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Definitions:
1. The technique of using light and shade in pictorial representation.
2. The arrangement of light and dark elements in a pictorial work of art.
3. A series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fictions, mostly about the Buffy/Spike relationship.
Rating: I’m not good at figuring out what people will find offensive, but the Chiaroscuro series is probably mostly R with some PG and some NC-17. To be on the safe side, please assume NC-17 unless I specifically note otherwise. By accessing this material, you are confirming that you are at least 17 years old.
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Joss Whedon,
Mutant Enemy, etc. Only the lame plots
and dialogue herein are mine.
Notes: This
is the final chapter of Chiaroscuro. Thanks to Kes and DorothyL, the world's
most long-suffering betas, and to Devil Piglet and everyone else who encouraged
me to finish. And a very special thanks to Fran for all the lovely emails, and
for reminding me about Vincent.
It was way too early to be up. Xander smiled to himself at the thought. A few months ago, if he had been up and wandering around right now, it would probably have been because he'd spent the night chasing demons, trying to read some dusty grimoire that made less sense than the plot of From Justin to Kelly, and most likely getting beaten up as some part of the evening's entertainment. But today he was just up early because his damn car was in the shop again. And because he needed to check out a construction site for an hour or so before taking the rest of the day off. He was in too good a mood to enjoy waking up any of his friends, so he was strolling to work alone in the hour before dawn.
A stroll taken for the most prosaic reasons, down a drab suburban street. A stroll taken without fear of anything more dangerous than a mugger jumping out at him. No demons were lurking in the shrubbery, and no big bad villain was plotting an apocalypse inside any of the tract houses that lined his route. Xander breathed in the cool night air and smiled. It felt so good to walk down the street and not feel your skin crawl because some purple people-eater was behind you planning to strip off your flesh and suck out your brains. It felt so good not to have to worry about a—
"Vampire!" cried Xander instinctively, and then remembered he was alone. After so many years of patrolling with the Scoobies, he was accustomed to having at least one stake-wielding friend by his side. But he was alone, except for the tall, thin, and extremely dirty figure silhouetted in the last rays of moonlight.
The vamp, which had been scrounging in a garbage can by the side of a house, started at the sound of Xander's voice and scuttled off down an alley like an oversized cockroach disturbed by the flick of a light switch. Cursing himself for having warned the creature, Xander took off in pursuit of the demon. "I'm gonna get you, Speedy!" he yelled. He knew exactly who he was chasing.
Because Speedy was the last vamp in Sunnydale. The Scoobies theorized that he had been turned just before the battle over the Hellmouth, but hadn't risen until the war was over and his sire, as well as every other vamp in town, had either fled or been killed. So Speedy was an orphan. He didn't have anyone to show him the ropes, and in most respects he was proving to be a poor climber. As far as the Scoobies could tell, he hadn't yet managed to kill a human. He had frightened a gaggle of teenage girls one night, but they had driven him off with mace, kicks, and blood-curdling screams. The experience seemed to have traumatized the fledgling vamp, and there had been no reports of other attacks.
Everyone agreed that Speedy was no supervillain and probably lacked the smarts to find blood by means other than killing. Spike was pretty sure Speedy was living off vermin and road kill. The vamp had probably been rat-catching in that garbage can.
But, as Buffy said, having just one vampire around town was like having just two guinea pigs in a cage. If you didn't do something about the situation right away, sooner or later, you'd have more. So she and Spike had been hunting Speedy. Xander gasped for his second wind. He had completely gotten over his jealousy that his friends had superpowers, of course. Still—it would be beyond great if he could slay Sunnydale's last vampire when those two had failed.
Unfortunately for Xander, the only thing Speedy did well was move fast. Xander realized it was probably hopeless trying to follow that skinny figure as it zigged and zagged around the bland houses of this respectable neighborhood, but he kept running long past the moment when his breathing became labored and he felt sweat starting to trickle down his back. He kept chasing Speedy because he could see that the first rays of dawn were starting to lighten the sky in the east. If Xander could just keep the vamp moving long enough, maybe Speedy would fry before he remembered to seek cover.
But when Xander turned the next corner, a good twenty seconds after his quarry had rounded it, he realized he had been too late. He was standing on the grassy verge of one of Sunnydale's cemeteries, and the vamp had literally gone to ground. The door to Spike's old crypt was hanging open and creaking slightly.
"Damn," said Xander, and he turned to leave the cemetery. But he stopped, blinking at the sight of a long shadow cast by the low morning sun. A human shadow.
He turned and found that the shadow had been deceptive. Jonathan's short, unimposing figure slouched near a fresh grave. He was motionless, making no effort to approach Xander or even to call out a greeting. His eyes were fixed on the ground.
Slowly, Xander walked over to stand by his friend.
"Speedy ducked into Spike's old crypt," said Jonathan tonelessly. "He's probably down in the tunnels somewhere by now. There are still enough of them left for him to hide."
"Yeah, that's what I thought," said Xander. He looked down at the grave at Jonathan's feet. It was too new to have a headstone yet, but even without reading the name on the stone next to it, he would have remembered who lay here. The funeral was still fresh in his mind.
Saffron had been buried next to her mother Rosemary several days after the battle that closed the Hellmouth. The funeral had been delayed because so many of the mourners were in the hospital, but by the time of the interment they knew that Saffron's uncle Basil, who had suffered a heart attack during the fight, would survive, although he was still ill enough that one of his nephews had permanently taken his place in the coven.
Xander had been to a lot of funerals, but they never got any easier. Saffron's had been so well attended, the grief seemed magnified by the size of the crowd. It probably didn't help that so many of the mourners were witches with psychic powers, able to project their feelings to the people around them.
There had been several covens there, and a representative of each one had stepped up to say something about Saffron or to make some kind of profound statement that was supposed to be comforting. However, Xander hadn't seen much comfort on the faces of Sage and her family.
Xander had been surprised when Jonathan, Willow and Tara had stood with the witches of the Seely Coven, but no one else had said anything about it. The rest of the Scoobies had huddled together, quiet and apart. Then there had come a moment when someone from each of the covens had spoken and even Clem had made a short, awkward speech representing some of the few remaining demons in Sunnydale. It was obviously time for someone in Buffy's group to say something. But Buffy had seemed incapable of speech. The Slayer's hands had curved protectively over her swollen belly, and her eyes had been fixed on Sage's face in mute sympathy. Xander had realized that Buffy was too transfixed by the sight of a mother who had lost her child to put together a coherent thought.
Giles had been cleaning his glasses and surreptitiously wiping his eyes. Anyway, he had barely known Saffron. And Xander himself had been too terrified of the older witches to ever try to get to know her. His eyes had slid to Dawn's face, but the girl seemed to have wandered into a near-trance state, as she often did in those first days after the battle.
Spike had stared at each of them in turn and finally given a sigh of exasperation before stepping forward and speaking for the group. He had not bowed his head, but had faced the other mourners grimly. His voice had rung out, harsh and strong, as he quoted:
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.
Crowned with lilies and laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Down, down, down, into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
They had hardly been traditional, easy words of comfort, but afterwards Xander had heard Sage murmur a thank you. "I'm glad to know others are angry for Saffron," she said.
