Home is the Hunter (5/5)
Title: Home is the Hunter (5/5)
Characters: Spike, Giles and ensemble, with cameos from Wesley, Dawn, Illyria, Buffy and Faith
Rating: PG13 to be safe
Summary: the Fifth Quest: in which our hero triumphs over all adversity, aided only by two powerful mystical beings older than time.
Part four was here, in which Spike faced up to not-quite-fatherhood
Fortunately, perhaps, the Delenteria trail went cold for months. Annelise Summers was born, healthy and inordinately full-voiced from the outset. The castle, and many of the remote Council members, watched in fascination as the vampire-Slayer-baby trio worked out their own particular family dynamic.
March 2010
Spike had changed with fatherhood. Not that he was less foul-mouthed or more respectful of authority. But the long nights of colic-walking had perhaps given him time to think. He was certainly determined to fill the father role; hovered protectively round Buffy and the baby. Annie-worshippers were welcome. But persons attempting to separate the small family unit found themselves repelled with varying degrees of courtesy.
Giles, for one, found himself facing a newly determined questing knight.
“I’m done with wild goose chases, Rupert. I know Delenteria’s big and bad, but we’ve faced worse, haven’t we?”
“Not really. Not often, anyway.”
Spike sighed. “Look. I don’t want to leave the family, you know? Annie’s teething, Buffy’s knackered. There’s got to be a better way than chasing every Delenteria shaped shadow. If we can’t find one, I’m off this quest. Find another sucker to give up his life.”
*
Spike came to R&D in a vile mood after that, having got no satisfaction from Giles. Dawn and Vi were playing idly with a Melancthon spiral, while Illyria leafed moodily through a mouldy-smelling bestiary of seventh-dimensional hellbeasts. This was now Illyria’s default position, between undertaking specialist jobs, when they could be found for her. She had been away from the castle for most of the last three years, mostly smiting, but had no specific occupation at present. Just occasionally her insights worked wonders on some of R&D's wackier mystical works. The Old One knew a frightening amount about demonkind, when she could be persuaded to share it.
Dawn beamed a greeting, while Vi gave a preoccupied wave. “Hey Spike. Anything new we can help you with?”
"Delenteria. Sodding Delenteria, that’s all. I'm fucked off beyond belief about this one bastard Codex running my sodding life. I’m a vampire and I’m trying to be a dad. I’m not some fucking knight on a fucking quest.”
Vi rolled her head a little, stiff-necked after a long decoding spell. Now Spike’s rant had broken her concentration, she looked ready for some non-linear thought - the speciality which kept her at the heart of R&D’s incomprehensible work. “Spike. Why’d you keep calling it a quest?”
Spike shrugged. “Well, s’what it feel like. Bloke stands alone in the world, seeking an impossible goal. It’s practically the definition of quest. I’m pretty sure that’s what Wes called it from the start.”
“Yeah, but don’t quests usually start with a lot of people after the same goal? Like, all the knights of the round table, not just one?”
Illyria stirred, irritable and suddenly engaged. “Fools. A true quest must always be for three. It is written. You are merely seeking an item which has been lost. But if Wesley wishes you to find this Codex, I will assist you. Though its producer was a mere infant when I ruled the seven moons, and an adolescent when we lost our power. Nonetheless, zhe had some talent.”
Vi blinked. “You mean... Delenteria was an Old One?”
“Of course. No other would have such power, to sing through mere parchment at a millennium of millennia’s remove.”
“Any special reason you didn’t mention this four fucking years ago?” Spike was trying to be calm, with total lack of success.
Illyria merely stared him down. “I had no knowledge of your seeking.” Which was probably true. The God King could be remarkably deaf when Wesley was not present or at least mentioned. It made her occasional flashes of insight the more inexplicable and infuriating.
But this had to be handled diplomatically. Spike backed off to let Vi do her usual stuff. Surprisingly, though, it was Dawn who perched on the desk beside Illyria, and began to coax information about the Codex. Much of it was known to the Council, but there were moments when revelations came out that changed the face of the Delenteria project.
*
“I suspect it is mostly held out of our dimension. Maybe just a smidge out of phase with our reality, where they can call it into being at will. Not through a portal, probably just a nexus of accessibility, or we’d have spotted it before now. Portals make a pretty big noise on our scanners.” Illyria was becoming Fred at that point, with a hint of a giggle. Spike could feel his facial muscles setting hard, and saw Dawn torn between bonding (Fred would have adored Dawn) and withdrawing from this unfamiliar face of a dead woman.
