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Barb
She'd been caught. She
couldn't believe she'd been caught. That wasn't supposed to happen.
She wasn't supposed to be in Sunnydale's Second Precinct, locked up in a bare
holding cell that smelled like six years worth of stale barf. Dawn huddled
on the grimy bench that ran along the back wall, staring down at the loops and
splatters of stains decorating the worn linoleum between the toes of her
sneakers, and tried very hard not to throw up.
"Pretty," the old woman
crooned, shuffling a little closer and reaching out towards Dawn's hair.
"Such a pretty green."
Dawn
flinched away, and the woman's brown-paper-bag face crumpled into lines of hurt
and disappointment. She drew her three layers of tatty sweaters more
closely around her and shuffled away again, muttering under her breath.
Dawn drew a silent breath of relief and relaxed her guard slightly. She
hated the fact that even though her career as a mystical McGuffin was supposed
to be over, she still roused unpredictable reactions in people who weren't quite
in touch with reality. They feared her or adored her, and there didn't
seem to be anything she could do about it but try to avoid them. The two
of them had been playing musical chairs around the cell for the last hour,
except without music and without chairs. The old woman was probably a
harmless kook, in for panhandling or loitering or something, she told
herself. Not every street person in Sunnydale is a member of Mystery Man
Tanner's gang of Nutcase Commandos, out to suck your brains.
"Looks like you've made a
new best friend," the girl on the other end of the bench observed. She was
maybe a year or two older than Dawn, with thin, fox-sharp features, and a
vaguely Goth-y air--dead black hair, raccoon-mask of mascara, and artfully
ragged layers of black skirts over black tights bagging a little at the
knees. She'd asked Dawn if she had any cigarettes when she came in, and
had ignored her since.
Dawn
shrugged, keeping her eyes on her toes.
"This your first time?"
Dawn shrugged again.
Shut up. Don't talk to me. I'm not really here.
The other girl smiled, a knowing grin that didn't reach her ice-colored
eyes. "Yeah, first time. I can tell. You're all twitchy and
stiff, like you're too good to be here."
Shut up, shut up, shut
up... Dawn chanted to herself. Couldn't the floor swallow her? Where
was the Hellmouth when you really needed it? The embarrassment was almost worse
than the fear. She'd been in worse places, in far more danger. But
this was different. This was no surreal nightmare with demons and magic
which would fade in the light of day. This was was stupid, boring,
real-world trouble which would only get worse when the sun came up.
"You'll get used to it," the Goth chick concluded.
Dawn felt her face growing
hot. No, I won't! She let the wave of self-pity wash over her
and tried to distract herself with the daydream she'd been constructing ever
more elaborate versions of since she'd gotten here. By now it was
practically a five-act epic complete with orchestra and hors d'oeuvres during
intermission.
It was about
Christmas, which imposed a high lameness factor. But Halloween had been a
nightmare, what with Buffy's Raising and their dad freaking and everything, and
Thanksgiving had been a Family Value Bucket from KFC, so she figured she was due
one good holiday this year. She knew just how it would go, and if she
scrunched her eyes really tight she could see it all play out.
On Christmas Eve, Willow
would be all recovered and she and Tara would be laughing together again.
Spike would show up early, dashing from car to porch and trailing smoke in the
last rays of the setting sun. Buffy would make some sarcastic remark about
the brain-deadness of certain vampires, but she'd be smiling. The witches
would curl up in the big overstuffed chair, and Spike and her sister would sit
on the couch with her, and they'd have popcorn and Christmas cookies and
cocoa.
Down the hall
where the men's cells were someone was yelling, a hash of words that didn't make
any sense. Dawn clapped her hands over her ears, but it didn't help
much. The black-haired girl laughed. Dawn tried to melt into the
bench while touching as little of its surface as possible. She added
phantom jimmies to the illusory cookies.
"You know, you'll be more
comfortable if you take that pole out of your ass," the black-haired girl said.
"Shut up," Dawn muttered.
They'd have sandwiches and turn on the TV and watch Ralphie scheme to get the
Red Rider air rifle, and toss back eggnog with a splash of rum (or in Spike's
case, rum with a splash of eggnog) every time someone said "You'll shoot your
eye out!" and everyone would get a little bit silly. Then they'd watch
Jimmy Stewart race down Main Street in the snow while Spike complained that the
SNL sketch where the townsfolk banded together to beat Mr. Potter to death
was a much better ending. When the movies were over she'd go to the record
cabinet that still held Mom's collection of LPs, and pull out the scratchy old
Bing Crosby album and put it on. And she'd pretend she was too old and
sophisticated for carols, and Tara would tease her and she'd let herself be
convinced and they'd sing along to "White Christmas."
The old woman shuffled over
again and picked up a lock of Dawn's hair, running it through her fingers.
"Pretty shiny light..."
