Spike was trying not to let the cat climb up on his lap. He was having as much luck as Xander had when asking someone politely not to climb on someone else's lap at the office when he was trying to conduct a conference call on the speakerphone. Which meant there was a brown and orange and black and cream cat with large green eyes, curling up for a nap on Spike's lap right now. Xander didn't bother to resist chuckling, though it only lasted a moment.

He was still too busy looking around the house. Like the wing chairs they were sitting in, the rest of the furniture was old, but sturdy. Little tables in various parts of the room that Xander guessed was supposed to be a parlor. Small lamps, with delicately embroidered shades. Bookshelves all along the walls. The kind of place he suddenly knew for a fact that Giles had grown up in. Obviously not fancy on any local scale, but like nothing Xander had ever lived in, or even any of his classmates. Who in Sunnydale had a *parlor*, even one with threadbare rugs on the floor?

Spike was looking around too, the same shell-shocked expression on his face as when he'd first seen his mother on the steps, and realized who he was looking at. Xander leaned over and touched him on the arm. "Hey -- should I ask her about what it was like to grow up as a pharaoh's daughter, or is that all top secret hush-hush?"

Spike didn't answer, his attention suddenly fixed in one direction. Ear cocked towards the sounds of Mrs. Witherspoon bustling about in the kitchen, putting things away and "getting them up a proper tea." She was humming something, or singing -- it was hard to tell over the sound of cupboards opening and shutting.

"I know that song," Spike said slowly. He hummed a little of it, face set in concentration as if he was trying to remember, then sang haltingly, "Oh no, we never mention her; her name is never heard. My lips are now forbid to speak that once familiar word. From sport to sport, they hurry me, to banish my..." Spike shook his head. "Something."

"Regret," Mrs. Witherspoon said cheerfully as she carried a heavily-laden tray, in the center of which was a large teapot, into the room. "To banish my regret. And when they win a smile from me, they think that I forget." She had a pretty, almost-young voice, just on the edge of wavering-- though Xander was still hearing Spike singing, in his ears.

It wasn't often that he could whine or tease Spike into singing something that wasn't either filthy or punked up or utterly silly, after all. He tried thinking of ways he could get Spike to do it again. Maybe ask his alter-mum to remember other songs they'd known? Then, after they got home, once in a while Xander could mention one, and wheedle his way into getting Spike to sing. Or, more likely, he could say 'Spike, I'll lose one piece of clothing for every verse.'

He caught Spike looking at him funny, and realized he had a grin on his face which threatened to give away his intentions. To cover, he said, "William never told me his last name was Witherspoon. I guess after I found out about 'Abelard,' he didn't have the nerve." Spike glared at him, which seldom affected Xander in the slightest, and certainly didn't now. "Is *your* son in denial about his middle name too?"

"Abelard is a fine name. It was his grandfather's uncle's name." Mrs. Witherspoon gave him a half-smile, but then shook her head. "My boy...he's never been one for keeping up with his family. That's why I was so surprised...." Her voice dropped, and Xander was sorry he'd mentioned it. "It's been decades since he's been to see me. I couldn't imagine...." She shook her head, suddenly, and Xander didn't have to look over to see the dirty glare of Spike's that *did* make him feel guilty.

"Maybe we should have Gomer name one of the kids 'Abelard'?" Xander suggested.

"Maybe we should have Gomer name one of the kids 'Xander's standing in the corner for the rest of his life'?" Spike retorted.

Xander stuck his tongue out at Spike, then responded to Spike's mum's perplexed look. "Gomer's our daughter--"

"A daughter? You have...oh, I've a grand-daughter?" Xander watched, worried, as she went to that scary grandmother-place. Pretty soon she'd be buying dozens of toys and clothes and whatnots, for them to take home. "She's a piranha," he said hastily. "We've got three -- Hubert and Goober are the boys. Gomer's pregnant," he added, realizing it probably wasn't necessary, as soon as the words left his mouth. "Or about to spawn, or something."

