Buffy Fanfic: News Of My Death (Part 2)
Buffy Fanfic: News Of My Death (Part 2)
He might have looked like a Lost Boys poser, but Leatherboy had guts, Buffy had to give him that. He was also as persistent and desperate as a geek before Prom Night.
Her leg was healing, but it wasn’t even fifty percent. He was bigger, faster and he had a gun, which reminded her, she really needed to speak to Giles about updating some of these Slayer self-defense methods a little. She needed an edge, fast, before he found the blood trail she’d left and tracked her into the convenience store.
On close inspection, most of the stuff on the shelves was junk, decades out of expiration; she was glad she’d stuck with water. She did wonder how the hell he’d gotten bottled water in a store that hadn’t had a product change since before New Coke, but the answer was outside the back door, a burned, crunched Naya truck with two skeletons still in the cab.
She broke loose a piece of metal as long and thin as a sword, wickedly pointed, and wondered about polishing the sooty crap off of it. For sanitary reasons. Not, she decided, Leatherboy had already shot her once and if she got the chance she was going to stab him someplace where infection would be the least of his problems.
The temperature was falling fast with nightfall; she shivered as a cool wind blew over her arms. God, what she’d give for a bath. Body wash. Maybe a little foot lotion.
She spun at the scrape of footsteps behind her, relying on her good leg as much as possible, and managed to throw herself aside just before the gun went off. She rolled into a ink-black patch of shadow, clutching her makeshift sword, and watched Leatherboy step out into the moonlight. He methodically reloaded the gun.
"Make it easy," he invited, and clicked the revolver shut. "I promise you it won’t hurt too much. Look, the old guy just wants a little fun. How bad could it be? He’ll kill you, of course, but heck, what’s the alternative? Running from house to house in this miserable town living off of forty-year-old canned okra? Living like a hunted rat? ‘Cause I got nothing better to do than come looking for you, honey. I can’t leave, either. Nobody can."
The problem with a sword was you had to be close enough to use it. Time for a risk. Buffy writhed back a bit, got up on one knee, and sighted along the metal. I can throw a stake end over end into a charging vampire’s heart. How hard can this be?
She threw it like a spear. Unfortunately, it wasn't a spear, it was heavy, unbalanced, and she was a lacker, strengthwise. The iron dug into the dirt point-first right at Leatherboy’s feet. Didn’t even stab him in the toe, which would have been something, at least.
He raised the gun and aimed it right at her. "Sorry, babe. Look at it this way, you -- "
Something came out of the shadows, vampire-quick, a black shadow that wrapped itself around Leatherboy and batted the gun loose, drove the boy to his knees. As Buffy struggled to get up, the vampire paused and looked at her. Spike. No mistaking him, even vamped-out. She wondered where Drusilla was, and didn’t like the possibilities of the answer. Too many shadows, not nearly enough stakes.
There was a second when she figured neither of them really knew what to do. She pulled a stake out of her waistband. Spike held Leatherboy pinned in one hand, his other yanking the kid’s head to one side to expose the neck.
Usually, she would have tried to stop him. Usually.
He must have read it in her face. Spike buried his fangs in Leatherboy’s neck and drank like a kid sucking on a juicebox.
She could have stopped him. She was still the Slayer. But she waited until he’d dropped the body before she said, "Small world, Spike."
"Yeah, good to see you as well." He stayed where he was, watching her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, couldn’t tell if she was the next course on his menu card. He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.
"Where’s Drusilla?"
"That’s my business, not yours, Slayer. Unless you’d like to go for the final championship round, and I think you’d agree we’ve got bigger problems at present."
She lowered the stake. Not all the way, but enough to show truce. He relaxed a bit, too.
"Any cars in town?" she asked.
"Nothing that runs, but it wouldn’t do you any bloody good anyway. You can drive right out of town and find yourself driving in. And then someone -- probably this sack of shite -- blew nice big holes in my windscreens to make damned sure we couldn’t leave. Whatever’s holding us here, it’s strong." Spike’s eyes flickered for a second, checking shadows behind her. She tried not to look. "Don’t suppose you’ve seen anything that might account for that. It certainly wasn’t this piece of garbage."
