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A/N: Just want to shout out a big thanks to whoever nominated the Yellow Brick Road series for Best Written and Best Revamped over at the LSA Awards. You all are much too kind to me.
They spent the day together.
It was completely by accident, of course; the way things worked out. The speech lasted until half past noon and everyone, save Anya who had no interest in automobiles, retreated on the same foot to service the car. The former demon was said to have retired to their room for a nap, evidently having forgone the comfort of sleep by complaining about the lack of acquired orgasms all night.
Needless to say, the redhead was seriously reconsidering the sleeping arrangements yet again.
However, before things could get underway, Buffy and Spike were gone.
So was the Winnebago, which made Giles less than happy when he finally awoke.
The day was spent in moderation. A more thorough familiarization of the town after dumping a sufficient amount of that black paint that Spike kept caked on the Desoto's windshield. The drive to the nearest Wal-Mart had been a tale in itself; the vampire vowed tacitly never to question the Slayer's reluctance to maneuver a vehicle again.
There wasn't much to Natchez outside the economy-driven emphasis on tourism. People from all over traveled to the small town just to tour aging homes. If Buffy had to hear another story about how the settlement had once been one of the most prosperous in the Union, she was going to start slaying on the presumption that the same story told verbatim from twelve different mouths was definitely a demonic trait.
She could see why history buffs would be attracted, though. Why Giles thought the town was charming in a rustic sense. There was a feel about it. A something. An impression of the stereotypical Southern way of life that she couldn't quite shake. And if that was so, the citizens did more than their part of living up to the image. Rather than resenting it as she would have—given the connotations and what Donna had told her the day before—they indulged it. Reveled in it. Profited in it.
The largest downside to traveling with a vampire in Natchez was the notable lack of indoor accommodations. They couldn't do much in the main bulk of the town until the sun started sinking out of the sky. Thus, they ended up spending an obscene amount of time scouring the mall, the visitor's center, and outlet stores: all of which produced no results.
It was a waste but not. At least they knew where not to look.
"Y'know," Spike said as they stepped out of the visitor's center for the fourth time. "I think we might be lookin' over the larger picture, here."
Not exactly the revelation of the day, but the way he said it inspired her mouth to forgo a smile. She had pretty much figured that when Maggie, the kind lady behind one of the kiosk desks, invited them to her daughter's birthday party the next day. "Oh, really?"
There was no way he couldn't have caught it. He flashed her a smirk and shook his head as he dug out his cigarettes. "We've spent all our time lookin' an' lookin' again in places your rogue bird wouldn't be caught dead at. The bloody mall, Slayer? She's here as a fugitive; not to pick out shoes."
He made with logic admirably. And while, yes, they had been trading the same sentiment back and forth all day; she couldn't say she was displeased with the way things had turned out. Spending time with Spike was surprisingly enjoyable. Very surprisingly. While she had been making eyes at him for the past couple days, she hadn't fully allowed herself to acknowledge that there might be something substantial beyond the physical attraction. But there was. Oh, there was. It was amazing how human he could be when treated like one.
He was fun. He joked, he laughed, he talked, he shared, he listened.
And she was in more trouble than she could afford if things continued like this.
"So...what do you suggest?"
Spike sighed and stuffed his hands in the pockets of duster, tilting his head upward as he indulged a long drag off his cigarette. "Most of the town 's houses, kitten. 'F she wants to blend in, which I think our non-productivity has proven, I'd start there."
She just looked at him. "You wanna tour the houses?"
"No, 'm jus' sayin'...'f we wanna find her—"
"It's not that I don't see your point. I do. It's all there with the logic. But..." Buffy glanced down, pouting a little. "It's boring."
The vampire's eyes sized her up, dancing with shades of amusement. "Watch it, pet," he advised lowly. "You're reachin' back to my time."
"Well, your time was boring."
"I resent that."
"You so do not."
Spike cocked a brow. "Plenty 'f things happened in the nineteenth century," he argued. "Days of duels or what all. An' the bloody kids back then had a lot more respect."
"Watch it, buddy. Your age is showing."
He smiled. "Well, 'f anythin' else, it'll be a trip down memory lane." A pause. "'Course, I din't come to America till after I was dead, an' even then, the popular hype in the '60s—that's 1860s, luv, 'f you're followin' me...the popular hype had already—"
"Spike?"
"Ramblin'?"
She grinned. He was borderline cute. "Little bit."
Spike rolled on his heels and gave himself a slight bounce. "Come on, kitten," he urged. "Let's go. Jus' to one. Indulge me."
There was no harm, she supposed. And again with him actually having a point.
"Okay...any ideas?"
A wide grin spread across his lips and he reached into his back pocket to retrieve a brochure that she had seen him swipe inside. Spike had swiped a brochure. While she had had her suspicions, seeing it made it all the more worthwhile.
"Well, since you're humorin' me, you tell me 'f any of these look interestin'."
Buffy cocked a brow. "You're really enjoying this, aren't you?"
He shrugged. "'m curious, s'all. We din't share too much in common with the colonies when it came to politics, but the styles were damn near universal. 'S strange to think of things that I remember as bein' on tour." There was a brief pause and he shook his head. "Don' think that'll ever go away, no matter how old I get."
"I don't think I've ever heard you talk about your past." Well, of course she hadn't. She hadn't been interested before. "Angel never did much, either."
The vampire's demeanor darkened slightly on mention of her former. She could have sworn a flicker of ripened jealously flashed across his eyes. "Peaches din't 'cause it takes away precious time that could be spent mopin' 'bout things he knows damn well he can't change," he barked. "I don' talk 'bout it 'cause no one asks. What a sodding waste."
"Okay, Mr. Defensive."
He calmed down slightly and flashed an apologetic look in her direction. "Don' fancy bein' compared with the Great Poof," he murmured.
"So I gathered." Buffy licked her lips. "Well, don't worry. 'Cause you and Angel? Nothing alike."
If anything, that seemed to offend him even more. Lousy temperamental vampires. It only lasted a second, though, before he consigned to seemingly depressed acceptance. "Yeh," he agreed softly. "Bloody relief, that is."
"You're telling me. One brooding vamp per lifetime is already more than I can take." She smiled when he looked up in surprise, eyes sparkling with both wonder and gratitude. "So...these houses? Just the one, right?"
Spike nodded and handed her the brochure. "Trust me, luv. I might be curious, but I don' fancy standin' around all day while girlies in hoop skirts tell me things that I already know. 'S gonna be hard enough not to correct them when they bollocks somethin' up." He didn't meet her eyes, as though shy about his firsthand knowledge. "'S better this way. 'F Natchez is anythin' like the pissant towns that Dru an' I toured in the '50s, talkin' to one staff'll get the word out."
She suddenly knew why he didn't like her talking about Angel. "So," she said, clearing her throat and redirecting her attention to the pamphlet. "Any of these strike your fancy?"
"'S your choice, pet."
"I don't know what to choose!"
Spike rolled his eyes and snatched the brochure back again. "Okay...what 'bout this one?"
"What one?"
He edged closer so that she could follow his indication. Edged closer so that she was pressed up next to him, so that his scent tickled her senses with refinement she didn't know he possessed. "Linden."
"That one?"
"Why not?"
"It's not pretty."
Spike released a sigh of exasperation. "Well, for cryin' out loud, Slayer, whaddya want from me?"
Many, many things.
She opted in the end to not answer. "How about this one?"
"Dunleith?"
"Yeah."
"An' 's prettier than the other one?"
Buffy bit her lip. "Well, it's not so much that yours wasn't pretty, per se...it's just...this one is all with the big columns and whatnot. It's...it's pretty."
There was a brief pause at that; the vampire's eyes sparkled mischievously. "Ah," he cooed. "So size does matter to the Slayer."
"Shut up."
"Dunleith's no good, though."
She pouted. "Why not?"
"Tour's only good for the ground floor."
"And we care, why?"
He shrugged. "Well, 'f you're payin' full price to get in—"
"If I'm paying?"
A smile spread across his lips. "So you caught that, did you?"
"Bah. You suck." Her eyes snapped back to his and she caught the glimmer of the impending retort before it could think to touch his tongue. With the way things were going, it was infinitely better to stop him before the words touched the air. "And shut up. What about Stanton Hall?"
He offered a cheeky grin. "That one big enough for you, pet?"
"Spike, I swear to God..."
"Jus' wanna make sure. The last thing I need on my hands is a Slayer with a size complexion."
"I'm counting to three, then I'm getting out my stake."
"Hope it's big one."
That did it. "One..."
Spike just chuckled and turned his eyes back to the pamphlet. "Stanton Hall, eh?" he mused. "Think that's one of the locations for that bloody horrible series from the '80s."
"What series?"
"I forget the name. Only Dru was bloody nuts over Patrick Swayze an' wouldn't stop watchin' the soddin' thing no matter what I..." He broke off when he caught her gaze. Yeah, it definitely wasn't kosher talking about ex-loves all of a sudden. And they accepted it without mention. Such was safer until they had sussed out why things were different between them.
"Doesn't it say which miniseries it was in the thing?" Buffy asked, desperate to break the awkward silence.
"No. I jus' remember Stanton Hall." At her look, he glanced down and started kicking at the concrete. The tacit rule of before flew out the window just as rapidly as it had been conceived. Spike looked uncomfortable for a long minute before shaking his head. There were certain truths about their respected pasts that could not go ignored. "We had a fledglin' for a while that Dru made...went out an' got her blood when I couldn't. 'S name was Stanley Small. After the series aired, she'd—"
"Yeah." The Slayer took a pensive moment and released a long sigh. A moment, then sucked it up and asked the inevitable question. "Do you miss Dru?"
Spike gave her another long look, careful, trying to gage her mood. "Sometimes," he replied, honest as he could. "Though I don' know anymore 'f it's Dru I miss or jus'...I don' miss her mood swings, or the wonky visions, or her dolls, or her tendency to speak in riddles or...any of it, really." A breath shuddered across his shoulders. "I do miss not bein' alone. A hundred years or so an' you get used to the company, even 'f she is a daft loony." The comment earned a soft smile. He returned it best he could before glancing down again. "I jus' miss not bein' alone. Bein' with someone who understands me an'..."
The words struck closer to home than she would have liked. Buffy worried a lip between her teeth. "I understand you, Spike."
He froze and regarded her calmly. "Do you?"
"Yeah. I might...I don't agree with a lot of...well, obviously. Slayer and all. But I get you."
At that, his eyes softened and an ironic smile crossed his mouth. "That you do, kitten," he murmured. "That you do." Another pause. "Do you miss Peaches?"
The Slayer went quiet for a minute. So strange. Had anyone asked her just a few short weeks ago; the answer would have been an emphatic yes. Somewhere, she had faced herself and known what it was to grow up. To put those adolescent teenage dreams behind her. Missing Angel was more complicated than all that. There wasn't a word, a sentence, to describe her state of nonfeeling. Trying alone was difficult enough. "I don't know," she replied. "I think...really toward the end, we weren't as close as it seemed we were. He left for reasons that were...but I see it now. And it was for the better."
"You think so?"
"Well, yeah. The same reason Oz left Willow. There were things there that...but she took his leaving harder than I did Angel's. And...I think it was because she was still in love with him." Buffy held up a hand. "To clarify, I loved Angel. I still do. I just don't think...I don't think I was in love with him then. Especially after everything that had happened—"
Spike nodded.
She smiled and flushed. "But...yeah. Will's getting better, though. And she's started looking around again."
"She has?"
"Sam." Buffy paused. "Well, I don't know if she's serious about that...we really haven't talked. But there's definite sparkage."
The vampire chuckled at that. "Caught between evils, is she?" he mused. "A werewolf an' a politician. Red sure knows how to pick 'em."
"Yeah. But I'm not really one to talk." She shrugged. "All my men have been vampires."
She didn't realize what she had said until she heard Spike's breath catch. And then there was nothing. Just nothing. It was as though the world stopped. The words left her lips, and the world came to a big old-fashioned halt. Traffic froze, temperatures soared, and everything in between fell from view. The burn behind his eyes was enough to get any woman into trouble. Smoldering and astonished all within the same breath. He had always been unpredictable, but this was the first time she had felt the strain of her heart encouraging him.
She had no way of knowing how he had taken it. It was too late to retract. To pretend it didn't happen. To anything.
The Freudian slip of the year.
When nothing happened, Buffy flushed and snatched the brochure back, purposefully avoiding his gaze. "Ummm..." she said, ever aware of the tremble in her voice. "So...Dunleith all right?"
There was nothing for a minute. He was still staring at her.
"Spike?"
A second more and he shook himself back to the present, blinking and offering a short smile. "Dunleith," he agreed. "Right."
No need to tell her twice. The second his accordance touched the air, she was sprinting across the parking lot for the Winnebago as though all of hell followed.
Spike stood still for another minute, his nerve endings tingling from what had just passed. What had been revealed. How far into herself she was letting him see.
How much.
It didn't last long. He turned to follow her the next minute, the smile itching his face refusing to stand down.
He would never admit it, but he was beginning to love this town.
There was a note waiting for her when they got back to the townhouse that night.
Buffy,
Donna has a book that lists King's Tavern as a haunted place in Natchez. A bunch of us are gonna go try it out for laughs. Not Giles...I think he and Mr. Ziegler are doing the drinking thing again. (He's worried he said too much last night. Something about a microwave) And Anya wants to use the lack of people for 'eww' time with Xander. Anyway, come on down if you get this in time.
- Willow
PS. Tell Spike to put the car back together!
PPS. Giles is pissed about not having the Winnebago. Says you owe us cab money.
PPPS. Where WERE you all day?
A smile quirked the Slayer's mouth and she glanced up to Spike as he closed the door behind them. "You haven't helped with the car yet?"
He shrugged. "Why should I? Lot of self-righteous wankers."
"It's the nice thing to do."
"Well, 'm not a nice bloke." He perked a brow as though daring her to disagree with him. "Where is everyone, anyway?"
Buffy held up the note for his inspection. "Went to a place called King's Tavern. Any idea where that is?"
"Yeh, because I know this pissant town so well."
"Well...do you wanna go?"
He took a minute and just looked at her. Today was the day for all sorts of broken rules. While he had enjoyed the excuse to just be with her—flirt with her and have the utter ecstasy of her returned attentions in that regard, he never would have imagined to be allowed this much. Dunleith, now King's Tavern.
He wanted to throw caution to the wind and ask if it was a date. Get it on the table. Try to bring some clarity to the different relationship they were beginning to enjoy.
Pride, however, refused him from doing so.
Pride, and he didn't know what he would do if she said no. If she laughed him out of the room. If he let the frighteningly-potent feelings that were growing ever more so assume center light. While she might be content to unmask her attraction, there was no way that she could ever return the more basic elements of his esteem.
At least he had thought so. Now he wasn't sure.
And bugger all if he would muck things up by ruining a good thing as it was. He wanted something more with Buffy and he knew that now; he wasn't about to scare her off by making that knowledge known.
Not until he knew how she felt.
The fact that he knew that he wanted something more in itself was revolutionary. How he had come so far in just a couple days was beyond him. The more time he spent with her, the more in awe of her he became.
Little by little, Buffy Summers was becoming someone he could not live without.
The Slayer.
"Well," she continued when he didn't reply. "I wanna go. So, if you're coming, let's hit it." Her features softened. "And if you don't wanna, no big. I did drag you around a lot today."
He kept waiting patiently for the other shoe to drop. There was no way that this kindness could last.
But then, they had discussed that. They were both at a loss.
Better to do things this way.
Thus, Spike met her gaze and smiled, sliding the keys from the table before moving to open the door for her. Another act of gentlemanly consideration that he performed without thinking.
And remarkably, she didn't comment. As though they did this every day.
As though they had always done this.
"An' leave you to drive by yourself, pet?" he retorted teasingly. "Don' think so. That hunka junk might be on the register for scrap-metal, but someone has to take care of the wheels. Wouldn't wanna end up like a certain band of travelin' stragglers."
"Yeah." Buffy grinned, turning as he made sure the door was locked. "You owe them cab money, by the way."
"Oh I do, do I?"
"It was your idea to lift the Winnebago."
Spike snickered. "I was under orders!"
"Likely story."
"Big scary Slayer told me to do it." A smile broke across his face at the look she shot in his direction. "What's the name of the joint again?"
"King's Tavern."
"Well, hop on in, kitten." He nodded. "Time's a wastin'."
The atmosphere of King's Tavern, regardless of prior knowledge of its alleged status as a haunted establishment, certainly permeated the air of being a place of such mystique. The building itself was old—built likely in the 1700s and stood superficially as a brown blemish in a town full of supremacy and old Southern beauty. However, like the rest of Natchez, it commanded its own form of history that was respectable and among the elite in the town. The look was rustic and aged; the interior dark and lit with candles and low-lamps. There was a fireplace and several old hunting utensils aligned on the walls.
They had each been handed a photocopy of an article based on a journalist's visit to the tavern. It was very obviously from a trash magazine, but seemingly solidified the old sense of fun that tingled with the promise of old-world hauntings.
And toward the very back of the restaurant, near the bar, Josh, Donna, Willow, Sam, and Wesley dined. Accommodations were severe; they had to push several tables together to fit them all. Discussion was sporadic but fun; though Josh at several intervals looked ready to either strangle his assistant or crawl under the table in means of ulterior escape.
Now was one such time.
"I think the chain moved."
Josh released a long breath. "The chain did not move, Donna."
"I could've sworn I just saw the chain move." She turned to the others for verification, eyes wide. "Didn't any of you see the chain move?"
Sam shrugged apologetically. "Sorry."
"First the cat," the Deputy Chief of Staff mused with a wistful sigh. "Now this."
Willow blinked with a frown. "Cat?"
"Oh no."
Donna nodded. "There's a cat that haunts the Capitol Building in DC."
"There is not," Josh refuted.
"You're kidding!" Willow exclaimed excitedly.
"Oh, I wish."
Sam smothered a grin.
The blonde woman nodded, ignoring Josh and taking a sip of water. "Yeah. Evidently, its appearance is supposed to be a warning that a national tragedy will occur." At her boss's snicker, she rolled her eyes and leaned forward conspiratorially. "Don't mind Josh. He's a non-believer."
"It's funny how my definition of sensible overlaps Donna's interpretation of non-believers," he snickered in turn.
"I believe I had read something up on that," Wesley commented. "It was actually an area of concern for the Watc—ow!" He shot the redhead an apologetic, befuddled look, then turned to the others again. "Sorry...stubbed my toe."
"Well, come on, Josh." Donna rolled her eyes. "The cat was spotted and we got stuck in Natchez."
"With as much of an inconvenience as it was, I hardly say that calls for a national tragedy," Sam replied reasonably.
"I wouldn't be so hasty," the Deputy Chief of Staff murmured.
Willow bit her lip. "Is it really bad...you guys being here?"
"The President was talking about a battle that anyone who took eighth grade history would know about," Josh retorted. "At a time when the Chief of Staff has come public with a former addiction to Valium and our approval ratings are reaching an all-time low. You do the math."
Her eyes lit up. "Oh yeah! I've been meaning to ask you about Mr. McGarry. Is he—"
"Stop," Sam advised softly. "Leo's a soft-spot with all of us. It's better just to stop."
"Well, I don't think he should be...I don't think this should be a big thing, really." Willow shrugged. "I mean, we don't have all the info, right? Besides...you guys seem nice."
"Leo's like their father," Donna explained. "They get antsy whenever it's mentioned. And that chain just swung again."
"He's like your father, too," Josh retorted. "And no it did not."
"More like a favorite uncle. And it did, so."
"The President's approval ratings are at an all-time low?" Wesley asked softly, brow marring as a frown commanded his lips. "How odd. I was always rather fond of him."
"Me too," Willow agreed.
Josh leaned forward with interest. "Did you vote for us?"
"Well...I had just turned eighteen and I wasn't really able to vote and..." She made an apologetic face. "I will next time, though. That was my birthday present to myself. I went to register to vote."
Sam grinned. "That's adorable."
"You heard her, didn't you?" The other man cocked a brow. "She had just turned eighteen."
The Deputy Communications Director flushed. "So?" he said. "It can't be adorable?"
Willow was turning redder than usual as well, and looked very eager for a change in subject. "A ghost cat, huh?" she asked, nodding at Donna. "Interesting. Anything else?"
"Don't get her started."
"Oh yeah," the blonde replied, happily ignoring her boss's protestations. "There were tons—stories from cultures all over, really. Some really creepy, but you wouldn't want to hear about those. I—"
"I don't mind the creep-factor. I'm kinda used to the oogly booglies."
Sam tilted his head. "You believe in ghosts?"
Wesley coughed a little.
"Well...I didn't always." An ironic smile crossed her lips. "Let's just say living in Sunnydale broadens one's horizons."
"Sunnydale?" He blinked. "From California?"
The former Watcher and the Witch paused with suspended disbelief.
"You know Sunnydale?"
"Well, I've never been there, myself, but I did hear things growing up." He smiled. "I'm from Orange County, originally."
"That and he's Sam," Josh pointed out. "If you asked him, he could probably tell you the best route to take on the way back."
The man flushed again. "I would not...though, if you are open to suggestions, I would get back onto 65 and take it up to—"
"Don't." Donna's eyes went wide. "He's the one that got us south of Natchez while trying to find Vicksburg."
"I believe that Josh was driving."
The Deputy Chief of Staff snickered. "I believe that Josh was under orders from Leo McGarry."
Willow raised her hand, smiling shyly. "I believe that I want to know what Sam has heard about Sunnydale." At the look she received, she shrugged and took a bite of her shrimp salad. "I'm just curious...I never get to hear what others hear about where I come from."
There was a chuckle at that. "Pretty radical stuff," Sam replied. "When I was little, my friends and I would tell each other Sunnydale ghost stories at camp and sleepovers."
Josh snickered incredulously. "There are ghost stories about a town called Sunnydale?"
"Some intense ones," his friend verified with a nod.
Willow and Wesley exchanged an uncomfortable glance.
"I don't remember seeing anything about it in my book," Donna offered thoughtfully. "When we get back, I'll look it up and—"
All was left at natural reflex. On the same beat, the redhead and the former Watcher leapt to their feet on a note of shared panic, their shrill octaves touching the air with measured objection. "NO!"
Three blank gazes followed their distress along with half the restaurant.
"'Kay..." Josh said slowly.
"I—uhhh—I mean..." Willow had turned the shade of a beet. "What did you—uhh...there's...ohh. Ohh!" Her eyes widened with relief and she pointed with eagerness that did not know her. "Buffy!"
The attention of the table shifted accordingly.
"Great," Josh murmured. "Just what we need."
"Hey." Donna thwapped his arm with a scold. "Buffy's really nice."
"Yeah, but she brought Psycho with her."
The blonde pair stopped at the table; Spike's brow arching at the lukewarm greeting he received. "Psycho heard that," he replied before turning to Donna and offering a brilliant grin. "Evenin', pet."
While his intentions were very obviously to stir Josh's temper, Willow frowned as Buffy went fleetingly rigid. Weird.
"Hi," the assistant replied welcomingly.
"Sam," the Deputy Communications Director said, waving a little.
"I remember you, mate." The vampire turned and motioned for the nearest of the help to bring over two chairs. And the redhead watched with utter fascination as the bane of her best friend's existence held her seat out for her and waited until she was comfortable before assuming the space beside her. It looked so routine, she would have thought they had done that forever if she didn't know better.
That plus Buffy's strange behavior yesterday at the Magnolia Grill plus the both of themdisappearing for the entire day? And now here they were, acting as though they were best friends.
Not to quote Disney, but there was something there that wasn't there before.
Not a bad something, but something.
Of course, Willow considered herself fairly open-minded. If this did turn out to be serious, it would be an entirely different matter with the others.
"So...Buffy, Spike," Donna was saying as the waiting staff departed with the two newcomer's orders. "What did you guys do today?"
The two exchanged a look.
"Looked for Faith," the Slayer replied.
"All over the sodding place."
Sam frowned. "Faith is that hard to find...in a small southern town? How disheartening."
"She's a person," Willow reminded him.
"No leads, then?" Wesley asked, wiping his mouth with his napkin.
Buffy shook her head. "Notta one."
"Though the blokes at Dunleith are gonna spread the word," the vampire concluded. "An' Maggie's gonna be extra careful tomorrow at li'l Sue's birthday."
"Dunleith?"
"The house?" Donna replied, perking considerably. "The name sounds like one of the houses that's in the book I got in the—"
Josh groaned. "For God's sake, no more books!"
Spike rolled his eyes. "Every party has a pooper," he chimed. "That's why we invited you."
"Actually, Billy, I was here first."
"Oh dear," Sam murmured.
Donna licked her lips and finished off the last of her ribs, meeting Buffy's eyes with an air of apology. "The chain just swung again," she said.
The Slayer nodded as though she understood. With Spike and Josh engaging in another verbal charge, it didn't seem to matter in any regard.
"You're telling me."
In the world according to Toby, every molecule of daily interaction revolved around making his life a living hell. With the President's speech a thing of the past—the motorcade gone and Air Force One in the air and back again—he still couldn't find a single car rental agency that would listen to his plight, nor could he find a mechanic with skills enough to repair the hunk of metal that was crowding the gravel driveway of a house he never wanted to see again.
