Back at Willow’s Xander headed straight for the shower.  Whether or not his mischievous friend had been joking about the effects of Spike’s scent on him, he’d frequently caught Angel inhaling a little too deeply in his presence, and was positive that at least once the older vampire had been adjusting his person due to a not-so-grandfatherly physical reaction.

Xander wasn’t sure if he was bothered because Angel was reacting to the smell of Spike, or to the smell of Spike on him; either one would be perturbing, the possibility of both was inspiration for half a bottle of shower-gel and a long hard scrub.

Post-shower he checked his face in the mirror; the few scratches he’d received were virtually healed.  He smiled to himself as he recalled the reaction to Spike pinning him against a tree and seeking out the damage, diligently licking away the blood and cleaning the grazes as Xander passively accepted the attention.  Spike’s mouth had moved down to his neck and Xander had instinctively turned his head and offered himself.  Angel’s groan was unmistakeable even from twenty-five feet away, and it was swiftly followed by the thud of slayer distracting said vampire’s attention in a tried and tested manner.  Now he wasn’t covered in extract of Spike and smelling like an invitation to the balling, Xander could laugh at Angel’s frustration.  Which was mean of him.  He chuckled: he could live with mean.

…

Squeaky clean and back to the post-decimation party, he tried to get to know Brent and Lena, soon discovering that there was actually very little to know and suspecting that Willow was taking no chances by becoming even fractionally involved with anyone who would spark her imagination and endanger her self-preserving aloofness.  Xander moved on to talk to Craig, trying very hard not to mechanically dislike him because no-one was good enough for his Dawnie.  Okay, no-one was good enough for his Dawnie but this guy was personable, solvent – a teacher, in fact – entirely human though spookily accepting of the demon-heavy environment he’d been drawn into, watching his girlfriend laugh and dance with a vampire with not a jot of worry.  And, Xander accepted, the expression on his face when he gazed at Dawn was adoring, wanting, committed.  Craig was sticking around and Xander had no choice but to get used to it.

He crossed to where Dawn and Spike were dancing, sliding his arms around Dawn’s waist from behind and smiling at Spike over her shoulder.  A couple of minutes dancing as a threesome then Xander tightened his hold and bodily lifted Dawn, turning and plonking her down before nipping in to steal Spike away.  Xander chuckled at the thwack on the ass from the supposedly slighted young woman and looped his arms around his lover, bringing him close.

“Hey, gorgeous.”

“Gorgeous yourself.  Though you smelled better earlier.”

“Yours.  Don’t have to smell like bait to be yours.”

Spike’s hands stroked gently over Xander’s upper arms as the men moved to the music, brows resting together.  Content.  More than content.  The presence of number one family, home and secure after a night of death and destruction which was thankfully not theirs.  Unmindful of affectionate scrutiny, they drifted in and out of leisurely kisses, zoning out until it sank in that Angel was attempting to secure their attention.

“What?” Spike demanded sharply.

“We’ve been talking…”

“Congratulations, now sod off.”

“Spike,” Xander reprimanded, albeit not very…reprimandingly.

“Tell me you didn’t enjoy tonight,” Angel persisted.

Spike cocked the scarred eyebrow and Xander only just managed to stop himself biting it.

“So?”

“I have a proposition.”

The eyebrow kinked a little further up and Xander forced himself to look away before something…inappropriate occurred.

“What kind of proposition?” he asked Angel.

“How do you two feel about taking care of the occasional demon?”

“That similar to an occasional table?” Xander enquired, “’Cause I can probably give it a nice finish.”

“Listen, dickhead, Xander works an eight, ten hour day, sometimes more.  He needs precisely seven-and- a-quarter hours sleep to function perfectly.  That leaves round about seven and some hours to fit in food, home, hygiene and the twelve hours of sex that I want daily and never get.”

“You don’t get enough sex?”  A surprised Xander wanted clarification, regardless of time or place.

“And now you want us to chase around after anything you let through the net?  Bugger off, you arse.”

“You don’t get enough sex?”

“Quality over quantity, mate, no worries.”

“I’ll have to give up work.”

“So…”  Angel looked from Spike to Xander, Spike to Xander.  “Is that a no?”

