Author's Notes: Set four years after 'Becoming' part two. Buffy ran away, and didn't come back. Now, four years later, she's about to be reminded of who and what she really is.
Rating: PG-13. Language and strong themes. Sorry, kiddies.
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise is mine. Don't sue, please.
Feedback: Very welcome. Constructive criticism is welcome; flames will be used to help me toast marshmallows.
Chapter Notes: Thanks for the reviews. Some of you have requested answers…but I'm afraid I just can't give it to you yet! You'll have to just stay tuned…
Chapter Thirteen: Ice-cream.
Spike watched the petite slayer with amusement. "You'll never eat all that, pet."
Buffy glanced up. "Sure I will. It's ice cream." She grinned. "I'd forgotten about all the flavours. There's the normal ones like raspberry ripple and cookie dough, and then there's cookie dough fudge mint chip, and –"
"Yeah, I know," Spike interrupted. "You'll get fat if you eat that huge bowl, though."
"Nope. It all goes to the baby." She smiled softly. "One of the perks."
"Of being the slayer?"
"No, of being pregnant." She savoured the taste of the ice cream. "Mm. Thanks, Spike."
"Not a problem." He leaned back as she regarded him. He looked strange in the bright artificial lights. Wrong, somehow. Strange. "So, pet, you gonna lay it all out nice and clear for me?"
Buffy shrugged. "As clear as it can be laid. It's kinda complicated."
"I'm a vampire, pet," he reminded her. "Our families are fairly strange anyhow."
"Yes," Buffy nodded. "It's similar, in a way. Some of the structures, anyway." She took a deep breath. "Basically, there are family groups called clans, headed by an Alpha, or Alpha pair. But an Alpha pair is really rare – single Alphas are much more common. Then there are other mates, all equal to each other as mates. But if someone mates more than once, their first mate is superior to their second mate, and so on."
Spike nodded slowly. "So Alex was your first mate, and Max your second, so Alex would have been superior to Max."
"Yes," Buffy agreed. "And Simone was my third mate. Now both Simone and Alex are dead, that leaves Max my only remaining mate, but he doesn't become superior to Max – he's still Second."
"Right," Spike muttered. "Makes sense. So how does you sleeping with Ethan fit in?"
"Only Alpha mates are bound to be faithful to each other," Buffy explained, signalling the waitress for another bowl of ice cream. "It can be amazing, when that happens, but it can be terrible. One of my friends – Sally, her name was. She was in an Alpha mate pair. She was my clan head. Then her mate died, and she couldn't cope without him. Withered away." Her face grew tight. "That's when they named me head." For a few moments she ate ice cream in silence. Then she sighed and looked up at him. "So I was suddenly in charge of this extended family of slaves. I knew I was an Alpha before then – it was fairly obvious, really – but I wasn't mated, or anything. And keeping a clan in order is pretty tough. There was our whole unit, plus some – we got moved around a fair bit, back then, so the clans were all spread thin. But there were Sally's children and their mates, and other mated pairs, other singles…"
"What makes a clan, a clan?" Spike inquired, leaning forwards. "I mean, you can't all mate with each other…"
"No. It's…hard to explain. It's something to do with the blood and the close proximity. I'm not quite sure exactly how it works." She shrugged. "My clan now is all of the people I got out of Phtygiktha, and their children. Ella and Marian, and Sarah and Alex and Toni and Marcus and everyone. They're my clan, my responsibility."
"And Ethan?"
"He's my lover. Not a mate, although I think he wants to be." She looked away. "I won't mate again, unless I find my Alpha. It hurts too much."
He covered his hand with hers in sympathy, and she blinked at him. She'd never thought that William the Bloody could be so…nice.
"So," he said after a moment. "Than brings me to my next question, luv, if you're up to it." She nodded silently. "Why did the little bitlet call me Alpha?"
Buffy carefully avoided looking at him. "Um. I'm not quite sure."
Spike lifted an eyebrow. "Is that right? We'll try another, then. How is it that some people are Alphas, and some aren't?"
She visibly relaxed. "Oh, that's easy. Alphas are natural leaders. Not just people who lead easily, but people born to it. They're always the strongest, to be able to protect the others, and usually smarter." She grinned. "I'm the exception to that one. Dumb blonde."
