Chapter 4: Things to Come
It was the first Slayer. Buffy had dreamed of her before, the most notable occurrence being the dream she had shared with Willow and Xander in which the first Slayer had tried to kill them. She dreamed of the place in the desert, the sand, the trees, the night air all felt very real.
“So what is it this time?” Buffy joked weakly, “Please don’t tell me you’re here to start on that whole ‘death is your gift’ crap, because I’ve been there, seen it, bought the t-shirt.”
“You seek the source of Slayer power,” hissed the First Slayer.
“Uh, yeah, that’s right, got it in one.”
“You are in dire need?”
Buffy thought of The First. She saw Chloe, hanging in the bathroom; the seal in the high school basement; the Turok Han; Spike, chained and covered in cuts after the First tortured him.
“Oh yeah, dire just about covers it.”
“Are you prepared to use the power?” The First Slayer continued to dance around the fire.
“Yes,” Buffy said firmly.
“Are you prepared to pay the price?”
“Am I even allowed to know the price? Guess Slayer power doesn’t come with a little tag saying price plus VAT, huh?” The figure by the fire didn’t respond. “Do I have to die again, is that it?”
“There must be great sacrifice,” the Slayer responded.
“Not much with the explanations are you? Are you here to give me any kind of help or just go over what I already know?”
The Slayer didn’t answer. Instead, there was a blinding flash of light. Buffy saw before her eyes a box, similar to the one in Nikki Wood’s bag, but not, she could see somehow, identical. A carved lid, a blue sun, two hands…
“Two by two, hands of blue…” Buffy heard, and a tingling sense of de ja vu gripped her like a chill.
“Two by two hands of blue….” Buffy blinked. The fire, the desert and the First Slayer were gone. She opened her eyes and sat up in bed, to see River sitting on the end of her bed, staring at her.
“Two by two…”
“Hands of blue, yes I know,” Buffy finished for her. “But what does it mean?” She stopped and remembered her dream. The box, a blue sun and two blue hands…
“The box!” she cried urgently, sitting bolt upright and looking at River, “Where is it? What is it? How do you know?”
“No!” River shrank back, “Don’t know, never know, all bad,” she whimpered, “all bad.” Buffy sighed impatiently. She didn’t make sense. It was like talking to Tara after Glory had sucked her mind two years before.
“River,” Buffy said gently, leaning towards the girl who was now cowering in a ball. “Do you know anything that can help me? Anything at all?”
“Two by two….” River began, she uncurled herself and looked straight at Buffy, then a faraway look came into her eyes.
“Things to come. Great power. Yes. Great sacrifice. Pretty wooden box. Pretty girls, all dead. Pretty boy, all burned up. Beware the preacher, beware…”
Suddenly the door opened, startling both Buffy and River. It was Spike.
“Slayer, are you up?” he asked as he came into the room, “Captain high and mighty wants to…oh, didn’t know you had company,” he stopped as he noticed River. Buffy hurriedly pulled the sheets up over her bare shoulders, unreasonably flustered by Spike’s presence when she was undressed. But for once he wasn’t looking at her, he was transfixed by the saucer eyed girl in front of him, who had switched her attention to Spike the second he had walked into the room. She cocked her head on the side, the same glazed look in her eyes that had been there when she had been speaking to Buffy about “pretty dead girls”.
“She’ll tell you,” River informed him, “Someday, she’ll tell you.” Then she curled back up into a ball at the foot of Buff’s bed, like a cat napping in the sun.
Spike stood dead still in the silence. If possible, he was paler than usual. She’ll tell you. It was what that girl had said, that one who had predicted her own death. He looked strangely at River. Was she telling the future? Did that mean what Cassie had said was true? Or was she simply looking into his mind and repeating what she found, what he had stored as a precious memory, a precious hope? His reverie was disturbed by Buffy.
“Spike? Spike! Do you mind turning around so I can get dressed? I think it’s about time we find out a bit more about River. I think she might be the reason we’re here.”
“Sure, pet,” Spike said distractedly, stepping out to give the Slayer the privacy she wanted.
Two minutes later, she joined him, dressed again in the clothes she had been wearing the day before.
“If we’re going to be here a while, we’d better ask Mal if we can borrow some clothes,” Buffy said.
“Doubt his clothes would fit you, pet,” Spike smiled. It was a rare moment, the two of them sharing a smile. Sadly, and all too predictably, it didn’t last.
“Come on, we need to find Simon, find out exactly what the deal is with his little sister,” Buffy said, all business like again. Sighing, Spike trailed after her to find the doctor. They stopped on the way to find Willow; Buffy filled her in on what had happened in her dream and with River.
“I wish Giles were here, he’d know what it meant,” Willow said. Buffy didn’t say anything. She had her doubts about Giles and his decisions recently. Mainly his decisions to disapprove of her decisions. Perhaps she was just growing up and realising that her mentor was not infallible. She couldn’t forget how angry he’d been when he found out she had had Spike’s chip removed. Somehow ‘but he was dying’ didn’t even seem to be a good enough reason for Giles. Buffy bit her lip, unwilling to think of the possibility of Spike dying. She wasn’t ready for him not to be there. She looked quickly across at him to reassure herself that he was still there beside her.
They found Simon Tam in the small medical room.
“Hello?” he said, obviously nervous at the three of them confronting him at once.
“Dr. Tam,” Buffy began.
“It’s Simon, please,” he said.
“We’re here to talk to you about River.” For a second, panic flared in his eyes. Then he looked at the two young girls and the pale young man in their scruffy clothes and realised that they couldn’t possibly be alliance spies.
“What do you want to know?”
“Can she predict the future? Or read minds?” Spike asked.
“Either is possible,” Simon admitted, “To be honest, I don’t really know. River is…special. She always has been able to do things, know things that others don’t. But for years she was…experimented on. It changed her. She’s…well, I don’t like to say it but she’s…”
“Crazy?” Buffy suggested.
“Mentally unbalanced, certainly,” Simon conceded.
“What do you know about a blue sun? Or ‘hands of blue’?” Buffy pressed.
“Blue sun…Blue sun corporation? They’re very powerful. But ‘hands of blue’…I can’t tell you. It’s a crazy rhyme of River’s. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help, truly I am. I wish I knew what was wrong with her, then maybe I could help her.”
“It’s ok,” Willow said, encouragingly.
“I suggest you talk to Mal about Blue Sun. Why is it so important, anyway?” Simon asked, curious.
“It might just be what we’re here for.”
“Good luck,” Simon said. “You could be getting involved with something very dangerous.”
“No change there, then,” Spike said, smiling at Buffy. She smiled back, just for an instant, and it was like the sun shining.
“I guess we’d better talk to the captain,” Buffy sighed, sliding off the bench.
“That reminds me, Buffy, I ran into the Captain this morning and he said he wanted to see you,” Spike remembered, stressing the word captain in a less than pleasant way. Remembering his pet names for Buffy’s exes – Captain Forehead and Captain Cardboard, the title did not exactly fill him with respect. And if he was honest, he didn’t like the captain. He couldn’t put his finger on a reason to back up his hunch yet, but he had no doubt one would reveal itself in time.
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