A/N: I’m on vacation next week, so no update. I am having the a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week so please, please, review and make me smile.
Chapter 7
“When water tastes like blood & love it feels like love
Soft things they feel rough, but its love & it feels like love”
-Auntie Christ
Anya and Xander found themselves standing in a large field.
“Are we in the wrong place again?” Xander asked.
“No, but you can’t just teleport into a coven,” Anya responded. “Come on, it’s half a mile from here.” She started to walk toward the forest.
“What? We’re walking? I knew I should have joined that stupid gym,” Xander muttered.
They walked in silence until they reached a clearing in the woods. There were several cottages built in a semi-circle and men and woman wandered about. Anya headed straight back to the middle cottage and knocked on the door.
“Yes?” A young girl with long red hair opened the door.
“We need to see Lenore. Is she around?” Anya said.
“Whom shall I say is calling?”
“Anyanka.”
“One moment please.” The girl shut the door, but returned a minute later. “Please come in.”
Anya and Xander followed the girl into the sitting room where a tea set had been laid out. A tall woman with long, raven hair gestured for them to sit on the couch across from her.
“Hello, Anyanka. To what do I owe this pleasure?” Lenore said when they had all accepted tea from the redhead.
“We have a problem and we need your help.” Quickly Anya filled in all that had happened in the last two weeks.
“Hmm, now the cards make sense,” Lenore look thoughtful for a moment before continuing. “Great things are coming and they have the option of being good or bad. The cards have shown me death and rebirth but of what I cannot say. Great power is coming through the alignment next week.”
“Two weeks,” Xander interrupted. “D’Hoffryn said two weeks.”
Lenore shook her head. “No, the alignment is not following the calendar of mortals. If it continues at this rate, the alignment could happen as soon as two days or it could not happen at all. The stars keep their own time.”
“Lenore, we fear that the red ring of power has fallen into the hands of a crazy vampiress,” Anya said. “She has placed a force field around the Slayer’s house.”
Lenore closed her eyes. “The red ring of Vendia has found its way back into the world. This is bad. That ring was forged in evilness deep in the pits of hell. It holds great power and the ability to sway the owner to evil, but rarely does as the owner requests.”
“Wow, how Lord of the Rings,” Xander muttered.
“It is the ring that the story is based on,” Lenore said with a straight face. “It somehow came into the possession of the author at one point.”
“Wait, you remember Lord of the Rings? That was like way before you were born,” Xander said in awe. “I mean, we’re talking centuries here.”
Lenore looked at him. “It is based on real power and as head of the coven it is my duty to know and study all means of magic.”
“What do we do?” Anya asked.
“I cannot help you bring down the field. That is beyond my powers. But I can help you prepare for what is coming.”
“Xander, get the suitcases,” Anya said. “I think we’re going to be here for a bit.”
XXX
“To our friends and family,” Angel said.
“To our loved ones who fought by our side,” Buffy added.
“They helped us save the world…a lot,” Spike finished.
The three toasted each other and drank from the wine glasses they each held.
Buffy put her glass down and picked up her fork, pushing her grilled salmon around her plate.
“Something wrong, luv?” Spike asked her.
Buffy set her fork down. “It’s just…I mean, they’re all really gone now. I guess, I don’t know, I mean, I know that we buried Tara a year ago but now that she’s been added to our memorial thing…it just makes it real.”
“Buffy, Tara was in her nineties,” Angel said. “Besides, you still have us and Anya and Xander.”
“I know. Although we only see you, what, once maybe twice a year. Spike sees Xander every week at cards, but I only see him and Anya once a month or so. I guess, I just haven’t gotten used to the thought that I can’t just call up Willow to talk,” she finished.
Spike place his hand over hers and linked their fingers. “I know it’s hard, to lose your loved ones, and it never gets easier.”
“Part of me wants to say that I’ll never have friends like them again, and I know that I won’t, but I also know that I will have different friends someday and I’ll have to lose them too. It’s like how I thought I’d never be happy again after,” Buffy paused to swallow hard and both Angel and Spike knew she was thinking of Madison. “But, after awhile I did start to laugh again and-and be happy.”
The waitress came over and interrupted them. “Can I interest you in dessert?”
“No,” Angel answered. “Just the check please.”
“Is it our turn for dinner this time?” Buffy asked.
“No, my turn for dinner, your turn for flowers,” Angel answered.