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"It was terrible," said Xander now. He looked at Jonathan, and saw that his friend looked about to burst into tears. Xander shifted awkwardly, trying to find the words that had escaped him at the funeral. "We all feel bad. Willow and Tara especially, because she was their teacher." He looked at Jonathan's profile, and was horrified to realize that instead of conquering his sniffles, his friend had allowed a tear to roll down one cheek. He fumbled for more words of sympathy, and wound up uttering lamely, "I didn't realize she meant so much to you. Did she teach you too?"
"Yes. And not just about magic," said Jonathan. "At least not that kind of magic."
"Oh," said Xander, as if he understood, and then added, "Oh!" as he understood at last.
"I never expected it. I mean, she wasn't like the women I always thought I wanted," said Jonathan. "The ones that looked like the fashion models. I always thought that women were different from us, and I'd never be able figure them out or measure up in their eyes, you know. But she was just a person. A really wonderful, smart, funny person. She liked to talk about things that interested me. She taught me all kinds of things about magic. And she liked me." He dragged his sleeve across his face. "It was better than I ever imagined. A lot better than that time I cast the spell and made myself something else so that women would like me. It was real."
Xander should have been horribly embarrassed, but instead Jonathan's words made him see Saffron as a real person for the first time. Too late.
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"I hope these are enough," said Xander, dropping the stack of boxes he had brought with him to the floor.
"I think so," said Willow. She looked around her dorm room. "I'm not taking everything. I'm going to sell those books over there before I go."
"You? Selling books? I thought you kept every one you ever read.
"Not those. There are incredibly annoying, useless, obscure, and pretentious writers. And then there are the writers on that pile, for whom no words exist."
Xander peered at the stack in awe. "Jacques Derrida," he read off the cover of the top one, and was tempted to peek at prose so turgid even Willow couldn't make a game of deciphering it.
"Anyway, thanks for bringing me all the boxes," said Willow, looking at the items remaining on her bookshelves.
I will speak, therefore, of the letter a, read Xander, this initial letter, which it apparently has been necessary to insinuate, here and there, into the writing of the word difference; and to do so in the course of a writing on writing, and also of a writing within writing whose different trajectories thereby find themselves, at certain very determined points, intersecting with a kind of gross spelling mistake, a lapse in the discipline and law which regulate writing and keep it seemly. He slammed the book shut emphatically, afraid that leaving it open would allow some evil demon to escape. "Uh, boxes? No problem. I picked them up at the place where I rented the trailer for Buffy's move." He thought for a moment. "Do you think Jonathan will be okay?" he asked at last.
Willow frowned down at the box she was trying to assemble with the aid of some uncooperative packing tape. "He could use a friend now that the coven is leaving," she said. "But it will probably be easier on him when we're gone. He's kind of been wallowing, and it's been way too easy for him to do that when there's always someone from the family around for him to cry with." She unstuck her hands from the tape and sat down on her bed next to Xander. "Not that I don't understand wallowing, but, you know, maybe someone who can just hang out with him is more of what he needs right now." She took his hand. "And maybe you need someone to hang out with too."
"I get it. Since you're all leaving me to go on new adventures, I get to watch TV with Jonathan and talk about comic books." He winced at the bitterness he heard in his own voice.
"It won't be forever," said Willow. "And you won't be that far from Buffy and the others. Besides, taking care of Jonathan when he feels this way is important."
"Yeah," said Xander. "But I'm going to miss you, Will. When the coven said they'd chosen a new member, I was sure it would be Tara. I couldn't believe—"
"The coven could use Tara," said Willow. "Any coven could. She's an amazing witch. But I need the coven." She spread her hands out in front of her and stared at them. "My powers are back, and I found out that I can tap into even more energy than I realized before. But I still don't know where I pull all that power from or how I do it. I need to find that out. And I feel a lot more comfortable experimenting around a dozen other very well-trained witches. Because the idea of accidentally blowing up a city or two—not as appealing as it was in my younger days. It's true what they say about the thrill going out of some things as you get older."
Xander's lips twitched. "You never tried to blow up a city." He was holding her hand tight now. She let him clasp her fingers but didn't return the pressure.
"No, I was trying not to remind myself of some of the other really stupid things I tried to do instead."
"Anyway, I'm proud of you," said Xander, trying to force some enthusiasm into his voice. He was rewarded when her fingers squeezed his at last. "Because I get that joining this coven is like the witchcraft equivalent of getting a star on Hollywood Boulevard. Still, it's kind of tough luck on Tara that she doesn't get to join the coven too, after she worked so hard."
She let go of his hand. "Tara has another job. Buffy and the others are going to need help protecting Joy. Well, Buffy's going to need extra protection herself, what with the labor and all the other things I don't want to think about that come with having babies. Spike can't do it by himself, and Dawn's powers aren't exactly what you need if someone's using an evil spell against you. So Tara's appointed." Willow grinned. "She's calling herself the fairy godmother."
"Well, it's a good thing you two broke up a long time ago, then," said Xander as he stood up to fix the box she had abandoned. "Because if you were still together, this would be really tough. With Tara moving on with Buffy and the others and you going off to England."
"Yeah," said Willow in a small voice. "It would be tough."
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"Thanks for waiting, Buffy." Tara came out of the back room of the magic shop holding a small carton filled with odds and ends. "It's funny, how you think you've packed everything, but you still keep finding stuff. I think this is everything, though." She looked around at the empty shelves. "It had better be everything. This place starts getting converted into a toy shop tomorrow, and I don't want any of those kids to find something that really will transport them to Hogwarts."
Buffy smiled wanly as she dropped her cell phone into her purse.
"What's wrong?" asked Tara. "Because the Hogwarts thing was a joke. There's no magic left in this shop. Just as well, because no one in Sunnydale seems much interested in buying magical paraphernalia anymore. I had to send most of the inventory to Anya and Giles in England. I'm not sure if they'll have a better market for it there, but I'm not worried. Anya can always figure out a way to hawk it on E-Bay."
"Oh, it's not that," said Buffy. "Although I am sad to be leaving this place for the last time. It's just that I finally tracked my father down and talked to him."
"Oh." Tara's quiet tone said that she understood Buffy's sadness all too well.
"I wanted him to know we were moving. He didn't sound very interested. And I think he forgot everything he learned about Slayers and demons and magic on his last visit. He asked me if I was still with that lazy, beer-drinking Englishman."
"Sorry," said Tara.
"I said, 'yes,' and that he was going to be a grandfather, and he said, 'Oh.' Then I told him our new address, but I don't think he wrote it down."
Tara's hand reached out to rest over Buffy's. "I'm sorry."
"I know you understand. Have you heard from your family at all?
Tara's smile changed and became luminous. "I'm with my family, Buffy."
Buffy paused at the door to look over her shoulder. "You know, just one more time, I'd like to see—"
Tara waved her arm, and the dark, empty room was momentarily filled with bright, mystical objects. People swarmed around, obviously intent on some important business. Willow was gazing intently at some object on the table, with Xander leaning over her shoulder and looking concerned. Anya and Giles were quarreling at the back of the store, while Spike was making some comment that had clearly annoyed Dawn, who was paging through a book and arguing with him.
Tara's hand moved again, and the room was empty.