He nudged Leatherboy with a booted foot.
"I guess you’d be referring to the really ugly demon back in the church," she said. Spike froze in the act of rolling Leatherboy over. "What? The idea of a really ugly demon shocks you?"
"In the church?" he repeated. "What sort of demon?"
"I’m not really up on my demon identification. Maybe you ought to go take a look for yourself."
If it was possible for a vampire to get pale, it was happening to Spike. He stared at her, dark eyes like holes into Hell, and said, "I left Dru in the church."
She was suddenly conscious of how quiet it was, how hugely empty the night seemed. Stars glittered cold overhead.
"Then you’d better go get her," Buffy said.
No more discussion. He ran.
###
She’d been so tired, so very tired, and without Spike she felt so empty. She hadn’t minded the church, really, it was full of lovely things to play with. She stepped carefully through the maze of bones, stopped to pick up a knucklebone shiny as ivory. It felt warm and alive in her palm, and she breathed on it and listened to the beautiful sound of its screaming.
"Child." She heard the voice all around her, rising out of the bones, out of the black bloodstains, out of the stench of death. Cold and endless and perfect. She clenched her fist around the bone and looked at the empty church, the scattered corpses. Somebody had taken down the cross, but the shadow of it remained, and it glowed white and fierce when she looked directly at it.
She blinked away the glare and took another step toward the nave. He was in the shadows there, huge, black, formless. No, he was wearing some fusty old corpse, something that no longer smelled at all human. She wrinkled her nose on the stench.
"Child," he said again. She took a step back, rustling bones like dry leaves. "I’ve been waiting for you all these years. Naughty of you to keep me in suspense."
Drusilla had the sense of something passing overhead, the way a lizard might sense the strike of a hawk, and no matter how much blood she had tasted, how many lives she’d broken, she knew in that instant that there were things she didn’t want to see and this was one, this terrible terrible thing, and she turned and ran for the doorway.
The door slammed shut. She battered at the dry wood, tore at it with her fingers, but it might have been made of solid iron. She was too weak. Empty. Tired.
He was at her back, cold and vast and terrible. She remembered night outside of another, long-ago church, Angel’s beautiful face, his burning eyes, blood spilling over her white surplice. She remembered what it had felt like to die.
"Please," she whimpered. Something too huge, too misshapen to be a hand clamped down on the back of her neck. Cold spread inside her like ink.
"I’m afraid this will hurt," the voice said. "Try to enjoy it."
She screamed.
###
"Whistler? What the devil -- "
"Know how I said oops, before?"
"Yes, but -- "
"This is more of an oh, shit." Whistler stared off into the darkness. A cry rose up out of it, high and thin enough to tear through Giles like a knife. He shivered at the pain in it. "You know anything about Drusilla, Giles?"
"Drusilla? More than I ever care to know, I can tell you that."
"Angel killed her when she was going to become a nun. On the day she was about to take her vows." Whistler took off his hat and wiped his forehead. In the dim light Giles saw, or thought he saw, two very small, very sharp horns rising up from his thin hair. "In other words, Giles old bean, she went in a virgin, she went out a virgin. Get my drift?"
"But she and Spike -- "
"Trust me, Giles, it would only count if she was still breathing. Them’s the rules. She died a virgin, she’s a virgin. It’s sort of a contractual thing, remember?"
"Hell really is made up of lawyers." Giles took in a deep breath. The screaming went on, and even though it was Drusilla, even knowing what he did, he couldn’t stand to imagine what might be causing it. "What can we do?"
Whistler jammed his hat back on his head with the air of a man who’d just made a decision. Not a happy one, either.
"What the hell," he said. "Let’s go kill a demon."
###
When he’d been breathing, Spike hadn’t been much for praying. Too much of it, in his opinion, had been puling nonsense, oh spare me, spare me, don’t take my money, my child, my wife. God was a vicious bastard, right enough, and there was no use begging him for favors because he was likely to tell you to turn the other cheek so he could smite it, too. But when he heard that scream, Drusilla’s scream, a sound worse than any he’d heard in all his life, he heard himself say what he’d always despised in others.