“You don’t want to give up work,” Spike insisted.

“I don’t?”

“Spike?” Angel prompted.

“No, you don’t.”

“Xander?” Angel tried again.

Xander turned to Angel to tell him to stop butting in; the audience clued him in to the temporarily lost source of the conversation.

“I think…” Xander pre-empted Spike’s next barrage, “that it would depend on the circumstances.  The timing.  We could take care of any weekending monsters.”

“Don’t even humour them, love.”

“But…you like to kill things.”

“I like having you safe even better.”

Xander drew breath to argue but the concern in Spike’s eyes stopped him in his tracks.

“Yeah.  We’ll discuss it some other time,” he told Angel.  “Maybe.”

Pulling Spike back to him, he guided them to a private corner of the room.

“You don’t have to give up everything for me.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.  They’re not going to ask us to take on something we can’t handle, and I’m not the liability I used to be in a fight.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“It’s kinda how it feels.”  Spike dropped his head, hiding his expression from Xander.  “You go out fighting with Angel or Buffy and I don’t hear any of this,” Xander persisted.  “Okay, I’m not as good or as strong but…”

“I can live without them, Xander.  They get killed or dusted I can live without them.”

Xander hugged the vampire to him, trying to figure out a way that Spike could have this without the worry.  Or with only some of the worry.

“What if…what if I promise you…  That if I get badly enough hurt you can turn me.  If you swear not to deliberately let me get hurt just so you can do it.”

“I’d never—  You’d risk that so I can have some fun?”

Xander stroked Spike’s brow, easing away the perplexed frown.

“Not much of a risk.  What’s going to get past you?”

There was a protracted pause, jam-packed with thought.  When Spike looked to Xander there was a spark of hope in the bright blue eyes.

“S’pose it wouldn’t hurt to…”

“No, it wouldn’t.  Go talk to Angel.”

“What if…”

“Just talk.  For now.”

With a brief nod, Spike gave Xander’s arm a squeeze before looking for Angel, finding him and sitting alongside him and Willow on the sofa, pretending to ignore the triumphant look that zipped between them.

“Okay, Grandpa, got something in mind?”

“Just a thought.”

“Well…enlighten me, oh decrepit font of wisdom.”

…

Later, and the mood had changed, celebration had effortlessly morphed into a relaxed sprawl of weary bodies.  Dawn and Craig had left, the twins had gone off to bed, Buffy was slumped in Angel’s lap, fast asleep.  Willow brought more drinks and joined Xander and Spike on the sofa, tucking her bare feet between Xander and the cushions to keep them warm.  He shifted to accommodate her, and Spike shifted to accommodate him, an extended bout of moving this way and that until they were all comfortable, all somehow touching.

“Have you told Xander?” Willow asked Spike, evidently very pleased with herself.

“Have you told Xander what?” Xander wanted to know.

“Said I’d – we’d – help out with the nasties.  When it makes sense, not when it…”

“That’s great, that really is.”

“Until the first time we’re covered in innards and shit, you’re forgetting that.”

“I’ll be cool.”

Spike waved a finger at Angel and Willow.

“I have witnesses.”

“Hey, when I’m busy or beat, you can let the Fan Club tag along.”

Spike rolled his eyes.

“Bloody Fan Club.”

“I thought you were going to clean out that nest,” Angel said, scowling at Spike until the scowl was redirected to Xander by Spike’s pointed look.

“I don’t want him to.”

“Vampires on your doorstep and you don’t want them dusted?” Angel…scowled.

Buffy suddenly sat up, still more asleep than awake, declaring:

“Dust the whole damn lot of them!”

“That’s right, hon, the whole damn lot,” Angel soothed, patting her hair.  “Now you just get your head back down.”  Buffy sighed contentedly, slumped and passed out.  “It’s an excellent suggestion,” Angel told Xander.

“I have my reasons.”

“They better be good,” Willow said darkly, “or I’ll come and deal with this Fan Club myself.”

Xander took a moment to think.