It was strange. Hell, it was more than strange: it was downright bizarre. But Donna wasn't complaining. Oh no. She reveled in it. The opportunity to inadvertently be granted the vacation that she had been bugging Josh for over the past forever. There were things to be done, she knew. Big, important things. But a little time away from the office would hardly be the downfall of a man as great as Josiah Bartlet—especially in the modern era of telephones, fax-machines, and e-mail.
And, as she had come to accept over the past year, as long as Leo McGarry was in the White House, there was nothing to fear.
Which was why, instead of yelling into her cell all day—as certain other unnamed persons were now attempting—she was lounged quite comfortably in the foyer of the Wensel House, debating whether or not she would like to retire to Natchez after Bartlet's eight years were over.
And it would be eight. To suggest anything else was blasphemous.
Of course, to presume eight aloud was bad luck. She couldn't win.
The company here was fabulous. She didn't know what Josh's problem was, other than the obvious, but she was having the time of her life. Buffy and Willow really reminded her of herself when she was that young. Ambitious, carefree, smart, and with their whole lives ahead of them. Their paths unblemished by the mistakes she had made.
A sad realization indeed. She was too young still to think of her life as no longer being ahead of her.
"Did you know it's illegal to catch mice in Cleveland without a hunting license?" she asked as Wesley entered the room with what appeared to be an old history book. "Whoever passed that law must've been an animal-rights activist."
The man offered a faint smile. "I find most American laws to be rather silly," he replied.
"I'm right there with you." Donna leaned back and released a long sigh. "So...England, huh?"
"God Save the Queen," came the retort. His smile had turned rather shy, his eyes downcast. "I actually haven't been home in quiet some time. I was last in London about two years ago...right before...well, I suppose you could say, my employer transferred me to the United States."
"What do you do?"
There was a pause; he flashed her a deer-in-headlights look and gulped. "Pardon?"
"Your job...the one you had to come to the States to do?"
"Oh...of course." The explanation obviously hadn't done anything to change his disposition. He shifted a bit in his seat and cleared his throat. "I am an instructor."
"Of what?"
"Uhhh...self-defense and weaponry." At her skeptical look, he held up the history book and flashed a nervous smile. "Also...ancient cultures for the bizarre and otherworldly."
"Are you related to Mr. Giles?"
"We're in the same line of work. He and Buffy..." There was a pause at that. "He's Buffy's surrogate father, I suppose is the best way of putting it. She came to a point in her life when she needed an instructor...and the organization that employs us both sent him to her."
"Are you guys like Rent-A-Teachers?"
Wesley flushed. "We're not very well known in your circle. And actually, I am no longer employed there. I am a rogue dem—" He broke off and reddened even further. "I am a rogue."
Donna blinked. "A rogue what?"
"I work with Angel, in Los Angeles." He paused. "Well, I don't really work with him. On occasion, I allow him to supervise my findings so that we might put our minds together to come to a similar, logical conclusion when any given issue is—"
"Angel...as in Buffy's ex-boyfriend?"
Wesley's eyes widened. "You know of Angel?"
"Well...I went out for bread pudding with Willow and Buffy a couple days ago. Or—when I say 'went out', I'm overstating it a little. We ran into each other." She shrugged, an easy smile brightening her face. "They're very nice. You all are. But you're working for Angel?"
"With. With Angel." The former Watcher laughed uneasily and leaned back. "Not really with, come to think of it. We're mutual acquaintances in the same line of work that, on occasion, share information that will be mutually beneficial."
"Okay. So what do you do now?"
"Angel is a private investigator."
Donna frowned and gestured emphatically. "So that would make you a private investigator?"
"Of sorts. I do not have a license to practice in California."
She nodded and chewed on that one for a minute. "Did you know that it's illegal to eat oranges while in a bathtub in California?"
Wesley quirked a smile at that. "Do you memorize strange laws by practice?"
"It's something to do." Donna shrugged. "For instance, it is also illegal for a chicken to cross the road in some town in Georgia."
"Well, naturally. It draws attention to a universal question that has baffled philosophers for years."
"There's also a law in Louisiana that says you can't rob a bank and then shoot the teller with a water pistol." She laughed. "Which, of course, suggests that robbing the bank is perfectly fine...but it's a felony if you shoot anyone with water. And then another in Oregon that says no man may curse while having sex with his wife."
Wesley was staring at her. "Damn yanks," he murmured.
"You probably shouldn't say that while we're south of the Mason Dixon line."
He smiled slightly and set his book aside. It was obvious that he wasn't
going to get any reading done. "So...tell me about what you do."
The day was passing at a steady pace that Buffy had long taken for granted. By default, it was decided that Xander and Anya would cover the day shift of scouring the town for Faith—interrogating the same people and trying to cover bases that hadn't yet been meddled with. Giles had phoned Angel in hopes of acquiring a rendering of her that he could staple onto streetlights and hand out across town. Evidently, her former boyfriend had foreseen being requested of such and had sketched a good likeness of the rogue Slayer; there simply wasn't a fax-machine handy. The elder Watcher, for that reason, was currently hitting every modernized establishment in the hopes of locating anything that would be of any help and wasn't having a good time of it.
Buffy had spent the day with Willow, who was trying to gather some ingredients for another location spell; no one had any idea why she would be successful on this endeavor and so utterly not on all those preceding. But at this point, she was willing to try anything. It was obvious they weren't getting anywhere fast with the routine sweeps of the town, and no evidence had been presented to suggest that Faith had gone anywhere. She knew that Giles, when he wasn't drinking, had been following the news programs for reports of her elsewhere; there was nothing. It was as though she had arrived in Natchez and fallen off the edge of the world.
There was something else. Neither Wesley nor Giles were exactly a part of the Watcher's Council grapevine anymore. There was every possibility that the rogue Slayer had been apprehended right under their noses.
But even still, that didn't seem altogether likely. Giles was still highly respected. Whenever the Watchers Council was about to interfere with their lives, they at least had the courtesy to let him know in advance.
Buffy and Willow were just returning from one of the novelty shops across the way from the Wensel House. The shops themselves were set into what used to be a train-depot—a mini-golf course separating the court down the middle. The Slayer was discovering that everything in the town was neatly naturalized like that—or as naturalized as a manmade structure could be. She wondered honestly, aside the chain restaurants, the shopping mall, and visitor's center if there was any establishment within a hundred miles that had been constructed after 1912.
They hadn't bought much. The Witch was out of an herb that she thought could be easily replaced with potpourri. And just like that, it was time to start again.
"I'm gonna go into the kitchen and mix some of these things together," she said as she stepped onto the porch of the house. The sun was dipping out of the sky slowly; should this spell go right, Buffy and Spike would have a direction to target their search tonight. "If anything of the good happens, I'll let you know."
"Right." The Slayer nodded, glancing with a weary sigh at Toby, Josh, and Sam who were trying to refigure the clockwork-like configuration under the hood of their all-but-dead automobile. "You know...I think it's time for me to make Spike help them."
"You think?! I thought I told you to last night."
"Well...you know Spike. He doesn't do anything if he doesn't wanna."
Willow's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. And yet, you're going to make him help them?"
Buffy didn't miss the slightly edged accusatory tenor in her best-friend's voice, nor did she think she needed to answer it. Especially when she hardly had things worked out for herself. "Yeah. Why? Are you eager for Sam to be gone?"
The redhead's eyes lost their indictment and she flushed accordingly. "That's not the point," she said. Then disappeared inside before another charge of the nature could be voiced.
Buffy smothered a grin and turned to circumvent the home and head around toward the townhouse where she found Spike sleeping lightly on the sofa. The sight should have annoyed her, but they had stayed up late the night before talking about a number of things that weren't as important as they had seemed. She was moving beyond the part of her introspection and self-criticism for expanding her relationship with the vampire. It wasn't wrong anymore—or if it was, she had surpassed the glamour of its influence.
Getting to know Spike was likely the most revolutionary thing that had happened in her adult life. He was taking her expectations and blowing so far past them that she could barely keep up. He was dangerously close to becoming a friend, if he wasn't already. And by how shamelessly they had flirted in the past two days—something more. Much more.
And that terrified her.
With as much as she did not want to disturb him, they would have no peace unless they utilized every asset to assist the staffers on their journey out of town. Back to the world where things made sense, if it wasn't already too late. And since Spike's skills with a car had been boasted far and wide, he was their final resort. The resort that could have been taken two days prior had she not been so thoroughly engaged in more pleasurable pursuits of entertaining his company.
But that was over, now. And they needed him up.
Which meant...
Buffy released a long sigh and moved forward, reaching for the remote and flicking the television off. She was hoping that alone would do the trick, but her vampire was determined to be contrary. He didn't budge. Didn't murmur. Didn't do anything to suggest that he was anything other than dead.
That would not do.
"Spike." Yeah, that'll work.
The Cockney murmured and rolled further into the cushions.
"Spike!"
He crooned his head a bit against the sofa arm and then sank into deepened slumber.
Okay, so Giles was right. He did sleep like the dead.
So much for the diplomatic approach.
Buffy huffed out another sigh and caved, crossing the room so she could assault him bodily—which hey, not complaining. She didn't do much more than prod his shoulder, though her hand did take a brief detour to run through his peroxide locks to see if they were as soft as they looked.
And oh, they were.
How in the world did he take such good care of his hair with all the crap he put in it? Easy answer—he was a guy, and thus all things hair-wise came naturally.
Life was so unfair.
"Spike!" she said loudly. "Come on. Wakey, wakey! Rise and shiii...oh, well, you probably don't like the 'shine' part all that much. How about rise and...well, dark's lame but, you're not giving me much to work with here." Nothing. "Come on! Fresh blood in the kitchen for vamps who wake up in less than five seconds." Still nothing. She pouted. "Okay, so you got me. You are the residential vamp, and seeing as you're the only one of said persuasion that I can tolerate as of now, the blood is probably yours. 'Cause, really? Gross. Massively disgusting. Major 'ding' on the ick factor. But hey! Still there, and it isn't getting any fresher." Nothing. "Okay. That's it. I'm taking off my shirt."
What happened next occurred in a blink. One minute she was standing above the sofa; the next, Spike had seized her wrist and tugged her onto him, his hands holding her at the waist as his eyes came open. The smirk on his face was enough to verify that he had been awake for some time, and his eyes danced as her jaw dropped with indignance.
"Why you little—"
"Thought I'd better stop you before you started strippin', luv. While you'd find many an appreciative eye in this room, the blinds are up an' the view from the parkin' lot's nearly panoramic." He grinned unrepentantly as her gaze darted to the open window above them and widened in astonishment. Not that she had really been planning on disrobing, of course. The thought alone provided enough embarrassment to fund burrowing a hole to crawl into. When she looked back at Spike, he was obviously very pleased with himself; his tongue running over his teeth in a way that he had to know was too sexy for words. "Though, 'f you wanted to gimme a free show here an' now, I wouldn't be one to complain."
"You pig!"
"Oink bloody oink. Come on." He tugged teasingly at her hem, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Take it off."
Buffy guffawed her frustration and battled away his prying hands. "Let me up."
"Nah. 'm rather comfy, myself."
"Spike!"
He positively purred. "That's right. Yell it. Nice, loud, an' with a li'l 'umph.'"
"I swear to God." Buffy grumbled. "Spike, come on. Let me up."
"You're the Slayer. Make me let you up."
She deliberately chose not to answer the logic of that argument, placing her hands firmly on his chest and wiggling for leverage.
Wrong move. Definitely wrong move. A long moan hissed through his teeth and she felt the consequences of his physical reaction pressed against her in a manner that she had never thought to experience, least of all from the persistently annoying vampire beneath her.
Spike at least had the decency to look embarrassed. As well he should; while he might be of the male species and thought perpetually with that particularly part of his anatomy, he was the one that was holding her to him. The flash only lasted a minute, though, and he gathered his bearings before the cocky, self-assured look that she knew so well dominated his eyes once more. "Oh yeh, kitten," he cooed nastily. "Li'l to the left."
That was it. Buffy popped him in the nose and was up in two seconds.
"Bloody hell..."
"Don't 'bloody hell' me, you...pig."
The vampire arched a pointed look in her direction, cautiously examining the tenderness of the skin she had just assaulted. "Bugger all, Slayer, can't you think of anythin' with a li'l originality?"
"So says you, you big ass."
His eyes softened with almost immediate shades of apology. "Buffy, I—"
"No. All with the...the no. And the no." She shook her head. "You're going to get outside, fix their damn car, and then we're going to find Faith and get far, far away from here. You got me?"
There was nothing for a minute. Then a small smile crossed his face. "Yeh," he retorted. "I got you, all right."
She didn't know, but there was something about the way he said it that made her think he wasn't referring to the simple basics of elementary comprehension. And that was all sorts of bad.
"An' sorry." He tilted his head curiously. "'Bout bein' me."
Buffy arched a cool brow. "Since when have you ever apologized for being you?"
"Since I started to value our...whatever we have." He smiled kindly and rose to his feet. "I like you when you're not bein' a bitch, Summers. Hell, 'f I wanna be honest, I like you pretty much all the time. An' I liked yesterday...an' last night. I liked it a lot. Don' wanna muck it up 'cause I got me a wicked tongue that doesn' know when to stop."
A very naughty word picture threw off the charm of his apology unexpectedly. She flushed again. "Well...it's not...mucked, that is. Or whatever you call it. And..." Almost quieter. "I don't mind you being you...most of the time. Just...ummm..." And suddenly, she was at a loss for words. Her mind blanked and her tongue swelled. Nasty Spike she could deal with. Human Spike was becoming a good friend. But sweet Spike? No. She wasn't ready for that. Not yet. "I—uhh. Willow. I should go and...Willow...she's doing the...the thing. The spell...inside the house...to find Faith. You know. I...ummm...I'm gonna go...change, and then I'm—not that you need to know that I'm changing or—"
Spike merely smiled and brushed past her. "Sun's set on this side," he said. "'m gonna go fix the car."
And just like that, he was gone, leaving her alone and dumbfound.
But more grateful than he could imagine.
"Well, it's about time," Toby snapped as Spike approached, abruptly hanging up on whoever he had been barking at and stuffing the cell phone into his pocket. "You know, you really put truth to the old adage that the road to Hell is paved with Good Samaritans."
Josh looked up from where he was holding a flashlight for Sam, gaze skeptical. "You mean he's gonna stop being a jackass and lend us a hand?"
The vampire stopped soundly in his tracks without a note of apology. Bloody decent way to get what you want—though these wankers were politicians from the country's very own capital, so he couldn't be too surprised. Instead, his brows perked with indifference and he reached into the pockets of his duster to dig out his cigarettes. "Well," he retorted, lighting up. "Since you asked so nicely."
"We've been asking you for two days," the Communications Director grumbled.
"No. I believe you've been tellin' me to do it on an unfounded presumption of my skills in this department." Spike grinned and indulged a long puff. "I never told a one of you that 'm good with cars. You heard that bit from Red. 'Course, she happens to be right; the thing is, I don' rightly care much 'f you get back or not. An', I might add, that none of you bothered to ask me. 'S it so bloody beneath you to say 'please'?"
Josh and Toby paused, exchanged a long look, and answered on the same beat. "Well...yeah."
It was obviously meant to be taken as a joke, but the vampire rolled his eyes and flicked his fag to the ground. "Unbloodybelievable."
At the hood of the car, Sam strained and wiped his forehead with the back of his greasy hand. "Not beneath me to ask," he offered. "I've been about as successful in my attempts to piece the car together as I would be trying to fix a pocket watch with a hammer." He met the Cockney's eyes and stepped aside more than willingly. "She's all yours."
There were certain things that put a vampire in his element. Blood, violence, and showing up a group of arrogant humans. Thus when Spike stepped away less than three minutes later, nodded at the gits and turned to retreat back indoors, he was more than satisfied.
"I could've done that," Josh murmured as Toby slid into the driver's side for an impromptu turn around the parking lot to confirm that everything was in working condition. Just like that.
Simplicity was maddening at times.
"I'll take it for a test drive tonight," Sam said. "If it's really running as well as it seems to be, we should be ready to leave by tomorrow morning."
"Why not leave now?"
"Because," Toby retorted as he slipped out of the car. "We don't want to get stuck in another Hicktown with no means of getting out."
"Plus we're paid through tomorrow," his Deputy added with annoying rationale.
Josh offered a begrudging nod. "Yeah, yeah. But honestly, what are the odds that we would end up stranded in another place without a surplus of rental cars or mechanics at our disposal?"
The Communications Director smiled a little. "Well, considering your supreme skills of navigation, I suppose that is aiming a little high. After all, being stuck anywhere remotely near civilization was a lucky break, wasn't it? We'd be fortunate not to end up in Nova Scotia."
"For the last time—"
"I'm taking the car for a test-drive tonight," Sam said. "All right?"
There was a brief pause. Nothing more worth arguing over.
"Right."
"It's the smart thing to do," Toby murmured.
"We're Democrats. Since when have we been credited for doing the smart thing?"
"Someone has to do the smart thing, even if they don't get the credit," Sam offered reasonably. There were times when logic and mindless ranting were not linear, and thus when clumped together, found most annoying. The Deputy Communications Director had his noted temper tantrums, but he tended to keep his cool much longer than either of his colleagues.
A wane grin tickled Toby's mouth. "I think you've been in the backwash country for too long."
"I'd been here too long before we got on the plane in DC," Josh retorted.
Sam stepped in as the great neutralizer, hands in the air in a call for diplomacy. "It's fine, guys. It's fine. I'll take the car for a test-drive tonight. In the meantime, I'm sure there are other ways to make ourselves useful around here. And someone owes Spike a thank you."
"Not I."
"Why can't you test-drive it now?" Josh asked.
"Because I'm greasy and hungry and would prefer a shower before taking on any other activity. And I don't want either of you near the car, because I have handled this entire ordeal much better than both of you combined and quite frankly, we can't afford that kind of negative Karma." Sam wiped his hands against his jeans. "I am going to go clean-up and make a sandwich."
Josh and Toby exchanged another long look that clearly read a predisposition of inherent disagreement. There was nothing for a long minute, then the former released a breath and sighed his resignation. "It's just one night." It was palpable he was making an attempt at optimism, though the sentiment didn't reach his eyes.
It could have ended there, but it didn't. Toby didn't reply, but response had never stopped the Deputy Chief of Staff from talking. And thus, as some cosmic punch line, he spoke the unspeakable. In was an unfortunate but inevitable reality.
"What could go wrong?"
It wasn't as though she went searching for these situations to fit herself into. They seemed to find her perfectly well on their own without outside interference. And today was certainly one of those days where situational dilemmas were searing in popularity. Everything had simply ganged up against her with some resolute determination to go wrong.
She had heard him come in; it was impossible not to, as he hardly tiptoed through the front door. The past ten minutes had been spent buried in her designated room, looking through clothes to find an article that was neither a turn-off nor come-hithery. With the way they had been playing at it, she wanted her clothes to make as much statement as possible as to the status of her confused feelings. Not indifferent but unsure. Interested but hesitant. While everything thus far was more than mutual, they had yet to trust words with the emotions they had been dancing around. Clothing, in this instance, would have to do the trick.
He was supposed to be fixing the car, and he was back. It aggravated her at first, but she knew without question that Spike wasn't one to be ordered around, even and especially by her. Disobedience in this particular regard hardly surprised.
That was until she peeked outside and saw Toby Ziegler performing provisional doughnuts in the parking lot. At that, Buffy had to smile.
Spike had come through. In less than ten minutes.
"He's good," she murmured.
It wasn't until a moment later that she realized the shower was running. He must have come in directly from the car and to the lavatory without stopping. Which meant that she was alone in the townhouse with a wet, naked vampire.
The same wet, naked vampire that had pulled her against him less than a half hour before.
A color of naughty thoughts bombarded her mind, ignoring her pleas for neutrality. This was no good. It was no good, but similarly inevitable with the endless couple of days they had spent together. The shameless flirtation that grew more potent with every exchange. Every glance. Every everything.
She knew that she should turn around and leave him to his peace. Besides, it was beyond time to see Willow. Thus expelling a deep breath to compose herself, she turned for the door with every intention of marching through.
That was until the acoustics gave way and started playing the Devil's song. She had heard the sound before: once from Angel. His quiet baritone tickling her ear as he tried to sooth her aching body with gentility and poise. Not too long ago from Parker as he used her presence as means for his own end, no matter how attentive he had been in the course of her own pleasure after he was sated.
If there was anything her two failed encounters with sex had taught her, it was the difference between moans of pleasure and moans of pain. Simple elementary, but true nonetheless.
And by the potency of Spike's whimpers, it didn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out what he was doing in there.
Oh god.
Logic was a funny thing. Logic told her very plainly to turn promptly at the heel and continue toward the door, unhampered. Logic told her that regardless of anything that had occurred over the past couple days, this was very obviously the vampire's private time and to leave him alone. Logic told her that it was none of her damn business what he did behind closed doors. Logic told her that he didn't know she was still there; else he wouldn't be doing...that. Well, at least not that loudly.
And just when she needed it the most, logic promptly flew out the window. Before she could stop herself, Buffy was following her feet's command to satisfy the nagging curiosity in her gut. To fuel the shades of arousal that tackled her just at the thought of him touching himself like that. Bad thoughts. Bad, bad thoughts. She was just asking for trouble.
Yes. I'll have two helping's of trouble and a diet coke. Thanks.
The thought did little to quell the nervous titter that spread in her stomach. She was at trouble's entrance, literally; she and Spike were separated by a door and a door alone.
And that door would just have to be ajar.
Buffy released a shuddering breath and dared a step forward, ignoring the voice of inner conscience that screamed she was violating every code of ethics she tried to live by. It didn't matter. She had an imp on each shoulder and couldn't move away for anything in the world.
Especially when she caught a glance of him through the transparent shower curtain. The world as she knew it might as well have blinked itself away.
Spike was standing at an angle, head under the nozzle with water pellets rolling down his back. His left hand was pressed against the wall as though to keep himself from tumbling over completely. And his other...ohhh. The sharp, desperate movement of his arm timed perfectly to the thrust of his hips was easily the most erotic scene she had ever witnessed. The strangled moans rumbling from his throat bounced off the walls with strong confinement—each sending intent drives of pure, unmitigated desire to her core.
God, why hadn't she felt like this before? Why was this the most sensual moment of her life? Sure, there was something intimately stimulating about watching without permission—seeing him take his pleasure in stolen moments. But for all the world, she had never craved like this before. Not Angel. Not anyone.
Spike was a work of beauty. A god among men.
The fire in her belly was growing unbearable. Her fingers strained and her skin ached for his. She had never been so turned on in her life, and knew vaguely that the thought should disturb her, but it didn't. It didn't. It was wrong but right. So right.
Wanting Spike was right. She had crossed that line. It was okay now.
His gasps were becoming sharper, his movements gaining momentum. If possible, the ceaseless pumping of his hand reached epic proportions. As though he needed a thought of pain alongside satisfaction. And when his climax was upon him, he released a heady moan, whimpered her name with as much craving as she had ever heard one person bear, and slumped against the wall as water ran down his back and aftermath took hold of him.
Buffy's world came crashing down. The liquid heat pooling between her thighs was becoming excruciating, the scent of her own appeal tackling her senses and sending off a warning signal that she could not quite abide. Without looking at her, without touching her, without anything, Spike had made her feel more like a woman than anyone before him. It filled her with both gratification and terror. Apprehension and furthered strings of longing. Her stomach was empty and fluttering, her heart pounding, her senses on overload and her mind trying to send her a thousand and a half signals at once.
He had called her name as he came.
Her name.
It occurred to her belatedly that standing outside the bathroom wasn't the best idea in the world. Now was not the time for introspection: it was the time for avoidance and feigned ignorance and oh my god had she mentioned that Spike had just gotten off while thinking about her?
The shower stopped running, and all thought with it. Her feet started moving before her brain could catch up. She needed to get out of the townhouse. She needed to be where the air was clean and not fogged with lusty Spike thoughts or how she wanted to jump him before he got out of the shower and demand that he fix her problem. Now was not the time.
Neverwas the time. She might want him, but she could never act on it. Never.
Yeah. Right. Her mind wasn't buying that.
Neither was her heart. Not anymore. Her heart was already in this too deeply.
Buffy stepped outside and shook her head. She couldn't think of this now. Not now. They were here to do a job. A job they had somehow gotten nowhere on in the three days since arriving. A job that they needed to start taking seriously. This was no time to be worrying with such things.
Somewhere she knew, though, that that excuse could only last so long. They were in too deep to stop this now. And even if that weren't the case, she wouldn't want to. Not with everything that had happened.
And that thought terrified her beyond reason.
Willow frowned as the water hissed and bubbled over the rim of her borrowed pot, leaping back just before it could splatter along her arm. "Okay, Mr. Oregano," she said in a faux-menacing tenor, eyes darkening. "I know you're not exactly the herb I usually use for these sorts of spells, but you don't have to get all pissy about it. Really—if I could find some genuine rue herbs, I wouldn't be using you. B-besides...you're more a seasoning then an herb...but the Wiccan Hotline told me that this..." She trailed off and her frown deepened. "I'm talking to a pot. There's no one here but me and a pot...and now I'm talking to myself about talking to a pot. Get a hold of yourself, Rosenberg."
It wasn't as much that she was talking to the pot; she was talking to it as though it would talk back. Not that such was out of the realm of possibility, of course. Stranger things had happened.