Hating the tears of stress that pricked her eyes, Dawn jerked her head away,
jumped to her feet and hissed, "Go away!"
The woman stared at her for
a long moment and then tears began spilling from her eyes, winter rains flooding
the eroded planes of her face. Deep wracking sobs shook her, the sort of
unguarded weeping no one over the age of five should be doing in public.
Dawn stood in the middle of the cell, thin fingers clasping her arms in an agony
of embarrassment. Great. Now on top of everything else, she felt
like shit for making a crazy old woman cry.
And everyone would go to
bed, and Buffy would get Spike a blanket and a pillow for the couch, but if Dawn
stayed awake long enough there'd be footsteps on the stairs. She'd shout
them out of bed at six-thirty in the morning, snicker at Buffy's feeble attempts
at explaining why Spike was there, and have sisterly blackmail material for the
next week. And Tara would put the turkey in the oven, and her sister would
put on airs because she remembered what a potato ricer was, and Spike would hang
around being male and nuiscancy and try to steal the marshmallows which were
supposed to go on the mashed yams.
She craned her neck,
staring down the institutional green tunnel of the long hall to catch a glimpse
of the clock on the wall down at the end, but the angle was so sharp she
couldn't tell where the hands were. How long had she been here? It had to
be past midnight. The security guys had pounced on them at nine, just
before the mall closed. An hour's worth of humiliating interrogation by
store security, and then the cops had showed up. Lisa's parents had come
and picked her up hours ago, and dragged her home in a protective fury,
declaring that she was not going to be allowed to associate with a bad influence
like Dawn Summers any longer.
Buffy was coming.
Buffy always came, even when she was sick and tired of dragging her stupid
little sister to safety for the seven zillionth time. Didn't she? Dawn
swallowed a pathetic little sob. God, what if Buffy'd decided it would
teach her a lesson to be left here all night? What if a Zarkroth demon had eaten
Tara before Buffy got home and her sister never got the message? What if Spike
was nailing Buffy to the mattress in his crypt and--SO not thinking about that
one.
Anya and Xander
would come over, and Giles, who'd decided not to go back to England after all,
and they'd all watch "It's a Charlie Brown Christmas" and Xander would do the
Snoopy dance. And then dinner would be ready, and afterwards they'd open
presents and everyone would get exactly what they wanted. She'd look at
the pictures of her and Buffy and Mom scattered around the living room, and feel
kind of achy because Mom wasn't there, but it would be a good ache. And it
wouldn't matter that her sister was the Slayer and Spike was a vampire and most
of all it wouldn't matter that she had done something as incredibly stupid as
get caught stealing an egg-strangler from Williams & Sonoma, because it was
Christmas and they were a family now and weird love was way, WAY better than no
love.
Voices echoed
down the hall from the admitting desk, distorted by distance and the muffling
effects of acoustic tile. A second later the screech of unoiled casters
pushing away from the desk was followed by the overlapping clack-clack of
several pairs of approaching footsteps. Dawn shot to her feet.
"Please be Buffy, please be Buffy..."
It was the policewoman from
the desk at the end of the hall, and with her was Buffy with her eyes crackling
green and her mouth in that thin hard line that meant someone was going to get
it but good. Spike loomed behind her, hands thrust into the pockets of his
duster, sucking on an unlit cigarette with a scowl. The homeless woman
shrank back into the corner of the cell at the sight of him; the people who
lived on Sunnydale's underbelly were more willing to admit to the things that
walked among them than the town's daylight inhabitants. The Goth chick was
either bolder or less experienced than she'd have had Dawn believe; she got up
and sauntered over to the bars, eyeing the newcomers speculatively.
"Hey. Got a cig?"
Buffy ignored her, and stood with arms folded impatiently as the policewoman
searched through her jingling mass of keys. Spike favored Dawn's cellmate
with an unfriendly leer. "Might. What's it worth to you?" He grinned
a little as Buffy gave them both the Laser Death Glare, and winked at
Dawn. She felt a rush of relief; surely Spike's presence would shield her
from some of Buffy's wrath--if nothing else, diverting Buffy from being mad at
her into being mad at Spike was usually a piece of cake.
The policewoman at last
found the key she was looking for. She shooed the older women away from
the door, and Dawn rushed over as soon as they vacated. She grabbed the
cold steel bars, barely restraining herself from bouncing up and down. At
last the door swung open, and Dawn flung herself out into the hallway and broke
down in relief. "Oh, God, Buffy, I thought you were never coming, I was so
scared--"
Her sister's
angry facade slipped for just an instant. Dawn was caught up in a fervent,
awkward three-way hug, her face wedged between Buffy's head and Spike's shoulder
with the familiar comforting scents of L'Oreal hair conditioner and
smoke-impregnated leather filling her nose. She had never felt safer.
Buffy pulled away
first. "Let's get out of here. Dawn, you've got a lot of explaining
to do."