“Okay.  Every time in the past when we’ve seen a major nest wiped out what’s happened?  The guys who take over are always worse.  Always.  You don’t wipe out a family of demons and the Care Bears move in.  You get some freaking lunatic whose idea of a good time is magicking up an even bigger freaking lunatic and ending the world.”  He threw a look at Angel.  “No offence.”  Angel made a magnanimous gesture.  “If we get rid of the Fan Club we’ll end up in deeper shit than we are now.”

“We’re not in the shit,” Spike protested.  “I can handle them.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s the next point in my argument, the fact that you can keep them under control.  Saved me the trouble of convincing anyone, baby, thanks.”

“You have more points?”

Xander glanced at Willow, then back to Spike, unsure of how to explain the next part.  Everyone was looking at him expectantly.

“I also think…” Xander said with a deep breath, “that it’s good for there to be somewhere for Spike to go if…  It’s not like I think…  If…”  Xander gave up and shut up.

“You think I’d leave you and go to them?”

“No, I just…  You could be a Master with them, you could find something that’s missing from your life right now.  Treat them like…a theme park, day out.  Night out,” Xander corrected.

“I think you’d better change the subject,” Spike warned.

“But I didn’t mean…”

Spike growled and Xander clammed up.

There was a short uncomfortable silence before Willow poked Xander with her toes.

“Ask me what’s happening this week.”

“What’s happening this week?” Xander obliged, grinning at Willow’s swift bout of excited bouncing.

“New car.  The old one was crushed in the line of duty and the Council’s cheque for the new one just came through.”

“I’d have bought you a car, you only had to say.”

“You’re missing the point.  I wanted the Council to pay.”

“What are you thinking of?”

“Just something practical but new.”

Spike snorted in disgust.

“Practical.”

“We don’t all need such extravagant toys in our toy-boxes,” she pointed out with a very straight face.

“The Jag is not a toy,” Spike told her coolly, eyes narrowing to mean slits.

“Phallic symbolism at its worst.”

“And I certainly don’t need…”  The glare turned on Xander.  “You chose it, what were you trying to say?”

“I wasn’t trying to say anything.  Other than the usual,” Xander’s voice dropped, feeling suddenly bashful in front of his friends.

“The usual,” Spike mused.  “The usual…”

“You happy with the Jag?” Xander asked quickly, hoping to divert Spike from anything too embarrassing.

“You know I am,” Spike assured him, expression softening.

“Why did you let me choose?”

Spike shrugged.

“I had more on my mind at the time.”

“If I said pick a car, right now, what would you pick?”

“I like the Jag.”

“So, I got it right,” Xander smiled smugly.  “Cool car.”

“I’d make any car look cool.”

“I am in awe of your inherent modesty.”

“There’s a but,” Willow interjected, and they turned to her.  “I know that face, there’s a but, or an and, possibly an also.”

Xander turned back to Spike.

“And?”

Spike was quiet for a moment, contemplative, running a finger over Xander’s wrist.

“I might’ve used it as a measure of how you thought of me,” he eventually said.

“A measure?”

“What you thought I was worth.”

Xander drew breath to protest but Angel got in first.

“And what did Xander think you were worth?”

Spike smiled a difficult smile to himself before meeting Xander’s eyes.

“Much more than I did.  Anyone did.”

A pained expression flickered over Spike’s face and he looked away.

“Spike…”

The vampire was up and gone before Xander could manage another word.

Xander rose quickly to follow, waving at Willow for her to stay put.  He found Spike on the porch, trapped by the darkness beyond the pool of light from the lamp.  His frustration was visible, and Xander approached cautiously.

“Xander.”  A softly spoken recognition.

Xander took Spike’s hand and led him along the path and onto the patch of grass that ran from beneath Willow’s windows to the sidewalk.  They stopped in the glow of the streetlight, Xander taking Spike’s face in his hands and gently kissing his mouth.

“You want to talk?  Or we done talking for the night?”

“Feeling…”  Spike couldn’t explain, and shrugged it away.

“It’s okay.  You’ve been…”  The loss of words was evidently catching.  Xander did his own shrug and Spike smiled, linking his arms around Xander’s waist and bringing him close.

“Know what?”

“What?”

“I made you come back here and accept it, and…”  He smiled again at the curiosity on Xander’s face.  “I hate this place.  Everything about it.  How it looks, how it smells, how it sounds.  What it represents, for you, me, us.”

