Moments later...

Buffy gasped, her eyes widening. “What?” she asked in an excited whisper. “Are you sure?”

Spike pulled a stake out of the pocket of his duster and handed it to Buffy. He began walking along the porch again, heading for the front of the house.

“Spike? Are you sure?” she asked again as she followed behind him closely, her eyes darting around trying to catch a glimpse of movement or perhaps a flash of white teeth or eyes in the darkness.

Spike took in a deep, exasperated breath and let it out loudly.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “What does she want?”

“How the bloody hell do I know? Haven’t seen the bint since …” Spike let his voice trail off, leaving the end of that sentence unsaid but understood: since he’d chained his sire and his Slayer up in his crypt.

As they rounded the front of the house Buffy could see better. The road in front of their house was illuminated with streetlights. The soft glow filtered through the leaves of the oak tree to provide some glimmers of light in their yard. As Buffy scanned the area, she could feel the tinglies at the back of her neck waning. “She’s leaving.”

Spike pressed his tongue against his teeth, relaxed his stance, and nodded. “For now.”

**~**

“How did she find us? What could she possibly want?” Buffy asked when they’d gone back inside the house. She turned the lock on the back door firmly before flipping the light on and looking at Spike expectantly.

Spike shook his head and ran a hand through his already sleep-disheveled hair. “Last time she came around she wanted t’ get her family back together,” he divulged, grabbing a beer out of the fridge and sitting down at the table with it.

“Oh, great … she wants you,” Buffy moaned. “Well, she can’t have you. If Dawn were here she’d tell you: I don’t share my stuff, and you, Mister, are mine.”

Spike smiled around the neck of the beer bottle, taking a long swallow of the amber liquid. ”You’ll protect me from the mean, ole vampire, then? Keep m’ squeaky-clean reputation unsullied?”

Buffy leaned her back against the counter, crossed her arms over her chest, and scowled at him. “I’m not kidding, Spike. I know she’s your … that you lo… that you spent a long time with her, but, I’ll dust her if she comes near my family.”

Buffy suddenly became worried and her next question came out shy and unsure. “You … you don’t want to go with her … do you? I mean … I know this life must be … boring and she’s all exotic and evil-having and all. And your chip is gone, so you could … you know … be that again.”

Spike’s expression became somber. He set his beer down, stood up from the table, and stalked across the short distance to where she stood. He placed a hand on the counter on each side of Buffy, trapping her, and leaned in, his mouth hovering just an inch away from hers. “I don’t love her, Buffy. I love you. I’m not bored. I spend my days and nights with you and our bits, it’s more than I’d ever dreamed I’d have.

“Can’t change that she’s my sire, but my loyalty – my heart and soul – is here with you and the bits. You’re my family now – not her. You gotta know that, yeah?”

Buffy closed her eyes and gave him a small nod of her head.

As if to punctuate his declaration, Spike pressed his lips to hers gently, a sweet, chaste kiss. He pulled back only slightly and leaned his forehead against hers. “I’ll take care of it if she comes back,” he assured her.

Buffy frowned but nodded. She unfolded her arms and wrapped them around his waist, settling her head on his shoulder. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. She’s dangerous.”

“I can handle Dru, pet. You seem t' forget: I’m dangerous too.”

**~**

A couple of nights later…

Buffy crept out of the back door onto the porch and strained her eyes to find Spike, but she couldn’t see him. She gave up on that and tried to pinpoint him with her Slayer senses. After spending so much time with him, the tinglies that a vamp of his power would normally produce had become subdued to her senses, but she could still feel him, especially if she concentrated.

What she noted as she skulked quietly around the corner of the house and toward the front yard, was that she didn’t feel any other vamps about – so what was Spike doing outside? Her question was answered when she came around to the front of the house. In the glow of the streetlamps, she could see Spike walking around the yard picking up … something and putting the ‘somethings’ into a big, black garbage bag. She looked all around her again, including out in the street, and tried to sense the presence of any other nasties about, but didn’t feel anything. She furrowed her brow. Spike was doing yard work in the middle of the night?

She walked down the front steps and along the walkway, placing herself in his line of vision if he looked up, but he continued to keep his eyes down, scanning the dark ground. Every once in a while, he would reach down and pick something up, then stuff it into the bag.

