Thine Own Self

By Gidgetgirl

Chapter Nine

“So,” Spike said, his voice skating the careful line between conversational and awkward.

Jordy looked up at him, his expression never changing.

“Been a werewolf long?” Spike asked, staring straight ahead.

“A while,” Jordy replied. “Been a vampire long?”

“A while,” Spike replied. “Any idea what’s happening to Anni?”

“No.” Jordy was the master of the one word answer.

For a moment, the two walked in silence, and then Spike broached a new, more comfortable topic. “So what do you think of those new retractable leashes, pup? Pretty handy little buggers, aren’t they?”

Jordy looked at Spike, his facial expression not changing at all visibly, and yet, somehow, the vampire thought the boy looked somehow more devious than usual. “They can be,” Jordy replied, his voice steady.

Spike wrinkled his brow a little. What in the world did the little wolfie mean by that?

Willow’s hands flew diligently over the keys. She sighed. “A whole lot of nothing,” she said, frustration clear in her voice.

“Yes, well,” Giles said, resisting the urge to take off his glasses and clean them, “you are pregnant.” He shot Willow a comfortable look.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Willow asked, as if she hadn’t been using her pregnancy as an excuse for everything from eating Dawn’s Lucky Charms to accidentally recording over one of Spike’s Passions tapes.

Giles and Wesley exchanged a private eye-rolling look, and Willow, returning to the computer screen, huffed, “Don’t get all eye roll-y with me. Eyes are for looking not for rolling in that scoffy way.” She paused a moment. “Not that eyes can scoff, unless of course they’re newt eyes in which case…” she trailed off as everyone stared at her.

“Hey!” she said. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m…” She caught the words before they left her mouth and pushed down the impulse to remind everyone that she was very, very pregnant. “I’m babbling,” she said finally.

Ignoring Wes and Giles, Willow turned to Anni. “Have you found anything?” she asked her.

Anni, entranced in two volumes that Giles had already looked through, didn’t respond. She bit her lower lip in concentration.

“These texts appear to be from era and region of the balance philosophers,” she said, “there’s even some indication that they are written by students of krysthanim, one of the great schools of balance magic and myths of the time, but I don’t see a single reference in any of them to any of the tenets of The Balance.” Wes hated the tone of his sister’s voice. When she went into research mode, Anni sounded so mechanical, completely devoid of any emotion. Wes gritted his teeth and tried not to think of his sister at four, five, six years old, under strict tutelage and translating texts that his parents could not.

“Yes,” Giles said. “I noticed the same thing.”

“Perhaps a spell?” Anni suggested, looking at Willow. “To concentrate our efforts in the right direction.”

“If I knew a spell like that,” Willow said reasonably, “I would have been using it all along.”

“If the information is contained in a book,” Anni reasoned, “it’s in some way tangible.”

Willow caught on. “And if it’s tangible, and we can’t find it,” Willow continued, “then technically it’s lost, and a Pythian spell, with a few adaptations, might work.”

Anni nodded. “I believe I’ve heard of such things being used before,” she said, a slightly guilty tone entering her voice.

Wes recognized the tone and what it meant. “As in you’ve used them before?” he asked, shuddering at the thought of a single person trying to tap into the Pythian force for finding lost things.

“Once or twice,” Anni replied. Wes sighed. “Give me a break,” Anni said, sounding more American than usual. “I was nine at the time.”

Wes concentrated on taking a nice, calming breath. “And your tutor?” he asked.

“Was otherwise occupied,” Anni replied, leaving out the fact that she had arranged for it to be so. She looked at Willow. “Do you want to, or should I?”

Willow, seeing it as an opportunity to see gauge how Anni’s control level had developed, suggested that they perform the spell jointly, and as their hands touched, Willow felt the younger girl’s power: familiar, youthful, and distinctly Anni.

“Lost in the void, we call on thee Pythia to light the way,” Willow began to say the words, and as she did, her hand grew warmer, throbbing with the power sizzling threw Anni’s body: strange and ancient, dark. Willow jerked her hand back, the words frozen on her lips.

