Dirty Children by Verity

Thank you to my amazing crew of beta readers, who suffered through multiple drafts and poked and prodded this story into the shape you see before you: my lovely boyfriend, coyotegoth, wickedwitch74, and special guest arantzain. Also, everything you recognize belongs to Joss. ;)

It was the sound of a horn that awoke him.

He tried to turn his head toward the sound, but only a clammy greyness met his eyes. The ground under him was unfamiliar: uneven brick that he mapped beneath shaking hands. His leg was half-submerged in one of the pools of stagnant water filling the dips in the old brickwork; he rolled away, only to find his shoulders in a larger puddle. As he shivered, he found that his lungs were already gasping and wheezing of their own accord, and the taste of salt and blood clung to his mouth.

Minutes passed, and he lay still, counting the time by the blood thumping in his ears, the hurried pattern that slowly smoothed out as he breathed in and exhaled. He remembered doing this before, as if in a dream, and wondered for a half a second whether he had just awakened from a particularly nasty one. But no: this place smelled like dusk and metal, rust and mold. A dead place, and here he was, alive in it.

Something rustled, a few yards off: he raised his head and found everything still dark and blurry, even the figure standing under the only source of light in his sight. It raised an arm. "Hello." A woman's voice, low.

He opened his mouth, moved his lips a bit, but no words came out. His throat, he discovered unpleasantly, was too parched and raw to speak. She raised an arm, and threw something at him: when he caught it, easily - this, then, was unchanged - he found that it was a bottle of water. He gulped down half of it in one go, and when he'd had his fill, he tried again. "Where'm I? When? Did I...?"

"Different alley," she said. She came nearer, further from the light, but as she closed in he got an impression of dark hair crowning a trim figure.

"Don't remember an alley." It had been a basement. Burying his face in the back of her neck, ignoring the faint scent of his sire, because that was nothing when she lay beneath it, unperfumed and slightly sweaty, all girl, all slayer, all Buffy. But before that... "Didn't survive the Hellmouth, did I?"

The woman was silent for a while. "You died three times," she said, at last. "Sunnydale was the second. I'd supposed you'd remember... Well, I guess it'll come back to you."

Spike got to his knees, and to his feet, less steadily. She offered a blanket, and he took it. His clothes were torn, wet and muddy, and the cold felt as if it was seeping into the marrow of his bones. For a moment, he flashed to an alley - yes, yes - and Angel, sword plunged to the hilt in a great dragon, wings spreading above them all - but as quick as it had come, it was all gone.

He followed her out of the alley.

In better lightning, he saw that she had brown hair beginning to grey; her face suggested a hard life as much as a long one. In a matter of minutes, he found himself hustled into her car with the blanket tucked snugly around him, despite his protests. She spoke quickly, even brusquely, as she fastened her seatbelt. "I'm Anne Harris. A Watcher. We're returning to my home."

They were silent for the first part of the drive, and he kept sneaking glimpses at her out of the corner of his eye. Her features, hazy though they were, seemed familiar, but she looked nothing like the whelp. Would be an odd coincidence, if she were some other Harris's get.

They were driving through an industrial part of town, wherever they were. He could feel the tug of a hellmouth, which seemed odd considering the pulse and need for oxygen, but he still couldn't place himself. Her accent had been American, but she was a Watcher - that meant nothing. He saw no road signs, no mile markers; a few traffic lights off in the distance, but nothing to indicate where they might be. The streets seemed dead, even though it was night and demons should have been feasting on the energy he could feel pulsing beneath him.

After a while, the woman cleared her throat and began to speak again. "It's been almost fifty years since you died, the last time. We're in Cleveland. It's on a hellmouth, but because of what occurred in the alley where I found you, there's a large part of the city that demons leave alone. Humans don't come here, either, for the most part. It may bother you some at first, but that gets easier to ignore over time."

Spike remained silent. With a glance at him, she continued, "We live out here, or did. Naomi's been missing for a week, but a new Slayer hasn't been called. Yesterday, I got a message from Willow Rosenberg that something big was coming, and so would you, and so would... she."

