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Buffy was in a bad mood. She was trying to proof-read what had to be the fifth draft of the school’s new anti-bullying policy, but her computer wasn’t co-operating. Worse than that, Spike hadn’t come home that morning, which always made her grouchy. It didn’t happen that often, but he always seemed to end up hiding in the sewers, and that meant sewer-smell. Not to mention getting his coat dry-cleaned.
One of her office’s doors opened. “Just gotta run something off at the photocopier!”
Buffy muttered something she hoped sounded amenable, not bothering to look up. Any time there weren’t any students around Julie seemed to think Buffy’s office was a thoroughfare. It was the school’s fault really, since the layout meant that Julie and Ted from next door had to go down one flight of stairs, along a corridor and then up some more stairs to get to reprographics, which was only about twenty feet away from them – unless they went through Buffy’s office. The thing was... Ted seemed to live with it.
She couldn’t hate Julie, not if she wanted to work with her, but Buffy had long ago decided she could hate the other woman’s shoes. With the pretence of picking up a biro Buffy leant around her monitor and tracked them as they crossed the floor. They were peep-toe courts today, pale green and really, really ugly – if only because they were clearly knock-offs of the pair Buffy had bought last week.
When they reached the other doorway they stopped, confronted by a pair of fuck-off blue DMs. Julie clearly didn’t know what to do and Buffy almost applauded. Whichever one of the goth clique it was, even if it was K-Lee or Veronica James, she was going to have to go easy on them. They’d brightened up her day.
She looked up, smiling. Immediately, however, her face froze. A lump grew in her throat. All because it wasn’t one of the sophomores; it was Illyria.
Something was very, very wrong.
The biro Buffy was holding burst in her hand, which was the first clue she had that she was clenching her fists. She tried to relax them, but all she could think about was the fact that Blue had never visited her in school. She stayed with Spike when he was stuck somewhere, always, so this didn’t make any sense.
“What is it?” Buffy finally asked, softer than she meant to.
“Spike has been taken.” Illyria replied, sounding shocked herself. “I do not know where – a spell was cast on us that made me blind. When I regained my sight it became clear that I had been taken far from our original location.”
“And Spike wasn’t there?”
“No.”
“OK,” she said, glancing at the clock. They could work with this. Spike wasn’t dust, which meant that he was more than rescuable. “OK.” She was going to stop saying ‘OK’ any time now. “We need a plan.” Illyria’s eyes were as wide and all-seeing as ever, like the too-blue contacts the school had banned three months ago, but they were filled with fear – and trust. Buffy wished she knew what to do with it. “I can’t go until four-thirty.” The students knew she was available till then, and she’d thought David Zhao was going to come today. Spike would kill her if she jeopardised students for him. “But after that we can get out of here.”
“Going somewhere, Buffy?”
Julie was back from the photocopier, squeezing past Illyria with a stack of paper in her hand. Buffy swallowed, trying to work out what to say. “It’s my husband,” she finally came up with. She couldn’t say ‘kidnapped’ – that was too weird, too Slayer-y. There should be police there, not Blue. She’d have to be filling in statements and stuff. “He’s in the hospital.”
“Oh dear,” Julie tutted, shaking her head. Buffy assumed she was supposed to be expressing sympathy. “Did he get in a fight?”
“No.” Buffy was suddenly very glad that it was Julie’s coat Spike had ruined at the Principal’s party. “He was attacked. While he was out detectiving. Helping people.”
“I’m very sorry to hear it,” Julie replied, insincerely. She was clearly revelling in Buffy’s inadequacy. “Of course you should go. I’ll let you and...”
Blue was glaring. Buffy intervened, “This is Illyria, Spike’s partner.” There was silence, as usual, and she filled it like she always did, “She’s from Europe. You know, Croatia.”
“Nice to meet you.” Julie smiled, just a little. Satisfied with something. “Say, what’s your major, sweetie? I have a son your age, you might –”
“Illyria’s not in college.” Buffy was teetering between panic and rage now, which really wasn’t helping the situation. The clock had barely moved, and she was worryingly close to saying to hell with the sekrit part of her sooper-strength and smacking Julie’s head on the wired glass. And she’d thought age had mellowed her.
“Really? Well, you can’t have graduated all that long ago...”
“Your words mean nothing to me.”
There wasn’t much Buffy could add to that.
Julie stayed for a moment longer, flustering and growing red around the frilly neck of her Wal-Mart blouse, before she finally left them for her own office. Buffy shut the door behind her.
“OK.” Stupid OKs. “Our plan.” The clock was still telling her she had eternity to wait. “We’ve got to think about who –”
There was a knock on her door. It was David, scruffy, baseball-capped David who was halfway out the door before he’d even stepped through it. Of course it would be today.
“Hi David!” She smiled, forcing the commands along her nerves and waving a hand. “Come in.”
She gave Illyria two more seconds, nothing more, muttering under her breath and trying to invoke the days when she hadn’t been just the wife, but the best fighter in their gang. “I’ll meet you at the car. I want a list of all the people you’d talk to if this was just another case, and then I want a list of all the people you’ve pissed off in the last month. Then we’re going. We aren’t waiting a second longer than we have to.”
Illyria left and Buffy hoped it was with a nod. She didn’t have the time to check.
It had been four fifty-two when they’d finally left the school. She hadn’t looked at the clock when she’d been with David, hadn’t let herself think about it, just talked about their strategy, who’d they’d have to tell and what he’d have to do to get things sorted.
Now though, she felt every second pass through her, hitting her skin with the wind that blew over Illyria’s car. The sun seemed to set so quickly, slipping away from them as one source after another had nothing to tell them, until with an awful finality it was dark. They drove on, ready to go it alone.
Her cell was at her ear, but Lorne was being slow to pick up. It made her edgy.
The ringing finally clicked off. “What’s our status, Lorne?”
He sighed, ragged and static. “No different than twenty minutes ago. I’m sorry, sweetpea.”
She nodded, refusing to accept sympathy for feelings she was forcing back. “OK. Sorry to keep breaking up your night.”
“Don’t you even think about it – you think I can work on a night like this? Dagretha’s on reception, Rigo’s in the bar. Just let me know if there’s anything more I can do.”
“Will do, Lorne.” She hung up. There was too much emotion inside her, too much gratitude. If she wasn’t careful, she would crumble, and then they would be nowhere.
Streetlamps and neon bar signs blurred as they drove past them, far too bright for her eyes. There were a couple of cars, but not too many people around, which was good, because Blue wasn’t stopping for any of them; she was driving forty, maybe fifty miles an hour, her right hand resting a little worryingly on the handbrake.
With no more warning than that they turned, violently, pulling into an alley and slamming to a stop in front of wire fence.
“This is where we were,” Blue said without ceremony.
Swallowing her stomach back down, Buffy put one hand on the door and leapt out of the car, thanking whatever wardrobe-fairy had made her decide to put on trousers that morning.
Her eyes were still adjusting to the diffused light from the headlamps, so she headed to the pile of rubbish near their beam first. Hands on her hips she kicked through the cardboard and the newspaper until all the items were scattered in front of her, condoms and syringes and cigarette ends, but nothing that looked like a clue. The bottom of the fence continued to another pile of trash, so she followed it, searching for anything...
“Buffy, call Rupert Giles.”
She looked up. Giles? Giles didn’t have to know about this. He took everything too hard these days.
“Slayer,” Blue addressed her again.
Buffy’s eyes finally caught up with the lighting conditions, and she saw what had caught Illyria’s attention. There was a sort of sigil on the wall, daubed in something dark and slick. Oil-based, maybe? It looked like blood, but blood would never still be so wet and shining.
She turned around and looked to the other wall, and there it was, a twin. One plus two made a matched pair of dark and creepy.
“Why didn’t you notice this before?” If there was accusation in her voice she didn’t mean to put it there.
“This was not where I awoke.”
Buffy slipped her phone back out of her pocket, muttering “unlock” and “Giles’ home” as she tucked it behind her ear. “Pull the car back – he’ll need a photo, with the light.”
Illyria moved to do just that, and Giles, prompt as ever, picked up on the second ring. “Good evening, Buffy, I –”
“Giles.” Something shook through her and she wished she had something to break. “Spike’s been kidnapped.”
“I know, dear. How can I help?”