Anni’s eyes glazed over as she stared off into space for a moment. Suddenly, she slammed one open book on top of another one. Wes, Willow, and Giles stared at her.

“Sorry,” the girl drawled. “I didn’t mean to startle you all, but when you’re wound as tightly as this group…” Anni trailed off and shrugged.

“Huh?” Willow said, pronouncing it as a word rather than a mere sound.

“I second that,” Wes said.

Anni smiled at them both. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all. I’m not really needed here, am I? I think I’d prefer finding something elsewhere to screw.” She paused for a moment. “Or kill.”

“Annabella,” Wes said, wondering what kind of joke his sister was playing.

Anni turned, throwing her head back haughtily as she did. “There aren’t many things that aren’t either screwable or killable,” she commented. She raised an eyebrow at Wes. “I imagine you know that quite well,” she commented.

A muscle in Wes’s jaw clinched at the obvious reference to Lilah.

There’s something wrong here, Willow thought to him. Some power. Something that doesn’t feel like Anni. Willow looked at the girl again. And yet, it is Anni.

Anni rolled her eyes. “You two have a nice little mental conversation, and perhaps a nice screw afterwards, as I’m sure that’s the one thing Willow’s pregnancy doesn’t prevent her from accomplishing. Meanwhile, Giles can be sexually frustrated while he resists the compulsion to clean his glasses. I’m going out,” she said, picking up her jacket off the chair.

Wes’s arm was on her shoulder in an instant, his grip strong, his voice low. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening, but...”

Anni cut him off. “Bored now,” she said, sending him flying across the room with a series of lightning fast movements.

“Impede,” Willow said, and Anni found herself suddenly unable to move.

Dakota shifted in her seat. She hated airplanes. At the sound of Faith’s retching from the next seat, Kody amended her thought to add that it was a given that Faith hated airplanes more.

A steward came by, smiling in a way that made Kody’s skin crawl with the icky sweetness of it all. She had the distinct urge to tell him exactly what he could do with those stupid airplane peanuts.

“Can I get you some water?” the steward asked Faith, smiling.

“You can wipe that grin off your face and get me some ginger ale,” Faith muttered.

Kody raised one eyebrow. Ginger Ale wasn’t exactly the badass drink of choice.

The steward returned a moment later with a tiny cup of Ginger Ale. He handed the cup to Faith and then, putting one hand on his left hip, he tilted his head to the side questioningly. “I remember you,” he said. “You flew in here yesterday. Right?”

“Yes,” Faith replied, daggers in her voice. Somehow, stewards and stewardesses always rubbed her the wrong way.

“You weren’t pregnant then,” the steward said. He looked at Faith’s stomach, which had grown considerably in the past hours.

Faith looked at Lindsey. “Yes she was,” he said smoothly. “Though it’s kind of you to pretend that you hadn’t noticed.”

“No, really,” the steward said. “She wasn’t pregnant before.”

Faith grabbed him by his lapels. “Listen, Skippy,” she started. Lindsey put his hand on her arm, and she released the steward. Dakota snorted.

“You know,” she said, thoroughly enjoying the show. “I think she’d like some more to drink.”

Faith and Dakota sent identical stares at the steward, and he went to do their bidding. Coming back, he handed Faith another glass.

“You two must be sisters, right?” he asked, taking in the remarkable resemblance between them.

“Sort of,” Faith replied.

“No,” Dakota said flatly, remembering that she still rather had a chip on her shoulder about the whole Faith trying to be dominant situation.

The steward looked as if he were about to suggest that the two just had to be sisters, but remembering the results of his ‘you weren’t pregnant before’ conversation, he made the wise decision to keep his mouth shut.

Dakota looked out the window, and she wondered if L.A. would be as good of a playground as she thought it would be. She smiled slightly. A new town meant new challenges: stores that she hadn’t shop-lifted from, pools that she hadn’t skinny-dipped in, boys that she hadn’t seduced and rejected.

Faith recognized the look on Kody’s face, and thought, not for the first time, that Los Angeles was in for a whole lot of trouble.