"Thanks," said Buffy, slipping her hand under Tara's arm as the two women set off down Sunnydale's main street.
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"Thanks, Harris," said Spike. "I wanted to be done before Buffy got back and insisted on helping. I mean, girl power and Slayer strength and all that aside, she shouldn't be lifting furniture. She is a bit on the pregnant side."
"Yeah, I noticed. Don't mention it, man. Glad to help." Xander leaned against the cabinets and watched Spike scrounge around the kitchen for refreshments.
Light slanted through the window blinds, playing over Spike's face and torso as he moved around the kitchen. Xander blinked, remembering a time when Spike would have pulled away in pain from those flickers of light. And remembering how, for months after he had changed, Spike would sometimes still flinch away from the sun.
Xander thought Spike moved differently now, and that it was more than just that he no longer automatically avoided the light. There was a shade less tension in him, although only a crazy person would have described Spike as laid-back. He still looked as if he were flowing with energy even when he was completely still. But he seemed—Xander fought to put his hazy idea into words—Spike seemed less out-of place. Maybe it was his hair, which he had finally had cut short again, although he hadn't committed peroxi-cide on it. It couldn’t be the clothes, since the addiction to black jeans and t-shirts seemed intact. Maybe it was just the way he moved, as if he finally belonged. Xander looked around. Spike was finally acting like he belonged in a house he was about to leave for good. Maybe not that much had changed after all. Spike was still a mass of contradictions.
Xander noticed something missing. "Where's the cat?" he asked. "Usually that beast comes running the moment a cabinet door opens."
"Yeah. And he thinks that his name is the sound of the can opener," said Spike. "Chip's finding this moving business distasteful. He's hiding in the basement."
"You're sure he didn't get out while we were loading?"
Spike drew in a deep breath and shook his head. "Nah. In the basement." He went back to his quest.
That sent a small shiver down Xander's spine. Every time he started to imagine Spike was just another guy, he'd do something like that. Something to remind Xander that the demon was still alive and well behind the human exterior.
In the meantime, Spike pulled out two dark bottles of beer with foreign labels, thought better of it, and put one back. He opened the refrigerator door and got a bottle of Miller instead, which he passed to Xander, while keeping the foreign stuff for himself.
Xander grinned. "Thanks for not making me drink British pond scum."
"Just don't want to waste it on the Philistines," retorted Spike. He tossed a bag of chips on the counter, stared into the still-open refrigerator, and began complaining. "Not much left here."
"No point in stocking up at this point. The chips will do." Xander tore open the bag and watched Spike watch him eat. He began to chew more slowly.
Spike's old ironic tone was back. "Something wrong?"
"No. At least, there's something I wanted to say. Before you guys go. I mean, you'll keep in touch, I know, and I'll see you, but—"
"Harris, if this is going to be maudlin—"
"No, it's not. It's just something I wanted to say to you. Alone."
"Well this is so sudden."
Xander blushed. "Fuck you, Spike. At least, that's not what I meant."
"Relieved to hear it." Both men were grinning now. "If you've something to say, out with it, Harris. The ladies will be back soon."
Xander became very serious. "Before you came to Sunnydale, I was possessed by hyenas."
Spike's scarred eyebrow rose, and his lips twitched. "Can't say I recall the tale, but I can't say I'm surprised either."
"Yeah, things like that tend to happen to Xander Harris. The point is, me and these other kids, we killed and ate a pig. Raw. And the others—they ate the principal."
"I think I'm starting to remember Buffy telling me that part of the story now."
Xander stared at the floor. "Yeah, having the high school principal cannibalized isn't something you forget, even in Sunnydale. I wasn't with the others when it happened, because—well, because I'd tried to attack Buffy and she knocked me out and locked me up. But I would have. Fed on him, I mean. If I'd been free. Because it was my nature. To hunt. To kill. The question of right and wrong just didn't come up. I just wanted you to know that I remember what that was like. Dawn and Willow and Buffy don't know that I do. And I tried so hard to forget that I almost succeeded." He looked up. Now Spike was staring at the floor. "The others figured out a way to break the spell. To restore me. I'm convinced that if they hadn't, I would never have found a way back to myself. Not alone." He tried to say more but stopped, as if he were unable to choke out the words.
"I wasn't alone either," said Spike finally.
The back door opened, and a small swarm of females entered, with Dawn in the lead. "Boozing it up, huh?" she said, glancing the beer bottles.
"Enjoying our just rewards for loading that bloody great truck," said Spike.
"All done already?" Buffy went over to Spike and put her arm around him, smiling impishly. "You know that Joy and I would have helped—if Tara hadn't kept stalling so that I couldn't get back until now." Behind her, Tara grimaced at Spike and rolled her eyes.
Spike gave Tara a grateful nod. "Which is why it got done before you two returned," he said to Buffy, returning her embrace and smiling down at her. He set the bottle he held in his free hand on the counter and placed his palm over her swelling abdomen.
The baby inside Buffy was growing so quickly, and her body had previously been so slender, that her condition was now obvious to the most casual observer. However, not all the new weight was carried in her belly. Her face was fuller and her arms and legs less painfully thin. In spite of her pregnancy, she looked more like the optimistic girl who had first come to Sunnydale than the haunted, almost gaunt, creature who had protected the town in more recent years.
But those green eyes were as keen as ever. "So, what were you two big strong men talking about?" she asked, staring back and forth from Spike to Xander.
"Nothing much," said Xander. "Guy talk."
"Yeah," said Spike. "Manly man stuff."
"Uh huh." Buffy stared deep into his eyes for a moment, seemed content with what she saw there, and dropped the subject. "So, since you guys have done the lion's share of the work, I guess we girls get to decide how we party our last night here."
"And you think that's an equitable division of labor, do you?" asked Spike.
"Seems good from where I stand," said Dawn. She grinned happily, and Xander felt better just looking at her. It had only been this past week or so that she had seemed herself. For a long time after she'd closed the hellmouth, she been vague and unconcerned with her surroundings, as if part of her were still living in some other dimension. But today she looked like a normal teenager again. Not completely in touch with reality, maybe, but in a normal, scatterbrained way.
Tara glanced around the kitchen. "I can't believe how fast this place sold," she commented. "Remember when you couldn't get a second mortgage, Buffy?"
"Land values are up all over town," said Xander.
"Yeah, but that's crazy," said Dawn. "You'd think the huge sink hole in the middle of town where the old high school was would scare people away." She pulled the bag of potato chips out of Xander's hands and stared into its depths. "People can rationalize away demons, but it's kind of hard to forget that an acre or so of land has suddenly dropped way below sea level."
"You'd think," agreed Xander, watching Dawn closely, "but once the Army Corps of Engineers announced the hole wasn't going to get any bigger, the streets were swarming with RE/MAX agents. And we're getting more offers to bid on construction jobs every day. This town is growing. And most of the new population seems to be human."
"That's good for you," said Dawn, licking a few greasy crumbs from her fingers.
"Yeah," he agreed, and turned to her sister. "But I think you sold the house too fast, Buffy. If you'd held on to this place a few more months you could have gotten even more for it."
Buffy shook her head emphatically. "No. It's time to leave. Joy is not going to be born in Sunnydale." She smiled up at Spike. "Tonight is our last night here."
