Banner by Selene
Banner
by Selene
Ch. 1: The Prophecy
Rome
Six months after leaving Sunnydale…
She clasped his hand, looking deeply into his eyes, wanting to maintain the
contact with him as long as possible. Her hand ignited within his. The pain is
intense, but she refused to let go, to leave him.
“I love you.”
“No, you don’t. But, thanks for saying it.”
Time was getting short. The walls were starting to crumble in around them.
“Buffy, you have to leave,” Spike told her.
“No.”
“Buffy, you have to. This place is falling apart.”
Reluctantly, Buffy released Spike’s hand as he started to burn from the inside
out. Using the remainder of her energy, she ran up the stairs to the roof of the
school. Just as the school started to implode, she hurled herself onto the top
of the moving bus filled with the remaining survivors of the confrontation with
the First.
Buffy abruptly sat up in her bed, Spike’s name frozen in a silent scream on
her lips. Drenched in sweat, tears were streaming silently from the corners of
her eyes down her ashen face. Pulling her knees to her chest, she dropped her
face in her hands breathing slowly to calm her racing heart.
It was the same every night. She should be used to the dreams by now, but she
wasn’t. She could still feel the pain from the fire as she had gripped
Spike’s hand. Could still feel the intensity of his gaze. It hurt just
thinking about it.
Buffy shook her head to clear her thoughts. Swinging her legs over the side as
she swept the covers off of her body, she reluctantly climbed out of bed.
“I guess I better get Dawn up and on her way to school,” Buffy mumbled to
herself, heading for the bedroom door.
Buffy had been trying to put Sunnydale, the Hellmouth - and the events
surrounding her departure - behind her. She had finally carved a niche out for
herself and her little sister in Rome after touring most of Europe. Dawn was in
school, actually in school, learning languages, sciences, arts, and history -
things that weren’t possible before because the First had come back from a
final showdown in Sunnydale. At one point, the students hadn't even bothered
going to school. But, things were different now. The future was looking brighter
for her younger sister.
Buffy had settled into a new life training slayers. With Giles starting to
reestablish the Watcher’s Council in England, he was far too busy to see to
the day to day training, and it gave her something to do. It also helped that he
was in charge, because her former watcher saw to it that Buffy was finally paid
for her assistance in addition to providing her with a nice place to live.
Now that there were so many slayers, it made sense to give these “new
slayers” every possible advantage over the demons that still roamed the Earth.
As quickly as Giles, Willow, and Xander, could find them; the girls were
arriving on her doorstep. Pretty soon she’d have to move to a bigger building.
She missed seeing her fellow “Scoobies”, but she didn’t want to appear
selfish. Their emails and weekly chats would have to suffice for now, although
she still had her daily morning conference call with Giles in England. And,
since Giles was making the calls, it saved on her phone bill. Hooray for the new
head of the Council!
Each day, after her morning briefing, she would walk out into the courtyard to
train and meditate before she headed to the third floor to start her basic
training with the girls. At the end of the day, Buffy would take a shower,
letting the hot, pulsing water heal her bruised and battered body. But, the
training wasn’t enough. It did not help the heaviness in her heart. But, if
she just trained hard enough, she might be able to fall into an exhausted sleep,
devoid of dreams.
It never worked, however. Each night she dreamed of her last moments with Spike,
and each morning she resolved to work that much harder so she wouldn’t have
the dream the following night. She was losing weight, weight she could barely
afford to lose, and her lack of appetite wasn’t helping.
For the last six months, she had been going through the motions. After all the
heartache from the aftermath in Sunnydale, emotionally, Buffy shut down. Except
for Dawn, Buffy didn’t have any room left in her heart to love. It just hurt
too damn much. Buffy had realized too late how strong her feelings were for
Spike. She had meant it when she said she loved him. And, it wasn’t just
because he died saving her. He had been her rock after he came back from Africa.
Believing in her, even when she didn’t want to believe in herself.
When Angel had shown up in Sunnydale claiming to be her champion, she had almost
said yes. Buffy knew, deep down, that if Spike were to become her champion he
would be taken from her. And, she'd been right. But, it wasn’t to be. Since
getting his soul back, Spike had the whole “hero” bit down pat and had just
held out his hand for his reward as if it were a foregone conclusion it would be
his.
So now, she had given up on men and relationships - the few men that she had
loved in her life had ended up leaving. Even Spike. She knew it was irrational.
She felt guilty for even thinking it. Spike had died saving the world. ‘But,
he still left me, dammit,’ Buffy thought to herself.
~*~*~*~*~
Los Angeles
Wesley was sitting behind his desk when the mail clerk arrived at his office.
