Even if it's a lie
Say it will be all right
"Look, it's not as if you haven't wanted to kill me before. Now's your chance. Strike while the iron's hot."
Buffy squinted hard at Spike as he said that. For the past hour he'd obsessively gone over myriad reasons why she or Willow should happily want to kill him, and the only thing it accomplished was to make her miserable -- and thus making it hard to finish her French Slam breakfast. Bites of food kept sticking her throat. Craw, as her dad used to say.
"No." Buffy didn't even spare him a glance.
"You know, it doesn't matter that you keep saying that. All I have to do is go to work one day, happen to make a point of standing in front of a mirror or telling everyone I hang with the slayer or pick a fight with whatever demon's handy, and there you have it." He spread his hands wide. "Supernatural death."
Willow poked him with her finger. "And if I'm not there to referee, then you're screwed, because it's not like you get to linger around waiting for me to do the spell whenever I'm in the right mood. It has to be immediate, and I'm not ready, like I told you about five hundred times in the past couple hours."
"Giles will be here soon," Spike grumbled. "He'll tell you you're good to go. Besides, you've already read the sodding text fifty times over. What could go wrong?"
Willow snorted. "Obviously you've never heard the phrase 'read the fucking manual.' Stuff always goes wrong, there's always consequences, as you so sagely pointed out a long time ago."
"Doesn't matter anyway. Still not gonna kill you." Buffy stabbed her French toast.
"It's entirely unfair," Spike whined. "We've danced round and round this thing for years, and now we have a worthwhile opportunity for everyone to get their hate-on out of the way, but you won't take it. Even in the service of good."
"And still more no!" Buffy snapped.
"Again with the volunteering over here," Xander muttered, and both Willow and Buffy glared at him.
This reminded her too much of those door-slamming farces that her mom had always liked so much. Only right now, Buffy wished she was the one doing the slamming, and they were on the opposite side of the door. Why did Will have to go and figure out that whole spell thing, anyway? Spike would never drop it, she knew that. He was like the Terminator: He simply will not stop until he is dead. Just way too much could go wrong in a thing like this, and there really was no manual to fucking read, and... well, just too much could go wrong.
With a loud clatter, she tossed her utensils on the plate and turned to face Spike. "Look. Can we just drop it for right now? I'm sick of this discussion, and I'm sick of thinking about anyone I know dying, and mostly, it's not like there's a big bleeding hurry." She glared pointedly at him. "If we hadn't stumbled on that information, we wouldn't even be talking about this."
Spike gave her those puppy eyes, the "but I'm dying" eyes that she had developed a very large Big-Gulp-sized vat of hatred for.
"When Giles gets here, then we can talk about alternatives. But right now... let's leave it alone."
Spike slouched down in the seat, the leather of his jacket making rude noises as it rubbed against the vinyl booth seatback. He heaved a giant sigh, which only made Buffy roll her eyes and turn away from him. He'd start the extreme-sport pouting soon. The problem with that, of course, was that Buffy thought his pouting was pretty sexy.
Everyone acted as if this was no big deal. It was all a joke to Xander, or a test of courage to Will. No one seemed to think about how it would make her or Dawn feel if it didn't work out, and anyway, she still wasn't convinced the bringing him back as a vampire with a soul was a good idea. The soul had driven Angel nearly insane for decades, he'd told her once a long time ago, and Spike already had the map of scars that showed how agonizing it had been for him to come back human, with soul, and cope with all the crimes he'd committed as a vampire. What would being undead again, but with the bonus-gift guilt, do to someone like him? He was one of those Big Emotions guys, and something like that could pretty much put him under, just as surely as a stake would.
"Let's get the check," Willow said, trying to be the group counselor again. "Maybe a good night's sleep will make everything seem sensible tomorrow. Plus, Giles!"
"I'm not hungry anymore, anyway." Buffy wadded up her napkin and tossed it on the plate, where it slowly soaked up the fake maple-flavor syrup.
