A/N: A wonderful response to the last chapter, all. This chapter has been so long in the coming because life is becoming more and more hectic. I'm going to try and organise things so that I have a chapter of a story once a week (most likely on a weekend), and (hopefully) get out a drabble during the week. Of course, since my life is so hectic I may miss it from week to week. I'll try not to but I'm not making any promises.
Disclaimer: The list of cameos begins here. Rather than make the story suffer and potentially miss someone by accident, I'm going to tell the story the way I feel necessary. If you're not mentioned here, I may know I've passed you over for now, but send me a message (preferably in review form) telling me I missed you and the name you want me to use.
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When animals attack
"EEEK!"
Everyone in the playground spun to face the origin of the shrill shriek. Andy was standing stiff as a board, a small brown squirrel perched on his shoulder. An expression of indescribable horror was frozen to his face.
"What should he do?" Juliet stage whispered to the world in general.
Seth twitched with excitement. "Kill it!"
"How?"
Katie's eyes darted around the playground until she spied a stick lying on the ground. Sprinting towards it, she picked it up and gripped it like a baseball bat. Dashing towards Andy, she swung the stick with all her might. Everything happened in slow motion.
The stick arced through the air, leaving a blur behind it.
The squirrel, sensing danger, hurled itself from the boy's shoulder.
The teacher, worried by the lack of noise in the playground stepped out to see what was happening.
A thunderous crack as the stick collided with Andy's head.
Andy collapsing to the ground in an explosion of blood.
Caitlin Roselyn Barclay dropping the broken stick, her chest heaving with victory.
The ragged cheer for the ragged saviour.
XXX
"Okay, boys and girls," Miss said brightly. "This is Vani, the class pet."
Katie felt cold fingers of dread clutch at the core of her being as Miss pulled out a rabbit. She looked over at Seth, who looked worse than she felt. Sweat beaded on the boy's head. He screamed when the savage thing suddenly lunged towards him. Gathering all her courage, Katie leapt to her feet and dived towards the beast, intent on tackling it onto the ground and saving her friend.
Miss regained her control over the vicious animal and lifted it high above danger.
"Katie, what are you doing?" she asked sternly.
"She's trying to kill the rabbit," Juliet said dreamily. "Like she killed the rat."
"We don't kill things," Miss said forcefully.
Seth's brow furrowed. "What about demons? Bad demons," he amended hastily when he noticed Katie's glare.
"Well," Miss said, obviously unprepared for this line of reasoning. "I guess that's okay."
Katie beamed. "Then I can kill the rabbit."
"What? No!"
"My mom says rabbits are demons and they should all be killed," Seth said.
Miss slumped in her seat. She wasn't ready for children this… spirited.
XXX
"Hi," the women purred, delicately extending a hand towards Spike. "You can call me Jools."
Spike nervously shook the woman's hand. He'd been a vampire for well over a century and he'd almost never come across such a predatory creature before. "Er, William," he finally offered.
He watched as his daughter bounded up and put out her hand to be shaken. "I'm Caitlin Roselyn Barclay," she beamed before turning to Spike and raising her arms.
Jools looked at Spike intently. "Are you William Barclay?"
"Yeah," Spike said, a feeling of trepidation growing.
"The William Barclay, author of Lesson The First?"
Spike was uncomfortably aware of the growing interest from the parents picking their children up. "Yeah."
"I loved that book," Jools leered.
"Thanks?" Spike murmured. He'd had some success as an author, but he'd never found himself leered at until today.
"Hi, I'm Amber," said another mum to Spike's left. "It's really nice to meet you. Is there any chance I can get you to autograph my copy of your book?"
"Hi, I'm Julia," another piped. 'I love your work. I really love your work."
"Will you be writing a sequel?" Amber asked.
"I think it's disgusting," one woman's shrill voice announced over the din. "That a smut peddler like him is allowed to come to the same place where our children learn! He'll corrupt our children with his mindless filth!"
"If you know what's in his book, doesn't that mean you've read it?" Faith asked as she walked into the class. "Found a shady spot for the car, Spike," she informed him casually before noticing his hangers on. "Back off, ladies, fun's over."
Spike sighed in relief when the flocking mothers unhappily left him alone.
"Hello Auntie Fayt," Katie smiled over Spike's shoulder.