Withdrawal started to win, as Illyria continued, “We can seek it through the Deeper Well, for the Well will retain a connection with the Codex still. Delenteria zheself rests there. But we will need to break down the walls of reality to find it. We do not have a link to the Codex direct; we would have to seek it, through dimension after dimension till we reach the place between.”
Dawn was shaking her head, violently opposed. “Okay, I can see where you’re headed, and no way. If I bleed, it will open the walls that separate dimensions. Universes will merge into each other-”
Snap. Illyria’s fingers clicked in Dawn’s affronted face. “Has no one taught you control, Key? You are a tool, not a mystery. When you were forged, we-”
“Whoa! Hey! What? I wasn’t forged! I just... Well, I was a mystical green ball of energy. I just... happened.”
“All keys are forged. You were forged by my brethren, Hraethweare and Waeleant in the Age of Caprice. They sought a tool to expand our powers beyond this world, and would have achieved it were it not for the Wars of Contrition.”
Dawn looked fascinated, if repelled. “Huh. My two dads. And they wanted to end the world.”
Illyria being reassuring was an odd sight, but it was happening. “No. Humans, Tarnis and those foolish knights, they never understood the powers of the Key. You were not created for destruction, merely for access - a key, not a weapon.”
“And then somebody lost the user manual.” Dawn nodded, pensive. “So... I’m not the end of the world. If only we’d known, then...” Spike was there with her in the series of revelations. None of it need have happened. Glory could have gone home, to wreak hideous havoc on the dimension of her choice. Buffy would have lived. And if Buffy had lived, he would never, never have had a chance with her. (Dawn probably wasn’t focussing on that last point, admittedly). Their whole world would be different.
But still, “Ladies, this is fascinating beyond belief, but it’d be great if you could tell me in words of one syllable whether you can get us the Codex.”
Dawn and Illyria turned to him and in unison said, “Yes.”
For a moment, Spike could hardly tell one from the other.
*
It wasn’t simple. The calculations for how to use the Key (and the verbal dexterity needed to avoid annoying Dawn as they discussed her in those terms) were mind-blowing. They couldn’t get Wesley in to handle Illyria, and that meant every step of co-operation was eggshell-fragile. Then they realised that with Dawn to open the dimensional walls and Illyria to detect proximity to the Codex, they still needed someone to walk through dimensions - to be the beacon against which Illyria would measure that proximity.
Someone immortal would be nice. Just in case it took a while to bring him back.
Spike fought the inevitable for a day or two. But the prospect of ending the years of questing on a high note won out.
He prepared resignedly. Everyone available was dragooned into talking through their various other-dimensional experiences. Jasmine’s planet, Pylea, the Shadowmen’s place out of time... none of it sounded like a picnic. Coat, sword, boots, battleaxe, blanket in case of sunlight, decently sharp flick-knife... it became a fairly substantial baggage. The castle buzzed with girls giving him pseudo-maternal Slaying advice, as though he were off on his first Scout camp.
*
Giles went down to the Well with the group. It still looked rather like a school outing, albeit a heavily armed one. Illyria and Dawn, of course, to open the portal and find the Codex; Willow to do the necessary magicks (definitely time for their big magical guns). And Buffy. To stand by the Well, it turned out staring after Spike as he walked through the first portal opened by Dawn. Giles stood at her shoulder. For this one time, Buffy was among those left behind to watch and fear. He knew all too well how that felt.
And so they waited. No one could know what Spike was facing. Didn’t prevent everyone from imagining.
*
The portal closed behind Spike.
Willow drew a shaky breath. “Okay, world not ending. Didn’t hurt too much did it, Dawnie?”
Dawn shook her head, unspeaking. To bleed to open a portal: it was so familiar. Not just because of the last time, but...
“You are the Key. You feel it, do you not?” Illyria was observing her with curiosity. “The power you represent, and the rightness of performing your destined function.”
Dawn shivered. “Yeah. Like a sentient toaster oven. This is what I’m for. I could do this forever.”
“But you will not.” The certainty in Illyria’s voice was strength-giving. “You must cease to bleed.”
She held the antiseptic wipe over Dawn’s cut, and applied the sticking plaster. Dawn barely moved, but her eyes caught Giles’s over the bowed blue head. When this was over, they’d have to build on that.
