November 2003:

When Spike pulled the Harley into the garage after the long trip back from Big Sur, Buffy jumped off and raced into the house . . . she really had to go . . . now!  Spike grabbed the few things from the saddlebags and followed behind her a couple of minutes later. 

Annie met him as he came in door from the garage.  “Papa!  Papa!” she exclaimed excitedly as she threw herself at him.  “I got crabs!!”

Spike dropped the stuff he was carrying on the table just inside the door, caught her under the arms and lifted her up into a hug. “What’d you say, Niblett?” he asked, brows knit in confusion.

“I got crabs!” Annie repeated.  “Wanna see?”

“What the bloody hel- - ck are you on about?!” Spike was trying to be good, he really, really was.  But, after a century plus of saying “bloody hell,” it isn’t something you can just stop saying in a day, or a week, or even a year!

“BAD WORD!” Annie exclaimed, holding her hand out for her penny.

“WAS NOT!” Spike argued carrying her as he walked further into the great room.  “And you’re changin’ the subject.  What ‘ave you got?”

“Crabs!” Annie confirmed.  “I’ll show you!” she said, squirming to get down.

“CRABS?” Spike repeated back to her, a look of utter concern and confusion on his face.  “Who the bloody h - - eck said you had crabs!?”

“Aunt Willow and Aunt Tara!” Annie told him as she continued squirming to get down.

“WHAT?!!”  Spike exclaimed, holding her tighter and not allowing her down.  What ‘ave those two been smokin’? he thought, before asking, “Did you tell your Mum!?”

“No, she had to pee,” Annie informed him.

“Bloody hell . . . BUFFY!  Where the bloody hell are you?!”  Spike exclaimed as he carried Annie towards the first floor bathroom where he assumed Buffy had gone.

“BAD WORD!” Annie exclaimed, but Spike just ignored her and kept walking.

Buffy emerged from the bathroom feeling oh so much better.  The baby seemed to want to do nothing but kick her bladder for the last ten miles of their trip home.

“Spike, what is it?” Buffy asked him as she walked towards him and Annie.

"You won't believe what those crazy bints have been tellin' our daughter!" he said, looking as if he was about ready to kill Willow and Tara.  

 

“Tell her,” he said to Annie.

“I got crabs!!” Annie told her excitedly, a huge smile on her face as Spike set her down.

“I’m pretty sure they have an ointment for that now,” Buffy said as she bit her bottom lip to keep from laughing.

“Are you off your gourd or have you all  been smokin’ some wacky-witch weed!?” Spike asked, looking at her like she’d lost her last marble.

“They told her she’s got fucking crabs!” he exclaimed as he held one finger up to Annie to stop her from saying “BAD WORD!”

“Have you seen them?” Buffy asked. 

“There’s nothing to bloody well see! It’s a load of bollocks is what it is!” Spike said, keeping his finger raised to Annie as she folded her arms across her chest and stuck her bottom lip out in a pout worthy of a Summers girl.

Buffy crinkled her nose up and said, “Maybe you should just take a look, anyway, honey.”  Buffy knelt down to Annie’s level and said, “Show Papa your crabs, sweet girl.”

Annie grabbed Spike’s hand and began tugging him towards the research area.  Spike allowed her to pull him along but looked back at Buffy with confusion as she trailed behind them.

“See!!”  Annie exclaimed as she led Spike to a low table that had been set up at the end of a row of bookcases. “Bert and Ernie!  They’re my crabs!”

Spike looked at what Annie was trying to show him . . . they were . . . crabs.  Hermit crabs if he wasn’t mistaken . . . actual, live Hermit crabs in an aquarium.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath.  He turned to Buffy. “You KNEW about this?” he asked, waving his arm towards the aquarium.

Buffy burst out laughing and nodded her head, unable to speak.  The look of utter confusion and dismay on Spike’s face was priceless. 

“You bloody women,” he muttered to himself, looking back at the aquarium that housed the two Hermit crabs.  “What the bloody hel-ck are they for?”

“They’re my pets, Bert and Ernie!” Annie said, picking one of them up and offering it to Spike to hold.

Spike backed up a step from her and held his hands up to keep her from putting the crab in his palm. “Crabs are NOT PETS,” he informed her. “They’re sushi.”

Just then, Willow and Tara came down the stairs, hearing the last of the conversation.  “NOT SUSHI!” Willow exclaimed.  “They’re Annie’s pets!”

