Chapter Forty-Seven
A week later, and Sunnydale still seemed like a forgotten dream. Everything was the same, of course; the theatre, the Bronze, the ruins of the old high school. A town they had saved time and time again that managed to grow distant in the face of a ticking clock. Much of the same passing through without cause. The Hellmouth as active as it ever was. The Initiative, thanks to Angel and some immediate supervision at Presidential decree, stopped from becoming the monster was threatening to at least in the California division. Professor Maggie Walsh, after being found dead at the hand of her own creation, publicly condemned and the creature, Adam, stopped in some small military maneuver.
Something told Buffy that had they not gone to Natchez, that situation could have ended up much messier than it did. Much messier and then some.
Life since returning was more a cycle than anything else. She and Spike had gone to tell her mother together what had happened. Sitting on the sofa in the familiar family room, hands clutched in some parody of a romantic comedy. Her mother’s reaction notwithstanding; Buffy honestly didn’t know what upset her more: the fact that her daughter was a god, or the fact that her daughter was in love with another vampire.
Granted, Spike was held in much more favor than Angel. Always had been. That didn’t mean, however, that Joyce was in the mood to throw confetti.
Mid-noon the day they got back, Willow had received a phone call from Sam, who told her that he had arranged a public note of gratitude and to watch CJ Cregg’s briefing at six o’clock their time. And thank them she had, looking a little befuddled and more than obviously on the outs for what heroic event she was thanking them for. Stumbling over names and doing her damndest not to laugh when the word “Buffy” spilled from her lips. But there they were. Names on national television. Willow Rosenberg, Rupert Giles, Buffy Summers, and William Bennett.
It was a nice feeling, though Sam assured them that it was only the start of what they were owed.
They had been home for three days when Joyce came rapping on Giles’s door in search for her daughter. Since arriving back in Sunnydale, Spike and Buffy had been inseparable in nearly every way imaginable. Her dorm room offered no privacy whatsoever, and there was no way she would allow Spike to stay in her room at home with her mother just down the hall. Thus, while they were searching for an apartment or a duplex to call their own, they were staying in one of her Watcher’s spare rooms.
Granted, doing what they did behind closed doors with Giles down the hall wasn’t the best solution, but it was all that was open to them at the moment. And they hoped to be out of the duplex by the time he arrived home from England.
Joyce didn’t have much to say. Evidently, Angel had phoned the house in search of a number he could reach Buffy at to relay that he would be in town very soon. He wanted to go over some of the difficulties encountered while keeping an eye on the Hellmouth, as well as a one-on-one account of what was being done with Faith.
“Don’ understand why the wanker has to come all the bloody way over here,” Spike pouted after they were alone again. “’S not like he can’t pick up a phone or ask Wes. Wasn’ that the reason the ponce came with us in the firs’ place?” A pause. “Why can’t the sod leave us alone?”
Buffy shrugged, popping open a soda can. “To be a pain?”
“Bastard excels at that.”
She arched a brow at him. “You okay? He won’t be here long. There’s not much to tell…and if he had called, I could’ve told him that. Unless Wesley told him about…” They stopped at the same beat and exchanged a worried look. “You don’t think Wesley told him about my being…all godlike, do you?”
“Every possibility,” Spike agreed. Then paused. “He might’ve told Peaches about us, too.”
Buffy licked her lips. “No, I don’t think so.”
“No?”
“It’s not Wesley’s job to report the status of my love life. If Angel’s coming…it’s because of the other thing.”
Spike tilted his head speculatively. “Think so?”
“Well, it better be why he’s coming.” She drew in a deep breath, frowning at the look on his face. “What?”
The look that overwhelmed his eyes would have been adorable were it not so insecure. It was impossible not to read his emotions for everything they were. The level of burning uncertainty shook her to her core. There was always the question of first loves. She had told him that Angel was no longer a part of her life and she meant it. She more than meant it.
It was simple for him to hear it; having Angel here in the flesh was a completely different matter.
She released a slow sigh and leaned forward, caressing his cheek. “Spike,” she said softly. “You know I love you, don’t you?”
“Buffy—”
She took his hand in hers and placed it over the claim mark on her throat. “You know what this means. You did it to me because you love me, and I claimed you because I love you. I knew what it meant when I did it. Forever. Me, god. I know what forever means.”
“You do?” He quirked a brow. “Buffy, I’ve been around for over a sodding century an’ I don’ even know what forever is.”
“But you know you want it with me…right?”