“He –” Her momentum came to a halt. “You know?”
“Illyria called me on her way to meet you. She was quite distraught. Well, that is to say in relation to her usual demeanour. I must confess, I –”
“You’re up to speed.” And soon she would be too. “Cool.” There wasn’t time to chat. “We went back to the alley, you know, where they were, and there’re these spell-symbols on the walls. We need to know what they mean. I’m gonna mess you a picture, OK? Maybe if you can get hold of Willow, she could – she might not mind helping, I dunno, I –”
“Buffy, calm down.”
She blamed him. She did, because suddenly all she could think about was the way Spike was still a little stiff from the Coljett venom and the way he was the only vampire-with-a-soul in the whole world, and if some witch or warlock needed one they’d have made damn sure they could get him. They had a whole day on her and Blue and that was the time it had taken to defeat the First Evil. You could change the world in a day if you wanted to and it would only take a second, a single second, to irrevocably destroy hers.
She didn’t know what she was doing, not anymore.
She must have sobbed, because she felt herself shake and Giles continued, “Buffy, I won’t have this. Spike is a grown – vampire, and you know as well as I do that this is no worse than the scrapes you and the others would get yourselves into when you were sixteen. With rather alarming frequency, I might add.”
She shook her head, closing her eyes against tears. It was different. They’d been so easy to take when they were young – they’d fallen into nets so loose that it had been easy to shrug them off. And that had been in Sunnydale too, where, as Spike said, something must have been in the water. Certainly nothing had got to him since that unholy trinity of the Initiative, Glory and the First. Until now.
She squeezed the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know what to do, Giles.”
“Don’t be silly, of course you do. You’re going to put the phone down, snap a few photos of this symbol, send them to me and undoubtedly head off with Illyria to that awful diner with the new information.” He sighed. “Now, come on. Buck up. There’s evil to foil, you know.”
“Yes.” She could do this. “OK.” It had been decades, but she could do this. “See you, Giles.”
“Good luck, Buffy.”
She let Giles end the call, just as she let herself rest in darkness for a moment longer, shivering before opening her eyes.
Illyria stood in front of her, something dark and cumbersome in her arms. Without a word she shook it out and swirled it around Buffy’s back, looping an arm over her head to rest her hands at her shoulders.
The thing was a coat, she realised, one of Spike’s spares he kept in the car, in case he got a hole in one and still needed to look menacing. She pulled the lapels across her, taking it from Illyria. It was an uncommon gesture of affection and Buffy could feel the tears prick her harder.
“Oh, Blue, what are we going to do?”
“The Slayer will return for one last battle and crush her enemies beneath her feet.”
She bit her lip, shaking her head into the cool collar of the jacket. “I don’t know how to be the Slayer, Blue, not anymore. I’m too scared of what I can become.”
“You found yourself previously and so you shall again. We will aid you.”
Buffy met her eyes. “I trust you, Blue.” She breathed, letting the air shudder through her, cooling every fear and worry into purpose. “We need to take those pictures.”
They returned to her and Spike’s house at three o’clock in the morning. At least, that was what her watch said. Buffy was pretty sure it was lying, because there was no way she’d fall asleep in Illyria’s car so early.
“Why are we back here?” she asked groggily, peering over the car’s door at her sinfully boring flowerbeds. Spike had wanted Venus fly traps, like Dawn had. She should have said yes.
“You must sleep.” Buffy shut her eyes against the voice. “I shall continue looking until morning, then aid Rupert Giles with his research.”
“I should come,” she complained. “I’m still a Slayer. I can deal with this.”
The thing was, she wasn’t sure she could. Her eyelids felt too heavy for her to reopen them and what she’d said earlier still stood; the Slayer had long been something foreign to her. Ever since she’d met with Spike again after Sunnydale and things had gone from bad to worse. She could remember the feeling, fight-or-flight a permanent state of mind, the night impenetrable...
The car door opened and she fell to the side, bursting out of sleep. “Rest,” Illyria commanded, pulling her from the car and up the driveway.
Buffy wasn’t sure that ‘rest’ was the right word for what she was about to do. Sure enough, after she’d staggered through her house and crawled into bed, her sleep was utterly restless. More than that it was full of dreams.
Buffy’s clothes were still creased from the plane journey. She wasn’t sure why she was thinking that, but she was, and with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone she tried to flatten them out.
“I’m back,” Spike told her down the phone line. She clutched the handset tighter, creases forgotten.
“Hey.” Why couldn’t she think of anything cool to say? “So, are you sure I’m not running you up a massive trans-dimensional bill or something?”
Spike chuckled, and she was pretty sure it would never stop warming her heart. “I told you, love: magic phone – no bills.”
“I really need to get myself one of those.”
“OK, I think we’re set up here,” Willow said, looking up. Buffy jumped slightly, nearly tripping over the curb and onto the road. Luckily this was as dark and empty as any of LA’s scarier streets, and no one was watching. Willow looked like she wanted to laugh though.
“Well,” Spike replied. “You can have this one once we’re done with it.” Ooh, was Spike offering to give her a present? Did that mean there might still be something between them? She’d had a weird feeling inside of her ever since the shock of hearing his voice had worn off. Everything since Sunnydale had been such a dead end, and if they could just get LA back the way it was supposed to be...
“Buffy!” Willow again. “We can start the spell now.”
“OK, OK.” Buffy stepped off the sidewalk, carefully this time, walked by Willow and the big pink crystal, then took her place sitting opposite. She was trying to ignore the gum that had to be getting on her new jeans. Things couldn’t be moved. She’d asked. “OK, Spike, let’s go over this again. Are you in position? We’re in front of the ‘Toasted’ tag, and the crystal’s aligned with the second T, on a crack in the sidewalk four rulers away from the wall.”
“Got it. Fist-sized rose quartz?”
“Fist-sized rose quartz.” It was pretty. “We’re sitting either side of the tag, so one of you needs to be in front of it, the other one on the curb or in the street.”
“Blue ain’t looking impressed, but we’re there.” She’d been wondering who this Blue was. She knew she was Spike’s partner in the spell, but when he’d said he was in LA she’d assumed he’d been working with Angel. Not some... girl.
Not that that mattered right now. “Right. I’m gonna put my phone on the side of the crystal nearest the tag, speaker to mouthpiece going in the direction of the writing.”
“And I’ll do the opposite. Then we all get trancing and meet up on the astral plane, so Will can make with the mojo. And we end up as nice, separate people; not at all like mutants from Planet X.”
She grinned, barely able to imagine that he was coming back to her. “That’s the gist of it, yeah.”
“See you on the other side then, Slayer.”
Still smiling, she placed the phone where she’d said she would. Willow looked pleased for her, even if there was some relief there. Hours of one-sided conversation probably weren’t all that entertaining. That would all change soon, though. There wouldn’t be a need for any more phones, because Spike would be with them. He and this Blue person.
With a deep breath she closed her eyes and began to slip away. It didn’t take long. Willow took her hand, led them gently out of their bodies and then they were travelling up a fire escape into the night.
They climbed until the stairs stopped, then kept on climbing through the air, until they could see all of LA, all of California, all of the world spinning away beneath them. They kept climbing until they seemed to be back where they started, sitting in a street; only everything was a sort of murky grey-brown colour, and all the shapes were indistinct. The curb merged into the road, and the wall merged into them, and the pavement felt like soil beneath her. The crystal still sat between them though, pink and sparkling, casting some sort of light on to the two murky phones that now surrounded it.
“Where are we?” she asked, though she didn’t hear any sound come from her mouth.
“This is the LA between dimensions,” she knew Willow replied. She also didn’t seem to be making any sound, just looked serene and Willow-y, russet and green with features Buffy could catch if she looked out of the corner of her eye. “A sort of blueprint of everything.”
“Oh. OK.”
Then Spike and someone blue and female seemed to be there too, completing four points of a cross. “Fancy seeing you here.” She couldn’t pin down Spike’s voice, or work out the exact intonation, but she knew it was there.
“Fancy,” she replied.
“OK, just give me a sec, guys.”
They fell silent, and Willow seemed to move, drifting vaguely towards the centre of them. The crystal between them shone more brightly, pulling the phones into being. The world around them flickered in and out of solidity, feeling more like concrete and brick. It took what had to be seconds.