*
It took a week. Of Spike walking through worlds, directed by Dawn’s blood. “Pincushion, much?” she protested, at the twenty-seventh ritual bleeding, though they were keeping the amounts to the minimum necessary. By the seventieth, she was trembling pale and near collapse. They were close, but the final breakthrough was eluding them.
“Last time,” said Willow, reassuringly, as she held the knife over Dawn’s ankle. She’d said it twenty times before.
It was the last time, this time. Illyria raised her head, eyes flaring blue in the gloom of the Well, and said, “Ah.”
“Yes?” Giles was beyond politeness.
“He has it. The Codex returns.” Illyria turned away. Her voice almost inaudible, she added, “I will not take it from you.”
“Did you expect to?”
“I had hoped... perhaps to rise against you...use the Key... but I am weakened. I would not win.”
You would not try. Giles said nothing, but made a mental note to suggest including Illyria in their core affairs in future. Her allegiance to the Council might still be uncertain, but this was a formidable step.
“How is the Key?” And that was an even larger step for Illyria to take.
Giles reinforced it. “She will recover in a few days. She is happy, I know, that you could both help us so much.” If only Illyria cared for some people other than Wesley, they could perhaps develop a real relationship with the God King, and draw her out of her solitude.
*
One last stage remained, of course: to get Spike back. They took the fastest possible route, but Dawn was almost unconscious by the time their own portal flickered into life.
Spike stepped through. Thinner than ever, bruised and cut about. He’d lost his shirt somewhere. And his sword. Buffy grabbed at him before anyone could say anything sensible about debriefing.
No one in fact had even considered getting in the way of the clutching embrace, and most were trying to ignore the mingled duologue running over it, “...enough sodding portals to last... you’re okay? I can see two arms two legs, bruises... spider clans all over the place... Annie cut a tooth... thought I was lost once or twice... Illyria... without shrimp... Dawn... Could feel the Key working with me... such a long time... little Sis was amazing... thought you might never come back... had to come back for my girls, gorgeous... Done now, aren’t I?”
They broke apart for a second, as Spike freed one of his arms. “Oh, yeah. Here’s your Lost fucking Codex.
“We’re off to see Annie. Then we’re going to bed.”
*
Here endeth the quest.
***
Characters: Spike, Giles and ensemble, with cameos from Wesley, Dawn, Illyria, Buffy and Faith
Rating: PG13 to be safe
Summary: the Fifth Quest: in which our hero triumphs over all adversity, aided only by two powerful mystical beings older than time.
Part four was here, in which Spike faced up to not-quite-fatherhood
Fortunately, perhaps, the Delenteria trail went cold for months. Annelise Summers was born, healthy and inordinately full-voiced from the outset. The castle, and many of the remote Council members, watched in fascination as the vampire-Slayer-baby trio worked out their own particular family dynamic.
March 2010
Spike had changed with fatherhood. Not that he was less foul-mouthed or more respectful of authority. But the long nights of colic-walking had perhaps given him time to think. He was certainly determined to fill the father role; hovered protectively round Buffy and the baby. Annie-worshippers were welcome. But persons attempting to separate the small family unit found themselves repelled with varying degrees of courtesy.
Giles, for one, found himself facing a newly determined questing knight.
“I’m done with wild goose chases, Rupert. I know Delenteria’s big and bad, but we’ve faced worse, haven’t we?”
“Not really. Not often, anyway.”
Spike sighed. “Look. I don’t want to leave the family, you know? Annie’s teething, Buffy’s knackered. There’s got to be a better way than chasing every Delenteria shaped shadow. If we can’t find one, I’m off this quest. Find another sucker to give up his life.”
*
Spike came to R&D in a vile mood after that, having got no satisfaction from Giles. Dawn and Vi were playing idly with a Melancthon spiral, while Illyria leafed moodily through a mouldy-smelling bestiary of seventh-dimensional hellbeasts. This was now Illyria’s default position, between undertaking specialist jobs, when they could be found for her. She had been away from the castle for most of the last three years, mostly smiting, but had no specific occupation at present. Just occasionally her insights worked wonders on some of R&D's wackier mystical works. The Old One knew a frightening amount about demonkind, when she could be persuaded to share it.
Dawn beamed a greeting, while Vi gave a preoccupied wave. “Hey Spike. Anything new we can help you with?”
