"The Hotel"

Author: Amy
Contact: Slvrbttn@aol.com
Notes: Okay, the timeline is sort of an AU. Just picture The Gift happening, but only Glory dies in the end.

The man sighed, setting his bag down on the seat next to him. There was a line, and he was tired. He could wait until the line thinned before checking in.

He had so much to do the next day.

Stifling a yawn, he removed his glasses and began cleaning them, glancing up at the woman walking toward the counter. She was thin and her dark hair glistened as he stared at the back of her. She had lovely legs.

She slipped behind the counter-- she worked there, he realized-- and turned to look up at the customers waiting to check in, smiling at them, affording the man the first look he'd had of her face.

The woman was beautiful, as his lazy, tired thoughts had told her he would be when he could only see the back of her. But the smile had fled his face as he slowly slid his glasses back on. Blue-green eyes. Perfect mouth. Five years older than she was in the picture he had of her in his coat pocket and no longer blond, but it was indisputably her.

Buffy Summers.

He chuckled quietly. He'd thought that the next day might lead to the first clue of where she was; had never expected to see her the very first hour he'd arrived.

He should have known things worked differently on the Hellmouth. *

After the weary customers had made their way up to their rooms for the night-- with no small amount of grumbling because she had been five minutes late and therefore had made them wait a horrible amount of time before getting their room keys, although she couldn't believe Louise had just left the counter alone before she got there-- Buffy looked up to see a man staring at her.

She narrowed her eyes.

There was something familiar about this man, though she knew instantly that she had never met him before in her life. Something about him that just screamed that she should know who he was and what he was doing there, watching her.

He stood from the small couch across the lobby and started toward her, giving her time to collect her thoughts and study him a bit closer. He was in his early thirties, had dark hair and kind blue eyes. He wore a suit with a tie and although it was nearly ten o'clock, the tie hadn't been loosened at all, and although he wore the look of someone who wanted to rest, he walked as straight and assuredly as if he had only been awake for an hour.

And then it clicked in her mind.

As he reached the counter, Buffy exhaled deeply, not wanting to deal with any of this right now, even though she had been sure it would come sooner or later.

The man smile uncertainly at her. "I'm here to check in," he said, his voice deep and his words accented. "I have a reservation. Jeremy Clark?" He continued to look at her intently, as if waiting for some reaction, but Buffy simply nodded and turned to the computer, typing in his name.

"All right, sir, you'll be in room 417," she said, handing him the key. "Just take the elevator to the fourth floor and turn left. It's right there."

His fingers grazed hers as he took the key and Buffy felt the shock of connectedness that she hadn't felt in so many years. His eyes met hers with surprise and she smirked.

He opened his mouth as if to speak but then shut it, and turned away. Before he had walked two steps, though, Buffy called out to him. "Mr. Clark?"

He turned back around expectantly. "Yes?"

"Can you please just tell me if you've come in peace?" she asked, only mildly sarcastic. "I'm not really in the mood to have to outrun and outfight a group of insane, power-hungry Watchers right now."

His mouth opened but again, no sound came out.

She continued, "Are you the only one they sent?"

Slowly, he nodded.

After a pause, Buffy nodded. "All right, then I'll talk to you. But I'm working right now, so make it tomorrow around one? In the dining room." With that, she turned back to her work as if she had never seen or spoken to him.

And a bewildered Jeremy Clark, not knowing why he was so flustered and confused, boarded the elevator, a slew of questions in his mind that he didn't want to have to wait until the next day to ask.

But would.

Because the woman sounded definite about the conversation waiting, and who in their right mind would demand anything from a Slayer?

Buffy arrived ten minutes early, not surprised to see the Watcher calmly waiting for her, sitting at a two-person table near the large windows that overlooked the fountain. She made her way over to him and sat down, looking at him expectantly.

She decided she wouldn't be the first to speak.

After a few moments of silence, he cleared his throat and nodded, placing his briefcase on the table and opening it, pulling out a tape recorder and a sheaf of papers. "Do you mind if I record this?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact I do."