Whatever result he'd been trying for - stymieing her grandmotherly shopping spree -- it obviously hadn't worked. Her face had lit up. "Three! Do you have pictures?"

Xander had to remind himself -- she was a vampire. Ergo, she was as weird as Spike, Dru, and the rest of them. Then again, who was he to talk -- since he *did* have pictures. He grinned and fished in his pocket for his wallet. Didn't *find* it, of course, but he remembered where it was.

"Spike?" He was *not* going to fish in Spike's pocket for his wallet. Not in front of Spike's mother. He grinned a little wider when Spike raised an allegedly innocent eyebrow. "William Abelard?" Xander said, in his best 'Exactly who's going to be standing in the corner for the rest of his unlife?' voice.

"What?"

"William Abelard Witherspoon?" Spike gave him a look that could curdle blood, and handed over the wallet. Xander nodded smugly, and pulled out the plastic flippy-thingy of pictures. "See, there's Goober and Gomer eating the bubbly diver together. And that's Hubert sniffling in the corner 'cause they got to the head first. He likes the helmet best, for some reason."

"Yes. I can see he takes after my Will. He was always sulking in the corner if he didn't get the lolly or the new book he wanted," Adelaide said knowingly.

"I never did!," Spike said, jutting out his lower lip. "I was so good at pouting that I never didn't *get* a lolly, if I wanted one." Xander watched, trying very hard not to laugh, as Spike's mum gave him a look. She didn't say anything, but a moment later Spike said, "I never sulked." But he was sulking as he said it.

Xander and Adelaide exchanged a grin, and as Spike muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like 'I *didn't*', Xander showed the next picture. They managed to draw Spike out of his sulk by the third picture, which was the one Spike insisted was the cutest Gomer picture in the world. Privately, Xander thought his husband was insane -- but since he also thought it publicly, he didn't mind voicing his usual rejoinder: "Spike, she's just *swimming*. How cute can a fish be?"

"But look!" Spike pointed to the picture, angling it towards his mum. "See the flick of her tail? And the way the light glints off her teeth?"

Adelaide sniffed. "My grand-daughter. So adorable!"

Xander let his face drop into his hands. "I've married into a family of weirdos."

Spike tapped him on the shoulder. "You were already in a family of weirdos."

"Yeah, but now it's official."

His husband's voice, word-breath tickling the hairs in his ears as Spike bent close to him. "But you get to call Angel 'daddy' now. It'll drive him round the bend."

Dear God. How many years of living with Spike, how many months of wedding preparations, and that thought had never occurred to him? Xander lifted his face, sharing his joyous grin with both his husband and his new not-mother-in-law, who was looking at Spike curiously.

"Are you still part of the Scourge of Europe, then?" she asked. Xander couldn't tell if her incorrect assumption disappointed her, or not -- her face was caught in the light from one of the lamps in just such a way as to make her expression impossible to interpret.

"Er, we call ourselves the Scourge of Los Angeles, now," Spike said, a cocky grin on his face. "But after Angel got himself cursed with a soul, Darla got herself turned to dust, and I got a chip in my head, -- we sorta changed sides." He looked suddenly sheepish as the last words came out, and Xander could see him realizing that his mum -- being a vampire - might not like the idea that her little boy had finally become one of the good guys.

"A chip in your head?" She was frowning, now.

"Yeah, bloody government did it. S'all right, got a witch friend who fixed it up for me -- turned off right now, actually, so's I can make sure no one hurts Xander while we're here. But it kept me from biting humans, and I sorta...." Spike sent a quick look to Xander. "Ended up falling in love with dork-boy, here." Well, that was the short version, Xander thought, as he tried not to think 'glurble.'

"They put a chip in your head?" Spike's mum was repeating, and Xander *knew* that tone. He'd heard Willow's mom, Buffy's mom, even *Giles* get that tone. "Somebody *hurt* you?"

Xander saw Spike blink, then he explained quickly, "It's a computer chip -- not like a dent out of m'skull."