“We never have to come back.”

“Is that true?”

“I’ll try to make it true.”

Spike thought over the offer, but knew it would be unfair to ask such a thing of Xander because the human would try too hard to stick to it, whatever the personal cost.

“No.”

“No?”  Xander waited for some kind of explanation but there was none.  Instead, he was kissed softly and repeatedly amidst murmurs of emotional love, and the promise of physical.  “Let’s go inside.”

Spike took his time thinking before he nodded.

“Just to get our coats and some stakes.”

“You want to go out?  Now?”

“There’s time before sun up.”

In the Merc; Xander drove, Spike navigated.  Xander didn’t recognise the wooded area where they stopped, but climbed from the car and took an industrial flashlight from the trunk before following Spike into thick undergrowth.

“What are you looking for?” he asked as he watched Spike searching the ground.

“Everything’s overgrown.”

“Yeah, but what’s overgrown that you’re looking for?”

Spike carried on looking in determined silence before giving a shout of triumph.

“Gimme a hand, love.”

Xander placed the flashlight on the ground close by and helped Spike drag open a moss-infested hatch cover.  The waft of sour air made him recoil.

“What is this?”

Xander retrieved the flashlight and pointed it into the dark, illuminating an nondescript concrete passageway.

“Give me the lamp and I’ll go first.”

“I am not going in there until you explain.”

Spike sat back on the grass and studied Xander, head tilting as he took in the anxious face.

“This is the part of the Initiative complex the White Hats never found.”  Anxiety transmuted to horror and Xander peered back down the hole.  “There were rumours.  After you left and I…  When I began hitting the bars again I heard rumours and came looking.”

“I can’t believe you went back in there.”

“Didn’t matter at the time.  I had nothing to lose, did I?  I was already wishing I was dead.  Deader.  And you know what a nosy bastard I am.  C’mon, I want to show you.”

“But do I want to see?”

“No,” Spike admitted apologetically, and Xander knew there was no choice.

Xander swallowed hard, handed over the flashlight, and followed the vampire as he disappeared into the passageway.  Five minutes of plain corridors and Spike turned off, taking Xander’s hand and leading him through several doors with broken locks until they arrived at their destination.

“Power was still on,” Spike muttered as he fiddled around with a control box on the wall.  “Just enough for emergency lighting.”

As he finished speaking the area was filled with a dim yellow glow.  Spike switched off the flashlight and handed it back to Xander, once again taking the free hand and guiding him to an avenue of cells similar to the one Spike had been kept in all those years ago.

“I thought this was all destroyed.”

“The main area, in that direction,” Spike pointed off to his right, “was destroyed.  None of us knew about this.”

“More holding cells?”

They approached the first and Xander peered in through the scored and beaten, but intact, glass wall.  In the far corner were the indistinguishable remains of a large creature.

“Nearly all of these cells are occupied.  Some of the poor buggers were still alive when I found them, but without the access code for the cells I couldn’t get in to set them free or finish them off.”

“They starved to death?”

“Yeah.  D’know how long it took for them all to die.  Years.”

“That’s…”

“Inhumane?” Spike finished for Xander with a wry smile.  “No-one does inhumanity like humans.”  He squeezed Xander’s hand.  “C’mon, that’s not what I wanted to show you.”

Spike tugged Xander along, determined not to let him look in too many of the cells, and soon they were in a large room lined with deep shelves.  On the shelves were specimen jars in various sizes, amorphous shapes floating in pink-tinged fluid.  Xander hung back, glancing to Spike for guidance.

“Have a look.”

“What are they, what’s in there?”

“A future that never happened.”

Xander clicked on the flashlight and crossed to the first stack of jars, fixing the beam of light on the largest.  He couldn’t prevent the automatic recoil, letting out a small shocked noise at what he saw.

“Fucking hell,” was all he could say when he could speak.

Spike joined him.

“Breeding programme.  These are all demon/human hybrids.”

“No.”

“Just walked into the X Files, didn’t we?  ‘Cept this is real.  Was real.”  Spike ran his hand over the cold glass, stopping to rest a finger over the loosely balled hand of the warped creature within the jar.  “None of these were full term, you can tell.  Probably spontaneous abortions and hardly surprising.  Fancy having that inside you?  Doesn’t matter how devoted to the cause you are, what you’re paid or promised, how good a host you’re trying to be.  Your body’d turn itself inside-out to get rid of it.”