"Words to live by," she murmured, raising a hand to beckon a wooden ladle her way. All in all, she wasn't really expecting this to work. The supplies were all wrong and the spells were pretty much case sensitive, though she didn't want to tell Buffy and get her hopes up.
Of all the possibilities she had planned for upon preparing for the otherwise spontaneous excursion this far south, she hadn't foreseen encountering a dilemma where there were no magic stores at the ready. Natchez evidently didn't believe in witchcraft, which didn't surprise her. She didn't know what she had been expecting. The South was moderately conservative when it came to such things; New Orleans the only exception that immediately came to mind. So here she was—waiting for an emergency shipment from a supplier in Sunnydale and using cooking ingredients as meager substitutes.
It might work. She didn't think so, but evidently witches before her had been successful. Of course, witches before her had also been far more gifted in their craft. She was an amateur in a world she wanted to know better.
Which was good, because Willow hardly refused a challenge of this nature.
"Salagadoola methinks boola, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo," she sang absently, motioning for the heat on the stove to increase before sending the ladle to attentively stir while she searched for other seasonings. If anything, she was certainly getting better at simple levitation. The days of floating pencils were behind her, though she was still far from her goal of lifting pianos. "Put 'em together and what have you got? Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo." She motioned for the cupboard on the other side of the kitchen to open. The hotline had also told her that basic salt, which she used anyway, and cumin could make amicable substitutes if necessary. "Salagadoola mechicka boola, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. It'll do magic believe it or not. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo."
Willow grinned and slid across the wooden island in the middle, encouraging her brewing pot of mixed goodies to follow. She indicated another cupboard and immediately had a bowl to her liking alongside the pot before motioning for it to take place under the faucet at the sink. The wooden ladle she had been toying with a minute before came immediately to her grasp, and she used it to thumb through the jars of cooking mixes the Wensel House owners had stocked for their guests. Any other time, she would have felt guilty for so shamelessly using all of the ingredients in the kitchen for means that were far placed from culinary, but Mrs. Miller had been nothing but accommodating, even encouraging, in that regard. She would remember to send her and her husband thank you cards for such lovely treatment while staying at their Bed and Breakfast when they inevitably returned to Sunnydale.
"Salagadoola means mechicka booleroo. But the thingmabob that does the job is, bibbidi-bobbidi-boo." Willow turned again and summoned one of the flashlights she had found under the sink to her side, flicking it on with a tilt of her head as her eyes scoured the cabinet. "Salagadoola menchicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. Put 'em together and what have you got? Bibbidi-bobbidi, bibbidi-bobbidi, bibbidi-bobbidi—"
A piercing shriek rang through the air, effectively slicing through her concentration and breaking the stability of her various flying utensils. The redhead gasped and whirled around, caught the wide-eyed panic-stricken gaze of Sam before realizing that her potion was about to splatter boiling hot water across the kitchen floor.
What came next was what was natural to her. She could hardly let the pot hit the ground. That would lead to badness, and possible second-degree burns. Thus, in a loud and commanding voice, she snapped, "Sisto!" and suspended the fall in mid-air.
It was only after she had a control on her potion that she felt it safe to look back up to Sam, which turned out to be a very bad mistake. He was screaming again in an instant. Screaming, but not running, which either meant it was reactionary or he didn't remember that he had legs. Willow flashed him an apologetic look before nodding to her pot, sending it back to the stove with a definitive hiss.
The screaming came to an end, but the look of utter terror did not.
The redhead bit her lip and held up a hand. "I...ummm...hi! I...uhhh...just...this is...something...I'm just...I was just..." She took a cautionary step forward and flinched when he automatically retracted it in the opposite direction. "Please. Please don't be...afraid. Ummm...I..." She released a deep breath. "I know what it looks like. I was just...you see, there's this hobby of mine, and I guess you can say—"
"I wanted a sandwich."
Willow blinked. It took a minute to register that he had actually spoken. "Oh. Oh! Well...here...I can make you a sandwich. Turkey? Ham? Peanut butter and jelly? I can make a mean peanut butter and jelly. Oh, I can even...ummm...you want a boiled egg? I can boil an egg and—"
Sam shook his head rapidly, eyes wide with conviction. He seemed to have surpassed the screaming phase and was more into shock, but not because he was still responsive. "No. No. I'm just...I'm just going to go away now. I'm going to go away...and be...away."
No. No, that couldn't happen. The last thing she needed was one of the most important and influential men in the country thinking he had lost his mind—or worse—putting her in some institution for the magically inclined...or wherever they would put her. Willow stepped forward, eyes large with worry. "No...no, it's okay, Sam. It's...I'm a witch. I am. But I'm a good witch. I'm Glinda. The one that the munchkins liked? I-I wouldn't hurt a fly or even a...fly. I'm sorry I scared you, but it's just something I do."
He was just staring at her. She didn't know if the words were clicking in the way they were supposed to. "You're a witch."
"Yes. A witch. But a good witch. Emphasis on the good part, there. I'm a very good witch." The redhead huffed up a little with furthered assurance. "In fact, if there was a reward for good witches—benevolent witches, I'd take it home. You know why? I'm a good witch. I..." Sam's eyes broke from hers and turned to the scene around them, taking in the telltale signs—at least in his hindsight—of witchcraft in the works. She followed him without missing a beat, reaching up to brush hair from her eyes. "You see, I was just...umm...Faith. We need to find Faith...and I was trying a location spell. I'm not very good at location spells, but I thought—"
"I thought you were a good witch," he replied. She didn't think he was even aware he was speaking.
"I'm not. I really suck. I've been at the same level for—" Willow broke off when his gaze went wide again. "Oh, you meant good as in benign. I am! I am! I totally am! You'll never find a better witch. I—"
Of course, just when things might have started to go right, everything would have to be shot to hell in the proverbial handbasket. And in all fairness, Xander wasn't used to censoring his comments. Witchcraft wasn't exactly an abnormality in Sunnydale—one of the many luxuries of their hometown that they evidently took for granted.
Which was why, she supposed, that he didn't think before yelling, "Hey, Will! Anya wants to share a room tonight. Will you please tell Wes that you won't turn him into a newt if he creeps onto your..." He pushed open the kitchen door and nearly tripped over himself at the sight of Sam standing in the middle of a very magic-inflicted area. "...side. Oh, I didn't know you were—"
The Deputy Communications Director finally snapped, moving for the door with such swiftness that he might as well have tried out for the Olympic track team. "I have to go now."
Willow stepped forward pleadingly. "Sam—"
"No. I have to go now."
Xander licked his lips as the man brushed past him, offering his friend a wan, apologetic smile. "Oops?"
The redhead whimpered miserably. This was bad. This was beyond bad. She had mucked things up in a royal only-Willow-can-do-this-manner. Giles was going to be angry. Livid, even.
And strange as it was, that thought didn't bother her as much as the idea of Sam thinking ill of her. Of being afraid of her. Of the way he had looked at her before he left.
Her face must have been ready to crumble, because Xander stepped forward, all apology, and took her into his arms. "Oh, Will. I'm sorry. I didn't think. I—"
"No." His shoulder muffled her voice. "It wasn't you. It was me. It was all me."
Her. Always her. Her fault. Her mess. Her screw-up.
Always.
How in the world was she going to fix this?
In loo of not wanting to face anyone at the moment, Buffy decided to skip peeking in on Willow and the spellcasting that was her. It was the clumsy thing to do, she knew, but she also knew that if there were any genuine leads on Faith that her friend would let her know. And even so, by the time Spike was ready for their nightly sweep of the town, her friend had evidently already packed everything in and retired for the night. The Slayer found it strange that she hadn't stopped to tell her how the spell went or goodnight, but decided not to dwell. Everyone had been at odds and ends since arriving.
Buffy's face flamed as Spike stepped out of the townhouse and she did her damndest to avoid his eyes without being obvious. She waited until he had double-checked the lock before whispering her greeting. When they started walking in syncopation for the Winnebago, she did as best she could to stay at least five paces ahead of him.
Which didn't work.
"Hey! Hold up there, pet."
Buffy was tempted to walk even faster but decided that was ridiculous. Acting suspicious would do nothing but get her in trouble. "Sorry," she said, conversational as possible. "I was just...I wanna get back quick tonight. Get some sleep."
Avoid you like the plague 'cause I'm a big perv and you masturbate while thinking about me...which I shouldn't know, but I do, 'cause I'm a big perv.
"Yeh. Been lackin', too." Spike dug out his cigarettes and leapt forward to hold her door open for her before she climbed into the passenger seat. Had he not made the obvious attempt to extend a hand at courtesy, she wouldn't have noticed. He had; she did, and her blushes grew more potent.
Which, of course, he caught. Vampire and all. He could probably smell that her blood was hotter than usual. "What's wrong, Summers?" he asked, frowning as he lit up. "You're warm...are you feelin' all right?"
Just say no and go to bed.
But no. No. Sensible or not, the sun had just fully set and she knew that sleep was not going to happen at all tonight, regardless of when she started trying.
"I...uhhh...I'm fine."
He peered closer at her. "Are you blushin'?"
"No. I'm just—"
Spike chuckled and released the door handle, hands coming up diplomatically. "Look, pet. Jus' wanted to be chivalrous. No strings. Don' go gettin' all dainty on me 'cause I do have cause to use manners on occasion."
Buffy opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again and sat back with a mute nod. Better to agree with him than explain herself.
The front door of the Wensel House swung open before another word could be spared, and Sam came bounding around the corner, eyes wide with a drive that she couldn't quite identify. He stopped when he saw them and flustered as though he owed them an explanation. "I'm going for my test-drive now," he said.
The blondes just looked at him.
"Yeh..." Spike said, cocking a brow. "'S fine, mate. There wasn' much wrong with it to begin with."
"Yes, but I must go test-drive it now."
And that was all he said. Before either of them could retort, he had climbed into the rental and pulled out as though all Hell's demons were following.
"An' that's the bloke that Red likes?" the vampire asked, slipping around to the driver's side door and sliding behind the wheel.
"I think so. She hasn't admitted anything." And in the category of schoolgirl infatuations, neither of them had. For some reason, she didn't think Willow would handle her crushing on Spike as well as Buffy would her crushing on Sam.
The thought made her face flame even more. Which, naturally, the vampire noticed.
"Kitten, are you sure you're okay?"
He calls me kitten.
"Yeah...ummm...yes. Yes." Buffy nodded. "We should go. Cemetery tonight. That okay with you?"
Spike grinned. "Vampire, luv. 'S home sweet home for me."
They continued like that for several minutes. Quiet, reserved trade as the Cockney navigated the Winnebago through downtown Natchez. They were getting better at the art of map reading and finding-without-asking-for-directions. The town was peppered with one-way streets that they had yet to master, but the vampire was notably talented at correcting a blunder if he made a wrong turn.
They had gotten good at this teamwork thing. And they were getting better yet.
Buffy was enjoying the silence, answering a few questions and reassuring him that she was fine every few minutes as her guilt waned and she started to feel like herself again. She was ready for another night of this—of being with Spike and getting to know who he was on levels never before touched by inquiring human minds.
She could do this. She could be with him like this, as friends. She could want him and know that he wanted her, too. She could do this until she was ready for the next level. She could—
Buffy's eyes bulged as they came to a stop at a red light. "Oh my God."
"Hmmm?"
"Spike, go."
"What?"
"Go. Now. Foot to pedal. Drive!"
"'S a red light."
"Run it." She leaned forward. "Now!"
Spike arched a brow but shrugged and did as he was told. "Okay, you got me. Breakin' the law's my specialty. We bein' followed?"
"No. We're following the Toyota."
He frowned and glanced to the car ahead. As though it knew it was being discussed, it had practically torn the road apart with its leave. "Why?"
"Because," she said simply, "—and don't ask me how I know this. I just do. And drive faster!"
"Know what?"
She released a breath. Strange. She had never been surer of anything in her life. Beyond reasonability. Beyond doubt. There was no knowledge if she wasn't positive about what lay ahead.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The sky was ready to open with a storm.
"It's Faith."
Spike's eyes widened at her. But he did not question. Did not doubt. Simply nodded and indicated that she should buckle her safety belt.
And drove.
A/N: Just caution everybody that parts of this chapter—namely the one involving Sam—might be a little disturbing. Or they might not. I felt uncomfortable writing it and my betas voiced more of the same. It's better to stick with a warning in any regard.
For every/anyone who really likes Sam, I promise to redeem myself.
Also, the Myrtles is a real place. I've been there more times than I can count. All of the information about it comes from memory.
Rain splattered heavily along the windshield, blending the onslaught of highlights into one shape. He hadn't seen anything like it—fine one minute and pouring the next. Absolutely pouring. The change had occurred so rapidly that he briefly thought he was dreaming; only his dreams were that choppy. And such would certainly explain what he had seen earlier.
But no. He wasn't surrounded with the fogged sense of alternative reality. A sigh shuddered through his lips. This was real. It was all real. Furthermore, the rain and the humidity were doing a number to fog up his glasses. He briefly debated pulling over to get a hold of himself; it was hard enough to see with a perpetual flood washing down his line of vision. And very much like the President, Sam wasn't the most cautious driver when his emotions were erratic.
Right now—all things considered—erratic was too tame a word to describe the wealth of skewed feelings that had his internal networking in overdrive.
Witchcraft.
The Deputy Communications Director shook his head. No. It wasn't possible. While Sam had never doubted his vision in such a large magnitude, he simply could not wrap his comprehension around the concept that so blatantly defied every logic he knew to be true. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. Witchcraft was practiced, sure, but it wasn't serious. It wasn't...people couldn't do that. They just couldn't.
Sam was a man of faith; there was no doubt about that. While he had never endured a genuine religious experience, he was accepting and even somewhat hopeful of the possibility. He relied on his Catholicism when things became too rough, referred to the teachings of his mother above everything else, and did his best to do right by people. It had been months since his last confession, though, and even longer since the last time he attended Mass. There just wasn't time for that anymore. Not for any of them. Of everyone he knew, Toby and the President were the only two members of the Senior Staff that heartily attempted to keep their religion a focal point in their lives—though he honestly didn't know if Toby went to Temple because it was habit or for affirmation. He just knew that he went.
That aside, he knew what he knew. He knew what he believed. He knew that many of his beliefs conflicted with the teachings of Holy Mother Church, and that likely played an unspoken factor in his lack of attendance. Similarly, he knew that the President's religion had gotten him into trouble with religious groups—particularly the Religious Right—time and time again for his more liberal view on the Constitution. This was a man who preached against abortion while confirming his belief in a woman's right to choose. A man who favored condoms in schools and stricter regulation on gun control. A man who believed it was never too late to turn a life around, and would abolish the death penalty in a blink if he could.
Sam was a bit more out there than that. He believed there was no such thing as an absolute right or wrong. That society had deconstructed itself to a point where good could not be seen without evil. But he did believe that good always prevailed when helped. When given that push forward. And he believed with all his heart that he was here doing a genuine good. That Josiah Bartlet was a better man than had ever before served as Commander and Chief, and the country took that for granted in ways that boggled his mind.
And yet, despite the absolute of goods and evils in society and the vast depth of Sam's ability to seek out the gray areas, witchcraft was simply not one of them. He had never been very good in physics, but he knew what a human was and wasn't capable of. And no one could do what he had seen Willow doing.
Only...only...
This was typical. This was beyond typical. This was the Seaborn curse. Find a girl, like her, get to know her, like her even more, and then BAM. Something bad. Always something bad. He had simply assumed that Willow's age was the bad thing and that everything else was on safe territory. But no. Oh no. She had to be a witch. Of all things crazy, she had to be a witch. Of the spell-casting, broom-flying nature. And in a world where Sam depended on logic, he was at a complete loss.
A witch.
He turned the car down Rankin, absently admiring the structuralism of the homes while his mind raced. "First Lisa," he murmured, barely even aware that he was speaking. "The estranged fiancé that left you because honest politicians make her uneasy. Then Laurie, the one-nighter that you really liked before she turned out to be a call-girl. Not that you don't like her anymore, but her profession is questionable and she refuses to let you help her. And Mallory, your boss's daughter, whom you told about said call-girl the day after." A sigh hissed through his teeth. "And now a witch. A very cute, rambly...but a witch! And a nearly underage witch, at that." He pulled to a stop at a red light and released another deep breath. "Well...at least it can't get any worse."
The perpetual black that shrouded the road was interspersed only with selective streetlights and the sheen of oncoming cars. While it wasn't necessarily foggy, the head index plus the storm seemed to do the trick enough. That plus Sam wasn't exactly at his best—thus when he nearly ran into a girl that appeared from nowhere, he felt as though the last screw holding him together had been snatched away. He slammed on the breaks and lurched forward out of instinct, his body crashing against the horn for several stunned seconds before he realized that it likely wasn't the best idea to wake up the entire neighborhood. His heart pounded. His pulse raced. His ears hummed. His fingers were wound so tightly around the steering wheel that he doubted a crowbar could pry him away.
"Oh God," he said, unaware that he was speaking. "Oh God. Oh God. Oh God."
The woman he had nearly plowed over hadn't moved. Hadn't flinched. Hadn't batted an eye. She looked at him—nearly catatonic—her eyes burning his as though she had been expecting him. Her hair was crazy and unkempt; her skin marred with dirt, scraps, bruises. And her gaze burned him. Devoured him and spat him back out. In the midst of the chaotic confusion that racked his brain, the knowledge that he had to get out and make sure she was all right, Sam found himself paralyzed with the strangest sense of foreboding.
It was a strange moment that occurred between realities. One often never recognized that his life was about to change forever the minute before it happened. But Sam did. Nothing out of pride or assumption—just knowledge. Basic knowledge. He looked into her eyes of nothingness and knew.
And perhaps that was what did him in. What sealed it for him. In a flash, the woman was gone and at his passenger side door. He had little time for reaction; the smash of glass hit the air and shards of broken window scattered across the front seat. The man squealed and pressed himself as far to the other side as possible. His heart was pounding so ferociously he thought it would be a miracle if it didn't break his chest completely. The woman lunged herself inward without a flinch, feet first so that her land was oddly graceful. All the world for a ballet.
The next thing he knew, something sharp was pressed against his throat. Sam gagged and tightened his grip on the steering wheel; anchoring himself with desperate futility.
Oh God.
He was going to die.
"I didn't mean to almost run you over," he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut. "I'm really sorry about that."
Her reply was nothing but a cold silence. Then a word. Only one. "Drive."
Drive. Sure. He could do that.
"O-okay. I...I owe you a ride, a-at the very least." Easier said than done; his foot was glued to the brake pedal. It took a few seconds for his senses to convince his body that he wasn't dead yet and if he wanted that to remain the verdict for at least another sixty years, it would be better for him to do as he was asked. "Where do you want—"
"Motel 6. Room one-nineteen."
Sam nodded urgently, having no earthly idea where the Motel 6 was. "Y-yes. I'll drive you. I'll—"
"Now!"
How he ever found it, he didn't know. Logic told him that most motels would be on the outskirts of town, so he picked a random direction and went with it. He was usually very considerate of traffic laws but likely broke every restriction outlined in every patrol manual, both here and internationally. The car came to a violent stop outside the woman's given room, and only after he had killed the engine did she remove the sliver of window glass from his jugular.
His heart was pounding to the point of pain.
"Get out."
Sam swallowed hard. "Ummm...I believe I'll be on my way. I can give you my business card if you need anyth—"
"Out!"
"Okay."
The cold slap of rainwater greeted his face as he bolted from the vehicle. He was panting hard and trembling beyond the realm of control. The woman exited the car in the same manner in which she had entered. Her eyes danced over him for a brief minute, sizing him up in a manner that was borderline appreciative.
Sam shuddered again and tried to keep his teeth from chattering.
And then he saw something that wasn't by any means possible. A human fist punched through the hood of a car as though it was made of paper. She didn't flinch or scream; her eyes closed briefly but that seemed to be all she needed to ease herself. When she withdrew her hand, she was cut and bleeding but didn't react. Her eyes were made of stone.
"We just h-had that fixed," he said, simply because there was nothing else to say.
She looked at him. He shut his mouth.
Then she was right in front of him. Her gaze burned his with the power of a supernova. There was nothing she would say that he would contest. This woman meant business: it didn't matter what kind.
"Follow me."
"Inside?"
Something sharp pressed against his abdomen. "Inside."
He had the sinking feeling that if he went in, he would never come out. However, since she was making it pretty damn clear that if he denied her now he was dead anyway, he thought it better to nod and go along with it.
The room was illuminated with the soft glow of motel lamps that the maid had undoubtedly provided in the hours of absence. The woman removed her jacket and tossed it onto one of the twin beds, flexing a shoulder in a manner that was more human than any characteristic he had seen thus far.
Something was wrong. Beyond what he knew was wrong.
"I...ummm...I hope this doesn't sound forward or...but did something happen to you?"
Her back was still to him, and she spoke in spite of his expectation of being ignored. "Ran here. I didn't have anywhere else...I was just running. And I got here. Had to get here. Now I have to get out. I have to get out. And now it won't let me leave." She glanced almost wistfully at the ceiling, temper flaring without suggestion. "I can't fucking leave!"
"Oh." Sam frowned. "Who won't let you leave?"
But that seemed to be the end of pleasantries. She turned to face him again, eyes blazing. "Take off your clothes."
"W-wh-what?"
"Your clothes. Lose them."
"I...uhhh. I don't think...yes, they are wet, but I don't need—"
"Well I do need." She began walking toward him, eyes blazing dangerously. "I've been needing for the last two weeks. Hell, if you count the big sleep before that, damn near coming to a year. And I've been trapped in this fucking motel room for days. Going out of my mind. Can't leave. He won't let me. Girl gets kinda frustrated, if you follow." Her hand was on his shoulder; his body was frozen. "Got to go out tonight. No danger tonight. Guess I have the big Q to thank for that. Takin' care of his little problem so he can deal with mine. Great. I get that. Now take off your clothes."
Sam shook his head, trying to back up but not making it very far. "L-look, I-I think you're con-confused and probably...despite what some people like to believe, I'm not the sort of man that just goes around a-and sleeps with...I don't...I'm not accustomed to...well, I did sleep with a call-girl once, but that was by accident. You're not a call-girl, are you? Not that there's anything wrong with that...well there is, seeing as it's illegal and dangerous and I don't think this is a good idea and you're unfastening my pants."
"Wow. Score one for Special Ed." Then her hand was inside his trousers, grasping him with force that was far from intimacy. She didn't want intimacy; that much was clear. She wanted a walking-dildo, and he had won first prize. "Only we have to get your little man to join the party."
Sam whimpered. "He doesn't like strangers."
"We'll have to fix that, won't we?" She yanked his belt from the loops the next minute and cracked it against her thigh. His eyes went wide. "Get comfy, honey. You're not going anywhere until I'm finished."
"That...didn't hurt?"
She shook her head, walking back to him with intent. "I don't feel pain. Not anymore." She cracked the belt again, whipping it around his wrists before pulling him into her. And Sam felt everything. His pants were around his knees, his shirt was torn and his skin was burning. He felt everything.
She pushed him onto the bed before throwing her own clothing in every which direction.
Sam gulped again when he noted she obviously wasn't going to take the needed precautions. He was far-placed from ordinary; while his body was rejecting any potential arousal for the namesake of fear, something told him that was of little circumstance. "Do you do this often?"
"Haven't had a ride since Xander, if you call that a ride."
His eyes widened, but he bit his tongue before he could repeat the name.
"I don't know who you are," he whispered as she tore away all vestiges of clothing below the beltline. He was bare and exposed and had never felt so out of control. The innate strangeness of this alongside its perversion and tied in with everything else was doing its best to convince his brain that he was dreaming a very sick dream. It wasn't working. "I don't know your name or...or anything. I don't—"
"And you're not gonna know my name," she replied, casting herself astride his ankles. "My name is not important. Neither is yours. You think I give a fuck who you are?" She glanced to his flaccid penis and licked her lips. "You're in luck, Sparky. Don't do this often. But I guess I gotta if we wanna get you goin', right?"
Sam closed his eyes. This was not happening. This could not be happening.
A hand grasped his cock and let him know just how real it was. And he sank into a dark tunnel, clawing for light while no one soothed him with answer. He was alone.
"Let me go," he whimpered as her mouth closed around him. There was nothing after that. His insides wrenched and his eyes filled with tears.
But she said nothing.
Just took.
St. Francisville was situated just outside the Mississippi Stateline in Louisiana, nestled comfortably away from metropolitan influence while still enjoying a respectful influx of seasonal tourism. The air was even more confined than Natchez, the borders smaller in size. But that didn't matter—it was homey and clean. Small but seemingly family-oriented.
Granted, they didn't get far into the town. The Toyota veered suddenly to the right just within the city-limits, and the Winnebago after it.
Not onto a road—a plantation. A home called the Myrtles.
Which made absolutely no sense.
"What the hell is she playing at?"
Spike's brows perked, slowing down obligatorily as the wheels hit gravel. The home evidently enjoyed more tourism than any of the places they had seen in Natchez—the grounds were filled with people, the parking areas nearly completely occupied. "I don' know, kitten. Only met the chit once, an' I don' think I was seein' her at her best. Well..." He drew out a breath and glanced at her wickedly. "Unless you count the skin she was wearin'."
Buffy rolled her eyes, ignoring the way her face flushed at the compliment. "Very funny."
"You're sure it's her?" It was the first time he had questioned her judgment since her gripping command before they had begun this wild goose chase. Not that he doubted her; there was nothing like a Slayer on a mission. He just knew the difference between believing something because it was true and believing something because he wanted to believe it.