Xander scowled. "Well, I'm getting mine to go. I'm not even half done yet."
Spike just muttered under his breath, and Buffy was pretty sure she heard the word "cunt" in there.
When she got home, Dawn was waiting for her, even though she should have long been in bed. Willow had decided to go back to the Magic Box and get all the information written down in some kind of useful fashion for Giles. Sort of like a term-paper outline.
"Are you guys gonna kill him?" she asked, like it was a perfectly normal question. Obviously she'd been stewing about it the whole time.
"No!" Buffy snapped, throwing her coat on the couch. "No killing of human beings, you know that."
"But I mean he's not really human, right? Because of the coming back wrong thing? So there could theoretically be justified killing."
"Yes, he's human. Maybe things aren't working right, but that doesn't mean he's not still a person. So, ixnay on the illkay."
Dawn hugged her arms tight around herself, and it made Buffy realize she was still so young in so many ways, still so full of emotions and fears and hopes. They hadn't beaten or scared it out of her yet, which in some ways was a teeny bit comforting. "Good," Dawn said, nodding her head as if to emphasize it to herself.
Buffy flopped down on the couch. "This is all so weird. And with these guys running around, and maybe the First being back... I don't know. Maybe Spike is supposed to get back to being a vamp, but it doesn't feel like right now's the time to be messing with killing our limited good-guy posse." She noticed that Dawn wasn't going anywhere. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be in bed? You've got your answer, now flee."
"I couldn't sleep, what with the worrying."
"Don't worry. There is no need of worrying here. A worry-free zone has been created around Spike. I won't let anything happen to him that doesn't need to happen."
Dawn glared. "Oh, that's comforting. What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Hey! Swearing!"
"Oh, please."
"Brat."
"Takes one to know one."
"Dawn... cut it out. I'm tired and I need to go to bed, and then I need to wake up and figure out a plan to save the world again, not to mention there are bills to pay."
"Woe is you." She sighed dramatically, but relented. "I don't really want Spike to die or anything, but... do you think that maybe this is all tied together somehow, like you said? Because Willow had that vision thingie, and so she came home sooner, and now Spike's here and we found out we can maybe make him a vampire, and so it all seems like... like maybe..."
"Oh!" Okay, so sometimes she was slow on the upswing, but eventually Buffy could usually figure things out. This one had surprised her, though. "Oh, no, Dawnie, it's not like that." Sometimes it was still so hard to get a handle on what Dawn thought or felt, and she was so all over the board with her behavior that Buffy didn't always twig to what was at the core of her questions until way after their conversations. "I don't think it's a key thing, or like one of us has the end of the world inside us waiting to get out with the right incantation or portal, or whatever. I don't think Spike's like some sort of... cog that the big wheel of First Evildom moves on, or anything." She was quite proud of that analogy, but Dawn rolled her eyes, instantly deflating her sense of achievement.
She bounced her hand on the railing a couple times, half turned away, and said in a small voice, "Okay."
"Things are getting scary again, huh?" Buffy ached inside over the fact that there was nothing to be done about it, not yet anyway. That she could never really keep Dawn safe from harm, no matter how much she tried.
"Yeah. What else is new, though?"
"Word. Well, I'm gonna finish up a few things and then head to bed."
"Night."
Buffy watched Dawn go upstairs, looking a little sad. It would have been nice to give her a whole half a year without something terrible happening. But she supposed it was too much to ask here on the ol' Hellmouth. Maybe Giles would know what was going on, why the bringer guys were back, and what it meant that Willow knew how to mojo Spike back to being a vamp. It had to mean something. If she'd learned anything from being a slayer, it was that everything meant something, and everything was connected, even if the connections and meanings weren't obvious -- you just had to wait long enough or look hard enough, and then you'd find the answer. Of course, there was also the likelihood that you would really, really regret the discovery later on.
