Chapter 11
“Oh someone please the moon has raped me, I can feel it inside me
Oh mama please let someone fix me, let them fix me”
-Cursive
“Okay, that’s the last of them,” Buffy said, setting the shopping bags on the counter. “Do you want me to start putting stuff away?”
“T-that would be nice,” Tara said from her seat at the table. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m so tired today.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I mean, it is really hot outside today and we were shopping for awhile. Maybe we just over did it,” Buffy said as she began unpacking the bags.
“Guess I’m not as young as I use to be,” Tara smiled.
“Hey, none of us are,” Buffy replied.
“True, but I think you look b-better for your age then I d-do.” Tara brushed some of her white hair back behind her ear. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“If you’d like me to. It’s card night at Xander’s, so Spike won’t be home until late.”
Tara chuckled. “Who’d have thought that those to would be such good friends?”
Buffy laughed as well. “I know! It was always ‘whelp I’m going to rip your head off,’ and ‘don’t make me stake you dead boy jr,’ and now they’re like inseparable.” She paused in the middle of putting away a bottle of Aspirin.
“What’s wrong?” Tara asked, noticing Buffy’s pause.
“Nothing,” Buffy said quickly. “Nothing wrong here. Nope all is good.” She began to unpack a little faster.
Tara sighed and stood up. She grabbed her cane and began to make her way over to Buffy. She opened the medicine cabinet and turned to look at the blonde next to her. “I should have told you.”
“Told me what? You have nothing to tell me,” Buffy said. “I mean, what business of mine is it if your cabinet looks like a pharmacy with all the pills in the bottles and the doses…”
“Buffy,” Tara said, gently. “I’m sick.”
“W-what? No, no you can’t be.”
“Buffy, I can and I am. I’m old, I’m going to be ninety-three this year,” Tara continued. “And to be honest, I miss Willow. It gets lonely being here alone-“
“I can visit more, and-and Spike too. I’ll-I’ll come every day,” Buffy interrupted.
Tara held up her hand. “It’s not that and you know it. It’s my time. We all have to go at some point.”
“Except me,” Buffy said softly.
“That is true, but l-let’s not talk about this any more. Let’s go watch that video you rented. Come on, Spike installed that new 3-D projection thingy last week. I want to see how it works.”
XXX
Xander studied the book in front of him. It was well preserved, but the pages were still yellowed and crinkling at the corners. Lenore had brought him the original and staring at Dawn’s neat handwriting was like a blast from the past…which it was. It reminded him of when he’d found the little love notes she’d written during her ‘I love Xander’ stage. Every I dotted, ever T crossed.
He ran his fingers across the page as though he could pull Dawn’s memory out of them. He could almost picture her sitting at the wooden table, hair falling over her face as she carefully wrote out her findings. Willow and Tara would be nearby, doing Willow and Tara things and occasionally helping her with sentence structure or a misspelled word.
“Why don’t I have a copy of this in the library?” Xander asked Lenore.
She smiled, “Because you work in a demon library and the books of witches are not housed in such a place. We keep our own counsel and our own library.”
“Can I see it?”
“If you like. I could arrange a tour,” Lenore offered. “Are you finding the readings of Dawn Summers to be interesting?”
“Yeah, I am. It’s weird to be reading this. She had a crush on me, you know? When she was younger,” he said.
Lenore regarded him a moment. “I would like, if you don’t mind, for you to come visit me again once the danger was passed. I would like to hear you stories about your time with the Slayer and the great witches of our past.”
“Well, I’m not really allowed to leave the library per say. This is kinda a special once in a millennia world is in danger clause,” Xander replied.
“That is too bad. Perhaps while you are here…”she trailed off.
“Oh, sure. Well, see Willow and I met over this-“
“Honey, you aren’t telling the yellow crayon story again,” Anya interrupted, walking into the room. “Really, it’s so boring, no one cares.”
“Hey, she asked,” Xander protested.
“Aren’t you supposed to be researching?” Anya crossed her arms and tapped her foot.
“Wha-? I am researching. I am Xander the research man here. Listen to this, ‘The Ring of Vendia was forged in Pltazhcfte, one of the deepest dimensions of Hell known among travelers as the worst dimension outside of Quortoth.
‘The ring was designed for the Hell God, Vendola, as a way to control his subjects, but was lost in the Hell Wars not to be seen again for centuries when a man named Augustus Brownstone used the ring for his own purposes. The ring is not meant to be worn by mortals, and to do so means the wearer will die a gruesome death.
‘It has been prophesized that Vendola will return for the ring, and that a great struggle between good and evil shall wage when the planets reach their alignment. There is little fact to support this theory outside of the ramblings on an old priest circa 498 B.C.’” Xander stopped reading. “There’s more but I figured we just need the gist of it. I’ve already recorded most of it in case we need it later.”
“Recorded it?” Lenore asked. “You cannot take a copy of this book! It must remain here.”
“Oh, no,” Anya said. “He means he memorized it. See, he has a photographic memory. It’s part of his contract.”
“Yep, this book is almost entirely in my head. You can pick any page in here at random and I can tell you word for word what it says,” Xander explained.
“Yeah,” Anya said. “He’s creepy like that.”
XXX
Buffy’s scream brought Spike tearing up the stairs and into the room. She was sitting on the bed looking around her wildly. When she caught sight of him, she threw herself in his arms with a sob.
“I thought I’d dreamed you. I woke up and I was alone, and I thought that it was all fake, but it’s not and you’re really here. Are you really here, Spike? Are you here with me? Please tell me you are. Tell me I’m not alone anymore.” Her eyes searched his for the answers to her questions, while her hands roamed over every inch of his body as though he would disappear if she stopped touching him.
“I’m here, luv. Just went to get you something to eat,” he ran his hands through his hair, messing up the tousled curls that lay on top his head. “You haven’t been eating, I can tell and most of the food in the fridge is moldy.” He paused a moment. “Buffy, what happened to the kitchen? What happened to the bedroom and the bathroom? What happened to you?” Spike had grabbed her arms and forced her away from him so that he could look at her.
Buffy looked at him for a second before her knees crumbled and Spike had to hold her up to keep her from curling in a ball at his feet.
“I’m bad, bad, bad, bad. I pulled you away and you hate me and I deserve it. I deserve your hate, but you were gone and I was alone. You said you’d always come back for me!” Buffy broke free from his grasp and began to hit him weakly on the chest. “You said you’d always come back and you lied! You weren’t coming back! You were going to leave me! You were going to leave me!” She fell against him, sobbing. “I wanted to go too. I didn’t want to be here without you. I tried to go with, I tried and tried and tried and they wouldn’t let me leave, wouldn’t let me rest with you.”
“Oh, luv.” Spike wrapped his arms around her tightly. He kissed the top of her head and nuzzled his cheek against her hair. He had hurt the girl, and she had broken apart. He had always known that beneath her strong exterior was a fragile little girl who never got over her destiny. They had been together long enough for him to occasionally see the cracks in her armor, but he had never allowed himself to believe that she would break over him. Two centuries of happiness together and he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, and now it had dropped but not in the way he had thought. He had always thought that she held all the power in their relationship, and the whole time, it had been him. He felt his inner poet swell at that thought. Damn the real Heaven. He held his own Heaven in his arms, and that was all he needed.
XXX
|
