“In Ev’ry Angle Greet”, 2/7

[aadler]

 
Second installment.

Part 1 here

Part II

He had scrupulously reviewed Giles’ reports and journals, interviewed the girl’s friends, even studied the few available photographs in an attempt to develop some general sense of the essence of this Slayer. Even so, the first sight of her brought a shock. She was tiny, smaller even than Willow, with a porcelain beauty he would certainly have construed as fragility had he not known otherwise. She was approaching the end of her twentieth year — had in fact completed her fourth as a Slayer — but she could easily pass for sixteen.

He realized he had been staring, and recovered himself as smoothly as he could. “Yes, yes, by all means come inside.” He stepped back to let the girl and her companion enter, and added, “Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, at your service.”

“Right,” she said, with no discernible enthusiasm. She glanced around at the modest flat he had leased upon his arrival in Sunnydale. “Not the smartest thing in the world, inviting us in.”

“I was expecting you,” he pointed out. “And you were standing on my doorstep, in daylight, without combusting. It seemed a negligible risk.”

“Man knows the score,” Oz murmured, and at the sound of his voice, the faint antagonism Wesley had felt from Buffy seemed to recede. Oz looked back to Wesley, asking, “Who else is here?”

“You’re the first to arrive,” Wesley told them. “None of the others are present yet.”

A moment later he realized he had misspoken, for Harmony emerged from the kitchenette, wearing one of her innumerable bare-midriff outfits and carrying a large plastic ‘big gulp’ cup with a flexible (and safely opaque) drinking straw. “Buffy!” she squealed, in an exuberant pleasure he knew to be genuine, if with no more depth than a sheet of onionskin. “When did you and Izzy get in?”

Buffy gave her a glance sharp with annoyance, but Oz took it without a flicker of expression. “Just drove up,” he said. He nodded to Wesley. “Ahead of schedule. Good directions.”

“Thank you.” Wesley gestured toward the meager central room that served as a den. “Make yourselves comfortable, won’t you? I have refreshments, if you like.”

“Got mine warmed up already,” Harmony chirped, waving the cup. Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Buf,” Oz said, soft but reproving. “Tea?” She nodded, and he turned to Wesley. “There’s this herbal stuff we like, I brought some if you have a kettle.”

In the kitchenette Wesley let out a sharp breath. “Well. That didn’t go … too badly, I suppose.”

“Gotta be some tension,” Oz agreed. From no apparent source he produced a baggie half-filled with indeterminate vegetable matter, and began preparing the tea. “You guys’ve been living with it, you got used to it and worked through some things. We’re coming in cold. It’s rough.” He looked to Wesley. “Thanks for setting up the meeting here. That lets off some of the pressure.”

“Yes. Quite.” Wesley sighed. “I will confess, this situation is as convoluted as one of your more outrageous daytime dramas. I’ve been hard-pressed to stay current even on developments since my arrival; despite Mr. Giles’ attempts at explanation, I’m still in something of a muddle regarding events before then.”

“Things were crazy,” Oz admitted. “I don’t know if anybody has the whole story, and … well, then there’s the deal with perspective. We must make Rashomon look like Curious George.”

There was no time for an answer, for the doorbell rang then and Wesley hurried to answer it. He hadn’t worried about leaving Buffy and Harmony together — though they had little regard for one another, they were unlikely to come to blows after only a few minutes unattended — but most other conflicts were rather more stringent, that being the principal reason he had taken it upon himself to host this gathering. In a twist of almost malicious irony, his home was the closest they had to neutral ground. At the door he paused for an extra second to compose himself, then opened it.

Willow, and Faith. Both carried motorcycle helmets, Faith’s black to match the leather jacket but Willow’s a bright, cheerful orange that invariably clashed with her other apparel (a yellow windbreaker, today). Peering past Wesley, the smaller girl asked nervously, “Is she … have they …?”

Faith’s laugh was humorless but not unkind. “We saw the van, Wil, we know they’re here. C’mon, time to bite the bullet.” She pushed inside, towing the reluctant redhead by the elbow.