"Yes, that's what I thought you meant, William; we're not a technological wasteland, you know. It's *still* the twenty-first century." She waved a hand at a rolltop desk in the corner, and Xander realized that what he'd first taken for some kind of weird Victorian musical instrument was in fact an elaborately decorated PC, encased in a polished wood frame.

She was glaring at him, Xander also realized. Or at Spike. Or someone who wasn't there, and she was just aiming it at the nearest someones she could find. "So are you saying they *didn't* hurt you?"

Spike shifted in his seat. "Well... yeah, it wasn't exactly Sunday in the park with George. They zapped me and cut a hole in my head and stuck a little bit of wire and plastic in." He shrugged. "I survived. Obviously."

She sat there quietly for a moment -- hands in her lap, frowning very slightly. She looked for all the world like a proper English Lady who was about to order that someone be disemboweled. "And where are these people, now?" she asked in a deceptively calm tone. Perhaps not 'deceptively,' Xander corrected -- from the expression on Spike's face, he figured he wasn't the only one thinking maybe they should use the hotel's e-mail system to warn Riley and his buds.

"Most of 'em are dead now, mum," Spike said quickly. "The Slayer and her lot killed the bad ones for me." Spike glanced over at Xander, his eyes twinkling. No doubt he was remembering fondly the fight and the copious amounts of bloodshed and mayhem.

"The who?"

"Never mind," Spike told her, shaking his head and dismissing the supernatural creature bent on destroying the vampiric species in favour of asking, "Can I have another chocolate-and-blood-cream biscuit?"

She turned a look on him that was almost equal in strength to the pre-disemboweling one, but far more frightening, at least to Xander. It was the look with which Joyce Summers had managed to quell an entire bachelor party full of horny and misbehaving men, starting with themselves. The Mom-look. The effect of Joyce's had been diluted slightly (only slightly) by its having been pre-recorded; *this* mom-look was undead and in person, and Xander cringed slightly to even be witnessing it. Spike, the direct recipient, appeared to be blanching, no matter how impossible that was for a vampire to do.

"Er...mum...I meant..."

"*May* I have another chocolate-and-blood-cream biscuit?" Xander asked quickly. He was caught somewhere between laughing at his husband, and tucking Spike under his arm and running for safety, given the look his not-mother was still directing at his unmannered husband. The mom-gaze swung over to focus on Xander, though, at his words, and the disapproval melted into a sweet smile faster than any change of mood Xander had ever seen before, even in Drusilla.

"Yes, of course you may," his --ulp-- mother-in-law informed him.

"Er, without the blood, that is."

She handed him the plate, then turned her head back to scowl at Spike, who was sticking his tongue out at Xander. Xander merely grinned as he picked up one of the 'safe' cookies. He hadn't *meant* to ask for himself; he'd just been covering for Spike. But that, as they say, is the way the cookie crumbles.

Spike sucked that tongue in faster than a naked vampire running out of his Sire's quarters in the pre-newt-spell-days, and pretended to be deeply involved in scratching behind the tortie-cat's ears.

His mother rolled her eyes. "As for you, William. Really. I'd be tempted to think Xander is right, and you *were* born in a barn..." Here she stopped, sighed, and glanced up at something over Spike's head. "If it weren't for the fact that your manners are still three times as good as my own boy's. Or as good as they were the last time he bothered to stop in."

The silence that followed was awkward; at least Xander felt such, and Spike looked like he didn't know what he was expected to say. Xander found himself glancing around the room, reflexively searching for some way to change the subject, when he saw a picture of Spike. The *other* one, he realized a moment after he'd opened his mouth and said, "Hey, is that--"

Of course it was. The vampire in the photograph looked just like Spike did now. Long light-coloured hair, curls pulled down into waves by the weight of it. Cheekbones so sharp you could cut yourself on them. The blue of his eyes wasn't visible in the sepia-toned picture, but their brightness was, and so was the insolent sneer on his lips, one that popped up often enough on his own Spike's mouth, usually to be immediately kissed away. There was something in this one's gaze, though, that told Xander that he would never mistake the local Spike for his own, if they met in person.