"Yeah." His arm tightened around her, and he looked up at the others, his eyes narrowing. "You lot are going to the Bronze for a goodbye bash, right? Soon?"
"Trying to get rid of us?" Dawn smiled slyly at her sister. "So you two have plans?"
Buffy hugged Spike's arm to her. "There's something we need to do here. One last time."
Xander and the others exchanged knowing looks.
"Well, you'll have to wait until I take one last shower here," said Dawn. "Because there is no way I'm making my last ever appearance at the Bronze looking like this."
Xander thought she looked pretty good. But, hey, what did he know?
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Spike sat on the back porch, his forearms resting on his knees, one hand clasping his old silver flask. He took a long drink and said without looking behind him, "Hello, Tara."
"Dawn should be ready in a few more minutes," she said, coming to sit next to him. "We'll all be gone soon." She bit her lip. "We all know you and Buffy have something important to do."
He gave her a sideways smile and offered her the flask. "You'd be surprised."
"Maybe," she said in a doubtful tone.
"And maybe I'd be surprised if you told me you're not sure you want to make this move," he said.
She was quiet for a full minute before saying, "I do want to help you and Buffy. It's not so much that I regret not being asked to join the coven. It's not the right time—not for me."
"No. You don't have that kind of vanity, pet. It doesn't bother you that you weren't asked. You're regretting that Willow was. But not out of jealousy."
"No." She looked down at the flask in her hands, as if trying to read something in its dented and pitted surface. "What I'm feeling—it's definitely not jealousy. I'm not sure what it is. When we were trying to keep everything from collapsing in that last battle, when we were fighting together, I felt something with Willow. Not what we had before. This was different. Not like I was still in love with her. Like I was falling in love again for the first time." She mulled over her own words, frowned at Spike's flask, and handed it back to him.
Spike took another drink and waited. When she said nothing, he offered her his flask again, but she rejected it. "I learned my lesson last time. About your whisky, anyway."
When she didn't explain further, he raised one interrogative eyebrow and again waited patiently.
Finally Tara went on. "I know it can't happen. She has to go to England, and I have to stay with you and Buffy and Dawn."
"I'm sorry, pet," he said. "If it were just me, I'd tell you to—"
"Don't apologize, Spike. Joy will need lots of protectors, especially if Giles' suspicions are right, and I'm to be one of them, at least right for right now. I wouldn't have it any other way. Besides, it's probably the closest I'll ever get to having a kid myself. But—you said to me once that Willow would have to find her own way, but that you thought her path might take her back to me some day. Do you still think that?"
"I'd like to say that was a vision or a prophecy, but the truth is, pet, I'm just a failed poet, and it was only a metaphor." He started to take another drink, thought better of it, and put away the flask.
Tara's slow, beautiful smile transformed her face. "Coming from a poet, what's the difference?"
"I said I was a failed poet, Tara. And it doesn't matter. Only you can tell what's really happening between you and Willow."
"I wish I knew what to do. I know what I feel, but I'm afraid to move too quickly."
His voice held a note of exasperation. "If I say something, I don't want you to take it for something bloody useless and stupid like advice."
"No chance of that." In spite of her obvious tension, laughter quivered in her voice.
His voice became harsher. "Seems to me, you've been down this road before. You've been with Willow, and you know how much it hurt when it was over, how hard it was when you felt you had to break up."
"Yes." She looked stricken at the memory.
"So you know the worst that can happen. And the best. I would ask myself, what would be the worst regret I could have a year from now? That I'd tried and failed, or that I hadn't tried and never knew if this time I could have succeeded?"
Tara took a deep, shuddering breath. "Thank you." She got up from the porch step and started to go back in the house.
"That wasn't advice!" he called after her.
"No, of course not," she said, smiling back at him for a moment before the door shut and he was left alone in the back yard.
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A few minutes later, Dawn intruded on his solitude, coming out the back door, standing on the porch, and smiling down at him in a way that made him very nervous.
"Finished primping, Little Bit?" he asked, standing up to admire her new outfit. She did look very pretty, even if he couldn't understand why it had taken over an hour to achieve this effect. Suddenly, it struck him that his nickname for her had become ridiculous; she was as tall as he was. But he knew he would keep calling her that as long as the sound of it made her smile and roll her eyes in a pretense of disgust.
"Yep," she said. "Now Buffy's in the shower. And there's something I want to do before we leave here."
Her dancing eyes terrified him. Like Xander, he had been concerned about her moping after the closing of the Hellmouth. But that was nothing to how he felt now, when he saw her smiling with mischief as his demon senses recognized the power surging through her. "Now, wait, Nibblet! Whatever crazy idea you've hatched in that trans-dimensional, hormone-fueled teenage brain of yours, it can—"
"Shut up," she said. "I think you'll like this." Before he could move away, she put her arms around him and gave him a hug.
"Balls!" Spike stepped away from Dawn and looked around him. "Where are we?" It would have been less odd, he thought, if there had been a sensation of movement or some dizziness. But they were simply, suddenly, elsewhere.
"I'm not sure, geography-wise," said Dawn, looking a bit surprised herself. "Although dimension-wise, I could tell you if there were any words."
Spike turned around, gaping at his surroundings. They were on a street in a small town. Its three-block length appeared to comprise the entire business district. The buildings were elderly but well-tended, except for a small antique shop whose windows were so dusty that the battered oak furniture languishing inside was barely visible. The sign on the bank announced that it was "The Bank." A building the size of a California convenience store boldly proclaimed itself to be a supermarket. In lieu of displaying prices, the marquee over the gas station read, "Happy Aniversery Carl & Edna." A hand-lettered sign on a restaurant promised that patrons would be served the biggest and best pork tenderloin in the Midwest.
"Where the bloody hell are we?" he repeated.
A short woman with close-cropped dark hair came out of the "supermarket" and blinked at them. "Why, hello, William," she said. "How are you?"
"Uh, fine," he said, staring at her. Whoever she was, she looked the epitome of middle-aged, polyester-clad respectability. "Uh, how are you?"
"Just fine," said the woman, gaping at Dawn. When Spike said nothing, she turned away and reluctantly stepped off the curb and into the passenger seat of a waiting car. "I have to go. I'll see you—and Buffy—at the American Legion turkey dinner, won't I?" She kept staring from Dawn to Spike with avid interest even as the car pulled away.
"She knows you but not me," said Dawn positively. "Hey, I'll bet she thinks you're cheating on Buffy with me." She seemed to find the idea enormously funny.
"How do you know?" demanded Spike staring after the car. He hadn't recognized the make. "I mean, who gives a rat's ass? I don't know who she is or where we are."
"I think you will some day."
Spike looked at the buildings on the street more carefully. "Bloody hell. There really is an American Legion hall over there. And that library looks about big enough to hold a dictionary and the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of The Best of Barbara Cartland. It's like that town in It's A Wonderful Life, only even more G-rated. You haven't arranged for me to live out my existence in a Frank Capra movie, have you? Because hell would be preferable." He looked down at his clothes. He was still wearing the black jeans and t-shirt he had put on that morning. "At least I'm not dressed for the part."