"Please, God, no -- "
He had no clear memory of getting to the church, but when he cleared the steps in one leap he found the door shut. The door shouldn’t have been a problem, wouldn’t have been if he’d been at anything close to full strength. He slammed against the wood, screamed in frustration, kicked and punched and tore at it until weakness swept over him and sent him howling to his knees.
"Easy." A girl’s voice. The Slayer. He’d forgotten her, forgotten everything but the deafening, slaughtering sound of Dru’s scream. Buffy moved him out of the way, not very gently, and kicked at the door. Wood shuddered, but held; she hissed in pain and sagged against the wall. He smelled fresh blood. She was useless with that wound, and she must have known it; it hadn’t stopped her from trying. He distantly wondered why she bothered.
"He’s killing her," Spike said. He didn’t know he’d said it out loud until he saw the Slayer looking at him, breathing too fast; her heartbeat was loud as a jackhammer. "I can feel it."
Dru was just on the other side of the door, just inches away. Just far enough to die alone. He pressed his hands against the wood, ignoring the prickles of splinters, and felt her there, cold with terror, hot with helpless rage. I’m with you, baby. I’ll always be with you. Hang on.
"Come here," Buffy said. She looked pale in the starlight, sweating, her hair plastered messily to her face. "Want me to say it in sign language?"
"Bugger off," he mumbled. He had no time for her, no time for anything but this huge aching moment. Baby --
"Fine. Far as I’m concerned, one vamp more or less, what’s the diff?"
He came at her in a helpless rage, ready to rip her throat out, bathe in blood just to do something, anything to blot out the sound of Drusilla’s anguish, even for a second.
She grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, used him for leverage, slammed into the door with both feet and all the power in her tensed muscles. Which, from a Slayer, was considerable.
The doors burst open.
Buffy fell, rolled away from him, came up with a stake that she fumbled. Her eyes were glazed with pain, and the hole in her leg was spilling blood like a burst pipe. It wouldn’t even be a contest now. One quick flick of his wrists and he could snap her neck like a stick. She knew it. She’d used up all her strength to open the door for him.
"Bloody fool," he said softly. He didn’t know which of them he meant.
He dashed inside the church.
###
In her mind, Drusilla was alive again.
She was walking, head down, intent on her prayers and on blocking out the Bad Things; Mother Superior said that once she’d said her vows and been made Sister Mary Constantine it would all stop, all the dreaming, all the visions, all the terrible death. Once she had been made a Bride of Christ, no demon could torment her again. Tomorrow she would be safe. Just enough time to pray, to thank God for giving her this last chance at goodness. Just enough time to walk the convent gardens in the peaceful moonlight, and say farewell to the spirits who had never really left her.
She could see her mother still, standing on the white rock path; moonlight glimmered through her like milk glass, and her lips shaped sounds Drusilla couldn’t hear. Warnings she’d never know. Secrets she couldn’t bear.
"I’m sorry, Mama," she said. "Truly. I feel it’s all my fault, somehow. I have been wicked, and I don’t know how."
"I do."
For a horrible, hopeful instant she thought it was Mama, and then Mama’s ghost shattered into a thousand shadows and chased away on the wind. What walked through those shadows was something else, something --
Beautiful.
She caught her breath at the sight of him, terror-stricken, aching, horrified. No man was allowed on convent grounds except the Father, and this was no priest. His eyes were hot, obsessed, beautiful with hunger. For the first time in her life, she felt like a grown woman. It terrified her.
He smiled and said, "You’ve been a very bad girl, Drusilla."
"I -- sir, please, I -- " Her voice failed when he stepped closer. He bent over, put his lips to where her ear was hidden by the wimple.
"Please?" he repeated. "Did I hear you say please? Please, Angel, forgive me? Forgive me for murdering my family?"