He looked at her, confused, but when she didn't offer an explanation, he shrugged slightly and returned the recorder to his briefcase, setting it back on the ground. He shuffled the papers in his hand, nervously, as if trying to put off the impending conversation for as long as possible.

Buffy sighed, seeing his discomfort. "Why are you here, Mr. Clark?"

"Please, call me Jeremy," he said, looking relieved.

"Why are you here, Jeremy?" she asked.

"Essentially, I'm here to find you and to gather as much information about you as I can," he explained in a hurry, no doubt afraid that she would grow tired of his presence and leave. "The Council didn't know anything, except that you were here when your Watcher... When..."

Buffy nodded quickly, urging him along with her eyes.

"Anyhow, that was the last any of us knew of you. You basically disappeared, not without reasons, we assumed, and although we have our contacts all over the world, no one knew whether you were alive or dead. Whether you were still Slaying. What had happened to you," he said. "As you know, I'm sure, you were no longer the trigger for a new Slayer, so..."

"So when the new Slayer was activated, you knew that it was because Faith died, not because I had," she finished, understanding. "You had no clue."

"Uh, basically, yes."

"How is she, by the way?" Buffy asked curiously.

"Who?"

"The Slayer?"

"Oh, the Slayer that followed Faith has been dead for two years," Jeremy said casually, not noticing Buffy's flinch. "Jenna, the newest, is fifteen and shows a great deal of promise."

"Thirteen," she muttered under her breath. "She was thirteen when she became the Slayer."

"Yes. Only a little over a year younger than you were."

Buffy's eyes clouded for a moment and then she shook her head, glancing at the papers on the table. "Well, ask your questions."

"Yes, thank you." Jeremy put on his glasses and silently stared down at the papers for a minute before looking up. "Ah, they've written out an enormous list of questions, all of which ask variations of the same thing. I'll just ask then. What happened?"

"Everything," Buffy whispered and then looked outside. Her mouth trembled. Her eyes grew glassy. "Everything that could possibly happen happened to me. My mother died. My sister wasn't real. I defeated a Goddess. None of this really mattered, though. I had my fair share of battles, I guess you could say. Literally and figuratively."

Jeremy pushed the glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. "Your mother died when you were twenty, yes?" Buffy nodded and he continued, "I'm sorry... I don't understand... You were on active Slaying duty until you were twenty-five, so I'm not sure how this figures in to what happened during your twenty-fifth year."

"Everything figures into everything," she explained, blinking back the tears and composing herself. "It's the butterfly effect. When a butterfly flaps its wings in one corner of the world, it's creating a hurricane in another. When my mom died... That year when I was twenty was the worst..." She paused, then changed tacks. "I thought I had the world under control again when I defeated Glory. But that wasn't the case."

"And the, uhm, case was?"

"Was that I'd never had the world under control," Buffy sighed. "Things happen. Things happen that no one could ever try to explain. People's hearts break. Mine did. Thousands of times. Why do things happen? Why does the Slayer fall in love with a vampire? Why do friends die? Why do mothers?"

"Friends and mothers die because people do," Jeremy answered softly, gazing across the table at her. In that moment, her eyes shining, her voice shaking, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He shook himself out of the thought and smiled ironically. "Why a Slayer fell in love with a vampire... Why a vampire loved her back-- two, come to think of it-- I'll never be able to tell you."

Buffy laughed quietly. "Yeah, Spike. He's still alive, you know. Living in Europe, I think. Finally understood why I could never love him back and got pissed as hell at me. Threatened to kill everyone I loved. Unfortunately for him, all he got out of it was a splitting headache." She tapped her head. "Still has the chip. At least the last I heard."

"Can you tell me what happened when you were twenty-five?" Jeremy asked cautiously.

"I'm not sure I can tell anyone what happened. It was a long time ago, but some hurts take forever to heal. Or at least that's how it feels sometimes," Buffy murmured.

Jeremy sighed and leaned back in his chair. Buffy looked at him, startled, not used to seeing a Watcher sit so comfortably. "All right, then," he said, smiling at the surprised look on her face, "What would you like to talk about? I'm here for a week. We can get to the other subjects later if you feel more comfortable."

