FATHER CHRISTMAS

A Secret Spike Gift

For Bree

BY-Bree's Secret Spike 1stRab-id

STORY - For and somewhat about Bree

RATING- G, PG, R, NC-17

COUPLE - B/S but lots of S/D too though not shipperishly

REQUEST - A Dramedy

SPOILERS - Up to WRECKED

MY BETAS - The AIGTeers, Carrie, Sabrina, Nauti, Rilla and also MKStatz

CANON COMMENT: Re: Spike and siring (with Ford or Sheila).  Nauti caught me out on this already...but I didn't miss anything there (Ford was with dozens of other vamps and Sheila was with Dru).  I could easily be wrong, but this is my take on Siring for this fic.  And I would challenge you to prove something different but remember...because something was insinuated doesn't mean it ACTUALLY happened.

DISCLAIMER - Suddenly I own it all...no just kidding...still Joss and Co. and UPN and Fox TV and Mutant Enemy, et al....definately NOT ME!

PART THREE

"Obviously, you two can't get married," Hank Summers said, as soon as the door to Buffy's room closed behind them.

"Obviously?" Buffy returned indignantly, forgetting for a moment that on any other day she would hold the same opinion.  She motioned for her father to turn his back as she continued, "Why? What's wrong with Spike?"

"Bill," her father stressed the name, "seems like a decent and caring man but this isn't the first time you've hit him is it?"

"Daddy," Buffy sighed, her voice muffled as she pulled off her blouse, "It's not what you think?"

"Then what is it?" Hank asked over his shoulder.

"Well," the Slayer began and then wondered what she was going to say next.  She took a moment to slip a sweater over her head and then lowered her voice and leaned toward him to confide, "It's not like I'm one of those people."

"Those people?"

"You can turn around now," Buffy stalled thinking how she might delicately open the topic of sexual abberation with her absentee father.  She had no idea how to explain to him about Spike and pain and pleasure and that sweet brutal trip to third base.  She couldn't even explain it to herself, "Someone who...you know...uhm..."

"Batters their spouse?" Hank finished for her.

"WHAT?" Buffy gaped at him as he turned to confront her, "And...and...WHAT?"

"Your Mother wrote to me about your violent tendencies, Buffy," Hank Summers continued starting to pace back and forth, "but I didn't believe her.  She told me about that man you dated.  What was his name? Angel?  No, that wasn't it.  Anyway...Joyce told me about the two of you.  The fights you had and how she was afraid that you were turning out wrong inside.  That you would never be able to truly love someone.  To have a home and a family."

"Mom said that...that...I couldn't love," Buffy's voice broke and she sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.

She felt like a witness to a train wreck.  Her mind was having trouble processing things.  So many painful emotions were crowding on top of each other in her heart: betrayal, abandonment, and the fear that she really was 'wrong' inside.  Anger at her mother for telling this stranger about her failures.  Shame over Riley leaving her because she couldn't reach out to him.  And fear...fear because Spike, was able to touch her so intimately.

"Maybe I do need help," Buffy whispered feeling the aching emptiness that had followed her out of the grave swell up inside her chest, "Maybe I really do."

"Honey, there are places that can help?" her Father soothed. "I've seen the commercials.  But they always say the first step is admitting that you have a problem."

Buffy looked up at him through tear blurred eyes.  He reached out to awkwardly pat her shoulder.

"Now, the last I heard," Hank continued, "You were dating this Soldier from Idaho or somewhere out West. Your Mother was so happy that you were doing well. You were in college and settling down.  Now that man is gone and you're with Bill.  Tell me what happened with the Soldier, Buffy?  Did you hit him?"

"No," Buffy said, numbly.  "I didn't want to hit him."

She remembered Riley taunting her, begging her to lash out at him.  And hard on the heels of that memory was one of sending Spike into a wall with a backhanded blow.  She could still feel it in her body, the dull thud of flesh meeting flesh, the sharp red bloom of his returning strike.  And the sex, the glorious, deep, violent, desperately profound fulfillment of the sex.

"But you hit Bill? Why?" Hank returned, squatting down to face his daughter. "Anyone can see that he loves you and adores Dawn.  Is that why you do it? Because you can hit him and he won't leave?"

"No! It's not like that between us," Buffy said, shaking her head. "It's not like that at all."

"Are you sure you aren't testing him? Trying to drive him away?"

"Maybe I am testing Spike," the Slayer thought, suddenly, the question ringing true for her.  She felt a stab of guilt and a tiny swirl of some other feeling and then she mentally snorted at the very idea.

"Of course I am trying to drive him away," she reminded herself, silently. "Hello, vampire?...Evil killing machine?...Driving away equals good and right...he chains me up and...kisses and...WAIT...NO...eats people...and takes care of Dawn and...bruises me with his hard fists and harder words and passionate...well....bruises me anyway and...saves and protects and cherishes and loves and gives himself completely to me...and...okay....maybe I could treat him a little bit better but...HELLO? Vampire? and...well...third base...NO, what I mean is....you know...he's a very wrong, very bad DEMON....sort of...person!...