"Delenteria. Sodding Delenteria, that’s all. I'm fucked off beyond belief about this one bastard Codex running my sodding life. I’m a vampire and I’m trying to be a dad. I’m not some fucking knight on a fucking quest.”
Vi rolled her head a little, stiff-necked after a long decoding spell. Now Spike’s rant had broken her concentration, she looked ready for some non-linear thought - the speciality which kept her at the heart of R&D’s incomprehensible work. “Spike. Why’d you keep calling it a quest?”
Spike shrugged. “Well, s’what it feel like. Bloke stands alone in the world, seeking an impossible goal. It’s practically the definition of quest. I’m pretty sure that’s what Wes called it from the start.”
“Yeah, but don’t quests usually start with a lot of people after the same goal? Like, all the knights of the round table, not just one?”
Illyria stirred, irritable and suddenly engaged. “Fools. A true quest must always be for three. It is written. You are merely seeking an item which has been lost. But if Wesley wishes you to find this Codex, I will assist you. Though its producer was a mere infant when I ruled the seven moons, and an adolescent when we lost our power. Nonetheless, zhe had some talent.”
Vi blinked. “You mean... Delenteria was an Old One?”
“Of course. No other would have such power, to sing through mere parchment at a millennium of millennia’s remove.”
“Any special reason you didn’t mention this four fucking years ago?” Spike was trying to be calm, with total lack of success.
Illyria merely stared him down. “I had no knowledge of your seeking.” Which was probably true. The God King could be remarkably deaf when Wesley was not present or at least mentioned. It made her occasional flashes of insight the more inexplicable and infuriating.
But this had to be handled diplomatically. Spike backed off to let Vi do her usual stuff. Surprisingly, though, it was Dawn who perched on the desk beside Illyria, and began to coax information about the Codex. Much of it was known to the Council, but there were moments when revelations came out that changed the face of the Delenteria project.
*
“I suspect it is mostly held out of our dimension. Maybe just a smidge out of phase with our reality, where they can call it into being at will. Not through a portal, probably just a nexus of accessibility, or we’d have spotted it before now. Portals make a pretty big noise on our scanners.” Illyria was becoming Fred at that point, with a hint of a giggle. Spike could feel his facial muscles setting hard, and saw Dawn torn between bonding (Fred would have adored Dawn) and withdrawing from this unfamiliar face of a dead woman.
Withdrawal started to win, as Illyria continued, “We can seek it through the Deeper Well, for the Well will retain a connection with the Codex still. Delenteria zheself rests there. But we will need to break down the walls of reality to find it. We do not have a link to the Codex direct; we would have to seek it, through dimension after dimension till we reach the place between.”
Dawn was shaking her head, violently opposed. “Okay, I can see where you’re headed, and no way. If I bleed, it will open the walls that separate dimensions. Universes will merge into each other-”
Snap. Illyria’s fingers clicked in Dawn’s affronted face. “Has no one taught you control, Key? You are a tool, not a mystery. When you were forged, we-”
“Whoa! Hey! What? I wasn’t forged! I just... Well, I was a mystical green ball of energy. I just... happened.”
“All keys are forged. You were forged by my brethren, Hraethweare and Waeleant in the Age of Caprice. They sought a tool to expand our powers beyond this world, and would have achieved it were it not for the Wars of Contrition.”
Dawn looked fascinated, if repelled. “Huh. My two dads. And they wanted to end the world.”
Illyria being reassuring was an odd sight, but it was happening. “No. Humans, Tarnis and those foolish knights, they never understood the powers of the Key. You were not created for destruction, merely for access - a key, not a weapon.”
“And then somebody lost the user manual.” Dawn nodded, pensive. “So... I’m not the end of the world. If only we’d known, then...” Spike was there with her in the series of revelations. None of it need have happened. Glory could have gone home, to wreak hideous havoc on the dimension of her choice. Buffy would have lived. And if Buffy had lived, he would never, never have had a chance with her. (Dawn probably wasn’t focussing on that last point, admittedly). Their whole world would be different.
But still, “Ladies, this is fascinating beyond belief, but it’d be great if you could tell me in words of one syllable whether you can get us the Codex.”
Dawn and Illyria turned to him and in unison said, “Yes.”
For a moment, Spike could hardly tell one from the other.