Tidying up the kitchen, Buffy put a few dishes away and threw some stuff in the hamper, pondering her reaction to the whole Spike "kill me" thing. In a lot of ways, yeah, it made sense to bring Spike back as a vamp. At least, from a Mr. Spock logic perspective. If the circumstances were controlled, maybe it would work. But the concept of it... in just a few days he'd turned everything upside down by reappearing, and then by confessing the soul-having and the slow-dying and all the rest of it. Buffy had enough trouble getting a handle on all this crap in such a short time, she couldn't add the notion of him dying and the small but terrible prospects of the resurrection failing to her already overburdened heart and mind.
The truth was, Buffy knew, she cared for him a lot more than she'd wanted to admit to anyone else. Seeing him again had brought back so many bad memories, but also a lot of good ones. Knowing what he'd done for her... well, that changed a lot of the situation, even though it was kind of overwhelming, and Buffy knew the others would think her feeling that way was wrong and bad and wrong. Or sick. She couldn't deny that Spike had always tried so hard, no matter how bad things got, no matter what she'd thrown at him. Even though he did it wrong, he meant well -- most of the time.
There had been a lot more room for him in her heart after she'd finally learned to accept the resurrection and allowed herself to want to live again. But by then Spike was gone, and Xander had yammered constantly about the attempt to rape her, like she was too dumb to know what had happened. No matter how hard Buffy had tried, she'd never really been able to get through to Xander that the situation, ugly as it was, had never been totally black and white. Buffy had accepted her own treatment of him, paid her own emotional price for knowing what she was capable of doing to someone else. Xander didn't really understand that; for him there was one side of the equation, and it was all Bad Spike's fault. He'd forgotten -- or maybe never fully understood -- that there'd been a Bad Buffy on the other side, too. And Bad Buffy had been pretty damn bad on a few occasions.
She and Spike had started their affair on the basis of friendship: Buffy had needed a friend who was far apart from the others to ease the hurt they had caused her. And truly, Spike had always been that, no matter what. Evil or good, he had a weirdly strong loyal streak. Now, Buffy thought, the feelings and the relationship had come full circle -- they were friends again after all the turmoil, tentative and strange with each other, but friends. And this time, maybe those other qualities that grew out of friendship would be better, would be... righter.
But if killing him went south, then she would never get the chance to see their friendship grow or change. It was about keeping things together, making sure that nothing was lost. Risk management, that's what they called it. Buffy just didn't want to take iffy chances, not with this. There were some things you shouldn't risk -- you wouldn't want to try to bring Angelus back, either, even if you thought you had him under control. Stuff like that simply didn't make sense.
Buffy turned off the downstairs lights and went up to her room, hoping Spike wasn't off doing something stupid to try to get himself killed. Maybe she didn't like to talk about feelings, but tomorrow she'd have to explain all this stuff to him on the off chance that he would put a stop to the death-requesting, or at least shut up till Giles got here. Too many things in motion now, too much to try to understand and control on her own, without adding Spike to the mix. That might be a good subcategory to add to her title of Buffy, Vampire Slayer: risk management services.
Spike put away the last of the bar glasses and undid the apron from around his waist, throwing it and the bar towels into the laundry bin that was tucked into the corner. With a last look round to ensure everything was tidied, emptied, or stacked away, he went to turn off the lights, all the while fishing for the keys in his pocket.
The fact that the place was empty and quiet and completely shut up was why it was so weird to see Dru standing there in a diaphanous white frock, a chattering spider monkey clambering all about her shoulders and head.
"Pretty Spike," she said dreamily, "look how low they've laid you. It hurts my heart." She put her right hand over her chest, and the monkey jumped down into the crook of her arm.
Okay, this was just... weird. If he wasn't mistaken, that was the monkey from the bizarre square-dancing dream he'd had a couple times. When he had been a vamp, Dru's strangeness had been charming; now it was rather menacing, and he could see why people were even more afraid of her than they'd ever been of him.