Sidetracked by the mention of the witch, he entirely missed the inflection of the Watcher's last word. "She's still alive, then, Willow?"

"You knew her?" Anne Harris flicked her eyes over to him. "She hasn't- she's the only one left. My parents, Rupert Giles, Dawn Summers - they're all gone."

He had to ask. "An' the Slayer?"

"Buffy's back, too." The Watcher sounded a tad impatient. "Didn't I just say so?"

Third time's the charm - the old maxims died hard, and apparently so did she.

Buffy was curled up in a quilt in front of the big bay window, drinking a cup of tea. It had started after Giles died: a nervous habit, one that gave her comfort when the memory of Giles had receded into the one cemetery she never patrolled. When Sunnydale had been destroyed, she'd felt hopeful for the first time since waking up in her coffin. But slayers did not live long, as a rule, and when the girls who survived had died, new slayers were not called to replace them.

"Guess it's you and me, girlfriend," Faith said to her on the way home from one of the funerals. They'd deliberately stopped counting after Scotland. "Gonna get rough soon." Buffy reached over and squeezed Faith's free hand tightly. Faith pulled away, hand going unconsciously to her stomach.

Chosen. Willow's spell had given them an illusion of choice, and that dream had been enough to keep them going, for a while. Buffy didn't know what to do with the opportunity presented to her, so she stuck it out with the girls in that dank castle while the world went to shit around them. Xander and Faith beat each other up in the training room on a regular basis for months before Faith threw up in the middle of breakfast one morning and confirmed everyone's suspicions. Happier times. At least Xander had survived. Buffy had no one.

She wondered if Willow would come. Anne hadn't fully explained what was going on, just hovered nervously until she burst into tears. Buffy comforted Anne the way she had when Anne was still small; held her close, sang that stupid frog song she'd liked so much. It was strange to find Anne still living in this house, and the house so little changed, aside from the weird aura that had settled over everything in this part of the city. Buffy had helped Xander paint this living room, hung that picture of Faith over the fireplace. She couldn't feel their presence here now. If there were ghosts, they belonged to Anne and Anne alone.

The headlights she'd been waiting for flashed at the corner and shone down the avenue in front of the house. Buffy had been angry at Spike after he died the first time, and even more so the second, but try as she might, she couldn't muster up any of that now.

So long ago.

"Back?" Spike repeated, incredulous. A flash, again - the visceral sensation of her dirty, torn hands in his.

The woman next to him seemed to tense up. "She died in the battle that happened here."

They'd come into a neighborhood now, one of those that had sprung in the postwar boom: homes that had stood here for a century. Most of them seemed to gently sag under the weight of time; the streets were populated sparsely. The car turned one corner, another, and finally came to a driveway that wasn't cut off from the road by vegetation.

The Watcher stopped the car halfway up the drive, and got out. Spike did the same. As she crossed the lawn, he made to follow her, but she warded him off with a gesture. "Give me a moment. I'll come get you."

Her dark silhouette washed out under the bright porch light while he clung to shadows. The door swung open, but he couldn't make anything out. Briefly, he turned his attention to the car - it was a make and model he didn't recognize, rusted heavily and still releasing ghostly fumes into the wind, which nipped at his cold shoulders.

From what Spike could see, the house had weathered the years well, and the lawn smelled of a recent mowing. Trees sheltered it on three sides. Faintly, he could make out two figures standing in front of the big bay window. He leaned against the car and fumbled for a cigarette, but found none in his pockets. Predictable.

Then the door opened, and she was walking across the lawn. He closed his eyes. He didn't need to see her to know her, to feel her, to hear how even the soft crunch of grass called out her presence. When she stood before him again, he opened them slowly, to savor her, to take her in again.

He squinted in the dim light, and she took his hand to draw him forward. Her tan had faded, but her hazel eyes were steady and clear. Buffy turned back toward the house, and he followed her up the steps and across the porch that creaked under them.

She opened the door.

In the light, he looked so young, and strangely flushed. Anne had explained that part, at least. His hair was still platinum, mussed from the heat of battle, his lips damp and slightly parted.