In the lounge, Oz had joined Buffy at the sofa, while Harmony sprawled blithely in the largest armchair. Willow and Faith stopped in the entryway, and Wesley stepped around them. “Um, Harmony, if you would …?”

“Huh?” She gave him a blank look, and then her eyes lit up with understanding. “Oh. Oh, right.” She stood quickly, flashing the newcomers that sunny, foolish smile. “You guys want anything to drink? Wesley has the cutest minibar …”

“Yukon Jack, straight up,” Faith said without looking at her; then, to Buffy: “Hey, B. Been awhile.”

“I know,” Buffy said.

Willow stared at the two sitting on the sofa, apparently not aware that she was clutching the sleeve of Faith’s jacket for support. Face drained of color, she breathed, “Oz …”

He acknowledged her with a barely perceptible nod, no change showing in the bland, imperturbable expression, and said, “We’ll have some tea ready in a few minutes. A little like something you used to drink, if I remember right.”

“Tastes change,” Faith said, and settled into the armchair Harmony had vacated. She looked to Willow. “But you are still big on that boiled-grass stuff, right?” Willow nodded, pale and mute, and perched herself next to Faith in one of the folding chairs Wesley had set out.

Wesley studied the new arrivals, trying to visualize how they looked to Buffy and Oz. His assignment to assist and evaluate Rupert Giles had brought him to Sunnydale just after (and because of) the older Slayer’s departure, so her last memory of the two girls should roughly match his own first impression. From his perspective, Willow had blossomed since graduating high school, and especially since she and Faith had taken an apartment together; she was more assured in her bearing and more adventurous in her choice of style, though her color sense could be jarring. The change in Faith was more subtle but, to his mind, more meaningful: she had almost entirely dispensed with cosmetics. Her original makeup style had projected an exaggerated, truly threatening kind of predatory femininity, dangerous and impressive but almost cartoonish. Now she was a lovely, vital young woman with nothing to prove, the surface flashiness supplanted by a more lasting sense of quality.

Harmony brought the drink to Faith, with a vexed look at the usurped armchair, and Wesley recalled his obligations as host. “I believe the kettle has come to a boil,” he announced. He looked to Oz. “Would you prefer to steep the tea yourself, or should I see to it?”

“I’m on it,” Oz said, and went on into the kitchenette.

Another awkward silence settled over the room, and Wesley was about to break it with a (one would hope) diverting comment when Buffy abruptly said, “You can all relax, I’m not about to do a Rodman here. I’d rather be somewhere else, but I didn’t come looking for a fight.” She turned toward Willow and asked, “So, still shooing off the headhunters from Microsoft?”

Willow nodded with an eagerness that was close to pathetic in its obvious relief. “I worked up some protocols for database-driven web apps, just an outline, really, but a lot of people are excited about it …” She broke off, her former shyness returning. “Actually, I’m starting to look into witchcraft. I’ve cross-indexed the stuff I’ve been inputting for Giles and Wesley, and I think if you organize and weight it all with inferential logic …”

Buffy laughed. “Hacker Gal joining the cauldron crowd? Next you’ll say you’re going on tour with Barenaked Ladies.” There was no derision in her tone, only genuine wonder and amusement, and Willow smiled and opened her mouth to reply, and the doorbell rang again.

Mercifully, the arrival process was to be extended no longer, for when Wesley opened the door he found Xander at the fore, with Anya and Giles a few paces behind him. Xander’s smile was a sad simulacrum of the easy, loopy grin of old, but he spoke with the same ironic bravado. “Citizen Harris, reporting for stoning.”

“Ah,” Wesley said. “You, er, you didn’t travel together …?”

“No,” Giles replied, distant and brusque. “We simply reached our destination at the same time.”

“Right,” Xander added. “It’s not like I’d just keep circling the block ’cause I was afraid to go in by myself.”

The atmosphere in the lounge palpably changed when Wesley ushered in the newcomers. He had anticipated that, but not its extent. Buffy sat with glacial expressionlessness, Oz with watchful stolidity; Willow closed her eyes and drew a ragged breath, and Faith’s and Harmony’s faces showed active hostility. Surprising, really; over the past twenty months most of them had worked together in various groupings to meet one crisis or another, without any manifestation of this … supercharged paralysis. Apparently the addition of Buffy to the mix (or, rather, her return to it) had altered the dynamic beyond his experience or expectation.