"So... uh... how'd you get in here, Princess? I could see you slipping in yourself all quiet-like, but with that creature on your shoulder, not so much." He really wished he had a cigarette. Or maybe some holy water. The last time they'd seen each other hadn't precisely been what you could call filled with warm and tender regard.
"What have they done to my boy?" Only it wasn't phrased as a question, really, since she spat the words out in anger. It was interesting that she put the blame on others, because when she'd scarpered back then, she'd been pretty disgusted over his feelings for the slayer. Now she seemed to be back on the Spike agonistes track. "Made him one of them again, and not even with a heart that beats beats beats and goes on forever. Half human, half dead." She cocked her head. "Working for the man."
That only made Spike laugh. "Well, you've certainly picked up the lingo, hanging about down there in L.A. If that's where you're still basing your operations." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Look, Dru, what do you want?" It suddenly occurred to him that maybe she would be the one to kill him and bring him back to her. Uh-oh. With no Willow about, she might successfully make him a vampire again but there'd be no spellish intervention to keep the soul. "You're not... you're not here to turn me again, are you?"
"Silly Daddy!" she shouted. "Not good enough for our little club, no you're not. Why should we want you if you don't want us?" Dru wagged a black-nailed talon at him. The monkey appeared to chastise him, too.
Backing up a few steps, Spike answered, "Good point. So, then, maybe you should go now."
She made no move to come toward him, so Spike took that as a good sign.
"We are all very cross with you, you know. Chasing off after bits and bobs that make you feel real again and all for the slayer. Chasing after them like a child, chasing after dandelion seeds hop hop floating in the air. Shiny shiny hopes and dreams and you dashed about the rocks like a shipwreck."
Well, you could say one thing for the barmy bint: she had a way with a simile. Lots of mixed ones, but still.
"If you're not here to turn me, then what are you here for?" His nervousness was reaching the red zone.
She just smiled that addle-brained smile, looked up to the heavens. In all the years they were together, he never really understood what it was she saw up there. If she saw anything at all. "I have a treat. Comes from the underneath." Her voice reminded him of some kind of carnival barker -- she made it sound all exciting by dragging the words out, flourishing her syllables. "Would you like to meet him? Just like you and me, only better. Devourer. Father. She doesn't want you, you know. You've been soiled."
"Ooo-kay. Sharp turns there, Luv; you ought to warn a fellow." It was unlikely he could find any crosses in this place, and of course there would be no stakes, but he figured he might -- might being the operative word, since she would be infinitely faster than him -- be able to break off a chair leg and get her. More likely, though, any attempt to heroically save himself would end in failure and an ignominious death.
Wait a minute. She'd said the underneath and devourer. Buffy had heard similar phrases in her dreams, she'd told him -- "from beneath you it devours." This was beginning to smell a bit fishy.
"Uhh... Drusilla. Who sent you here, darling? And what's with the bleeding monkey?"
"I shall be even crosser if you spurn me." She made a foot-stamping motion, but there was no sound. That did it.
"Spurn you? What are we, back in Merry Olde?" Spike relaxed and crossed his arms over his chest. This was definitely a hallucination or an apparition of some kind.
Dru glared at him and the monkey chattered. Really, this had grown far more annoying than it was spooky or threatening.
"You'll be sorry, my William. Bits and bobs." Then she appeared to just... vanish. Waking dream or hallucination, didn't matter. This soul-having thing was really not all it was cracked up to be. At this point, he was starting to believe he was loonier than Dru herself. He closed up the bar, heart hammering in his chest, wondering if this was another warning sign that he was closer than ever to real death. If strange dreams and visions were a barometer of how close he was to pushing up daisies.
And anyway, if he could hallucinate someone, why couldn't it at least be someone safe?
After Giles had finished telling them about the Watcher's Council being blown up and of his frightening encounter with one of the bringers, he sat back and scanned their eager faces for signs of a) impending sarcasm that for once he'd not been knocked on the head or b) awe-struck admiration at his Herculean strength in overcoming such a deadly foe. He wasn't in the mood for the former, not after an 11-hour voyage and the subsequent jaunt on the terrifying little prop plane that flew into Sunnydale airport.