“There,” Willow said. “Now –”
She was cut off by a violent, merciless wind that seemed to rise from beneath them, drumming up Buffy’s nose and sending her light headed. She could barely keep her eyes open, but she saw the crystal rise between them, spinning on itself in the wind.
“Will!” she cried, trying to make herself heard over the roaring. “What’s –”
There was a crack, and the crystal shattered, blowing outwards into their faces, cutting Buffy along her nose and cheeks. They all cried out as one, and Buffy knew something was going terribly, terribly wrong.
“It is the Wolf, Ram and Hart,” the blue girl said, her voice low like thunder.
“Bloody hell!”
“Will, you said!” Buffy could feel herself despairing. It was though the shards of crystal were ripping through her guts now, slicing her up inside her skin. “You said it was like a siege! You said we only needed a tiny portion of their power to put things how they should be! You said it wasn’t sustainable, keeping worlds apart!”
“It isn’t!” Willow yelled back, barely audible. “This isn’t about LA anymore, this is –” She cried out in pain.
“Will!”
“This is about us,” she carried on. “We need – we need to get back to our bodies, now.”
“Agreed,” Blue uttered.
Buffy tried to find her way back. She did. She could feel Willow pulling her along, and they soon left murky LA for black space again, but Willow was going too fast.
Spike and Blue were also ahead of her, and she tried to call out for them, feeling like she was swimming through treacle. No sound escaped, but in a moment it felt like Spike was tugging her too, edging her forwards that little bit faster.
In the flick of a second Willow disappeared out of sight, and what had been her hand let go of Buffy’s. All three of them slowed down, and something that felt like anger came from Spike’s friend. Buffy cursed herself. She knew that she should never have been part of the spell. Someone more experienced should have gone with Willow, but that would have meant handing the phone, and Spike, over to someone else, which she really hadn’t wanted to do.
She thought she could see the world, coming up in front of Spike and Blue, but then it was though she were blind, feeling her way through nothing. She kept on, imagining the sense of wind in her ears, warm blood rushing through her system and trying to make it happen. But she couldn’t make her heart beat any faster than a dying pulse of a waltz, no matter how she pushed and pushed...
And then she was there, in the dark but with a beating heart and breath, Spike on her left and another presence on her right.
She opened her eyes, but there was nothing to see. It was too dark. She wasn’t sitting on sidewalk anymore, but dust, compacted dirt or something that really didn’t belong in a city anyway.
A hiss, and something heavy landed in Willow’s empty spot. Instinctively she rolled to standing, just as she heard the sound of a dagger being pulled from Spike’s boot. Two snarls and then a dying moan as steel broke flesh. She had no idea where they were.
“We need to get out of the open,” Spike murmured.
“We’re in the open?” she asked stupidly, reaching out a hand to find his tensed forearm. It relaxed, just a fraction under her touch, and she found herself glowing.
“Come,” the other spoke. “There is a river. It will lead us to vegetation.”
She didn’t let go of Spike’s arm until they were attacked again, half a minute later. He tossed her the dagger and she cursed, dropping back on senses long unused to finding the enemy in the dark. She thrust her hands in its face, refusing to flinch as warm, moist breath covered her hand. A bit more scrambling and she managed to force her dagger through the tough crocodile hide of the demon’s neck, wrenching it free as it fell away from her.
Then they were running. The ground was hard beneath her feet and the night was endless. The black seemed to push on her shoulders, push into her the more she ran until it was eating away at her. Her heart fluttered in her chest, beating out eternity. Slowly, ever so slowly, it seemed to sound more deeply. Time was passing, but she was still running.
She knew Illyria’s name now. Her and Spike’s presence became clearer, more apparent in her mind until Buffy was sure she knew their every movement, their every breath, working beside her own.
Every sound in the night meant something to her. Deep beneath her feet she could feel the earth’s heart beating in time to her own. She felt older, but somehow ageless. Her name was long gone from her mind. She could run forever.
And then, unexpectedly, she tripped. She hadn’t tripped in years. With a fluid roll she settled into a crouch, trying to process what had happened. The earth was muffled now, covered by something harsh on the soles of her feet, and she struggled to hear it.
Her companions were standing behind her. They weren’t running any longer, and they even walked as they came to her side. She hissed at them for not following her lead, but they did not reply, calling out into the night instead.
“Red? Giles? You round that corner?”
“This is your realm, the one we left. I remember it well.”
“Oi! Anyone out there?”
Figures of warmth appeared in the night, dispersing the air: one male, one female who crackled with magic.
“Buffy!” the female cried, and the pair of them charged.
She attacked the weaker, for her resistance to magic was not as strong as her companions. There were cries, and then she was suspended in air, plucked from the ground like fruit and bereft of the earth.
“Let her down, Red. Now!”
“What’s happened to her?”
“Spike. Dear God, I didn’t think it was possible.”
“I’ll keep her under control – let her down! Christ, don’t piss her off like this.”
“But why...?”
“Witch, you shall release her.”
“Hey, I don’t answer to gods who steal friends’ bodies, OK?”
“Willow.”
“Let her down, Willow.”
“What?”
“Let her bloody down!”
“OK, OK! Geez...”
She fell, landing once again in a crouch. Spike, however, crouched before her, his hands firm on her upper arms. “These aren’t enemies, all right, love? Believe it or not, we’ve actually made it home.”
His words made no sense to her, though she understood that attack was no longer wise. They would have to wait until the advantage was theirs once more, when the witch was pre-occupied.
“We’ve prepared her rooms; they should be familiar to her. Dawn reminded us that the changes in the house were some of the first things she noticed last time she – returned.”
Spike turned away from her, looking up and to the side. “That’s great, Watcher. Wrap her in a fluffy blanket, try to make things the way they were.” His hands tightened, but she felt no danger. “The girl you found last time fell from heaven – we’ve just been raised from hell; you won’t be getting a wallflower you can treat how you like this time round.”
“Hell? No, no, it can’t have been – we looked the world up. It’s on the same plane as this one, just far away, I mean...”
He turned further, until she could see the bones behind his ear. Were she an enemy he would have made a grave mistake. “Yeah? Why don’t you try spending however many years it was without civilisation, enemies on your trail coming at you all hours of the day? See whether you think it’s hell or not.”
“Do tell me then, Spike. Why were you not so affected? I find this all –”
“Been around a long time, haven’t I? Lot longer than the Slayer here. So’s my demon.” His eyes fell back on her and a thumb smoothed the curve of her right shoulder. “Not so easy to shuck the habits of this world. Even to survive.”
Silence ran like wind, but the tension of battle thrummed.
“This is all my fault, isn’t it? I shouldn’t have...”
“Perhaps it would be best to remove all reminders of that place, immerse her in the things she knew. Undoubtedly she would prefer some clean clothes.”
“You got space for me and Lil in that happy little Wendy house?” A final, angry squeeze to her shoulders and then he stood, the tails of his coat gifting her with the scent of the earth she knew. “Bloody hell, you never think of just giving her some time, do you? Rip her out of one place, shove her in another. Flick the switch and she’ll be back to what you knew, pat yourselves on the back and it’s a job well done.”
“Spike...”
“I can’t believe we’ve been back two minutes... She barely coped with where we landed. But you’re thinking, what? Now she’s adapted one way, doing the opposite won’t be nearly as hard? Course it won’t. Specially without so much as a helping hand or a familiar face.” He raised an arm and ran his hand through his hair. “Have a bleeding heart, would you!”
An argument continued, but Illyria distracted her, blocking her vision as she too crouched. “You must rise, Slayer. Tell these humans your desires.”
She rose. The voices stopped and the howl of the wind around stone rushed into her ears. She would speak. She would tell them.
All that escaped her throat was a raucous scream.
When Buffy woke her heart was thumping. She’d kicked her sheets to the end of the bed, but lying without them was doing nothing to cool her down. Looking to the left she sighed, feeling a little emptier as she stared at Spike’s side of the bed. Apparently yesterday hadn’t just been a bad dream.
Of course, she thought as she trudged to the shower, that didn’t mean she got off nightmare-free. Why had she dreamt about that? She hadn’t thought about their time away in a decade, didn’t remember most of it, yet here she was dreaming about it.
