Chapter 1

Pure Morning

"Spike?…How did you get this number?"

"I found it on this flier that was pinned to the inside of a phone box." He replied playfully.

"Ha. Ha." she said snidely. "What do you want?"

"Wanted to see if you…urgh…this is hard for me to ask…"

She butted in, "Yes, Spike. You were adopted."

"Shut up, Buffy. That's not what I was going to ask." he said angrily, and then he paused and changed his tone, "Listen, I'm in town."

"In New York?"

"That is where you live init? Wouldn't have said 'in town' if I was in Hawaii, would I?"

She just huffed and he could tell he was going about this all the wrong way. He decided just to ask, and stop messing about. If she said no, she said no. "Look, I need a place to crash…That's why I phoned. I wanted to ask if I could stay with you a few weeks while I look for a new flat?"

"Well let's see…in the past 5 minutes you've called me a phone box hooker, and told me to shut up…"

"Please, luv?"

Her stomach flipped. He shouldn't call her that should he? I mean…she'd heard him call loads of people that, but never her…Dawn? Had he ever called Dawn that? Because if he had she was worrying about nothing…she couldn't remember…Wait, what was she worrying about exactly? She realised she hadn't said anything for a while, and so stuttered something out to cover. "W-W-What about Dru?"

She heard him sigh down the phone and then he answered regretfully, "We broke up."

"I'm sorry."

"If I didn't know how much you didn't like her I would have believed that. You sounded almost sincere." He laughed a little.

"I am, Spike. I'm sorry you broke up."

He paused and relaxed his voice a lot more. "It's okay. It was the right thing, we both knew it, it was a joint decision, for the best and all that rot…But it means I kind of have to find a place to live. Said she could have the apartment, seen as she found it, and spent time making it over… I've been staying there while she's been at her sisters, but I think she wants to come back now…which means I have to find somewhere else."

Buffy sighed deeply. She was stuck. She didn't want to leave Spike in the lurch, but this was a bit inconvenient, her place wasn't that big, she was busy with college and work, and her and Spike didn't get along well enough to comfort her that this was a good idea…but he was her brother, and he was in a bind. "Okay, Spike." she answered eventually.

"Really?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Thanks, pet."

Buffy settled; she always liked when he called her 'pet', even though she wouldn't admit it. It made her feel safe. At first it hadn't been just every other sentence, when they were younger he only called her or Dawn 'pet' when they were upset or down, to make them feel better. And it always worked. Now he said it all the time, and whenever he did she'd usually chastise him, and tell him she wasn't a little girl anymore. This time she didn't.

"Do you remember the address?"

"No." he replied confused.

"Oh right, I remember, you've never been to see me before have you?" she said sarcastically.

"I've been…"

"Busy, yeah I know." She sighed trailing off. He only lived just outside the city, not in another country. He wasn't busy, even if he said he was; he just never made time to come and visit her, because her and Dru didn't get on.

There was nothing wrong with her that Buffy could put her finger on, it was simply a clash of personalities. They didn't get on and so the inevitable happened, when a couple you know gets serious and you don't get on with one of them, they're going to spend more time together, and less time with you.

Buffy still sort of resented Spike for it though, because they'd even kept in touch when he moved away to college; in fact they had talked all the time. It only started becoming weird between them when he met Dru in his final year and didn't move back home like he'd said he was going to. She felt awkward visiting when he moved in with Dru, so she only saw him at holidays when he came home to see the family. Then he even stopped doing that, and she couldn't even blame Dru for it, she knew it was his decision, no one could tell Spike what to do, not even Dru.

She gave him the address and he said he'd be round with his stuff in the next few days, so she said she'd leave him a key under the mat, which he found a very cliché place to hide a spare key.

She hung up the phone, her mind buzzing trying to imagine what the next few weeks would be like. She figured they'd be awkward for sure. They were brother and sister, but they hadn't seen each other in 2 years, and the last time she'd even spoken to him was before she moved here to New York 10 months ago. She knew she'd changed a lot since then, so expected him to have changed as well. It would be like living with a stranger, only a stranger that had been there all the way through your childhood, comforting you when you cried, and then making you cry more than anyone else ever could. Brothers are so much fun aren't they?