But it didn't appear as if they would choose that direction. Instead, Willow looked more than a bit frightened, Xander looked confused, and both Dawn and Buffy repeatedly exchanged serious glances that told Giles they'd discussed these topics in depth already. Spike was the only one who seemed ready to hurl a few barbs his way, and Giles gave him his best preventive glare.
Spike was definitely more subdued since Giles had last seen him; he seemed resigned even further to all that had happened to him and the consequences. Giles wasn't certain, since he hadn't been here long enough to truly assess the situation, but he sensed that Buffy was depressed over Spike's condition, as well. Her distress was focused more in his direction than anywhere else.
Giles took a sip of his tea and asked, "So, tell me about this method to cure Spike's condition." They had picked him up at the airport, Willow stammering and hesitating about her discovery. She hadn't filled him in completely, but it had been obvious right from the start that this was something foremost in their minds.
Willow brightened. "Oh! Yeah. Well, do you want the Reader's Digest Condensed version, or do you want the full Monty?"
He grimaced. "Ahh... how about the version in between?"
Willow launched into her full explanation of what she'd found, peppered with many interjections from Xander and Dawn. As the tale unfolded, though, Giles noticed that both Buffy and Spike simply sat there, stone-faced, as though they weren't part of the conversation. Anya was conspicuously absent again; he really would have to work on fixing that situation if no one else was going to do anything about it. She was annoying, certainly, but her participation at a time like this could be helpful.
He found it oddly sustaining to be here in Buffy's living room again, to have these young people around, still so full of promise and energy despite all that had happened to them, plotting and figuring and sharing... All this time in England, as much as he'd enjoyed being at home, he'd been far lonelier than he'd realized. The truth was, this was his family -- even Xander and Spike -- and this was where he belonged more than any other place. He only half-listened to Willow, but heard enough.
When she was done, Giles sat forward, knowing she awaited his approval. "Well done, Willow. Very well done." He took a deep breath. "But... it's still a bit uncertain whether this is the right thing to do or not in this time and place. We have no idea... well, things are quite dramatically building up, don't you think? As you say, there's really no guiding text to go on here, just bits and pieces." He looked hopefully at all them, their eager, bright faces, and realized that of course they were expecting him to come up with the answers.
"Because of the council getting blown up? Or the First?" Willow asked.
"Well, yes, both. If there's any margin for error... if Spike doesn't have his soul back and he's a vampire, he could be of great use to the First..." Now he felt bad for dashing their hopes.
Buffy shot out of her chair. "We don't know what the First wants. It's a big, stupid, waste-of-time bag of hot air, all 'I'm evil, look at me, blah blah.' When I met it before, it spent all its time trying to get Angel to kill himself, and you know what? That wasn't exactly hard work to get on Angel's Broody McBroodpants side and make him suicidal with guilt. Trust me on that."
Giles pursed his lips. "Er... all right. Nonetheless, things are fairly delicate, so perhaps we should at least take a few days, learn all that we can about this spell and the curse, and--"
"Hello, dying over here," Spike said, waving a hand in the watcher's direction, his exasperation with everyone rising. They were so obtuse, these blokes.
Giles peered over his glasses. "You don't exactly seem on the verge," he said dryly.
"Well, who knows? I could pop at any minute."
"Actually, Wes does know, maybe we should call him," Buffy offered, arms hugged tight around her chest. She was so painfully unhappy about all this; every time it was discussed she withdrew further and further. Spike couldn't say he fully understood it, either. But he was at least a bit grateful that Buffy cared enough she didn't want him to be offed like so much smelly rubbish.
"He could be very helpful in this spell," Giles said. "He has access to some books that might help us flesh it all out."
Xander shook his head. "Man, I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around him being a cool guy now."