Gah. That was
the tight, calm Buffy-voice. She'd been hoping for the outraged yelling
Buffy-voice. Worse, her sister was breaking out the Mom phrases.
Dawn nodded meekly as the warder closed the cell door behind her. Its
ominous clang followed them down the hall as they left the cellblock and made
their way through the precinct room. Buffy was pissed. Really
pissed. She glanced up at Spike, who shrugged elaborately and made a
'better you than me' face. She shivered. Much less safe-feeling,
now.
The ride home wasn't
any better. Buffy drove with both hands locked to the SUV's steering
wheel, looking neither right nor left and daring any lesser traffic to challenge
her. Luckily the bar rush hadn't started yet and the streets were
relatively empty. Spike slouched in the passenger seat, playing with his
lighter and occasionally looking sideways at Buffy. The wind, which had
been just a playful breeze earlier in the evening, had picked up, and was
slapping the car with fitful little sprays of raindrops, just enough to get the
windshield dirty.
Dawn had
intended to stay cool and calm, but the oppressive silence expanded by the
minute, filling the car's interior and finally squeezing words out of her.
"It's not like I took anything important!"
"That's not the point,"
Buffy snapped.
"Point is,
you got caught," Spike said, in tones of deep disappointment.
"That's not the point
either!" Buffy took out her fury on an innocent paper cup blowing across the
lane, swerving to crush it. Dawn and Spike unobtrusively grabbed their
respective door handles. "The point is, stealing is wrong!"
Dawn glared sullenly at the
back of her sister's head. Now that she was no longer in immediate danger
of becoming someone's prison bitch, Buffy's attitude was beginning to
grate. "Oh, right. I remember all those calls Mom and Dad got from
Bullock's when we lived in L.A., Miss Oh-I-Meant-To-Pay-For-That."
"Slayer!" Spike exclaimed
in delight. "And here I thought nicking that rocket launcher was your
first time! I knew you were a girl after my own heart!"
Buffy's eyes narrowed
dangerously, and Dawn saw her opportunity and seized it. Sorry, Spike,
you're going down. "Besides, Spike steals all the time and you never
rag on him! Half the stuff he owns is stolen!"
"Yeh, but I don't get
caught," Spike countered. "There's a big difference here."
One didn't need vampire
hearing to pick up the sound of Buffy's teeth grinding. "We're not talking
about me, and we're not talking about Spike, and hello, the using of someone who
spent the last century eating people as your model for good behavior? Not
ideal! And I didn't steal the rocket launcher, Xander did!" She returned her
attention to the road in time to avoid a close encounter with the palm trees
along the median. "Are we agreed that stealing is wrong?" She shot a look
at Spike, who jerked to attention in his seat.
"Wrong," he agreed,
sounding more nostalgic than disapproving. "Vile, wicked, evil..."
Dawn transferred the
sullen glare to Spike. "All right, I get it.”
Her sister's knuckles
whitened on the steering wheel. "You’d better get it--both of you.
This isn’t a joke. While you're out auditioning for Second Punk on the
Left, have you thought about the fact that the moment this gets back to Social
Services you will be shipped off to Dad Fed-Ex? Is that what you want?"
Spike looked somewhat
chastened and Dawn bit her lip. "No."
"Good. I--”
Buffy's shoulders slumped. “I can’t do this right now. I’m tired,
Dawn. We'll talk about it tomorrow."
The crypt door was, as
usual, unlocked. When Buffy slammed it open into the stone wall the clang
reverberated through the crypt, and the echoes hadn't entirely died away by the
time she'd clambered down the stairs to the lower chamber, and stormed into the
bedchamber to glare at the still-slumbering occupant. Spike was the
picture of repose in a nest of feather pillows and hunter-green quilting, one
arm folded over the coverlet and the other curled under his cheek. His
chest rose and fell just often enough to startle you into realizing it was still
most of the time. Exactly when had Spike gone all hedonistic?
When she’d come barging into the crypt last year at this time, she’d usually
found him stretched out corpse-fashion on the top of the bare stone sarcophagus
upstairs, hands crossed over his chest--playing vampire, she’d thought to
herself scornfully at the time, talking the talk while the chip prevented him
from walking the walk.
Unnatural creature that he was, he looked far more at home in the bed.
Well, we’ll just have to
do something about that. Buffy bent down, grabbed a handful of
blankets and yanked them ruthlessly into the air.
Spike's eyes flew
open. Half-way into game face, he spun over with a yip of surprise and a
futile grab at the bedclothes. "Grraahr--oh, it's you."
"How long has this been
going on?" Buffy demanded.
The vampire’s eyebrows took
a tour upwards. He ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair, then leaned
back into the pillows and laced his fingers across his stomach, displaying a
great deal of muscular and distracting ivory flesh. "How long's what been
going on? Me getting some well-deserved shut-eye, or you rudely
interrupting it? Not long enough and too long, respectively."