“I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Spike turned to Xander and gently rubbed his back.

“Don’t blame you, but save it for the bundle of joy over here.”

Spike gestured and Xander reluctantly moved along, taking Spike’s arm and holding on grimly as they studied another wretchedly deformed foetus.

“Why this one?”

“Couldn’t find anything that said how they managed to get the DNA, but I’d take a bloody good guess.”  At Xander’s frown, Spike tipped the jar so Xander could read the label on the lid.  Xander did, seconds before he spun away and was violently sick.  Spike nodded.  “Just how it got me.”  He ran his finger over the only box on the label that contained a name rather than a number, and the name was ‘Buffy Summers’.

As they re-emerged into the cool night air, Xander took a deep breath and stared up at a sky that was showing the very first hint of dawn.

“We have to hurry,” he told Spike, still somewhat breathlessly.

“Only ten minutes from the car, love, no need to worry.”

Xander accepted that, waited patiently for Spike to close the hatch, then grabbed his hand as they began to walk.

“You never told anyone.”

“Would you have?  It was over by then.”

“Jesus, Spike, it’s so fucking horrible.  Why now?  Why me?”

“Because it’s been a hard weight to bear alone.”

“We should have destroyed the evidence, if Buffy ever found out…”

Spike dropped Xander’s hand and dipped into his duster pocket, bringing out and displaying the label from that last jar before tearing it into innumerable pieces.

“Know what it shows me, Xander?  That I’m not ashamed of what I am.”

“I’m glad, you shouldn’t be.”

“I can accept the freaking lunatics that want to destroy the world more easily than I can accept the freaking lunatics who want to preserve it and infest it with…whatever those abominations were destined to be.”

Xander shuddered and reached out for Spike’s hand once more, gripping it tightly as they walked in silence for several minutes.

“Thank God they’re dead,” Xander said suddenly.  “The…the people who did that.  Thank God they’re dead.”

“God?  No, pet, nothing so unearthly.  We all had a hand here, didn’t we?  Then, finally for those bastards, it was you.  Something for you to be proud of, even if it means the chip stays in because only these fuckers knew how to get it out and they’re all dead.  It was you that finished them off.  You and Angel.”  Spike smiled, raised Xander’s hand and kissed it.  “We’re quite a family.”

…

They discussed their family all the way back to Willow’s, not wanting to dwell on other, brutal topics.  Soon they were in their room, looking forward to the warmth and comfort of being together in bed.

“What do you think of Dawn’s guy?” Xander asked as they undressed.  Spike grinned and shook his head.  “What?  What else have I missed?”

“You mean…?  Haven’t you noticed?” Spike asked incredulously.

“Noticed what?”

“He’s Xander mark two.”

“No, he’s not,” Xander scornfully dismissed.

“Oh, come off it, love…”

“There’s only one of me and that’s me and Dawnie knows it.  Maybe you’re looking at a type, but that’s all it is.  He’s not me mark two, he’s not pod Xander, not the sequel, he’s not the attack of the clone…”

“Yes, all right, give it a rest.  He’s a type.”

“Just a type.  There are plenty of other men in the world with dark brown hair and brown eyes, it’s just coincidence that Dawnie has one of them.”

“You should be flattered.”

“Fuck off.”

Xander climbed into bed and turned his back on Spike, burrowing down and sulking.  After a few minutes he felt a delicate caress, fingers combing through his hair.

“You’re absolutely unique.”  Tender words he needed to hear.  “The most extraordinary, incomparable individual I’ve ever known.  I don’t blame the Nibblet for wanting as close to that as she can get.”

“Don’t say anything to her,” Xander said, voice muffled by the covers.

“Not planning on taking the piss, if that’s what you mean.  Not going to gloat over having the original and best.  I want her happy, and if that means shutting up about the Xanderbot I can do it.”