Not that it had gone that way. She was a little grateful the dream had missed out the intervening years they’d spent on that world and given her the bookends. Every day she’d lost a little bit more of herself, forgotten a bit more of her life, all until there had barely been anything left. Spike had brought her back, but it had taken a long time.
Now, she supposed, it was in danger of happening all over again. They needed the Slayer, after all.
She dressed without looking at the bed, but the silence was still unnerving, and she kept expecting a foot to poke her as she pulled things from the wardrobe. After drying her hair as quickly as possible and throwing on some make-up she headed downstairs in a rush.
Illyria was in the kitchen, flicking forlornly through a newspaper. Buffy wasn’t particularly surprised to see her. She definitely didn’t mind her being there – the pink and cream kitchen needed an injection of black and red to make it seem normal. Without it Buffy felt like she was living in Stepford, no matter than she’d picked the colour scheme herself.
Breakfast seemed to make itself, and Buffy ate it mechanically, watching as Blue came to the sports pages. “I shall question Rupert Giles,” she said, not looking up.
Buffy took a sip of orange juice she didn’t remember pouring. “I’ll join you when I can. There’re kids with appointments I can’t miss.” And it was true. That didn’t mean, of course, that she had to like it.
“We should not attempt to reclaim him by day. The risk is too great.”
“Agreed.” She didn’t have to like that either. In fact, universal dislike was sounding better to her by the minute.
Her breakfast things were soon in the dishwasher, and then they headed out to Illyria’s car. It was rather menacing in the sunshine, drunkenly parked near their mailbox and openly daring someone to try and hotwire it. A school bus came merrily by, and it seemed to give the car a far wider berth than was necessary.
Buffy couldn’t care less, and hopped into the back, trampling over seats to find her own in the front.
She’d slept later than usual, but because she hadn’t taken the bus she got to school a lot earlier than she normally did: the bell hadn’t even rung. The car cut a swathe through envious kids, and the disappointment was palpable as she hopped out and Blue drove away. Buffy smiled as she waved at them, amused they thought she was stupid enough to park a car anywhere near school property. Especially a nice one.
They were good kids, but one or two of them were just too easily tempted.
Still smiling she headed to her office, passing Julie on the stairs. “Hi, Julie,” she said, feeling it about as much as usual.
“Good morning, Buffy. How’s your husband?”
“Stable.” It was easy to lie.
Especially as the fake sympathy came again. “Well, I’ve gotta admire you for making it in.”
“I wouldn’t bother.” She said it before she could stop herself, carrying on up the stairs and leaving Julie defeated behind her. The smile didn’t ever fade from her face.
Julie didn’t bother her for the rest of the morning, which probably should have told her something was going on. She definitely should have realised when she’d had to haul Denzel J out of class and he didn’t give her any backchat for the entire two-minute trip to the principal’s office.
She didn’t, however. The thought didn’t even cross her mind until she met up with Mona for lunch.
“What’s up with you, girl?” she asked, nodding over her tray. “You like you’re about to pull a gun outta your purse.”
“And you would know that how?” Buffy laughed, leading them to their usual seats in the cafeteria. They sat, and, as usual, Buffy had herself a good view of the art class’s mural. Kids left a two-seat buffer zone either side of them – also as usual.
Mona waved her cutlery at her. “Hey! I’m more street than you.”
She shook her head, then stuck a fork into the meat-flavoured lunch-goop on her plate. “Sure you are, Mona.” Buffy knew for a fact that Mona lived as far uptown as Giles did; her husband made the big bucks. “And where exactly was it that you went to college, again?”
Mona grinned, that killer intelligence of hers sparkling in her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, keep spinning it, drop-out Daisy.” She spooned some of her own goop into her mouth, swallowing it down. “So? What’s up? I was by the photocopier earlier and Julie was skittering like a bug ‘fraid it was gonna get squashed.”
Buffy sighed, suddenly not very hungry, and really not wanting to tell the news again. She felt like everyone should know by now. He’d been gone so long. “It’s Spike.”
“That fine husband of yours?” Mona was still eating. “What’s he gotten into this time?”
“He...” Buffy bit on her thumbnail for a moment, then realised her hand was shaking. She dropped her voice, forcing the truth past her lips. She couldn’t bear to lie anymore. This was Mona, after all. “I’m telling people he’s in hospital, but he’s not, he’s missing. Kidnapped.”
Mona dropped her voice too, leaning over the table. Shock and sympathy seemed to give way to curiosity, and for some reason it made Buffy feel like she could cope. “You’re shitting me.”
“I’m not.” Buffy shook her head, just wanting to have it out now. “Blue said –”
“Goth girl?”
“Yeah, goth girl – she said they were gassed, both of them. Knocked out. Spike got taken, then she and the car got dumped the other side of town.”
“Well, damn.” Mona sat back in her chair. “And you trust goth girl to tell it you true?”
“Blue’s a friend from the old days, Mo.” She started swirling potato, a little moisture hitting her eyes. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t trust her on.”
“Hold up. Old days?” Mona’s tone was light again, and it brought the chatter of the cafeteria back to them. “What, when she was pulling on your pants, trying to get you to go to Build-a-Bear?”
Buffy laughed, but for the first time that day it sounded a little feeble to her ears. “She’s older than she looks. Hell of a lot older.” She stumbled, realising that she would have to lie now anyway. She always hit a wall somewhere along the line. She hated that. “She’s got Spike’s family’s skin.”
“Huh.” Mona smiled, just a little, measuring her up. “This is one of you guy’s things you can’t tell me about, ain’t it?”
“Yeah,” Buffy admitted. She was pretty sure Mona thought they were in the Mob, but what else could she do?
“Well,” Mona continued. “You seem to be handling it.”
“Meaning?” Buffy frowned.
“Sugar, you caught a look at your face lately?” She pointed with her fork, which was thankfully free of goop. “Anyone looking at you knows you passed Aw Crap about three exits back and are heading straight to downtown Getting Even.”
“I do?” That was actually a bit of a surprise. “But...” Her eyes closed, just for a moment before they opened again on Mona’s face. “I still feel so weak, Mo. So... out of control.” And wasn’t that the truth. “If I’d been there when it happened, if I’d still...” Been the Slayer. She should have stopped it.
“Let me tell you something, Buff.” The fork was still up in the air. “You don’t look weak; you look like you’re planning a homicide. I ain’t never seen you like this before.”
It was reassuring. A little reassuring anyway, even if she was completely fulfilling the impression of being in the Mob. It still wasn’t enough, though. She knew she was weak on the inside, and that wasn’t going to help if she wanted Spike back.
They didn’t speak again until they’d finished their food, and Mona left to do some marking. She looked at Buffy worriedly as she got up. “It’ll sort out, Buffy, you know it. The pair of you are too tight to get between. Not without some serious pain.”
“I hope so,” she replied, and smiled weakly.
She took the bus to Giles’ twenty minutes after school had finished, after she’d waited ten minutes to check no one wanted to see her and after she’d told the Principal what was up. He’d been relatively sympathetic, which was nice, and agreed she could make up the time another day. Not that she’d given the impression that she would have accepted any other answer.
Giles lived pretty well these days, the proof of which was in how long it took to get to his apartment from her school. They’d all been surprised though, including him, when he’d moved back to California.
“I’ve come to realise,” he’d said, in that kind of expansive tone he had more and more in his old age, “that while decent food and television can be imported, sunshine cannot.” He’d smiled afterwards, in a way that implied their company had also been one of pros. He’d included Spike and it was about that time that she’d finally forgiven him, wholly and absolutely, for everything that had gone down before.
Sitting on the bus, she shook herself. She was thinking about the past too much. She had to start focussing on the present or she was never going to be what she could.
When she arrived at Giles’ apartment, he answered the door to her with a hug, and she shared a brief little wave with Blue over his shoulder.
“How’s it going, Giles?” she asked as they pulled back.
“Ah!” He held up one finger as he led her into the sitting room. “Now, I called Willow and unfortunately she wasn’t available, but Illyria and I think we might have cracked something about these symbols of yours.”
Buffy took her seat on one of the green Chesterfields, slipping off her shoes and curling her feet beneath her. A breeze blew in from the balcony, rushing with the sunlight across the waxed floorboards beneath them; for a moment she almost felt calm.
Giles and Illyria sat opposite her, and Blue passed her an open book from the table, leather-bound and yellowing as always.