She studied him for a second and then stood abruptly. "I have to go. I'm-- I have to go. Goodbye."

Confused, Jeremy rose too. "Please, wait. I didn't mean..." He stretched out his hand, laid it on her arm. "Miss Summers..."

Buffy stopped though she could have easily slipped out of his grasp, he realized, and met his eyes. Her voice was heavy. "Tomorrow. One o'clock, here?"

He nodded wordlessly and took his hand away, wondering what would happen tomorrow, what she would reveal, and why there had been such pain in her eyes only moments before. *

Buffy exhaled loudly and dropped her purse onto the couch before reaching for the phone to call in sick to work. The call made, she sat down heavily and propped her feet up on the coffee table.

She'd understood what she'd seen in the Watcher's eyes earlier. The confusion, the curiosity, the physical interest. She'd been confused back, curious as to what would come out of her own mouth and, though she hated to admit it, she found him attractive as well. Which was maybe the most painful part about being around him.

She worked hard at not being connected to anyone. She tried so hard, everyday, to make things as polite and impersonal as they could be but with this man... With this man, she was supposed to bare her deepest and most aching secrets? Secrets held an intimacy all their own and she didn't like the idea of telling anyone what she'd been through or the things she'd felt that had led up to her decision to quit slaying.

But somewhere inside her, she knew she had to. For everyone who had been with her along the way, for this new Slayer Jenna who had a right to know the lives of her predecessors... For herself.

She leaned her head back as tears began leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

Buffy knew she had to tell, to ease some of the pain she had been carrying for so long, for so many reasons that she couldn't yet identify, and yet she wondered...

She wondered if some secrets were meant to stay that way.

Buffy found him easily in the near-empty restaurant. He sat at the same table from the day before and she found herself sighing, not wanting to go over to him, even as she was doing it. He rose when she reached the table and sat down again when she took her seat.

"Miss Summers," he said quickly, as though fearing she was going to bolt again, "I apologize for yesterday. I hope I didn't offend you in any way; that was never my intention. The furthest thing from my mind. We can take things as slowly as you like."

She cleared her throat. "Call me Buffy," she said softly, then stopped for a minute. She closed her eyes, inhaling. "And you didn't offend me. ...I think about these things that have happened to me-- these things that should never happen to anyone-- every night, though every day I tell myself that I'm not going to. That I'm going to block it all from my mind. But, of course that never works. And I haven't talked about it. Not even to Giles. So it's a hard transition to make; telling someone I hardly know the things I couldn't even talk about to those I loved the most."

"I understand."

She looked at him shrewdly. "I'm not sure you could."

He blushed. "Of course. I only meant... I only meant that I see how you could be feeling awkward."

"Not awkward," she corrected, brushing her fingertips over the tablecloth. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Just sad."

"Sad?" Jeremy ventured asking after a moment. He tried hard not to stare at her; she was beautiful in her pain, small and fragile-looking and her eyes were distant, otherworldly. And yet, she had once been strong enough to slay thousands of demons. He shifted in his chair, trying not to think about how strangely arousing that knowledge could be.

"Yes." For a moment he thought she wouldn't explain why but then she nodded. "Yes. Sad because... Well, sad things are, and because I'm now going to talk about my life with you, my past and hurts, and I wish I could have talked about it to the people that shared my life for so many years."

"Buffy," he said suddenly, "Do you still slay?"

"No," she answered simply.

"Have you lost your strength?"

Buffy smirked. "I never said I *couldn't* slay. I just said that I didn't. Vampires don't come here anymore. I... I killed them all. Maybe one or two got out before I got the chance to slay them. So now I guess I'm sort of a ghost story sires tell their minions about. 'Don't go to Sunnydale. The ghost of the Slayer still kills vampires there. You wouldn't stand a chance.'" She shrugged. "Something like that."

"Yes, but you could go somewhere else. Why, even with another Slayer on active duty, the world could always use more help against the vampires, the demons and the forces--" Jeremy stopped when she interrupted him.

