Brennan and Buffy sat on the couch in Brennan's office watching the two men hurl insults at each other. Booth had been enraged when Spike had told Brennan of his drunken mishap as Angelus. When they had arrived at the Jeffersonian the four had gone to her office, the body hadn't gotten there yet and Brennan wanted to escape Angela before her friend caught sight of the blonde couple. Or more precisicly the Spike. Angela's vow of celibacy had her hitting on everything male and she didn't think Buffy would appreciate her brazen friends antics.

Watching Booth and Spike go at it like this was the best entertainment Brennan had seen in awhile. She knew that by the time they finished that she would have loads of blackmail material on Booth. She grinned at the thought of using some of Spike's comments against her partner. Beside her, Buffy was equally amused. Spike had told her of his human life as William the Bloody, but she had been under the immpression that his attempts at poetry had stopped once he became a vampire. Spike's comments about Angel and Angelus were as if not more hilarious.

"I don't know how Dru put up with you! Even in LA I could hear you reciting that horrible poetry!"

"Yeah well at least I didn't sing Manalow while I showered! You're a bloody awful singer!"

"You were pathetic Spike! Running down the street in tears."

"At least I wasn't a drunken man whore!"

"I wasn't a man whore! Its not my fault the women fell at my feet."

"Fell at your feet?? Thats what you want to call it? I heard the stories from Darla, different woman every night, no wonder your da kicked your lazy arse out!"

"At least I had had a women! Virginal little William whose first time was with a crazy woman! Whats that say about you hmm Spike?"

"And she came screaming my name for years, least I'm not a bloke who gets perfect happiness from deflowering a seventeen year old girl!"

"Hey now don't bring me into this!" Buffy had cut in. Both men looked at her with apology then turned back to each other, the small blonde momentarly forgotten.

"Who was too scared to go back to her after Sunnydale?"

"I wanted to go back and you know it! YOU filled me with lies that she had moved on! You're the reason it took me almost getting killed to go find her."

"You didn't have to stay Spike. You could have left after you got....better."

"If I had left you would have bollocks it up even more. Prolly wouldn't even be here!"

"Thats not true! I had everything under control!"

"That right? Then were are Wes and Gunn? Or Fred? Or Conner for that matter!"

"I tried Spike! I tried! I thought I was doing what was right! Gunn knew he wouldn't make it and I should have sent him back. I should have sent Illiryia with Wes and you know we both tried everything to save Fred. Conner is still alive, he just wishes I weren't, its nothing new between us."

"M'sorry mate, I shouldn't have brought them up. The past is the past....But you're still a bloody poofter."

"Am not!"

"Are to!"

"Am not!"

"Are to!"

"Least I'm not impotent."

"M'not impotent! Ask Buffy you ponce!"

"What was it that Xander always called you? Fangless?"

"Wanker!"

"William the Bloody awful poet! Loves bitch and all around annoyance!"

"Grrrr...I'm gonna kill you! Your a disgrace to the line!"

"The line's gone Spike! You're all thats left. And I doubt Buffy is gonna let you rebuild it!"

"It's your fault the line is gone! Or did you forget that little detail. Darla's gone, Dru offed herself cause of you. Penn and Lawson by your hand!"

"They were trying to kill me! What would you have done? Darla did it so Conner would live, and Dru, well you know full good and well why she killed herself."

"Because you left us again!"

"Did you want me to stay like that? I could have turned the offer down, I thought I had already.

"Course not! You were miserable! But you could have stayed in touch. After it all quieted down. They weren't gonna hunt us forever."

"I had no way of contacting you Spike. All I knew was that you were in Europe. It wasn't like I could call and ask for your number, last time I did that Giles told me off and hung up!"

"What of Dru? You knew how attached to you she was!"

"The bonds were gone Spike! I couldn't contact her anymore. If you hadn't called me I wouldn't even know she was gone!"

Brennan's amusement soon turned to confusion. What were they talking about? She gathered that Spike's ex had killed herself over something Booth did and that Booth's ex Darla gave her life for this Conner person and that Spike blamed Booth for it. But who were Penn and Lawson? And why did Booth have to kill them? Who were Wes, Gunn, Fred and Illyria? Brennan thought she knew her partner. But he and Spike were revealing layers of his past the she had no idea existed. Brennan glanced at Buffy, who sat calmly beside her. The blonde woman obviously knew what they were talking about......

"Bloody hell ,Angelus! You don't know what its like! I may have Buffy and Dawn but I'm alone!"

"What are you talking about Spike?" Booth's apparent confusion seemed to set Spike off, who had all but forgotten the two women in the room, one of which knew nothing of the world the others walked in. He didn't even notice the slip Spike had made with his name.

"We were once the most feared Order in the world! Others trembled at our feet! But now Aurelius is gone and I'm the only one left! And its one of the worse feelings in my life! Waking up and not feeling Dru's presence or yours in the back of my mind! It's bloody well terrifying! Its not like I can tell anyone! Sure Buffy knows a little about us but how am I gonna explain to her that even though I wake up next to her every day, that the loss of my clan effects me more than anything? That knowing my entire family is gone tears me up inside even though I'm surrounded by people who love me? How the hell do you explain something like that!"

Booth was silent for a moment before rushing the women out of the room. He had no idea how he was gonna explain what she had heard to Bones but right now Spike was more important. Walking over to the shaking blonde he placed his hands on Spike's shoulders, forcing the shorter man to look up at him.

"I know how you feel Spike. I wake up every day knowing that the only ones who understood all of me are gone. That the life I'm living is a fake, that my son isn't really my son. But your not alone Spike. Whether the bond is there or not, whether I'm human or vampire or something inbetween, you will always be my childe, nothing can or will change how I feel about you. Yes you may annoy me to the point that I feel like staking you, but you're still my Will, no matter what you say your name is or how many decades have past. The Order of Aurelius may not be as powerful as it once was but unless you are dust it still lives on. You're a very powerful master Spike, no vampire has ever reached master status in twenty years, I was over a hundered before I did. I know Buffy won't let you rebuild the Aurelian Empire but you know our rituals. If you wanted to you could use them, not everyone in our Order was a vampire."

"The rituals create a bond between them don't they?"

"Yes, most do."

"Could I use it on you. I may not have liked you all the time but I miss your presence."

"You still think of me as family?" Booth was shocked, he really had thought Spike didn't want anything to do with him.

"Course. Once a sire always a sire."

Booth smiled at Spike who grinned back. "Well then, as soon as this mess is over, we'll make with the ritual bloodletting."

Spike chuckled."Hey what are you gonna tell your partner? Didn't mean to just blurt all that out. I gathered she doesn't know much about you."

Booth groaned "I am not looking forward to that conversation, she isn't going to believe anything I tell her."

"Ah well you'll think of something, there has to be some brain matter behind that big forhead of yours."

"Shut up Bleach boy, with all that peroxide in your hair I'd be surprised if you had any working brain cells.

"Grrr...Ponce."

END