"Come in," she said, through force of habit, and after a moment he stepped across the threshold. He was so close to her, and she smelled him for the first time in years: the new scent of sweat layered over cigarettes, battle stench, and that indefinable Spike smell.

Of all things, this was the one that made her cry.

He closed the door behind them, and turned to her, lifted up her chin. She shuddered at the feeling of his lips on her closed eyelids. He kissed her there, pulled her to him. "Buffy," he said at last, murmuring her name into her hair not once, but over and over again. Somewhere in there she heard Anne go upstairs. And then he kissed her again: not on the lips, but on her forehead.

She hadn't let go of his hand. Now she led him to the couch, wrapped him up in the quilt. "Are you hungry?" she asked. As if there were anything more inane that could come out of her mouth. But he nodded tentatively, so she went into the kitchen and rummaged in the ancient, persistently humming refrigerator, coming up with some grapes and what she thought might be one of those individually packaged mozzarella sticks that you peeled apart. The breadbox yielded a loaf of sourdough, neatly sliced. Nothing seemed to have moved since she died. It was unnerving.

When she returned to the living room, she found him curled up in the blanket, unwittingly mimicking her position earlier. He was not looking out the window, though. She was his sole focus. His gaze did not seem to ask anything from her.

"Here," she said, but he didn't reach for the plate, so she set it on the table. It seemed impossible, now, to stop looking at him. While he was silent, Buffy imagined hearing Daniel's voice instead: growly, British, pedestrian. He'd been a cheap imitation: how little she'd been fooled, even then.

She knelt before him, took his hand in hers again. "Spike," she whispered. "Still not so good with the talking thing. We can do that later."

He looked down, and his shoulders shook. It occurred to her, at last, what a long day it had been for him. Dead and deader and alive, and he hardly knew any of it. She rose and wrapped her arms around him. "Shhh, sweetheart." He leaned in, his face pressed against the curve of her shoulder, and she stroked his hair. It was slick with grime and pomade, but washing could wait until morning. For the moment, she rocked him against her gently, the way she had Anne, and longer ago, her own daughter. This continuity filled her with a quiet calm.

When Spike woke up, his back and neck felt stiff, and his face felt warm. The sun was up, and he lifted up his face into the full measure of it. Buffy was leaning against him, and he studied her afresh in the morning light.

Her hair was its natural color, a dark brown, just shy of shoulder length; she was just starting to get wrinkles at the creases of her eyes and the corners of her mouth. A long, thin scar curved down the left side of her jaw and across part of her neck. Otherwise, she looked much as she had when he'd seen her last. Perhaps a little too thin, a little too pale.

The unfamiliar pressure of a full bladder pulled him out of his reverie. Careful not to wake Buffy, he extracted himself from the bed and found his way to the bathroom, which turned out to feature not just a toilet, but soap and a shower and fresh towels - and a mirror, which he avoided. There was also a bathrobe, which was frilly and smelled like the Watcher, but wasn't caked in blood and ichor. He called it a draw and took the robe.

He passed Anne Harris in the hall, who looked affronted, then apologetic. "I didn't think to get anything for you to wear." She pursed her lips. "I suppose that some of my father's clothing might fit."

Gesturing for him to follow her, she opened the door to one of the bedrooms, which creaked loudly as it swung on its hinges. The room beyond was perfectly neat, with a fine layer of dust and a faint scent of cedar chips, which grew stronger as the Watcher opened the drawers of the heavy oak dresser. "Here's some shirts," she said, setting a stack on the bed before giving Spike's figure a once-over. "The jeans look like they'll fit, but here's some sweatpants, just in case."

He thought about thanking her, but asked instead, "Your father, that'd be Xander Harris?"

She nodded in assent. "He was a Watcher, too." Then she turned her face toward the front window, away from him. "He died about ten years ago. I asked him to retire, for a long time after I took up the mantle, but he never would. He said that my mother and Buffy never quit, even though they should have, and he... died like them, too." Her voice had grown tight, and she paused for a moment. "It's good that you are here to help me find Naomi."