“They’re part of a transportation ritual,” Giles explained. “For the She’Wak Order of mages. The Order believes very strongly in the power of totems, somewhat animal, somewhat demon. It’s a rather interesting...” He paused. Off her look he then continued, “Yes, well, it allows Spike’s captors to operate remotely, and put him exactly where they want him before anyone has a chance to intervene, wake-up or generally bugger up the works.”
She frowned at the calligraphy. “So they’re smart.”
“Yes, but not quite smart enough!” He grinned at her for a moment, then let the smile quickly fade away. She didn’t let her expression change. “This is good news, Buffy. Reading further into the ritual shows that it requires another set of symbols – different ones, at the place to where Spike and Illyria were transported before Illyria was moved on again.”
“And we can trace them?” Something that was very possibly hope fluttered in Buffy’s heart.
“It’s even easier than that.” Giles grinned again, but more softly than before. “We can simply use the original spell.”
“OK.” She let herself smile a little this time. “When can we go? We’ll need some weapons, but after that there’s no time to lose, right?”
Her happiness dropped like a stone when Giles pulled out a handkerchief, awkwardly looking down and taking his glasses off to clean them. “Erm, yes, well.” He sighed, meeting her in the eye once more. “We’re going to have to wait for tomorrow night. There are some ingredients I need from the magic shop and if we head out now it simply won’t be open.”
She looked at her watch. It was five-past-five – he was right.
“I’m extremely sorry, Buffy.”
She shouldn’t have taken the bus. She should have got Illyria to pick her up. She should have... “You should have called me,” she said at last. “I could have gone on the way here. We could have gone tonight.”
“I’m sorry, dear,” Giles replied, easing the book out of her clenching hands. “We only worked this out five minutes before you arrived.”
“Well, you should have got there faster!” She stood up, her hands now in fists at her sides and anger pumping through her. It came from that place she didn’t know, but it filled her with fire and that was what she needed right now. “What if what they need him for’s tonight, huh? What if he needs us now, but we can’t get to him because you didn’t work as hard as you probably could’ve, and wasted the day making pots of tea?”
Giles’ head was bowed, but Illyria rose to standing, challenging her even as the sun still shone so finely. “You will be quiet now, Slayer.”
“You gonna fight me, Blue?” Buffy met her eyes, and the rage rose further to match that opposite. “How d’you think that’s gonna go? D’you really wanna test how old this body’s gotten?”
“Enough of this, Buffy,” Giles muttered, voice low and head still bowed. “Enough.”
“Just tell me it wasn’t because it’s Spike, Giles.” She would wield words as her knives if she had to. She always could. “Look me in the eye and tell me it wasn’t.”
Giles eyes flashed to hers, hurt and angry. She didn’t feel any shame. “I’m too insulted to answer that question.” He stood too, finally, pulling himself taller than he had stood in years. “Now, I think you’d best go home, or find a nest of vampires to slay, or in any case leave my apartment until you’ve calmed down. We are all doing our utmost here and it’s about time you realised that.”
No, she couldn’t help but think, we aren’t. They were all too old, too slow. It had been too long, even for Blue. None of them had fought in an apocalypse for fifteen years, and they were the only things that trained you. Even though Spike and Illyria did go out on the town every night, it wasn’t as though there was that much evil left in LA. Not after Wolfram and Hart had jumped ship.
She left without a word.
It was past midnight when she rode the bus home, bloodied and with a work outfit permanently ruined. A newly bought kitchen-knife nestled snugly in her handbag and she knew that if she were stopped she’d be in trouble. Luckily, no one seemed to want to bother her.
The bus pulled up three streets from her house and she followed a few wannabe-rebel teens down the steps, clearly proud that they’d stayed in a club long enough for entry to stop being free. She felt like telling them that her Friday nights at the Bronze had been edgier than theirs. There had been vampires, after all.
In the end she settled for brushing past them, comment-free. It didn’t keep them from falling silent, or from gasping as they saw the claw-slash across her back. It was pretty funny, really, because it didn’t even hurt.
She slept long into Saturday, even more restless than the night before.
The three of them had been in the new world for two weeks now, had even found some caves to sleep in. Buffy crouched, freshly awake in its darkest corner, and she knew the other two thought she couldn’t hear them.
She did. Their murmurs echoed and amplified all round the cave, hammering in her ears. She couldn’t see them talking, but she could see their shadows, thrown by the fire up the curved walls.
“You know what calls them.” Blue’s voice was still hoarse, healing from a lucky strike at her throat. “Her warmth, her blood. She is food to them, larger than all the others of her kind.”
“And what d’you want to do about it, Blue?” Spike was pacing. His shadow rose and fell. “Yeah, she’s a tasty treat, but we ain’t leaving her. Not here.”
“Her vision is impaired by darkness. Her requirements for sustenance are inconvenient. Her martial ability...”
“Oh, believe me, pet, be careful where you’re stepping on that road. Girl might’ve been taking easy for a bit, but give it time and you’ll be looking at a Fury. Mark my words.”
Blue was right. She was the weakest member of their team, the neediest. Spike could feast on lizard blood, exist quite happily on all the creatures that attacked them. She, on the other hand, needed flora, and the small, skittering rabbit- and fox-like creatures, that seemed to be mammals and were the closest thing to edible meat this dimension had to offer. And she left waste, made them trackable. That, she could admit, was a sin.
The only thing she could do was prove her worth. She needed to hone herself to the weapon she was, sharpen herself until she was only death, no matter how brittle she became. There was no room for that courtship ritual she had once called fighting. It was real here, and she would have to be too.
Buffy rose, then stepped into the main cavern of their caves, feeling the warmth of the fire. They both looked round. “I’m going hunting. Wanna come?”
Spike nodded. Illyria, as she called herself, didn’t deign to reply. Letting Spike follow behind her she headed out of the mouth of the cave, refusing to fear the dark.
As she walked, however, the dark grew lighter, sharpening into a clean and colourful world, too full of voices. It was years later and that cave was far behind her.
Willow was at her side, while Blue and Dawn were a few feet behind them. Spike was missing and it felt like she was blind in part of her vision. Every gaggle of smiling faces was a threat.
There were words that she should speak. She could get her thoughts across. I don’t like this, Willow.
“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “I thought it’d be nice, you know – a girly day out at the mall. Clothes and shoes and frappe lattes...”
The mall. That was what this glass box was called. It echoed too fiercely.
“Slayer.” Blue’s voice was shocked. Buffy turned to her, glad that there was still at least one of her companions with her. “You spoke.”
No, I didn’t.
“What’s the big?” Willow interrupted.
Illyria came closer. Dawn hung behind, biting on her lip and finally looking the age that Buffy remembered her. “Speak.”
“No. I can’t!” She heard the words this time, the charged air that rushed from her throat. “I won’t voice my thoughts.” But that was what she was doing. Everything was becoming real, and she felt as though there were suddenly a hundred more things that she could say. Something was tight in her heart: fear, or something like it.
“Buffy, it’s OK,” her sister said. She came forward at last, and put her arms gently around her. “You’re home now. Again. You can feel things if you want to.”
She didn’t want to feel anything. That was the problem. “You don’t want to see what’s deep inside of me.”
Dawn took her tighter, making the bright lights of the mall spin and blur. “Of course I don’t. I have your blood running through my veins, you know, and that’s more than enough. I don’t need to know how it cries.”
Buffy shivered, fear compounding with fear. Her eyes closed, and it was cold and dark once more. She preferred this time, this past. This was where she lived.
It was always cold now. The summer had fallen into a rainy season, and it had forced the lizards into hiding. She’d had to become vegetarian, and Spike had been feeding on rotting corpses.
The last blood he’d drank had been bad, the body too far gone. It had sent him unconscious, putting him out for over a week, when they were supposed to be moving on. Buffy sat by his side, eyes closed, waiting for him to wake up.
She heard Illyria approaching, so opened her eyes. The silhouette was dark as pitch against the light of the fire.
“He weakens our position.”
Buffy climbed to her feet then, and stalked calmly between the god and the body. “He’s staying, and we’re staying where we are.”
Illyria tilted her head like a snake, tasting the air between them. “You care for him. More than is wise.”
“I do.” Buffy lifted her chin. “Come near him, and I will smack you down.” She let herself glance at his frowning face. “Tell him, and I’ll smack you down harder.”