The look in his eyes berated her for even asking. “You know I do. God…I love you more than anythin’. More than I’ve ever loved anyone, or will love anyone. You know that—”
“Yes, I know that. Do you?”
“What?”
“Know that. I love you, you big doofus. Angel being here isn’t going to change that, okay? He’s…well, he’s pissing me off, frankly.” She drew back to run her hands through her hair in frustration. “This is just like him. He came here for Thanksgiving for my own good and then skeddadled before he could confuse me with his big overbearing presence. And now that I’ve had this thing happen, he presumes he has to be here to hold my hand.”
Spike grinned dryly and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Preachin’ to the bloody choir, luv,” he murmured. “Doesn’ change much, though. Even if Wes has kept his trap shut, the big sod’ll know ‘bout us. He’ll smell me on you an’ vice versa. See the claim mark…” His fingers trailed the mark and small shudders rippled across her skin in response. “He’ll likely go all high an’ mighty an’ spout some rot about how I’m an evil thing an’ don’ know what love is. Bloody bollocks that I’ve heard before…mostly from your crew.”
“They’ve come around.”
“Angel won’t.”
“And yet, I find it within myself to not care.” A pause. Buffy indulged a long sip of her soda, then placed the can on the counter. “We better go if we’re gonna see this place. I think we’ll be homeless if Giles comes back from London and we’re still taking up space in his…space.”
Spike grinned wryly and nodded, grabbing his duster as she made her way for the front. “Think you’ll like this place, pet,” he said as they secured the duplex. “Cozy an’ roomy all the same time. Three rooms, though I have no soddin’ idea what we’d need with three.”
“Three?” She frowned. “Isn’t that gonna cost a bundle?”
“One would think, yeh. Not in Sunnyhell.” Spike shrugged and pocketed the key to Giles’s flat, hand immediately seeking hers once they started on their way. “Think this’ll be perfect, though. ‘S near the campus, too.”
“And how’d you hear of this place?”
He shrugged again and she could’ve sworn a slightly pinkish tint colored his otherwise pale skin. It might have been a figment of her imagination, but either way, the notion warmed her insides. “Was lookin’ through the paper this mornin’ when you shooed me outta the shower,” he confessed. “Phoned up the realtor an’ explained that we’d like to see it, but we’d need a night tour.”
Spike had flipped through the realtor listings in the paper? That was adorable.
“You’re adorable.”
“Am not.”
“Oh, I beg to differ.”
A grin quirked his lips. “Beg all you want, I’m not bloody adorable.” He squeezed her hand, though, and kissed her forehead. “Have you been havin’ any trouble catchin’ up in class?”
“Hrm. Let’s see. College plus three weeks of elective absences plus me. No, it’s been a walk in the park.” She groaned. “Of course I’m having trouble. My professors have some vendetta against me. It’s International Pick-On-Buffy week and I’m the only one that didn’t get the memo.” A sigh wracked off her body. “I think it might be a good idea if I took off the rest of the semester and just started off fresh next year.”
Spike chuckled and shook his head. “Sweetling—”
“Honestly, what does a god need with a college degree, anyway? You think in three hundred years when I’m looking for a part-time job, my interviewer won’t find the date on my transcript a little fishy?”
The vampire just smiled at her. “Do what makes you happy, pet.”
“I mean…you didn’t go to college, did you?”
“Bloody well did, thank you. Graduated at the top of my class.”
She paused, stunned. “Really?”
“Bloody right.” A cigarette wedged between his lips, the answering strike of a match sounding through the air. “Though I haven’t had much use for it. Whatever paperwork I’ve needed over the past century’s been forged…or I jus’ killed whoever was in my way.”
“You feel real comfortable just saying that, don’t you?”
“Well, since you love me so much, I figure it can’t hurt to be blunt.”
It was against every natural bone in her body, but she found herself grinning all the same. “You just keep thinking that, sweetie,” she replied, dropping a kiss across his shoulder. The wicked smirk he shot back at her made her toes curl. It amazed her that this was something that had nearly passed her by. That if she hadn’t walked into the Bronze a little less than a month ago and seen something that, at the time, made her cringe in disgust, she might not be here. She very well might have gone years before seeing what was right in front of her, if she had ever seen it at all.
There was every possibility that she would have never seen it. Slayers did not date vampires. Period. Such relationships were of the bad. She had both been there and done that. And yet, what she had with Spike completely transcended whatever it was she had cherished so much with Angel. Standing here at the end of one road and the beginning of another, she could honestly say there was no comparison. And there could never hope to be.