"And I don't look anything like Clarence the angel," said Dawn, tucking her hand in his arm and pulling him along the street. "It's not like that. Not exactly, anyway."
"How exactly is it, then?" He stared at a sign advertising a septic service. "We're #1 in the #2 Business!!" it announced.
She walked along slowly for a moment, her face deep with concentration, as if she were trying to take in all her surroundings. "It's not demon-free, for one thing."
He stopped gibbering and began using all his senses. "You're right. It's not in the immediate neighborhood, but there's been a big bad here recently."
"This is somewhere you come to slay something," said Dawn happily. "So this is someplace you belong. For a while, maybe. Eventually. We're just here a little early, that's all. I knew I'd get it right."
"You don't seem to know much," he muttered. "I just hope that how to get back to our reality isn't one of the things you're still working on."
"No worries. I could have us in our backyard in a second."
"May I suggest you bloody well do it then?" He kicked at a vending machine advertising cappuccino and live bait.
"But you haven't even figured out why I brought us here yet!"
"You can explain at your leisure while you're grounded for misuse of inter-dimensional travel."
"Stop whining and start paying attention."
"To what?" he asked, but then stopped and stood stock-still in the middle of the street.
Dawn watched his expression change from shock to amazement. A small, triumphant smile twisted her lips.
"I feel . . . different," he said finally. He stared at her in awe. "It seems so normal I didn't realize what was missing at first. What did you do?"
"I just let you be you," she said. "Not William. Not Spike. Just you."
"I am—"
"No. You're not. You keep telling us you're not William the geek and bad poet, and we can't contradict you because we know you're right. But you're not Spike the badass vampire either. You made yourself out of both of them, but you're something different, the way a child is made out of two parents but isn't really either, or both, of them." She stepped up to him and looked into his eyes. "I understand. Don't you see, that's why we're so close. Neither of us was really born. We were just transformed from something else. I can't tell you when I stopped being a ball of energy and turned into a girl with a bunch of false memories. And you can't tell me when you stopped being a monster and turned into a Slayer."
"In the factory," he said hoarsely. "When you and Buffy changed me. In that other dimension."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "You did it. You have to stop pretending that was something that happened to you."
"You got me a soul," he insisted.
She shook her head. "What does that mean? You know that 'soul' is just a word, and words are nothing but metaphors to be interpreted any way you like. That's what you said when you helped me with my Language Arts homework."
He shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched into himself, fighting not to accept her ideas. "If words are just metaphors, then why are we talking?"
"Because usually it's all we have to explain things. But words aren't so important. It's the things you do that matter. You told me that too. So I did something. I took us here."
"Stop telling me that I told you these things. I'm bloody sure this wasn't my idea." He shook his head and resumed walking, his hands still buried in his pockets and his eyes on the ground. He was confused to realize that he had some specific goal in mind, although he could not yet visualize what it was.
"That first time, in the factory, Buffy and I showed you what you are. This time, I'm trying to show you what you can be. And you should listen to me, because in this place, I'm not just the Slayer's little sister. I'm the Key that can step into any of our possible futures. For the next few minutes, you will be the man you've been pretending to be for the past year." Then she added in a more uncertain tone, anxious eyes on his face, "I just wanted to do you a favor. Just like when you wanted to do me a favor, you helped me get my driver's license."
"The two things are a bit different, Niblet," he said, relenting and trying to smile, but still feeling incredibly disoriented. Disoriented in a good way.
"Spike, I'm a teenager and you helped me get my driver's license," she said. "If we weigh the favors on the eleventh-grade value scale, I still owe you."
He was about to retort when he was once again distracted by his surroundings. He looked around and realized that they were standing on a quiet residential street. The houses were fairly large but not ostentatious, designed for big families with modest budgets.
"This is the place," said Dawn, nodding at one of the houses. It was run-down, but some new gutters and fresh plantings on the lawn indicated that recent attempts had been made to refurbish it. The place looked tired but hopeful, as if it had been rescued after a long period of neglect.
Dawn tugged his arm until he followed her up the driveway. Judging by the noises emanating from the back of the house, there was some kind of party going on in the yard, but their view was blocked by a high wooden fence. They stopped a few feet away from the gate and listened.
"Yow! Flames! Lots of flames!" yelled a familiar voice.
"Xander, haven't we told you a thousand times not to play with matches?" It was Buffy's voice, only mildly exasperated. "I asked you to wait for me before lighting the grill."
The situation was both strange and familiar. There was a sound that could only have been Willow laughing, followed by Tara's low tones giving good advice that no one seemed to heed.
Spike tilted his head to try to catch Tara's words, and instead heard a child ask, "Is Uncle Xander going to set the tree on fire again?" The voice was more curious than concerned.
"No way. Mom won't let him," said another child in an authoritative tone.
"Too bad," was the reply. Or was that a different voice? The timbre was like that of the first child, but some quality in it was different. "That last fire was awesome."
"Yeah, but Mom says we shouldn't burn the house down, even though we're moving soon. We leave a place better than we found it, not worse." The older child's voice held an echo the forceful tone Buffy used when she was speaking as the Slayer.
Another voice, sounding even younger than the others, chimed in. "But where's Daddy? He likes fires too."
"He went somewhere with Aunt Dawn," said the authoritative one. "Don't worry, pet, he'll be here."
Spike stared at Dawn in horror. "Three," he said hoarsely. "Three of them. Or was that four—"
Dawn began to laugh. "Counting your blessings?"
Before he could answer, a baby started to cry.
At that, Dawn looked horrified too. But she recovered quickly and leaned forward to hug Spike again. "I didn't say the future was going to be easy! Just better."
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Xander stepped out onto the porch to find Spike pulling away from Dawn's embrace and staring at the teenager with a stunned expression. "Little Bit—" he said hoarsely.
"It's okay, isn't it?" asked Dawn urgently.
"Yeah," said Spike slowly. "It's okay."
"What?" demanded Xander, in confusion and sudden jealousy. "What's okay?"
Dawn turned and looked less than happy to find him standing there. She glanced back at Spike, then said, "Never mind. Come into the house with me, Xander."
Before he could object, he had been pulled through the kitchen and dining room into the living room. "Dawn, what were you two doing out there?"
"Nothing." She rushed on before he could object. "Nothing that's your business. Key and ex-vampire stuff. It's just between us."
"Oh, that's reassuring."
"I know what I'm doing, Xander. At least, most of the time I do. And, really, it's none of your business."
Xander looked into her eyes and thought that she grew older and farther away from him with every passing day. He gave up the argument. He wasn't really jealous of Spike anyway. If he was going to whine about something, it might as well be the real problem. "You're going tomorrow. For good."
"Well, yeah," she said nervously. "We have to. This other town needs us. It’s nowhere near as bad as this place used to be, but they've got a vampire gang setting up a kind of mafia and trying to take over. And it's not that far from here. You can visit."
"I'll visit," he said. "But—" He hesitated, then burst out with, "It's never going to be the same again!"
"No," she agreed. "But, Xander, Sunnydale doesn't need us any more. Buffy, and Spike, and me, and the others. This town has no more use for a couple of snarky superheroes, a Key who can't always remember what dimension she's in, and a bunch of witches. But it does need someone who can build strong houses and help this place grow in a human way." She was shaking, and, suddenly, she looked like the pale but powerful creature who had closed the Hellmouth and sent it plummeting far into the earth. "The place we're going, it's kind of small, and a mess right now. There's no work for you there. And there's no work for us here."