Adelaide followed his gaze, and she nodded. "Yes, that's my William. The last time he posed for a portrait, that I'm aware of -- Angelus had to box his ears to make him stand still."

Spike's low growl startled Xander, and he looked away from the photo to the real version. Rather, *his* version.

"Sorry," Spike said, though he didn't look contrite. Big surprise there, Xander thought. "Annoying as Angel is, I like the idea of meeting up with Angelus even less."

His mother looked confused, and Xander still didn't know -- did she like the idea of her boy being on the side of goodness and light, more or less? Then as she repeated the word "Angel," as if trying the sound out on her tongue, he caught on.

"After he got his soul, he turned into a real do-gooder. Changed his name and all. Well, he turned into a bum for a hundred years, *then* a do-gooder," Spike explained.

"He's okay, for a dork the size of a Mack truck. As long as we stay out of his hot-tub and don't do anything nasty to his lover's pickup, or hide old french fries in his socks, or..." Xander paused. "So, about once a week, he's an okay guy. Angelus, though... the last time we met up with him, when Angel lost his soul... Let's just say the only happy camper on campus was Dru, and even she didn't stay all that thrilled, once she realized he was still jonesing for Buffy."

The expression on her face didn't exactly grow clearer. Spike rolled his eyes at Xander. "You're in Victorian England, luv. That speech practically required a universal translator."

"Then we should've stopped off in the 'Star Trek is real' dimension, instead of staying an extra two hours at Disney World because you wanted to ride the teacups again," Xander shot back.

"I'm not sure what Star Trek is, but I believe I understood the gist of what Xander said," Mrs. Witherspoon informed them. Xander stuck out his tongue at his husband, feeling vindicated. "Cats eat more than cream, young man," she added with a sharp look at Xander.

"Huh?"

Spike was chuckling. "She means if you stick out your tongue, the cat'll bite it off." The cat was showing no signs of interest, but Xander made sure his tongue was properly inside his mouth, just in case. It *could* have been the Victorian mother's version of 'Your face will freeze that way' -- but in a dimension ruled by vampires, Xander wasn't going to take any chances that Fluffy Kittikins wasn't more than she seemed.

"Weren't we talking about Angel?" Xander asked, trying to recover some of his dignity.

"Angelus," Spike corrected him. "And how we don't want to meet up with him particularly, in this or any other dimension." He seemed sincere enough, though Xander knew Spike had a soft spot for the old, pre-Buffy, Angelus, no matter how nasty he might have been.

"I doubt you shall, as he's out of town at the moment." Mrs. Witherspoon gestured to a newspaper lying folded on the desk next to the ornate computer. "At least according to the society pages. He and his Sire are on a diplomatic mission to Ireland."

Xander watched as Spike's jaw went down, then up, then down, then up, then down. Then up. Then down. Watching was more fun than noticing if his own jaw was doing the same dance. Finally Spike sputtered, "Diplomatic? Angelus? Diplomacy? What nutter sent *him* and Darla on a diplomatic mission to anywhere?"

Xander goggled for a moment at Spike. "I was gonna say 'society pages? Angel and Darla are on the society pages?'"

Spike nodded. "That, too."

Adelaide, however, was watching them both with motherly amusement. It gave Xander the shivers. "The 'nutter' who sent them was Queen Victoria. Those two--" but whatever else she was going to say got lost in the resultant blinking.

"Queen Victoria? *The* Queen Victoria? Angelus and Darla know *Queen* Victoria?" Xander discovered he was bouncing in his chair. He turned to Spike. "Can we go meet her, huh? Can we? Can we? If Angelus knows her, maybe other-Spike does, too."

A strange, squeaky sound seemed to emanate from Spike's general direction. Not like Spike's 'Oh shit, Cordelia caught us doing something naughty and unlike Angel, she really *can* kick our arses' squeak. Not even like his 'Omigod, that's a squirrel out there on the window ledge' squeak. This was something else entirely. Xander was tempted to label it the 'I'm so impressed I'm speechless' squeak, except he'd never actually seen that happen before, so he couldn't be absolutely sure that was the case.