Spike eased Xander onto his back, sliding over his body and settling comfortably.  His hands travelled lovingly over the hot flesh as his mouth found Xander’s, and his kisses were as tender as his touches; teasing tongue, teasing fingertips.  He smiled at the protracted groan from his lover, riding the thrusts and undulations of Xander’s body so that their hard cocks never more than brushed.  Xander tore his lips from Spike’s, burying his hands in the vampire’s hair and using the grip to press Spike’s mouth to his neck.

“Mark me.  Where everyone will see it.  Mark me.”

Spike shook off the hold and laid a trail of kisses up to Xander’s ear, nipping the lobe.

“Next you’ll be wanting to fuck me, I suppose,” Spike whispered.  “You’re such a wicked human, the things you do to this poor, defenceless vampire.  Stretching me open with that lovely, fat cock of yours, and me so tight.  Rubbing and rubbing inside me, the places that make me weak, keeping me longing for more.  Keeping me desperate for the heat of your spunk inside me, making me come for you over and…”

Xander turned them in a swift move he’d stolen from Spike, positioning himself between readily opening legs, groping under the pillow for the lubricant he’d put there in anticipation.

“I have to fuck you.  You drive me wild, Spike, fucking wild.”

“You’ll bite me too?” Spike asked, hoarse with the onset of sheer lust, shivering with delight at the rough introduction of Xander’s slippery fingers.  “Claim me.”

“That what you want?  Here?”

“Need.  Here.”

Xander knew he should ask Spike about the importance of ‘here’, but right now all that seemed to matter was the reassurance of the physical.

Spike released a long, low moan as Xander entered him, until the moan became words, a mantra of Xander’s name.  Both in the mood for as much contact as possible, Xander lowered himself onto Spike, skin to skin, further aroused by the sensation of the vampire’s erection trapped between them.  One prolonged, intense kiss occupied their mouths, inhaling one another’s gasps and moans as they worked together for their release.

Close enough and their lips separated, sliding wetly to necks, sucking and licking before the moment of orgasmic frenzy when teeth clamped or nicked, bodies pumped, when blood and semen was spilt.

“Claimed, sweetheart,” Xander whispered.  “All mine.”

“All yours,” Spike agreed, feeling a little more rescued from his past.

“Gonna tell me why it matters here?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Xander accepted, already half asleep and fading fast.  He tried to move but failed miserably.  “Can I stay here?”

“Yes, do that.”

“Thank you, Spike, you really are the best…”  The words slurred to a halt, rapidly replaced by the deep, reassuring breaths of sleep.

Spike leant his head against Xander’s and closed his eyes, listening with great affection to his lover’s ridiculously noisy body, and wishing he were hearing it in their own bed, secure and contented in their own home.

…

Sunday afternoon.  After scribbling a note for his still–sleeping vampire, Xander managed to leave the house, thankfully unnoticed.  He drove to his parents’ home.  Or rather the empty lot that used to be his parents’ home.  Everything was gone.  After the fire the area had been cleared and bulldozed flat.  He wandered around the site, imagining where he would be in the house.  Hallway, living room, kitchen.  Basement: flashback.  A damned pretty vampire tied to a chair.  A damned pretty vampire who wouldn’t have put up a fight, allegedly, if his warder had touched him, sucked him, ridden him.  He was trying to cope with one of the worst things that had ever happened to him and I was an ass.  I didn’t even try to understand.  I could have…  A second flashback: Spike with a gun in his hand, swinging the weapon in a circle, clutching his chipped head when he pointed it at Xander because of the overwhelming desire to pull the trigger.  Xander shook his head and gave an affectionate laugh.  Back to now: there were boards over the basement entrance and Xander wondered about prising them up to take a look, but what was the point?  That part of his life was indisputably over.

Back in the car he took a slow drive up the road, pausing momentarily outside the house of the man who taught him about flowers.  He noticed that cracks had appeared in the concrete drive that had smothered the garden, and sprigs of green were creeping through.  He grinned.  Then he laughed.  He hoped it was rosemary. Rosemary for remembrance.

He toured the streets around the hospital, fairly sure that this was the one place he’d find a florists open, and he was right.  He bought several bunches of flowers and took a meandering drive to the cemetery that contained his parents’ grave.