Without warning he jackknifed forward, grabbed the trailing edge of the blankets
and hauled back.
Buffy
teetered, lost her balance and toppled onto the bed in a tangle of coverlet and
Spike's overly cold and boney shins. She scrambled to her hands and knees,
determined to hold onto her outrage despite the awkwardness of her
position. Spike was leering at her, and she realized that from this angle
he could see all the way down her shirt. Not that there was anything down
there he hadn't already seen, but it was the principle of the thing.
Flushing, she sat upright and tugged her blouse into place. "You know what
I'm talking about--Dawn stealing! And you teaching her how!"
Spike went wary. He
rubbed the back of his head. "Haven't the foggiest, love. She was
doing the Artful Dodger routine well before yours truly entered the
picture. We got chummy over her nicking Giles's journal,
remember?" He rearranged his feet under the covers to take advantage
of the warm spot where she was sitting.
Buffy folded her arms and
resolutely avoided looking down to where the toes of his right foot were
stroking her thigh. With some effort she kept her voice as cold as said
toes. "She said you showed her how to shoplift over the summer."
"I never!"
Buffy kept looking at him;
Spike was pathetically easy to crack if you did the little skeptical eyebrow
thing. A trace of guilt crept into his eyes. "All right, I might
have given her a pointer or two. More a demonstration, like, of how I do
it. But I never gave her the nudge to use 'em. I knew you
wouldn’t want that, and you know I'd never do anything to hurt Dawn, Buffy!" He
leaned forward and caught her hands in his own, looking so genuinely distressed
that had the matter been any less important she would have been tempted to
forgive him immediately.
But this was serious. Buffy remained adamant. "But you knew she was
stealing things, and you didn't stop her."
Spike sighed. "I
guessed. Didn't exactly know for certain. She gave me a little
something once or twice, aftershave for my birthday, that sort of thing. I
never asked where it came from--wouldn't've been polite--and she never
told. Didn't seem to matter then. You were gone, and Dawn was going
to your Dad..."
“It matters
a whole heaping lot now!”
He leaned over the side of the bed and rummaged around until he came up with his
jeans, got up and began pulling them on. "Look, I'll talk to her if you
think it'll help--give her any load of righteous bollocks you like."
Buffy flopped backwards
onto the bed and stared up at the cobwebby ceiling. Spike has a
birthday? "Because the gospel of virtue is ever so convincing coming from
you?"
His dark brows angled
downwards, accents on a frown. "I mean it, Buffy. I..." He stalked
over to the dresser, pulled a drawer out and studied the half-dozen identical
black t-shirts intently for a moment before pacing away again. "...am
getting shagged out on basic black. Look, it's hard, this not being evil,"
he said, low-voiced. "Like I said. But I've got to try, don't
I? Especially if I've buggered things up for the Bit. At least let
me try."
There was a
pleading note in his voice, and Buffy felt her resolve crumbling. "I guess
it couldn't hurt." She rolled over onto her stomach and traced the thin gold
curlicues on the coverlet with one dispirited finger. "I called the store
this morning and they're willing to drop the charges since it's her first time,
but she's banned from the mall for six months. She's already going through
withdrawal.” She buried her face in the sheets; they smelled of smoke and
Spike, and she didn’t want the combination to be so comforting when she was mad
at him. “This morning she hit me with that camper we stole last
spring. I’ve got to be a better example. You’ve got to--”
“Establish a legal
identity, get a nine to five job, and become a fine upstanding undead
American? Not happening, pet.”
She turned her head enough
to give him the evil eye from behind a fold of blanket. “I was going to
say, stop stealing things in front of Dawn, but watching a vampire with a fake
green card dodging La Migra would make up for a lot of sucky days.”
“Ah?” Spike pulled
open the wardrobe door and rooted through the tangle of coat hangers, finally
emerging with a charcoal grey turtleneck which, Buffy couldn’t help thinking,
would look absolutely gorgeous with his eyes and go very nicely with her own
taupe-and-silver outfit. Color coordination, always a plus. “And
what happens the next time you lot need me for a spot of breaking and entering
or grand theft auto? You’re not the most law-abiding little group
yourselves, you know--I’m just better at it.”
Buffy lifted her head and
groaned. “I know, I know! God, Spike, I can't do this! When I
was fifteen I was doing the exact same thing, except for me it was all about Mom
and Dad's divorce. How can I lecture her on Thou Shalt Not Steal when my
whole life is Thou Shalt Not Steal Unless It's Necessary For The Slaying or
You're The Slayer's Vampire Boyfriend In Which Case We'll Overlook It?"
Spike stopped in the
middle of pulling the sweater over his head, looking down at her with an
incongruously sweet, tender little smile.
What? She ran the
last few sentences backwards. I used the B word. Tactical error.
Maybe he won't notice. Right. This is Spike, owner and proprietor
buffyobsession.com. I'm so doomed.