Another option was that Spike had accidentally pinched the cat. But since it wasn't scratching merry hell out of him, Xander was leaning towards his first hypothesis, especially when Spike spluttered, "The Queen? Visit... the Queen of England?"

Xander grinned. So much for his story about letting ferrets loose at the Great Exhibition. "Yeah -- Cordy'll turn green!" Xander blinked, then grinned even wider. "Wesley'll turn *purple* !"

"Your friends make a habit of changing colours?" Adelaide asked. "Hmm. Fashions these days. Still, I remember when somebody couldn't leave the house without having his hair properly curled, so I suppose things haven't changed all that much."

"But we *can't* visit the Queen," Spike was protesting, which sounded awfully funny coming from a man who sang 'God save the Queen, she ain't a human bein' in the shower every morning.

When Xander pointed that out, Spike did his not-really-blanching trick again. His mother simply blinked. "Well, of course not. She's a vampire. Though I'm not sure you should be singing about the Queen while you're naked, William."

"Mother!" Spike sounded absolutely aghast, though Xander couldn't tell if it was from the idea of Queen V. and Spike's nakedness being combined in any way, shape, or form, or simply the horror of his mother imagining him naked. Even his counterpart's mother. Possibly *anyone's* mother. "Anyhow," Spike said after he stopped doing his mouth-open-mouth-shut impression of Gomer, "That's the other Queen. I wouldn't sing that about Queen Victoria. She's...well...she's the Queen!"

"And my husband's insane. Don't mind him." Xander leaned forward eagerly. "So, does this-Spike, your Spike, that is, know the Queen?"

She nodded, an expression of mixed emotion on her face. "Yes. Angelus and Lady Darla are her... political enforcers, I suppose you might say. Darla does the actual diplomatic work, and Angelus tortures the right people, in order to keep things running in various arms of the Empire. There's a small rebellion in southern Ireland at the moment; they want to secede from the Empire and form their own country. Angelus and Darla were dispatched to practice their own brand of diplomacy on the leaders."

Xander's treacherous imagination provided him with a number of nasty images of Angelus' idea of diplomacy. They weren't scribbled in crayon, however, but splashed across the screen of his mind in full 16 mm, with Dolby surroundsound. The look on Spike's face indicated that he was attending a similar screening, probably without benefit of popcorn and jujubes.

Spike's mother was continuing, not so much oblivious of their discomfort as lost in her description of the activities of the rich and famous -- including her son. "William and Drusilla sometimes go along on these jaunts, but more often, lately, they've been staying here in London. William likes to wait until Angelus is out of town, then stir up trouble among the upper crust. Crashing fancy-dress balls, interrupting political talks. Throwing their own parties, which are quite the rage among the younger set -- the ones who've been changed in this century. Or so I've heard."

Something in her tone of voice had been niggling at Xander, something familiar beyond the 'My son doesn't visit me anymore' sadness. Her eyes flicked towards the newspaper on the desk again, and it finally snapped into place. He'd heard the sound in his own mother's voice, a couple of centuries ago when he was still in high school and she was going on about Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere having split, or Madonna's new baby, as she paged through the latest issue of People.

"You have a scrapbook, I bet," he said with a grin.

Spike's eyes went wide, and the accusation in them made Xander think of that time he'd eaten the last of the buffalo wings without telling Spike there were any in the first place. Adelaide was smiling, and reaching behind her towards the bookcase. "It's a small one, not really much beyond a few newspaper photos and a couple of articles...."

The book she drew out was at least three inches thick, however, and Spike was holding his head in his hands. Xander elbowed him, hard. "Relax, moron. It isn't you, remember?"

From behind his hands, though, Spike's voice came, "She'll be pulling the other ones out, next."

"Other ones?" Xander stared at his mortally embarrassed doofus of a husband-glurble, and it hit him. The *others*. "*Baby* pictures?!" Spike groaned again, and sunk into his chair.