“What are you thinking this year, pet?” Spike asked, rubbing his thumb along the side of Buffy’s hand. “You want irises again?”
Buffy shook her head. “No, I want sunflowers. They had enough darkness in their lives. Let’s give them some sunlight.”
Spike stood up and helped Buffy into her coat. She took his hand and they followed Angel out of the restaurant. Sometimes it shocked her how no matter how much time passed, Sunnydale refused to change. They stopped at the floral shop to pick out several bouquets of sunflowers before heading off to Restfield cemetery. Spike led the way, although they had all memorized the path over the years. He stopped in front of the first gravestone. It was Joyce’s. They went down the line: Dawn, Taylor, Madison, Cordelia, Giles, Fred, Gunn, Wesley, Willow, Tara, Oz, and Connor. All in a row. It had taken a lot of maneuvering to get the whole gang in one cemetery. Especially Giles since he had died in London, and Oz they had to track down, but in the end, they were all back to the beginning. Dawn’s husband was buried next to her, and even though he didn’t really accept the world that his wife walked in, he had asked permission to be buried next to her.
Buffy and Spike stood in front of Madison’s grave the longest. Buffy leaned into Spike, their hands firmly clasped together. Sometimes Spike wondered what Buffy was thinking as she stared at the grave, her eyes never blinking, and it was times like that when Spike wondered what would become of his Slayer should he ever dust. She was a true immortal and would never die no matter what happened while he was only immortal so long as he didn’t lose his head, catch on fire, or take a piece of wood through the heart. He was still looking for another Gem of Amara, but it seemed that Angel had destroyed the only one. Willow and Tara had even helped in his quest. At one point they tried to create a new one, but it had failed. Without meaning to, he squeezed Buffy’s hand tightly as he thought about her trying to live without him.
“What are you thinking?” Buffy asked softly.
“Just thinking about the past,” Spike murmured. “Nothing more.”
XXX
Drusilla walked around the circle like a tight rope walker. “Are we ready to bring the prince back?” she asked.
“Yes!” Buffy exclaimed. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, a million yeses.”
Angel looked at the girl sitting across from him. Her eyes were haunted and…broken. Had he ever seen Buffy so broken? So lost? He didn’t think he ever had, not even when they’d first found her hiding after she’d escaped from that zoo. Where had the strong woman that he’d once admired gone? Even after all these years, he’d accepted the relationship that she had with Spike, but he didn’t imagine it ran so deep. Not so deep as to have her shatter at his passing. He’d always figured that at some point they’d get bored with each other, not that she would turn to him. No, Angel knew that he and Buffy would never work, but he’d assumed she would just take another lover, claim be damned. Besides, claims were merely superstition. They didn’t link one mate to the other, it was just a scar, a way to mark territory. Nothing more.
Drusilla was staring at Angel, and he realized that he must have spaced out. “Are you prepared to make your sacrifice?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered in the voice that wasn’t his.
“Then we begin,” Drusilla said as she started to sway and chant in a language that Angel didn’t know.
Buffy seemed to know what was expected of her because a few minutes after Drusilla began, she entered the circle with a dagger in her hand. With a flick of her wrist, she opened a vein on her arm and allowed the blood to run onto the pile of ashes. After a few minutes, she collapsed to her knees from the blood loss, but she still held her arm out. Finally she passed out.
Angel tried to call out to her but he was enveloped in a strange blue light. It ran through his body, burning him from the inside. The pain made him double over and he opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. He felt like something was being ripped out of him as he watched the blue light pull a white essence from his body. The two lights circled around the pile of ashes faster and faster until the light overwhelmed the room, bursting out the windows.
When the light faded, Buffy opened her eyes to find two blue eyes peering at her with a mix of wonder and horror.
“Spike?” she whispered.
“Buffy, what have you done?” he asked, his voice breaking.
She threw herself into his arms, ignoring the fact that he was naked as she pressed fevered kisses over his face.
“My Spike, you came back. You came back to me. My Spike, my William,” she muttered in between kisses barely noticing that he wasn’t kissing her back.
His hands caught her arms and he pulled her away from him. “Buffy.”
“They gave you back to me, the Powers. They gave you back to me,” she continued.
“Buffy!” He shook her until he had her attention.
“What-what’s wrong? Are-aren’t you happy to be back with me?” she asked, tears rolling down her face.
“Buffy…I…I was in Heaven.”
XXX
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