Enemy IncognitoBy Wynn
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Corners of My Mind
They whispered in her mind. Quiet, angry, frightened, and nervous. Betrayed, exhausted, hurt, and tense. All thoughts jumbled together in a jarring cacophony that made Emilia wince. She measured her breathing, taking in slow, steady, deep breaths, and carefully, cautiously rebuilt the mental barriers she had ripped down during her mental 9-1-1 call. Reading one person's mind was a piece of cake; a little nudge here, a tiny push there, and she was inside his or her mind thinking their thoughts right along with them. But forcing her thoughts into not one, but five people's brains took a hell of a lot more effort and usually resulted in unconsciousness followed by massive migraines, pain, and an inability to filter out other's wandering thoughts.
"How are you feeling?"
Violet eyes fluttering open, Emilia rolled onto her side and focused on Giles. The bedroom was dark; a plush quilt covered her body. A wan smile appeared on her face as she said, "Wonderful. My brain's been stretched over the entire state of California, but other than that…"
Giles nodded, an absentminded shake of his head that set Emilia on edge. She closed her eyes against the roiling onslaught of emotions swirling within his aura. Something was bothering him, enough that his usual cool, calm, and collected exterior was getting quite a workout in attempting to stifle his anger and frustration. "Where am I?" she asked quietly.
"Spike's."
"Is everyone-"
"Fine."
A jolt of anger coursed through her at his flat tone. Opening her eyes again, she said, "If you have something to say to me, Rupert, just bloody well say it. I'm not in the mood to deal with you sidestepping whatever issue's got you good and brassed off."
His gaze flickered to her as he said in a deathly calm voice, "You lied to me."
She closed her eyes again and leaned back against her pillow. So that was it. The truth had finally come out. In a way she was relieved. Lying never came easy to Emilia; her tendency to blurt out whatever was on her mind, regardless of the consequences, usually thwarted any attempts at deception. But the stakes had been too high this time to allow for deficiencies in control of one's characteristics. Or of one's emotions. "Yes," she said.
"You didn't see fit to tell me my own Slayer was being targeted-"
"I couldn't. Charles and Wesley asked me not to."
"Why?"
"Taking down Quentin Travers is going to take more than just brute force," Emilia said as she turned towards him again. "He has the power of the Council behind him. We had to wait until he did something foolish, something that couldn't be explained off as testing or training until we made any kind of move against him. If you had known of his involvement, it could have manifested itself in some way he could have noticed, and we would have lost our opportunity to take him out."
Giles' voice was tight with anger as he said, "And you didn't think I could have acted right along with the rest of you, put a blind eye towards Quentin while helping you work against him. I am not a child Emilia-"
"I know you're not a child! Don't you dare presume to think that I think of you that way or that any of this has been easy for me. It hasn't been."
"Yet you still lied to me."
Stifling a sigh, Emilia turned her weary gaze on Giles and said, "Yes, I did. And can you honestly tell me that you wouldn't have done the same thing if you had been in my position? If Quentin had killed Buffy for no reason other than he could, you're telling me you wouldn't have done anything in your power to see justice done? To make sure he could never hurt anyone like that again?"
"Is that what this is?" Giles asked, blue eyes tired, bowed down with the weight of betrayal. "Justice?"
"Yes. He used his power to murder my sister. He's using it to try to kill you and Buffy and her friends. He needs to be stopped." She paused and drew in another deep breath, closing her eyes in a vain attempt to block out the rage of thoughts that were careening through Giles' mind. Visions of a dark haired gypsy forced their way into her consciousness. Images of another betrayal done in the name of so-called justice. "I'm not like her. I didn't lie to you because of a centuries old grievance against a threat that was no longer there. Travers is real and he is dangerous."
"Don't you dare bring Jenny into this."
"I didn't. You did." She shook her head slowly and turned away from Giles, burying her head within the soft confines of her pillow. "I am sorry I hurt you. I never wanted to do so. I only did what I thought was necessary to see that this tyrant be stopped. He's killed once, and he won't hesitate in doing so again." Emilia paused. She drew in a deep breath as memories of her sister Ariana careened through her mind. "He needs to be stopped," she said again. "By any means necessary."
"I-"
"Rupert, I need you to leave. Please. I can't… do this right now."
She felt him behind her, felt his need to continue railing against her, to vent all of his anger and frustration built up over the past few days. He sighed and moved toward the door. Emilia heard the door open and close as cool tears slid down her face, soaking into the depths of her feather soft pillow.
* * *Smooth and cool under his palm, Spike twisted the doorknob and eased his bedroom door open. Sliding into the room, he gently pushed the door closed then turned and faced Buffy. She sat on his bed, golden hair still damp and tangled from her shower, body drowning in a pair of Cordelia's pajamas. Fred's blue comb lay in her hand, unused and apparently forgotten. Her hazel eyes stared unseeing into space, lost in memories conjured by her restless mind.