Spike tossed his shirt on
the bed and sat down beside her. She felt a firm hand on her back, cool
fingers working along the tense lines of her muscles. "You do what every
mum and dad in the history of the universe has done, love. You lie so hard
that you forget you ever had a misspent youth, and if that doesn't work, you
pull out the classic 'Do as I say, not as I do' line of shite. I'll help,
if I can--if you want me to."
She summoned up a wan smile
and laid her cheek on his thigh. Astonishing how quickly that cool body
soaked up heat. "I don't want to be the grown-up," she said, hating the
sulky note in her own voice. Her hand crept up to rest on his knee, and
she scrunched a little closer. There was some magnetism between them, that
flesh called to flesh the instant an invisible line was crossed. "But I
guess I've got to break out the sensible shoes and PTA notes. I may be off
the hook with Social Services if they're not pressing charges, but if the police
called them already--"
"Best defense is a good offense, right?" Spike had that glint in his eyes that
meant trouble. "Don't wait for someone to tell tales, go runnin' to 'em
right off and bleat for counseling and pamphlets and sodding educational
filmstrips. Dawn'll bloody well hate you, but you'll look all
responsible-like."
Buffy
raised her head and looked at him oddly. "That's... a halfway decent
plan. Who are you, and what have you done with Spike?"
He chuckled. "I know
a thing or two about strategy, Slayer. It's sticking to it where I cock
up. Give me a day or two and I'll chuck the whole thing for whaling on the
bastards with a tire iron." He glanced at the clock on the nightstand next
to the bed, and his hand wandered down to caress the curve of her hip as his
voice dropped to a sultry growl. "'Sides, I think I can make bein' grown
up worth your while."
She
shivered under his touch and looked longingly at the clock. She had an
hour before she had to get to Giles's place... She slid her hand further
up his thigh and felt him shiver in return. "Well... As long as
we're on overlapping schedules, I guess we might as well..." Spike
twitched violently. Ooh, he's ticklish. She smiled, feeling
very wicked and decadent and... grown up. "Overlap."
Crisp black letters on
heavy, cream-colored paper blazoned with the Council of Watchers' arms on one
corner, signed by Quentin Travers in ink which had undoubtedly come from a
fountain pen or perhaps even a quill--a weighty letter, full of weighty
news. Giles wondered if he was supposed to be grateful that they'd rated
the bother of a real letter, not some smudged fax or ephemeral scatter of
phosphors on a monitor. "It's not good news, I'm afraid."
Buffy, sitting at attention
on the couch, tucked a strand of honey-blonde hair back into her ponytail--she
had arrived somewhat disheveled, for reasons Giles felt it better not to inquire
into very closely, and was still effecting repairs. She studied the
results in her compact, granted them provisional approval, and tucked it back
into her purse. "My brilliant powers of deduction told me as much when you
said you wanted to talk to me in person." She clasped her hands in her
lap, poised against the backdrop of half-packed boxes and half-sorted piles of
books. His house, like his life, was stuck in transition. "My
hatches are battened. Fire away."
Giles folded the letter
back on its creases and glanced it over once more, in the futile hope that the
words would have changed since his last look. In the lull of his momentary
hesitation, Spike stuck his head out of the kitchen and held up a box of
Weetabix. "You're scarpering off soon, so you won't be needing this,
right?"
Giles's face went
stony. He really hadn't expected Spike to be here for this, if for no
other reason than that it was the middle of the day. When he'd opened the
door to Buffy's knock, there Spike’d been on the porch behind her, looking as if
he'd had a day at the beach sans sunscreen. Last night's rain showers had
evolved into a sullen grey overcast. Exactly what was needed; more excuse
for Spike to lark about in the daytime. More irritation crept into his
voice than he intended. "If you can tear your attention away from the
larder for five minutes, Spike... sit."
Spike's brows twitched, but
he stuffed the box back into the kitchen cupboard and prowled back into the
living room. He collapsed into a boneless sprawl beside Buffy on the
couch, near arm flung over the back of the couch behind her, thumb and
forefinger brushing the nape of her neck, playing with the wisps of fine tawny
hair. It was a gesture unselfconsciously intimate, as was Buffy's slight
list backwards into his hand. You should want to kill him for that,
the cool, analytical part of Giles's mind reminded him. You should have
killed him years ago, really. If you could doom Ben for the crime of
having been born Glory's vessel, how much more does this creature deserve
execution?
He couldn’t
call up the old certainty where Spike was concerned any longer. He had
always questioned Buffy’s insistence upon sparing Spike's life in exchange for
the assistance, willing or unwilling, he'd given them over the years. One
killed vampires, one did not associate with them. Foolish, dangerous
sentiment sprang from such familiarity, of succumbing to the fallacy that a
vampire was a person with human loyalties, human loves, rather than a thing bred
of chaos which would, sooner or later, be driven by its nature to destroy
one. To his chagrin, it was a fallacy he found himself increasingly prone
to. There was no way this liaison between the living and the dead could
end well. It was his duty to protect his Slayer from less tangible dangers
than the ones she faced nightly. But he watched Spike's thumb move along
her hairline, and the slight curve of her lips, and knew in his bones the reason
he would not object to Spike's presence.