"I'm sure."
Spike nodded. That was all he needed to hear. "Then hop out," he said. "We got ourselves a Slayer to catch."
They started with the grounds, which seemed logical. The Myrtles was easily larger than any of the houses they had seen—not so much in structure as in means of acreage. There was a restaurant on the premises, a pond and a gazebo. The gift shop was in the back alongside the courtyard. The property was surrounded by a number of trees; its appearance, all except the cars and the definite hum of passing traffic, made its origin more authentic.
"'S 'cause the houses in Natchez are townhouses. This 's an authentic plantation," Spike explained when she commented on it.
Buffy frowned. "How do you know that?"
"Well, other than bein' old as sin, a bloke asked at Dunleith yesterday." He tsked and shook his head in a manner that was supposed to be condescending. "'F you'd actually been payin' attention, luv, you'd know the answer, too."
"Oh, bite me."
The vampire's eyes widened and flashed a devious grin. "Well," he murmured, voice tickling her ear. She jumped slightly, not realizing how quickly he had neared. He was directly behind her; his presence as comforting as it was intimidating. "Not here. But I'll show you my goodies 'f you show me yours when we get back, savvy?"
She flushed and cleared her throat before moving ahead in hurried steps. "Yeah," she retorted as cynically as she could muster. "'Cause that's happening."
"Watch it, sweets. You'll get a bloke's hopes up."
"Well, that would be your fault."
"So says you, you minxy cocktease."
Buffy gaped and whirled around, eyes flashing. "Why you—"
Spike held a finger to his lips, indicating that they were attracting an audience. Not much for stealth-mode. "Come on," he said after the color flushing her cheeks began to pale again. "Let's find this Slayer of yours."
"Probably gone now," she pouted, but followed nonetheless.
"An' whose fault would that be?"
"I believe I'm looking at him."
The vampire grinned and shook his head. "Toyota's still in the lot, pet," he said. "'F she's here, she's here."
Buffy sighed and took a detailed look at their surroundings with some resignation. "I don't..." She paused, and her insides flushed with cold. As though a piece of her had been robbed. And then there was nothing. Just nothing. And she was dumbed into submission. A sudden burst of knowledge to blankness. She had never felt anything like it before. It left her barren—frozen from the inside out. "It's strange..." she said, a little dazed. "I don't...I'm not sure I feel her...now."
"Well, there's a bit of good news."
"It just." An exasperated sound hissed through her teeth. Comfort gone. Now nothing. "It just...God, I can't—"
An arm tightened around her middle, and she found herself reigned into a protective, soothing side before she could protest. "Calm down, pet," he murmured gently. "You felt somethin'. You felt somethin', an' it brought us here."
"But it's..." She didn't know how to explain it. How could she explain it? With a little over an hour, an entire belief had been established and destroyed. Quick. A hit-and-run. "I knew it. And now it's just gone. I—"
"Buffy, 'f you knew somethin' that strongly, there has to be a reason." His hands dropped from her sides, one worming into hers so that they were connected with platonic intimacy. A flurry of butterflies swarmed her stomach. "'F somethin' brought us here, we'll figure out why. Okay?"
Since when did Spike become her comforter? Not that she was complaining or anything. His presence was more than consoling. More so than any man before him.
He was taking a lot of those trophies for himself.
"So, what do we do?" she asked, voice nearly husky.
"'m thinkin' we check out the grounds. See 'f anything's amiss. 'F there's nothin', we'll take the tour an' get a peep on the inside. Right?"
She blinked. "The tour?"
He nodded. "Mystery tour. 'F nothin' else, it'll be worth a laugh."
Buffy still wasn't following. What the hell was he talking about?
"Well, come on, Slayer. Somethin' brought us here. 'F it wasn' Faith, an' 'f we find it wasn' the grounds, the smart thing would be to take the tour an' figure out what in God's name we're doin' here." He neared. "Toyota's still parked. Our guide's not goin' anywhere."
The Slayer licked her lips, unconsciously drawing his attention to her mouth. "It's a mystery tour?"
"Heard one of the guests talkin' about it."
"When?"
He grinned. "'Bout two minutes ago. Vampire hearin', luv. Wasn' exactly eavesdroppin'—jus' worked out that way."
"You wanna take the mystery tour."
A snicker. "Like you don't."
"Not really, no."
"You're not curious?"
"About what?"
Spike rolled his eyes. "Well, for one thing—an' please tell me 'f I'm repeatin' myself—what the bleedin' hell we're doin' here. Secondly, what makes these sodding tourist traps certifiable hauntings." When her expression remained skeptical, he sighed and bounced a little on his heel. "Come on! Donna has a yen for these places. It'll tickle her fancy to have the up close an' personal scoop."
"Assuming you did your job right, they'll be gone before we get back. And why are you wanting to impress Donna all of a sudden?"
The vampire didn't miss the note of envy in her voice. A deaf man would hear it. He ran his tongue over his teeth and grinned. "Jealous, luv?"
Buffy flushed but refused to appease him. "Dream on."
"Think I got an' itch for the delectable Ms. Moss, do you?"
She shouldn't; having seen what she had seen, there should be no doubt of his regard for her. However, with his eyes dancing and the honest sense of admiration in his tone, she could not help but feel a stab of righteousness. It was unwanted, unprecedented, but real nonetheless.
"If you do," she replied at last, "it's hardly any of my business."
"Somebody is jealous," he singsonged, determined for a confession.
"You wish."
Spike smiled. "Yeh, but we're not talkin' about me, are we?" He utilized her stupor to brush past her, tugging at her and in gentle reminder that they were connected. "Come on. They're sellin' tickets in the gift-shop."
"And I'm supposed to pay for your dork-like infatuation with these places?"
"Oi! Watch it!"
"Call it like I see it. And are we just skipping the grounds and doing the tour?"
"No. We're jus' definitely doin' the tour."
Buffy released an exasperated sigh and pouted. "Why?"
"'Cause you called me a dork. This way, kitten."
It wouldn't end there. The South and all things that had celebrated centennials seemed to bring out a childish glee in Spike that she couldn't help but find endearing. In the gift-shop, he ogled over the makeshift voodoo dolls and flipped through the ghost books, sniffed at incense and commented on how lovely the very expensive necklace under the counter would look on his traveling companion. The tickets for the mystery tour were a tad pricier than the daytime historic tour, and to her great surprise, the vampire refused to let her fork over the cash. Not that being a college student gave her much cash; being an impotent bloodsucker wasn't exactly a profitable business, either.
Buffy knew she wouldn't like it if she knew where the money had come from, thus decided not to ask. It was infinitely better to perpetuate her ignorance. As long as she didn't see him steal, she could pretend it was actually his. Of course, knowing Spike, there was the possibility it was. The guy had been around forever. There was every chance that he had learned to invest.
That was the thing with Spike. He was an enigma. And he was always surprising her.
When he learned that spirits were often captured through photography, he insisted on purchasing a throwaway camera. He was having much too much fun with this.
Thing was—he was helping her as well.
"You know this is all bogus, right?"
Spike turned to smile at her from where he was surveying the pond and gazebo. "Come on, pet," he teased. "Don' tell me you're a nonbeliever. Happen to know for a fact that you've run into your share of ghosties."
"Yeah. In the real world. This is a tourist attraction for a reason."
"Bloody hell, Slayer, learn to live a li'l." He tossed her the camera and struck a pensive pose.
That would be something to tell the others. Why Spike was standing by a random pond, creating a classic thinking-man pretense. But she laughed anyway, and his eyes sparkled at the sound.
An elderly woman stopped them on the way back to the house and asked if they would operate the camera for her and her husband so that they could pose together. After minimal persuasion, Spike convinced Buffy to join him as the couple returned the favor.
It was strange. That did not escape her. She knew it was strange. Standing next to Spike with their arms linked was strange. Even with everything that had occurred, it was still so strange. Their fights lately had been more flirty than fighty. Being here together was giving her serious couplehood wiggins. She didn't know what the vampire's thoughts on the subject were, but he seemed happy. He seemed happy, and he was never happy.
She was scared to death of what they were doing. Of what she knew. The hand that clasped hers had recently been used to seek his pleasure while thinking of her. And while she had stopped trying to convince herself that she didn't want him, there were certain things that she couldn't yet grasp. Wanting Spike was one thing; having him was something entirely different. And for the way her mind was currently set, it likely wasn't the best idea to send him welcoming signals that would do more damage than good.
She was playing with his heart without knowing what her own wanted. And yet when the lady handed the camera back to her companion and commented that they were the happiest couple she had seen, her heart swelled even as her face flushed. Spike smiled and nodded his thanks, murmuring something that she didn't quite catch.
Then it was time to go in. And as they crossed the threshold, Spike's hand darted down to grasp hers, a hiss whistling through his teeth. The side-windows were paneled with crosses, and while they didn't bother him to any great extreme, he winced and squeezed her hand all the same.
The tour itself was a laugh: slightly entertaining but mostly ridiculous. It was noted that the house itself was built on an ancient tunica Indian burial ground, thus explaining the vast number of disturbances. Such was ironic, of course, because much of the design was structured to keep bad spirits away—the crosses, upside-down key holes in doors, angels looking down on the four corners of each room to ward evil off. When it came time to take a picture of the mirror that was said to house the spirits of Judge Clark Woodruff's wife and two children, Spike couldn't get the camera to work and spent the next ten minutes banging it against every piece of furniture he found until the tour guide snapped at him.
Buffy supposed this was interesting to anyone who entertained the idea of ghosts as a passing whimsy. However, evil spirits and demons were her profession, so she spent the bulk of the hour rolling her eyes and scowling at her companion when he stepped on her toe or nudged her hard to keep her from speaking up.
And through it all, there was nothing. No sign of what they were supposed to do here. No Faith. No indication of purpose. Nothing. Nothing but a colossal waste of time.
When they got back to Natchez, Buffy was going to crawl in bed and sleep away the rest of the week.
Evidently, by the time the group had moved to the old part of the house—back through the entry hall, the dining room, and into the ladies' parlor—Spike had likewise lost his interest and took instead to pestering her like an insolent child. He tugged on her ears when it was noted that one of the favorite tricks of the residential ghosts was to steal women's earrings. The guide mentioned that many guests complained about some spirit of childlike stature pulling on skirts or trousers, as though trying to get their attention. Spike replicated this as best he could without getting smacked. And when it was pointed out that furniture had a habit of moving on its own, he nonchalantly kicked over the nearest chair before appearing enchanted in one of the paintings on the wall as the other guests started sprouting a series of ridiculous theories.
It was a miracle that they weren't asked to leave.
The tour concluded in the study with a passing of pictures that had captured images of spirits on the grounds. And the guide once again extended the invitation to snap a photo of the mirror in the entry hall to anyone who hadn't had the chance earlier.
With Buffy's fervent protests, Spike grabbed her wrist and dragged her back. He waited until the bed and breakfast guests had retreated either upstairs or to one of the outer rooms before flashing a pert grin.
"Wanna pose?"
"For crying out loud, stop wasting time and let's go."
"'F I din't know better, I'd say someone's spooked."
"Spike, you don't know better. I'm tired. We wasted three hours and gas getting up here. Let's just go back."
He shook his head, aiming the camera at the mirror. "Hester said it has to flash, right?"
"Yes. So that the large purple spot can look like a ghost. Can we leave now?"
"Swear, Slayer, that bug up your ass must be suffocatin'. Why don' you kill it an' put it out of it's misery?"
She scowled. "There is nothing wrong with my ass!"
At that, Spike cocked a brow and leaned back, giving the appropriated area a long, hard glance before grinning his consent. "You're tellin' me."
"For Chrissake, take the picture!"
He made a face of her, but did as he was told. And as the flash went off, so did the lights.
In the whole house.
There was a long pause; Buffy's breath lingered in the air as her eyes went wide.
"Oh God."
"Yeh, that was some flash."
"Spike? Where are you?"
Something cool and familiar grasped her hand and tugged her to a comforting side. "Right here," he murmured into her ear. "Don' get nervous, kitten."
"Nervous?"
"Yeh. 'Cause there's every possibility that I jus' bollixed us up."
She wouldn't put it past him. "How?"
"I don' know 'f our guide noticed we were goin' back."
Buffy swallowed. Hard. "Huh? That doesn't...why would you think she—"
The next thing she knew, she was being dragged to the nearest window, her eyes catching the rear of the Toyota as it made its way up the drive and disappeared.
Oh shit.
"Oh, I dunno," Spike retorted. "Lucky guess."
It was with much reluctance that Buffy agreed to wait until morning rather than tear down the door of an eighteenth century landmark, though she claimed that without reconstruction it wouldn't matter much. Plus, a loud crashing noise in what was supposed to be one of America's Top Thirteen Most Haunted Houses likely wouldn't help to improve the temperament of the guests upstairs, unless they had come here specifically for a fright.
She likewise didn't want to move out of the foyer and into the darker part of the house. Spike teased her for a few seconds until she offered to throw him against the plated cross-patterned glass, which he said she didn't have the stones to do but quieted all the same.
Once upon a time she would have had no qualms in demonstrating how very little she cared for the platinum vampire. Once upon a time not too long ago. Just a few short weeks had passed since the disastrous Will Be Done spell; she and Spike had been macking on each other like time knew no end, confessing love and planning wedding services.
She remembered feeling disgust after the spell was over. Wiping her mouth and glancing down at the vampire in horror. The emptiness that seared her insides as her love dissipated and the harsher reality stepped in. What they had been playing at was impossible, of course. It wasn't real. There was no sense in missing something that hadn't been there in the first place.
What they had now, though; that was real.
It was so real.
And now she was stuck with him all night. After what she had seen; the image of him in the shower was never far from hindsight. He wanted her. And she really wanted him.
The only thing standing in the way was pride. Pride and ethics. Pride because she was who she was—ethics because it was so damn hard to remember that he was a vampire. Vampires weren't supposed to act like he did. They weren't supposed to care, for God's sakes. And they certainly weren't supposed to want the Slayer.
This was a creature that had killed for over a century without remorse. There was no okay in that.
When did one line of ethics cancel another out?
She was trembling with the overwhelming weight of practicality, and Spike watched her with quiet concern. "'S all right, luv," he said soothingly after a few minutes. "Calm down. Sit. Be merry."
"Easy for you to say."
The vampire sighed and leaned back again. "Don' see why you're so skittish. 'S not like we can do anythin'."
He must have interpreted her erratic pacing as a sign of annoyance, which was easier to go with as it did not require embarrassing confessionals. "This is your fault, you know."
"Yeh. Tell me 'f this sounds familiar. 'Spike. Drive. Now.'"
Buffy rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. "Right. Tell me if this sounds familiar." She huffed and adapted the worst feigned accent to ever touch the air. "'Let's take the bloody tour, luv. 'S'a bunch've jolly good fun.'"
Spike grinned in spite of himself. "You know you sound ridiculous, right? An' I never say 'jolly good.'"
"You got us stuck in an old, creepy house until tomorrow morning." She pouted and stomped her foot petulantly. "I'm hungry!"
"Welcome to my world, kitten."
"You're used to it."
"Oh, so it must be a bloody load of fun for me."
She shook her head. "No. It just means I don't care as much."
The vampire flashed a cheeky grin and reached for her hand; not relenting until she accepted his tacit offer and curled up beside him. Ethics be damned. Spike is comfy. "Blokes'll likely be in 'round five or six," he murmured, mouth against her ear. "We'll run out an' make a pit stop so you don' starve. Nice big brekky for my Slayer tomorrow."
Buffy's world was coming closer to falling apart at the hinges. "Not your Slayer," she argued without conviction even as she allowed him to slide an arm around her shoulders.
Then she froze. In the iron dark of an old Southern home, Spike nuzzled her hair with delicate tenderness, the hint of his cold breath sending shivers down her back. He felt so good. Just being held felt good. As if she was precious and he was her keeper. There was certain safety in the measure of his arms. And she treasured it. "Yes you are," he murmured.
"Spike..."
"Always been my Slayer, luv."
Buffy blinked at him. She was becoming steadily unglued. The sincerity in his voice and the power of his conviction was enough to rightly do anyone in. She released a shuddering breath and looked away when it became too much, licking her lips and rustling slightly as if daring her body to make Spike's presence uncomfortable.
She was diving headfirst into a drained cement pool and relying that faith would pull her through without harm. There had to be a guideline on how to behave around him. A warning that would push her Slayer sense into victory.
She was losing herself too fast. Much too fast. And she couldn't stop.
"So, you think this is real or jus' bollocks?"
Buffy started and sent him a worried look. "What?"
"The house. Doesn' seem too ghostly to me."
Oh.
"Oh." She expelled a deep breath and shook her head. "No. It all seems pretty ridiculous, really. Ghosts and whatnot. I mean, I've seen ghosts. I've even been semi-possessed once. This doesn't really do much for me on the creep-factor."
"Yeh," Spike agreed, absently playing with the wisps of her hair. The touch was intimate and more than disconcerting, but it felt too good to stop. "'Ave yet to meet a spook. Dru used to think she could channel 'em. Half the time it was the bloody radio."
She arched a brow. "And the rest of the time?"
"Once she got Gerald Ford. Bloke's not dead yet."
A grin spread across her face. "Maybe she was just on to something."
"Doubtful, pet." Spike smiled warmly and settled back.
It occurred to her directly out of the very dense blue that this was all real. She was actually sitting in the dark of an antebellum and allegedly haunted home with a former enemy-turned-friend-turned-crush with his arm around her, virtually snuggling in the shadows of an abandoned foyer. And it was wrong. She knew it was wrong; she knew she should get up and clarify their position once and for all. State why some things could never change.
It just wasn't in her. She wanted those things to change. She liked the feel of him against her—warm and comforting. Giving what they had a name was dangerous territory. It just helped in making it more real. But even so, Buffy was coming to the slow realization that she was approaching an unavoidable inevitability. And for everything there was in her, she simply couldn't care to stop it. There would be problems, of course, but nothing too great to not make it worthwhile. To make it worth them. Worth this.
Her head was just inches from finding his shoulder.
"'S this bad?" Spike asked softly, breaking into her thoughts as though he had been observing them.
"Is what bad?"
"Bein' here." His eyes darted down almost bashfully. "I know that 's inconvenient an' what all, an' that we were...well, wrong—"
"I was wrong. You were following." She paused. "Granted, the tour idea—"
"We did it together, kitten. Still say somethin' brought us here for a reason." He cleared his throat. "But 's not...bein' here with me...'s not horrible, is it?"
He looked flustered, even nervous. So completely apprehensive in his turn that it warmed her heart. Little by little, he was letting her into the far recesses of what made him human more than monster. What made him tick. And that was what she craved.
What she was beginning to need.
"It's not bad," she said, edging closer.
"No?"
"This is going to sound beyond lame." Buffy smiled reassuringly, both for his sake and hers. "But...it's getting harder for me to remember that you're—well—you."
Spike domed a brow. "Should I be offended?"
"Well, you're a vampire." She ignored his incredulous stare even as her cheeks flushed at her obviousness. "And you've tried to kill me a bunch of times."
At that, she caught a hint of shame flood his eyes just seconds before he banished it. Such a strange thing to see him betray, demon or not. "I can't say anythin' to that," he replied. "Only that I...things have happened to me, Buffy. I don' know what. Can't say I'm sorry, 'cause I wasn'. Not then, an' I'm not apologizin' for what I am. I was made this way."
"I know."
"The others...'ve killed others. But that's jus' what I'm s'posed to do."
"Yeah." The Slayer glanced down again. Her own thoughts were becoming examples of their own willful ignorance. "But it's wrong, Spike."
"To you 's wrong. To me, 's food. An' I'm sorry, but that's the way it works." Off her look, he sighed and looked away. "Okay. How's this. Lions an' zebras are both mammals, right? Same genus, different race. Lions need to eat zebras to survive. 'S what there is—what they were made for. Demons aren't a mistake, luv, an' neither are you. 'S the battle for it all that makes this world keep spinnin'. Vamps are nasty bastards, I'll grant you, but..." He exhaled again slowly, finding her gaze and holding. "Whatever it was, 's over for me now. Something's changed. Been changin' for...God, I don' even know anymore. But Buffy...I would never hurt you. You know that, right?"
The Slayer paused, breath catching in her throat. It was such a quiet revelation, but one that she had stopped questioning longer than she could have realized. Spike wouldn't hurt her. Not now. When he looked at her now, it was with care, admiration, and an urge to protect. In such a short amount of time, he had exceeded all expectations for any man that had played a significant role in her life.
"This is so strange," she murmured.
"Buffy?"
A long sigh escaped her lips and she nodded when the look in his eyes flickered with doubt. "You would never hurt me."
"Never," he swore ardently.
"I know." She smiled at his smile, daring to edge even closer. "But it's...it's strange."
"Yeh." Spike released a deep breath. "Happened fast."
"Yeah."
There was a brief pause. "'S more than that," the vampire said, and she could tell simply from his tenor that he was choosing his words carefully. "An' I know 's not jus' me." She trembled at the conviction behind his gaze, body humming with self-conscious. "There's somethin' else happenin' between us."
For all the dancing around that revelation they had been doing for the past few days, hearing it given shape in the form of words was almost anticlimactic. Almost but not quite. Her heart dropped in her chest and her skin seared with heat. "I...uhhh..." She glanced down. "Spike...that's not...what I mean is, we can't—"
"Why can't we?"
Buffy wet her lips and edged an inch away out of obligation. "We can't," she repeated. "It's...I know what you're...but we can't."
"Right. Slayer, vamp. Don' feed me rot, luv. 'm not some lackey. You know who I am." He tugged her back to him, scowling as though to berate her disobedience. "But 's there. You're not denyin' that it's there."
"I—"
"Buffy."
There came a point in every rational conversation where lying to oneself just didn't seem fair anymore. What was this other than what she had been tormenting her inner conscious over since the night at the Bronze? Nothing. Masking herself from something so blatantly manifest was not helping anyone. "It's there."
Spike's eyes softened. "Well, that's somethin'."
"But I can't. We can't." She tore her gaze away from his, hugging her knees and staring insistently on a spot in the worn carpet. "I...despite how things have changed...I can't."
An irritated rumble surged through the vampire, and he sat up to be level with her. "Did it ever occur to you that's 's not exactly somethin' for me to be singin' about, either? I din't want this to happen. Fuck, all I wanted was to be left alone. An' yeh, I might've carried a yen after the spell was over. Bloody impossible not to." He smiled dryly when she tentatively looked at him with curiosity that could not be denied. "But 's more than that to me now. An' to you, too."
There was nothing inherently demanding buried within his words, but the hint of agonized longing stuffed tightly beneath layers of self-defense tugged on her heart. "What I feel...it doesn't matter, Spike. It's just...it's wrong."
And there it was. A sting of pain as she had never seen before. His head reeled as though she had slapped him, his eyes searing with angered hurt. "Oh, 's wrong, is it?" he snapped. "But it was jus' dandy to watch me wank off an' pretend that never happened?"
The floor beneath her ceased to exist. "Gu-huh?"
He leered at her unpleasantly. "You're not as stealthy as you think you are, sweetheart. Plus you left your scent waftin' right outside the bloody loo, so don' even pretend that you were jus' happenin' by." There was another beat. He tilted his head in consideration. "An' I'll tell you somethin' else: you smell heavenly when you're excited. Sodding aphrodisiac. Gets a bloke all riled up."
"Oh God."
"Y'know, you could've jus' joined me. Gotten rid of both our itches right quick."
She jumped up in a frenzy, too embarrassed to look him in the eye; too ashamed to allow another word to pass. Of what—her indiscretion, her refusal; a world of possibilities waiting at her feet. "Oh God. Oh God."
"Interestin' to know the Slayer's virtue doesn' flutter until she's caught with her hand in the cookie jar."
"My hand wasn't anywhere."
He quirked a brow and flashed a nasty smirk. "Well now," he drawled. "There's an image to keep me company on lonely nights."
"Shut up!" She was pacing now; up and down the carpet, her gaze avoiding him and her body trembling with the weight of furthered anxiety. "Oh God. Oh God."
"Yeh. Keep doin' that. It'll make it go away."
"Shut up!" she snapped again as her fingers came up to massage her temples. "I didn't mean to. It just...it happened. But that..." Buffy's hands fell to her sides the next minute. "You're a vampire."
"Thought we had that much covered, pet."
"I have to remember that, Spike. Bad things happen when I let vampires in." She shook her head, voice trembling. There was a beat at that; she knew she had said something to make him catch his proverbial breath. "I'm not...I can't do this again. It's wrong. It was wrong the first time, and I knew it. I knew it but did I care? No. No caring from Buffy. And people died. I didn't care and people died."
Silence settled in—slow molasses encasing them in an endless vat of nothing. "Buffy..."
"People died," she repeated, back still to him. "People died because of me. Because I didn't care. Jenny...Giles lost Jenny. Angel killed God-knows-how-many because I couldn't...and it was because of me. Because I thought that I could tame a vampire because he had a soul. And even after he came back...God, how stupid can I be?"
"Buffy—"
"People don't matter to you, though. Just food. Just—"
"Buffy, stop." He was behind her in a second, whirling her around so that she was sucked again into the endless ocean of his eyes. The sneer that had been there just seconds ago was gone. The mock, the bitter sarcasm, the everything. There was nothing but empathy. Empathy from a vampire. From Spike. It made her head spin. "'m not Peaches, luv. I'm not him."