“He said the same of you.”
The first thought that crossed her mind was that the bitch couldn’t keep a secret. The second was that this was the longest conversation she and Illyria had ever had. Then she let herself feel nothing. She had no spare time for thinking about any sort of relationship and she had no spare energy. And now, unlike Sunnydale, that was actually true.
“I question whether either of you aid my existence.” Illyria looked towards the entrance of their cave, where the rain beat down.
“Oh no.” Buffy took a step forward. “You don’t get to think about leaving.”
“And you would stop me?” Those wide, snake-like eyes were back, boring through her own. “I am Illyria, and I do as I will.”
Something dark and hot swept then, from the pit of Buffy’s stomach. In two leaping steps she moved to thrust Illyria’s neck against the wall, but the god moved quicker, slamming a fist into the side of Buffy’s head. Buffy turned with it, bringing up her foot, bare since her shoes had worn away, to catch her in the midriff. A puff of breath ruffled Buffy’s hair as she danced forward and spun again, ducking beneath two more blows and bringing her foot back up, hitting muscles that should still have been feeling her last blow.
Someone was yelling, but she fought on, the feel of the earth bouncing against her toes bringing her alive in ways she had never felt. The cool, damp air whistled through her lungs, seeming to bring with it more than oxygen. The beat was fast, but her quarry was following the rhythm, predictable though it worked in double time. Patterns glistened in the air as moves started to repeat themselves, and Buffy stepped outside it, as was her birthright, finding at last the moment to start the killing blows.
“Buffy, bloody hell!”
Patterns flew in fragments away from her as she was forced to pause, turn and punch whatever was holding on behind her. Then she registered it was Spike’s body flying towards the fire.
Panic flushed away all her co-ordination and she scrambled to him, turning him on his side so his coat no longer lay in embers then crouching awkwardly; bare, hairy legs refused to fold properly beneath her. His face was near the hem of her hacked-off jeans and she realised that she didn’t want him waking to the knowledge that she needed to wash her clothes.
He sat up on his own, still looking too yellow from the blood. She raised a hand to check where the ground had slammed into his head, dusting fingers around the bump and glad that she couldn’t feel any cracked skin.
“Didn’t expect to wake up to you two fighting.” He smiled wryly at her, then lifted his eyes above her head.
She shifted around. Illyria stood a few feet away from them and the moment Buffy raised her head, their eyes met. There was a wariness there, and something like respect.
“We must move on,” Illyria said.
“How long was I out?” Spike countered, his voice cracked but warm in her ear.
“Ten days.” Buffy knew her voice wasn’t supposed to be that hollow, that neutral. But she could still feel the dark anger inside of her and she couldn’t remember how she was supposed to talk.
“Better get off, then.” He clambered to his feet and she came with him.
They walked to the mouth of the cave, where the wind started howling. The outside world was once again wrong and the wet ground became paving stones, echoing as her high heels clacked over them.
She was walking up a path, slower and more fragile than she should be. Her arm was hooked through Spike’s; she was trying to use him as a windbreak,wishing she still owned leather coats.
They climbed the doorstep and Spike rang the doorbell. She stared at the large, purple stain on the inside of his coat’s arm
“What the hell is that?” she hissed, now wishing she’d insisted he wear his posh jacket. “Are those Xonai guts?” So much for not causing a scene at her boss’s party.
Spike looked at the stain and shrugged. “Possibly.”
She wanted to yell, but the door opened. Principal Gainsborough – Jonathan, she remembered, or what it Jon? – smiled out at them, his moustache not moving as his mouth widened. “Buffy, hello! I’m so glad you could make it. And... Spike, is it?”
She stuck a smile on her face. Spike didn’t. “Yeah.”
“It’s a pleasure.” Thankfully Spike didn’t refuse to shake his hand. “The way Buffy is with the kids I knew she had to have a great family behind her.”
“Yeah.”
Over the years Buffy had perfected the art of getting an invitation – the phrases that couldn’t segue into anything but the words ‘come in’. They felt more and more tactless every time she used them, but they always worked. “Freaky weather, huh?” They also had the added benefit of breaking up awkward conversations. “We’re thinking we might have to board up our windows.”
“Oh, I know – the news has been saying it’s the worst night this winter.” He stepped away. “Come on in, get yourselves out of it. We’ve got plenty to keep you warm.”
And then they were inside another suburban house, as foreign as their own, middle-of-the-road music filtering from the kitchen so quietly that they could still hear the tick of the grandfather-clock.
“Please, let me get your coats.”
Her stomach plummeted as Spike rolled his shoulders out of his. The light was catching more and more smears on the leather, and his t-shirt wasn’t clean either. Still, the principal’s smile didn’t fade as he took the collar in his hands, and as he turned to her she realised she was supposed to give him her coat too.
She went through the motions and her fingers felt lithe and sharp as she undid the buttons. She was only on the third though when Spike’s hand closed around her wrist.
“Might not want to do that, love.”
She looked at his wince, trying to decode his embarrassment – for her, for that was what it was. “Why not?”
“Don’t think you want him to see what you’ve got on underneath.”
What was he talking about? She had that new shift dress from Roisin’s. It was perfectly respectable.
Shaking her head she continued with the buttons, wondering where that odd smell was coming from. It was a little familiar: blood, musk, dirt, rot. Spike’s hand withdrew from her wrist, and the coat slipped from his shoulders.
She was suddenly colder, uncovered apart from dirty, cut-off denims and roughly stitched skins. Lines itched along her back where the bristled hems of her top scraped. Her hair was heavier on her shoulders, thick and unwashed, braided irregularly.
She tried to meet Principal Gainsborough’s eyes, mortified. “I don’t sleep on a bed of bones, you know. I don’t.”
He frowned, but then they weren’t in his hall anymore, and he was melting into blackness. Spike was going too, and of course she was back in the cave again, cold and standing alone.
She stared at the wall in front of her, ghosting her fingers along the jagged edges of the rock.
Blue had been carving for days, marking out their demesne, drawing the story of their coming and their power. The rains would be arriving soon, driving them from the mountains to the plains and away from their home. But they would return, and this time they would have more than the vegetable patches to find the cave again.
The words ran in a language she didn’t know, with thick, angular glyphs leading trails that she followed along the wall. They moved in gentle curves, coalescing for a moment then breaking further apart, creating space for larger scenes to show through. One she found captivated her: the vampire, the god and the Slayer who led them, standing still at the centre of the world, bringing the light of violence to the surrounding lizards who would cross their path.
She traced her fingers over the figure that was her, stone imbued with something of her self. Her bond with the earth went in two directions now, and it made her feel right, whole, no matter that it was the other two that made her truly invincible.
“Well, Topsy’s had a good litter.”
She turned. Spike’s face flickered in the firelight, as did the red on his hands.
“Bloody good luck they were born at night, too.” There was an underground stream near the back of the cave, which he approached, still talking as he kneeled and plunged his hands into the water. “Plumper than the last lot. And there’s a male looks like he could be the Arnie Schwarzenegger of wannabe rabbits.” He stood up and came back, sitting on the lizard skins by the fire.
She left their story where it was and joined him, settling cross-legged in the face of the warmth.
“I reckon we should start the same with the foxes,” Spike continued. “They’re downright nasty sometimes, but there were those ones back down Christ’s Bluff that weren’t half bad. It’d make a change, anyway.” He picked up the stick at his side and poked a log into a better position, glancing at her from the side of his eyes. “You need a change every now and then.”
The fire crackled, warm and welcome. Spike didn’t speak, not until Illyria returned from the back of the cave, when he put his stick back on the ground and stood. “What you got for us, Blue?”
She filled Spike’s hands with something Buffy couldn’t see, before walking round the fire to her own seat. Spike took it back to his own place, completing their triangle around the fire.
“There is a further cavern,” Illyria stated. “From where the stream comes. It contains fungi, but I know not if they are poisonous.”
“Ah.” Spike held up one of his new possessions, a mushroom, and span it by its stalk. “Sample One for Spike the guinea pig. I look forward to the vomit.” He set it by the fire and held up his other hand. “What’s with the rock?”
“They litter the cave also. I believe it is an ore.”