He cleared his
throat. "I'll spare you Travers's overview of the last five centuries of
precedent regarding Council support of Slayers. Here we are. '...in
short, it has always been the responsibility of the Watcher to ensure that his
Slayer is adequately fed, clothed, and housed. After reviewing the terms
of your salary and making inquiries into the cost of living in your area, we
have determined that your current financial arrangements with us are sufficient
to the task, assuming of course that due economy is practiced--'" Giles held up
another sheet of paper. "How thoughtful--he's included a budget.
'Therefore we must regretfully decline your request to issue a separate living
allowance to Buffy Summers--'"
"'Cordially yours, Quentin
Travers, enormous git,'" Spike growled. He scratched his nose, which was
beginning to peel.
Giles
set the letter down on the coffee table and began polishing his glasses.
"Excellent summation."
Buffy forced a chipper look. "It's not as if we expected them to go along
quietly. We'll just have to--I mean, we can have Anya do accountanty
stuff, can't we, and show them that their figures are all wrong?"
Giles shook his head.
"I've already gone over them twice, and Travers is quite correct--I could
support you if put to it. I cannot, however, support your sister, your
house, and yours and Dawn's future education, as such frivolous items are not
included in Travers's idea of due economy." He sat back in the chair and rubbed
his eyes, deciding not to mention Travers's implication that if he returned to
England as planned, he'd be taking a cut in salary as he'd no longer be Buffy's
active Watcher. That felt almost just, a fit penance for his desertion.
Over on the couch Buffy
glanced at Spike, her lower lip caught in her teeth. The vampire's arm
dropped from the back of the couch to her shoulders and she straightened a
little. Spike cocked an eyebrow at her and she shook her head ever so
slightly. Nonverbal communication concluded, Buffy turned back to
Giles. "All right," she said, determination coming back into her
eyes. "If they want to play hardball... can I use your phone? I need
to call L.A."
"Yes, of
course." Giles waved her towards the phone. L.A.? The only people Buffy
might be calling there were her father or Angel, and neither of them seemed
likely to hold any solutions to the current dilemma. Buffy shoved one of
the ubiquitous piles of reference books to one side and pulled the phone
free. She tucked the receiver between her shoulder and her ear and tapped
out the number quickly. Spike shot Giles an inquiring look behind her
back, apparently just as much in the dark as he was.
Buffy stood tapping one
foot impatiently, waiting for the phone to pick up and twirling the cord around
her free hand. "Hi, Cordy? Yes, still alive again. No, I'm
not--that's really none of your--Cordy! Focus! Slayer business! Angel's still in
touch with Faith, right?"
Spike made a soft derisive noise at the sound of his grand-sire's name and Buffy
made a shushing motion at him. “Shut up, Spike.” Spike
complied, but listened to the rest of the conversation with a tense attention to
every nuance of Buffy’s words and body language. “Not you, Cordy. I
just need to get a message to Faith. The sooner the better. The Council's
probably going to be contacting her soon with an offer she can't refuse, and I
need her to refuse it." She rolled her eyes at whatever Cordelia's response
was. "I know. I admit I wasn't Miss Junior Impulse Control.
But this is vitally important."
She grabbed the letter off
the coffee table before Giles could stop her, and began reading it, her eyes
darting back and forth across the page. They froze on one passage and
Giles saw her stiffen, an angry light joining the determination. She
covered the receiver with one hand and hissed, "You didn't tell me they were
trying to blackmail you too!" She handed the letter to Spike, who took it from
her and squinted at it at arm's length for some minutes before looking up to
regard Giles with an uncomfortable intensity.
Buffy's attention was back
on the phone. "Look, just tell her the Council is out to screw us again,
and don't believe a word they say, and I'll explain when I can talk to her in
person. Have Angel call me with the number of the prison, and tell him not
to freak if Spike answers the phone." More eye-rolling. "Yes, he
does. No, I'm--just have him call me, okay? Thanks. No.
No! This is me hanging up on you, Cordy... right. Later." She
set the phone down and heaved an exasperated sigh. "She is so protective
of him these days! I swear, if I didn't know better... urgh."
"Faith?" Giles asked.
"What exactly do you have in mind, Buffy?"
"Strategy,” she said with a
look that might have been mischievous had it not been so deadly serious.
"As president and fifty percent of the membership of Slayer's Local 101, I'm
calling a strike for higher wages. Or wages period."
Giles gave her a hard look
over the top of his glasses. "And you want to ensure that they don't pull
strings to--"
"--break the
potential scab out of stir," Spike finished.