“Ya know, if I was a bad guy, I could’ve dusted you by now,” Buffy informed him after about a minute of being ignored.

“If you were a bad guy, you wouldn’t have just walked up and stood there letting me smell you and hear your heartbeat,” Spike replied calmly. “Go back t’ bed, Slayer. I’ll be up in a bit.”

Buffy frowned. “What are you doing?”

“Cleanin’ up.”

“Could you vague that up for me a little more?” Buffy wondered.

Spike sighed and stopped, finally looking up at her. “Dru left us some … presents.”

Buffy’s agitation faded and was replaced with worry. “What? She was here again?” she asked, stepping forward off the stone path and onto the cool, damp grass.

“Best stay on the walk, pet,” Spike advised. “If ya don’t wanna step in…”

“Ewwww! What … what is…?” Buffy questioned, lifting her foot up from a puddle of something wet and sticky.

“…blood,” Spike finished.

“What?!? … Ewww! She dumped blood in our yard?” Buffy exclaimed, backing up.

Spike sighed. “Not quite … left us some … gifts wrapped in blood,” he answered.

“What kind of gifts? Spike, tell me,” Buffy insisted as she stepped back onto the walkway and tried to wipe her foot off on the hard surface.

“Innards …”

“Innards?” Buffy repeated. “As in … the gooey insides of …?” she waited, but Spike didn’t immediately take up the dangling question. “Dogs? Cats?” she provided hopefully.

“Humans,” he admitted grudgingly.

“Oh, my God. Humans – plural? How many … what … is she out of her fucking mind?” Buffy exclaimed, suddenly angry.

“Well, yeah, you could say that, pet,” Spike agreed as he picked up something long and snake-like from the grass and threaded it into the bag.

“Oh, my God,” Buffy repeated, feeling bile rise in her throat. “Why? Why would she …” Buffy stopped and looked at Spike. “She’s trying to tempt you back … back to human blood … back to…”

“‘S not working,” Spike assured her, picking up something else from the lawn that Buffy couldn’t identify and tossing it into the bag. It made a wet, squelching sound when it landed with the other … presents in there.

“Did … did you see her?” Buffy wondered. “Did she say anything?”

Spike shook his head as he continued scanning the dark yard. “Felt ‘er. By the time I got outside, she’d scarpered. This was all that was left.

“Go on back inside, Slayer. I’ll get this, then I’m gonna try and follow her scent, see if I can get the location of her lair,” Spike instructed.

“Alone? No. No … that’s not happening. I’ll go with you,” Buffy insisted.

“No. I told ya I’d take care o’ it and I will,” Spike countered, looking up at her. “I can handle Dru. She’s my problem, not yours.

“You need to stay ‘ere with the bits in case I can’t get back ‘fore sunup. They’ll need ya. Joan’ll try and make ‘em eat Grapenuts and clabber or somethin’ if you’re not ‘ere.”

 Buffy felt her teeth grind together. “Spike,” she began to protest.

“I let you sing your little solo ditty out in Sunnyhell, now you gotta let me, Buffy,” he interrupted her sternly.

“Actually, you didn’t – you sent Joan with me,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, well, this is gonna take a bit more finesse and stealth, pet. Trust me, Buffy, I can handle ‘er.”

Buffy sighed, rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest: the trio of doom.

Spike set the heavy bag down and carefully walked over to stand right in front of her. “I’m askin’ ya to trust me on this, pet,” he said softly, dipping his head so his eyes were on a level with hers. Enough light shone through the oak leaves that Buffy could see the conviction in them.

“You think I can’t handle myself,” she asserted.

“Bollocks. Can’t deny that I worry ‘bout you, but I know you can bloody well handle yourself, pet. Just don’t want to leave the bits alone, Buffy. Think about it. We got more to consider than just the two of us now,” he reasoned.

“If it was just us, then I say: yeah, let’s go storm the bloody Bastille, make a right row of it. But it’s not just us. Joan’s a good girl, but this might take a while. Do you really want t’ leave her in charge of the bits for more than an hour or two?”

Buffy rolled her eyes skyward and sighed, allowing her arms to fall away from her chest. “No,” she admitted, looking back down at him. “But you could take her with,” she suggested, brightening.

“Told ya, pet. This is gonna be more about finesse than muscle.”

“You’re gonna try to talk to Dru,” Buffy realized.

