Chapter 1.02
Saturday, May 11th, 2002

"Spike, please. I need you to promise you'll behave." Buffy looked in the mirror as she put her make-up on, her gaze occasionally flicking to where Spike's weight left a dent in the bed clothes. It seemed that his lack of reflection was one thing she wasn't ever going to get used to. Spike, on the other hand, was more than happy to have both a back and front view of Buffy in her underwear.

"Pet, you know if I promise you anything, it's a matter of honour as far as I'm concerned for me to keep my word."

"I know. Th-"

"Then don't expect me to make a promise, that I've got bugger all chance of keeping," Spike interrupted, coming to perch on the corner of the dresser as he put on one of several new shirts Buffy had insisted on buying.

"But he might contest custody of Dawn."

Spike's tone softened as resignation seeped into it. "Buffy, the git won't contest custody. He is a kid. He doesn't want to look after one."

"But if he thinks you're violent, he could have her put into State care or something."

"He wouldn't get anywhere. We can afford better lawyers."

"It'd be a lot cheaper if you could just get along with him."

"Don't you know that I'm good friends with an assistant D.A.? Someone that graduated top in her year at law school, and turned down lots of well-paid offers to work in LA or New York so she could work as a public defender."

"And who would— Let me guess... Marie. Beautiful wasn't enough. She had to be brilliant and altruistic too."

"Brilliant enough that she's got restraining orders on your ex and as many of his mates as she could get identified, keepin' 'em away from her, Rosa and the flats."

"Wouldn't they just use someone else?"

"The theory is that if anything happens, they've created enough of a paper trail to make the soldier boys think twice. Mostly, it makes them look for easier targets."

"Like you."

"That depends on how far we take the legal identity stuff," Spike responded. "There's nothing stoppin' us from doin' the same as Marie, at least as soon as we know they know that we know."

"What? You mean you'd take out a restraining order against Riley?"

"Too right, I would, pet. And if you've any sense, you'd take one out to keep him away from Bit, too, if he comes back. Your ex hasn't been the kid from the farm in Smallville for a long time. He's been chipped and trained, fed steroids and all sorts of crap and, like as not, he's had a bit of brainwashing on the side. Not to mention the fact it's a damn sight easier for him to blame you or me or his brothel of vamp whores, than it is for him to take responsibility for things between the pair of you going t' hell.

He was never as squeaky clean as he wanted you t' think, pet. He used to have a stake made out of plastic. Looked like wood, 'cept it wasn't." Spike paused, waiting for Buffy to realise what that meant.

"B-but that doesn't make any sense."

"Not to you, maybe. But then you don't play with the demons you hunt. You kill them, or you don't. Captain Credible prefers to take his amusement where he can, and if he decides that Bit doesn't fall into the human category, you don't want him anywhere near her."

"B-but. He wouldn't. It's Dawn. He..."

Spike shifted along the dresser until he faced her, taking her shoulders in his hands. "Pet, that stake isn't something you buy in a hardware store. You don't get a chunk of plastic and whittle it down. You have to make a mould and mix the resin or heat it or whatever and then cast it and once you've done that to finish off, you paint it up. It had to be specially made, and he turned up with it the day after I took you to that place. That means he already had it. I severely doubt I was the first vamp he used it on.

Torture's a funny thing, love. It's never really been my scene, but some people develop a taste for it. Starts off as a necessary evil and ends up just for entertainment. I'll wager he does it all with a clean conscience because "demons are evil". Just don't under estimate what he's capable of."

"It just— I can't believe he would do something like that." Buffy defended her ex, refusing to accept she could have been so wrong about him.

"Fine, pet." Spike's tone became clipped and harsh and he pushed away from the dresser, leaving Buffy staring at her own reflection again. "Don't believe me, but if something happens to me, you get word to Marie and get her to get the documents issued just the same."

"Spike..." Buffy turned, catching at his sleeve with her hand, so that he turned back toward her. "I didn't mean that I didn't believe you, just that it's kinda hard to accept." She slipped her arms around his neck and pressed her scantily clad body against his bare chest.

It had taken them a while, but eventually they had realised that their ability to sense the other's emotions only worked when they were in physical contact. It could be as simple as touching hands, but without physical contact, that element of their connection was lost. Maybe in time things would change, but for now, Spike trying to walk away from her was his way of shutting her out, and her efforts weren't meant as a physical distraction, just a way to re-establish their emotional link.

Buffy concentrated on trying to project her own feelings whilst trying not to recoil away from the pain and anger emanating from her fiancé. "Spike, get over it. Okay? I'm with you now. You are the one that I plan on being with for the rest of our lives. You are the one that's meeting my father tonight."

"Why the hell should I, when for all you've just said, you still don't bloody believe what I say?" Spike pulled her arms from around his neck and stepped away from her, starting to button up the front of his shirt.

"Spike. Don't shut me out. We're not playing here. This is for keeps."

"Then maybe it's about time you learned to soddin' trust me. Why the hell do you think I would bloody lie to you? It's not as if you wouldn't know straight off."

"Spike-"

"Look, pet. Just leave it. Alright..." Spike barked out the terse command. "This isn't something we can talk our way round. Nothing is going to fix it except time. Who knows maybe, at some point before our Silver Wedding, you might manage to bring yourself to have a little bit of faith in me." Picking up his cigarettes and lighter from the top of the bedside unit, he stormed through the front door.

Buffy grabbed the dress she'd been planning on wearing and pulled it on as quickly as she could but, of course, her haste made her fumble with the fastenings so that it actually took her twice as long as normal to get dressed. She half hopped, half walked to the door putting on her shoes as she went. Yanking open the door, she looked right and left, surprised to find the vampire nowhere in sight. She peered as best she could through the tiny cracks in the paint that covered the DeSoto's windshield, but was unable to discern the telltale orange glow of his cigarette.