"Exactly. Even if she
still hates my guts--and big love on my part for her, believe me, not in the
program--I'm betting she'll see that we're better off hanging together on this
one. If I can break them she'll get bennies too."
"Surely you can't seriously
intend to stop patrolling."
Buffy gave the eye-roll another workout. "Yes, Giles, Spike's corrupted me
hopelessly, I care nothing for the lives of those I formerly worked tirelessly
to protect--of course I'm not going to stop patrolling! I just have to
make the Council think I have." She met his skeptical look with a
defiant jut of her chin. "Somehow. I'm working on it! I'm new to
this strategy thing. You two are both older and sneakier than I am--some
help here!"
Spike leaned
back and folded his arms across his chest. "Right. Old Niccolo
hasn’t a patch on us. So how does the Council of Wankers get the skinny on
happenings in dear old Sunnyhell?"
"I send regular
reports--which I could doctor, naturally." Giles stroked his chin,
thoughtful. How long had it been now, since the Council had been trusted
allies rather than polite adversaries? Long before Spike had started his
erratic journey in the opposite direction. "But they'll have other
channels as well--anything from local informants to bound demon servitors to
something as prosaic as subscribing to the Sunnydale Press. Deceiving them
will be no small task."
Buffy flashed Spike a little grin and elbowed him in the ribs. "Ooh,
cool. Deception, fraud, and chicanery--right up your alley. Get to
work." She stuck her lower lip out and shook Travers's letter in Giles's
direction. "Now what's this about them going all Ebeneezer Scrooge with
your salary?"
Giles
snatched the letter back. "They're cutting out the field duty bonus, which
is only fair as I shan't be on field duty--but since this didn't come up when I
applied to come back the first time, I'm assuming that their true purpose is to
coerce me into staying here to keep an eye on you. They will, of course,
send someone to replace me if I leave, but I’m fairly certain it will be an
observer rather than a... er... mentor." He added drily, "You have a
reputation for being difficult to work with."
"They have yet to
comprehend the difficulty that is me." Buffy tucked another loose strand of hair
behind her ear, eyes sparking. "Giles, I hate the idea of you
leaving. I think you're completely wrong about us not needing you.
I'd give anything if you'd stay. But I swear I'll wear nothing but Blue
Light Specials for the rest of the millennium if I let them force you
into it." She stood up and pulled the scrunchy off her hair. "And
now I'm going to borrow your bathroom. I'm all Night Of The Living Buffy
and serious renovations are in order."
She got up and headed for
the hall; Giles watched her go with anxious eyes. In actuality she looked
better than he'd seen her since her return; there was almost a bounce in her
step as she disappeared down the hall. Across the room Spike propped one boot on
top of the coffee table, his eyes following her retreating form
appreciatively. Buffy Summers, dragged into the land of the living by a
dead man's hand... God, but he was sick of irony. Spike’s pale eyes
slid back to Giles, full of sardonic challenge--and Giles looked away.
He knows.
Spike's
expression was victorious, but his words lacked bite, perhaps because he was
wise enough to realize that he didn't know what kind of battle he'd won, nor why
his opponent had chosen to abandon the field. "Never thanked you for the
other day, Watcher," Spike said, voice pitched not to carry down the hall.
"Not for me--I don't need your blessing, but it meant a lot to her, you not
telling her she was barmy to be seen with me."
"Yes, well, if you cock up
I'll make you beg me to kill you," Giles replied with a tight smile.
Spike tilted his head to
one side and matched it with something that was a little too self-mocking to be
a smirk. "If I cock up she'll beat you to it." He ran the tip of his
tongue over his teeth and arched a brow. "Part of the appeal."
And that was probably the truth,
Giles reflected with mild disgust. Spike didn't give him a chance to use
the admission against him. "I've always thought this business of going
home because you're useless was bollocks, and now I'm sure of it. So
you're getting a bit long in the tooth to be out fighting nasties
first-hand--you're a bloody walking library, and you've forgotten more about
front-line demon fighting than the rest of those Council tossers ever
knew. Useless my lily-white arse." His boot hit the floor with a thump and
he leaned forward, the aspect of the demon a burning shadow behind every plane
and angle of his face. "You see it, don't you, Watcher? The rest of
them, they don't look, but you see it. 'A traveler betwixt life and
death;/The reason firm, the temperate will,/Endurance, foresight, strength and
skill;/A perfect woman, nobly planned,/to warn, to comfort, and command...'"
Giles looked down; his
knuckles were white against the dark upholstery. He forced himself to
unclench his fingers from the arm of the chair. "'And yet a spirit still,
and bright,/with something of an angel light.' I wouldn't have thought
Wordsworth your style."
Spike made an impatient gesture. "You get bored enough in a hundred and
twenty years, you'll read anything. But you see it, damn your eyes, and
you're leaving her anyway--why?"