"William, sit up properly." Spike instantly scooted back up, then he froze, lowered his hands, and glared at the wall. "I do have some paintings, and a few photographs, of William as a child." Adelaide was still holding the scrapbook on her lap, however. Xander scooted his chair forward.

"After we look at this, can we see them?"

Adelaide beamed at him with sheer maternal approval. Xander wanted to crow about it to Spike, who looked like he wished he could sink back down in -- or under -- his chair again. "They hadn't invented cameras back then," Spike mumbled, trying to pretend he wasn't interested in seeing the scrapbook, himself.

"They had so," Xander reminded him. "They were called daguerreotypes. For God's sake, we've seen pictures of Darla from the 1830's." Xander scooted even closer, and Adelaide opened the scrapbook and held it a bit sideways.

"Yeah, well, these won't be photos of *me*, will they?" Spike rejoined.

"But you look *exactly* like my son," his mother said. "I'm sure the baby pictures will be accurate, down to the little curl on your forehead you had as an infant."

Xander stared at Spike, mind trying to process 'little curl' and 'infant.' Spike's face morphed rather easily into a small, round, angelic little face, with one tiny brown curl. Xander laughed, and Spike flipped him off.

Spike was still muttering and grousing an hour or so later, when they finally did make it around to the pictures of Spike in all his living, nerdy William-ness. They'd consumed enough tea and cookies to ruin a normal person's dinner -- so it was lucky neither of them fit that description. The cat had run off, finally, tired of losing its comfy perch every time Spike alternated between slumping in embarrassment, sitting up straight when his mother gave him the eye, and leaning over with undisguised interest when he thought no one was watching him.

At the moment, he was in slump-mode. Adelaide pointed to a large formal photo. "And there he is on his twenty-first birthday. It was the first time we realized he needed reading glasses, so I gave him a copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese, and a pair of spectacles." William, in the picture, was looking both flustered and pleased, as he held the small book in his hand and peered at the camera over the top of his spectacles. Spike, in the chair next to Xander, looked like he was ready to pout the walls down.

Xander glanced at the picture again, then over at his husband. "Are you *sure* you don't still need glasses, Spike?" Spike growled quietly, giving Xander a look that said he'd be flipping Xander the bird, if doing so wouldn't get his hand slapped again. Xander tilted his head. "You're squinting. You must still need 'em."

"I'm not squinting. That was a deathy glare." Spike glared again, more emphatically.

Xander shook his head slowly. "You're squinting. Isn't he squinting?" he asked Spike's mum.

Adelaide looked vastly amused as she handed the current album over to Xander, and stood up. She went over to an armoire, and pulled open a small drawer. From it, she took out a small leather case, which she brought over to Xander.

Xander didn't comment on the way Spike was once more leaning forward with interest; he just opened the case. Inside was a pair of antique-styled wire rim glasses. He held them out to Spike, who looked at them like they were a pair of pink fuzzy slippers. "Put them on," Xander told him.

"What for?"

"Because I wanna see you in them."

Now Spike was looking at *Xander* like *he* was a pair of pink fuzzy slippers. Or like Xander had just asked him to roll naked in extremely slimy cucumber slices, with no hope of reward afterwards. "No. Don't be daft."

"Yes." Xander tried a variant of the stern look that Spike had gotten such a kick out of when they were shopping in Ambercrombie's. Spike seemed about to fold, then he shook his head.

"No."

Okay. Time for a new plan of attack. "Pleeeeeeese? With whipped cream and marshmallows and blood on top?"

Xander was expecting the fuzzy, glazed look in Spike's eyes. The matching one in Adelaide's made him a little nervous. Only for a second, though, because Spike was shaking his head and frowning. "No. No, no, and no. Don't need 'em. My eyesight's perfect; has been ever since I got turned."

Xander sighed, then glanced across at Mrs. Witherspoon. Carefully, with the eye that Spike couldn't see from where he was sitting, he winked. Then he turned back to Spike. "If you *loved* me, you'd put them on." The snarl that greeted him would've made lesser men cower in fear. Xander just grinned, basking in the knowledge that he'd won.