"Wasn't aware that I'd signed up for anything, 'cluding bein' brought back to life." But then Anne Harris looked at him, her face red and damp, and he backpedaled. "Not saying I won't help. Know time's a-wasting. But I need - I need just a bit."

Buffy awoke to the smell of pancakes. For a moment, she thought she'd dozed off on the couch the previous night, and looked for the girls, who were really being on good behavior. The shock of the empty room, with its faded furnishings, hit her like a knife to the gut, and she cried out before she could stop herself.

Spike, coming out of the kitchen with a plate in his hand, almost dropped it. She tried not vomit. He couldn't know. Maybe she could choke them down. It was sweet of him.

He came to her, having set the plate down somewhere, took her in his arms. "Buffy, pet, it's safe, I'm here. Nothin' to be frightened of."

She couldn't speak, wished she could reassure him. He probably thought it was his presence that was cutting her apart. On the contrary, it was the house and all of its contents she wanted to get rid of. She had burned all her clothes after Willa's death and cut off all her hair, but she couldn't get rid of this place and, yes, Anne, as easily. All the memories of the past year spilled out around her, and she slumped over, throat choked up, eyes burning with repressed tears.

"I can't." she whispered into the quilt, feeling that Spike would hear her anyway. She could see them filling the room, she could imagine that day, cutting breakfast into bite-sized pieces, you can't have another until you drink your orange juice, Xander complaining because there was no more bacon in the house, Anne messing with the contrast on the TV over and over even though they'd both told her a thousand times not to. "I can't," she said, again. "Not now."

If she just kept her eyes closed, they'd stay dead, in her memories, where they belonged.

This time, Spike held her. She wished she could explain the rest of it to him. Instead, she shifted in his arms, curling up against his chest. His clothes smelled like Xander and storage, which should have made her feel worse, but strangely didn't. So much he'd missed.

Maybe she'd have time to tell him. Maybe not.

In the end, he ate the pancakes himself and convinced Buffy to go back to sleep in her room, which was still her room, despite the intervening decades. The Watcher reassured Buffy that she'd washed everything the previous day, which seemed to upset Buffy even more, but in the end he tucked her into bed and she closed her eyes without complaint.

He prowled around the house, which clearly unnerved the Watcher. In the living room, he found photos of Buffy and a small girl possessed of muddy brown hair and a mischievous smile. There were pictures of Harris and Faith, who, he'd finally put together, were the Watcher's parents. This surprised him, but they appeared to have been happy together. There were no photos of Red, and just one of Dawn, which had faded in the sunlight.

"Do you have questions?" Anne asked him, when she found him flipping through a family photo album. "I don't know quite what you remember."

"Well, a few. What's this about me dying, an' twice?"

Her mouth pressed into a tight line. "Your death destroyed the Hellmouth, and later, you came back out of the amulet you wore. When Angel and his set went up against some kind of apocalypse in LA, you died again. They all died. I don't know the details."

It came to him, vaguely - memories of Angel in another alley, the sense of burning up, a tall blue girl lifting her arm, everything jumbled out of sequence. When he tried to concentrate on any of them, they dispersed. "How'd I come to be here?"

"There's some prophecies..." A truly Giles-like expression wafted over her face.

"Don't bother." He sighed, held up the album he'd been looking at. "Noticed something a bit odd. None of the gadgetry in this house 's any fancier than when I popped off, and most of that's not working too well. Also, seems to be a shortage of the girls who slay."

Now when he looked at her, Spike could see the ghosts of Faith and her baby-self in the Watcher. Harris, too, sometimes. "When the Potential Slayers were all called, in the destruction of Sunnydale, it put the balance out of alignment. The balance... is, was self-correcting. There were demonic plagues. Vampires were siring fledges instead of finishing their meals. And when Slayers were killed, new Slayers weren't called in their place." Anne took a deep breath. "There were no Slayers called until my mother died. And it's been one at a time, ever since. As for technology... my mother and Buffy were here in Cleveland. There weren't Slayers everywhere."