What truth did he owe
Spike, and why? All he can bear, because he is staying. He kept
his voice clipped and precise. "Because I've seen her die twice now, and I
cannot bear it again. Cannot. You... can. You are
a braver man than I am, William the sodding Bloody, and I hate you for it."
Spike looked taken
aback--had he expected something else? The vampire sat back slightly,
resting his wrists on his knees. "There's fitter things you could hate me
for, Rupert."
Giles took
off his glasses and ran a hand through his hair--how much of the receding
hairline was due to Buffy? he asked himself wryly. "Undoubtedly so.
But I can't think of any of them at the moment."
"I'll wager the lapse of
memory clears up right quick. Look, Watcher, you chew on this: she'll die
sooner or later no matter where on the globe you've parked your arse. If
it's here, it's got a better chance of being later. In fact--"
He cut himself off, looking
over his shoulder at the front door. A moment later Willow knocked as she
swung it open and stuck her head inside. "Hello? Giles? I thought I could
get on those transcripts 'cause I'm all with the catching up--umm, Spike?
You look kinda... toasty. Zinc oxide. It's your friend. You
guys aren't busy making me more work, are you, 'cause I thought Fridays were
interview days." She came inside, edging around several boxes labeled
'MISC RECORDS' and set her laptop on the dining table. "I downloaded this
trial version of some voice-recognition software from Tucows this morning, so I
thought we'd see how that works--though with the accent, maybe it won't.
Work. But if it does than I can take the tapes and do them at home, you
know, telecommuting without the commuting--" She plugged in the laptop's adapter
and flipped the lid up. "--and I hear there was a big Dawn crisis last
night." A slight edge entered her voice. "I must have slept through
it, as so often happens when no one wakes me up."
Buffy emerged from the
hallway, looking subtlety better groomed without there being any one difference
that one could point to as the reason for the improvement. She adjusted
one earring. "It’s no biggie, Will. Dawn's gone all West Side Story
on us again. Tara was asleep when you got home, and then there didn't seem
much point in waking you up for the big angst-fest."
"Of course not." Willow hit
enter as if it were her worst enemy. "It's not like I could have done
anything useful in my current not-useful state. Might as well let me get
my beauty sleep."
"Will,
it's not--"
"It's OK,
Buffy. I get the logic. Needs of the many. Don't worry about
it." She looked up with a bright and genuine smile. "Where's one of those
tapes?"
Giles got up and
went over to the tape case, and Spike rose to his feet. "Enthralling as I
find the sound of my own voice, I'd best get on, see if I can find anything
needs killing--not that often I can take a midday stroll in this climate.
The Bit's still at home, Will?"
Willow, distracted by her
struggles with the audio settings, nodded.
Buffy snorted.
"She'll be at home for a long, looong time. She is more grounded
than dirt."
"Right.
I'll push off, then. Later, love." He kissed the top of Buffy's head,
brushed his knuckles across her cheek, and headed for the door.
"Don't forget your blanket,
it might clear up!" Buffy shouted after him. She turned away from the door
and walked over to the table to examine Willow's setup. She hitched
herself up on the table and swung her legs back and forth. "Do you think I
should get him one of those big black umbrellas for Christmas, or would that
just encourage him to more extra-crispy adventures? Is there any kind of
anti-vamp-combustion spell, Wills?"
"If there were, vamps would
be beating a path to our door and we'd be rolling in cash. Or dead.
Give me a minute or so of tape to test this, Giles," Willow said.
Giles slipped the tape into
the recorder and Willow plugged it into the laptop's incoming audio. He
pressed the 'play' button and Spike's raspy North London accent filled the air:
"...so by this time I was off my nut with boredom--you try living in a coal
mine for a month and see how you like it--so I waited till Angelus had Darla's
heels about her ears one night, and I took Drusilla topside for some
entertainment. We'd been living off the miners, and I wanted someone who
didn't taste of coal dust for a change. So we come across this bloke, the
local preacher, it looked like. He’s a shrunk-up little pissant 'thout
enough blood in him to get your mouth wet enough to spit, but he's not caked
solid with anthracite and that's all that matters to me at this point. He
asks us if we're saved--thought Dru was a tart, I reckon--and Dru, bless her mad
black heart, she starts rattling off the Pater Noster, and the pruny little chap
sodding near explodes yelling about us being a couple of Papists. Which is
both inaccurate and annoying, as I'm C of E myself, or was when--anyway, I snap
his neck, and this is the really funny part--"
Giles hit the pause button,
looking up at Buffy, who stood listening to the narration with an unreadable
expression. Willow grimaced. "Um. Guess you don't want to hear
that, all things considered."
Buffy shook her head.
"No. But I need to hear it. I need to remember--" She took a deep
breath, and her fingertips brushed her cheek. "Everything about
Spike. Everything."
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