"You're not stupid," he rolled his eyes. "Though you bloody well act like it sometimes." He reached over and scooped some ice cream up with his fingers and proceeded to lick them clean with great pleasure. Buffy tried not to squirm. Dammit, it hadn't been that long since she'd slept with someone…two months…even if Mark hadn't been that good…
She shook herself. Bad Buffy, she told herself sternly. Vampires can smell arousal.
"So," Spike went on, seemingly oblivious of her internal disorder, "You're an Alpha. I get that, you're the Slayer –"
"A slayer," Buffy corrected him. "Don't forget Faith."
"The Slayer," Spike repeated, sending her a warning glare. "But why would your daughter call me an Alpha?"
She couldn't resist teasing him a little. "What, you don't think of yourself as a leader? Strongest, bravest, smartest? Well, maybe not smartest…" A growl left his throat, and she giggled. "Sorry. No, seriously, it's not all that surprising. You're a master vampire. One of the best I remember fighting, actually." He smirked. "Don't get up yourself, I don't remember fighting many others. But thinking about it, Angel's probably an Alpha too."
"Which would be why Max saw him as a threat," Spike nodded. "Makes sense." Buffy frowned faintly. "Oh, right, you don't remember that?"
"Sorry," she mumbled, her good mood suddenly dissipating. "It gets…hard. To keep things straight." She gave a sudden, bitter laugh. "I don't remember being a child. I barely remember high school. I don't remember my twenty-first birthday and I don't remember what colour my mother's eyes were. I don't even remember what I used to look like." She met his eyes. "Spike…I'm not who I was. I'm nearly as old as you are – I've lived nearly as many years. I'm eighty-five – that's how many years I've lived. But I don't look a day over twenty-two, and I'm never going to."
Spike's mouth thinned, and he looked as though he was going to ask the one question that she really, really didn't want to ask her. He didn't ask.
"How d'you get that scar on your face?" he asked instead. Her hand lifted automatically to trace it from her eyebrow down to her chin.
"Got in a fight with half a dozen guards, just after my first child was born," she said with a faint smile of reminiscence. "I was really weak – I wasn't getting enough blood, and I was breastfeeding, and she was my first…I'd never looked after a baby before. By Haghd, I was a mess." She gave a short but genuine laugh. "Alex had literally shoved me out of the unit bunker, he said I was so hopeless. So I picked a fight where I shouldn't have. Well, it was my responsibility. They were beating on this teen, Maggie, and she was a member of my clan. She was pretty badly injured, so I just…went at them." She looked down. "Wasn't at even half strength. Didn't have a weapon, and they had picks and axes. One of them…caught his pick across my face. It got infected, so it scarred over."
Spike shook his head fondly. "You always look out for people," he observed. "Even when you shouldn't."
Buffy was startled. "You think I shouldn't have helped her?"
"No, no, that's not what I meant, pet." He frowned, trying to find the right words. "I mean…Ethan told us about you bringing Dave and Tom – that's their names, right? – out of that place. And Dave was hitting you. You still look out for them." He frowned. "And how did he get away with hitting you, if you're his Alpha?"
Buffy shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "I really don't want to talk about that."
"And really, pet, what did those people ever do for you, that you had to get them out?"
She jerked, stunned. "How can you ask that? You know about the bond. They gave me their strength, their lives, their blood. You of all people should know how important blood is. It's life, it's what keeps us moving, keeps us warm, keeps us alive. How could I not get as many of them out as I could? People make mistakes, Spike – God knows I've made enough of them – and Phtygiktha messed us all up so badly. It took weeks for Dave and Ethan to put me back together, and even then I only really woke up once I got pregnant with Hattie." She shook her head in disbelief. "They're my clan, Spike, my family. Can you honestly tell me that you'd leave Angel or Drusilla or Darla or any of your vampiric family in a place like that?"
Spike looked at her seriously. "No, pet. But then again, we wouldn't have been so stupid as to get ourselves into that mess in the first place."
Buffy blinked several times, her anger fading. "Did you just call me stupid?"
The sound of the master vampire roaring with laughter was a memory she swore to herself that she would not forget.
Reviews are my happy thoughts.
Coming next chapter:
Buffy and Faith patrol.
Ethan and Giles…talk.