Angel. Of course he was an Angel, he was so beautiful, so -- cruelly perfect. The truth of it felt like a knife in her heart. "I did? I -- killed them?"
"Of course you did." He was still so close to her, what would Mother Superior say? But he was an Angel, surely it was all right to be near to him. "But you can make it up to them, Dru. Wouldn’t you like that?"
She realized she was weeping, tears cold on her cheeks. Her Angel smiled while she struggled for words.
"Please," she whispered. "Please, I didn’t mean to be bad. I didn’t mean to kill them. Please let me -- "
"Die," he finished for her, so softly she could hardly hear it. She fell against him and he was cold and solid and hard, and his hands cupped her chin and made her meet his eyes. "Say it."
"Let me die," she said. Part of her was screaming, horrified. Part of her wanted to kiss those marble lips. "Please."
"As you wish," he said, and opened his shirt. He cut himself with a taloned finger, and a blood ran in a thick black stream.
For one last second she prayed, but the prayer wasn’t answered. The taste of his blood burned, seared like acid in her throat, and as she began to gasp for breath and scream she felt him tear into the flesh of her neck, felt life flowing out of her in a rich stream, felt something so cold and monstrous growing inside her that she knew at last the difference between an Angel …
And a fallen one.
"Angel," she whispered. The darkness in her, around her, hovered like mist. No, not Angel, he’d betrayed her, he’d done this terrible thing to her. "Spike. Spike!"
"Forget Angel. You’re mine," the darkness whispered, and struck. She felt it hammering at her body for entry, a violation she’d never suffered, the one thing Angel had spared her when he’d taken everything else.
She screamed, despair and anguish and human terror in the sound, and heard the door slam open.
She heard Spike, darkness of his own in his voice, say, "Don’t think so, mate. She’s mine."
###
Buffy had been absolutely right. Whatever he was -- and Spike was sure he’d never seen the like -- this demon was truly ugly. Too ugly to be contained by a standard demonic form. It twitched from one to another, growing a tail, claws, tentacles, human limbs, a distorted screaming head. It covered Drusilla like a stinking black sheet, except for her face.
A voice like the soul of terror came out of that darkness.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Sorry, mate" Spike said. "Nothing personal, but I've no idea. Get off my girl."
It did, flowing off of Drusilla and into the shadows, moving like a liquid wave of roaches, gave him the creeps, it did, and Spike was not easily creeped. He didn’t let that stop him, not when he heard Drusilla’s helpless sobbing; he leaped to her side and pulled her away from the shadows, lifted her in his arms and ran for the exit.
The door tried to slam shut on him, and might have if the Slayer hadn’t thrown herself in the gap, back braced against one set of doors, feet against the other; she held them open, screaming with the strain, as he ducked under her and out into the cool, silent night.
He whirled back to see the doors grinding closer together. Nobody’s strength could stand up to that, Slayer or not. She’d be crushed.
Well, he did owe her one, at least. He started to set Drusilla down, but she clung to him desperately and he couldn’t bear to pry her free.
"Jump!" he yelled. Buffy shot him an exasperated look that didn’t bely the strain on her face.
"Gee, good idea," she gasped. "Let me -- think about that." She screamed again. He heard something pop wetly and was damned sure it wasn’t the door. Blood dripped in a steady stream from her wounded thigh. "Pull me out," she whispered. "Can’t -- let go."
She held out her hand. He stared at it, stared at her. Bloody hell, didn’t she understand the rules? Didn’t she understand he had to kill her?
He lunged forward, Dru still dead weight in his arms, and grabbed her wrist. Yanked harder than he probably needed to. She flew out of the gap, hit the dirt and rolled as the doors snapped shut like a shark’s jaws.
"Spike," Dru whispered. "It wanted inside. I couldn’t keep it out."
"Hush, pet. You’re safe now."
"Not," Buffy panted. "Want to save her? Get the hell out of here."
Good advice. He looked down at her, at the blood soaking into the dust. "You?"
She bared her teeth. In a bizarre way, he thought, she was actually enjoying this. "I’m the Slayer, remember?" she said. "I’m not going anywhere."