"Of darkness?" Buffy asked, rolling her eyes. "That doesn't impress me, Mr. Clark. I've had that speech memorized since I was fifteen. How old were you when you memorized it?"

"Uh, I don't ever remember not knowing it," he said, flushing.

"Still, it's old news. And anyway, I don't want to slay. I killed those vampires for a few reasons, one of which was that I didn't want to have to worry about them anymore. I didn't want to have to deal with the no sleep, the bruises, the cuts and the dry-cleaning bill it entailed anymore. I wanted to be free of it all."

He titled his head. "And the other reasons were?"

Buffy dropped her gaze from his. "I was getting to that." *

"Riley, we're supposed to be patrolling!" Buffy giggled, halfheartedly pushing him away. With more determination and a grin, he leaned forward again, grazing her neck with his teeth.

"I think I'm the only neck-sucker we're going to be seeing around here tonight," he murmured. "It's pretty dead around here. Pun intended."

Buffy let out a sigh and leaned into his attentions, slipping her hand down his shoulders. "Feels good."

"Been awhile," he countered.

"Last night is a while?"

"No, three years is a while," he chuckled, finally pulling away to look into her eyes. "I still miss you, and I'm here now."

Her brows furrowed. "You came back two years ago. Why are you bringing this up?" Her fingers lightly stroked his jaw. He pulled away from her touch and looked at the ground. Buffy stared at him in concern. "Riley? What's wrong?"

He glanced up and caught her eyes again, smiling slowly. "Nothing's wrong. I just think about it sometimes. I think about not being able to be near you. I think about how every time I thought about you, I thought you hadn't loved me enough to try to stop me from leaving. I think about how I don't ever want to lose you again. I love you, Buffy," he stated simply, gazing at her.

Tears sprung into her eyes. "Just when I think I know what's coming, you manage to surprise me." Her voice faded a little, becoming barely more than a breath. "You touch me so deeply sometimes. I love you too."

He leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers. "Good. Because I've been trying to figure out a way... I didn't want to do it like this, but I guess it's sort of fitting; in a cemetery in the middle of the night."

She bit her lip. "What are you talking ab..."

Flashing her a grin, Riley shook his head to silence her and lifted her up so that she was sitting on the headstone behind her. Taking her hands, he knelt down on one knee.

Buffy sucked in her breath, her jaw dropping. "Riley, you don't have to..."

"Buffy," he said surely, his hand pulling a small black box out of his pocket, "...Will you marry me?" He deftly opened the box to reveal a simple, sparkling diamond ring.

"Um." She stared at the ring, her eyes wide.

Riley ventured another, more nervous smile. "Um?"

"It's a ring," she stated.

He laughed. "Yes, it is."

"And you proposed."

"Yes, I did."

Finally she looked up into his eyes and started laughing. "And I'm saying yes!" She flung herself off the headstone and launched into his arms. "I love you, I love you, I love you! We're getting married!"

"Yes, we are," he whispered into her ear, then kissed her long and deep. After a moment he asked, "Did I do it right?"

"You did it perfect," she murmured, hugging him tightly. "You were right. This was the way it should have happened." She squeezed him a little harder. "And now we're getting married!"

"Thank you for saying yes." He touched his forehead to hers.

Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. "Thank you for asking." *

Jeremy tried to remain professional throughout the beginning of her story, trying not let her see that he was disappointed that she had someone in her life. Someone that she loved.

This wasn't what he was there for.

He was there to get a report and go back with it. That was all. Just because she was beautiful and strong and smelled wonderful and... He shook his head as Buffy trailed off.

She smoothed the tablecloth with her palms. "I have to start work in an hour. I need to go home, take a shower and change."

"Ah, yes. All right. Would you like to meet here tomorrow?"

"Well... Yeah, sure."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"What were you going to say?" he asked.

"How did you know I was going to say something?" she asked back, looking at him oddly.

"A look passed over your face, as if you changed your mind mid-sentence," he explained easily.