Giles and Anya quickly found seats, but Xander stood in the entryway, arms folded. “Okay, this brings back memories,” he announced. “Guilt, resentment, palm-sweaty fear …” He surveyed the ring of faces before him, and nodded with a wry twist to his mouth. “Oh, yeah, nothing like nostalgia.”

Anya, characteristically more direct, looked to Wesley and demanded, “You made everybody check their weapons at the door, right?”

“Like I’d need a weapon,” Harmony scoffed, giving Anya a smile that showed rather more teeth than was strictly polite.

“Harmony!” Wesley said quickly, and she subsided with a pout; Giles placed his hand over Anya’s without speaking, and she closed her mouth and sat back. It was a pattern they had all followed many times before, those not directly embroiled in particular conflicts interposing themselves as a buffer between more volatile parties. (Which incidents usually involved Xander, who seemed to go out of his way to draw acrimony on himself.) In the four days between the arrangement of this meeting and Buffy’s arrival with Oz, all concerned had been allowed the opportunity to prepare themselves for the … confrontation … but in some ways that had served to augment the tension as much as to relieve it.

As before, it was Buffy who broke the silence. “I enjoy a good stare-fest as much as anyone,” she observed, “but Oz tells me there’s a reason for calling this ex-Scooby summit meeting. Can we get to it, or do we just break out the sticks and start swinging?”

“You’re quite right,” Giles said. Of them all, he appeared the least overwrought by this gathering; except for Oz, of course, but where the younger man’s calm was that of a soldier who knew combat was some distance away yet, Giles’ seemed to spring from a weariness to which he had at last acquiesced. He stood in automatic resumption of his long-ago-relinquished role of meeting chairman, and addressed them all. “Anya knows the underlying purpose of this reunion, but I’ve discussed it with none of the rest of you before now. I didn’t wish to favor one party over another, and … well, to be honest, it wouldn’t have made much difference.”

“Let me toss out a guess here,” Xander said. He had moved from the entryway to lean against the small, essentially ornamental fireplace. “Big evil brewin’? Gloomy prophecies, dark forces rising, the end of the world?”

“Well, basically, yes,” Giles admitted, clearly thrown off his stride. “No prophecies, that’s part of the problem, but … yes. As you said, the end of the world.”

Buffy snorted. “Big whoop. We’ve done this dance before, and according to Wesley’s net-grams, you’ve done it since we left. Sure, it’d have to be major for you to want to call in the whole crew, but apocalypses have a pretty soggy track record around here.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Faith threw in. “We find it, we kill it, we party. Always boils down to that.” She leaned back, hanging one leg over the arm of the chair. “Go for the ’nads, Rip-man: who’s doin’ the nasty and how do we squish ’em?”

“Would that it were so simple,” Giles said. “In the past it has indeed sufficed to, as you say, locate the threat and put paid to it. Unfortunately …” Without looking around, he held out his hand, and Anya reached up to intertwine her fingers into his. “Unfortunately, in this instance, it is we who constitute the threat.”

*               *               *

The reaction was predictably chaotic, with protests and demands for explanation, and Giles merely waited for it all to end. When the initial hubbub had subsided, he went on with that same resigned equanimity. “As most of you are aware, Anya’s experience in centuries of quasi-demonic activity has made her an invaluable assistant in research. Less well known is that, though her own power was stripped from her, she retains a … sensitivity, to certain supernatural forces. Several weeks ago she told me of some intuitions that had troubled her. My investigations established that they were, regrettably, all too well-founded.”

While Giles had been speaking, Anya had picked up a whiskey glass — Faith’s, Wesley noted with distant shock — and taken a long swallow from it. Now, as all eyes turned to her, she paused to announce, “You’re not real.” She took in the room with an airy wave. “None of us are.”

Faith stared at the pilfered drink, then at Anya, and surged upright. “You want to see ‘real,’ skank-woman …?!”