Drusilla stirred in his arms, murmured fretfully. He gave her his wrist, an absent gesture, and winced when she bit. Rather like having a hungry child, he supposed. His Mum would be shocked at his maternal instincts. Buffy watched with narrowed eyes.
"Rather I let her shop the Buffy store?" he asked. "That’s enough, pet. That’s -- enough."
"Fresh," she sighed, licked blood from her lips and snuggled close against him. "That was lovely, Spike. I feel ever so much better. But I need some Slayer. You promised."
Buffy pulled herself to her feet. He wasn’t clear on how she managed it, given the pain she was obviously in, and he was frankly impressed by the appearance in her hand of yet another stake.
"Look, I’m dying to ask where you keep those, but let’s not get off track, here. What about our High Church friend?"
He nodded toward the closed sanctuary doors.
"Think a stake would do the job?"
"Against that? A bloody telephone pole wouldn’t do the job. Any better ideas, Slayer?"
She didn’t have any, but as it turned out, she didn’t need any, either.
The church exploded in a ball of white-hot flame.
###
"What do you think of me so far?" Whistler asked. He stood at the end of the street, arms crossed, and watched the blown-to-kingdom church rain fragments and embers over the town.
Giles was speechless. "But -- that’s Buffy! Buffy’s down there -- "
He pushed past on his way to where she was lying, stunned by the blast. Whistler grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard enough to grind bone.
"Wait," he said. "Time for the big boys to play, Giles. Go get her and head for the edge of town. Don’t try to cross the line. You’ll know when you can."
"What about -- " Giles glanced involuntarily at the two vampires tumbled near Buffy. One of them was moving -- Drusilla, he thought.
"My problem," Whistler said. "Go get her. Hurry."
He let go. Giles winced and worked his fingers to ease the ache, and ran, dodging falling coals and burning wood, to where Buffy lay. He dropped to one knee next to her and brushed at a burned spot on her shirt, saw the terrible wound in her leg and swallowed hard. There was a cut on her temple and the beginnings of a bruise; he slapped her cheek lightly but got no response. Still breathing, though. Still breathing. The sweet relief of that spread like cold water.
As he picked her up, Drusilla lunged for his back. She fell short, her talons shredding his jacket, and Giles spun to see that Spike had hold of her foot, tethering her in place.
She was fully demonic now, her eyes glittering red, her face a hideous mask. Giles stumbled back from that face, that hate. He glanced down at Spike, whose eyes were glowing a muddy, sullen yellow.
"Better run along, mate," he grated. "It’s all I’m giving you. I’m fresh out of favors."
Giles ran, Buffy held close in his arms.
###
Something got up out of the ashes of the church. Whistler watched it stand up -- and up -- and up. It blotted out the stars. A snap of the black wings scattered ashes and fire in all directions like a bomb blast. He lost his hat, which totally pissed him off. He liked that hat. He’d had it since 1968, which had been his very favorite year.
"Yo! Azhrael!" he yelled. His human eyes couldn’t see anything in all that darkness, but he knew he’d gotten its attention. "What do you say? Two falls out of three?"
"I don’t know you, little man." It was the breath of Hell, the voice of the void. Souls screamed in the Pits at the sound of it. "Begone."
Whistler crossed his arms. "No way to treat a relative."
He saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Spike had wrestled Drusilla into his arms and was dragging her away. Good. He was rather proud how they’d turned out. Plan or not, you just never knew. Kids were so hard to predict.
Azrhael came for him. Whistler didn’t even bother to discard his human form. Azhrael’s sticky foulness flowed over him in a choking wave, and he burned it off. Just like that, like he was a match and Azrhael lighter fluid.
"Now that," he remarked as Azrhael screamed, "had to hurt. Want to go again?"
"I will destroy you!"
"Attaboy. Go for it."
This time it was worse, a smothering excrescence of evil that slammed into him like a wall, filled his mouth, his nose, his ears, and was basically a really disgusting inconvenience. Whistler, annoyed, shed his body. It was kind of spectacular, in that it incinerated three buildings and totally demolished the long-dead gas station and pounded Azhrael into the dirt like so much squashed lunch meat.