"I blame myself for this," Hank was saying. "If I had stayed closer, given you more direction; a strong male role model.  I shouldn't have left all of this to your mother she never was good with discipline."

"Mom did just fine," Buffy bristled. "Mom did BETTER than fine.  Mom did GREAT.  And you know...this isn't even about me is it?  This is about YOU trying to come here and be my father and make up for lost time.  How dare you criticize Mom?  Or me? Or try to understand my life?  You think that you can just drop in and play amateur psychologist whenever you happen to be in the neighborhood?  And I'm suppose to explain my feelings and choices to..."

"How's it going in here?" Spike said, popping in the door even as he knocked on it.

Buffy and her father turned to look at the vampire.  Dawn had bandaged his hand and he had changed clothes.  He was wearing a dry but otherwise identical pair of black jeans and a purple shirt.  Buffy tried not to think about the shirt.

"It's...that is...we were just," Buffy began and then faltered unsure of him, of her father, of herself.

"Did you explain about the thing with the nose, Honey?" the vampire inquired, with wide innocent eyes.

"I...uh...I didn't really get a chance," Buffy said, hesitantly.

"You see, Hank, the thing is," Spike said, casually dropping an arm around the man's shoulders, "it's a little game we play.  Imagine it seems odd to an outsider."

"A game?" Hank frowned and Buffy groaned inwardly at the direction the conversation was taking.  The only thing worse than her father thinking she was a spouse abuser in the making would be her father knowing for sure that she was as kinky as they come.

"That's right Daddy," Buffy thought, sarcastically, "your little girl likes a bit of the rough and tumble.  But it's okay 'cause Spike can take it.  See he's dead.  Worse than dead actually, more of a blood sucking creature of the night who likes to chain me up and fuck me senseless and well...let me pour you a little more of that Eggnog while you adjust to the new world view."

"Yeah," Spike said, brightly, "she pokes me in the nose 'cause I don't have any feeling in it.  Sort of playful like...kind of a family joke."

"You don't...have any," Hank began in confusion.  He glanced at Buffy who pulled herself together and tried to look like this really wasn't news to her.  Her father looked back at Spike for confirmation, "No feeling at all?"

"Nope, not a bit of it," Spike assured him.  The vampire gestured at his schnozz, "Wanna give it a try?  Take your best shot."

Hank shook his head but after a bit more encouragement he drew back and took a swing at the vampire's nose.  Buffy winced but there was no need.  Her father pulled his punch and even at full strength he wouldn't have done any damage.  Compared to the Slayer's hard right, Hank's blow was a feather light caress.  Spike didn't even blink.

"That's amazing," Hank said, rubbing his sore knuckles and peering at the vampire's nose.

"Motorcycle accident," Spike shrugged. "Nerve damage.  Figure I got off easy."

"Oh, Well...uhm," Hank gave his daughter a sheepish look, "Guess I stuck my foot in the middle of things."

"Guess you did," Buffy said, with some bitterness, still not over her mad.

"So, Bill," Hank said, rocking forward onto the balls of his feet, "I notice you still ride a motorcycle, though.  I was hoping to take a closer look at it tomorrow."

"No time like the present," Spike said, waving the man toward the staircase.

As her father passed him, the vampire gave Buffy a small wink and flashed the pink of his tongue against his teeth.   Then he followed Hank Summers out into the hall.  The Slayer sank down on her bed again and listened in awe as the two men went downstairs chatting all the while about Harleys and Rice Burners and the soddin' National Speed Limit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Over the next few hours, Spike tried everything he could think of to shake off Hank Summers but the man just couldn't seem to take a hint.   Buffy cleaned up the kitchen. Hank admired Spike's bike.  Dawn disappeared for half an hour but then popped up again to help finish trimming the tree.  Hank showed off his monstrous ATV.  The Slayer explained that she and Spike were not exchanging gifts so they could save for their  wedding.  Hank broke out his digital camera and the diskettes of his last trip to Europe.  Annette went off to bed, then Dawn and finally Buffy but Hank stayed up.

Spike commented on the time.  He yawned.  He stretched.  Hank Summers kept on yammering.  He followed the vampire down to the basement and then back up to the kitchen again and then all the way up the stairs to the Slayer's bedroom door.  He stood watching as Spike, turned the knob to enter.  The vampire offered up a prayer of thanksgiving.  His beloved hadn't locked him out.  Then he nodded another goodnight to Buffy's pesky father figure and shut the door in his face.

"Good God, Joyce," Spike whispered, leaning his forehead into the door. "How the bloody hell did you keep from taking the ax to him?"