He put his arms around her then, gently and protectively. "So," he said, after a few minutes. "Now that I'm finally at home here, you guys have to leave. This is my reward for doing the right thing down in the Hellmouth. I figured out what I was supposed to do, but I'm losing the people I fought for. I feel like Harry Potter being sent back to live with the Dursleys."
She pushed her hands against his chest and raised her face to his. "Xander, most of me is back to being just a teenager. That part is saying, 'Yeah, this sucks.' But a piece of me is still the Key, and that piece is telling me the reward for growing up a little is realizing that you have to grow up a lot more."
He ran a finger along her cheek, memorizing her features carefully before stooping to give her a brotherly kiss. "Yeah. Growing up." He stepped back, releasing her. "We both need to do that. And we both know that it's better if you do it away from me." He glanced away, towards the door. "Let's leave this house to Buffy and Spike and whatever wild erotic extravaganza they have planned for their last night here. I'll take you to the Bronze. Your friends will be there. Your high school friends. And I'll watch you guys dance, and you'll have a good time your last night here. The kind of time a kid your age deserves."
He looked back to see her nodding. He didn't mention the tear that rolled down her cheek. Instead, he stared at the carpet.
"I've got to put something away upstairs," she said in a stifled voice. "Then I'll be ready."
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Dawn ran up the stairs, intending to throw herself on her bed for a brief but hearty sob. But when she threw open the door, she discovered there was nothing left in her room but a sleeping bag and the backpack she used as an overnight bag. She sank down on the carpet, staring at the blank walls. She could feel her talisman pulsing in the pocket of her jeans, rebuking her for not trying to help Xander in the way she had Spike. For a moment, when Xander had kissed her, she had wanted more than anything move them into another dimension, to show him what could be possible in their future. But she had realized just in time what a fiasco that would have been.
Spike and Xander had this in common: when Dawn looked at them, she saw what they could become, but when they looked at themselves, they saw only what they had been. Xander's past hadn't been as disastrous as Spike's, but he was having almost as hard a time getting over it. Not for the first time, Dawn wished she could run a stake through Xander's father, just as Spike had turned Drusilla to dust. But Xander was going to have to get over his insecurities in a more human way. And it was going to take time.
Spike had finally been adult enough to face a glimpse of the future. With Xander, it would have been like taking a child too small to reach the "You must be this tall" line to Disneyland and letting him ride on the scariest rollercoaster anyway. He had gained some confidence by saving them from the Hellmouth, but he just wasn't ready for his next big adventure. The trip Dawn wanted to take would do him more harm than good right now.
Dawn pulled the talisman from her pocket, fingering it carefully. Most of her friends just had to deal with hormones and zits. She was simultaneously a confused teenager and a mystical entity that could move through time, picking up possible futures and examining them like baubles in a jewelry store. The temptations were almost overwhelming. Almost.
Dawn knew that she couldn't simply choose the destiny she wanted and scamper off with it in her pocket, as she would have done with a necklace in her shoplifting days. She knew which of those shiny futures she wanted to have come true, but she would have to choose her path to it very carefully. Either that, or I can repeat all my sister's mistakes, but as farce instead of tragedy.
Sighing, she opened the backpack and took out a small blue box, dropping her talisman inside. It was time for her to be a teenager, and not the Key. She needed to laugh and learn and grow, to prepare for the time when harsh choices would present themselves. I'm not quite tall enough for that rollercoaster ride either.
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Spike heard the front door slam and realized Dawn and Xander were leaving for the Bronze. He shook his head to clear it. Something had been happening between those two, but he was too bemused by his recent experience and the whisky he had drunk to pursue it at the moment.
A few minutes later, the kitchen door opened. Spike didn't turn around as Buffy slowly walked out on the porch and sat down next to him. She smelled of fresh flowers and even more intoxicating femininity. They sat quietly in the deepening twilight.
It was Spike who finally spoke. "You were right, love; we had to do this one last time. How many times have we sat out here together?"
"I've lost count. We've argued here, and cried, and kissed, and talked. I'm going to miss this porch."
"We can still do those things someplace else."
"I know. It's time to move on. I fought hard for the right to move on. I mean, I've always hated Sunnydale and all its horrors. Not even getting rid of the horrors has made me really like this town."
"Yeah."
"Of course," she went on, "it's not like we're really escaping the horrors. I mean, wherever we go, there will be more demons lurking, and we'll have to fight them. No matter how big a bad we kill, there'll always be something worse waiting to come after us. If Giles is right, and the Watchers' Council is up to something, we won't even be able to rely on our allies."
"No."
"We'll never know if the next battle will be the one that destroys us or—" She paused. "Separates us," she finished, finally. It wasn't a euphemism; they both feared separation more than death. She went on. "And, on top of everything else, we'll need to win more than ever because we'll have a baby to take care of. And I have no idea how to take care of a baby, so I'll probably be terrible at it."
"Yeah," he agreed, and then took the sting out of it by adding, "Me too."
"And I have this feeling we're going to be moving around a lot from now on. We'll never know what's going to happen next."
"No." At last, he turned to look at her. "Fortunately, there is nothing in this whole universe that I would rather do."
Her smile answered his. "Me either."
His head bent towards hers, but before he could kiss her, she pulled back. "Bloody hell!" she said.
"Excuse me?" he said, startled to hear this curse on her lips.
"It's Speedy!" She was already off the porch and halfway around the corner of the house.
He took off after her. Now he could also sense the vampire she had spotted. He cursed the whisky that had dulled his senses and now slowed him down. "Be careful, love," he called. "Remember the baby!"
But Buffy was running at full speed, tearing across the back yards of the subdivision and heading towards the highway. The vamp was fast, and Spike was preparing to shift into the otherness to overtake both Buffy and her quarry. But suddenly, there was an unexpected barrier in the way. Caught halfway between his human and demon self, he failed to jump over it, his foot catching on the edge of the obstruction and sending him rolling over and over onto the asphalt of one of Sunnydale's main roads.
Crouched on the street, his clothing torn and his skin scraped, Spike stared up in disbelief at the thing that had tripped him. It was the "Welcome to Sunnydale" sign, restored to its old garish magnificence and set up on a patch of grass near the town's tiny business district. Freshly painted by a suddenly optimistic populace, it was back in its old haunts in spite of all Spike's previous efforts to wipe it from existence.
He snarled and leapt to his feet, realizing his fall had left him far behind. He dragged in a long breath, scented Buffy and her quarry, and took off down the main street.
He caught up with them on the outskirts of town. Speedy was still a few strides ahead of the Slayer, but as Spike finally began to gain ground, the vampire stumbled, and Buffy caught up with him near the shoulder of the road. She kicked the creature in the gut, and he flew backwards.
Spike darted around the other side of Speedy and cut off his next attempt to escape. Spike struck the vampire in the face and cursed when he realized he wasn't carrying a stake.
Apparently, Buffy was also stake-less, because she was looking around her in some frustration. "Keep him busy," she yelled as she ran up the highway a few yards and grabbed a large road sign by its wooden post.