"Forgot to tell you," Whistler said, and stretched his massive shoulders, "You might want to bring a friend. I said I was a relative. Your elder relative, sonny."
He grabbed what was left of Azhrael and squeezed. Ahhhhh. Nothing quite like that feeling, life running between his fingers, crunching so satisfyingly. Although in his current position he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying that quite so much. Still, it was nice to get out of the skin for a while. He grinned down at the twisted remains of Azhrael of Endless Torments, Lord of the Outer Darkness, Master of the Hellborn, and his teeth gleamed as sharp as the edge of a star.
"Poser," he snorted, and folded himself back into the skin of Whistler. He hunted around for a while before he found what he was looking for. Ah, there. He kicked aside a fragment of Azhrael’s calcified body and dusted demon residue off the brim of his hat. He jammed it on his head and looked up at the stars. The cold, cold stars.
"Well?" he demanded, annoyed. "If I'm not inconveniencing you?"
The spell broke with the sound of shattering glass.
Can't get good help these days.
###
Drusilla was fighting like a wild animal, slippery as an eel. Spike set her down and captured both her hands in his, gave her a good solid smack across the cheek, and watched some sense float back into her unearthly eyes. She didn’t need to breath, but she was panting, mostly with hate.
"I want to kill it!" she snarled. "It hurt me, Spike. It hurt!"
"Yes, pet, I’d like to rip its head off and piss down its throat, but as it has no head, and I can’t piss, I suppose that we’d better just try to get the hell out of here, shall we?"
She didn’t look convinced. He picked her up again and carried her down the street, not sure where he was heading or why, but anything, even sunrise, was better than what he’d seen in that hellish church. Like he’d told Buffy once, he rather liked the Earth the way it was.
Above his head came a huge, world-destroying sound like a bowl shattering. He ducked and covered Dru with his body, expecting a rain of glass or toads or something equally mysterious, but all he got was rain. Icy rain slicing down his neck, drawing a shiver out of him even though he was scarcely warmer than it was.
"Spike?" Dru said. "I don’t like the rain. It gets me all wet."
"Yes, I know. Hang on." He lifted his head and looked out at the still, calm night, the eerie downpour. It stopped as suddenly as it had started. Where it had hit the ground, steam rose. He stood up again, settled Dru more comfortably, and resigned himself to walking. Sunrise was another problem, but he’d deal with it when --
An engine started up behind him. He turned to see two headlights flick on. The purr of the engine was remarkably familiar. He went toward it, not quite at a run, and saw that the old black Dodge was idling, as if it had never run broken down. The windscreens, front and back, were entirely intact.
He stared at it a moment, then shrugged and eased Drusilla into the passenger side.
"Spike?" she asked as he was about the close the door. He opened it again to look at her.
"Yes, pet?"
"I never want to come back here. Never ever."
He gently closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side. "I can’t think of anything less a problem."
As they passed the NEW HOPE, POP. 15 sign, he noticed that there was another car parked there. Buffy’s ride, he supposed. Well, then. Luck to her, and to whoever went up against her next. Wouldn’t be him, if he could help it.
Of course, things didn’t always go according to plan.
He didn’t relax until they drove across the border into Arizona.
###
Buffy came awake warm and safe, wrapped in a blanket. She was lying down -- in a car. A moving car. She sat up, blinked, and saw the back of the driver’s head.
"Giles?" she said. He almost went off the road. "Whoa. Sorry. Back off the Vivarin, would you?"
"Buffy!" He pulled the car over, parked, and turned to take her hand. Behind the glasses, his eyes were wide and warm and not very Giles-like at all. "You had me -- worried. Oh, and I’m -- I’m very cross with you. You left without a word -- "
"Had to," she said. Some of it closed around her again, a hard black shell sealing her off from Giles and comfort. "Don’t ask, don’t tell. Let’s just -- hang. Can we?"
"Can we what?"
"Hang."