A touch from Willow, a freezing glare from Giles, and again bloodshed was averted. Harmony sulked disappointment (she was on good terms with neither girl), and Xander drawled, “Okay, Alex, we don’t seem to be getting anywhere with the ‘Chick-Fight’ category, so I’ll take ‘Armageddon’ for $200.”

Giles didn’t pretend not to understand the reference; his association with the ex-vengeance demon truly had mellowed him. “What she meant is that this existence, this world we live in, is unrooted, ephemeral. It is a deviant branch of the true reality, and will eventually undercut and destroy it unless we restore the balance.”

“Wait a second,” Willow interjected, leaning forward. “Are you trying to say that the parallel timeline where Anya lost her amulet, that’s supposed to be the real world?”

Giles shook his head. “Not at all. That was an interpolated reality, never meant to be more than a shunt. All the same, it illustrates the basic principle. Our current timeline — what our senses perceive as reality — is more far-reaching than the one created by Anyanka, but no less artificial.” He removed his spectacles and rubbed at his eyes. “Unfortunately, it is less firmly reinforced, and each day that passes increases the threat that it poses — that we pose — to the original reality.”

“I get it!” Harmony said brightly. “It’s like when Nancy did that augmentation spell, and everybody thought she was this supermodel/brain surgeon/covert ops/astronaut person. So we just break the spell and everything goes back to normal, right?”

“Harm,” Wesley said, with as much patience as he could muster. “We’ve been over this many times. None of that happened, it was some dream or Hellmouth-induced fantasy that you’ve superimposed onto your memories …”

“It did so happen!” Harmony insisted. “I don’t know why you all have to be so mean about that, you could remember if you’d just try —!”

“In any event, that’s beside the point,” Giles said, breaking in with soothing gentleness. “This wouldn’t be a matter of dispelling an illusion, or of peeling away false memories. Our reality, however tenuous, is nonetheless entirely distinct from that of the original timeline. We exist, it exists, and the two cannot be reconciled.”

Oz was the first to understand. “You mean, if we’re gonna save the other one, we gotta pull the plug on this one.”

Giles nodded. “Yes. I’m afraid so.”

There was a long, stunned moment; and then, “SCREW THAT!” Faith stood in an explosive motion that put her back to the wall (readying herself, consciously or not, for combat?). “You’re all set to wipe out the whole friggin’ world just ’cause little Miss Death-to-Men says so? The hell you say, I want a second opinion!”

“Hey!” Anya expostulated, likewise coming to her feet. “Let’s not forget, I’m the expert here, okay? I wielded the Wish for eleven hundred years, I’ve done my share of time-shifting. You think I don’t know a contingent sidestream when I’m living in it?”

“Yeah, sure,” Faith sneered. “And where exactly was it you lost your precious amulet? Temporal fold, wasn’t it? You’re a stone pro, all right.”

“This is appalling,” Wesley said, finally finding his voice. “Do you truly contemplate …? And on nothing more than the assurances of a creature who spent a millennium wreaking havoc and spreading misery? This is unconscionable, we must contact the Council at once —!”

“We shall do no such thing,” Giles said to him, and despite the cultured tones Wesley couldn’t prevent himself from taking a half-step in retreat. “I believe you will agree,” the older Watcher went on, “that of late the Council has consistently shown an inadequate appreciation of the exigencies of life at a Hellmouth. Were I to speak of these matters to them, they would insist on a thorough review, freeze it all for months in committee. We haven’t the luxury of such delay. I will make my researches available to all of you — and you will see, Wesley, that I did not rely solely on Anya’s testimony or on my personal findings, but have acquired confirmation from several sources — but I did not call this meeting to seek advice or permission.”

He paused to look around at them, meeting each set of eyes in turn, and in his own could be seen no trace of doubt or compromise. “Within six weeks, this divergent reality will have destabilized to the point where it can no longer sustain itself; it will crumble, tearing down its parent in the process. Our end is certain, only the timing is in question. Within four weeks, at most, it will no longer be possible to prevent that mutual destruction. I propose to sever the connections, two weeks from now, and allow this existence to cease before it can impel the obliteration of both. I called you here to tell you so that you — so that we all — may come to terms with the inevitable. Make our peace, as it were.”