It was hard for Spike to comprehend, somehow. "How did they die? Faith and Buffy, I mean, and the ni- Dawn-"

The Watcher shook her head. "Let... let Buffy tell you."

When she had gone, Spike contemplated Miss Anne Harris, and the living room she had left behind. The carpet in front of the big leather chair opposite the television had been worn away by daily wear. Everything was spotlessly clean, but old enough to be antique. There were only a handful of photos from Anne's adolescence, and none at all from her adulthood. What must it have been like, to grow up in this house full of death, preserved like a museum? He wondered who had done it: Harris, or the girl. Harris, passively, at least.

Again, he looked at all the photos on the wall. To him, they seemed like specimens sealed under glass, deader than the bones and dust they'd gone to. Here he was now, alive and breathing in this mausoleum, while the only woman he'd loved slept upstairs. These were her dead, not his, and this filled him with a curious sense of reverence; sadness, too. Faith, big with child; Xander, accessorized with a tie in addition to the eyepatch; Buffy, thoughtful and scarred; their children. He looked at them, and felt that he did not know them at all, not a one of them.

When she woke, she found Spike in the living room, photo album in hand, and she leaned over the back of the leather armchair. He was looking at pictures from when they'd first bought the house, the three of them. Dawn had been away at college, Anne still a gentle swell beneath Faith's shirt.

Without looking up at her, he murmured, "Ten years, 's a long time."

It had been fifty. But somehow, they weren't counting that. It was only those ten that mattered; after all - long enough for the people in this house to come into this world or pass out of it. Or both.

Carefully, Buffy said, "My daughter's name was Willa. I named her after you." He turned to face her, then, mouth open, but she continued anyway. "She died not quite a year before I did." She took a deep breath. "I mourned you for a long time. I mourned you instead of other people, because there were a lot of other people, and I didn't have room for all of them."

She looked down at the pictures in his lap, seeing and not seeing. Xander stood on the doorstep, carrying his baby out to the car. She was hanging Christmas lights, half on and half off the roof. Faith pretended to stake the snowman. Her daughter not even dreamed of.

"I love you, and I always did," she said. "But I finished grieving for you. I'll never be done with her."

It was strange to have the words out, after all this time. She had thought she'd never be able to say them. It was her way of coping, afterwards. When they'd gotten to Dawn, put her into the lock, she had gone in, free of fear. All light and scythe and fury. There was nothing more anyone or anything could take from her. She had no one left to save.

The last time she'd come back, Buffy had wanted to stay dead. This time, she had no one to come back to. Funny how she and Faith had traded places. Faith had been all home and hearth, while Buffy had been marking time, even with her daughter, until she could go out and slay. She left Xander home with the kids. In a strange way, she was eager for this unlife, this blank slate.

She reached out and touched Spike's cheek, which moved under her hand when he spoke. "I didn't... I didn't expect this much from you."

Very gently, she told him, "That Buffy is dead."

They spent that afternoon on the couch, and Buffy went through all the albums with him, telling him about the time that she found Willa making stakes out of Play-Doh, how Xander finally learned to tie his own tie, and why there were no pictures of Willow. The sun made its circuit overhead, and Anne made them some soup. Spike asked for cigarettes, and Buffy made the disapproving Giles noise and whacked him on the arm with a potato masher.

Sometimes, memories would surface fleetingly. Once, he'd stood in the pouring rain, prepared to meet his death; once, he'd held a baby tight against his chest with one arm as he wielded a sword with the other. It had meant little to him at the time. Now, it meant everything, to think of Buffy holding a baby, counting her tiny toes, which had been dipped in ink and pressed into the inside cover of her baby book.

A day ago, he'd died. A lifetime ago.

Buffy shut the last album with a sturdy thwap and put it back on the shelf. "Are you ready?" she asked him, softly, nodding toward the stairs, and Anne above them. Anne, and Naomi, and the brave new world outside this house; Cleveland, where he'd never been.

"Yes," he answered her.

She got to her feet, and stretched out her hand to him. "Let's go to work."