Getting over her nausea, she rested her head on Lindsey’s shoulder, as he smoothed the sweaty hair off of her face and wrapped his other arm protectively around her bulging stomach.

Faith looked at Kody again, and she had to laugh. Those monks hadn’t known what they were doing when they’d decided to create a second Faith.

“Excuse me?” Mr. Kincaide said politely. “Kody is my only child.”

Lilah took a drink of her martini, and she sat it down, her eyes locking coldly onto his. “Except of course for any children that might have resulted from sexual escapades in Boston in the summer of 1979.”

Mr. Kincaide shrugged. A man of his status couldn’t very well be expected to keep track of all of his dalliances. “That would explain the resemblance,” he said. Then he shrugged. “It’s just as well,” he said.

Lilah ignored that rather useless comment. She was ready, in fact, to dismiss this man as useless altogether. If Dakota was indeed like Faith, there had to be other ways of getting to the girl. After all, Faith had once been a rogue slayer, and that certainly suggested that Dakota might be amenable to certain propositions.

In one quick swig, Lilah finished her martini.

Mr. Kincaide looked at her with appraising eyes. She certainly wasn’t his normal type, but something about the woman intrigued him. “Perhaps we could continue this discussion at my place?” he suggested.

Lilah shrugged. Why not? She thought. It wasn’t as if she had anything in particular to lose.

Kate got out of the shower, her blonde hair wet and clinging to her shoulders, wrapped in a towel. She walked over to her suitcase and took out an oversized t-shirt and a pair of snoopy boxers, pulling them on silently, careful not to waken Cale, who was curled up at the bottom of the bed.

She heard an almost inaudible knock at the door, and she went to answer it. Oz looked at her, raising one eyebrow a fraction of a centimeter at the snoopy pajamas. Somehow he hadn’t pictured the woman who seemed so guarded wearing boxers that boasted both Snoopy and Woodstock.

He handed her a pillow. She took it, and for a moment, the two of them looked at each other in silence, their faces impenetrable masks.

“Thank you,” Kate mouthed, careful not to wake Cale.

Oz shrugged, and she correctly interpreted the gesture as his equivalent of ‘you’re welcome.’

For a moment, her eyes rested on his lips, but she pushed even the thought of the thought out of her mind. Cale was her life now; he was what was important. She didn’t trust men. Not with Cale, not with herself.

Oz casually and gently pushed a piece of her wet hair out of her face. “It was covering your eyes,” he said simply.

“And we couldn’t have that,” Kate whispered back wryly.

“Worse things have happened,” Oz replied in a whisper, “but their numbers are few.”

Kate didn’t allow herself to smile, even as her heart beat just a bit faster.

“Goodnight,” Oz said plainly, and he turned around before she could say anything. Kate walked to the bed, hugging the pillow firmly to her chest. She put the pillow down and climbed into bed, wrapping her arms around her son and pushing back the sense of panic and the hard tears that she refused to allow to flow.

“Goodnight,” she whispered, her voice caught in her throat, but the words somehow hanging in the air.

“Night, Mommy,” a little voice said.

Kate looked down. “You’re supposed to be asleep,” she told her son. He squirmed to turn around and look into her face.

“Thump thump,” he said, pointing to her chest. “Fast.” He gave her an adorable baby grin, and she silently cursed his vampire hearing. Wiggling around some more, he fell back asleep, sprawled halfway across her pillow.

Kate closed her eyes but opened them a moment later, and like so many nights, she stared at the ceiling, guilt, anger, and something else heavy in her heart.

Clay finally gave up trying to convince Maddy of the error of her ways. “Go to sleep,” he told her, his head starting to ache a little.

She looked as if she was thinking about it for a moment, and then she nodded. “Okay,” she replied with a huge grin. Clay knew better than to trust that grin.

“What are you thinking?” Clay asked him.

“Do you want the PG-13 version?” she asked him politely.

“Maddy,” Clay replied through clenched teeth. “You aren’t thirteen yet.”

“You know,” Maddy said thoughtfully, a teasing glint entering her eyes. “Nicolaa’s old enough for the NC-17 version. That’s what they call it here.” Maddy looked delighted with her newfound knowledge.