"I know."
"An' you know that I would never hurt you."
Buffy licked her lips, looking away when it became too much. "Not intentionally."
"Not ever, pet. Not anymore. Somethin's happened to me. Bloody bollixed everything up, but it's real. An' I—"
"It's not your hurting me that I'm worried about." She met his eyes again reluctantly, pulling away when his grip on her loosened. "You...you're pretty much you. All the time. You can't get any worse."
There was a dry snort at that. "Thanks."
"No, I mean—"
"No soul to lose, right. I got that much." Spike sighed and cast a hand through his hair. "I have no soul. You don' think I know what that means? For a sodding century, I've had everythin' handed to me. What wasn' handed, I took. That's the way I lived. I can't do anythin' about that. 'S over. A part of my past. 'S how I was taught. It was what I'm s'posed to do. This—" He gestured erratically between them. "—isn't. . I'm everythin' you're s'posed to hate? Well, pet, that's a two-way street. I'm through with that now. This is everythin' I'm s'posed to hate. Was never one for conformity."
Buffy shook her head. "I can't."
"You don' think I know that you'd be hurt 'f I hurt others, luv? You don' think I knew exactly what I was sayin' when I told you that? I've been around forever. I don' fuck with you like that." He released a steady breath when she stopped struggling and just slacked, looking at him with quieted calm. "'m not sorry for anythin' I've done. I can't be. Don' have that networkin'. But I do know what I'm capable of. I don' want to hurt you. I won't." He reached for her chin, catching it before he fell again. "You've broken me."
"I didn't mean to."
"I know." A gentle smile crossed his face. "I was angry for a while, but that din't do rot. Neither of us meant for this. It jus' happened." Another beat past; he was close. So close. "An' I wouldn't change that for anythin'."
Then he was kissing her. His lips moving over hers with such delicacy, such tenderness that she doubted her own tangibility. It took less than two seconds to decide what to do; her arms went around his neck and her mouth ravaged at his. The bubbling non-form of everything that had been agonizing her for days erupted with a vicious cry, and there was nothing else. Nothing but Spike. The taste of cigarettes and the scent of leather fogging her senses. His arms around her, holding her body to his as his tongue explored her mouth, fighting hers—seeking, needing that something else. She didn't realize that they had moved until she felt him hit the wall beside the piano. Didn't matter. She couldn't stop kissing him.
They slid slowly to the ground, entangled in each other. Her legs abound his waist and her nails dug into his forearms, her pelvis undulating against the hardness pressed against her. Needing that friction. Every strangled gasp that escaped his throat played harmoniously to her ears. His fingers tunneled through her hair, his throat humming small pleasurable murmurs with every taste he stole. He drank her in as though he was dying of thirst. His hands took route all over her body. Holding her arms, massaging her hips, rubbing her shoulders. With every touch of his lips, every sweep of his tongue, she sampled that much more of what she had been missing. Since the end of the spell, since the beginning of something she was still too small to comprehend. This—whatever it was—was larger than both of them combined. To fight it was a fool's prerogative.
"God," he rasped, breaking from her mouth to explore her throat with his lips and tongue. "God. I want you so much."
"Uhhh..." Her teeth found his earlobe and nibbled softly. She pressed herself against his erection and squeezed his shoulders with wordless encouragement.
Spike released a throaty moan, throwing his head back as his hands battled with the hem of her shirt. "Buffy..."
The move initiated the sound of the first warning bell. Too fast.
Her body, though, refused to listen. Instead she found his mouth again, wrestling away greedy kisses as their hips moved together with strained sensuality. The feelings he elicited were unlike any she had ever experienced. An emotional overdrive ready to burst.
No more running. Whatever this was, they could not go back.
They could not go back, but there was every possibility of moving forward too fast. And as his hands cupped her laced breasts and began exciting her nipples through the thin material, a light shone through hazy fog and she forced her mouth from his body.
She had to stop now before they ruined everything with urgency.
"Spike—"
"God, Buffy," he murmured, voice half-dazed. "Never felt anythin' like this. Never—"
"Spike, I need—"
"Know what you need, baby. Gonna take such good care of you."
"Time, Spike. I need time."
It happened immediately—the loss of his touch. The cold fall as his mouth drew from her skin and his hands fell to her thighs. Buffy drew in a breath and held, meeting his eyes with misplaced trepidation.
He looked at her with a different sort of knowledge. The heat behind his gaze burned her thoroughly, and amidst notable disappointment there was consideration; understanding that she would never have credited him with. An acknowledgement of their time.
"Time," he rasped, voice rough with the edge of his arousal. "You need time."
She nodded. "Y-yes. It's just...I want this—"
"God, I do, too."
"But I need time." A shuddering breath coursed through her system and she glanced down with shades of apology. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"
"Bollocks." Spike smiled kindly. She loved that smile on him. The one he reserved for her; the one he gave her now when he thought no one else was looking. "We're worth waitin' for."
He said it with such conviction, there was nothing to do but believe. With wherever this was leading them, it was larger than either could have foreseen; that much was manifest simply within the power of their connection. Of what they had shared without crossing boundaries that others would recognize.
It was better to approach emotional revolutions with babysteps. She had lost so much by being foolish. By following her heart. She didn't want to lose this, too.
"You should rest," Spike observed, helping her off his lap as she assumed the seat beside him once more. "It'll be mornin' soon."
Buffy snickered dryly. "You think they heard us?" she asked, indicating the upper floor with a jerk of her head.
"Prob'ly jus' thought it was spooks," he replied with an indifferent shrug. "Guess I could stomp up to the...the seventeenth step an' clinch it."
"Was it the seventeenth?"
"Bugger 'f I know or care. You need to rest, sweets."
She stifled a yawn. Where said yawn had come from, she didn't know. Perhaps the vampire had a more pronounced power of suggestion. "I'm not sleepy."
He chuckled. "Yes you are."
"Spike?"
"Mmmm?"
"If Faith didn't bring us here, what did?"
She felt him go still against her even as his hand gently encouraged her head to fall onto his shoulder. "Dunno," he replied after a minute. "But it was somethin'."
"Yeah."
Something. Something that they had yet to find. That thought didn't rest well with her. But there was nothing to do. Nothing she could do if she didn't know what she was looking for.
Just nothing.
Nothing but wait for morning.
The pit of her stomach fell and the rest of her lurched with instantaneous forewarning. Every nerve in her body hummed and her heart was pounding so loud that she didn't know if her body could withstand it. Such was not an unusual occurrence upon awakening, though. She experienced it often. More often than she cared to consider.
There were certain indisputable truths drawn between regular dreams and prophetic dreams. That was merely one of them.
Buffy blinked and sat up, her eyes falling to Spike, who was curled up beside her. Every muscle in her body ached from resting on a hardwood floor. She would probably have that crick in her neck until she was fifty.
But that wasn't important right now.
"Spike."
He murmured slightly and his grip around her tightened. It was then she realized that his arms were nestled around her waist, and smile rose to her lips. It hardly surprised her; she never really was one for sleeping while sitting up. His arms were around her waist and his head was resting comfortably on her belly. And while her previous conviction of the much-needed time rang true, she felt utterly cared for in ways she could not have fathomed.
But that hardly distracted her from the cause of her awakening.
"Spike."
"Mmpppffff."
"Spike!" She whacked him lightly upside the head. "Wake up!"
That did the trick. A sleepy murmur rumbled through his throat and his eyes blinked open. It took a second, but he eventually found her gaze and offered a sexy morning smile that stole the breath from her lips. "'Lo, pet."
He was more distraction than any woman needed. "We're on something."
"You're tellin' me."
"No. I mean...there's something under the floor." She sat up at that, wiggling away from his embrace.
"Huh's that?"
Her fingers were already prying at the floorboards. "Slayer dream," she murmured.
Spike didn't do anything. Just sat and looked at her dumbly. "Uhhh, luv?"
"You were the one saying we're here for a reason. Well, Slayer dreams tend to point to reasons." The first plank came up without much resistance and she was rewarded with a face-full of sawdust. "Help me," she coughed.
"When I said 'reason', I was meanin' a more—"
"Spike!"
"Right."
Slayer strength in addition to a vampire's assistance made a virtually impossible task executed in a few quick minutes. The sky was still dark but dots of light were beginning to spread over the horizon, leaking through the cross-paned glass and into the foyer as minutes wore on. It didn't make the endless darkness of the virtual hole they were digging any easier to penetrate, which was why—at times like these—it was handy to have a vampire convenient. With three floorboards removed and nothing but blackness staring back at her, she turned to her companion and smiled sweetly.
Spike sighed. "You're off your nutter, you know that?"
"Just look."
"Gonna get sued for property destruction."
"We are not. And since when do you care, Mr. How-Many-Times-Can-I-Run-Into-The-Sunnydale-Sign?"
"That's different. 'S the Hellmouth. This place—"
"Is a tourist trap that they renovate every three months anyway."
He sulked a bit. "Do not."
"Spike! Just look!"
He released another sigh as though it was some horrible chore, but smothered a smile all the same and did as she requested.
"Anything?"
"Could you get a tighter grip on your horses? I jus'—whass'at?"
Buffy's heart rate doubled. "Spike?"
"Gotta tell you, luv. You're good."
"I know. What do you see?"
"A very big rat."
The Slayer's face dropped. She was going to kill him. "I swear to God—"
"Sittin' on a very old book."
Her words stopped in her throat and her eyes widened. "A book?"
"Yeh." There was a brief pause and a rustle; Spike emerged from the dark a few seconds later, blowing on a dusty cover. "I'll give you this," he said, taking in the look in her eyes. "When you decide to gamble, you hit the jackpot."
"What is it?"
"A book."
Her eyes narrowed. "Spike—"
"Hidden under a haunted house that was built on an ancient tunica burial ground?" He perked a brow. "As Poltergeist as it sounds, kitten, this place was here firs'. Reckon this might be worth a look-see. 'Sides..." He offered a gentle smile. "Slayer's intuition's never wrong."
Buffy nodded slowly, licking her lips. "We gotta get this to Giles," she decided. "Now."
The first hour passed without incident. While Sam very definitely was one to keep his cool even in the most extenuating circumstances, he did have a habit of sulking away from others when his temper wasn't at its best. Thus, the irritability of both Josh and Toby combined with the stress embedded naturally in such helpless situations was immediately placed at the fault of his disappearance.
Besides, he had an inherent interest in history. Now that their time in Natchez was running out and he had the means to do so, he was likely enjoying the roundabout tour and ingesting everything he could.
"Here's what I don't understand," Josh said, peering over Donna's shoulder before she thwapped him away. "We were only going to be gone for four days, and yet you manage to pack your entire wardrobe in two very small suitcases and a handbag."
"Feminine ingenuity," she replied with a shrug. "It's hardly my entire wardrobe. Besides, a girl can never be too careful. I might've met Mr. Right, become an heiress, and left you."
"You would never."
"Leave you?"
"Become an heiress. You don't have that kind of luck."
"You're a mean man. You know this, right?"
"Besides, as insane as they may be, I'm pretty sure our housemates are not republicans or your ex-boyfriend, and therefore wouldn't hold your interest." Josh sighed and ignored her affronted look, sliding a piece of paper from the nightstand with interest. "What's this?"
"Message from Leo."
"When did you get this?"
"He called your cell when you were outside not-fixing the car." She shrugged, folding another t-shirt and returning his favor of willful disregard.
"And you were planning on telling me...?"
She looked up. "Josh, Leo called. He wants you to look into a thing when you get back."
"Sometimes there is just no good reason not to fire you."
"I hope you remember saying that when I leave you to become an heiress."
"Never gonna happen."
"Why not?"
Josh quirked a brow. "Because I say so. Why can't you tell me when people call?"
"You can't do anything about it now. He just wanted you to know that it would be a thing." Donna shrugged. "I didn't want you to start complaining about something until the absolute minute that you needed to."
He scowled and held out the message. "Why would I complain about this?"
"Because I know you, and you will."
"It just happens to be a bad assignment."
"And hence the complaining."
"I'm not complaining. I'm making a very valid observation." Josh sighed and turned his eyes back to the sheet. "I swear, I get handed 197, stuck in Hicksville USA, and now Leo wants me to—"
"Well, when you get through not-complaining, I'll be downstairs trying to become an heiress."
He smiled dryly. "By means that are almost positively self-depreciating."
"I'm going to leave you, you know."
"Yes, and become an heiress."
"There happen to be three very eligible British men staying in this house." Donna quirked her head as he shot her a mildly amused look. "I'll have you know that Wesley finds me very charming."
"Great. You've charmed a ringleader in the freak show brigade. I'd be impressed, too."
Her face fell. "Leaving you."
"Never happen," he replied loudly, eyes scanning the message once more as the door shut determinedly behind her.
But that had been the first hour. Just the first. The next few ticked by sluggishly with no result. And when Giles came inside inquiring after Buffy and Spike's whereabouts, Donna began to panic.
A lot.
Donna was panicking, and it took everything that Josh and Toby had from refraining to express their similar concern. It was not in Sam's nature to randomly disappear for hours on end. He was likely the only male on the President's senior staff that did not presently nor previously make a habit of going out for the purpose of getting drunk. And while his fascination with history was fervent, it was very unlike him to stay out as late as it was in a strange town with nothing but local interest to keep him occupied.
Something was wrong.
"We should go look," Donna insisted. "We need to go looking for him. Mr. Giles has a Winnebago—"
"Buffy and Spike have the Winnebago," Xander said softly.
"And no one bothered to ask them where they were going?" Josh demanded, pacing the room. Both parties had decided tacitly to confer in the parlor of the main house, as it was the only place large enough to accommodate them. "You just handed them the keys and—"
"They're trying to find Faith," Anya replied.
"Well, you've been trying for three days now," Toby snapped. "I'm thinking the girl doesn't wanna be found."
"All the more reason to find her," Giles retorted, removing his glasses. "But that is not the point. Buffy and Spike's absence is conspicuous at best, but hardly timely."
"Conspicuous, yeh," Josh snorted.
"You really don't wanna go there," Xander advised. "Really."
"I don't think I need any directions on where I do and don't wanna go, thank you."
Donna sighed. "Josh..."
Willow had remained silent for the entirety of the impromptu gathering, her eyes glued to the carpet. When it became apparent, however, that they were headed into an all-out screaming match, she knew that staying silent was no longer an option and cleared her throat for the floor. "I can't speak for Buffy and Spike," she said, flushing at the feel of everyone's eyes on her. "Buffy's been acting really strange lately...and she does have a habit of disappearing for hours at a time because of...well...stuff. But I...I think Sam's gone because of me."
That revelation effectively stunned the room.
"Because of you?" Josh repeated, brows arched.
Donna wasn't so fast to brush the notion off. She neared the redhead tentatively, eyes filling with compassion. "Why would Sam leave because of you, Willow?"
"Yes," Toby mumbled from his position against the wall. "Please follow that through with logic."
Xander and Giles shot her identical looks of warning, but she ignored them. "Sam...he walked in...I was in the kitchen and he walked in...we..." She licked her lips and swallowed hard. "There were words. I think I upset him. He saw something he wasn't ready to see."
Josh perked a brow. "You do understand that Sam's boyish innocence doesn't mean he's never been with a woman before, right?"
Donna scowled at him. Willow's flush deepened.
"I wasn't suggesting that he...that's not what I'm saying."
"Thank God," Toby said.
"Sam wouldn't run off like this because of anything you did," Josh said. "And if you think he's the kind of guy that would, well, that just proves that you don't know him all that well."
Wesley frowned, speaking up for the first time when he spotted an open window. "Willow was not implying anything of the sort."
"Well, yes she was. And even if she wasn't, I'm a politician. Trust me, I have the art of saying things while meaning another down pat."
"Where would Buffy and Spike go?" Donna asked.
Xander shrugged. "Normal hits, I guess. The cemeteries, the—"
"The what?" Toby retorted, eyes wide.
"Oh God."
Josh stepped forward. "The cemeteries?"
"Faith hunts in cemeteries," Anya said, unblinking.
The Scoobies stopped unanimously and just looked at her.
"Is Faith a person or a dog?" the Communications Director asked.
There was a pause. "Well..." Xander replied, shrugging. "I can see why one would make that assumption."
"We can't just sit here," Donna said. "We have to find Sam."
"How?" Josh snapped. "We have no wheels, it's storming, and we're in a strange town. How do you wanna do it, 'cause I'm open to suggestions here."
There was another pause. The Scoobies stopped and glanced at the Witch.
"Willow..." Giles said after a moment. "Perhaps in light of the current circumstances, you would like to—"
She had jumped to her feet the next minute, nodding her accord. "Yes. Yes." She turned to the others, nodding still even if they had no idea what she was agreeing to. "I'll go now and...do that. But my stuff—"
"Just do what you can."
"Going."
"Where exactly is she going?" Josh asked after the redhead's footsteps could no longer be heard on the floor above them.
"She's going to try to help."
Toby shifted a little, balancing his weight from one leg to the other. "By doing what, exactly?"
Giles met his gaze and held. "Helping."
And that was it. No more discussion on the matter. Just waiting.
No one had really invested much confidence in Willow's ability to solve their problem as fluently as her friends had been hoping. And when that inexorably fell through, they were once again at a loss as to a plausible course of action. It was more than frightening—it was just strange. And they were at an irrefutable standstill.
Much later that night when everyone had consigned there was nothing to do until morning and agreed to try to sleep, Josh and Donna were up and talking, keeping constant watch out the window and looking at their cells every few minutes. "Maybe someone recognized him and is going to hold the President ransom," the blonde said worriedly. "Oh God, Josh. We should call Leo and let him know. We should—"
"I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Sam's not as noticeable as some others." He paused, then nodded as though to convince himself. The look in his eyes verified, however, that he had not ruled out the possibility. "We'll find him."
"How?"
"I don't know yet. We just will." Another heavy breath passed through his lips. "You should really get some sleep, Donna."
Easier said than done. Yet she managed, as did Josh. They slept surprisingly hard until around four-thirty in the morning when a desperate but soft knock sounded at the door.
Then they were up, and sleep was out of the question.
It was Josh who opened the door—it was Donna who ran forward.
"Oh my God! Sam! Oh my God."
She had never seen him look worse. His hair was a mess, his body aligned with sores and scrapes. He was dressed in nothing but jeans and sneakers, and his skin was damp with rainwater. More over, his entire body was trembling, and not just with the cold. He started a bit at the shrill in her voice, but looked at her with such relief that it inspired tears to her eyes almost immediately.
"Hey."
"God, Sam." Josh took him by the arm and guided him inside. "What the hell happened?"
"I'm gonna make you some coffee," the blonde said, unable to stop from shaking. "You want some coffee?"
The Deputy Chief of Staff glanced up at her wearily, but he smiled anyway. "Donna, it's four-thirty in the morning."
"Yeah. I'm gonna go make coffee."
"No, it's okay." Sam held up a hand and offered her a worn but thankful smile. "I don't need coffee."
Donna didn't look convinced but nodded all the same and moved back to the bed. "Are you okay?"
"Of course he's not okay!" Josh yelped. "Look at him!"
Sam flinched a bit. The other man immediately quieted. "Are you okay?"
Donna rolled her eyes and stood. "Do you want to tell us what happened?"
"It's...I..." He glanced down, still trembling. "I don't know where to start."
"It's okay." The blonde patted his knee encouragingly but backed off when he flinched again. "How about what happened after you left with the car for the test-drive?"
"Willow." He blinked. "Is Willow okay?"
Josh and Donna exchanged a look over his head. "Why would Willow not be okay?" the latter asked.
"I saw her in the kitchen and...I was wrong. There's no doubt about that, I was wrong." He stood abruptly. "I have to go apologize now."
"Sam—"
"I was wrong and I need to tell her. I need—"
"Sam!" Josh flashed an apologetic look when he flinched again. "Sit down. Willow's fine. She's worried about you, but she's fine. Now...did she have anything to do with what happened tonight?"
"No."
"Okay. Start at the beginning."
The Deputy Communications Director paused, his expression torn. Then he released a sigh and nodded, taking one of Josh's shirts when it was offered. "This...it happened fast. The car is gone."
"It's gone?"
"Ruined. She...she punched through the hood. I didn't see her take anything out, but I couldn't get the car to start. I couldn't...I tried. I tried and I—"
The blonde held up a hand. "It's okay. We don't care about the car."
"She punched right through the hood?" Josh was staring at him dumbly. "How could anyone punch through the hood of a—"
"Josh."
"Yeah, so she punched through the hood?"
Sam smiled wearily. "And then she forced me inside."
His friends exchanged another look. They didn't like where this was going.
And as he spilled everything that happened after the fact, words left the room for means of human expression. They were there for him, but didn't know what to say.
There was simply nothing to say.
Unsurprisingly, none of the Senior Staffers got any sleep that night. After Sam was through relating what had happened to Josh and Donna, they went to Toby and rehashed everything. Toby, in turn, started on a wild tangent about male rape and how no one took it seriously—how it was a joke saved for prison humor—and immediately called the police once he was done ranting.
The cops called back a half hour later. The room indicated in the report was vacant. The bed linens were stripped and in the wash, according to room service. Furthermore, registration didn't have marked that anyone was staying on the first floor until the week after next. Even the car was gone. They were advised not to phone in false accusations, as they were a police station and had no time with practical jokes.
That sent Toby on a whole new warpath. "This is Mayberry!" he shouted into the phone. "What, did Billy Bob's cow go missing at daybreak? We have a real crime, here!"
Needless to say, yelling at the authorities didn't get them far.
Donna stayed with Sam, mothering him horribly and fuming with outrage that someone could get away with something so vicious.
By the time the sun was peeking over the horizon, she wanted blood.
"You don't want to go downstairs to breakfast, do you?" she asked. "I'll go and bring something up for you."
"No. It's fine." He smiled. While he was hardly feeling his best, the reassurance that came simply by having friends that cared did wonders. Josh and Toby were reacting in a way that only Josh and Toby could—outraged, knee-deep in compassion but too much like themselves to allow that much to be revealed on a surface level. "I need to...you know...be around people right now."
"Really? Because there's no shame in hiding."
"And yet, here I go." Sam stopped at the doorway and smiled at her. "You've been great, Donna. You're always great. I don't know what I would do if you weren't here."
It was a typical thing of him to say, but it made her flush all the same. "I don't understand how someone could do that," she whispered. "How she could just...take you and make you...I don't understand."
"She was unbalanced."
"She...Sam, she raped you."
He nodded, shaken but composed. He was ages ahead of where he had been when he came to them just a few short hours before. "I know," he said. "But it's...I'm okay. I'll be okay."
"Are you sure?"
"No, but work with me." A worn smile crossed his face and he nodded at the door. "Let's go eat."
"I can really bring it up to you."
"I know. Let's go."
Josh and Toby met them in the hallway. They had evidently moved from indignation to complaining about being stuck here even longer, as they were again without a car. It was their best defense mechanism, and neither Donna nor Sam could blame them from turning to it. It was all they had in such situations.
Of course, they couldn't make it all the way to the dining room without incident. Willow was waiting for them at the stairs; seated about a quarter of the way from the hall with her eyes downcast. She was evidently so immersed in her thoughts that she didn't hear their approach, and turned to them only after Donna and Sam had called her name twice.
It was strange watching such potent relief flood the eyes of a virtual stranger, but she was up in seconds, very visibly restraining herself from hugging him. "Oh, thank God," she said. "I...we were so worried!"
"I'm sorry about yesterday," Sam blurted.
"Why is it that you spend more of your time apologizing to her for frivolous things than you do actually talking to her?" Toby asked pointedly.
"Leave him alone," Donna berated.
Willow wasn't paying attention to any of them. Her eyes were soaking up the picture that Sam presented, frowning her concern when she realized the depth of what must have occurred the night before was more serious than they were putting on. "My God, you look awful."
"Thanks," he replied, smiling weakly.
"Are Buffy and Spike back yet?" Donna asked.
The redhead shook her head. "No, and believe me, I'll be wigging soon. But Buffy...well, she's with Spike and I think that means it's okay."
"What's this?" Sam asked.
"We're going to breakfast," Josh said as he and Toby wheedled through them and continued on downstairs. "Sam?"
"Yeah, I'm okay. What's this with Buffy and Spike?"
"They disappeared last night, too," Donna explained. "Right around the time that you did."
The man's eyes went wide. "And you're not worried?"
"Oh, I am. Massive wiggins all around." Willow sighed. "You don't know them. Buffy is...well, she's not the most reliable person in the world. And Spike? Spike and reliability are like polar opposites. And seeing as they're together...I'm thinking they either hit a hot trail or...I dunno."
Donna shrugged. "Maybe they eloped."
"No way."
"It'd be romantic."
The redhead frowned. Three weeks ago, had anyone suggested that, she would have laughed them out of the room. Now she wasn't so sure. It was hard to miss the sparks that had been flying between the blonde duo ever since the disastrous encounter with Faith during the body-swap fiasco. Buffy was behaving very unBuffy-like. She laughed more, she hung out with Spike virtually all the time, and now they had disappeared for an entire night.
Perhaps elopement was not out of the question.
As for the other, Willow couldn't explain why she wasn't worried; she just wasn't. Oh, she had her concerns here and there, but something told her that they were fine. They were just out, being themselves. Whatever that meant anymore.
