blackness something caught her eye, something moving.

"What the...?" she frowned as she leaned down to get a better look. Suddenly a hand shot out, grabbing her own and wrenching her forward as a swirling portal opened up and she tumbled head first into it.

"Never gonna happen, Buff" said the evil voice of one who was long dead, but still haunted Buffy's dreams, something she realised this was as she sat bolt upright in bed, breathing erratically and sweating profusely.

"Oh God" she sighed, putting her hand to her head and checking the clock on the night stand. It was one-thirty in the morning and she was alone in her bed, in the slightly dingy apartment she shared with her cousin.

A few hours ago she had been sitting on the couch with Spike, spilling out all her secrets, confessing that it seemed likely his adoptive daughter Dawn was in fact her own child.

Despite everything, Spike still loved her and Buffy knew she loved him too. Whatever happened they wanted to be together, but if it turned out to be true, that Dawnie really was the baby Buffy had been forced to give up years ago, it could get very awkward. There was nothing to say the girl would want to meet her new mother and if she did, if she would accept her into her life easily.

Buffy knew that if she couldn't win Dawn over, she would lose Spike too, and that filled her with dread. For the first time in over fifteen years she had a guy in her life that she felt she could really love and make a life with. Angel had been everything to her when she was young and she'd dream of various different happy ever after endings they could have...even after he left her behind. Now she was already dreaming of life with Spike and Dawn, a happy little family that she would love so much. If things went badly it'd be her alone again, with Xander most likely but as much as she loved him he could never be what she really wanted. A man to love and be loved by, romantically, eternally, and yes if she was honest sexually too. She was a hot-blooded woman after all, and on the right side of thirty...just. Spike was very attractive, gorgeous in fact, and in a simple world Buffy knew her head would be constantly filled with thoughts of a bedroom-related nature. Still, this was not a simple world she was living in, her trust of people was limited to a harsh degree and the situation she was in was such that once the truth was universally know about herself and her possible connection to Dawn, well, it was entirely possible Spike would never want to even see her again.

Knowing sleep was unlikely to come to her again easily with such serious and quite frightening thoughts filling her head, Buffy got up, threw on her dressing gown and headed into the kitchen to get a glass of water. She jumped with alarm where she flicked on the light and found a figure half sticking out of the refrigerator. Her hand was on her chest and she breathed heavily as Xander's head appeared around the door, mouth full of something he'd found to cure his munchies.

"Xand, you nearly scared me half to death!" Buffy told him, a little angry at being surprised like that, but of course knowing he hadn't done it on purpose.

"Sorry, Buff" he apologised, around his mouthful, he thankfully swallowed before continuing, "Me and Cordy kinda didn't do so much eating tonight" he admitted as his cousin walked past him to fill a glass with water from the faucet.

"How can you go to someone's apartment for dinner and not...oh" Buffy said knowingly off his look, "So, you and Cordy are for definite, huh?"

"Pretty much" Xander grinned. Buffy knew her cousin too well to think he would jump straight into bed with a girl unless he was really serious about her. He wasn't the kind of guy that used anybody, and he got too attached to the people in his life too easily to be the one night stand type.

"I'm happy for you, Xand, really I am" Buffy smiled as she hugged him. He was grateful for her support until a realised he was getting a wet shoulder and his cousins body shook in his arms.

"Hey, what's this Buff?" he asked her, gently rubbing her back, "Did things not go well with Spike? Oh sweetie, I'm sorry" he said kindly. Buffy shook her head and tried to wipe her face dry of tears as she pulled away from him.

"No, me and Spike are okay" she explained, "At least so far we are but... I'm so scared Xand, I'm so scared about what Dawn will think, and if she doesn't want me around then I'm gonna lose Spike... it's been such a short time but, I really love him Xander, I love him so much it hurts" she admitted as she fell back into his embrace, sobbing like a child.

Xander had no idea what to say or do, he just held her whilst she cried and hoped that in that small way he was helping. There was no way to know what would happen next, although he took it as a good thing that Spike had taken Buffy's news well and still wanted to be with her. From what he'd seen of Dawn she seemed like a nice girl, not the nasty type, but there was no telling how she might react to her real mother being back in her life, if of course that was what Buffy was, it still wasn't definite. That could mean a whole other load of heart-ache in itself.

"Look, Buff" Xander said after a while, "I get that it's scary, I do, but so was coming here, so was letting another guy into your life, but you did those things and it's still okay" he told her as he made her look at him, "Sweetie, we have to look on the bright side, it could all work out right"

"I guess" Buffy nodded, sniffing loudly.

"And y'know if it doesn't work out, and that's a real big if" he stressed, "You know you've always got me, and I will always be there for you no matter what"

She managed a watery smile then as she hugged him tight.

"I love you, Xander" she told him sincerely, "You're the best cousin in the whole world ever"

"You better believe it" he grinned as he held her just as tight.