"Oh." That was a non-comprehend if she’d ever seen one. "Well. Yes. I suppose -- how are you feeling?"
"Like I’ve been shot by a bad Johnny Depp wannabe and had my butt kicked by a really ugly demon. Basically, your usual Slayer day. Ow." She probed the bruise on her head. "How’d that happen?"
"I think you’d prefer not to know."
"Wait! What about -- the really ugly demon? I mean, shouldn’t we be -- "
The passenger door of the car suddenly opened, and she recognized the guy who got in -- wimpy, skinny, scary as hell. And that hat. Only a demon could love the hat.
"The old guy has left the building. Also the universe," Whistler said. "Get some rest, kid. You’re gonna need it. I can’t hang around forever bailing your butt out of trouble, you know. I got a life. Well, not technically, but you get the idea."
"We left you a hundred miles ago. Where did you come -- " Giles was staring at Whistler like he had horns coming out of his head. Which would explain that hat.
"I jogged," he shrugged. "Giles. Focus. Drive. I am really hungry. There’s this great all-night diner couple of miles up ahead."
"Oh, no, I’m not eating with you," Buffy said. She was just working up a good mad. "You -- you -- demon. You stuck me in that town, didn’t you? What is this, some sort of master plan? You want me to get some sort of experience?"
"Smart girl," he said. "Nap time."
She was in the middle of telling him, in detail that was likely to give Giles a stroke, where he could go with his nap time, when she fell asleep.
Strangely enough, she dreamed of Angel. He was walking along a white path through a garden talking to a nun. He must have felt her watching because he looked up, and it was her Angel, sweet, vulnerable, loving. He kissed the nun on the cheek and came to her to take her hand. His lips moved, telling her things she couldn’t hear, couldn’t bear to know. She could touch him, kiss him, feel him loving her, but there were no words, not anymore. That was when she understood that he was really gone, forever gone. But never lost. Not to her.
"I love you," she said to him. Her fingers traced those full, perfect lips. "I’m going to go on. I understand now."
He smiled.
When she woke up, they were passing the sign that said WELCOME TO SUNNYDALE. Whistler was no longer in the car. Giles had a wide-eyed, shocked look in his eyes. "Are you all right?" he asked her.
She pushed her hair back from her face and thought about a bath, a change of clothes, and her friends. She missed Willow. She missed Xander. Even Cordelia, God, that hurt to admit.
That was what Angel had been saying. Go home.
"Yeah," she said. "I think I really am."
... an author's note. This is actually my first attempt at Buffy fanfic, back in the day; not sure how successful it is, but from an archival standpoint, well, here it is. :)
J.
He might have looked like a Lost Boys poser, but Leatherboy had guts, Buffy had to give him that. He was also as persistent and desperate as a geek before Prom Night.
Her leg was healing, but it wasn’t even fifty percent. He was bigger, faster and he had a gun, which reminded her, she really needed to speak to Giles about updating some of these Slayer self-defense methods a little. She needed an edge, fast, before he found the blood trail she’d left and tracked her into the convenience store.
On close inspection, most of the stuff on the shelves was junk, decades out of expiration; she was glad she’d stuck with water. She did wonder how the hell he’d gotten bottled water in a store that hadn’t had a product change since before New Coke, but the answer was outside the back door, a burned, crunched Naya truck with two skeletons still in the cab.
She broke loose a piece of metal as long and thin as a sword, wickedly pointed, and wondered about polishing the sooty crap off of it. For sanitary reasons. Not, she decided, Leatherboy had already shot her once and if she got the chance she was going to stab him someplace where infection would be the least of his problems.
The temperature was falling fast with nightfall; she shivered as a cool wind blew over her arms. God, what she’d give for a bath. Body wash. Maybe a little foot lotion.
She spun at the scrape of footsteps behind her, relying on her good leg as much as possible, and managed to throw herself aside just before the gun went off. She rolled into a ink-black patch of shadow, clutching her makeshift sword, and watched Leatherboy step out into the moonlight. He methodically reloaded the gun.