Another look at Sam verified the exact opposite. Something had happened to him last night. Something awful. And while she would never pry for such personal information from a stranger, she was already gearing up ways to extract powerful and painful revenge on whoever was responsible. It didn't take a long acquaintance to recognize that he was easily one of the sweetest men in the world. He made her feel things she hadn't felt—and she had felt a lot.
Someone had hurt him, and if she ever found out whom, she would hurt them back.
She just hoped that someone wasn't herself.
A/N: Massively excited. Hallelujah won runner up for Best Crossover at LLG and has also been nominated at the VK Awards for True Love Fic, Most Original Plot, and Best Crossover. I've also been nominated for Best Author. I'm horrible when it comes to expressing my thanks, but major thanks to whoever nominated me. You guys are the best.
It wasn't as though they weren't expecting a loud, obnoxious entrance from the up-until-recently absentee Slayer and platinum vampire, but the crashing at the front of the house made everyone jump nonetheless. The smell of burning leather wafted into the dining room but was extinguished within seconds, and the laughter pouring from the entry hall could only be identified as Buffy. They were talking loudly, chuckling over something, and completely ignored the foray of stares that were shot point-blank in their direction as they strolled into the dining room.
For everything, it was as though they hadn't realized they had an audience.
"All I'm saying is..." The young woman was having a hard time keeping a straight face. "Just because they were staying there didn't necessarily mean they wanted—"
"Oh, come off it. You're the one who screamed."
"That wasn't on purpose!"
Spike snickered good-naturedly and poured her a glass of orange juice as though such had been customized into everyday routine. "Right. Buffy Summers, Slayer Extraordinaire screams 'cause she sees a mousy in the corner. Sure thing, luv. 'm buyin' that."
"It happened to be a very big rat, thank you."
The Scoobies were staring at them in wonder; the Senior Staffers with a note of indifference, even though Donna was beaming in the most ridiculous 'I told you so' manner at Willow.
Xander looked as though he wished himself miles away. "We have just entered the Twilight Zone."
Josh smirked. "So, I take it you two had a rough night."
Sam whimpered a bit at that, and immediately earned a quickened apology.
That was all it took. Buffy and Spike turned their attention to the others and shrugged on a frighteningly similar beat. "Hey guys," the former said, reaching for the pancakes. "What's up?"
"How in God's name are you eatin' again?"
She scowled at the Cockney and defiantly served herself three flapjacks. "I'm hungry."
"We ate not two hours ago!"
"At Denny's. Perish the thought that I might be hungry for actual food after sampling their processed crap."
He sulked a bit. "'S not like it was my firs' choice either, sweets. It was the only bloody place open."
"Yes, but unlike you, I can actually taste the food."
"I can bloody well taste—"
"Ahem." Giles shot them both a warning look before slowly removing his glasses. "Perhaps you two would kindly like to explain your whereabouts as to last night? In case you didn't notice, it is morning and you have been conspicuously absent for nearly fifteen hours."
Buffy's eyes widened. "Oh! We have a book to show you."
"Did you guys elope?" Willow asked bluntly.
"Oh God," Xander moaned. "Forget the Twilight Zone. We have entered a world of such freakishness that it cannot be named."
The Slayer froze. "Elope?"
"Well, we did run away to a small town 'bout an hour an' a half away from here," Spike retorted with a smirk. "Don' think there was a church included."
"Oh God," Xander moaned.
"Oh, quit," Anya berated. "They didn't have sex."
The vampire frowned, almost defensively. "How do you bloody well know?"
"Because you both still stink of sexual tension. That would be gone now if you had gotten it over with."
That was it. The table erupted. "ANYA!"
"At least someone else sees it," Donna muttered.
"Hey, I see it," Josh whined. "What did I say that first morning?"
Spike's eyes widened and he pointed almost accusingly in Donna's direction. "Hey! You an' Curly are no bloody different."
The two froze and stared at him.
"An' what the sodding hell are you still doin' here? Bloody car's fixed, innit?"
Wesley frowned. "That is a fair point. I would have figured, with as important as your business is, that you would have gone by now."
It was then that Toby cleared his throat, looking at Sam with pensiveness that was both protective older-brotherly and saturated in furthered annoyance that they were stuck here for another a day. "The car was stolen," he said, poking at his scrambled eggs.
"It was what?" Spike shook his head with a laugh. "Well, that's bloody priceless."
Willow caught his gaze and motioned erratically to drop the subject.
"I believe you wanted me to look at a book?" Giles said slowly, as though he was holding onto his very last nerve. "And would you kindly explain where you were last night?"
"And if the word 'elopement' comes up again, I think I'm going to be sick," Xander cautioned.
Anya shook her head and patted his hand in reassurance. "I told you, sweetie. They did not copulate last night." She turned to Sam. "He, on the other hand—"
Josh and Toby jumped up at the same moment.
Buffy and Xander turned to the redhead. "Willow!"
"You little she-devil," Harris murmured appraisingly.
The Witch's face flamed and she looked anywhere but Sam, who was fidgeting uncomfortably.
Spike perked a brow and shook his head. "Uhhh...'less my sense of—ow!" He covered the transgression with a cough and shot the Slayer a nasty glare. "It wasn' Red."
"That's enough," Toby all but growled.
Sam exchanged another long glance with the redhead, who was close to turning maroon. "Ummm..." He pushed his chair away from the table and slowly rose to his feet. "If...if you'll excuse me, I'll just be...upstairs."
"I offered to bring you breakfast," Donna muttered pitifully.
"I know. It's okay."
The platinum vampire emitted a long whistle and shook his head. "No worries, Red," he said. "Bloke's a politician. Has trouble enough keepin' his pants up."
"Okay, that's it," Josh snapped before turning to Toby. "Bad cop, bad cop."
"Guys, he doesn't know," Donna said softly. "Don't get all—"
Buffy placed a hand on Spike's shoulder. He turned to her the next second, features softening with shades of unspoken acknowledgment. It was a silent but effective trade; he pivoted to Seaborn almost immediately and nodded his apology before settling back in silence.
There was an uncomfortable few minutes as everyone resituated. The sort of silence that spoke volumes for everything they were unwilling to approach. A swarm of free-flowing hostility that remained muted.
When things had sufficiently calmed, the elder Watcher drew in a breath and tried once again. "The book?"
The text was forfeited immediately. Giles examined the cover, frowned, and set it aside with a tacit nod.
"Yeah, and speaking of that...again." Xander nodded his accord. "You two were all with the mysterious not-being here. What's up with that?" He turned to Donna quickly. "And no mention of elopement."
Josh arched a brow. "Why do you care?"
"'S fair question, mate."
"I don't believe he was talking to you," Toby snapped.
"Guys." Sam held up both hands. "It's fine. Really."
It was one thing to say that—it was another thing to mean it. And while the Deputy Communications Director very palpably meant to mean it, the look in his eyes was far-placed from complacency. And yet, he nodded to Giles all the same. For what it was worth, he had made his peace with it.
"Spike and I were going to go patrolling last night," Buffy began. "And—"
"Crazy kids and your crazy jargon," Josh muttered.
"I believe the lady was talkin', Curly," Spike snapped, sending a mock-glare to Toby, who smiled his irritation in turn. "An' this happens to be important."
"Right. A bunch of kids looking for a person named Faith that appears to not exist for reasons that were never established and outside the preface of actually going to the police." The Deputy Chief of Staff nodded as though extremely pleased with himself. "I'm sure that's important."
Sam swallowed hard and traded a glance with Willow. There was knowledge there. Fuzzy knowledge at best, but knowledge nonetheless. "Josh..."
"We were patrolling," Buffy continued. "Or we were about to...and I thought I..." She licked her lips and shot a look in Spike's direction, receiving nothing but a nod of encouragement in turn. "I thought I saw Faith...get into a car and drive off."
The Scoobies were silent for a long minute.
"You thought you saw Faith..." Xander said slowly. "And you...what? Decided to follow her? Without knowing if it was really her? Without letting us know? You disappeared all night with a va—ow!" He flinched and flashed the Witch an apologetic glance. "With a very bad...guy?"
Josh cocked a brow. Anya crossed her arms and sank a little in her seat. "Smooth."
"Well, I didn't have a lot of time to amend."
"Amend? Amend what?"
The Slayer took initiative at that while making a mental note that these discussions were likely not best had in front of people in which such evasive language was required. From the look on her Watcher's face, he agreed and then some and was more than regretting bringing the subject up at all. "I thought I saw Faith, Xan. Didn't have a lot of time for forethought. She would've gotten away. And I was positive."
"So..."
"Only by the time we stopped I was no longer positive and we were in some town in Louisiana."
"St. Francisville," Spike provided.
Donna's eyes lit up. "Hey! That place is mentioned in one of my books! It's the one that has—"
Toby sent her a look. She quieted.
The vampire nodded with a small smile. "Knew you'd appreciate it, pet."
"Did you guys get to go there?"
"The Myrtles?" Buffy sighed. "That's where we stayed. We got there and Spike just had to take the tour..."
"Figured why not make a wasted trip at leas' somewhat eventful," he explained defensively with a shrug. Then he grinned and cast his impromptu traveling companion a coy look. "Turned out to be that an' then some."
"What?"
"We got trapped," the Slayer blurted ineloquently. "We were going back for a picture and they didn't notice, so we got trapped...inside the haunted house for the night. And we didn't want to...you know...mess it up, so we decided to stay."
"That's where we found the book."
"I found the book."
"Luv, you—"
"You guys stole a book from an old house?" Josh's eyes were wide. "You just...took it?"
Giles sighed. "Why do I even bother?"
Buffy shrugged. "Well, you're the one who had to know right now what happened, and—"
"Please just...get on with it."
Spike tossed a defiant look to the Senior Staffers, provided Toby with a two-fingered salute, and tossed caution to the wind. "I was tellin' the Slayer that we were there for a reason. She was absolutely hell-bent that Faith was in the car ahead of us. When she wasn', I reckoned we were s'posed to follow the sodding car anyway an' figure out what was so bloody important in St. Francisville. We took the tour, got trapped, fell asleep, an' a few hours ago, Buffy had one of her wonky dreams, we found the book, we came back. End of discussion."
There was a long, uncomfortable pause.
"Well," Wesley said with some authority. "We now know the difference between saying too little and saying too much."
"What the hell?" Josh demanded.
"This is the reason you don' talk 'round people who aren't us," the vampire growled. "Bloody Watchers. You'd think after ten minutes of pure ambiguity, that'd be a lesson learned."
Buffy bit her lip, not daring herself to look up. It was one thing to edge into a situation; it was another to dive in headfirst without testing the waters. "Before we left, Spike yelled, 'The blood! The blood!'" she said. "And the people upstairs started screaming."
"So did you."
"I saw a mouse."
"Haven't you been a—" Xander once again stopped and bit his tongue. "Been around enough mice to not be afraid of them anymore?"
"That's what I'm sayin', Stay Puft."
"It doesn't matter how many mice I'm around."
Josh blinked numbly and leaned back. "I'm going to pretend that I wasn't here for this conversation."
"That would be for the best," Wesley agreed.
Willow expelled a sigh. "I'm sorry. We're just...it's complicated."
"We understand complication. We work for the President of the United States." Toby leveled his gaze at the platinum vampire. "What we heard now wasn't complication. It was insanity."
Donna shook her head and leapt in before her boss could comment and make things worse. "Maybe, since we're going to be here longer anyway, we could help you find Faith."
"Donna..."
"Maybe the less-snobbish of us could help you find Faith. What does she look like?"
"You're fired," Josh complained.
"Okay. I'll help you find her and one of you will make me an heiress."
Xander rose to his feet. "Well, she's a psycho-killer. Yay tall..." He indicated height in accordance with his own. "Answers to...well, Faith. Dark hair. Criminally insane."
"Her personal motto is 'want, take, have,'" Buffy added.
"An' she doesn' limit that to jus' objects," Spike muttered. "With her, you become the object."
There was a pitiful mewl from the other end of the table. Sam looked like he was about to be sick.
"Sam?"
Toby stood; Josh leaned forward. Donna was at his side in less than two seconds.
"Oh no," Willow murmured, her face falling as her eyes widened with realization. She had yet to know all the facts, but piecing two and two together was something she had always been exceptionally good at. "Oh my God."
"I..." Sam cleared his throat after composing himself. "I...know where she is. Or where she was...as of last night. She's not there now. But she was...last night."
"Oh my God," Donna gasped. "Oh my..."
"Is there a reason you haven't included the cops in this?" Josh demanded, gaze falling on Giles. "I mean, if she's this psychotic, why wouldn't you call the cops?"
"We're with an independent organization from Britain," Wesley said before the elder Watcher could step in. "Faith is our business and we know how to handle her in ways the American authorities do not. If the police were looking for her, she would know, and we would never be able to locate her. Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Anya know her personally, which is why they are here with us." He tossed a glance to Giles, who nodded in agreement.
"You're with the British government?" Donna asked, eyes wide.
"Not entirely—"
"This is crazy," Toby muttered. "Your friend is out there causing all sorts of trouble, and you're running to small towns that no one has ever heard of while she victimizes innocent people?"
Buffy scowled. "I thought she was in the—"
"Well, you were obviously wrong, weren't you?"
Giles stood slowly. "Look...we need all the help we can acquire in obtaining Faith peacefully before anyone else gets hurt. She is extremely dangerous, and would not flinch at killing one or all of us."
Sam whimpered again. Donna patted his back encouragingly.
"I still say you're psychos for not calling the cops," Josh muttered.
"We are not above it, but the authorities could not hold her long. They do not know what she is capable of. We do. And forgive me if I do not exactly fancy her in a position where she gets even more agitated while surrounded with firearms." The elder Watcher shook his head. "We know what we're doing."
"You think the police—"
"She's strong," Sam commented, voice deadpan and gaze fixated on his plate. "You don't know how strong she is. You wouldn't know it from...but she is."
"If she's so strong, how do the seven of you even begin to pose a threat?"
Giles released a long breath. "Because we've dealt with her before."
"Doesn't really inspire confidence," Toby remarked. "The girl's still out there—"
"Because we handed her over to the authorities. We will not make the same mistake twice." There was a long beat; the elder Watcher sighed again and nodded to himself. "In the meantime, I suggest everyone be on high alert. I will be moving my studies to a different location as to actually obtain some privacy without the more notable distractions."
Buffy frowned. "Giles?"
"We haven't gotten a bloody thing accomplished," he said, turning to her in mid-stride and readily-acknowledged anticipation. "I have decided to relocate to the Eola Hotel, which is not far from here." His gaze leveled with hers. "This is important."
"I...I know."
"Then you know why I must go. And if this..." He held up the book, "turns out to be anything, I'll need to focus, which is something none of us have done since we arrived."
There was another pause and the obligatory passing of guilt-laced concession. When he received no objection, the Watcher released a long breath, nodded; calmly exited through the kitchen and back to the townhouse.
"We weren't supposed to understand the part about the book, were we?" Josh whispered to Donna, who shrugged and took a bite of her cold biscuit.
"I wasn't aware that we were supposed to understand any of it," Toby muttered.
"Well, mate," the vampire retorted, taking a bite of pancake off Buffy's plate. "That would be your fault, wouldn't it? Quite frankly, I don' know where you blokes get the stones to say that we gotta answer to you t'all."
Xander cleared his throat. "Well...umm...they do work for—"
"I don' care 'f they worked for the King of Bloody England," Spike snarled. "Have you got any ripe idea how many sodding 'leaders' I've seen in my time?"
"Oh, and your time would be what?" Toby demanded. "Twenty, thirty years? We have a country to run."
"Little higher, you righteous git."
Sam cleared his throat, eyes still downcast but everyone stopped to hear his input. He was closer to this than any could have imagined. "I think we should try to put our differences aside for the time being. While we're here, especially. Josh...you should call Leo and let him know approximately what has happened since we spoke to him last. Tell him we're stranded and see if he has a way to get us home...and at the same time, we should try to get as much work as we can done right now. But I agree with Mr. Giles." He looked up slowly. "This person is dangerous. I...she's dangerous. And unbalanced. She crashed through the side window of a car and smashed in the hood without blinking. We have a civic—"
"Sam—"
"—duty. We have a civic duty. This is just what you do." He glanced down and released a long sigh. "It's what you do."
The dining room settled with fragile tranquility. Quiet nothing that always coincided with something.
"I wanted to go to Longwood today," Willow said, her eyes glued to her plate. She attracted the attention of everyone in the room, but did not acknowledge it, or even glance up. "It's supposed to be the largest octagonal house in America."
"I'll go with you," Buffy offered.
"So will I," Donna said.
"Shouldn't we be looking for Faith?" Josh asked. Then paused. "I can't believe I just said that."
"Longwood and that territory is the only place in town that none of us have hit yet." Willow released a long sigh. "I just...I need to get my mind off things for a while."
"We'll go with you," Donna reiterated.
The redhead nodded but didn't say anything else. There was too much to say right now to entrust with words. Thus the room was consumed with silence once more. Cold and overshadowing.
And this time, no one attempted to break it.
A/N: Okay. This might be the last chappie I can get out before I leave for Natchez on Wednesday. (Fall Pilgrimage—hurrah!) I'll be gone through this Sunday and, while I won't have Internet access, I will definitely be working on GGSoR on the laptop. I will try to get another update out before leaving, but with a midterm, a paper, packing, and the Vice Presidential debate, that might not be possible. But in the meantime, since I actually will be in Natchez, there should be no pesky writer's block so I hope to get a lot done while away.
Oh, and shouting out a major thanks to whoever nominated me at the Spuffy Awards. Harbingers of Beatrice is up for Best Original Character (Zack Wright), Best General Angst, and Best General Saga. L'Amour is up for Best BtVS Rewritten and Best General Saga. I'm also up for Best Author. Thank you so much. I'm overwhelmed.
Thanks to Mandi for stepping in as a temp-beta while Megan's away. (And for a thousand other things that she has done/helped me with, just because she rocks so much) And thanks to Kimmie for being my beta all the time, as well as my West Wing resource guide.
Toby decided to move out with Giles, namely because he needed to maintain his sanity and the situation at the Wensel house was making that more and more impossible. He expressed some apprehension—as much as he could—about leaving Sam alone, but was ultimately encouraged that space was what the younger man needed.
So, naturally, the minute he was gone, Josh took up residence with his best friend and left Donna to tend to the emotionally numb Willow, who was still trying to come to terms with the knowledge that Faith had taken advantage of someone she cared about. Again.
Ultimately, having the Communications Director and the elder Watcher relocate proved to be in everyone's best interest. Wesley was left in charge of the research, but the Scoobies tacitly noted to turn to the Witch in that regard. And now that Willow had a reliable female roommate, Anya was free to move back in with Xander to obtain as many orgasms as she pleased.
No one really seemed to mind that the new arrangement left Buffy alone in the townhouse with Spike. No one outside Xander, who voiced his objections but was drowned out for sudden apathy. Things were too estranged to worry with particulars.
Furthermore, Willow didn't want to be too far from Sam if he needed her. While she didn't disclose the reason why he would need her, Harris could not meet that with a plausible excuse in favor of the other. He similarly could not bring it to Buffy's attention that the choice was upon her to either send Spike away or leave him alone in the townhouse. For whatever reason, he knew that suggestion would be shot down with feeble excuses that his range of acceptance was not yet prepared to interpret. It was better to let things lie as they were.
In the end, Buffy came up with a solution on her own that made his nerves rest easier. She moved into Giles's old room because, while smaller, it allotted for the most privacy. And Spike, in turn, moved into the room she had been using. While it did nothing to discourage space between them, Xander was comforted to know that the Slayer's room had a lock on the door.
The excursion to Longwood was brief but the girls were more than happy to have something else to focus on, even if it was just for a little while. It was one of the most visited houses in Natchez—built by Dr. Haller Nutt for his wife, Julia, and their eight children. However, because of the conflict between the States, the home was never completed and Dr. Nutt died before the war was over. The basement was the only portion of the home that actually looked livable: the rest was brick and wood and all things unmanageable. They learned on the tour that Julia Nutt had sued the government after Lee's surrender in hopes of completing her would-be palace, but never acquired the needed funding to get the job done.
Willow was particularly interested in the old tools and various containers that were abandoned by the Northern construction workers. And she took five or six pictures of the piano crate that sat in the unfinished parlor.
In the gift shop, Buffy had purchased the diary of Julia Nutt. When Willow looked at her askance—since when did Buffy read?—the Slayer had turned her eyes downward and muttered something about Spike being a dork and liking these places.
Another testament to how things that were previously set in stone could change so quickly. The Witch was learning not to question her friend and her bizarre fixation with her former enemy. What was happening between them was almost inevitable. And it was nice to see her happy.
Besides, if the two ever decided to go public and attempt at a real relationship, Buffy would need support. And she certainly wouldn't get it from Giles or Xander.
More over, Willow was sick of it. The whole it. She had dated a werewolf and that was acceptable because Oz hadn't known when he turned into a crazed animal. If he killed, he killed. That was the wolf. And Anya was a former demon turned human. No one had ever handed her a soul to go along with that. In fact, she had tried to get Evil!Vampy!Willow to kill everyone at the Bronze. There was no difference, there. She was still a demon at heart. And Xander was fine with that.
So, if Buffy wanted to mack on Spike, considering their collective records when it came to love, she had her best friend's blessing.
Besides, when it came down to it, Spike just wasn't as scary as Angelus. Angelus was big and nasty and a fish-killer. And something told her that Spike would never kill her fish.
Or, more importantly, hurt Buffy. She didn't know what made her realize that; it was just in his eyes. The way he looked at the Slayer now was all soft and lovey. It was the way Oz used to look at her times a thousand. She had never seen Angel look at Buffy like that. No. Whatever Spike felt, it was more potent than anything her best friend had ever been exposed to.
And eventually, Buffy would know it.
As for her, Willow was too confused to delve through her own feelings. Donna had reluctantly related just enough information about what had transpired the night before for her to piece together the rest. And she couldn't believe it. Well, she could because Faith was an evil ho-bag, but there was something seriously wrong with the entire scenario.
Something even more so than being used so blatantly for sex. Than being used.
Even still, when the redhead saw the other Slayer again, heads were going to roll. If Faith was under orders from God Himself, she did not care. No one deserved to be put through what Sam had been put through.
The fact that it was Sam made her even angrier.
Right now, everyone was at separate ends. Buffy had immediately retreated to the townhouse following their humdrum search of the last unexplored part of town. From what Willow gathered, her friend had obtained very little sleep the night before, and thus by noon was practically a walking zombie. Which, considering where they were from, wasn't anything to joke about.
The redhead had walked Buffy to the cottage and barely grazed the front porch before Spike threw open the front door, held out his hand to the sleepy Slayer, and shut them inside with nothing more than a quick nod in her direction. As though thanking her for bringing his girl home safely.
The notion in itself was ridiculous but sweet at the same time.
Willow had returned to the main house where Mrs. Miller handed her a note from Giles. He had barely settled in before calling her so she would come and review certain elements of the book with him and, as a magically inclined individual, offer her expertise. It didn't surprise her. While the move had seemed like the best idea the minute he proposed it, something told her it would end up doing less good than he was hoping.
No, it didn't surprise her at all.
What did surprise her was Sam. The hotel was structured for the less-modest spender and rang of classic charm; she could see why Giles liked it. And at the bar he sat. With Sam.
It didn't take long for either to notice her. The Watcher turned to her after a number of seconds and motioned for her to join them. "Willow," he greeted. "We might have a problem."
In Giles-lingo, that meant that the world was falling apart at the seams. She tried not to panic.
And the best way to not-panic was to focus on the cute brunette to the left.
"What..." She blinked and motioned at Sam. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to help." He offered a weak smile. "Might as well see if I can be useful."
While she didn't miss the logic in that, it seemed more than unfair to ask so much of him given that not twenty-four hours had passed since his ordeal. The humanitarian in Willow screamed in protest; a steady cry that wedged up her throat and out her mouth before she could stop herself. "Giles—"
Sam held up a hand, foreseeing her objection with a nod of grateful understanding. "I wanted to come," he explained. "Toby was moving his things over, and I offered to lend a hand. If I have information that can help, I want to share it...regardless of what has happened."
The redhead stared at him in wonder, her shoulders relaxing as the weight of protestation abandoned her. Her gaze fogged with admiration. "Oh...I just...I wanted to, you know...make sure..."
The Watcher cleared his throat. "Willow," he said. "We might want to step aside for a minute. The book that Buffy brought back—"
"It's okay," the Witch intervened, eyes not breaking from her objective. "Sam knows."
"He knows?"
"I know."
"About me. About...he doesn't know everything, but he knows that I...I can do things." She licked her lips and finally looked away with a quick breath. "He knows that I'm a witch."
Giles blinked at her dumbly. "Excuse me?"
It took less than two seconds to divulge that the older man was less than satisfied with that revelation, and Willow's tactics changed immediately. She pivoted slightly at the heel and released a short laugh that rang with more than a sting of apprehension. "Yeah."
"I can't believe you would be so careless as to—"
"Hey! It was an accident!...and it's not like we've been all that careful."
Sam shrugged. "She's got you there."
"I..." The Watcher let out a deep breath. "Do the others know, or do we need to continue speaking in code? Which—I might add—I am having trouble following."
Willow shook her head. "I haven't told them. Sam found out and that was pretty much it. He doesn't know the other stuff."