Included with the other various envelopes, there was a dusty chest placed upon
his desk. Looking up from perusing an internal memo of absolutely no relevance
(thanks Harmony!), Wesley glanced at the chest. On top of the chest was a weird
inscription that he couldn’t make out.
Putting the memo aside, he got up and walked around to the front of his desk
peering closely at the chest from several angles. Old in design, with many
unusual markings, the chest was about two feet wide, by one foot tall, by one
foot deep. There were no locks on the chest, just a clasp holding the top
closed. Wesley opened the chest to reveal an old parchment written in an unusual
language.
“Interesting. I guess I should take this and show it to the others,” he
mumbled to himself.
Lifting the chest in his arms he headed off for Angel’s office. He ran into
Gunn and Lorne on the way, nodded towards the box held in his hand, and told
them to follow him.
“What’s in the box, Wes?” Gunn asked.
“I’m not sure yet. There’s a scroll inside written in a language I’ve
never seen before. I was on my way to Angel’s office to see if he might
recognize it,” Wesley replied.
Lorne opened the door for Wesley and followed him and Gunn inside. Angel and
Spike were throwing verbal barbs at one another. Fred was sitting on the couch,
silently laughing at both of them. Angel and Spike had come to an uneasy truce
since Spike had materialized from within the amulet and just recently becoming
corporeal. Lorne personally thought they bickered like siblings. He never
mentioned it to either of them because he didn’t want to their glacier stares
pointed his way. But, it was cute nonetheless.
Wesley set the box down on Angel’s desk.
“What’s in the box, Wes?” Angel asked.
“I was hoping you could get me. There is an inscription on the lid. When I
opened the lid…”
“You what?! You ponce!” Spike yelled, his momentary bickering with his poofy
grandsire forgotten. “Aren’t you supposed to open new thingies in one of
those secure thingies? What are you tryin’ to do? Start a bleedin’ new
apocalypse?”
“Spike, shut up.” Angel muttered. “Wes, continue.”
“Er, right." He glanced at the blond vampire warily. "Like I was
saying. Inside the box is a scroll written in a language I’ve never seen.
Since you’ve been around for awhile, no offense, I was hoping that you might
take a look at the writing and see if you recognized the language.”
Wesley opened the lid, revealing the scroll protected inside. Angel and Spike
peered at the scroll.
“Bloody hell! Looks like gibberish to me,” Spike said.
“I’m not going to be of much help either,” Angel replied.
Fred got up from the couch to take a look. The men in the room made a space so
that she could see the scroll clearly.
“These markings look somewhat familiar. I thought I recalled seeing a book in
Wesley’s collection with similar markings,” Fred exclaimed.
“Hmmm...really? I don't recall...” Wes trailed off as Fred left the group
and moved towards the door.
"Coming, Wes?" she asked.
"Uh, yes..." He hurriedly re-closed the lid and caught up with the
petite Texan, leaving the two vampires, Gunn and Lorne in the room.
“Right. Well, I'll leave you to it, then,” Spike said as he followed Wes and
Fred out of the office.
Once outside, Spike headed for the front doors of Wolfram & Hart. The night
was young and he had a job to do. The others could stay and shuffle papers.
Spike, on the other hand, took more of a hands-on approach towards stopping the
supposed Big Bads of the city. Nothing like staying sharp pitting your skills
against the various scumbags inhabiting Los Angeles.
“No wonder Buffy doesn’t trust the poofter anymore.” Spike muttered, on
the lookout for some baddies to stake. “Since taking over at Wolfram &
Hart, he’s gone soft. Never comes out of his office to get his fingers
dirty.”
~*~*~*~*~
Lying on his bed, back at his apartment, Spike thought back over the previous
hours’ work. Three vamps and some weird Fandlyre demon. Not a bad night –
but it just wasn’t the same without the slayer at his side. The past few
months Spike had become dispassionate with the way things were apparently
handled at Wolfram & Hart. Angel, his ensouled grandsire, had gone soft. He
missed Buffy. ‘Bit too, now that he took a moment to realize it.
He had said that he didn’t know how to top his last exit, at least that was
the excuse he gave for not going after Buffy. But the truth of the matter was
that he was scared. Scared to take the chance of finally seeing the slayer and
having her take back the words of love she'd spoken before he had been sent to
hell.
'Quit being a bloody pansy,' he thought. 'Just get on a plane and fly
to Rome. Peaches has a private jet. Put it to use. Get off your bloody arse and
just go.'
With that thought in mind, Spike drifted off to sleep, clutching his pillow
tightly to his chest as if it were Buffy he held in his arms, just as the sun
started to appear in the sky.