His thoughts wandered to parents and children, the love that did or didn’t exist.  And, although he was trying for denial, attempting to push the gruesome knowledge of early morning discoveries to a place in his mind where he’d never have to address them again, he found himself wondering.  About the basic biology of parents and children.  Basic attachments.  If Buffy – who was desperate for Dawn to have kids to share because she knew she’d never have her own – could have loved that thing in the jar.  She’d contributed no more than a few cells, hadn’t carried it, but if it had lived and she’d found out, come face-to-face with it…  If she’d seen a glimpse of herself…  Xander shuddered and tried to put the image of that poor, unfortunate mite in the jar from his mind.

Then he was at the cemetery and his thoughts rearranged themselves.  It took him some time to get out of the car, and more than once he almost left, but eventually he took up the flowers and walked along the pathway that ran beside the most recent graves, looking for the stone from Spike’s photograph.  When he saw it he froze.  Real then.  Real.  The last few steps were weighed down with sorrow, anger, guilt…  Was this me?  Did I do this?  …hatred, longing.  Love?  Memories pounded at him and after the first few minutes he gave up trying to fight them off, letting them wash over him, hoping to experience the good – there had to be some good, surely? – in all the bad.  He methodically went through the motions, fresh flowers in place of dead, cleaning up the area a little, before sinking onto the brutally shorn grass, cross-legged, head resting on a hand, sifting through memories and more.  Was this me?  Did I do this?  The worst came and went, leaving him clinging to the brief moments of laughter or friendship he’d shared with his mother.

“I forgive you, Mom,” he whispered.  “It doesn’t matter whether you cared or not at the end.  I think you might have once.  So…”

For a long time that was all Xander could find to say.  So he said nothing.  He just…felt.

Dusk.  As expected, Xander heard a motor, car door, footsteps; recognised the light, affectionate touch to the top of his head before Spike sat down beside him, instantly taking his hand.

“All right, love?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice flowers.”  Xander nodded.  “Pink carnations.  What are you saying?”

“I’ll never forget you.”

“Roses.  Love?”

“That dark a red is for mourning.”

“Is this heather?”

Xander nodded again.

“I was surprised to find that.”  Spike waited.  “White heather is for protection.”

“Bit late for that.”

“Maybe.  Maybe not.”

After more silence, Xander drew himself up with a deep breath.  His hand tightened around Spike’s.

“Mom, Dad, this is Spike.  Probably a shock, but he’s my boyfriend.  He’s more than that, but boyfriend’ll do.  I’m happy with him.  It’s not always easy but…  Spike’s made me happier than I’ve ever been.  I guess you   don’t approve.  I guess I don’t care.”  He turned to Spike with a smile.  “Get me up, I think I’m frozen in   place.”  Spike rose with his usual agility, hauling Xander to his feet and rubbing stiff joints for him.  “Who drove you?”

“Dawn.”

“She waiting?”

“No, I said I’d be with you.”

Taking Spike’s hand again, Xander looked down at the grave.

“I won’t be back.  I’ll try to be good, make you proud.  I’ll even try to love you.”  He paused, swallowed hard.  “Bye, Mom.  Bye, Dad.  Bye.”

They walked back to the Merc without another word, climbed in, and headed for Willow’s.  All Xander could think of now was home.  His home, not this.

“You want to stick around?” he asked Spike.  “Make with the friendly?”

Spike studied him, took a good guess.

“Better get going.  Work tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

“What for?”

“You know.”

“Xander…  There are questions I want to ask about your pre-me life.”

“Don’t want to go there.”  Spike fiddled with the CD holder but didn’t make any choices.  The lack of protest or argument was more effective at wearing down Xander’s resolve than any debate.  “One question.  One answer.  Because I don’t want you to feel like I’m shutting you out.”

Spike thought it was a pretty good deal, one something instead of a total nothing, so he sat back and thought about his one question.  Xander kept driving, past Willow’s, not wanting to be there when Spike finally asked.

“Pull over.”  Xander did.  “Change places.”  Xander did.  Spike started the car and cruised.  Xander waited in fearful anticipation, staring apprehensively at his partner and receiving an apologetic smile.  “Was it punishment or convenience?  Being tied up?” Spike asked, and braced himself for the fallout.

Repossession 80       Repossession Index       Repossession Notes

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