Spike tossed it up and caught it again. “Well, now.” He grinned. “Wouldn’t that be fun? Smelting the day away.” He tossed it again. “Always fancied myself a blacksmith. Course, we’d need clay or some such...”
She heard a sound from outside the cave, which didn’t fit. Ignoring Spike’s voice she rose and stalked to the entrance, past the enclosure of rabbit-creatures and then into the night. She could see no disturbance, but there was something, an unrest in the air.
A spark to one side, and then crackling began. There was another fire, its smoke thick with noxious fumes that were filling into the cave. She looked to the East. It was nearly dawn; the lizards knew that was when they rested. Their cunning extended to fire, it seemed, and to sieges. They desired the sweetened blood of the well-bred rabbits.
Spike and Blue were behind her now, so she began, leaping forward and stabbing the spine of the lizard making for the rabbit-pen. Spike, she knew, would be fetching a skin to cover the fire. Her eyes scanned the leaves and rocks where the lizards could hide, and she felt the earth whisper, the flow of old blood beneath her feet mapping the way to where they stood.
She would lead them to victory, just as she always did.
Buffy opened her eyes, blinking into the sunlight as she woke. She could feel tears, but had no urge to cry. Her heart was beating heavily from panic; her senses were reaching out to try and find Spike and Illyria. Without them she was nothing if not exposed.
It was as though she’d just fallen from the portal, only this time she’d accepted that stupid suggestion of rehabilitation-by-separation. She felt wretched.
Despite that though, she rose from her bed with more fluid in her limbs than in a long time. The shower washed last night’s blood from her body and when dressed she walked downstairs Illyria was there once again.
Blue took one look at her and nodded. She nodded in return, and they headed out to the car.
Valerie, her neighbour, was standing in next door’s driveway as they left. She called out something, but Buffy didn’t stop to listen.
“Buffy.” Giles looked like he hadn’t slept; his hair was a mess and his eyes were more rheumy than usual. It endeared him to her.
“I apologise for yesterday, Giles. I was out of line.”
“Don’t be silly, dear.” He pulled away from the door, bemused as though he’d already forgotten the night before. She and Blue filed past him. “I think I’ve got everything ready now,” he continued as they took in the collection of ingredients on the coffee table, replacing the books of yesterday.
“We leave at sunset,” Illyria added, standing by the arm of the settee.
“Are you quite all right, Buffy?” Giles asked. She wasn’t sure how to answer him.
“She has been remembering how we were.”
“Ah. When you were...” Giles glanced at Illyria, then shakily back to Buffy herself. “Oh dear.”
She didn’t reply, so with final worried glance he shuffled off into the kitchen.
Giles had been there when Willow had pulled them back. She remembered that, and she had an odd feeling she might have attacked him. She wondered if she was going that way again. Something was definitely missing from her.
She sat down on the sofa and calmly surveyed the items in front of her, clustered together at one side of the table. They were bulky, but Giles could handle them while she and Blue were transported. He could still be safe.
Suddenly she flinched, hearing whispers in the kitchen, rising beneath the hiss of a boiling kettle. She sat in perfect stillness, sensing the words on the air and deciphering their meaning.
“...never like this – before. There were some times when, dare I say it, she enjoyed herself.”
“She uncovered something deep inside her nature when we resided on that world. On climbing out of its pit she knew it would be easier to fall back.”
“And that’s why. Why she hasn’t fought since... Forgive me, I had assumed there was some longing for normality there.”
“We miss what is lost to us, not what we have never had.”
“Very true.”
Crockery clacked on the countertop, too loud and discordant for Buffy’s ears, but she didn’t move.
“... fear this creature, but now it causes sadness within me.”
“Spike. It should improve once he returns, yes? Then there will be no need...”
“Her love and fear made this necessary, but I fear she knows no such emotions now. She is as unblemished and as pure as the perfect king. I admire her. I had not thought such beings could exist in this time – certainly I was tainted the moment I awoke.”
The kettle boiled and water was poured before they returned to sit opposite her again, teapot held daintily in Illyria’s hands as Giles slid three china cups and a fussy little jug of milk onto the table. He shifted coasters and a placemat, inefficiently, and finally signalled for Blue to place down the pot. They let on nothing of their conversation.
Giles poured the tea and handed cup to her, following it with one to Illyria. She appeared grateful, and Buffy observed, “You cannot drink.”
“Don’t you think she should have some anyway?” Giles asked, taking a sip of his own tea. “There is no reason not to include her.”
“I enjoy partaking of the host-guest ritual.”
Buffy didn’t reply, knowing as she swallowed the tasteless heat that she was doing nothing more than that herself.
At sunset they appeared in a cage, large enough to hold a car, but currently housing just one vampire, who smelt like magic. Blue stood back to let her approach, so she did, tugging him to standing and brushing all the sparkling dust from his face and from his chest. She hoped that it could be that simple.
She felt drowsy as it touched her fingers. She brushed them off and smiled. It was.
Methodically she blew across his face, his neck and his collar bone, pulling him away from the place where he sat. She shook loose his t-shirt, weighing the advantage of removing it entirely as she then blew down its neck.
She was rewarded with a moan, a smile in her hair and the way he breathed life back into himself on waking.
“You know, love, that kind of tickles.”
She stepped back and looked him in the eye. He grew serious at once, glancing around the cage and saluting Blue behind her.
“Bugger,” he spoke again. “I’m being rescued, aren’t I? Thought those dreams were a bit odd.”
She stalked to the cage’s bars, the other two falling in step behind her. With a moment’s assessment she leaned on their weakest point and watched, satisfied, as they bent beneath her hands. They marched out into what seemed to be a basement, and for a moment Buffy wished she weren’t wearing shoes.
She could feel the heartbeat of another somewhere near them, running a little high with what had to be anticipation, and it called to her like nothing else.
The corridors wound, letting pipes run in ways that were almost familiar. She passed doors with signs on them, but didn’t stop to read, even as Spike called something from behind. They were too close now.
One more twist, one more turn and they reached another open space, incongruous to the corridors. A figure in robes knelt before an altar, growling at an effigy. She took three more strides and kicked the stone plinth to the ground, scattering cones of incense. The figure couldn’t even stand before she’d seized it by its throat.
“Buffy?” The man croaked, his legs billowing the robe beneath him. His face was fat and moustached.
“Principal Gainsborough?” It was Spike who spoke, incredulous five feet behind her shoulder. She gripped more tightly.
“Leggo!” He clawed at her hand. “Leggo – still want – job – Monday.”
She didn’t let go. The Principal seemed to gather his wits, because in a moment he stopped kicking and growled again, his voice thick with intent. Immediately his neck began to burn in her hand. Weak, human survival instinct made her drop him and he scurried backwards, growling more and waving his arms until a great, hulking mammoth of a demon stood summoned between them.
Its jaw opened wide, a roar exploding from its throat. Strings of saliva dripped from teeth to tusks, slow enough for her to watch them, before it charged. Buffy rolled to the side, using the energy to drive her to her feet again after she took hold of the broken remains of the stone altar. She swung it in the demon’s face like an Olympic hammer, and then Spike and Blue closed in from her flanks. She threw Spike the axe from her back then pulled twin daggers from her boots, waiting for the demon to be stalled and confused enough for her to leap at its neck, past its tusks, to pierce its spine
The hairy corpse soon lay at their feet. The Principal was swallowing, panicking as sweat beaded on his forehead and shone bright under the fluorescent lights. He threw a shield up around himself, translucent and iridescent as she approached, but she moved through it, pushing in at single point of pressure until it yielded. She had him again, up against a wall this time and her left hand still held a dagger.
“The SATs –” He was sobbing now, weeping all over her wrist. “I only – wanted –” She pushed harder until he couldn’t talk.
But then a hand was on her shoulder, thumb softening her upper arm without her consent. Somewhat far away, she could hear a conversation.
“Watchers’ Council, West Coast Division. My name’s Tina, how can I help you?”
“Yeah, hello love, I’ve got a non-Slayable needs dealing with. Kidnap, summoning of lethal demons, attempted murder, all that jazz.”
“OK, sir, if you can give me your address we’ll have a team with you shortly.”
“Can’t say as I know the address, Tina, but if I’m not mistaken, I’m in the basement of Blackstone High School, Los Angeles. It should be on the ‘net.”
The Principal whimpered beneath her hand, no longer choking but unable to move if he tried.