Startled, Buffy met his eyes. "I was going to say that I'm only working until midnight tonight, if you wanted to meet back here."

"Oh." Jeremy leaned back. "Yes. That would be... Helpful."

"Here to help," she said wryly then stood and walked away.

Jeremy watched her go, his eyes following the slow sway of her hips. As she turned the corner and he could no longer see her, he shook his head.

This was definitely not what he was there for.

*

Jeremy stared into the mirror and loosened his tie, then sighed and re-knotted it for the third time. Neither looked right.

Angrily, he let his shoulders sag. He wasn't preparing for a date with her. She simply said she'd come by his room. As he was shaking his head at his reflection, a soft knock sounded and he walked over to the door, yanking it open with unnecessary force.

Buffy gave him a surprised smile. "Did I wake you?"

Jeremy's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "No." He stepped back to let her in.

"Oh," she nodded, "Well, yeah, I hope you don't sleep in your clothes. Can you really breathe with your tie that tight? It looks like it's cutting off your circulation."

"Dammit," he cursed under his breath and loosened it again.

Buffy looked at him in amusement. "Didn't get it right?"

"No, and I..." He trailed off, his face reddening. Changing tacks, he cleared his throat. "What made you ask if you woke me?"

She let go of a peal of laughter. "Giles always used to answer the door like that when I woke him up, or interrupted him or something. Grumpy. And you looked angry, so I assumed I woke you up from a really good dream. Until I glanced down at your all-too-restrictive suit and tie. What, you don't even take off your jacket when you're alone, relaxing in your room and night?"

Stiffly, he shrugged out of his jacket and slung in across the bed. "Point taken."

Buffy looked at him with wide eyes, sitting down in one of the chairs. Jeremy sat opposite her and waited.

"What?" he finally asked.

"Just... The way you did that. Giles would never have done that with one of his suit jackets. He would have hung it up or at least placed it on the back of a chair. He was..." Her words became quieter and quieter until she was silent, the almost flirty amusement from a moment ago disappearing from her face, replaced by the shadows in her eyes again.

He leaned forward. "This is Rupert Giles, yes? He's something of a legend among the Council. I would love to hear about him." He stopped, noticing how sad she suddenly looked. "That is, if you don't mind talking about him."

There was silence for a moment and then she dipped her head. "Rupert Giles," she confirmed. "My Watcher. You say he's a legend?"

"Or as close to it as a man can get, I suppose," Jeremy nodded.

The smile came back to her eyes. "Well, well. He'd like that, I think. He'd pretend he didn't, but deep down he would."

"I heard that once he started applying the newest Council techniques of treating a Slayer like family, I hear you two became very close."

Buffy let out a bark of laughter. "Watcher techniques? They fired him for loving me like a daughter. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Fired him? What do you...?"

Realization dawned him Buffy's eyes. "Those bastards. I always knew there was a reason I hated them. ...Other than the 'constantly trying to kill me' thing. They took credit for my relationship with Giles, didn't they? They took credit for how much I trusted him, for how much I loved him. They never *mentioned* the fact that he lost his job because of that level of intimacy that we had. Like a family. Closer, even, in a way. The strongest kind of blood ties. They never said how they threatened to deport him two years after they fired him, a year and a half after I quit the Council. They never said they were trying to blackmail me into performing like a circus freak. Of course they didn't. It wouldn't make them look good. And what kind of an organization who's got their kind of power would admit that a Slayer-- *just* a Slayer-- took them on and won?" She was breathing heavily as she finished, fury tingeing her cheeks pink.

The young Watcher sat back, slightly dazed. She was speaking in riddles and yet, somehow, he understood her and knew that she was telling the truth.

For a moment there was silence and then Buffy shook her head. "I apologize. Well, not for the way I feel about the Council-- they've made my life Hell on more than one occasion-- but at least for the way I stated that fact. You probably knew nothing about any of this, and why would you? I can't blame you, and I want you to know that I don't."

"Thank you for that," he said finally, and his voice was dry and husky. He stood and walked over to the small counter and poured himself a cup of water, swallowing it all in one gulp.