As the witches came up next to Annie and Spike, Willow took the crab that Annie had in her hand and held it up towards Spike.  “You said we couldn’t get a kitten . . . you never said anything about crabs,” Willow informed him.

“Have you lot lost all your bleedin’ marbles?” he asked, sweeping his arm around to encompass all the women and Annie.  “Why would you want crabs as pets?”

Willow gave “Bert” (or was it “Ernie”? It was hard to tell . . .) back to Annie before answering Spike. “All the books say that it’s important to instill a sense of responsibility in children. Having pets is one of the best ways to do that . . . and, since we couldn’t get a kitten . . .” Willow shrugged and looked at Spike, like – it’s your fault for saying we couldn’t get a kitten – so there!

 

“I never had a bloody pet when I was a boy! See how well I turned out?” Spike pointed out.

“Yeah – ‘William the Bloody’, kinda proves my point, doesn’t it?” Willow told him with a small smile and raised brows.

“Buffy!! Tell them . . .” Spike turned to his wife who was still smiling from the amusement of Annie telling Spike she had crabs.

Buffy shrugged and folded her arms across her chest.  “A kitten would be a lot more fluffy and cuddly than crabs . . .” she pointed out, tilting her head to the side and giving him her best determined face.

Spike looked around at the women surrounding him.  They ALL had their arms folded across their chest and determined looks on their faces, including Annie.

Spike bent his head forward as he shook it slowly and rubbed his hand on the back of neck in defeat. “Fine! Fine!  Have your kitten, then!  But I better not hear ‘P-U-S-S-Y’ one bloody time from that girl’s mouth!” he told them – pointing to Annie.

“No fair spellin’!” Annie said, stomping her foot and sticking her bottom lip out even further.  “What does it mean?”

“It means, we get a kitty!” Willow said brightly, thinking that she better get a top to put on Bert and Ernie’s aquarium so the kitty didn’t turn them into sushi.

**~**

Spike was lying on his back, his eyes closed with his arms folded behind his head for a pillow, as the sun warmed his face, bare chest, legs and feet. The Gem of Amarra had completely changed their lives. Now he really could be what Buffy deserved . . . a man that could be with her in her world . . . in the light . . . rather than making her live in his world of darkness.

He had a silly grin plastered on his face as he listened to the waves crash against the shore a few feet away.  The ocean smelled wonderfully fresh and clean, and even though the water was really too cold to go swimming in this time of year (at least for humans), it was a warm day and the beach was a wonderful place to have a nice, relaxing picnic and soak up some sun. 

Just him and Buffy . . . and Annie . . . and Xander and Anya . . . and Willow and Tara.  Yeah, it was a whole “family” outing.  The only one that refused to go to the beach was Giles, begging off saying he didn’t have any proper swim trunks . . . and he had a strict policy against showing his bare legs in public, anyway.

A shadow blocked the sun from Spike’s face and, when he opened his eyes, he saw Buffy standing over him.

“What’re you all smiley about?” she asked him.

“Just watchin’ you, luv,” he told her as he looked up at her.

“You had your eyes closed, doofus,” she pointed out.

“I could see you if I was blind,” he informed her as he reached a hand out and touched her leg where she stood over him; the smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Buffy smiled and shook her head as she knelt down beside him.  “Well, you better let me put some more sunblock on you or you’ll go from ‘freckle boy’ to ‘crispy critter’ before long - like the rest of the pale-faced foreigners around here.”

Spike sat up and Buffy lathered his back with sunblock as he did his chest and legs.  He normally wouldn’t wear shorts . . . but he thought that, since it was the beach, that wearing swim trunks wouldn’t damage his image too much. Buffy got him some like the kids wore these days, fairly long and baggy and slung low on his thin hips. Plus, he figured if Xander could wear swim trunks . . . well, that would just make Spike look all the better in his.

As Buffy rubbed the lotion all over his back, Spike watched the kids on the beach run along the edge of the water and toss their skim boards down before jumping on them and skim-surfing in the shallow water. The better ones rode their boards out into the breakers, turned on the first wave, and surfed back to shore.  Spike laughed when one of the boys fell flat on his face and the girl he was trying to impress rolled her eyes and walked away.

“I suppose you could do better?” Buffy asked him as she finished lathering his back with SPF-50.

“Pfffftttt!” Spike snorted. “In a heartbeat!”

