NINE LIVES TO LIVE
by perletwo
For Mezzibelle, who lost her cat Spike the day I posted this.
{{I've sighed so much in the past 48 hours I probably look just like Peaches,}} Spike thought as he sighed again and finished cleaning the remains of a can of catfood off the crypt floor.
"Okay, okay, just gimme 'alf a tick, willya?" he yelled over the yowling Siamese. Between the noise the cat was making, his own voice and the grinding of the hand-crank can opener, he didn't hear the crypt door open behind him.
"I swear, between you an' y'r daughters...Though at least *you* know exactly what you want, that's quite somethin'," he said loudly, popping the tin can open. "There y'are, m'girl, tuna 'tis...you realize this is gonna give you fish breath, ri', Joyce? An' no *way* are you cuddlin' up t'my pillow in that condition -"
A small sound from behind him rang off the crypt walls, and he whirled. "Buffy?"
"Hi Spike." A tiny wave from the Slayer. "Chicken of the Sea, huh? Somebody's living large."
"Ah, uhh, yeahrr...I was, we were jus'..."
"Giving Joyce dinner, I gather," she said, nodding toward the kitten. "Joyce, Spike? You named her Joyce?"
"Ahh, yah, funny story that...see, I found 'er in y'r mum's cemetery - seemed like a nice tribute, y'know - "
"Uh-huh. So that crack about 'her and her daughters' was, just - what, then?"
Spike's shoulders slumped. "You 'eard that, then. Sorry 'bout the slight, luv."
Buffy waved the apology away. "Spike. You...didn't just name the cat after my mom. Did you?"
He shook his head slowly. "She *is* y'r mum, Buffy. That's Joyce," he said, gesturing toward the cat. "*Our* Joyce."
Her eyes followed the motion of his hand, to the yearling Siamese hunched over a half-opened tin can, nose buried up to its lilac points in raw tuna, and buried her face in her hands.
Curled up in a corner of the sofa, Buffy couldn't quite believe her ears.
"Y'know, Spike, I'd have an easier time believing this if you claimed there was some kind of vampire sixth-sense thingie telling you the cat is really my mom," she said wryly. "Not that I'd agree with you even then, mind you. Just, it'd be easier to accept *your* believing it."
"Which part's givin' you trouble?" he asked, affronted. "That I'd go visitin' y'r mum's grave? That I'm keepin' an eye on you lot that she loved for 'er? Or just that she'd pick me t'answer back to?" Joyce crept around the sofa back behind his neck, and he reached up to feed her a bit of burba weed, to take the tuna off her breath.
"All of the above!" she said, fighting back a laugh. "Spike, it's just - it's such a flimsy string of coincidences to hang a belief like this on..."
"Wot, are you Watcher-boy now, that you need proof in triplicate'a everythin'?" Joyce gave him a sharp meow and a swat on the nose at the swipe at Giles, then hunkered down to wash her front paws. "Look, Buffy, you're over-thinkin' this, luv. This is one'a those things where you just gotta *feel* it, an' make a leap'a faith."
"That's what you're basing this on? You're talking to a cat like she's my mother because you *feel* it?" Buffy sighed. "Look. Spike. It's okay if you want to believe this, I mean, if it gives you comfort, I guess - it's weird, but okay. But - asking me to buy into this - " she shook her head in amazement.
"You're still *thinkin'* too much, luv. Focus on Joyce, 'ere. Look at 'ow she makes you feel when you've been with'er. Can't you see the effect she's got on you, an' on me, an' on Dawn, is just like - "
"DON'T - say it!" The angry, stubborn look he knew so well had taken over her beautiful face. "I am TRYING to be patient. I am TRYING not to get angry with you. I am TRYING not to remember that you helped Dawn try to raise Mom from the dead. Don't make it any harder on me than it is!"
"Buffy -" he sighed, caught himself and sat up straighter. "I'm not makin' this up f'r some kind'a scheme. I'm not usin' the cat to get to you an' Dawn somehow. I wasn't even goin' to TELL you in the first place, f'r chrissakes!"
Some of the steam seemed to go out of her at that, and she slumped into the cushions. "You weren't?" she said in a tiny voice. "You're - saying, hypothetically, this really is Mom - you were just going to keep her all to yourself?"
Spike softened immediately. "Course not, luv. I was gonna give you an' Dawn the benefit'a Joyce's company, just like I 'ave been up to now. I just wasn't gonna tell you who I think she really is, is all." He grinned, chuckled a little. "Knew you'd think I was off my nut."
Buffy smiled, rested her head on the sofa back. "One thing you're forgetting about," she said thoughtfully, after a brief silence.
"What's that, luv?"