Moving into the room, Spike said quietly, "Everyone's settled downstairs. Anya and Charles brought training mats from The Magic Box for everyone to sleep on, and Willow and Cordelia got blankets and pillows from Harris' flat. Red'll try the locator spell again in the morning. More than likely Travers'll be wherever he's heading by then and she can get a fix on them. Wesley and Charles think he's probably heading back to England though, back to the Wanker's Council."
She didn't respond to his soft statements. Spike ran a hand through his short brown and blonde hair as he walked aimlessly around the bedroom, unsure of whether to keep babbling nonsense or to leave the room. Not that there was anywhere else for him to sleep. Although he could probably knock Angel unconscious and push the big lug out of the bed down the hall if he had to. Clearing his throat, he continued, "Buffy-"
"Don't leave."
"Alright." He took a cautious step towards her and the bed, blue eyes locked upon her face. Something was wrong. Spike knew that. He felt the tension and sorrow vibrating off Buffy with the strength and force of a hurricane. Whether she would tell him what was wrong was another thing entirely. "Wasn't really planning on it," he said, his voice light and flippant, the jovial tone betrayed by the seriousness in his eyes. "Don't fancy sleeping next to Peaches. He has a tendency to snore. Loud. Like a bleeding buzz saw."
Shaking her head, Buffy turned towards him. Her hazel eyes were large and luminous in the light of the lamp. "I… didn't mean it like that. I… You can't let him make you leave… make you leave me." She tore her eyes from him and glanced down at her hands. Drawing in a shaky breath, Buffy looked at him again as she said, "I couldn't- I don't know what I'd do if you… if you were…"
Sitting beside her, Spike grasped one of Buffy's hands and threaded his fingers through hers. "I'm not going anywhere, luv. Never again."
A ghost of a smile crossed her face as she sighed. "I know. I know. I'm just… scared. My whole family was taken from me in one night by an evil troll man who's wanted me dead for years. A man who was supposed to be helping me fight evil, in his own stuffed British way." She swallowed hard. Her thumb caressed the side of his palm as her fingers gripped his hand tighter in hers. "I'm just scared he'll take you too. In the permanent, dusty way. And I don't think I'd be able to handle that."
Spike saw the tears swimming within her hazel eyes. He felt the slight tremor coursing through her body. Shifting on the bed, he lifted a hand to the side of her face, fingertips trailing across her skin, palm cupping her chin in a gentle embrace. "I can't make any promises that I'll never die. Because someday I will. But it will not be at the hands of wanker Quentin Travers. He's just a scared little man who doesn't have a clue about anything, much less what a Slayer is or how she works." He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "We will get Dawn back. We'll even get Angel's spawn, too. And then we'll kick Tweed's ass so hard he'll never even think about coming after us again."
Winding her arms around him, Buffy leaned into Spike and laid her head against his chest. "I love you."
He couldn't stop the smile from forming on his face at her words of love. They were still too new, too precious to hear. Smoothing a hand across her head, Spike said, "I love you. Always."
"Show me." She pulled away from him a bit and tilted her chin in the air, locking her gaze with his. She whispered, "Show me you love me." Moving up his body, Buffy brushed her lips against his as she said, "Let me show you that I love you. That I want you and I need you. Please."
He answered her with a kiss. Soul searing, the flames that rose within him from her touch burned away all the doubts and fears and worries lingering in his mind, saying she shouldn't love him, that he wasn't worthy of her or her love, not after all he had done, and it left in its wake a clarity of vision and of love he had never felt before. It was like a phoenix reborn from the ashes, new and different, yet with an aura of ancient, primal energy, of hundreds of thousands of lives lived and breathed and died, only to be reborn again into something greater than its previous self. He loved her, with everything that was in him, the soul, the man, and the demon. And he knew she loved him, with everything that was in her, the soul, the woman, and the Slayer. That's just the way it was. The way it is. The way it would be. Forever.
* * *She knew he was behind her, watching her, following her, but fuck if she cared. Let Wesley do whatever the hell he wanted as long as he stayed out of her way. Faith strode through the cemetery, dark eyes roving across the tombstones, mortuaries, and crypts. She twirled her stake in her hands, manic energy rolling off her in waves. She wanted to kill something… needed to kill something. Now.
A feral smirk curved her lips as she spotted the pack of vampires strolling through the graves. Faith slipped behind a large crypt, moving into the shadows as she circled around the demons, keeping to the black shade as they walked in the white moonlight. She often wondered why vampires kept to cemeteries. Everyone who was there was either dead and buried, dead and walking, or Death herself. She supposed it was easier for the vamps to remain in the graveyard; too many complications arose when one tried to acclimate to the land of the living. Too much pain, too much hate, too much sickness in the human world. Best to stick to the simple, final, unavoidable realm of death.