"Hey kiddo," she replied, ruffling the girl's hair.
"Mr Barclay?" a harassed young woman asked. Spike nodded. "I'm Sheila Benson, Katie's teacher. Can I have a word with you?"
XXX
"Mr Barclay, I'm going to be blunt," Sheila said. "I'm worried about your daughter."
Spike frowned. "Is she okay? Nothing happened, did it?"
Sheila hesitated. "Not to her, as such. I'm worried about how violent she seems to be."
"What do you mean?" Spike asked dangerously.
Sheila gulped. "She hit one of the other students in the head with a stick as hard as she could. He had to go to the hospital."
Spike blinked. That didn't sound like Katie. "Did she say why?"
"All of the children said she killed a rat," Sheila said, "but I didn't see anything. To me, it looked like she hit a boy in the head with a stick."
"Anything else?" Spike asked quietly.
"Well," Sheila began. "She did seem to have a very unusual reaction to the class pet."
"What kind of animal is it?"
Sheila gave him an odd look. "It's a rabbit, why?"
A slight smirk crossed his face. "Her aunt has passed on her extreme views on rabbits to the children."
"Regardless," Sheila said when he didn't elaborate. "I'd prefer not to have to take steps. Now, I don't think Andy's parents are interested in pressing charges - apparently he just had a split lip and a lot of bruising - but I can't have any of the kids in my care acting in such a manner."
Spike smiled slightly. "I'll take care of it."
XXX
Buffy needed something to do. Faith was going out slaying early tonight to give Willow and Giles some more them time, which was, y'know, fine and all. It just left Buffy with nothing to do is all. Well, it occurred to her that she could always visit Sp-- no, no visiting there or anywhere near there, or anywhere with showers or potentially naked people in showers. Because she certainly didn't want to. At all. Not even a little bit.
But Angel would be busy talking to Fred, and she didn't want to intrude on whatever privacy they managed to get. Xander and Anya would probably be asleep by now or, knowing Anya, very much not asleep but still in bed. She tried to think of another option.
Oz! Good old Oz! He'd be a great distract-- friend to visit! Nothing can go wrong with Oz. Although she didn't know where he was, which meant she'd have to try and see him by going to him and not where he was, and that led to all kinds of badness. But it was 9:30 PM, surely everything would be fine. Nobody showered at 9:30.
Feeling much more secure in her decision, Buffy concentrated, closed her eyes and there.
"Uh, Buffy?" Oz's voice said unsurely.
Buffy's eyes opened. Oz was naked.
Oh no! oh no, oh no, ohno, ohno, ohnoohnoohnoohnoohnoohno! Was this always going to happen to her? Her eyes were drawn to his pale shoulders which, she was disturbed to note, had a sweaty sheen and a handful of red nail marks. A hickey on his neck, and Buffy refused to let her eyes head further south. The sound of a shower dimly made itself aware in Buffy's mind.
"This is kinda a bad time," Oz's voice said, as unruffled as ever. "Next time, call first?"
She frantically closed her eyes and there.
Frantically she opened her eyes to a familiar, somewhat comforting sight. She was in Spike's apartment. Which, y'know, was a huge step up from being in the room with a naked and sexified Oz, but a long step down from being somewhere, anywhere else. Not that it was a problem. It totally wasn't. Why should it be? Spike was a friend. A good friend. A good friend with an enormous-- bad Buffy!
"Oh, uh, hello," a friendly, nervous voice intruded on Buffy's inner rambling. "You must be Buffy. I'm Clem," he said, extending a hand and, after seeing the look on Buffy's face, let it drop. "Sorry. Habit."
He wasn't the ugliest demon she'd ever seen. Not by a long shot. He was sort of cute… in a pink, saggy, roundish, pointed teeth way. Like a demonic Care Bear. Oh great, now Buffy would spend ages wondering if he shoots rainbows out of his stomach.
"I'm a friend of Spike's," Clem said into the silence. "I'm watching Katie for him tonight."
"Clem," Katie's piping voice said with perfect timing for Clem. Buffy had been two seconds away from running to Spike to let him know there was a demon in his house. "Hello, Buffy," she said backhandedly as though Buffy was there every night. "Clem, Katie can't sleep."
Clem got down on one knee. "Can't she?"
