Banner by Karyn!
Full Circle
Part One
Buffy wearily let herself into the apartment. Tossing her keys onto the small table, she peeled off her jacket and pitched it over the back of a nearby chair before she slumped back against the door.
The silent television and lack of squabbling told her that Dawn and Andrew must still be out at the clubs. A glance at the clock told her that they would be out for some time yet.
Intent on a relaxing soak in a hot tub, she headed straight for the winding marble steps that led to the second level of the villa. The red light on the answering machine in the living room flashed insistently at her as she rounded the curve in the staircase, but she ignored it. Very few people had her number and she didn’t feel like talking to any of them right now.
Once she reached her room, Buffy peeled off her clothes and shrugged into a short terrycloth robe. She was on her way to the bathroom to fill the tub when she noticed that someone had left her television on. The sound was turned down and the snowy screen flickered and popped.
A soft sound of disgust escaped her. She knew that Dawn relished her own privacy too much now to invade her sister’s inner sanctum, so Andrew was the likely culprit. A pair of smelly Argyll socks and a crumpled Cheetos bag was all the proof she needed. If that androgynous little perv had been watching porn in her bedroom again his death would be slow, painful, and bloody.
Flicking off the television, she then reached down and hit the eject button on the VCR. The tape popped out into her hand and as she stared at the title, every bit of air left her body with a strangled whoosh.
The room tilted alarmingly around her and she staggered backwards on trembling legs to collapse on the edge of her bed, the rectangle of black plastic clenched between suddenly cold fingers. The title, written in Andrew’s cramped and scratchy handwriting, blurred as hot tears filled her eyes.
Buffy – A Slayer of Vampyres by Andrew Wells.
She’d had no clue. Not the faintest inkling that this tape had survived the fall of the Hellmouth. Had completely forgotten it existed until this moment, in fact. But just the sight of it brought the memories of those last days in Sunnydale back on a crushing wave of pain.
Feeling lightheaded and curiously detached from her body, Buffy watched as her hand slid the tape back into the slot and picked up the remote control for the set. Some inner voice was screaming inside her head to stop this; to turn it off and walk away. She simply sat there, frozen, as the images came to life on the screen.
“Come with me now, if you will, gentle viewers. Join me on a new voyage of the mind, a little tale I like to call Buffy, A Slayer of the Vampyres.”
A watery giggle escaped her as Andrew droned on and on in his very best Masterpiece Theatre voice. He really could be such a twit sometimes.
Silent tears flowed as one by one, gone but not forgotten warriors for the light rolled across the screen. There was Anya flirting shamelessly with the camera. She idly wondered if Xander knew of the tape’s existence; if he would even want to know. His guilt and pain had driven him to the darkest reaches of Africa, while in her case--
A harsh sob escaped her as he swaggered into view, following behind her as always. Her ever-present shadow of black leather and bad attitude. She gasped as those blue eyes lifted to look into the camera while he mouthed off something about the house being like a girl’s dorm and lit up a cigarette. Buffy leaned forward, fingers trembling as she trailed them over the illusion of his face. When the camera moved back to Andrew again she wilted back, the half-healed fissure in her heart gaping wide and throbbing once more.
She sat through the rest of it, laughing softly through her tears at his strutting and ‘Big Bad’ posturing for Andrew in the basement. There wasn’t much more left- a few more shots of Dawn and various Potentials and Andrew’s final words from the bathroom before it faded to black. With a ragged sigh, Buffy was just about to eject the tape when the picture flared to life once more.
The picture was very dark, but she recognized the blurred image of Angel stalking down a dimly lit hallway. When he disappeared from sight, the camera- obviously being carried by someone- moved from its hiding place and bounced drunkenly in the opposite direction from the vampire.
The camera moved quickly down the hallway of what Buffy realized must be in some kind of medical facility. It stopped outside a closed door while whoever was carrying the cam took a few moments to catch their breath. The asthmatic wheezing sounded suspiciously like her resident tweedy watcher-wannabe.
The door was nudged open slowly to reveal a smallish room filled with all sorts of medical paraphernalia. One small bedside lamp cast a faint blue glow over the platinum hair of the bed’s occupant.
“What d’you want, Andrew?”
In spite of its weary, defeated tone, the accent was unmistakable and heartbreakingly familiar. Her earlier surprise over finding the tape was nothing when compared to the way she was feeling right this second.
She was looking at a ghost.
And she was pissed.
~@~@~
The camera- obviously tucked under Andrew’s arm- moved closer to the bed, giving her a perfect view of the figure tucked up under the crisp white sheet. Buffy wondered if the little twerp had had any idea it was turned on.
Spike had yet to turn his head to acknowledge the boy’s presence. He laid there, eerily quiet with his heavily bandaged arms resting limply at his sides, shadowed eyes staring unseeingly up at the ceiling, a study in quiet defeat.
“Asked what you wanted, nerd-boy,” he drawled tiredly. “In case you haven’t noticed, ’m not up to another one of our stimulating chats.”
“She did all that?” Andrew’s voice was shaky with nerves and Buffy could hear the fascination in his tone.