"Cooler than you'll ever be," Spike snapped, and was immediately knocked sideways by a cuff on his head from Buffy. She pointed a finger at both Spike and Xander.
"Now is not the time for this. The two of you, grow up."
Spike rubbed the side of his head. He should remind her sometime that he no longer had super strength and the hitting was definitely a greater source of pain than before -- and he didn't exactly enjoy it the way he used to.
Giles watched her walk around the room, his face gravely serious. Oh, Christ, he was working up to Something Big here. Spike leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. He figured he might as well get comfortable as they settled in for a long afternoon's argument.
"This has you more worried than I've seen you since... well, since Glory," Giles said. "What is it you're not telling us?"
She stopped pacing, glancing at Giles. At least that part of him hadn't changed, the way he noticed subtle things, gauged her feelings. "I've had these dreams for a while now. I kind of told you a little bit about it, but there's more going on than I said before. They're not just regular dreams. They're of uncalled slayers being killed off. I think they're slayers, because of things they've said to me, the way they are... and they talk directly to me. Now you're telling me the First is behind the council being blown up, and so I think all these things are connected. That this means these dreams are real. And we have to figure out a way to protect those girls and stop the First."
"Aye, there's the rub," Giles responded. "We know almost nothing about it, and what little there was... is all gone now. I didn't have time to recover anything beyond these files, which I compiled after our last encounter, so they may not be as up-to-date as we'd prefer. These are the last remaining pieces of the council's library, really." The way he said it, almost lost, hollow, made Buffy pull back a little, sit down on the floor and lean back against the wall. She forgot how hard this must be for him, even if he didn't have much more love lost for the council than she did. He'd lost all the people he grew up knowing, the only real friends he had besides the coven. And now he and Wes were among the few real watchers left in the world, wondering if they should carry on the legacy... well. It was just capital-U Ugly. She'd have to spend some time with him privately later, get the information he didn't want to let slip in front of the more panicky others. There was a lot left for them to plan and organize.
"I think I had a visit from our friend. Came to me as Drusilla. The other night, at Willie's."
"How do you know it was the First?" Giles asked.
"Well, I don't. It's just... I have these dreams. Have done since the soul and human thing. Very weird they are, too, and in one of them there was this spider monkey. Dru shows up in the bar out of nowhere, no sound, with a spider monkey wearing the exact same collar and dancing round on her shoulders, chattering away. Just like in my dream. She was her usual self, mind, but making slightly less sense than typical. And then she talked about something coming, a treat she was bringing -- a devourer. From the underneath. Sounded more than a bit like Buffy's 'from beneath you it devours' thing. And she vanished. So I thought initially it was another one of these strange waking dreams or hallucinations, but now I think it was your First Evil."
Buffy frowned. "Why didn't you tell me about this before?"
"I'm telling you now! Let's not bicker over when and where. Shouldn't we focus on the whole battling evil thing?"
"Spike's right, Buffy," Giles said softly. "Unfortunately." She scowled at him. Since when did Giles take Spike's side on anything?
But he was probably right. She was just cranky because she expected Spike to spill his guts all the time, looking to her for answers and everything. Somewhere along the line, she must have subconsciously decided that his role was Right Hand Guy, and that somehow they were supposed to be able to communicate without words and know everything about each other. Which was utterly retarded, of course, but it hadn't stopped her from thinking that way.
Xander raised his hand. "Am I the only one who's having a wiggins about not just the fact that the First is blowing up people and killing potential slayers, but trying to recruit Spike, as well?"
Willow raised her hand meekly. "Me, too." She looked at Spike. "Spike, you wouldn't, like... I mean, would you... if it offered to make you a vamp again... Since you want to get killed, and all."
"No! No," Spike said firmly. "I'm not aiming to play in that match again, thanks. I would like to, ideally, be of some help to the World's Best Slayer here. Besides, it's not like it can turn me, anyway. Or kill me if I refuse. It's not corporeal, isn't that what you said?"