“How’s Red holdin’ up?” Spike asked suddenly, his hand tightening around hers. Beckoning her back to him. “Haven’ seen much of her since we got back.”
Buffy licked her lips. In all honestly, she didn’t know how well Willow was handling being home. With the Slayer, it was a simple transition. She and Spike had been living together in Natchez. Now they were living together at Giles’s place, and would soon move to a place of their own. Willow was a different story altogether. Sunnydale bore no resemblance to the life they had quickly grown accustomed to while in the boundary of the small southern town. She had her dorm, she had her studies, she had her witchcraft. There was no Donna here to tease about some ghost cat. There was no Josh to argue the principles of Judaism, and there was no Sam. Sam was across the country, living his life in Washington DC. Doing exactly what everyone had known he would do the minute the apocalypse was over, assuming said apocalypse wasn’t of the permanent nature. She knew the redhead and her boyfriend had arranged to keep it long distance, but such would steadily break her apart, as it had with Oz. Only a week had passed, and that much was more than obvious.
“I don’t know,” Buffy replied a second later, shrugging. “I talked to Donna yesterday…she said that Sam is pretty much doing his job, but that he seems more than a little down. They’re working on some confirmation or whatever for a judge.”
“Mendoza,” Spike confirmed with a nod, tossing his cigarette to the pavement and smothering it with his boot. She issued him a strange look. He recoiled in defense. “Yeh, I watch CSPAN. Bloody deal with it.”
The Slayer’s hands came up in a sign of defense. “Hey, I think it’s cute.”
“What’d I tell you ‘bout usin’ that word around me?”
“Nothing. And even so, it’s not smart to be bossy when, of the two of us, you’re the one that’s not a god.”
The vampire just smirked and squeezed her hand again. “You’re gonna remind me of that every day for the rest of eternity,” he muttered, flashing an unrepentant grin. There was something to be said for this. A nice, quiet tease before the storm itself took her in its uproar. Buffy knew that Spike was more than aware of how terrified the entire business made her. Being a god. Being someone with that much power. Having such unfettered access to whatever it was she wanted to get her hands in.
Power like that had a nasty tendency to corrupt. She had seen it before.
And then, on every page she turned, there was Spike. Feeling what she felt. Likely sensing it before the thought could know birth within her own recognition. He pressed his lips to her temple in a whisper of reassurance. “’m here, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Always here. Told you I won’ let you fall like that.”
“You think you could stop me?”
“I know it.”
She blinked and reeled back. “Spike?”
He smiled tenderly and again ran his fingers across the mark in her throat that proclaimed she was his and no one else’s. “This,” he said, nuzzling her hair delicately. “Claims are older than god, Buffy. Any god. An’ they’re more powerful. This has you connected to me. Always. I’ll feel what you feel. I’ll keep you grounded.”
“You can do that?”
“Bloody right, I can.” He whispered a kiss across her lips. “’m evil as sin, baby. Never doubt it. But you’re not, an’ I love you. I love you because you’re not. Because you’re Buffy. So yes, evil. Always will be on some level, right? But you’re tied to me. You’re this for the rest of forever. An’ nothin’ can take that away.” His eyes danced at her smile, and he kissed her again. The heavens and the stars falling around them in an ode to silent night.
“You’re not the one to worry with, luv,” Spike continued, tugging her back into a steady pace at his side. “I’d feel it ‘f it were otherwise. You’re not the one to worry with.”
Buffy licked her lips. “There’s one to worry with?”
He shrugged. “Well, the other bird, obviously. Chit was already nuttier than a bleedin’ squirrel before she was juiced up with power. If those sodding Watchers have any luck tetherin’ her to her bed, it’ll be outta the will of the Powers alone.”
“If Faith becomes a problem, we’ll deal.” The Slayer shrugged. “After all. Hey. I’m a god, too. And if need be, we can also get Willow—”
“Willow’s who I’m worried about.”
Buffy paused at that and stared at him. “What?”
“Bird used up a lot of power in that last one, luv. Think about it; she was bollixing up Will Be Done spells an’ spinnin’ pencils before we went down there. Suddenly, she’s upped the ante to banishin’ gods?” His eyes implored her to follow him. To understand the inherent danger lurking behind his words. The thing that no one had mentioned yet, despite the obvious glares staring them down. “I know you felt how much mojo went into that last one. I felt it through you. You were bloody terrified, an’ for good reason. Red’s outta the minor leagues, an’ a good three years prematurely. More over, she doesn’ have someone to be her anchor.”