The sun hadn't quite set yet, but the shadows the buildings cast had lengthened significantly, enough that she could imagine the antsy vamp playing dodge the sunbeam. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if there wasn't a taxi booked to pick up the three of them in twenty minutes time.

Buffy shuffled uncertainly and decided to check Dawn's room, using the pretext of seeing if the younger girl was ready. Spike had arranged it so that their room was separated from the two rooms the others occupied by most of the block, ever mindful of Dawn's all too receptive ears. The scent of cigarette smoke reached her just as she was about to knock on Dawn's door. She made her way around to the eastern end of the room-block instead.

"I'm sorry, you know." Buffy alternated between watching her feet and looking through her lashes at the tense vampire.

"Yeah?" he asked keeping his tone deliberately neutral.

"Yeah. If it was as simple as me being able to make a decision, then I would decide here and now to trust you. But you're right. It isn't. That doesn't mean I don't want to trust you, or that it hurts any less to know I've hurt you." She raised her hand to cup his cheek. "I love you. I'm sorry I hurt you. I do believe you, and even though I still find all this difficult to take in, it isn't because-" She was cut off when Spike laid a gentle finger on her lips.

"That's all I can ask, for now," Spike replied, even if it was far from being all he wanted.

"So what do you do for a living then, William?" Hank seemed determined to make a belated attempt to safeguard Buffy's welfare.

"I don't. I have some investments, which provide sufficient income for our needs." Spike responded.

"So you don't have a job? Nothing to fall back on if these investments were to fall through?"

"I've occasionally turned my hand to writing in the past. I still garner a royalty cheque now and again. I dare say, if I devoted more time to it I could make a living. Do you have some sort of point?

Maybe if you think I'm such a poor provider, I should ask you how you've done such a bang up job of providing for the girls since Joyce died? You must have quite the earning power to keep the little woman in Versace and pay the subscriptions on that country club you wanted to meet at and all this while you paid off Joyce's hospital bills that were left when the insurance company refused to settle and putting Buffy through college all at the same time. You must be quite the guy.

But wait you didn't look after them, did you? You didn't send them a red cent over and above what you were legally obliged to. Buffy was forced to quit school and work herself half to death in some shitty burger barn while you were off swanning round Europe and buying your secretary second rate diamond bracelets that still cost enough to pay a terms tuition." Spike pushed his chair away from the table. "I'm going outside for a minute."

As Spike breezed out of the restaurant, cigarettes and lighter in hand, Hank nervously cleared his throat.

"He seems a little spirited..." he finally commented.

"Yeah. Funny how he gets like that about the people he cares about." It was Dawn who managed the sarcastic drawl, but she only just beat Buffy to it.

"Well, you know if I'd realised how bad things were for you girls, I would have sent some money, but I'd always understood from your mom that she had everything in hand. I thought you were just being reckless.

I remember how you used to spend all of your allowance in the first week of the month on some jacket or something, and then you would borrow money from Joyce for the next three weeks. I figured I was just teaching you financial responsibility."

"Mom did have everything in hand. We would have done just fine if the insurance company had covered the medical bills. Don't you dare blame mom because you couldn't even make the time to come to the phone and call us."

"Buffy... Look, I know there have been mistakes, but I want to make it up to you. Marlene and I have discussed it, and we'd like to pay for your wedding. It's the least we could do."

Marlene picked this moment to join in. "We can hold it at the club. They always do lovely weddings there. If you give me a list of the groom's family and anyone from Sunnydale that you want to ask, then I can do all the invitations. It's as easy as if I were to give you all the names and addresses."

"Excuse me. I already have Aunt Arlene's address. It was in mom's address book." Dawn was perhaps the only person left at the table capable of recognising the edge in Buffy's voice.

"Well, of course you do, dear, and if you want to ask her, then that's just fine. I'm sure she'll be very welcome, but your father has certain business obligations he has to meet. There are client's who would be offended if something as big as this were to happen without them being invited."

"You can hold it right there, evil step-mom. This is my wedding, and if I want some Hitler Nazi telling me how to organise it, then I'll hire a wedding planner. If you want to have some sort of shindig to entertain Hank's clients, then I'm sure there are plenty of out of work actors and actresses in LA who'd love to play the bride and groom, but I'm pretty certain I can speak for Spike when I say we'll make our own guest list, hire our own hall in Sunnydale and pay for it ourselves.

And as for you," she turned to her father. "If you really want to make amends, then how about doing something with Dawn's college fund, huh? Or can't you get any PR out of that?" Buffy rose from her seat, picking up Spike's duster from the back of the chair next to hers as well as her own. "We'll see you at the wedding, if you can make time, and it isn't too far out of your way, but you should know that I've already asked someone else to give me away.

Goodbye, Hank."

Buffy turned to face Dawn, who was rising from her seat. "If you wanna stay..."

"It's fine, Buffy." Dawn walked past her father's seat on her way out, brushing a kiss against his cheek. "Bye, Dad," she whispered, an admission that even if he was in the wrong, unlike Buffy, she wasn't quite ready yet to cut all ties.

When she neared the cash-register at the front of the restaurant, Buffy pulled some bills from the pocket of Spike's duster. She pointed to the table where their main courses were just being brought out. "I'm afraid we won't be staying," she told the cashier as she passed over enough to pay for everything the five of them had ordered and a generous tip.

"Would you like to have your meals wrapped to take with you?" the slightly flustered man asked.

"Nah," answered Buffy as she made for the door. "It'd ruin the dramatic exit."