"Uh, well," Dawn spoke up, "I don't want to be the pooper of the partay, but didn't you tell us Dru said it had a treat for you? So wouldn't that imply, like, something that could do the job for it? Another minion, maybe?"
"The bringers could do that, too," Willow said. "Kill you, I mean, and be supernatural. I think. If they're the ones killing girls in Buffy's dreams..."
"Girls born with the potential to be slayers have been assassinated," Giles said. "It's not simply a conceit of Buffy's prescient dreams. That was in fact one of the reasons I wasn't at the council building, even though a meeting had been convened. I was out trying to verify the facts of another reported death."
Buffy put her head in her hands. "Ohhh, God. Can't we just have a couple of months without some kind of apocalypse? And what I am supposed to do about these girls? It's down to us now, isn't it? And I guess I have to think about what that means for Faith, too -- if these guys are trying to ice all the potentials, then they're probably gunning for me and her, too." She paused. "Her and I?"
"You were correct the first time -- me and her," Giles said distractedly, like he was on grammar-watch autopilot. It had always amused her that you could get him to answer questions even though he wasn't really paying attention. He had two brains or something. "Regardless, I suppose we ought to investigate what this visit to Spike was all about. If it wasn't about recruiting you... Maybe that would give us more to go on, an understanding of the First's plans. Can you tell us everything she said?"
They spent the rest of the night discussing what they knew, poring over the small amount of paperwork they had collected on the First, and eating a lot of pizza. Xander and Spike at one point had a belching contest, which nearly drove Buffy to kill them both. She didn't know why, but this frazzled her worse than the normal apocalypses. The only other time she'd felt this pressured and upset was when they'd found out Glory was after Dawn.
It was more than a little bit depressing, which only added to the burden. Giles wanted to find a way to locate the potential slayers, but without the information at the council building, and minus about seven-eighths of the council alive and kicking, there wasn't a whole lot of hope for that. Willow promised to try to work up some kind of location spell for mass quantities of people, though Buffy could tell that she was nervous about performing it. Giles at least could support her, but they probably all worried in their own way about just how things were going to go once Willow got magicy again.
But during all the yammering and reading, discussion of Spike's being killed took a back seat, and she was pretty damn glad about that. The First had gone from annoyance and potential threat to definite threat and serious problem within a few days. When something like this escalated that fast, there was nothing to do but hunker down and get to work. But at least that provided a good alternative to talking about killing people she... well, she loved. Yeah, she did. Maybe not in a big romantic way, maybe not even the way she loved Angel, but a different kind of love. Something that came out of friendship and real affection. Something that transcended all the bad events between them.
"Buffy, what do you think?" Giles asked, dropping her right out of her Candyland.
"Uh... about what? Sorry, wasn't listening."
"I could kind of tell," Xander said. "Not the time for taking the old mental holiday."
She made a face at him.
"We were thinking that maybe we should tag-team each other," Willow explained, "so that the First can't try to pull what it pulled on Angel. Sort of operating as buddies, keep an eye on each other. The less alone time the better chance we have of not getting worked on."
"Oh, yeah, that's good." She considered that while watching Spike. He was actually falling asleep over on her couch, the dork. Why, she wondered, had the First made its ... well, first visit to him, of all people. Why not herself? Or Giles, if he represented the council now? What good would Spike be to the first unless he was a vampire again? "So, I'm wondering here why they seem to have targeted Spike? The first night I saw him again in Sunnydale, he was being attacked by one of those bringer guys. Then the First pays its big announcement visit to Spike, even though there are more logical people to visit, even if you're just going to go for the straight demonic assistance."
Giles peered out at Spike in the living room, then shrugged. He stage whispered, "He's obviously got something it wants."
Xander gave a mock shudder. "What it is I don't really want to find out."
"If he starts killing again..." Willow looked kind of queasy. Now they were all whispering.