“Have you ever seen a skim board before, Spike?” Buffy asked him as she stood back up.

“Doesn’t matter.  Just basic strength, balance and timing. ‘S no different than fightin’ or dancin’ or lovin’ . . . and I can do those well enough,” he told her with a sly smile.

“Uh-huh,” Buffy responded slowly as she watched the kids run, throw the skim boards then jump on them and glide across the thin layer of water where the waves met the sand. She’d seen more than one bite the dust . . . or the sand, as it were; it really wasn’t as easy as it looked.

“Hey guys!” Buffy called out to the others. “Wanna see Spike skim board?”

“YEAH!!” Annie cried as she ran up to her parents, her big blue eyes dancing in anticipation.

“Don’ have a board, luv,” he informed them.

Buffy smiled and quickly scanned the beach before walking over to where a few of the boys with the small boards were standing around talking.  She gave them her best smile and said something that Spike couldn’t hear over the waves breaking on the shore, and one of the boys handed her his board.

Bloody hell, Spike thought.

“Ok, surfer boy . . . hear ya go,” Buffy said as she walked back up to Spike and held the board out to him.  “Let’s see whatcha got.”

By now, the whole gang had gathered around to see what was going on . . . all eyes turned to Spike as Buffy held the board out to him.

Spike pursed his lips together and raised his chin, putting on his best “Big Bad” look before standing up and taking the board from her hands. 

“Maybe Harris would like to go first . . .” Spike offered, knowing that anything Xander did would make Spike look like the best skim-boarder in the world.

Xander backed up waving his hands in front of him.  “Oh no, big guy.  You’re on your own with this one!” Xander informed him.

“You don’ think I can do it, do you?” he asked, looking at Buffy.

“I DO! Show ‘em Papa!” Annie exclaimed excitedly jumping up and down.

“Please do show us . . .” Buffy smiled at him and waved her hand towards the shore.

Spike rolled his head slowly around and tilted it from side to side, as if getting a kink out of his neck, before he positioned the board in his hands the way he’d watched the better boarders do it.

“Just watch,” he told her as he took off running in the surf.  Spike dropped the board and jumped on it, bending his knees to lower his center of gravity and holding his arms out for balance.  Annie squealed in delight as Spike hit the board and starting gliding over the shallow water gracefully before slowing and finally coming to a stop.  Spike stepped off the board and picked it up . . . a look of utter victory on his face – as if he’d just slain the nastiest beastie in the world – as he sauntered back to where Buffy and the others were standing.

Buffy laughed and clapped her hands before giving him a big bow when he got back to the group.  “Why did I ever doubt you?” she said smiling when she stood back up.

“Don’ know when you’ll learn, luv.  I can do anythin’,” he told her.

“Do it again!!” Annie exclaimed. “Do it again, Papa!!”

“Well, the boy prob’ly wants his board back . . .” Spike started, not wanting to press his luck.

“Do it again!” Annie said again, jumping up and down in excitement.

“C’mon Spike. Do one of those where you go into the wave and flip around and ride it back to shore like a real surfer,” Anya said, pointing to one of the boys down the beach doing just that.

“Yeah! Do that!” Annie squealed tugging on Spike’s arm.

Bloody Christ, Spike thought as he turned and watched the boy that Anya was pointing at.

Buffy caught Spike’s eye and cocked a brow at him. “You can do anythin’,” she said to him in a poor imitation of his accent.

“Fine!” Spike said, shaking his head quickly from side to side and curling one lip slightly in a confident smirk.

Spike walked closer to the boy that Anya had pointed out and paid attention to what he was doing and how he was doing it before turning back to his “groupies” with a confident look.  “Fortune favors the brave,” he muttered to himself before taking a deep breath to steady himself.

Spike tossed the board into the surf, this time at an angle going out towards the waves rather than parallel to them, and ran after it.  Jumping on as he had before and balancing himself, he rode the board into the deeper water and up onto the face of the first wave.  When he pressed his back foot down and leaned his body over to make the board turn back towards shore, the board flew out from under him and he crashed down into the cold water.

Buffy burst out laughing, as did all his other “groupies” . . . even Annie had to laugh.  

 “I KNEW you could do it!” Annie exclaimed as she reached up to give him a hug.

“That’s my girl!” he said as he picked her up and returned the hug.

“You CAN do anything!” Annie concluded, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Spike laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, long as I got you to cheer me on, Niblett.”