“Sam—”
“Lives across the bleedin’ nation. An’ who knows when we’re gonna see any of them again?” Another breath rattled through his body and he shook his head. “Red’s a smart cookie, pet. She knows how much is too much. But ‘f she’s not careful, she’ll tumble headfirs’ into something beyond her understandin’ an’ that’ll be the end of that.”
She was almost afraid to ask. “The end of what?”
“You name it. Her life. The icecapades. The world. Gone to hell in a soddin’ handbasket.” A pause. “Rupert’s afraid of it, too. He doesn’ say much, but he knows it. ‘S one of the reasons the Rite terrified him so much. Willow’s a pistol an’ she’s loaded. It’ll only be a matter of time before some kiddy finds her in Daddy’s sock drawer and blows the cap off this miserable world.”
Buffy bit her lip and released a long, trembling sigh. “No,” she said after a minute. “Willow…she knows the difference between right and wrong better than anyone I’ve ever met before. Furthermore, Sam’s not out of her life. He’ll be there. I mean, have you seen them together? He loves her. He’s not going to just forget she exists just because they live in different cities.”
“Don’ think it’ll come to that. Jus’ sayin’…the long distance thing doesn’ work out all that often. Matter of fact, it rarely does.”
“They’ll find a way to make it work.”
“You think he’s gonna leave workin’ for the President of the United States to come here an’ retire when his career’s jus’ takin’ off the ground?”
“Not exactly, but I don’t think either one of them will give up.” Buffy shook her head. “Willow’s not like that. She did what she had to in order to save the world. That’s the kind of person she is. She’s not the type to be corrupted by power.”
Spike pulled her to a stop and shot her a meaningful look. “But you are?” he retorted. “Buffy, jus’ minutes ago you were goin’ off on how havin’ all these powers was gonna change everythin’. It doesn’. You’ve always had that power—you’re the Slayer. If you were gonna be corrupted, it would’ve been well before this. But my answer stays the same: you have me to anchor you. Red has Prissy in theory, but he’s not doin’ her a lot of good now. If she starts to fall, there’ll be no one there to catch her.”
“She has us,” the Slayer replied stubbornly, her voice wavering in conviction.
“Yeh. She has you.” The vampire released a long sigh and ran a hand through his peroxide locks. “Jus’ hope that’s enough, is all.”
They walked a few seconds in silence, hands still linked and minds warring. The face of unwanted truths shoved impulsively to the spotlight. Buffy didn’t want this. She didn’t want to acknowledge that he had a point. She didn’t want to lose herself in worry for her best friend, especially considering all that had occurred thus far. She didn’t want to think that far down the line, or apply the fears that had so recently haunted her to someone else.
It was there, though. Spoken. Spike had a point.
She could only hope it amounted to nothing.
*~*~*
Willow snapped off the television as CJ wound up her briefing with a sigh, turning back to her empty dorm room and the bed scattered with school texts that she would never catch up in. Back to the world where life was complicated. Where the big bads lurked in the form of advanced calculus rather than demons spurned on the radical notion of world domination.
She was missing Sam like something awful. And studying wasn’t helping one bit.
The vacancy at the other end of the dorm room also annoyed but was expected. Buffy and Spike had their happiness. At around nine that night, she received a call from her best friend, ecstatic over this dream apartment the vampire had found for them. They were going to move in immediately, she said. Starting this weekend. A big move-in thing and all the Scoobs were invited.
Watching the briefing made her feel connected to Sam on some level. She knew that he was around CJ when she gave it. In the building behind her somewhere, or perhaps elsewhere in DC on business. But still away. And their late night conversations, while treasured, only succeeded in making the hole he had left deeper. More unbearable.
It had only been a week and she was already at this low.
The knock at her door was a pleasant distraction. She needed to talk to someone, even if only for a few seconds. Needed to climb out of her misery.
Only for the entire state of California and half a million dollars, she would never have guessed who was on the other side. And the sight of him struck her speechless.
Speechless and more so.
“Oh my god,” she muttered, lost in eyes that were so familiar, someone might as well have warped her back through time. Standing there as though not a day had gone by. As though nothing at all had passed.
“Hi, Willow,” he said softly, his voice warm with familiarity.
It was him. It was him. It was really him. Not a figment of her imagination. He was really there. Really standing in the threshold of her doorway. Looking at her, imploring her to let him in.
How could she have forgotten so quickly?
“Oz.”
TBC