"No," Katie pouted. "And she spilled some milk in the kitchen."
Clem threw Buffy an apologetic smile, before leading the little girl, who, for some reason, was talking in the third person, to the offending milk. "We better just clean that up and get Katie to bed then."
"Katie doesn't want to go to bed," Caitlin said quickly, smiling winsomely.
"Katie knows her daddy wants her to be in bed by the time he gets home," Clem said mock-sternly.
Katie's smile was a 100 watts. "But Katie won't be up when Daddy gets home. Clem will put her to bed before then."
A gentle smile from Clem had Katie scrambling to the couch in front of the TV, where she stared at the screen intently, as though it would disappear if she didn't. Buffy left her there and went back to the kitchen where Clem was putting the aborted glass of milk away.
"Uh, Clem?"
"Yeah?"
"You watch Katie often?" Buffy asked nonchalantly.
Clem nodded. "Oh, sure. I watch her every time Spike has dinner with Isabelle."
Buffy stiffened. No matter what parts of her were saying, she was not, under any circumstance, curious about the last part of that sentence. Gathering the focus and willpower she'd learned since becoming a ghost, she spoke, "Then, does Katie usually talk about herself in the third person?"
Clem grinned again, and Buffy couldn't help but like him. "Not usually. She's only like this when Spike gets really angry at her. I guess she figures her dad can't be angry at her if she isn't her."
Buffy blinked at the child's logic. "She's in trouble?"
"Katie tried to help a boy at school," the girl's voice rang out. "Daddy said Katie can't help any more boys or girls with sticks, and there was to be no more killing demons no matter how evil they are," she recited.
There was a ding as the microwave bell went off. "Ooh! My nachos!"
After Clem hurried out of the room, Buffy leaned in next to Katie. "Who's Isabelle?"
"Is'belle is Daddy's special friend," Katie whispered back. "Sometimes they go out together and then Clem watches me, and Clem lets me stay up late even when Daddy asks him not to and why are we whispering and I saved a boy from an evil rat at school today and it was so evil they tooked him to the hostibal and then I came home and watched Pokemon and," the stream of words slowed to a halt with a jaw cracking yawn.
Clem dropped on the couch with a thump, happily munching away at nachos.
"So, Clem," Buffy began. "How long have you know Spike?"
"Oh, years now," Clem said affably. "I met him when he was getting over his crush on you. Before he met Darla."
"His… crush?" Buffy asked thickly.
Clem's face was the picture of pointy-toothed concern. "Uh, yeah. His crush. You did know about it, right?"
"Tell me you love me."
"You know I do."
"Uh, yeah, I guess I did." She looked at the little girl who was dozing on the couch, a little puddle of drool forming slowly under her cheek. "He's changed a lot," she mused.
"Not really," Clem mumbled, snacking at his nachos again. "I mean, yeah, he's more responsible and junk but Spike's always been pretty tough. He's been about the same the whole time I've known him."
"I meant that he used to be a vicious killer," Buffy clarified, thinking back to a school function years ago.
"Do we really need weapons for this?"
"I just like them. They make me feel all manly."
"He still is, really," Clem said, licking the cheese off his fingers. "Only now he just kills demons. He's always been the Big Bad. It's part of why I like him."
Those words triggered an uncomfortable realisation in Buffy. The Big Bad attitude was why she'd liked him, why she like him now. He was somehow bigger than life, and he made all your regular problems seem insignificant. Sure, half the time it was because he'd caused you even bigger problems but he was always there, always in your face.
As Buffy looked at the sleeping, drool-encrusted face of his daughter, Buffy realised something else. Spike hadn't changed. She had. He'd tried to be better when she had been using him, but she'd been killing him as surely as she'd been killing herself.
Great, Buffy thought sourly. Like I need epiphanies to make me feel even more guilty.
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A/N: Not as good as I'd have liked it. I think I handled the school scenes poorly. When I eventually go back and tidy up my old stories I'll just find a way to fix it. I think I fit around five cameos into that chapter, too, which was a plus. Also, as a special thank you gift for being a crash dummy for ideas, I included a special scene in this chapter. You know who you are, and you should know what scene it is…
Hopefully now I'm back writing again things will go more smoothly in future. Of course, a REVIEW will make it go much faster (usually).