Speedy wasn't nearly as good a fighter as he was a runner, but he landed a lucky blow, and Spike fell back onto the ground. Speedy leapt in the air, but before he completed his attack, he shattered into a cloud of dust. As the ashes fluttered earthward, Spike stared up at the jagged end of a wooden post. The road sign was still attached to it.
Buffy's amber eyes looked down at him. At that moment, she was a feral animal, fangs bared, willing to do anything to protect what was hers. Then the yellow eyes blinked, she realized he was unharmed, and her features smoothed out to a simple, worried, human frown. "All right, William?" she asked, still concerned enough to need reassurance. She reached down the hand that was not holding the sign.
"Yeah, pet," he said, relaxing as he felt his own game face disappear. He was about to let her pull him up when he saw what was written on the sign. He fell back onto his elbows and began to laugh uncontrollably.
Buffy looked up at the sign in her hand and read the words on it. Slowly, she began to chuckle, and then to laugh. She tossed the sign away and reached her hand down again. This time, Spike let her pull him to his feet, and the two of them staggered into each other, arms entwined, pulling close, but still giggling so hard their first attempts at a kiss failed, their lips kept apart by explosions of laughter.
Spike looked up to see a stern-faced man in an SUV glaring at them as he cruised down the road. They must have looked like a couple of undesirable vagrants to that solid citizen. A young couple, dressed in dirty jeans and t-shirts, the woman obviously pregnant, the man bloody and unkempt, laughing wildly and kissing by the side of the highway. Not at all the sort of residents the newly-prosperous Sunnydale wanted.
"Bugger this," muttered Spike. He was tempted to give the man the finger, and he might have done so if the truck hadn't already rolled past. Mostly, he didn't want the likes of Mr. Solid Citizen watching them. Grabbing Buffy's arm, he tugged her off into the bushes by the side of the road, and, once he'd assured himself there was sufficient cover, pulled her down on top of him on a grassy patch.
"Hey," she said. "Are we still doing this kind of thing?"
"Always, love," he said. "Remember, we're only leaving because this town has gotten too respectable for the likes of us." His hands were warming on her miraculously swollen belly now. Eager for the sight of her, he pulled her shirt up, over her head, revealing those even more miraculously swollen breasts.
A moment later, she was giggling over his reaction to the latest addition to her wardrobe. "Flaps?" he demanded incredulously, and then grinned. "Brilliant. Easy access."
"Yes, but it's not meant for you." Buffy's chortle ended on a gasp as he took advantage of that access. "It's a nursing bra, you idiot. I started wearing it now because the others didn't fit any more."
"No," he said appreciatively. "I can see that. More of you to love every moment." His lips still on her breast, he ran his hands down her stomach and began to undo the myriad of buttons on her maternity jeans. "I have to admire the American ingenuity, though. Expandable clothing." The skin beneath his hands quivered and shook, and something small and hard pressed against his palm.
Buffy gasped. "Ow! I think I just got a knee in my ribs," she complained. "Or something. She's wriggling around in there—"
"I can feel her," said Spike, rolling Buffy onto her back and sliding her pants off before moving back up to stroke her belly gently. The small tremor inside began to subside. "Sssh, little girl," he murmured, lips to Buffy's navel. "Time for you to take a nap. Daddy wants to play." He splayed his fingers across Buffy's still abdomen and grinned up at her. "That's better."
"I can't believe it," muttered Buffy. "Joy's been kicking and bouncing all day, no matter how much I've patted her butt and played her soothing music. All you have to do is say—" She sighed. "I am in so much trouble. This baby is going to be a Daddy's girl."
"Sorry, pet," he said, his lips sliding lower. "Anything I can do to make that up to you?"
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"Just a few more things," said Willow. She looked around the dorm room, once imbued with a sense of her personality, but now bare and anonymous again.
Tara stood by the door. She had offered to help pack as an excuse for her visit, but there were only a few scattered belongings around the room, and only one box was needed to contain them. She watched gravely as Willow gathered up hairbrushes and toiletries with shaking hands.
"I have to go," said Willow. "I mean, I really have to. I don't want to—well, I've always wanted to go to England, but—"
"I understand," said Tara.
Willow felt an unreasoning need to explain anyway. "I don't feel safe away from the Coven yet. Not with all this power back. I've never been stronger, but I've never felt weaker inside. If that makes any sense." She put the last few items into the box and thumped the lid on emphatically before daring to peek at her companion.
There was no blame, only understanding in those eyes. "It's okay, sweetie. You know what controls you need, what your limitations are. That's a special kind of strength."
"And I'll be able to go to the university there, and continue all kinds of studies, and Giles needs someone good in computers as well as magic in this confrontation he has with the Watcher's Council, and—" Willow stopped the hopeless babbling, staring at the other girl with frustrated longing.
"You're so beautiful," said Tara. "Do you know, your face reflects what you're thinking so clearly, it's amazing. I love watching the emotions flit across. There's always something new in your eyes, as if I'm looking at a different person each moment."
Willow gulped at the unexpectedness of this. The glorious, wondrous, makes-my heart-sing unexpectedness. She waited, holding her breath, for Tara to retract or qualify her words, for the inevitable crash back to reality.
Reality refused to return. Tara was smiling at her gently, lovingly, the corner of her sweet, soft mouth quirking upwards as if demanding to be kissed.
Willow should say something. This was her cue; Tara must be waiting for her to make the next move. Willow should walk across the room and kiss her. That was the way it had always worked between them. Can things ever be the same between us? She was frozen into immobility by the sudden conviction that things never could be the way they were two years ago. They could never go back to that relationship. But I still love you so much, Tara.
"I know," said Tara in a low voice.
Willow stared at her in surprise, wondering if she had somehow said the words aloud or broadcast them magically.
Tara's lovely slow smile twisted up one corner of her mouth. "I told you. I can read your face, Willow. No magic needed." Then she crossed the room and cupped Willow's chin in her hands. "I love you too," she said softly.
Now, thought Willow urgently. Now I should kiss her. But, still, she couldn't move.
She didn't have to. Tara bent her head and kissed Willow gently. Then she raised her head, and now her smile was impish and teasing. "You never used to be the shy one."
"I—" Willow had no chance to finish the thought. Tara's next kiss was not as gentle as the first. Tara's arms were around her now, and she could feel the soft, warm, voluptuousness that had haunted her memory for so long. Willow began to respond as her mind finally admitted that, yes, this amazing thing was happening at last.
Then Tara gently pushed Willow down onto the bed, and Willow thought, No, things will never be the same between us. But, perhaps, they don't have to be the same to be good.
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Buffy and Spike dallied a long while in the bushes by the side of the road, rolling over and over in each others' arms, their faces switching back and forth from demon to human, and their voices murmuring with passion one moment and chortling with laughter the next. Buffy licked Spike's scrapes and bruises with a burst of fevered lust that melted into tenderness the next moment, and he thrilled at the ease with which she now moved from game face and back.
Their bodies were slippery with perspiration in spite of the coolness of the evening. After more than a century of not breaking a sweat, it still seemed strange to Spike that his scent mingled with hers in the sheen of glistening moisture that covered their limbs. Strange, but wildly exhilarating.