She leapt from the shadows right into the center of the pack. The five vampires froze in mid-conversation, yellow eyes locked on her, her black leather clad body, and her wooden stake. A moment passed in which time froze and the hunters became the hunted.
Then, they pounced.
Faith punched and kicked and clawed and staked, the battlefield becoming a frenzied cloud of dust, dirt, and destruction. The power flowed through her, fusing into her bones, sparking within her like an internal combustion engine. Violent. Fiery. Explosive. The power flamed within her, turning her into ashes from the inside, burning away the lonely feelings of a lost little girl she didn't want to acknowledge let alone feel.
Rough hands bruised her skin, shoving her back against the concrete wall. Panic set in on Faith, erupting out of her in a scream and a violent kick to the man's gut. The crash of flesh on steel echoed in her ears as a rough voice spoke, "Time's up, Slayer."
((Rough hands bruised her skin, shoving her back against the rock hard bed. "You tell anyone, you know I'll kill you. Ain't no one gonna believe a whore like you anyway." Sweat and booze coated her tongue from the hand pressed over her mouth, silencing her silent cries. "That's my good Faith. Nice and quiet. Ain't no one gonna save you, girl. No one cares a lick about you. Never have, never will."))
Red, ripe rage swelled within her. Her eyes locked onto the one remaining vampire; her nerves smoldered with memories of helplessness and hopelessness. Of weakness and desperation. Of wanting to die to escape the horrors of life but being too scared to go through with any plan a scared little girl could think up. And it had all come flooding back when rough hands pinned her against the wall in Mulholland Drive, making her feel weak and desperate. But this time she had the power to fight back.
Faith gripped the stake tighter, the rough wood grain slicing into her hand as she moved towards the vampire. He turned to run but exploded into dust before he could flee Faith and her stake. Blinking away the red haze of anger clouding her vision, Faith peered through the falling dust. Her mouth hardened as she saw Wesley replace his stake in the pocket of his brown jacket.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked through gritted teeth.
Arching a brow at her tight tone, Wesley said, "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Getting in my way."
"Funny. I thought it was more like staking a vampire. My mistake."
"Don't you have anything better to do, Wesley, than follow me around? 'Cause I'm getting a little tired of the stalker routine."
"I was concerned."
Faith snorted. Pocketing her stake, she stalked towards Wesley, stopping a few inches in front of him. Hands on her hips, she said, "About me? How touching. Now get the fuck over it and leave me the hell alone."
He stared at her for a few moments, blue eyes assessing her frazzled form with a measured calm Faith found disconcerting. Wesley tilted his head to the side and said, "Does it surprise you that someone could be concerned about you? Or is it just that that someone is me that is so bothersome?"
Ignoring his questions, Faith brushed by Wesley and said, "Just leave me alone. I don't need your concern." She folded her arms across her black leather halter and walked through the headstones, pushing Wesley and everything else that had been stirred up inside her over the past few days back down into her subconscious. Before she turned to walk out the cemetery, his voice drifted towards her, blowing away all efforts to submerge her feelings in a sea of brashness and bravado.
"But you want it."
Faith hadn't realized she had stopped until he was in front of her, all mussed hair and soft eyes, and it made her want to knock him down, punch the concern from his face so she wouldn't have to deal with him or with herself. Gazing at Wesley with hard eyes, she said, "You don't know what I want. You don't know anything about me, so stop trying to act like you have great insight into the private world of Faith because you don't."
"Would it be so horrible if I did? If I had that great insight into the private world of Faith? If I knew you, the real you, instead of this brazen leather clad exterior you wear as a shield?"
"Why would you want that?" she asked softly.
"Because you're worth knowing." He smoothed a hand across the dark stubble upon his chin. Glancing at Faith, Wesley said, "I saw you the day you were released from prison. I watched you walk through the steel doors and take in the world. And your face… you smiled. I'd never seen you smile before. Not a real one. And I knew there was more I had never seen… that I wanted to see." A wry grin crossed his face as he continued, "And I know you think I'm crazy seeing as how I've just admitted to more stalker tendencies, but I-"
"Shut up, Wesley," Faith said. Her hands latched onto the collar of his jacket and she drew him towards her, stepping into him and pressing against the hard length of his body. "You want to get to know me?" she asked as she stared up into his eyes. Moving closer to him, she ran her tongue along the bottom edge of his lips and said, "Less talk. More action." And then she kissed him, hard, bruising, pouring all of her rage and pain through her lips into his, opening the hidden corners of her mind and releasing the pent up heartaches and betrayals, slights and sins, grief and misery she had caused and felt since she was a lost little girl. Pulling back, lips swollen from kisses, dark eyes glittering with unshed tears stored up over a lifetime, she said, "This is me. This is me."
His blue eyes moved across her face, taking in every line and curve before returning to her dark gaze. A moment passed and a line was crossed and Wesley nodded, dipped his head down, and captured her lips once more with his.