"He won't." Buffy put an extra oomph in her voice, just so they would stop this train of thought, and also stop whispering because she didn't really care if Spike heard them or not. He should participate in the conversation about him, anyway.
Xander rubbed his face. "Buffy, I gotta go home. It's late, I'm tired, work tomorrow, yadda yadda. Who wants to be my night-time buddy? Please don't say Spike."
"Well, it makes the most sense. I mean, the rest of us are either living or staying here." Willow made her "too bad" face.
"Can I stay here, then? I'll sleep in the basement or something. C'mon, help a big coward out."
"I don't--"
The lights abruptly went out. Buffy's instincts kicked in and she threw her chair back from the table, charging for the weapons chest. But she barked her shin on the table and hit her shoulder on the doorway arch, and that didn't start things off too well. There was a crash of windows, whereupon Dawn screamed from her bedroom, then came flying down the stairs shrieking "Buffy!"
They came in from both upstairs and the main floor, giving Buffy and the gang little time to arm themselves. Spike was already embroiled in a struggle with one of the eyeless little creeps by the time she swung an axe at it, creasing the back of its head with the blade. It dropped in pain, providing just enough time for Giles to run it through with a sword. Xander attempted desperately to fend off one that had come down the stairs after Dawn, a huge, curved blade held above its head. She went over to rescue him, but that took time away from the others.
Furniture crashed, glass shattered, blood splattered everywhere. After a little while she had them down to two in the living room, but both fought on ferociously. Whatever they were here for, they wanted it bad. One of the remaining two swung that mace-like thing she'd encountered a few weeks ago, tearing all the newly replaced furniture to pieces. That just pissed Buffy off in the extreme. She was never going to get ahead if supernatural creepazoids insisted on destroying her chintzy home furnishings.
Giles ducked the mace when it arced over his head, and as the bringer twisted on the upswing, Buffy shoved her axe handle up, catching the chain. The mace-thing whipped around, crashing into the side of the bringer's head, felling him at last. That just left one, but even without any eyes -- still ooky, even after all these encounters -- it seemed to get the big picture and leapt through the shattered window, running for its life. For a second she thought about going after it, but there was too much damage control she needed to do.
Giles got up off the floor, touching the blood that ran down the side of his head from a good-sized gash.
"Dawn, are you all right?" Buffy asked. When her sister nodded, mute from fear, Buffy pointed at Giles. "Go get the first aid kit and help Giles. Is anyone else hurt?" Willow shook her head, gasping for breath, while Xander just shook, the sword falling from his hand. Xander was always there in a fight, but he was usually pretty shaken up afterwards.
"I'm sorry, Buffy, I should have been able to do a spell, block them, but I froze," Willow said, her voice trembling as bad as Xander's hands.
"No, it's okay. It's better that you didn't try to do something you weren't ready for, otherwise we might all end up as toads." Buffy picked up the weapons, helped Giles over to the couch, which listed sideways now. She blinked. Where was Spike? Buffy looked around the room and shouted, "Spike! Spike, where are you?" When there was no answer, they all stared at each other in frozen fear. Crap, that meant there had been another fight elsewhere.
There came a Dawn-shriek from the kitchen just then; they all raced to the back of the house. On the floor in front of Dawn was Spike, blood pooling out from under his back. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling. Dawn called his name again and again, and Buffy knelt down, touching the side of his neck. Behind the counter was a dead bringer. Spike had obviously managed to kill it; the big chef's knife stuck straight out of its forehead. Buffy felt for a pulse on Spike's throat. With his eyes staring emptily at the ceiling, she knew there would be no pulse.
"Giles, he's dead. Oh, my god." She felt hollow inside, as if somehow all her bones and muscles had been turned to dust and replaced by nothing but cold air. She couldn't breathe.
Behind her Xander said, not in his usual cutting voice, but with sadness and resignation, "I don't think that's exactly what he had in mind."
End Ch. 9
08/15/05
My lovely cover art by X. Don't take or distribute in any way.