"What are you doing here?" Buffy challenged out of the darkness making Spike start and spin around.

She was standing by the window.  The room lights were out but the night was bright enough for Spike's dark-adapted eye to see her clearly.  She was bare-footed and wearing lavender pajama pants with prancing white sheep on them.  Despite the cold, she had a thin satin-strapped tank top on rather than sensible flannel.  Her face was free of makeup and her hair spilled raggedly around her shoulders.  Spike couldn't imagine that a sheer negligee would make her look any sexier.  She padded closer to him and repeated her question.

"What the hell are you doing creeping into my bedroom?"

"Not creeping," Spike corrected, indignantly. "Cowering. Your Bugger of a Father is lurking about, following my every move.  Couldn't shake him so I'm hiding out."

"Well, you can't stay in here."

"I'm not staying," Spike soothed, while listening at the door. "Jus' waiting.  Soon as he pops off to dreamland, I'll toddle down to the basement."

He glanced back at the Slayer, "Why aren't you sleeping? You came up here an hour ago."

"I can't sleep!  I can't believe we are doing this," Buffy grumbled, as she plopped down on the edge of her bed and pulled her feet up. "It;s ridiculous.  I should just go out there and tell him that he and his Stripper girlfriend aren't welcome here.  He didn't even come to Mom's funeral.  He sent a card."

She gave an exaggerated sigh and continued in genuine puzzlement, "What's wrong with me? Why am I acting like a child?  I'm the Chosen One, the Slayer, the almighty Warrior of the People, back from the dead to kick the demonic ne'er-do-wells in their delicate parts. So why can't I just tell the one man I SHOULD to get lost and stay that way?"

"He's the only real family you and Bit have left," Spike said, with a small shrug.  "Your only link to the past.  Be hard to let that go."

"We have each other.  Maybe we don't need anyone else."

"Maybe," Spike agreed, as he sank down to sit with his back to the door, "but blood ties are strong, Buffy.  It's hard to break with your parents even when you don't need them anymore.  Even when you know they won't understand what you've become."

"Spike?" Buffy said, softly.

"Yeah?" he prompted, when she didn't continue.

"Tell me about your Mother."

"It's a long, mostly boring story," he said, dismissively, not looking at her.  He toyed with the bandage on his hand.

There was a piercing giggle from the guest room and a series of groans and squeaks as the bed got a workout.

"We seem to have some time," Buffy grimaced. She waved to indicate the noise, "And really, I would rather listen to you than to that."

When the vampire failed to respond the Slayer slipped from the bed and panther crawled toward him.  Spike's eyes followed her.  She knew just how to hold his attention.  When she reached him, Buffy turned slightly aside.  She dropped her hip so that she was sitting next to him with her back to the wall.  She drew up her knees, hugging them with both arms and leaned into his shoulder.

"Please?" she cajoled. "I promise I'll be a good listener this time."

Spike sighed.  He closed his eyes and savored the warmth of her body where they touched.  He let his mind drift back to a time when he was newly made into a cold inhuman thing.  Then further back to a time when he was still young and innocent and alive.

"She loved Christmas," he began, his voice soft and low. "We didn't have much money.  But we were better off than most.  And every year, at this time, she would hold an open house for all the neighbors.  Everyone would come.  My father was a younger son and when he married her he was cut off from his own circle.  He never seemed to mind.  She was far beneath him socially but they had a love match.  We were happy."

"What was her name?"

"Emmaline Rose," Spike replied, rolling the syllables on his tongue, tasting them. "And my father's name was Augustine.  He always called her Emma Rose.  Used to say she was as 'rare as a bloom in mid-winter'."

"Why weren't you named after your father?"

"I was," Spike smiled. "My father and my mother's twin.  My maternal uncle, William, died a few months before I was born.  Mother took the loss hard.  Nearly miscarried.   So they named me William Augustine Gilford after my father and my mother's brother."

"Then what happened?"

"Nothing!" Spike laughed. "Nothing happened.  We had a simple life in the dower house on the estate of my father's cousin, Lord Gilford.  It was a pastoral and poetic life.  I had two younger sisters, Clarissa and Charlotte."

"You had sisters?"

"Yeah," Spike nodded, and then he glared at her, "and a dog named Randolph. Look, are you going to keep interrupting?"

"Sorry, I just never thought about..." Buffy decided to stop talking before she said something else to upset him. "Sorry!" she repeated and pantomimed the sealing of her lips.

"Anyway," he continued, after a moment, "age twelve or so, I went away to public school and only came back for the Holidays.  But in 1879 there was a hard winter and I didn't make it home.  The Influenza took my father and sisters before spring.  Only my mother was spared.  But...by the time I returned home...she was so weak.  I went to Lord Gilford and offered him my services as a tutor in return for allowing us to stay on at the dower house.  He paid me a small stipend for medicine.  I thought she would recover but she only got worse.  So, when Lord Gilford went to town for the Season, I begged him to take us along, in hopes that the London doctors could help her.  In the warm spring, under the care of a physician, she seemed to be improving.  She was improving."