There was no answer any of them could make; Giles’ assurance was monolithic, unassailable, shatteringly convincing. In the new stillness in the room, Oz murmured, “Huh. This is new.”

“Is …” Buffy’s voice was dry, and she swallowed and started again. “Is it worth it, Giles? This other reality, the one you say is the original; is it so much better than ours that we can be okay with … dying to save it?” She held up a hand as he started to speak, and went on, “I believe you when you say we don’t have a choice. I just want to know that it’s worth it.”

Giles sat down again, settling back into his chair with a deep sigh. “Part of my researches involved calling in a, um, colleague, to help Anya scry into the other timeline. There are limits to what can be discerned in such transtemporal probing, but we were able to learn certain things.” He looked to her. “In all honesty, I couldn’t state with authority that the parent timeline is either better or worse than our own. Ours is preferable in some ways, the original in others. I can only say that our counterparts would certainly feel that their world is worth preserving.”

Faith was still standing, but no longer seemed poised for instant mayhem; she, like the rest, had obviously been shaken by the certainty in Giles’ exposition. “Better and worse how?” she wanted to know. “I mean, what is it exactly we’re looking at on the other side of the tracks?”

Giles half-turned. “Anya …?”

“Sure,” Anya said. “Okay, let’s see. They never figured out how to stop the Mayor’s Ascension, so they just waited till he transmogrified and then blew him up. Along with the school, yay.” She pursed her lips, eyes fixed on nothing. “Um, Buffy stayed in Sunnydale, she’s in her second year of college, I think she roomed with Willow that first year. Xander never took the firefighter’s exam, over there he’s doing construction work. Faith is in high-security lockup in Los Angeles, they’re looking to try her for murder …”

“Damn,” Faith said, and collapsed into the armchair. “Amy? You know I didn’t have any choice about that.”

“No, I’m pretty sure Amy’s still alive over there.” Anya grimaced in vexation. “I can’t tune in on her for some reason, but I’ve seen traces of her aura. Cordelia’s in L.A., too …”

“Hold on,” Faith interrupted again. “If I’m in the slammer, who’s taking care of Dawn?”

Anya stopped, glowering at the brunette Slayer. “Your brat sister is living with Buffy’s mom, okay? Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know. Oz isn’t around, and nobody seems to want to talk about him. Harmony didn’t get vamped until Graduation, and — barf-bags, people — she’s with Spike. Their Snyder is dead instead of in a sanitarium, their Vwilla got sent back to the temporal fold, so at least they haven’t had to deal with her …”

“Wait up a second.” This time it was Xander. “Awhile back you started to say something about Cordelia.”

Yes, Wesley thought, Xander would want to know about Cordelia. Her disappearance still haunted the boy, all the more so because he held himself responsible for her ill-fated relocation to New York. Xander had much to regret, but for some reason that one had hit him hardest, worse even than the dreadful results of Amy’s accumulated bitterness; perhaps because Cordelia had been the first he had so inexcusably used and discarded.

Once again Anya was annoyed by the interruption. “Do you mind? Yes, Cordelia’s there, bothering everyone in Hollywood who carries a clipboard. She’s a pitiful excuse for an actress and she’s not even trying to sing anymore, but she’s still following her Tinseltown dream. And Wesley’s with her, or maybe not ‘with’ her but he’s around, they’re doing the whole big standing-against-the-forces-of-darkness thing with that person Ang–”

Giles’ warning hiss was a fraction of a second too late. Anya halted, looking back at him. “What?” she demanded. “What now?”

She was the only one who didn’t get it, not even Harmony was that insensitive. Buffy’s face had gone white, and she literally swayed where she sat on the couch. She stared at Anya, and then at Giles, and her whisper was so faint that only the total sudden hush around her made it audible: “Angel …”

In that instant Wesley knew — as, no doubt, did anyone with eyes and ears — what Buffy Summers’ decision would be.

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