"I haven't told the others, either." Sam smiled a bit. "Right now, they'd think I'm crazy. And other stuff?"
There was a secretive glance between the Watcher and Witch.
"Things you're not ready to know," the redhead finally decided. "Especially considering...well, everything."
"Things like how a girl could punch through the hood of a car without flinching?"
Willow perked a brow. "A girl? How about anybody, bucko?"
Sam's hands came up in a plea for neutrality, and he nodded his mistake with humble recognition. "I'm sorry. That was rude. But she didn't...she didn't look like the type of person who could—"
"Does Buffy?"
"Pardon?"
Giles sighed and removed his glasses. "Willow..."
"Does Buffy look like the type of person who could punch through the hood of a car? Does Spike?"
The Deputy Communication's Director's eyes widened. "Okay. You're right. There are some things I am not yet ready to know." He paused thoughtfully and licked his lips. "Perhaps ever. And if I were you, I'd never, ever tell Josh and Toby."
"We weren't planning on it."
"Willow, the book?" The Watcher expelled another deep breath and flashed her a patented look of irritation when she smiled guiltily and whirled back to him. He had the book on the counter in seconds and gestured to the barstool beside him. "Loathe as I am to admit it, Spike was right. This does merit our attention."
"What is it?"
"I am not sure. The writing is sporadic and appears to be patched together through several different languages. Latin, Greek, Assyrian...mostly Assyrian, actually." He removed his glasses as was the norm and leaned forward to pinpoint a specific passage. "See here. The sentence doesn't make sense if you conjugate that verb according to the Assyrian rules of—"
"Giles."
He paused, then looked at her slowly. "You don't know Assyrian, do you?"
Willow offered a wane smile. "Believe it or not, all the good Assyrian professors transferred over to Notre Dame last semester. What a bummer, huh?"
"The President went to Notre Dame," Sam offered.
"Really?"
"Willow?"
"Right. The book. All ears." She edged forward in her seat and leaned in to get a better look. "So, language aside, do you know what this is about, or is that what I'm here for?"
"Yes and no," Giles replied. "The book is a text of spells, rituals, and tributes to several of the ancient gods. The problem is with the translation...and the spells. I have reached a point where I no longer understand what is being said, so I thought it best to turn it over to you. Now..." He waited until she peeled her eyes away from the primordial pages and looked at him. "You are not, under any circumstance, to attempt any of the spells you uncover, even if you think it would be beneficial. That book is not to be trusted."
"The book itself is not to be trusted?"
"No. I am not convinced that it does not play a greater role in this." The Watcher let out another heady breath. "It had enough power to drive Buffy out of town to seek it out. And with as much running as she was doing...I do not understand why Faith would have stopped here, of all places."
Willow froze, her eyes widening. If Giles was suggesting what she thought he was suggesting, they were definitely in over their heads. They had raced unprepared across the country to retrieve a rogue Slayer. Should things be more complicated than that, it could lead to trouble in the worst of ways. "Okay. I'll look over this—not try any spells—and let you know what I think soon, okay?"
"Thank you." The elder man paused a moment as though to collect his thoughts, then turned his eyes to Sam. "Mr. Seaborn?"
It took a second, but he snapped back to them quick enough. "Oh. Oh, it's Sam, Mr...Giles. Just Sam."
"Very well. And it's just Giles."
"Okay."
"Are you all right with all of this?"
He grinned softly. "I made a point to stop listening when you started speaking about things that I'm not ready to grasp yet."
"I envy you in that regard. If that is all, I believe I will be retreating upstairs."
"That's all. But I don't think..." Sam paused thoughtfully. "Toby called the motel, though, and she was gone. She has the car, too. Or the car was moved...or something. I don't know how far that will get you—"
"It's more than enough. And again—"
The other man held up a hand. "Please. Don't. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault."
Willow wet her lips. "Even mine?" That fear had been wracking her brain for the better of the morning. Last night she thought she had driven him off; today she thought that what he had seen had forced him into something that was a thousand times worse. And if that were the case, she would never forgive herself. "You seemed really...zoned after you saw me in the kitchen."
"I was going to go for a test-drive anyway." His smile turned reassuring, though it was missing the sparkle she had come to cherish over the past couple days. "Trust me. It wasn't your fault."
Giles was gone in a matter of seconds, leaving them to their own devices. While he would never concede it aloud, Willow suspected that Buffy's absence the night before had been more trying than he wanted to admit. The Slayer had never been considerate when it came to the impact of her impulsiveness on others. And while Giles had long accepted that Buffy would never change, she couldn't expect him to stop worrying.
Willow trembled a bit and turned her attention to the book. The knowledge that the Watcher was putting a lot of trust in her ability was not lost on her. She had come far in just a couple years; the weight of the obligation was intimidating and more than serious. And of everyone, she was responsible. Responsible for an unholy text recovered from a concealed burial ground and summoned for the purposes of God-knows-what.
Great. Just great. No pressure or anything.
"Are you okay?" Sam asked softly.
The Witch started a bit at the abrupt break into her musings, but offered a wan smile all the same. "Shouldn't I be asking you that question?"
"I'm good," he replied. Then frowned. "Well, no, I'm not...but that's okay. I'll be good sometime. I'm just kind of..." The frown deepened and he set himself into a pliable state of concentration. "Other than last night being what it was...it was just strange."
"I can imagine." That and then some. There was no good thing to say to a man that had suffered through what he had suffered through. She was at a loss of words and more than a little disjointed about what she knew. Knowledge was, at times, the great enemy. "So...I, uhh...gotta look through this book."
"You need me to go away?"
No. And that was the problem.
"It's in Latin, Assyrian, and Greek all combined." Willow bit her lip. Ignoring questions was always the best tool when she didn't want to answer them. "I don't know any of those languages, much less a mutated mixture...but I do know certain spells within individual dialects, and I think that's what I'm supposed to be looking for." She glanced up with a weary sigh. "Do you know Assyrian, perchance?"
"I know a little Latin."
"Really?"
"Well, the President speaks fluent Latin. And I went to law school...we were required to know Latin in some areas."
"I didn't know Latin was spoken."
Sam grinned softly. "Yeah, neither does he. We're trying to keep that off his agenda as long as possible. We still have the Mendoza confirmation to get through before he has a senator submit that piece of legislation to Congress."
Willow nodded, smothering a smile. "Yeah, well. Giles and Wes both know Latin, if Watchers are anything alike."
"Watchers?"
"Don't ask. I wonder if Spike would know Assyrian...he's been around forever."
There was an audible gulp. "How long has he been around? I'm beginning to understand that you and your friends don't speak in metaphors."
"Oh, we do. Just...not the ones you'd think of." The redhead frowned. "And you don't want to know with Spike. I'm not sure if that's something that should be on the desk of the President...although it would make sense, and we do have a problem with these commandos back home and—"
"Willow?"
"Yeah." She leapt off the barstool as though burned, wiping her hands on her jeans with a small, nervous titter that had Sam smiling in seconds. "I'm—uhhh—gonna go...call Spike and see if he knows Assyrian or Greek. You know...just in case. If not, I guess I'll be doing this the hard way. But you...watch the book for me?"
He nodded. "Sure."
"Okay." And she was gone—bounding off in search of the nearest phone.
Sam watched her as she hurried away, short red hair flopping against her head in a manner that he couldn't help but find thoroughly adorable. Willow was the sort of person he didn't get to meet. The sort of person that reminded him of values he oftentimes thought a lost cause. She was bubbly and sweet and idealistic. And she had more power, both in the literal and metaphoric sense, than anyone he had ever encountered.
Save the President, of course.
It took a few minutes, but he was somehow able to tear his eyes away from the corridor she had disappeared down and to the aforementioned book left on the counter. Strange. A book that combined three very different languages into one vernacular had to be worth a peek.
The first passages were in all-out gibberish. Sam hadn't been lying when he explained that he had taken some Latin. He had. Granted, he wasn't nearly as educated in the language as the President was, but he knew his way around conjugated verbs and nouns. He knew what alea jacta est meant and often used it when meeting with Republican leadership. The day that Josh came back from his meeting from the Hill and yelled, "Veni vidi vinci!" Sam had stopped to correct his pronunciation.
Despite popular belief, there were times—like now—when Latin came in handy.
"Tuum missio?" He frowned and leaned forward. It would be a day that he had neglected his reading glasses. "No, that can't be right. Abyssus abyssum invocat...definitely Latin." There was another break in the phrase that forced him to stop again. Sam released a sigh and neared as close as possible. The Assyrian was coming into play. Along with the Greek, a language that he didn't understand aside a few choice words.
Choice words that didn't look like they had any sort of proper pronunciation. But Sam was always up for a challenge. He also needed a project to distract himself from the ever more potent reality that surrounded him. Thus, situating himself comfortably, he released a sigh and began fighting with the words for sound and quality. He had no idea what he was saying, or if he was approaching it in the correct manner, but the drive for perfection egged him forward.
Said drive was always getting him into trouble.
"...tat tvam asi. Es hai'dou. a'idos'de...numen diablolus, es'tô!" He slammed his fist down on the counter and beamed with pride. "I know I got it that time."
And got it he had. All too well. The sky outside roared with a sudden crash of lightning and the lights flickered in response. Sam licked his lips, overwhelmed by sudden anxiety, and turned his eyes skyward.
"Please oh please let that have been a coincidence."
It took several attempts to wrangle himself away from the Slayer's side. She was dozing comfortably now; had practically fallen directly asleep the minute he tucked her into bed. And true, while an hour at best had ticked by since she returned home, he could not bring himself to leave her. Thus, he had dragged a chair from the dining room into her newly acquired living quarters and taken seat at the side of her bed. Watching her. Studying her. In awe of her.
There were many ways that the situation could be worse. At least he knew that he was falling in love with her. At least he recognized it for what it was. Felt that every look she sent his way was another drop of perpetual non-ending in her eyes. He was a sucker—fortune's fool, but he couldn't help himself.
And the amazing thing was—the really amazing thing—she felt something, too.
Something big.
Together, they could break down the Walls of Jericho.
There were certain truths to be reckoned with. Conversations to be had. But none of that mattered so long as she was at his side. He had her friendship now, and if she was entirely honest, her affection as well. And he was more than happy to grant her the time she needed. Anything.
Yeah, he was pretty much a sap.
He was also getting decently hungry. While they had stopped at Denny's, though that was more or less a joke, he had not obtained the certain nutrients that vampires required in order to remain healthy and undead. There was a stack of bagged blood under the sink in the kitchen, but as they were out of clean mugs, he would be making a very cautious trip to the main house.
The past few days had seen a number of changes in Spike's eating habits. He had noted dutifully while incapacitated in Giles's bathtub that the notion of drinking blood disgusted the Slayer, but actually seeing it was ten times worse. Bearing that in mind, he was trying to be more considerate of her feelings on the subject by concealing his needed sustenance in closed containers where she could happily pretend he was sipping at coffee rather than warm gooey goodness.
Humans didn't like blood. He remembered not liking blood as a human. And since Buffy was very much a human, he was making his best effort to be mindful of her sentiment.
Even if she was asleep now and would never know the difference. It was better to make and keep the habit, especially since it wasn't yet a habit.
Spike stood with some reluctance and neared her bedside. Watching her enjoy her peace was a moment of stolen intimacy, but—he figured with a small grin—turnabout was fair play.
Very fair.
The vampire drew in a shuddering breath and brushed her hair from her forehead before leaning in to caress her skin with his lips. "Sweet dreams be yours, luv," he murmured. "'F dreams there be. Sweet dreams to carry you close to me."
Buffy murmured a bit and stretched, but did not awaken. And he had to leave the room before he let himself wither away for the sight of her.
Though mid-afternoon, the sky was overcast—damn near menacing—and thus allowed him to travel from the cottage to the main house without relying on his duster or a blanket to shield him. He came crashing in through the back and wandered seamlessly through the dark. He set the microwave for forty-five seconds, as that seemed a good sturdy number, and was enjoying his second mugful when a familiar scent hit the air.
Two seconds before it presented an equally familiar face.
Spike quirked a brow and licked his lips, lowering the mug and hoping the dark would appropriately conceal its content. Seemed logical enough. The git was only human. "Curly," he acknowledged dryly with a nod.
Josh had frozen in the doorway and was staring at him blankly.
The vampire frowned. "Whatsa matter? Run outta blokes upstairs to annoy?"
There was nothing. Nothing at all.
"'Lo, anyone home?" Nothing. "What the bleedin' hell? You finally go off the..." It hit him out of nowhere. A universal truth established before time began. Something that he had known too long without consideration to stop when it was needed the most. Something that was too a part of him to apologize for, regardless of the circumstances.
Vampires tended to show their true skin when they ingested what they needed to ingest.
That and some of his lunch was dribbling down his chin.
Josh was still staring at him, completely frozen.
In defeated verification, Spike raised a hand to feel at his forehead. Yep, sure enough. Bumpies were there. Bumpies, fangs, blood, the works.
"Oh, balls."
Cue screaming.
A/N: Okay, so back from Natchez. Had a blast, even though it rained on us most all week. Didn't get as much writing as I would've liked done, but I'm going to blame that on the fact that the laptop wasn't compatible with the outlets in our room and my need to finish Rebecca after having started it. (Fantastic book. I'd recommend it to anyone. It's one of those that really stays with you after you've finished it).
My apologies for not getting this chapter out before I left. Hope it was worth the wait.
"DONNA!"
"Oh, come on, mate," Spike growled, stalking into the foyer after the petrified man, wiping his mouth free of blood. "Can't we all be adults, here?"
Josh's eyes were as wide as saucers, and he practically leapt away from the approaching Cockney, fingers coming up to form a makeshift cross. It was amusing in that really pathetic sense. Did wankers really think that worked? Hell, that didn't even work in the movies. What a waste.
The vampire had to keep himself from laughing.
"Yeh," he said instead, nodding diplomatically. "Real effective, what you got there."
"Stay away from me, you freak!"
"'S this the way you handle all your opposition? I can see why the gits in DC don' like you very much."
That seemed to strike a nerve. Josh turned to him with a face full of resolve. "I happen to be very well liked in Washington. And even if I wasn't, why the hell am I arguing with you? DONNA!"
She was already at the top of the stairs, glaring down at him. "You bellowed?"
"Get down here!"
"He's gonna give you a spankin'," Spike provided cheekily. "Someone's been a bad girl."
"You need to shut up."
"JOSH!"
"He's a bloodsucking fiend from beyond the grave. Let's go!"
The vampire shrugged. "Yeh. An' you're a politician. 'S there really much difference?"
Donna was shaking her head. "I am so lost."
There seemed to be little to say to that. Josh released an exasperated sigh, stomped up the stairs and tossed his assistant over his shoulder, which elicited a whoop of surprise from her and a hearty chuckle from the Cockney.
Spike's irritation was floundering. It was difficult to remain angry at something so utterly ridiculous.
The blonde assistant was not nearly as amused. When it became obvious that her boss was not going to relent, she took to striking at his back, though it provided little change in demeanor. "What the hell has gotten into you?"
"We're getting out of here."
"What?"
Spike watched with glimmering amusement as the panicked wanker rushed through the front of the Wensel house before conceding that it was likely in their best interest to stop and explain before the overreacting went colossal. However, before he could step in with a voice of diplomacy and reason, a sweet scent hit his nostrils and drew his attention to the dining room doorway, where Buffy stood in her pajama bottoms and a tanktop.
The world stopped at that moment for the sight of her. Everything stopped. He remembered this feeling—remembered it well. Remembered when Cecily would walk into a room and command every waking breath in his body. Love was like this. Knocked the wind out of gut, or would if he had wind in his gut. Made the floor beneath his feet nonmaterial. She was so soft. So beautiful. And at the moment looked...
Delectably bedded.
Well, not in the good way, but he was finding she looked delectable regardless of temperament.
He had to shake his sinful thoughts away and get her back to sleep. In spite of the circumstances, she had not had a good night. There were certain aspects of the night that were more than pleasant, granted, but slumber was something his Slayer needed. And as long as he was around, he was going to make sure she was taken care of.
"Buffy?" Spike licked his lips and allowed himself to indulge the rouse that tickled her cheeks as he took a few steps forward. He realized dimly that a Vampire Slayer was likely the best neutral factor he could want in calming down the erratic politician, but he cared too little about Josh Lyman's opinion and too much about Buffy to bring that to the table. "Sweetheart, you should be sleepin'."
That sounded domestic, even to him.
"There was a phone call," she said, glancing down. "From Willow. Something about Greek and Assyrian?"
"Right, well. 'S gonna have to wait. You need sleep an' I gotta take care of somethin'."
Buffy quirked her head at that, eyes narrowing. "What happened?"
"'S nothin'. Go back to bed, sweets."
"Spike. Look at me." She was getting Resolved Face down to a bloody fault. That was hardly fair. "What happened?"
A sigh rolled off his shoulders. No use beating around the bush. "'S Josh. He saw me when I wasn' at my best." When she frowned, he gestured broadly to his forehead. "Din't mean for it to happen, but—"
"He saw you?"
"Was eatin'. Din't mean to—"
"You were eating blood? And in here?"
Spike scowled, emotions immediately seizing the defensive. "Oi! Was doin' it for you, you ungrateful bint. Din't want you to get all-squeamish 'cause your bloody housemate keeps hordes of pigs blood under the kitchen sink. All right? An' after a sodding century an' more, I stop really carin' who sees me in all my glory. So, respectfully, bugger off."
Buffy shook her head, prowling forward and seizing his hand in a manner that was so overly familiar that it made his unbeating heart leap into his throat. Slayer-whipped sap. "We have to get to him before—"
"He can't bloody well go anywhere, kitten. They have no wheels, remember?"
The answer to that observation was more than foreseeable. The squeal of gravel against the tires sent a cloud of dust into the air, and the last glimpse either got of the Winnebago was it cruising at full speed the wrong way down a one-way street, swerving erratically to avoid the oncoming traffic.
The Slayer sighed heavily and her shoulders sagged. But she didn't let go of his hand. "You were saying?"
Spike met her eyes and smiled sheepishly. "Din't change anythin'," he said. "They still don' have wheels. I never said they wouldn't take ours."
"Giles isn't going to like this."
"Nope."
Buffy bit her lip. "Wanna not tell him?"
Spike's brows perked at the prospect. "Yeh. Yeh. Right, I could live with that." She just looked at him. He frowned. "Or maybe you were jus' kiddin'."
"Maybe I was just kidding."
He nodded, expression suddenly pensive. "Maybe we should go call him now."
"Maybe."
"Though I liked the other plan better."
There was a pause at that; Buffy released an agonized moan. "You're telling me. But no. No. Right, wrong, line. Gotta go call Giles." She turned to glance out the door again. "But they weren't even heading for the Eola. They're not stopping for Toby and Sam."
Spike shrugged. "Maybe they won' get far."
Their gazes met slowly, still for a long, contemplative moment; then they nodded on the same beat.
"'ll call the hotel."
"I'm gonna go get dressed."
He paused and winked at her, allowing his eyes to take a long rake up and down her body without bothering to conceal his blatant appreciation. "No hurry in that department, sweets. Won' hear any complaints from me."
Buffy's flush deepened but she covered it with a scowl before he could call her on it. "Spike!"
"Right." He couldn't help but grin as she sleeked away. Rouge was a color that favored her skin well; he'd like to see her in nothing but. His girl. His golden girl.
And more than that. They were friends. It was a strange revelation, but no less true in hindsight. She was his friend, the first he had had since his death. The first that could honestly be called a friend.
Such was just one of his many firsts that included the Slayer. It was becoming harder not to lose himself in her. Especially with how far they had come.
Then again, he mused, turning to hunt down a phone, there were worse things than being lost in Buffy Summers.
"Really, if you stop to think about it, what were the odds that the keys would just be waiting for you in the ignition?" Donna asked for the umpteenth time. "How many cars are just available for a quick getaway when you have a nervous breakdown? One vehicle, one parking lot, and you still managed to—"
The man at the wheel released a string of curses and veered violently to the left to get them back on the highway. "I did not have a nervous breakdown," he grumbled.
"You stole a Winnebago, Josh. That doesn't exactly suggest the utmost in mental clarity."
"Borrowed. The word is borrowed. Work with me."
"Yes, and where are we going?"
"Jackson to get on the first flight back to DC and away from this freak show."
"We're not giving the Winnebago back?"
Josh's eyes widened in alarm. "I'm not going back there. Nuh-huh, no way."
"Right." She went quiet for a flicker of a second. "Never accuse me of stealing dresses that I buy and return the next day because of my budget ever again. You have forgone that right with your random bout of insanity."
"Speaking of stealing..."
"And we're leaving without Sam and Toby?"
Josh shook his head, banging his fist against the steering wheel. "If you'd seen his face, you'd know why."
"Whose face?"
"Spike's face."
The blonde frowned. "Spike has a nice face."
There was an exasperated sigh. "Donna..."
"A very nice face. And he's British." She cocked a brow at him. "Were you threatened by his brilliance?"
A shrill titter ran through the man's system. "Spike is brilliant?"
"All British men are brilliant. I think it's the law over there."
"You do realize that we're talking about Spike, right?"
"Well, he fixed the car, didn't he? You couldn't do that. Neither could Sam or Toby. And you three are supposed to be of the smartest men in the country. I think you are threatened by Spike's brilliance." Donna licked her lips coyly and glanced down. "I bet he even knows how to change a tire."
"Dammit, I don't give a crap if he can change every tire on every vehicle in the Western hemisphere. That's not the point!" Josh struck the steering wheel again in frustration, causing his assistant to start. "He's not human. He's...I don't know what he is, but he's not human."
"That's ridicul—"
"He was drinking blood, Donna!" Josh whipped to gage her slackjawed reaction before focusing on the road again. "He's a freak! Hell, he might be dangerous. We don't know! I don't know! But we're getting out of here right now."
It took several seconds that spanned into years before she could conjure a coherent rebuttal. "Oh my...you saw wrong. Drinking blood? Josh, you saw wrong."
"I did not see wrong! He was drinking blood! I know blood when I see it! And his face—"
The Winnebago jerked to a sudden halt and rebounded off thin air as though hitting a brick wall at full speed. Josh's arm shot instinctively across Donna's chest to stop her before she whiplashed, his foot pressing the break pedal through the floor. They were directly at the city limits, facing an open road with no oncoming traffic. Nothing to the outside where furthered travel was impeded by an unseen barrier. Stopped. Stranded by nothing at all.
It took several minutes for either to catch their breath.
"A-are you okay?" Josh ventured shakily.
The blonde shook her head and moaned. "Oh God."
"Donna?"
"I'm going to be sick." She covered her face with her hands and smoothed her hair back, absently registering the reassuring massages that Josh soothed into the shoulder nearest to him. "What happened?"
"I don't know."
"What did we hit?"
"Nothing."
Donna's head shot up, her eyes taking in the scene before them. "What do you mean, we hit nothing? How can we have hit nothing?"
"I don't know. I..." Josh forced his concern away from the blonde at his side and turned instead to manipulate the gears of the Winnebago. The vehicle wanted to move forward, but was pushing at an invisible nothing. Just nothing. The tires moved and screeched and sent a horrible aroma from the concrete, but nothing. "No," he said, slamming his hands against the wheel again. "No, goddammit! This can't be good."
Ten minutes later, they had moved outside to test the barrier with their hands. First try sent Josh back ten feet as though he had touched an electric fence. After Donna verified that he hadn't hurt himself, she took to throwing pebbles and the few sticks she could scrounge at the invisible wall as her boss dug out his cell and furiously punched in the familiar numbers that got Leo's office.
"You're not going to tell him your idea about rooming with people who aren't human, are you?" Donna asked dryly.
"It's not as crazy as you're making it sound," he barked.
"I think you've gone around the bend."
"Yeah." Josh turned his back on her, pivoting sharply at the heel as Leo picked up the other line. "Yeah. I got a situation here, and if you could explain, that would be fantastic."
"Yes. Leo!" Donna indulged several long steps forward, shouting as loud as she could. "Help! Josh has gone crazy!"
The man sent her a nasty glare and turned away again. "Yeah. No, this doesn't have anything to do with Senator Davis. That's pretty much yesterday's news. I'm standing here at the city limits of Natchez and, while there's nothing ahead of me, my...well, the Winnebago won't go anywhere. Where I got the Winnebago doesn't matter right now! I'm saying it's functioning fine but it won't go forward. No! Leo, I did two laps back and forth and it runs fine until I get to the city limits. It's not letting me leave! Yes, I understand that you're not able to fix everything, but this...and there's this guy back at the place who's a bloodsucking freak with a weird interchangeable facial condition. Got anything for me?"
"Other than Prozac?" Donna muttered.
Josh sent her another look before turning his attention back to the phone. "What? Uh..." He frowned and glanced at his assistant again. "Have we ever seen Spike outside?"
She just looked at him. "He did fix the car didn't he?"
"Yeah, but he had to do that at night."
"He has a sun allergy. He can't be out in the daytime."
"Yeah." Josh nodded and leveled the phone with his mouth again. "Leo, this guy has a sun allergy and can't—what? Yes, there was something wrong with his face. He looked...well...he looked kinda like a Klingon."
"A Klingon, Josh? Honestly..."
"Aha!" The man whooped in victory and sent a snide leer in Donna's direction. "Leo knows something about this. He...what?" The triumph in his voice died as abruptly as it had originated and his expression went blank. "He's a what?What?"The blankness lasted all of two seconds. He was yelling again before his assistant could enjoy the stupor on his face. "What?! Is this a real thing, or are you just... Leo! And you knew? And you didn't tell me? How could you not tell me this?"
