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Chapter 23: Vows, Subterfuge, and Memories

Buffy awoke in the predawn hours to feel Spike trying to carefully untangle himself from her. The spell that Giles conducted last night seemed to help a bit. She was still sore and could feel her strength draining away, but she believed that she could still get up and move around. The first place she wanted to move to was the bathroom. It seemed like ages since she’d relieved herself, or taken a shower.

With that thought in mind, she sat up as Spike was pulling on his jeans. The soft rustling on the bed had him glancing around at her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he whispered a little harshly.

“Bathroom and shower,” she said as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

Spike rushed around to the other side of the bed intent on carrying her there. She shot him an evil glare just daring him to try it. She wasn’t going to build up her strength if he kept carrying her everywhere. Seeing the look on her face, he shot both hands up in the air in a placating gesture, but stood there in case she needed him. Slowly, Buffy stood up on wobbly legs; she faltered for a minute-arms shooting outward for balance-then regained purchase and started her way towards the bathroom.

When she got to the bathroom, she grabbed on to the doorjamb and held on. She looked back to where Spike was watching her progress with anxious eyes.

“Where were you off to?” she asked taking in his semi-dressed attire.

“We had more guests show up while you were asleep,” he mumbled. “Heard them pull up and need to go let them in.” Buffy looked at him, a question on her face.

He didn’t know if he should tell her or not. What was he thinking? He had to tell her. Shoot, she was going to find out soon enough anyway. He looked at the floor, then sighed and looked back up at her.

“Angel, Fred, and Wesley showed up late last night. They’re here to help figure out this mess,” he said, motioning towards her stomach region. “Take a shower. I’ll let our guests in and rouse Giles, then come back up to get you, ok?” Buffy nodded and slowly shut the bathroom door. Spike pulled on a t-shirt and padded barefoot to the door. He knocked briefly on Giles’ bedroom door, letting him know through the closed door that the L.A gang was back, then went downstairs to let Angel and company in.

~*~*~*~*~

The office held more people than it was comfortably able, but the occupants wanted to be assured of privacy from the younger slayers. There was no point getting them involved if it wasn’t necessary. Spike sat beside Fred in one of the two chairs in front of the desk, holding a weakened slayer snuggly in his lap. She had exhausted herself with her shower and her attempts to walk on her own until finally he had growled and scooped her into his arms and carried her down the stairs and into the office. Damn woman and her independent streaks. Dawn perched on the arm of Spike’s chair-there was no way she wasn’t being included in the research, especially since she had found out the seriousness of Buffy’s condition last night. Giles was again behind the desk, Angel and Wesley flanking him.

Quickly, Giles outlined a plan of attack in dealing with the situation.

“I think the best thing would be to split up into groups. We still need to find out all we can on this Draemuir dimension as well as Buffy’s attacker. But, I think it would be beneficial if we could actually find this person, demon, whatever it is. Maybe then we can narrow down what he has done and come up with a solution to fix it. Spike, Angel, I’ll leave that to you. You can take the other slayers with you. It will allow them to keep up their skills while Buffy is incapacitated,” he said, pinning Spike with a look. Spike gave a slight nod back at the watcher. There was no way Buffy was going out to patrol and he had effectively sidestepped any argument that she might come up with.

“The rest of us will research. See if there is anything we’ve overlooked or have yet to find.” He squelched the guilt he was feeling about the short text he had found and was now secretly hidden in his room. He wasn’t even sure if the passage related to Buffy. His conscience argued that it wasn’t true, but he refused to dwell on the finality of the words. And, if he mentioned it to the others, then they would become distracted-possibly give up hope. So, for now, he was keeping mum.

To make it easier to research, they collectively decided to move everything into the dining room. It had a huge table and allowed them to spread out. Grabbing books, scrolls, pads of paper, and pens; Fred, Wesley, and Dawn went to go set everything up. With the sun now peaking on the horizon, Spike and Angel were pretty useless, so they both decided to get a few more hours of sleep.

Spike stood up with Buffy in his arms and was about to take her back upstairs, but she stayed his action.

“I need to look at a few things on the computer. See if Willow or Xander sent me an email.” Spike gave her an exasperated look, but nodded and deposited her in the chair behind the desk that Giles had just vacated. He brushed a kiss to her forehead then left to show Angel where he could catch a few hours sleep.

Giles was just about to follow the two vampires out of the office when Buffy’s voice stopped him.

“Giles?” He stopped and turned around to look at her.

“I had a slayer dream last night.” The whispered words carrying a tinge of fear had him closing the door to the office and walking back towards her.

“I haven’t told Spike…” she faltered, eyes filling with unshed tears, head bowed. She took a steadying breath, then looked up at Giles with anguish filled eyes. “I haven’t told Spike yet. But, I saw the first slayer. Twice, actually. But, last night it was different. She was different.”

Giles looked at her questioningly, silently urging her to continue.

“She said I’m tied to the slayers and they’re tied to me. Because of that spell we did with the scythe. That now, I’m going to become their guardian. But, that’s not the worst part.”

Mentally, Giles braced himself for her next words.

“Death is my gift,” Buffy whispered, letting the tears finally fall.

Giles rushed around the desk to pull the woman he had always thought of as a daughter into his arms. He pulled off his glasses so that he could wipe the tears streaming down his face with the back of his hand.

“Buffy…” he began, unsteadily. He grabbed her upper arms and held her out so that he could look at her. “Those dreams are supposed to be prophetic. Like a metaphor of what may happen. Could possibly happen. And, I’m stressing the ‘could.’ The events of our life are not set in stone.”

“But Giles. You don’t understand. The first dream I had. It was the exact same one I had when I was dealing with Glory. And, you remember how well that went.”

Giles went pale at that. But, he quickly recovered and pressed on. “It doesn’t matter. We will figure this out.”

“Ok.”

Buffy gave him a wobbly smile and sat back down behind the desk. Her trust in him was implicit. She turned on the computer, letting it warm up.

“Don’t stay here too long, Buffy. You still need your rest.”

“God, you’re as bad as Spike,” she grumbled. “Fine, I won’t. But, I’m not going back to bed.”

Before he could interject with more fatherly concern, she told him, “But I’ll confine myself to the couch and watch TV. Is that ok?”

“Yes. That should be fine.” Leaving Buffy to her email, he made his way to the dining room to join the others at research. He felt as if he had been sucker-punched. As Buffy told him about the dreams she had, all he could think of was the short passage now emblazoned in his mind.

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