"Fine. Rassenfrassen... But I'll look like an idiot, and it bloody well won't be my fault. Don't say I didn't warn you." Spike slipped the spectacles on, hooking the curved temple pieces over his ears. Then he looked up at Xander.

"Spike?"

"Yeah?" Spike groused, obviously waiting for the requisite teasing.

"Take 'em off."

Spike blinked at him -- from behind the glasses, which did absolutely nothing to help. "Er, what?"

"Take. Them. Off."

There was a slight frown of genuine hurt, then, and Spike asked, "Why?"

"Because if you don't I'm going to have to fuck you in front of your mother, and it's bad enough that they've made me *say* 'fuck' in front of your mother. Take the glasses *off*." Xander waited another half-second before reaching forward, himself, hoping his hand would obey command and go directly for the glassed, and not touch any delicious-looking Spike parts.

Spike was suddenly preening, and making no immediate move to remove the glasses. He did pull back out of the way of Xander's hand, though, leaning back in the chair until he was sprawled on the velvet. His face was transformed into something Xander had never seen before, brown curls dangling around the very edge of the frames only heightening the effect of...whatever it was.

It wasn't a softening of his face -- Spike's hard edges and vampiric blood showed even when he was sound asleep and relaxed beyond all measure. It wasn't even the effect of making him look younger, like the lollipops did. He couldn't tell exactly what it was, and Spike wasn't taking the glasses off, which was making Xander think that maybe the little tube of lubricant Spike had slipped into his coat pocket, not realizing Xander was watching, would come in useful after all. Except there was still Spike's mother, sitting right in the same room.

Xander glanced over at her. "Oh, don't mind me, dear," she said, and smiled, showing her dimples. Xander squeaked.

Spike shot straight up in his chair, and tore the glasses off his face. "Mother!"

For a moment, he was every bit the prim and proper young man in the picture Xander had balanced on his lap, except without the glasses, thank God. Prim and proper young *vampire* -- there was no denying that -- but still, Xander thought he could see what Dru had seen, that night in the alley. *I* was a geek in high school, Xander thought. How come *I* never looked that sexy?

"What, dear?" Spike's mum was saying. "I might be a Victorian, but I'm still a vampire. I'd never say no to a good bout of sex, violence, or music-hall burlesque."

"Mother!" he said again. If possible, Spike looked even more aghast. And the tips of his ears were turning pink! Xander filed that one away for further study, determined that he would manage to reproduce the effect somehow, without resorting to stealing Wesley's Angel-painting pink nail-polish.

She winked at them. Xander chose to take this as a sign that she was just kidding, and she knew damned well that Xander wouldn't have allowed himself to do anything with *anybody's* mother in the room, much less Spike's. He chose very *hard* to take it that way. He also thought, not quite as hard, that she had more confidence in him than he had in himself. Xander swallowed hard, and tried very, very hard, not to keep thinking the word 'hard' while simultaneously pretending he didn't know vampires could smell sexual arousal, even when somebody had a large leatherbound book in their lap, covering up the evidence.

"Um..." he ventured. "I don't suppose we could keep these?" He held up the glasses, then quickly put them into their case when the mere sight of them brought back an image of Spike wearing them, with all the accompanying problems.

Adelaide laughed, and the sound made Xander want to run very far away from any place that had mothers, or vampires-besides-his-own. Hiding under the bed, say. With a naked husband-- Xander scolded the part of his brain that had thought that, and tried not to watch as the crayon on the walls started drawing diagrams about how Spike would look naked, wearing only the glasses.

"Of course, dear. If William ever comes to his senses and realizes he *does* need them," She gave Spike a stern look which had Spike sitting up straight again even though he hadn't been slouching, "He can buy a new pair. Perhaps if Drusilla saw him in them, he'd take to wearing them again," she mused.