“There’s a team approximately five minutes from your location, sir, and they’re on their way.”
“Thank you.” The hand on her shoulder squeezed a little more and it was far too welcome. “Buffy, love,” the voice continued. “Now’s the time for standing down. Some of Willow’s gang are coming; they can handle it from here. You can let the man go. He knows the game’s up.”
She turned her head into the hand, closing her eyes and breathing in the smell of home. In her right ear, however, more guttural sounds broke the silence and she felt movement near her stomach. She snapped back on the alert, quelled her employer’s summoning with a look, then smashed his head back into the wall so that he dropped cold to the floor.
The room was filled with growls and snarl, and as Spike span away from her something leapt on her back. She bent at the hips and at the knees, twisting to one side to hurl the demon into the wall. Its claws took some of her back’s flesh with it, but that didn’t matter as she brought both daggers back to bear, one in the heart and one in the throat.
It seemed to want to fight on, even as she withdrew the blades and blood gushed from its arteries. She drove in again, cutting its head from its body until it lay dead in two parts, blood running now like river water.
She turned at last to the mêlée, taking in Spike and Blue both engaged, then striding to the centre of the room. She crouched there, drawing the dark-red wolves to her by her warmth and bringing them down, one by one.
It was as though she saw nothing but blood until it was all over, which it was, eventually. A pack of girls in black jumpsuits swarmed around them, late to the fight and too clean for it anyway. They spirited the Principal away, saw her face and whispered amongst themselves. She didn’t care.
In the end, there was no one but the three of them.
“I expected more violence.”
“You always expect more violence, Blue.” Spike’s voice was ragged, shuddering. “Unnecessary’s what it is.”
“It is never unnecessary.”
“Yes, it bloody well is. Buffy...”
Spike approached behind her, easing his arms next to hers and plucking the daggers gently from her fists. He continued to talk. “Gotta get you cleaned up, love. What will the neighbours say if you come home in this state, eh?”
She looked down at herself, at the blood that covered her. “Screw ‘em.”
She was spun around until she was looking at his much less bloody chest. “Oi. What’s it you tell me?” He tucked a finger under her chin. His eyes were so bright. “This is the world we live in. The world we chose. We’ve gotta live by its rules, don’t we?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“Oh, hell, Buffy.” He kissed her quickly on the lips then pulled her into a hug, squeezing her close to him as he spoke somewhere near her ear. “Look like little girl lost you do, all scruffy hair and misery.”
The smallest of bubbles burst inside her chest putting quiet words in her mouth. “It’s what you do to me when you go away.” She was shaking, holding him more tightly, because she realised now that it was true.
“Shh...” His arm moved once, down and up her back, but that was all it took. Suddenly she found herself crying, shivering with suppressed fear and worry that now gushed through her like hot, thick magma. Her legs were too weak to support her, and she knew that should make her feel vulnerable, but it didn’t matter with him holding her up.
She’d been so terrified that she would lose him, that she would lose herself in trying to find him. Because that was what it took, wasn’t it? To get the power, the skill to find him, it took giving up what she was.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she sobbed, trying to explain. Words still didn’t feel right coming out of her throat. “I’ve gotten all rusty.”
“Can’t have gotten too rusty... Got me rescued, didn’t you?”
“I thought...” What had she thought? She’d thought she’d have to become how she was when they were away, when they’d all needed her to be as much the Slayer as she could.
She shuddered, the tears slowing in her eyes. She wondered, had this just been her? Older, wiser, but still not good with fear?
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
They drove to the Hyperion afterwards, since Spike told them what he fancied was a drink. Giles declined his invitation.
Spike and Blue were in the front, back in their usual seats while Buffy sat behind them. The leg room was small enough that she wasn’t far away and she was happy to lean her head between the two of theirs, just as she was to play with Spike’s hand on the back of the seat.
She’d thought she’d feel left out, or at least like she was tagging along; all three of them hadn’t been in Illyria’s car in such a long time. As it was the silence that lulled over them was more than comfortable.
Lorne met them at the hotel gates, clapping Spike on the shoulder as he climbed out of the car. “Boy, am I glad to see you!” A glass of something dark materialised from nowhere and Lorne pushed it into Spike’s hands. “That’s just a little something to get you back on your feet.” Whatever it was, Spike seemed to enjoy it, closing his eyes as he knocked it back. “You had us all out of our minds...”
“Cheers, Lorne,” Spike replied, handing the glass back. His right hand sought hers, helping her out of the car, and she was sure she could actually feel the vitality that had returned to him. She wondered if she felt the same.
“Illyria.” Lorne was turned away from them, nodding at Blue as she walked round the front of the car. “Always a pleasure.”
“Pylean,” Illyria replied, just as neutrally. It was funny; Buffy had forgotten how silly Lorne and Illyria were. They were almost as bad as Spike and Xander.
“And my lovely Bufferina,” Lorne continued, finally turning to her. “Loving the look.” He nodded appraisingly at her clothes. “Very Demon Hunter X.”
“Huh?” She looked down herself, only then realising she was still covered in blood and guts. Somewhere along the way she’d forgotten. “Oh, yeah,” she finally managed to say. “There was a thing.” And wasn’t that the understatement of the year. How was she going to explain this one?
Spike squeezed her hand. “You should’ve seen her, mate. Right warrior princess she was, rushing in to rescue her handsome prince locked in the tower.”
“I’ll bet,” Lorne replied, with that odd tone of banter and nervousness he sometimes got around her.
“He is correct,” Illyria chimed in. “Had we waited one more moment and the evil witch would have devoured him.”
Buffy couldn’t help but laugh, even as she could feel the dried blood cracking on her face. It looked like she wouldn’t have to explain after all. It was a relief; though really, she supposed, she should have known it all along.
“It was a team effort,” she reassured Lorne. It didn’t seem to help very much. “Hey,” she said, deciding to steer the conversation away. “What music are you playing tonight? These boots were made for boogie.” They were actually made for butt-kicking, now she thought about it, but she hadn’t acknowledged that when she’d bought them.
Lorne looked like he was about to reply, but Spike got in there first, changing the question. “How about you two go on ahead?” He nodded to the glass in Lorne’s hand. “Knock me up another one of those, put it on the tab. Buffy and I’ll be in in a minute.”
She turned to him, curious, but he only squeezed her hand again.
“Sure,” Lorne replied, unflustered. “Come on, your Royal Blueness.”
“Your sarcasm does not flatter me,” Blue said as they walked away.
Spike eyes seemed to follow them as they walked the path up to the hotel, but Buffy only watched him. “What was that all about?” she asked when he finally turned back to her.
He smiled, then touched a hand to her matted hair. “Lorne might be happier with fairy stories, but I thought I’d check how you really are.” He cast a glance to the hotel. “Can’t have you slapping on a smile for my benefit.”
“I’m...” How was she? Really? “I’m actually OK.” Strangely enough it was pretty much the truth. “Now that you’re back anyway.” She smiled and leaned up slightly for a kiss, bringing her arm behind his neck. He hesitated for a moment, but seemed to trust her enough to go with it. She was all too happy to prove that she was fine.
The first time they’d kissed after the otherworldly debacle had been terrifying. It had been about a week after they’d come back to LA, in a grotty Watchers’ Council apartment, brought on by nothing more than passing each other too closely in the doorway. She’d been starting to remember who she was when the sudden rush of love and gratitude had been too much. She’d fallen into him, practically shattering under the weight of long forgotten emotion and petrified by the idea that he might let her go.
This was nothing like that; they were nothing like they’d been. The love she felt was still bright enough to be blinding, hot enough to make his mouth feel warm, but it had been part of her for years. She hadn’t been scared of it in a long time.
As he pulled away she studied his face, taking in the way it had changed through the years. He was as handsome as ever, but there were new scars there, and thinking back she wasn’t sure where they’d come from. They were memories of fights for which she hadn’t been with him; fights which she’d avoided. It made her a little sad.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I’ve been kinda stupid.” There wasn’t any other way to describe it. She wasn’t scared of loving him, not anymore, but she realised now that she’d been scared of being the one who did. She’d been scared of being the Slayer, whose husband wasn’t human and whose best friend never had been. “I’m gonna fix it.”
He dropped another kiss on her lips. “All right then.”
She smiled and hugged him tighter.