Her and Spike had always had a weird relationship. She couldn't ever figure it out. It was different with Dawn and him, because Dawn was actually his sister. Maybe it was because as far as Dawn knew he'd always been her brother; their family had always been that way. But both Buffy and Spike could remember a time before their parents got together. It may not have been a long time, because Joyce and Giles married when Spike was 13 and Buffy was only 6, but Buffy could remember her father, even though she wasn't his biggest fan, and she remembered her first awkward meeting with her soon to be stepbrother.

"Who are you?" the boy in front of her said, snatching away the picture frame she had taken from his desk.

"I'm Buffy Summers." she said quietly.

"What you doing here?" the little boy asked nastily. He didn't like people being in his room, or touching his stuff.

The little blonde girl shrugged. "I came with my mom. She said I…" She noticed he wasn't really paying attention to her answer even though he had asked the question. He had his back to her now, but she could tell he was staring down at the photograph. "Who's the lady in the picture?"

He turned round confused, then looked down. He placed the picture on his desk again, but this time face down. "No one." he said suddenly loosening up and acting as if it didn't matter, although it was obvious that it did. "So what did you say you were doing in my room?" he asked again.

"I…" she stuttered, it would be the first of many times he would leave her a little speechless, because he was intimidating even then, before he called himself Spike, before he drove his motorbike and wore his leather coat, before he got his scar and bleached his hair blonder than hers. "I said I was here with my mum. We're staying for dinner. She said I should come upstairs and look for William. That I could play with him…Are you William?"

He nodded, arms crossed in front of his chest.

"Do you wanna play with me?"

"I…"

"WILLIAM?!" Came his father's loud voice, it made Buffy jump. Rupert always had to shout that loud, because William often had selective hearing and his father could never get his attention any other way. William walked past Buffy, who was still stood slightly in his doorway afraid to come in. He brushed past her to the top of the stairs. His father was at the bottom of them. "Would you come and help me set the table please William?" He paused, "You can get Buffy to help you if you want." Rupert said.

William looked back towards the frail little thing in his doorway, and figured she'd probably be more of a hindrance than a help, and not just in setting the table, but generally in his life from now on. Something inside him sensed this was not the last time he would see 'Buffy Summers'.

It had turned out that the photograph had been of Spike's mother. Buffy remembered when she had gone and asked Rupert about it around a year later, a few months after her and her mother had moved in with him and William…God it felt strange calling him William. He'd been Spike since he was 17, and she had never thought it was strange, she'd been too young to pick fun at the name at first and then she got used to it. It never occurred to her that it was a very unusual name. William seemed the unusual name to her, because it didn't suit him, and he never seemed comfortable with it. She didn't know why Spike suited him, but it did, although she had never known, or really wanted to know where the nickname came from. iShe shuddered to think…in fact, she really did…That was weird…Anyway where was she? /i

She looked up and saw her bus pulling away from the stop. She'd got so lost daydreaming about the past that she'd totally missed its arrival. She sighed looking up at the sky. It was a bright sort of day, not sunny, but it didn't look like rain, so she decided to walk instead of waiting another 20minutes for the next bus.

She went to pick up her shoulder bag, but instead ended up knocking it over, she had always been a little bit clumsy. Luckily not much fell out, her folders only slipped out a tiny bit, and she just shoved them back inside so that she could close it. She gathered up the pencils, putting them in the front pocket, closed that up as well, and then reached for the other item, her purse. She stood up and began to walk home as she opened her purse and threw back in her unspent bus fare. She closed up one side and then had an urge to open up the other side of it. There she saw the plastic compartment that held her pictures, a few family ones, one of her and her best friend from high school, Willow, who she still kept in touch with regularly, and one of her and Faith, a fun loving party girl she'd met at college. She never really understood why Faith was at college, because she never went to class, but she had been a good friend to Buffy. She'd helped her come out of her shell a lot, and even though Faith never went to class, she never pressured Buffy to skip it…well maybe once or twice.

The picture on top of the pile directly underneath the plastic was of her mom. And then she remembered what she had been thinking about.