*
It wasn’t simple. The calculations for how to use the Key (and the verbal dexterity needed to avoid annoying Dawn as they discussed her in those terms) were mind-blowing. They couldn’t get Wesley in to handle Illyria, and that meant every step of co-operation was eggshell-fragile. Then they realised that with Dawn to open the dimensional walls and Illyria to detect proximity to the Codex, they still needed someone to walk through dimensions - to be the beacon against which Illyria would measure that proximity.
Someone immortal would be nice. Just in case it took a while to bring him back.
Spike fought the inevitable for a day or two. But the prospect of ending the years of questing on a high note won out.
He prepared resignedly. Everyone available was dragooned into talking through their various other-dimensional experiences. Jasmine’s planet, Pylea, the Shadowmen’s place out of time... none of it sounded like a picnic. Coat, sword, boots, battleaxe, blanket in case of sunlight, decently sharp flick-knife... it became a fairly substantial baggage. The castle buzzed with girls giving him pseudo-maternal Slaying advice, as though he were off on his first Scout camp.
*
Giles went down to the Well with the group. It still looked rather like a school outing, albeit a heavily armed one. Illyria and Dawn, of course, to open the portal and find the Codex; Willow to do the necessary magicks (definitely time for their big magical guns). And Buffy. To stand by the Well, it turned out staring after Spike as he walked through the first portal opened by Dawn. Giles stood at her shoulder. For this one time, Buffy was among those left behind to watch and fear. He knew all too well how that felt.
And so they waited. No one could know what Spike was facing. Didn’t prevent everyone from imagining.
*
The portal closed behind Spike.
Willow drew a shaky breath. “Okay, world not ending. Didn’t hurt too much did it, Dawnie?”
Dawn shook her head, unspeaking. To bleed to open a portal: it was so familiar. Not just because of the last time, but...
“You are the Key. You feel it, do you not?” Illyria was observing her with curiosity. “The power you represent, and the rightness of performing your destined function.”
Dawn shivered. “Yeah. Like a sentient toaster oven. This is what I’m for. I could do this forever.”
“But you will not.” The certainty in Illyria’s voice was strength-giving. “You must cease to bleed.”
She held the antiseptic wipe over Dawn’s cut, and applied the sticking plaster. Dawn barely moved, but her eyes caught Giles’s over the bowed blue head. When this was over, they’d have to build on that.
*
It took a week. Of Spike walking through worlds, directed by Dawn’s blood. “Pincushion, much?” she protested, at the twenty-seventh ritual bleeding, though they were keeping the amounts to the minimum necessary. By the seventieth, she was trembling pale and near collapse. They were close, but the final breakthrough was eluding them.
“Last time,” said Willow, reassuringly, as she held the knife over Dawn’s ankle. She’d said it twenty times before.
It was the last time, this time. Illyria raised her head, eyes flaring blue in the gloom of the Well, and said, “Ah.”
“Yes?” Giles was beyond politeness.
“He has it. The Codex returns.” Illyria turned away. Her voice almost inaudible, she added, “I will not take it from you.”
“Did you expect to?”
“I had hoped... perhaps to rise against you...use the Key... but I am weakened. I would not win.”
You would not try. Giles said nothing, but made a mental note to suggest including Illyria in their core affairs in future. Her allegiance to the Council might still be uncertain, but this was a formidable step.
“How is the Key?” And that was an even larger step for Illyria to take.
Giles reinforced it. “She will recover in a few days. She is happy, I know, that you could both help us so much.” If only Illyria cared for some people other than Wesley, they could perhaps develop a real relationship with the God King, and draw her out of her solitude.
*
One last stage remained, of course: to get Spike back. They took the fastest possible route, but Dawn was almost unconscious by the time their own portal flickered into life.
Spike stepped through. Thinner than ever, bruised and cut about. He’d lost his shirt somewhere. And his sword. Buffy grabbed at him before anyone could say anything sensible about debriefing.
No one in fact had even considered getting in the way of the clutching embrace, and most were trying to ignore the mingled duologue running over it, “...enough sodding portals to last... you’re okay? I can see two arms two legs, bruises... spider clans all over the place... Annie cut a tooth... thought I was lost once or twice... Illyria... without shrimp... Dawn... Could feel the Key working with me... such a long time... little Sis was amazing... thought you might never come back... had to come back for my girls, gorgeous... Done now, aren’t I?”
They broke apart for a second, as Spike freed one of his arms. “Oh, yeah. Here’s your Lost fucking Codex.
“We’re off to see Annie. Then we’re going to bed.”
*
Here endeth the quest.
***