"Thanks, mum," Spike said, sounding suspiciously gracious. "I reckon we ought to be heading off, now." Both vampires glanced at Xander, who glared back at them. It was *his* fault he was making the room smell like turned-on-human? Who'd brought the glasses out in the first place? "It...it was nice meeting you," Spike finished, sounding a lot more formal than he had all day. Or possibly all year.

"Oh, it was lovely!" Adelaide was exclaiming, and there was suddenly a lot of hugging and cheek-kissing and wasn't it lovely and you're always welcomes.

Xander decided not to mention the goose Adelaide had given him the second time she'd hugged him. It was bad enough having had a threesome with your Siress-in-law (not that said threesome had been bad, just strange), without thinking about the Freudian implications of being felt up by your husband's *real* mother. Sort-of real mother. Ack. No. Think deeply about getting Spike home and undressed and sitting in front of the fake fire reading erotic poetry while wearing nothing but the glasses. Yup. That worked.

Except for the part where his alternate-mother-in-law's voice cut in, saying, "And if you *do* decide to visit my boy, you might mention that if the picture in last November's paper is anything to go by, he needs a haircut."

Then they were out the door and on the steps, then waving up at the window from the street below, where Adelaide's smiling face shared the backlit square with the green-eyed cat. The cat arched and stretched, then settled into the fluffy ball-shape that they had first seen filling the window as they approached.

Spike was quiet for another block or so, just walking with his arm through Xander's, and watching his feet with some interest. Not that Xander could blame him, given the sort of things you could step on around here, but Xander kept checking the tips of Spike's ears anyway, to see if the pink had faded yet. Finally, when they'd once again passed the opening to the little alley where Dru had turned him, Spike looked up at him, a small, strange smile on his face.

"That was my mum."

Xander found himself returning the smile, even though he wasn't quite sure what Spike was saying. "Yeah. Kinda neat, huh? Was she...like yours?"

Spike's smile went wider, and he nodded. "Just said she was, didn't I?"

"Oh. You mean--"

"That was my mum." Spike's smile turned into a grin usually reserved for receiving presents. Which, Xander realized, this might well have been.

"You know, we can come back here, whenever. All we have to do is remind Angel that it'll mean getting us out of the hotel for a while, and he'll be ordering Wes to spell us back over here."

Spike's look brightened, then inexplicably darkened. "Well, she might not want us dropping in all the time. M'not her William, not really. Though...I suppose we could visit for Boxing Day, or something."

Xander thumped him on the arm. "Or something? Weren't you listening? She told us we could come back for Sunday tea, as well as dinner Thursday, and we're invited over for every major holiday on the books, including Banking Holidays. Hey! You think she'd want to come visit us?" He paused. "Huh, not like our world's got all that much to offer visiting vampires. It'd be fun to see her harangue Angel, though."

Spike snorted. "Right, give her an hour and she'd have the entire lot of 'em in line. Hmm. Think she'd get along with Princess, or would Cordy think Mum was encroaching on her territory?"

"I think your mom, Cordy, and my grandma, together in one city, would be very, very scary. They'd love each other and the rest of us would have to behave for the rest of our lives."

Spike made a face. "Maybe we should make sure they only get to see us on alternate weekends -- like a custody arrangement," he offered. Then he did that little grin again. The boyish, diffident, 'may-not-can I have another pineapple-and-tomato pizza,' grin. "She liked you."

Xander grinned the same grin back. "You think?" She could've just been being nice, after all -- or polite and Victorian and lonely. When Spike nodded, Xander pretended he'd never had a doubt. "Well, of course. Everybody's mother likes me. I'm the good boy with the safe car who always remembers to say ma'am."

Spike cocked his head. "Hmm. True. Wonder why on earth I love you, then."

"I spank hard."

"Yeah. That must be it." Spike leaned in to kiss him, in the shadows where the overhangs of two buildings met. When he pulled away, he added, "Can't be the snogging, 'cos you not only shop like a girl, you kiss like one."

Xander narrowed his eyes, and decided he'd prove Spike wrong on all counts except the one they'd just agreed on, before the night was over. Starting with another kiss.

*****