Better not mention that thought, mate. Buffy's modern American mind would find it icky, and he didn't want her to start babbling about deodorant during their last magnificent shag in old Sunny D.
But a moment later she murmured, "Your scent covers me. You're everywhere now. When we do this, you become a part of me even before you come." Sharp teeth pricked against his neck, and she added mischievously, "More than that. I can tell when you're wanting me even when you're in the next room. I know why you used to tell me I couldn't hide what I wanted from you. Because now you can't hide from me either."
She was right. He'd given up hiding in the dark. He'd given up the endless sterility of his vampire existence for the possibility of change, even though it had meant facing some harsh truths once he'd stumbled into the daylight. But that had been over a year ago now, and he'd come to terms with his decision, only to realize that it hadn't been the last difficult choice he would have to make.
Because he had given up more than immortality for this. He thought about the moment down in the Hellmouth, when he had rejected the certainty of a few minutes violent passion that would have surpassed anything else he had ever known or ever could know. He had cast that aside for—for what?
For the hope of thousands of moments like this. For the gentle, heart-stopping touch of Buffy's hand on the nape of his neck as she pulled his mouth to hers for a lingering kiss that tasted sweet and life-giving. For the sensation of being tossed on his back like a rag doll and straddled by a feral creature who clasped him between her thighs, making him gasp for air as she snarled that he was hers, her mate, her lover. And for everything in between, as they explored the infinite possibilities of their future together. I didn't make such a bad deal down in that bloody cavern. Even if it all ends tomorrow, I still struck the better deal.
At last, Buffy fell onto his chest, or tried to, her stomach in the way as she tried to nestle close to him in the afterglow. He snickered. She made a grumbling noise and said, "At least I get to be on the top a lot more now, because that's what works best."
"You usually were on top anyway, love," he reminded her, snuggling her sideways into his arms. After a time, he bent his head and kissed her gently and luxuriously, running his hands along her arms and belly. He allowed one hand to rest over her abdomen, feeling for the baby's movements. He was rewarded by a tiny blow to his palm.
"Joy's awake again," said Buffy in a resigned tone. "You must have given her permission."
"She's going to have one hell of a roundhouse kick," he said.
"You don't have to tell me that."
He smiled, brushing her hair back from her face. "Tell me, love, do you think she'll be our only one?" He thought about that moment outside the fence on his strange adventure with Dawn, eavesdropping on those three (or was it four?) little pyromaniacs. At the time, he had been too horrified to move. Now, he cursed himself for not taking the opportunity to push open the gate and memorize the faces of those children.
She shook her head, smiling uncertainly. "I can't think past making sure Joy's born safely. After that—well, it's not as if we were allowed to plan this one. We'll have to see what happens." Her smile became more assured. "As someone once said to me, it will be an adventure."
"People keep throwing my words back at me tonight," complained Spike.
"Oh? Who else?"
"Your sister, for one. And, by the way, the Little Bit should be grounded for inter-dimensional travel without a license."
Buffy looked guilty. "She did do it then? It seemed to me—I couldn't tell for sure if anything had happened. She told me that if you resisted, nothing would. And you didn't look like you'd been taken on a whirlwind tour of David Lynch World, so I thought maybe—"
"Oh, something happened all right," he said. "It was . . .good," he admitted reluctantly. "But you could have given me some warning."
"I wanted to. But she convinced me it was between the two of you."
"Yeah," he said slowly. "I guess you could say it was unfinished business."
"And do you have any more?" she asked. "Unfinished business?"
"Lots of it," he said. "That's the thing about being alive. There's always plenty of unfinished business."
"Then we'd better get to it," she said, struggling to sit up.
They stood up and staggered off towards the house that was still home for one more night, laughing and clinging to each other. "We have to clean up," giggled Buffy. "We still have to party."
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When Buffy and Spike finally reached the Bronze, they found the festivities more muted than they had anticipated. Janice and a few other teenagers were laughing on the dance floor. But Xander and Dawn were sitting self-consciously at opposite sides of a table, and Willow and Tara weren't there at all.
This wasn't the going-away bash Buffy had imagined. And this wasn't the same Bronze where she had partied so often and slain so many demons. There were strange people here, newcomers who had moved into town over the past couple of months. They were changing the atmosphere subtly and pushing out the remnants of the old crowd.
But it was more than that. For one thing, most of the survivors of Buffy's high school class had graduated with Willow and Tara a few weeks before and were already engaging in other pursuits. The evil demons had fled Sunnydale, and the nicer ones had moved on to other haunts. Even Clem had packed up and announced he was going to stay with a cousin in Iowa, where things were livelier.
Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, letting her Slayer senses search this once-familiar place. She identified humans, lots of them, and a number of those made her want to snarl with distaste. Too many of them reeked of hate and lies and fear, but not even those sad souls sent out the scent that said surely as a scream, "demon!"
There were other creatures here too. Somewhere beneath her booted feet, some rats were scrabbling in the darkness. Something equally verminous and nasty was living in the rafters. Buffy smiled grimly. No, not pleasant. But not her problem either. She was a Slayer, not an inspector for the Health Department.
It's not perfect, this Sunnydale. And I still hate the town. But I'm leaving it a better place than I found it, and that's good enough for me.
She ran the words over in her mind. I'm leaving this a better place than I found it. She really did like the sound of that.
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The next morning, Tara came slowly up the sidewalk towards the house on Revello Drive. Xander stood by the door to Spike's car, saying what must have been his hundredth goodbye to Buffy and Dawn. Tara handed the small bag she held to Spike.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked blandly.
"No," she said tersely, looking up into his face and frowning fiercely at what she saw there. "Stop thinking that!"
"What?"
"What I know you're thinking!"
"Yes, ma'am," he said, but did not stop smirking as he hefted her bag in his hand and stowed it in the back of the car with some other luggage. He turned to check the hitch on the trailer. "Bloody heavy. What have you got in there, books on teleportation spells?"
Since that was exactly what was in the bag, Tara didn't reply but stuck her nose in the air and tried to look haughty.
She seemed to have failed, because Spike's face was still alight with laughter as he opened the car door for her. Tara gave Xander a hug, and sat down next to the pet carrier, peering in at the drowsy, drugged cat inside. Dawn sat on the other side of the carrier, peering over Tara's shoulder for a last glimpse of Xander. Buffy was already in the front passenger seat, trying to settle the seatbelt properly below her bulging abdomen. Spike smiled wryly at Xander as he put the car in gear, and the others waved as they moved slowly away from the house for the last time.
A few minutes later, they were on the highway. Dawn peered out the window and frowned. "What happened to that sign?" she said. "It's knocked down, but it doesn't look like it was hit by a car."
Buffy and Spike exchanged a smile but didn't answer. Tara leaned forward curiously as the car cruised slowly past the broken sign. It was battered and askew, but still delivered its message: "You are now leaving Sunnydale, California."
THE END
Spike borrowed his poetry from Edna St. Vincent Millay.
BTW, the sign business was written before "Chosen" aired.
I have some more bits and pieces that I may post as epilogues, but this
is the official end of the story. Thanks again to everyone who stuck with me
this long. You have no idea how much it's meant to me.
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