Postcards From The EdgeMoving Northerly
Willow sat in the the living room at Giles's apartment. The floor and coffee table were strewn with mystical books and catalogues. A stained bone china tea cup with saucer seemed out of place as it sat on top of some writing paper. She stared at the cup, and waited.
"Why didn't you say something sooner?" Giles finally asked. His voice was low and somber, almost stern.
Willow sighed. "I didn't want everyone worrying about me. What could any of us really do?" She looked up imploringly at Giles. For some reason, it mattered to her that Giles understood her reasons more than Buffy or Xander. Giles was the oldest, the adult. She supposed she was searching for his approval, hoping he would be impressed by her bravery.
"I mean," she continued imploringly, "is Buffy just gonna run off to a neighbouring continent every time Spike decides to announce a feed?"
"Will's got a point," Buffy said. Her lips were firmly pressed together, her eyes downcast, as she read the back of one of Spike's postcards. Willow wondered if Buffy seemed partly disappointed that she didn't confide in her. Things between them had been tense ever since the Halloween party. The fact that she spent her weekends at home, didn't help. They were growing apart.
"Yes," Giles agreed with the Slayer. "By the time you arrived at any of these places, Spike would have moved on. He would be difficult to track."
"Yeah, and some of these places don't sound real," Xander contributed to the conversation, holding a postcard in front of his face. "Isn't Cayenne a herb?"
"It's a spice," Giles replied under his breath. His annoyance with Xander ebbed as he returned his attention to Willow. "Still, why didn't you come to us, let's say, after the second or third postcard?"
"Well... it just seemed like he was sticking to Brazil," Willow said, searching for an answer, any answer other than the real answer.
She didn't want to tell them the truth. She didn't want to tell them that, after she received the previous card, she replied to it verbally, that she wanted to write him back to let him know she understood. Her urge to reply to Spike's correspondence, however slight, scared her more than the postcard itself.
"It wasn't until his last card that I realized he might be making his way back to Sunnydale," she said.
"He's what?" Buffy looked up from the postcard she was reading.
"Are, are you sure?" Giles asked worriedly.
Willow reached into her backpack, which sat at her feet. She pulled out a map that looked like it had been folded about a hundred times incorrectly. Carefully she unfolded it. She stood up and showed Giles.
"See," Willow said, pointing to highlighted marks on the map. "The first card is from Sanatarem, which isn't really marked on the map. It's not a big place, so I just have the general location. But then there's Belem, then Cayenne, and then he jumps to Caracas in Venezuela. When his last postcard came, it donned on me, he wasn't randomly moving around. He's moving northerly."
Willow bent down and reached into her bag, pulling out another postcard. "See," she said, pointing to the cover of his most recent correspondence. "This is Aeropuerto Internacional de la Ciudad de Mexico."
"The what?" Xander asked.
"The international airport in Mexico City," Willow translated. "From here, Spike can fly to pretty much anywhere in the world he wants to."
"Like Los Angeles," Buffy suggested.
Willow nodded.
"I hate to sound insensitive," Xander interrupted. "But why you, Will? What happened down in that warehouse while I was communing with the darkness?"
Willow shrugged. "He kind of talked and I kind of listened. I think he even cried at one point."
Buffy regarded her with disbelief. "Spike and tears... You have to ask what would make a vampire cry?"
"You know, the whole 'oh, Drusilla doesn't love me anymore'..." Willow trailed off, and she mentally replaced Drusilla with Oz and considered herself. She fought the rise of anger inside, and it settled momentarily. "Maybe he's embarrassed about it and just wants to mentally torture me for a bit. You can never tell with vampires?"
"Does Oz know?" Xander asked.
"Where is he?" Buffy asked.
"Yes and Bronze," Willow answered both questions. "Well I mentioned it to him, and he said, you know, I should tell Buffy."
Giles sighed deeply and tsked. Willow regarded his furrowed brow, as he read the back of the Mexico City postcard. She pictured the back of the postcard in her head.
The postmarked date was November 5. She received the card yesterday, which was a Saturday; November 18th to be precise, but the card must have come during the week, when she wasn't around. And she visualized Spike's handwriting.
Sweet Red, or perhaps now you're Spicy Red. Probably cracked the bauble between those slender thighs of yours by now. Not to worry, there's more than one way to pop a cherry. Just thinking of the rise of your neck: tender, untouched flesh--pulsing, flinching--was all the image I needed to endure the train, hidden away in storage among crates of fish and cockroach riddled bananas. Humans! At least when demons eat, they make sure their food is warm and fresh. I'll be sure you are.--S
Perhaps, she should tell her friends that she had read the postcards a hundred times each and had every one memorized. Perhaps she should tell them that ,upon the arrival of the postcard from Mexico city, she wanted to sit down and write Spike a letter, describing the circumstances under which she lost her virginity and how the person who had caused her such pleasure could also cause her pain. This sudden desire to communicate with Spike was another reason for why she came to them. She was certainly affected by Spike, but her own behaviour frightened her even more.