She lifted her head to look him in the eye. "I already know where you really go after you die, Spike," she said in a soft voice. "I was there, all last summer. Remember?"
"Always," he said hoarsely. "But...really, all you know for sure is where *you* went after you died, luv. You don't know that it's the same for everybody."
She arched an eyebrow, skeptical.
"No, really. Your death wasn't like a lot of other deaths, Buffy." She snorted.
"Stop that! think about what you said when you told me you were in Heaven, luv. You said you were happy, an' safe, and you were finished - like, the work'a your life was finished, an' you could rest," he said, and she nodded, intrigued.
"Lotta people can't say that when they die. They die too young f'r their lifeswork to've begun, or suddenly or by violence like me. They wouldn't feel - finished, like you did, or able to rest, like the ghosts floatin' around every now an' then. How'd'you know the Powers That Be don't give some'a them a second chance to complete their work?"
"Ah yeah, those wacky Powers That Be," Buffy sighed. "I'll go a little ways down this road with you, Spike. Say this is Mom, sent back to finish some kind of mission. How, exactly, does glomming on to you and taking over your crypt accomplish that?" She smiled smugly.
"Okay, I'll play," he said. "What was the work'a Joyce's life, would you say, Buffy? The art gallery? Catchin' another husband?"
"Us," she said softly. "Raising me and Dawn..."
"Yeah," he said, just as softly. "Raisin' you two, makin' you the best people you can be before she sent you off into the world without 'er. An' you guys weren't a done deal when she died. You were close, luv, but not quite there yet, not 'til the tower - an' Niblet, she was very much a work in progress. She is still, even now."
"And you fit into this mission of hers...how, exactly?" Buffy smiled.
"She can't just move into y'r house an' take it over, luv. Too big, too much stuff goin' on, too many people - she'd get lost in the shuffle, be just a cat," he said, voice soothing. "She needs to be where you an' Dawn come to be most yourselves, to get yourselves centered, so she can sneak in an' give you the love you need on that deep level. An' that's why you com'ere, Buffy. Both of you."
"So, I guess that means the wild freaky sex is like, just a bonus, huh." She smirked. "Gotta tell you, I'm not feelin' this, Spike."
"An' I *am* feelin', luv. I'm feelin' laughed at." He rose and trod heavily to the crypt door. "An' I'm feelin' in desperate need of a pint an' a pack'a cigarettes. Nono, don' get up, mi crypt es su crypt, just close up behind yourself when you leave, an' try not to slam it so 'ard you knock over the statues this time, all ri'?"
Buffy flopped back onto the sofa, dejected. "Well, *that* went well," she pouted, twirling a strand of hair around one finger.
The Siamese gave a small scratchy whine and crept on its belly toward her. "Oh! No, no - Joy, don't take any of this personally! I have absolutely nothing but the utmost respect for *you.*" Joyce gave a low rumbly meow and crept closer, nuzzling her cold nose along Buffy's jawline.
"Besides, we do this all the time, him and me. It's sort of like a dance." Humming with pleasure, she reached up and massaged between the cat's ears, and it purred in return. "A dance to music only we two can hear..." A small mew rumbled out from beneath her chin,and the cat snuggled in a little closer.
"Course, we usually do this over something a little more *sensible,*" she said, tilting her head back away from the cold nose, to get a better angle for scritching Joyce under the chin. "Not that you're a bad thing to fight about, I mean, we both love you, y'know. Just, he's got this silly idea you're something other than a cat."
She tilted her head back the other way, resting her cheek against the arm lying on the back of the sofa, and gazed into the soft blue-gray eyes in front of her. "Like being just a cat's not a perfectly fine thing to be," she cooed, stroking Joyce's silky coat slowly.
The Siamese's eyes opened wider, holding Buffy's gaze, then gave a slow and deliberate blink. Instinctively Buffy returned the blink, and the cat purred loudly, wet a front paw and reached out to brush it along Buffy's cheek and chin. She hummed and closed her eyes, and Joyce crept a step closer and began licking Buffy's jaw and neck, gingerly but firmly.
She opened her eyes, grinning foolishly, and let her head loll forward, brushing her forehead against Joyce's. The cat did the slow-blink thing at her again and butted its head firmly against hers, rubbing to mark her with its scent.
A slow deep breath later and Buffy realized something amazing.
She was feeling it.
She was feeling peaceful, and centered, and loved. Just like Spike said. And all because of a stupid Siamese cat.
She slow-blinked lazily back. "Okay, kittycat. You can be Joyce if you really want," she purred. "But only 'cause you're *really* good at it..."
Her eyes drifted shut again in contentment, and she failed to notice the bleached-blond vampire lurking in the crypt's doorway, a paper bag in hand, smirking in a cross between smugness and delight.