“Right mess that one is. What’ll become of her?”
“Dana isn’t your problem anymore, but you can rest assured that once she’s safe in the bosom of the new Watcher’s Council, she’ll be well taken care of,” he rattled off, his voice as stuffy and pompous as Giles at his British best.
Spike laughed bitterly. “Oh right, because they’ve done such a bang-up job with everything else up ‘til now.”
“It’s different now that Giles is in charge,” muttered Andrew defensively.
That earned him a sardonic lift of a scarred eyebrow. “Yeah. You keep thinkin’ that.” Spike sighed with irritation. “Fine. You’ve done your mini-watcher spiel. I’m sure I enjoyed it as much as Peaches did. Now, get out.”
The camera bobbed around and Buffy could practically feel Andrew squirming beneath the vampire’s unrelenting glare.
“A-about Buffy…”
His whiney voice trailed off with a squeak as Spike struggled to push himself up with his useless arms, snarling in frustration as he fell back.
Andrew rushed on. “I-I know you said not to tell her… that you would take care of it, but I don’t think-.”
“No, Andrew. You DON’T bloody think. That’s your problem,” Spike snapped.
“But the two of you belong together! You have a history,” he insisted. “Beauty and the Beast…slayer and vampyre. Han and Leia!”
Spike gave him a look that was both incredulous and annoyed. “D’ you even listen to the shit that falls out of your mouth?”
“I know when I’m right.” The disembodied voice firmed resolutely. “You can’t fool me, Spike. I saw how the two of you looked at each other when you thought the other couldn’t see. There was heat and passion a-and… and a lot of other really cool stuff between you!”
The faintest of smiles touched the hard lines of Spike’s mouth, softening the vestiges of pain that lingered there. He shook his head sadly. “Never said there wasn’t, but what we had just wasn’t enough.”
He laughed, a soft, pained sound in the quiet room. “All I ever wanted was for her to be truly happy. Sure, I hoped it would be with me...” He stubbornly refused to face his visitor, rapidly blinking away the suspicious brightness in his eyes. He cleared his throat loudly to hide the slight tremor in his whiskey-rough voice and went on, “But, no. No. She’s moved on by now. Best that I just stay away and let her get on with it.”
Andrew seemed to hover indecisively for a few more minutes. While he stood there, the low battery warning began to flash in the upper right corner of the screen. His hand came into view and laid a small slip of paper on the sheet by Spike’s hip.
“This is our address and number. You can always change your mind, right?” His tearful sniffles were plainly audible.
Ignoring the paper, Spike rolled over, the sight of his broad back peeking through the slit in the hospital gown effectively ending the conversation.
“Spike?”
“Sod off, Andrew.”
The image suddenly went black.
~@~@~
Andrew let himself into the darkened apartment, whistling tunelessly as he hung his jacket away ad turned to head for the kitchen for a snack.
“Sit down, Andrew.”
The voice from the black depths of the living room sent icy chills down his spine.
“Buffy?” he asked, voice quavering nervously as he took a few hesitant steps into the room.
“Yeah, it’s me. Sit down. Now.”
“Um…is everything okay. You sound a little…”
“Irate? Pissed? This close to snapping your deceitful, scrawny little neck? Pick one,” she snarled.
“Whoa.” He fought the suddenly overwhelming urge to soil his pants. This was a side of Buffy that he hadn’t seen since his days with the Trio. Pure slayer and it was focused entirely on him.
He finally picked out her slight shape from the shadows. He couldn’t see her face, but her eyes seemed to glow with a feral light of their own. She waited until he was perched on the very edge of a chair before she spoke again.
“You left some things in my room tonight.” First the dirty socks smacked him in the face, and then the wadded up Cheetos bag hit him in the chest, jerking a short, shrill cry from him. He clutched at the crinkling bag, completely freaked by her attitude.
“I-I’m really sorry, Buffy. Dawn told me not to use your television, but yours has a better picture than mine. I’m sorry I invaded your space. It’ll never--”
She cut him off. “Oh, we’ll get to that later. You can be sure of that. But there was one other thing you forgot, Andrew. Can you guess what it was?”
He looked utterly confused. Did she think he might have gone through her underwear or something? “Err… No?”
Buffy snatched up the remote and pointed it at the television. One click of the button and Spike’s image was plastered across the screen.
They watched it together in complete silence and when it was done, Buffy was struggling for control while Andrew squirmed, unable to meet her eyes.
“Do we need to watch it again? I’m sure you’ve seen it lots of times but I’m still having a problem accepting the fact that yet another person I thought I could trust has been lying to me.”
“It wasn’t lying, per se,” Andrew muttered defensively. “It wa-”
“Do you WANT to find out how fast I can punch a hole through your head?” Buffy threatened. She took only one step in his direction before he cracked.
Andrew sang like a canary.
“…but he asked me not to say anything and I… And whoo boy, you’re really pissed, huh?” Sliding out of his chair, he began backing nervously away from her. “Please don’t hurt me,” he whimpered.
Buffy’s smile turned his blood to ice.
TBC~
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