Donna's eyes were wide. "What is it?"
The Deputy Chief of Staff shook his head and took to pacing again, ignoring her for the moment. "I don't believe this," he griped into the phone. "Who's in on it? Who knows? Fitz and McNally? That's it? What about the President? You haven't told the President?! Leo!"
"Josh!"
He stopped and expelled a deep breath. "There's a government conspiracy, Donna. Run for cover."
"What the hell is going on?"
He opened his mouth to reply but Leo started in again before he could get anything out. Josh nodded, more to himself, and held up a hand to signify that she needed to be patient for a few more minutes. When the call finally concluded, he hissed out a deep breath, closed the phone, and promptly threw it to the ground to crush it under his weight in the spontaneity of a Lyman hissy fit.
Donna bit her lip. "Josh?"
"Don't. Fucking. Believe. This."
"Josh, you have to tell me what's going on."
"Well, I was right about Spike." He shook his head. "And trust me, I can't even begin to grasp the words that are about to come out of my mouth, so bear with me."
"What is it?"
"Spike's not human. He's a vampire."
The air fell still around them. They stared at each other for a few excruciatingly long seconds. There was always something about Josh's demeanor that Donna could read when others couldn't—the line between truth and slander. And he was telling the truth now. No games. No hoaxes. No practical jokes. This was the truth. The truth as he believed it.
She was trembling when she got her voice to work again. "Wh-what?"
"Oh yeah. And that's not even the best part. Evidently, the government has funded a private organization to keep vampires and all other kinds of—and here I go again using a word I never thought I'd think, much less say..." He trailed off with a short laugh, shaking his head. "An organization that keeps other kinds of demons under control."
"This is a joke, right?"
"It's called the Initiative. And the only people in the White House that we know who have access are Leo, Fitzwallace, and Nancy McNally."
"The President...?"
"Plausible deniability. He can't know anything like this without being asked to lie to Joe Crazy and his neighbor Billy Conspiracy Theorist the next time we hold a press conference on Mars. This is crazy!" Josh grumbled in disgust and gave the nearest tire a good kick. "I...gimme time. Then we're gonna have to go back."
"Go back?"
"Well, I don't really wanna camp out here, do you?" He expelled another deep breath and shook his head. "And we left Sam with a vampire."
"Spike...he hasn't hurt us, Josh. Are we even talking about this?"
"He's a vampire, Donna."
"Yeah, and he hasn't hurt us. Don't you think he would've tried to hurt us by now if that was his prerogative? Besides...Buffy trusts him."
"Buffy probably doesn't know. How many sane people do you know that would look at him, say 'vampire,' and move on? We gotta go back."
"And do what?"
"I don't know, but it has to be something. The guy's a vampire." Josh shook his head, motioning for her to get back into the Winnebago. "And you thought he had a nice face."
Donna blinked. "He does have a nice face."
"Inside."
"I don't see what his being a vampire has to do with the quality of his being man-candy."
"Inside!"
"I think you're threatened by his brilliance."
"Donna, he's a vampire. If anything, I'm threatened by that. Inside."
"Okay. Just give me time. Spike's a vampire. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?" One look from him verified that he did. "Maybe it's all a mistake. Vampires? Secret government agencies that specialize in demon research? It has to be a mistake."
"Inside."
"All I'm saying is, I'm not going to panic until Spike explains everything."
"Donna, please get into the Winnebago."
She nodded, still a little numb, and made the roundabout trip around the vehicle and climbed in the passenger door.
Two minutes passed before the car started up again and performed a U-Turn back for the Wensel house. Neither noticed the enclosing storm clouds or the roll of thunder that followed. They were too engaged in selective silence. Contemplating the world they had lived in all their lives as belonging to creatures known through the ages as being fictional. It wasn't possible. It just wasn't possible.
Vampires in America.
That thought was enough to silence anyone.
And oddly enough, Josh spent the majority of the car-ride back hoping against hope that Congress hadn't secretly passed legislation that legalized voting rights for the undead.
Perhaps he really was going crazy.
By the time the Winnebago pulled into the drive of the Wensel House, everyone had congregated to the parlor and were scattered accordingly in clusters of no more than three. Xander, Anya, and Wesley were in one corner; Giles and Toby in another. Willow and Sam had taken the small settee and were trading estranged glances while Buffy and Spike stood conspicuously close in the opposing corner.
"They couldn't be more obvious if they tried," Harris muttered.
Which, of course, turned out to be the embodiment of a bad idea as vampire hearing made it very difficult for anything of any nature to slip by so coercively. "Oh, 'm sure we could, Stay Puft," Spike retorted, fighting the temptation to slip an arm around Buffy's shoulders. "But somethin' tells me the lady wouldn't like that."
"Shut up," the Slayer grumbled, avoiding the prying eyes of every judgmental body in the room.
"Buffy—"
"Xander, he's just trying to bait you. Drop it."
The vampire nodded, though he did nothing to wipe the smirk from his face. The fact that everyone was pretty much aware of what was happening between them and that—outside the expected leers, stares, and almost-commentary—no one had said much struck him as utterly refreshing. Giles's tacit objection was quickly becoming reluctant acceptance; Xander's disapproval very palpable but resigned.
It was as though everyone had seen it coming. Everyone but the Slayer and himself.
"So..." Sam licked his lips, breaking the silence before it could settle again. "What happens now?"
"We waste more time squabbling with each other," Toby replied. "When there is real productivity out there to be had."
"'S not my fault your mate ran away like a sodding ninny."
Buffy arched a brow at him. Willow coughed loudly.
Spike pouted. "Well, maybe it is. Jus' a li'l."
Sam blinked dumbly, casting confused glances to his housemates. "What? What's going on?"
"You know that stuff that we thought you weren't ready to know yet?" Willow asked softly. He nodded. "Well, I think you're about to get the full shebang."
"Great."
Buffy arched a brow. "He knows?"
"A little."
"A little what?"
The redhead offered a quirky smile. "Well, remember that thing you wanted me to do to help us find Faith before you went all...you know...with the crazy driveage to Louisiana? Well, Sam wanted a sandwich, and—"
"For God's sakes, can we please stop speaking in euphemisms?" Giles sighed heavily and removed his glasses. "Does anyone here not know that Willow is a witch?"
There was a stunned pause.
"Well," Toby said slowly. "I have had my suspicions."
"Watch it, mate," Spike advised. "Red'll turn you into a newt before you can say antidisestablishmentarianism."
The other man blinked. "I can honestly say that I am surprised that you can say antidisestablishmentarianism."
Sam glanced timidly to Giles. "About the book...have you...do you know if I did any damage?"
Buffy frowned. "The book? What happened?"
"The book you gave me," the elder Watcher replied dryly. "It seems we might have already had a mishap."
"We have?" the Deputy Communications Director whimpered.
"We didn't," Willow reassured him, patting his knee. "You were just playing with the words. It's okay. It's not like you wield any supernatural power to give the words the umph they need..." When she was not automatically met with a foray of confirmation from the two Watchers, her confidence began to waver and her voice reached a shrill note. "Right, guys?"
"What happened?" the Slayer demanded again.
"Sam spoke one of the passages aloud," the Witch explained. "No big."
Xander blinked at her dumbly. "No big? Will...ummm...hello?"
"There might actually not be anything to worry about," Anya said. "I've seen these cases before. In order for a spell to work, one must not necessarily have any supernatural powers; only a belief in what they are trying to accomplish. That's how I became a vengeance demon in the very general sense."
Toby just looked at her. "A vengeance what?"
"So you don't know if it did anything?" Sam asked.
"We are not educated enough in the book—who wrote it and for what purpose, et cetera—to determine what any of the passages mean. You could have spurned an apocalypse or made a man in Belize dress as a ballerina, for all we know." Giles sighed deeply and shook his head. "We make a point not to attempt spells unless we have an understanding of their outcome...which is why I asked Willow not to try any until we knew exactly what we are dealing with."
The redhead frowned defensively. "Hey! It was him!"
Sam's eyes widened. "Willow!"
"Sorry."
Toby was staring at everyone as though they had spontaneously broken into song. "Is everyone here on drugs?"
Wesley released a long whistle. "If only life were so simple."
There wasn't much room for rebuttal; Josh had all but crashed the front door down within the next second, eyes fixating immediately on Spike as he paraded inward, missing intent. And loudly, without any room for explanation or preamble, he pointed an accusing finger and shouted: "You're a vampire!"
Sam was at his feet the next minute, a shrill attacking his voice. "He is?!"
Spike shrugged reasonably and cast Buffy an unworried glance. "Well, that would explain the drastically serious sun allergy, wouldn't it?"
She glared at him, though her eyes were dancing.
"Josh!" Donna yelled, scrambling in behind her boss. "It's not going to help anyone to rave about like a madman."
"And yet he's so good at it," Toby observed.
His deputy was not so quick to dismiss the accusation. He had seen too much to admit that as an option. "Spike's a vampire?!"
"Bloodsucker!"
Xander rose to his feet, oddly diplomatic. "Okay...crazy people have entered the room."
Donna flashed the platinum Cockney an apologetic glance. "Sorry about this!"
It didn't matter. By the time Josh was within two feet of Spike, Buffy had very intently stepped forward in a manner that was so overly protective that it caused the vampire to freeze with such a random blow of affection and therein fleetingly eliminated the seriousness of the current situation.
"All right," she said, adorning her patented dry smile that spoke levels for power and commanded authority. "You need to calm down."
Sam was hiding behind the couch, ignoring Willow's attempts to console him. "Spike's a vampire?"
"I'll ask again: is everyone here on drugs?"
"Oh good Lord," Giles gasped, caressing his brow to wane off an oncoming headache.
Josh glared unblinkingly at Buffy, pointing at the man over her shoulder and speaking slowly as though she was a child. "He's. A. Vampire."
"Tell me something I don't know!"
Donna blinked. "You know he's a vampire?"
"As if it isn't obvious," Anya grumbled.
"All right..." Wesley heaved a sigh and stepped forward. "We all need to settle down so Rupert and I can explain—"
"Why are you defending a vampire?!"
Harris shrugged. "I'd actually like to hear this one."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut up, Xander. Your girlfriend's a vengeance demon, so I really don't think you have room to criticize, thank you."
Sam whirled around, staring wide-eyed at Anya. "She's what?!"
"Former vengeance demon," the man hurried to correct. "As in, past tense."
"As in, don't care."
Spike was grinning like an idiot. "Don' you jus' love her?"
Buffy flushed but shook her head and continued, redirecting her eyes at Josh. "And I'm defending the vampire because it's my job, not yours."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Sam was still staring at Anya uneasily. "A vengeance demon?"
The accused shrugged. "I said it earlier."
"And hey! No judging!" Harris pointed at the redhead. "She's a witch!"
"Xander!"
Donna's eyes widened. "Willow!"
The redhead stuttered desperately before her eyes landed on Spike again. Tactic easily noted; she shrugged at him apologetically, but did not hesitate to remind the room that, "He's a vampire!"
Buffy glared. "Will."
"Sorry," she eeped.
"I still wanna know why you care," Josh whined. "He's a vampire."
"Got that memo, thanks." The petite blonde stepped forward intently. "Next time you decide to go investigating vamps, try looking under Slayer, the. As in, yours truly. I am a vampire slayer. I slay vamps. Of the Chosen, and all that. So please, back off."
That certainly sent Josh for a loop. He could do nothing but stare at her for several long seconds. "You're a vampire slayer?"
"Correct."
He licked his lips and digested the notion. "And Spike's a vampire?"
"Correct again."
"So why is he all unslayed?"
Xander cleared his throat. "That's a perfectly valid question."
Donna frowned. "Isn't Spike your friend?"
To that, the other man had no reaction but a long, humorless laugh.
Buffy sent him a look that could freeze Hell, thaw it, and freeze it again. "You know why," she snapped. To Josh, she situated her hands on her hips in classic Slayer stance. The same that the very approving vampire behind her had memorized from Day One. She meant business. And lots of it. "Spike is here and unstaked because I say so. Anything you do to, oh say, undo that will not be appreciated by me. The vampire slayer."
"I think you've misinterpreted the definition of slay, lady."
"Josh," Donna hissed.
"Spike has something...he can't hurt humans. At all." That excuse sounded weak, even to her. When had it stopped being about that and about something else? She didn't know; now was not the time. "He can't hurt humans, and I don't make a habit of hurting those who are pretty much designated pacifists."
The Cockney grumbled a bit at that. "Sure know how to turn on the charm there, luv," he observed. "Make me feel all important."
She turned to look at him. "I'm fighting to protect you. That's important enough."
"Don' need help."
"Spike—"
"Whoa, wait." Josh pinched the bridge of his nose. "He can't hurt humans? Why not?"
Giles cleared his throat with a thin smile. "We don't know yet."
"There are commando guys involved," Anya added helpfully.
Willow shrugged. "He tried to bite me and had trouble performing." She waved off Sam's look of concern and smiled slightly at his sudden pose of unmitigated accusation. "But it's okay. Buffy trusts him now and—"
"Buffy?"
"What's going on?"
There was a significant pause at that. Josh's shoulders slumped and he turned slowly to face his colleague, eyes wide. "Well...apparently, Leo's been keeping some things from us."
Sam gawked at him. "Leo knows about this?"
"There's an entire faction of the government that knows about this." He glanced to Buffy. "It's called the Initiative. Specializes in supernatural research." There was a long sigh; he shook his head. "And this is totally insane because I'm in a bed and breakfast in Natchez talking about vampires with vampires as though it's all supposed to make sense."
"There's just one vampire here," Anya said. "I'm a former vengeance demon."
"She keeps saying that," Sam whimpered.
"Whoa, wait." Buffy jumped forward and grabbed Josh's arm. "The government has been researching demons? Since when?"
"I don't know! I wasn't exactly interested in dates, lady. I called Leo to tell him what was going on and suddenly I'm up to my ass in government conspiracy." He turned to Spike with a huff. "And you're not supposed to exist!"
The vampire's eyes widened mockingly. "'ve been here a lot longer than you, mate."
"And demons have been here much longer than humans," Anya intervened defensively, shooting the Cockney a look of full-fledged support.
"This is crazy," Josh muttered. "You are all crazy."
Wesley glanced to Giles and shrugged as though offering diplomacy. "Do you wish to handle this?" he asked. "Or shall I?"
Almost immediately, the Senior Staffers turned to the elder Watcher imploringly for guidance. It was more than obvious who had their respect. And while the other man sulked a bit at this irrefutable knowledge, he nodded all the same and moved aside so that Giles might take the floor.
"We never meant for any of this to happen," he began softly. "In fact, I am more than appalled by the complete lack of protocol that we have exhibited since arriving." He did not come out and name names, though the condescending look in the peroxide vampire's direction left little to the imagination. It also caused Buffy's hand to immediately find Spike's and squeeze in mindless reassurance. "As far as this...Initiative is concerned, that might well be the explanation to a lot of what has been going on in Sunnydale the past few months...Spike's...problem, amongst other things."
The vampire arched a brow, doing a secret dance of joy that the Slayer had touched him of her own freewill in front of her friends and was showing no signs of regret. Or withdrawal, for that matter. "You think I got hijacked by a group of government cronies?"
"Leo did mention that experiments to neutralize what he called 'hostiles' were being conducted in secret locations throughout the country," Josh murmured. His demeanor betrayed that of a scorned child, which made his explanation almost funny. "Sometimes involving neurological implants."
"What?!" the two blondes yelped at the same time.
"You put somethin' in my head?!" Spike snarled. "You righteous git—"
Josh's eyes went wide as his hands came up. "It wasn't me!"
"Right. Typical. 'Please look the other way while I muck up your life.'" He shook his head, tugging Buffy back against him as though the man's next course of action would be to submit the Slayer for tests. "I can't bloody believe this..."
Buffy squeezed his hand again to calm him. "Spike..."
"Sodding bollocks."
"And what about you!" The Deputy Chief of Staff went right back to accusing as though it was a religion he had to fall back on. "You made it impossible for us to leave!"
Spike blinked. "Excuse me? 'm the one bloke here who could fix a bloody car."
"Yeah, well, we can't get out of Natchez."
"That's not my problem!"
"There's a barrier or something," Donna added helpfully, her apologetic look all but plastered on her face. "We couldn't get out."
"What?" Xander demanded. "We're stuck here, too? What the hell?"
"This might be easier if only two or three of them spoke at a time," Wesley commented to Giles, who looked as though he was about to put his fist through the wall. In any regard, that seemed to inspire the room to silence, even if the dagger-pointed glares did not cease.
Sam cleared his throat, redirecting everyone's attention to the elder Watcher. "Continue," he said. Then added with a beseeching note in his voice, "Please."
Giles nodded tacitly and drew his eyes away from his Slayer and her nauseatingly close relationship with her alleged prey. "Wesley and I are former instructors of the Watchers Council in England," he said. "We are a group that has been around since the dawn of time. Each Watcher is assigned a Slayer to train and protect, best to his ability. Buffy is my Slayer...or rather was, until I was fired."
Donna's eyes went wide. "Fired? For what?"
"For caring too much."
"Awww. That is so—"
"Donna," Josh interjected sharply. "Not exactly the right time."
Giles licked his lips and expelled another sigh. "I know this is difficult to grasp, but bear with me. It requires knowing and accepting that the reality you have depended on for the entirety of your life is not what it seems." He nodded at his surrogate daughter. "Buffy is the Slayer. She is the Chosen One. Unto every generation, a girl is selected to face the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness. Buffy is she...only Faith is, too, and that's where it gets confusing."
"It wasn't confusing before?"
"I died," Buffy said. "For like, two seconds, and the entire 'line of the Slayer' thing was thrown out of whack. The next Slayer, Kendra, was called because I was dead, and—"
Donna was staring at her blankly. "You were dead?"
"For a minute, yeah."
"But..."
"She drowned," Xander offered. "She drowned while this evil Master Vamp was trying to rise from his lair. I did CPR and—voila! Buffy not dead."
Wesley nodded, stepping forward. "Yes, but she did technically die, as it passed the test for calling the next Slayer. Thus, Kendra was called."
"So in order for there to be a new Slayer, the old one has to die?" Donna asked. "Why? Why just one? If there are so many vampires, then—"
"We didn't make up the rules, Ms. Moss," Giles replied wanly. "This has been the way of things for centuries. It will continue to be the way of things long after you have died. A Slayer's lifespan is...well..."
Spike's hand tightened around Buffy's at the mention of her preset expiration date. Killing Slayers and hunting Slayers had been his modus operandi so long that it struck him almost out of the blue that he might regret it. But he didn't; he couldn't. Not the other girls. They led him to the one at his side now, and he wouldn't change that for anything. But no one was going to touch Buffy while he was around. His girl would lead a long, fulfilling, and shag-filled life, if he had anything to say about it.
"Kendra was killed by a vamp named Drusilla," Xander continued before sending the peroxide Cockney another chilling look. "Spike's ex-girlfriend, I might add. And quite a nut job, if I don't say so myself."
Josh took another step away from the vampire.
"Your girlfriend killed a Slayer?" Donna asked, wide-eyed. "Is that why you broke up with her?"
Spike smiled thinly. "I—"
"Are you kidding me? Spike is probably jealous that she got to do it instead of him. After all, that's how he got into the history books, right?" Harris spat. "He's killed two. He came to Sunnydale to kill Buffy. He—"
"Xander," the Slayer warned, tone level. "That's enough."
Josh's eyes widened. "This guy's tried to kill you and you're defending him?"
There was a pause. Buffy's gaze dropped and she shook her head. "It's not like that anymore."
"Spike can't hurt people," Willow offered meekly. "He...works with us."
"Thanks to the lot of you wankers," the vampire grumbled. "An' as far as the other, I'd never hurt Buffy. Ever. She's right. Things have changed." His eyes met hers and he smiled a little. "'ve changed. An' I'm here 'cause I was asked to be here." The moment was small and noted; a tender gaze of recognition. Captured intimacy at its best. It didn't last long, though, and he had turned back to the others within an instant. "But let's clarify a few things, shall we? Yes, I am evil. No, I do not have a soul. Yes, I have killed in the past, an' no, I don' regret it. 'S what I am. Vamps are killers, you ignorant gits. 'S what we do. People are jus' sodding snacks walkin' around to be picked off. That's what we know. 'S all we know. An' we've been around a lot longer than any of you bloody pulsers can vouch for. So piss off."
There was a long pause.
"Right," Josh said, glancing to Buffy. "You got yourself a real winner, there."
"This isn't about me," she retorted. "Or Spike. We're here for Faith. She's a Slayer, just like me. Only she's on the very end of unbalanced and about ready to dive off into homicidal-tendencies land. She tried to help the Mayor Ascend last year...or become a demon, and I put her in a coma. She woke up from the coma, switched bodies with me, and was about to do all sorts of damage before Spike helped us apprehend her."
Sam exchanged a long glance with the Deputy Chief of Staff. "If she was apprehended," the former said. "Then why..."
"Spike held her...or me...long enough so that we could switch bodies back," Buffy explained. "Whatever your guys put into his head caused for it to fire, and he couldn't hold on long enough for us to actually apprehend her. She ran, we followed, and we're here."
"And this girl's..." Josh gestured broadly. "One of you. She's..."
"She's a Slayer," Willow said. "Of the Chosen? Really strong and, well, strong. When you're that strong and demented...well, that's just a bad combination."
"That's why she was able to punch through the car?" Sam whimpered, sinking into his seat at the redhead's corresponding nod. "She kicked in the glass, too. Of the car window. Kicked right through."
Josh glanced to Buffy skeptically. "And you're saying you're one of these Slayer people?"
Spike snickered. "What is it with you gits? Got some learnin' disability? Or would you prefer to see our girl handle herself in the up close an' personal sense?"
"Since when did you become one of us?" Xander demanded.
"Give it a rest, Stay Puft."
The Slayer shrugged. "He's here, isn't it?"
"And since when did you start defending Evil Dead?"
"Buffy's not defendin' me, you ignorant prat," the Cockney growled. "'S a statement of fact. I'm here. See me, here?" He extended his arms in a manner of showmanship. "'m here 'cause Faith used me. Right? Din't particularly like that, an' I think some blokes in the room—" He nodded at Sam, who looked at the ground almost immediately, "—can see why I'd be brassed. An' yeh, I'm helpin' out. Where exactly do you get the shit end of the deal?" A moment's pause; nothing but dumb stupor. "Yeh, that's what I thought. Bugger off an' leave a vamp in peace."
Silence filled the room at the upset of Spike's outburst. No one knew exactly where to go from there. If there was anywhere to go.
Then Willow raised her hand. Slowly. "You called her Buffy," she said to the vampire.
"What?"
The room was staring at her. She gulped slightly but continued. "You called her Buffy. I think that's why Xander...and Giles and Wes are a little on the side of...you called her Buffy." She didn't follow that thought through to conclusion, but it seemed to satisfy itself. And the point was not a lost cause.
The subsequent look that the vampire and Slayer shared similarly did nothing to satisfy any concerns. But in any regard, that was far from their intent.
And then there was nothing. The parlor was stupefied into another lengthy silence. A series of darted, suspicious glances with no counter to back it up. Just a dry recognition that such was the way of things. Approaching the border between knowledge and acceptance. Approaching dangerous territory.
Finally, Giles cleared his throat and nodded, removing his glasses with a short, incredulous laugh. "Just when it seems that we have reached the last low," he murmured, more to himself before turning his attention to the room again. "All right. Faith is a rogue Slayer. Wesley and I are Watchers here partially on part of the Watcher's Council, but unofficially as we find it imperative that we get to her first. Willow is a practicing witch, Anya a former demon, Spike a vampire, and Buffy a Slayer." He stopped, eyes landing on the young blonde with a small smile. "The Slayer. More over, demons and vampires exist, your government is evidently aware and a part of the fight for humanity, and we stand a chance that Sam has sparked the ignition for the end of the world. I believe that brings everyone up to speed. Are there any questions?"
A stunned beat chilled the room once more. Words were at a loss. There was simply nothing to say.
Then Toby, who had remained quiet throughout the entire display, caved and burst out laughing.
And once he started, he couldn't stop.
At all.
"Toby," Sam reprimanded ineffectively, glancing around with shades of apology. Not that it did any good. The man was simply in stitches, and nothing would bring him down.
"Well," Spike said after a long minute. "There's one way to look at it."
"And we can't get out?" Sam asked Josh quietly. "You're sure?"
"Oh yeah. Fenced in." The words were barked, snappish in nature, but nothing else had been shared since they arrived. "An invisible eighty foot tall electric fence built like a brick wall."
"We'll investigate, of course," Giles said with a quick nod. "There has to be an explanation."
"If your idea of an explanation is anything like the madness you were spewing a minute ago, I'm not gonna hold out for hope."
That was all that passed. Nothing else but Toby's hysterical chuckles. And when he finally gathered himself together, the seriousness back in his eyes, he did nothing to excuse or explain himself. Had nothing to say about the matter. Which was fine—judging by the dreariness of his disposition, no one needed to be called stupid or insane again.
All settled to silence. And no one spoke. There was much to say, of course; just no will, no understanding to say it. Too much clouded the terrain, and any proposed method of approach was lost.
There was nothing. Just nothing.