Nic blushed furiously, the rest of her face remaining calm. She’d spent years masking her emotions, and she was still quite good at it.

Colette tugged on Maddy’s arm. “Come on,” she said, taking pity on Nicolaa. “Let’s go.”

Maddy instead turned her grin to Gunn. “Any chance you’d like to participate in a little experiment I’m conducting?” she asked.

Gunn looked back at her, knowing that she couldn’t be asking what it sounded like she was asking.

“Purely for scientific purposes,” Maddy clarified. “It might be important for me as a slayer to know how a vampire kiss compares to, say for instance, a worldly street fighter kiss.” Maddy tried to stifle her grin. She widened her eyes to make everyone think she was very serious about this little experiment, though if Gunn agreed, having two working eyes and a functioning brain, she’d readily take him up on the offer.

“Why don’t you go to bed,” Gunn suggested, a little disturbed, just as Maddy had meant him to be.

“Are you going to bed?” Maddy asked.

Gunn nodded absentmindedly.

“Tell Fred I say hi,” Maddy said, a wicked grin in her face.

Clay, catching onto her game, just smiled at her. “Go to bed, Madeline,” he said.

“I certainly will, Clayton,” she replied, and Clay was reminded once again that his grinning little sister was not to be trusted.

“Your bed,” he clarified. Maddy shrugged. It had been worth a shot.

Upstairs, Cordy and Angel had exited Hopie’s room for ‘special grown up time’ or ‘fun fun wrestling,’ as the child was wont to call it. Connor stayed a while longer, lying next to Hopie. She’d been the first thing in this world that he’d really loved, the only thing that had ever made him really feel like a part of something, and now, he was in the middle of everything, part big brother, part knight in shining armor, part confused teenage boy.

“Why aren’t you sleeping, My Connor?” Hopie asked, a yawn in her little voice.

“Don’t know,” Connor replied. “Go back to sleep.”

“I can sing you a song,” Hopie offered.

“You don’t have to,” Connor replied.

“Want to,” Hopie replied.

Anni looked around, moving only her eyes as the rest of her body had somehow become completely incapacitated. Wesley’s expression was a mixture between confusion and anger. Willow looked concerned. Giles was trying desperately not to take his glasses off and clean them.

Anni tried to say something, but the words came out as little squeaky sounds instead.

Willow looked at the girl thoughtfully, and with a wave of her hand, dismissed the spell.

“Care to tell me what just took place here?” Wes asked.

“I was rather hoping you could tell me that,” Anni said. Wes and Willow exchanged a private glance, and Anni couldn’t tell whether they believed her question to be in earnest or not.

“The spell didn’t work,” Anni surmised. No one said anything. “And I somehow greatly offended you all?” Anni conjectured.

Wes walked over to her and lifted her chin with two fingers, bringing her eyes to look into his hardened ones. For a moment, brother stared at sister, and Anni began to feel that she’d somehow crossed a line, though which line and what type of crossing, she hadn’t the faintest idea.

“You’re wrong, Anni,” Willow said, her voice taking everyone by surprise.

“You weren’t offended?” Anni asked.

“The spell did work,” Willow corrected, gesturing to the books that Anni had slammed together.

“The reason we aren’t finding what we need,” Willow said, looking at the texts and her eyes opening in an academic epiphany, “is that we’re not looking at these texts right. We’re looking for balance prophesies, so it only makes sense…”

“That the prophesies would occur in balanced parts,” Wes finished.

Willow set about deciphering the discovery, and Wes let go of Anni’s chin.

Hopie’s childish singing voice filled the air.

“The ants go marching two by two

hurrah, hurrah

the ants go marching two by two

hurrah, hurrah

the ants go marching two by two,

the little one stops to tie his shoe

and they all go marching down

down

to get under the ground

to get out of the rain

boom, boom…”

Before she reached the third ‘boom,’ Hopie noticed that Connor had indeed falling asleep, and pressing a kiss to his forehead, she happily snuggled down and fell into a deep slumber herself.

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