Spike stopped speaking.  Buffy leaned in to look at him.

"But she died?" the Slayer guessed.

"No," he said so quietly she could hardly hear him, "I died."

Spike didn't move or speak.  His eyes glinted as he looked through the far wall of Buffy's room and into the distant past.  After a long while, Buffy shifted her position so she was kneeling in front of him.

"Then what?" she asked, looking into his face.

Spike shifted his gaze and focused on his beloved Slayer.  She was so beautiful.  As radiant and vital as his Mother had once been.  It was Buffy that he had died for all those years ago.  The part of him that had always been missing.  And she was finally his or, he ammended mentally, almost his anyway.  Spike took in a deep breath and choked.

"Is that garlic?" he asked, with a sudden suspicion.

His eyes darted around the room but there was no sign of the offending root.  Buffy had disposed of her external defenses over a week ago when it finally dawned on her that Spike was more than willing to wait out her siege.  Apparently, he had no intention of assaulting her in the night.  Only the faintest trace of odor remained not enough to harm a vampire.

"What happened?" Buffy insisted, determined not to let him break the mood.

"I died," he repeated, at last. "In a London alleyway.  But my Mother never knew that.  Dru stole my purse and my papers and they buried me in pauper's field.  Everyone I knew thought I simply disappeared that night.  Run off by ridicule and rejection." He flashed a toothy and wicked smile as he added, "Everyone that didn't meet me later, that is."

Buffy felt a prickly chill along her spine as she processed the implications of his statement.  She could envision the newly risen vampire stalking and killing his former associates.  With no Slayer to defend them, all of those innocent people would have been helpless against him.  Spike would have fallen on them like a lion among lambs.

"At first I didn't care about anything but the hunt," he continued. "But then I heard that Mother had taken a turn for the worse.  She had returned home to Yorkshire.  The loss of everything she loved was too much for her.  Darla and Angel wanted to stay in London but I persuaded them that there was prime feeding in the country.  I stirred up a bit of trouble and while everyone was distracted I slipped off to see Mother."

"And did you?  See her?"

"Yes, she invited me in, forgave me for my absence and I settled down to take care of her.  It was like it had always been, as if I hadn't changed at all.  I slept in the root cellar.  Mother thought I was working.  I would feed and then come home to her.  I told her not to invite anyone else into the house.  But only Dru came.  Drusilla was very angry with me for not getting her inside.  She couldn't understand it."

He looked into Buffy's eyes, needing her to understand, "I didn't want to turn Emma Rose; I wanted her to be with my father and little Clarissa and Charlotte.  So, I waited for her to die.  But she didn't.  She seemed to be growing stronger, more animated.  The closer we got to Christmas, the happier she seemed.  And then Angel came in his priest garb and told her what I was.  I don't know why he told her...at the time, or looking back...why he didn't kill her...if he thought she was a danger to us...or...."

Spike shook his head,  "I don't know why he told her.  But...the way she looked at me...I will never forget how sad her eyes were...how disappointed she was in me."

"So you had to leave?"

"No," he corrected.  "She was too weak for me to leave her.  I stayed with her until she died.  It didn't take long...a few more days..."

"Christmas Eve," Buffy whispered, remembering what he'd told her on the porch.

"She wouldn't look at me, even at the end.  I wasn't her son, anymore.  I was just the monster that changed her and bathed her and brought her meals.  Right to the last, Dru kept telling me to turn her, to save her, but I knew she wouldn't want that.  My Mother was so full of life.  She wouldn't have wanted to be...like me."

Spike's voice faded away and Buffy brushed her hand lightly over his cheek.  She trailed her fingers down letting them linger on his lips before hooking them under his jaw.  She lifted his chin so that she could look into his eyes.

"Spike, I..." the Slayer began and was shocked into silence by a loud 'YEE-HAW, COWGIRL' from the guest bedroom.

There was a loud oath from the room next door followed by the sound of Dawn's feet hitting the floor.  The Slayer's little sister stomped across the room.  There was a flare of static and then music began blaring from the teenager's stereo.  The solid heavy metal sounds of Creed's 'Bullets' vibrated the walls.  Buffy and Spike collapsed into each other, laughing hysterically.

"That's my Sweet Bit," the vampire yelled, over the noise. "Got to love you Summers' women. All straight to the point and business like."

"Spike," Buffy chuckled, close to his ear.

"Bill," he chided, holding her tight and melting into her warmth.

She pulled back to look into his eyes and mouthed, "William Augustine."

Their lips met in a sweet, slow, all too human kiss.

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