Buffy stared. "Are... Are you okay?"

"I'm decent enough after having been told that every belief I've been brought up on was a lie," he muttered, pouring another cupful of water. He drank this one slower and when he was finished, he turned back to her. Her eyes were pitying. "Please don't look at me like that, Miss Summers. I knew that the Council wasn't perfect. They're very powerful people. One doesn't always handle power as one should. I'd assumed that much. But I also thought that..."

"That basically they were good people, fighting for a good cause?" Buffy suggested.

"Yes."

"Well, I think they are," she said, surprising him. "I think the reasons they did all of the things that they did wasn't because they were cruel people-- although I'll admit that sometimes they were that, and sometimes the need for power forced their hands as well-- but because they thought what they were doing was right. They thought Giles shouldn't love me; that his love would get in the way of being my Watcher. They thought that I shouldn't have friends because my friends made me weak and someone could use them against me. It's not completely wrong thinking. Just misguided and somewhat blind."

Jeremy gazed at her for a long moment. "You are an exceptional woman, Buffy."

"I try," she grinned, and as the first genuine, pleased smile lit her face, Jeremy felt all of his breath leave him in a *whoosh*.

She looked at him quizzically and he loosened his tie further. "Is it feeling a little warm to you?"

"No."

"Oh," he said faintly, "Must just be me then. Mind if I turn the air conditioning on?"

"By all means." She waved her hands carelessly and the movement was so graceful that it, too, caught Jeremy's gaze. She winked. "We like our guests to be as comfortable as possible."

"Then I'll sit," he said shakily, unnerved by the wink. He sat down. "Well then... Why don't we go back to your Watcher, if that's all right."

"It's fine," she said, resigned. "What would you like to know?"

"Well, we have his Diaries, and those were helpful to some extent but then you disappeared and while we knew where he was, he quit the Council. We know that he died three years back or so, but if you could take me through the circumstances of his..."

"Death?" Buffy asked flatly. She sat back and folded her hands together. "Of course. It's not such a big deal. Except that it was," she added softly. "Cancer. He had cancer. By the time we found out about it, it was in such an advanced state that there was nothing to be done. He died two months later. I was with him; I held his hand. It was the least I could do. I'd noticed how tired he'd been, how haggard looking. I'd noticed and I'd asked him about it and when he said he was fine, I didn't press him for the truth although I knew there was more he wasn't saying. Because he wasn't really fine."

"Buffy," Jeremy said, startled by the tears gathering in her eyes although it wasn't the first time he'd seen them, "It wasn't your fault. You know that." He laid his hands over hers and exhaled when he saw the torment in her eyes.

"It wasn't," she repeated emptily.

"No," he said, more firm this time, "It wasn't. You take things onto yourself too much, I believe. You feel you're responsible for all the death in the world when you're not. And while your job as the Slayer was to keep people alive, sometimes death is impossible to fight back. Sometimes it doesn't come with the face of a vampire or demon. Sometimes it just comes as... Death."

"I know," she breathed. "That's when it's the scariest. When there isn't something I could do. When I didn't know for sure that there wasn't something more to be done. The blame was easier to take when I knew for sure that something I'd done, or had neglected to do, had caused someone's death. It's harder when there are questions."

A tear slid down her cheek to the corner of her mouth and trembled there before sliding down to her jaw. Jeremy drew his hand up and carefully dried the moist streak with the backs of his fingers and Buffy drew in a ragged breath as she looked at him. Her eyes were still sad, but there was a new light in them, warm and tender and grateful. She leaned forward.

Jeremy, uncertain, leaned with her. She smelled feminine and clean and her face, and he could feel the warmth coming off of her skin, she was so close. Her breath brushed over his mouth and he let his eyes flutter closed.

And then she pulled back, standing quickly, more tears spilling over. "I-- I can't. I mean... I'm sorry."

He watched her as she fled, slamming the door closed behind her, gone so fast he didn't even have the chance to get up. He touched his mouth with surprise, almost sure he had imagined the near-kiss.

Almost.

To be continued...

<< back