She'd gone to ask Rupert - or Giles, as she had always called him - about the picture, only to find out that the photograph was of his wife, Jenny who had died when Spike was born. Buffy was still very young at the time, but she understood 2 things, 1# that she had upset Giles by bringing up the subject, and 2# that if she had upset Giles, she had probably upset William at their first meeting. She asked Giles why he was upset that she had asked, and he told her that it wasn't her fault, but that when someone talked about Jenny it made him and William miss her all over again. Buffy not having much tact at that age tried her best to ask her next question without upsetting him further. She asked him if he still loved Jenny, and he said that he did, and that he missed her very much, but that that didn't mean he didn't love Buffy's mother, because he did love her, with all his heart.

Buffy saw that love in the years to come. She never doubted Giles's love for her mother, or vice versa, and she was happy for them from the very start. She'd never thought or seen much of her own father, so that was never a problem. She knew it was harder for Spike to accept things, because he was older, and used to life a certain way, a 'him and his dad against the world' kind of way. But eventually they all settled into life, and when Dawn was born it really brought the family together. Sometimes throwing in another sibling makes things worse, but it made Giles and Joyce a stronger couple, and Spike and Buffy became closer, because they now had something that truly tied them together as a family, and also a younger sister that they could both pick on.

Buffy got back to her flat feeling quite tired. She didn't regret the walk however, it had let her get some fresh air, given her time to think, and she hated the bus sometimes anyway. She was sure she would have been just as tired if she had have gotten it instead. She fished out her keys and unlocked her door, when she got inside she put her keys on the table next to her house phone and saw that she had a new message.

"Hey B." Faith's message played. "The Bronze. Tonight. It's this new club. Be there. Seriously, call me."

She didn't have any classes the next day so she called Faith and agreed to go with her. She hadn't been out in a while, or had a chance to see Faith, and she'd heard about this place a while ago and wanted to go as soon as it opened. She was tired and just felt a bit down, but nothing a night out and some fun couldn't cure.

Faith came round to hers a few hours later and helped her pick an outfit out, like she always did. Most of the time Buffy ended up wearing the outfit she had picked out herself, but it was fun just to hang out and root through her wardrobe while the two talked about Faith's latest conquest and drank whatever kind of lighter fluid or motor oil Faith had purchased that night and tried to pass off as alcohol.

They often got drunk at Buffy's and then went out later, it was better when it was time to go to the club. If you were already a little bit drunk, and seemed like you'd been to a few places before you got there, the bouncers were less likely to think you were underage. They both had fake IDs, but it just meant that the bouncer looked at them less questioningly, which was always a good thing when it came to fake driver's licenses.

They got in this night without a problem, like every other night at any of the other clubs around. Faith had gotten them really good fake IDs. And they always worked.

Inside, the club was a bit grungy, which Buffy didn't mind, and Faith completely loved. It was a little out of the way and had took them a while to get to, but the music was great and the guys were hot, and Faith was buying shots by the bucket load.

They danced to every song they could, they danced with everyone they could, including each other, which always got a few leers and stares from the male population, because they were completely hot chicks, who didn't mind rubbing up against each other in the spirit of having fun. Eventually Faith seemed to get very friendly with this guy that had tattoos all over his arms, and Buffy decided to have a break from dancing. She rarely went further than a dance with guys, because she never really liked the kind of guys you meet at clubs, but she understood that Faith did.

After a while Buffy felt the effects of the alcohol she had had back at her place begin to wear off, so she went to the bar. Fake ID at the ready, just in case they asked.

"Jack and soda, please." she said, searching inside her bag for her money.

"Buffy?" a familiar voice caught her attention.

She looked up, and for the first time got a good look at the barman she had addressed.

"Spike?"

A friend in need's a friend indeed.

A friend who'll tease is better.

Our thoughts compressed, which makes us blessed,

and makes for stormy weather…

AN:- Hope people like this, I've got positive reviews on SpuffyRealm, been posting it there a while, but I thought it couldn't hurt to post it here as well, gonna put up another Chapter tonight, and then I'll quickly upload the rest...I'm writing Chapter 23 at the mo, so I've got a lot to catch up on here...