“I’ll do what I gotta do to make her leave us be,” Spike promised. “If that means dustin’ her, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“You do still love her,” Buffy accused gently, blinking back tears.

“No, don’t love her; I owe ‘er. I owe her a chance. Only one … but a chance. If not for ‘er, I’d never have met you. Those two little bits up there wouldn’t be calling me ‘Dad’ … I’d’ve lead a life of quiet desperation. I’d’ve been dead with my heart still beating – she halted my heart, but gave me life – a life with you.”

Buffy pursed her lips and rolled her shimmering eyes back up to the heavens.

“Buffy, my heart's always with you; Dru's just somebody that I used t' know. I won’t let ya down, luv. Not again,” Spike promised.

Buffy sighed and dropped her eyes back down to meet his. “You better not. If you die, I’ll kick your dusty ass.”

Spike gave her a smile. “Only fair,” he agreed, leaning in and touching his lips to hers.

When the kiss broke Buffy whispered, “I love you. Please be careful.”

“I love you too, pet. Nothing’s gonna keep me from comin’ home.”

**~**

Dru twirled and whirled around the abandoned house holding Miss Edith in her arms as she danced and prattled,

“Before the children say goodnight,
    Mummy, Daddy, stop and think:
Have you screwed their heads on tight?
    Have you washed their ears with ink?”

Dru stopped dancing and dipped her finger into a pot of ink that only she could see, then touched the finger to each of Miss Edith’s ears. She gave her companion a satisfied smile before resuming her dance and her poetry recital.

“Should – alas! – the little dears,
    Lose a capricious head or two,
Have you inked their little ears:
    Girls' with pink and boys' with blue?”

“You haven’t inked my ears, Miss Dru,” a small girl’s lilting voice called from the darkest corner of the room. Her voice was prim and proper, with a posh, refined English accent.

Dru stopped abruptly and turned toward the voice, a frown marring her lovely features. “I should say that you’re quite old enough to ink your own ears, Missy,” she told the young girl sternly.

“But I thought we were chums,” the girl pouted, moving out from the dark corner into a beam of light from the streetlamp outside the window.

The girl, no older than eight, had long, straight brunette hair with long bangs that nearly obscured her iridescent, teal-blue eyes. Her skin was creamy-white and smooth as silk; but she wore a sad expression on her face, as if she’d seen too much in her short life. She carried a flower, an Apricot Blush zinnia, with a glowing, crystal globe growing from its center.

“But … I don’t have any ink,” the girl continued in a forlorn whine, walking closer to Dru and Miss Edith.

Dru sighed dramatically, dipped her finger back into her ink pot, and dabbed at the girl’s ears. “There now, my little Hana, you’re prim and proper for the sandman.”

“I thought there would be a gala, with streamers and songs,” Hana pouted. “When will we have the gala, Miss Dru?”

“Early ripe, early rotten,” the dark vampiress replied sharply, tsking her tongue at the girl. Dru turned away from her young companion as she began dancing with Miss Edith again and continued reciting her poem.

“Children's heads are very loose.
    Mummy, Daddy, screw them tight.
If you feel uncertain use
    A monkey wrench, but do it right.

“If a head should come unscrewed
    You will know that you have failed.
Doubtful cases should be glued.
    Stubborn cases should be nailed.”

“Will my head come unscrewed?” Hana asked as she used her hands to try and turn her head on her shoulders.

“Don’t be silly,” Dru chastised, still dancing. “We nailed your head on properly just last night.”

Hana smiled for the first time, touching a finger down onto the head of a nail sticking out from the base of her skull. “Oh! I had nearly forgotten. And it was such a gay time. Perhaps we should do it again, just to be certain,” she suggested.

Just then, the glowing crystal orb atop Hana’s flower began to pulse and sparkle, radiating out a rainbow of colors over the girl’s face, as if the sun were shining through a prism.

Dru stopped dancing and stared at it in wonder, as did Miss Edith. “What do you see?” she asked Hana, but before the girl could answer Dru began to sway on her feet, her eyes drifting closed. “My William,” she murmured to herself. “My William is coming home to me.”

Hana smiled and nodded as she gazed into her miniature crystal ball. “He will be here quite soon, Miss Dru. We should prepare the gala ... may I hang the streamers?”

**~**