"What the bloody hell have I got myself into, Dru?" Spike asked the framed picture in his hand as he downed his third bourbon. Okay so drunkenness wasn't entirely productive and especially not in the early hours of the morning on a work day but Spike was having trouble knowing which way was up before the alcohol even touched his lips. Seemed to him if clear things got foggier after several shots, maybe the opposite would be true - turned out he'd gone one theory too far with that one.

Buffy had stunned him enough when she'd kissed him like she had, so full of heat and passion, and this from the woman that had wanted to take things snail-pace type slow. He thought that had been shocking, he'd had no idea what was to come.

In all likelihood it seemed his daughter, little Dawnie, was in fact the spawn of Buffy and some nasty git they called Angel who'd used his fifteen year old girlfriend for sex on Prom night and then disregarded her. The poor chit had found out she was pregnant and been forced by her parents to give up a daughter she could not support alone, and now here they were fifteen years later. Dawn had been adopted, brought up calling Spike her Dad and Drusilla her Mum, not taking much interest in the fact she was not biologically their child.

For himself it was bad enough, but Spike could not visualise a scenario where he could tell Dawn that Buffy was probably her real mother, and get out alive. Despite the fact she did not have his genes, his Little Bit sure had his temper, and though neither of them got mad very often, when they did get fierce they got almost completely out of control. Drusilla was never violent, always the calming influence on the pair of them. In some weird way Spike wished she was here with her wise council now, though of course if she were still around he wouldn't be in this situation. Buffy might still have turned up and all, but he might not have cared quite so much if Dawn decided she wanted to hate the mother that had given her up. Spike would still be married and totally in love with his wife, the small blonde wouldn't even have been a blip on his radar, just another in a long line of Dad's wacky assistants.

Spike stopped his train of thought there and realised that wasn't right. If Dru had still been around he never would have got Buffy an interview for the job and so she'd have missed the deadline for applications. If she'd had no contact with himself or Dawn, she might never have realised her daughter and his were one and the same. Spike laughed painfully as he realised this whole entire mess was exactly his own fault for letting a new woman into his life. If he'd have just not been so drawn to the girl who the first time he met he'd spilled coffee all over, none of this would have come to pass, and he wouldn't be faced with the possible dilemma of having to choose between his little girl and his new love. He loved Buffy now, was so in love with her it hurt, but Dawn was his Little Bit and if she decided she wanted nothing to do with her biological mother then he would agree to stay away from the blonde too, even if it killed him to try.

"Shouldn't've looked, luv" he sighed, sitting down heavily on the couch and tracing a finger around the image of his poor dead wife, "Should've stayed faithful to you, shouldn't matter that you're gone" a lone tear ran down his cheek and he thought of all he'd lost, all he could still lose.

As he gazed at the picture in his hands, words travelled down through time, flashes of scenes, old memories he'd half forgotten before. The exact moment he'd first laid eyes on Drusilla, the first words she'd spoken to him, the entirety of their first conversation was almost clear as crystal. Then later, days, weeks, months, as she transformed him into Spike, the even wilder version than that which he was today.

"I feel ridiculous" he'd said, as she stood him in front of the full length mirror in her bedroom, in the long leather coat she'd convinced him to buy not an hour ago.

"You look delicious, my sweet Spike" she'd told him, kissing him til his head spun. The coat had ended up on the floor with all their other clothes as they made love for the first time, and Spike remembered it now as clear as if it were yesterday, but it wasn't, it was so long ago, a time that had passed and was now irretrievable.

In the morning he'd told her again how much he loved her, and thanked her so much for coming into his life and turning it upside down in the process. He wanted her to know how grateful he was for how she'd changed him, made him the man he was now.

"I didn't change you, my darling" she'd smiled with a shake of her head, "You were always Spike on the inside" she'd told him, fingers making idle patterns across his bare chest as they'd lain naked together still, "I just came and set you free, showed you how life could be for us"

"If someone had told me a year ago that my life would be like this now, I'd've said it was impossible" he'd laughed until she silenced him with a kiss.

"Nothing is impossible, sweet William" she'd whispered in his ear, "Not when you are in love as we are"

The words she'd spoken then had been sweet and meaningful of course but they meant something even stronger now. He doubted she'd ever meant for him to remember these things she said so clearly but he had, he was recalling them now and they gave him hope.

If he loved Buffy, as Spike knew he truly did, nothing was impossible. There was every possibility that Dawnie might welcome a woman in her life again, and though she may be shocked at first to find Buffy was her real mother, she would come around in time, he was sure of it.

"Thanks, luv" Spike smiled, as he gently kissed the photograph he held and stood to place it back on the mantlepiece, before turning to the stairs and taking himself off to bed for a few short hours. Though the problems of the night remained, his love for Buffy did too and that was what he'd needed to realise. Good old Dru, even in death she was sorting him out, getting him out of a deep depression or a dodgy situation, and despite the fact he was happy to let Buffy into his life he'd always be thankful for the memory of Drusilla and her guidance.

To Be Continued...