"Make it easy," he invited, and clicked the revolver shut. "I promise you it won’t hurt too much. Look, the old guy just wants a little fun. How bad could it be? He’ll kill you, of course, but heck, what’s the alternative? Running from house to house in this miserable town living off of forty-year-old canned okra? Living like a hunted rat? ‘Cause I got nothing better to do than come looking for you, honey. I can’t leave, either. Nobody can."
The problem with a sword was you had to be close enough to use it. Time for a risk. Buffy writhed back a bit, got up on one knee, and sighted along the metal. I can throw a stake end over end into a charging vampire’s heart. How hard can this be?
She threw it like a spear. Unfortunately, it wasn't a spear, it was heavy, unbalanced, and she was a lacker, strengthwise. The iron dug into the dirt point-first right at Leatherboy’s feet. Didn’t even stab him in the toe, which would have been something, at least.
He raised the gun and aimed it right at her. "Sorry, babe. Look at it this way, you -- "
Something came out of the shadows, vampire-quick, a black shadow that wrapped itself around Leatherboy and batted the gun loose, drove the boy to his knees. As Buffy struggled to get up, the vampire paused and looked at her. Spike. No mistaking him, even vamped-out. She wondered where Drusilla was, and didn’t like the possibilities of the answer. Too many shadows, not nearly enough stakes.
There was a second when she figured neither of them really knew what to do. She pulled a stake out of her waistband. Spike held Leatherboy pinned in one hand, his other yanking the kid’s head to one side to expose the neck.
Usually, she would have tried to stop him. Usually.
He must have read it in her face. Spike buried his fangs in Leatherboy’s neck and drank like a kid sucking on a juicebox.
She could have stopped him. She was still the Slayer. But she waited until he’d dropped the body before she said, "Small world, Spike."
"Yeah, good to see you as well." He stayed where he was, watching her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, couldn’t tell if she was the next course on his menu card. He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand.
"Where’s Drusilla?"
"That’s my business, not yours, Slayer. Unless you’d like to go for the final championship round, and I think you’d agree we’ve got bigger problems at present."
She lowered the stake. Not all the way, but enough to show truce. He relaxed a bit, too.
"Any cars in town?" she asked.
"Nothing that runs, but it wouldn’t do you any bloody good anyway. You can drive right out of town and find yourself driving in. And then someone -- probably this sack of shite -- blew nice big holes in my windscreens to make damned sure we couldn’t leave. Whatever’s holding us here, it’s strong." Spike’s eyes flickered for a second, checking shadows behind her. She tried not to look. "Don’t suppose you’ve seen anything that might account for that. It certainly wasn’t this piece of garbage."
He nudged Leatherboy with a booted foot.
"I guess you’d be referring to the really ugly demon back in the church," she said. Spike froze in the act of rolling Leatherboy over. "What? The idea of a really ugly demon shocks you?"
"In the church?" he repeated. "What sort of demon?"
"I’m not really up on my demon identification. Maybe you ought to go take a look for yourself."
If it was possible for a vampire to get pale, it was happening to Spike. He stared at her, dark eyes like holes into Hell, and said, "I left Dru in the church."
She was suddenly conscious of how quiet it was, how hugely empty the night seemed. Stars glittered cold overhead.
"Then you’d better go get her," Buffy said.
No more discussion. He ran.
###
She’d been so tired, so very tired, and without Spike she felt so empty. She hadn’t minded the church, really, it was full of lovely things to play with. She stepped carefully through the maze of bones, stopped to pick up a knucklebone shiny as ivory. It felt warm and alive in her palm, and she breathed on it and listened to the beautiful sound of its screaming.
"Child." She heard the voice all around her, rising out of the bones, out of the black bloodstains, out of the stench of death. Cold and endless and perfect. She clenched her fist around the bone and looked at the empty church, the scattered corpses. Somebody had taken down the cross, but the shadow of it remained, and it glowed white and fierce when she looked directly at it.
She blinked away the glare and took another step toward the nave. He was in the shadows there, huge, black, formless. No, he was wearing some fusty old corpse, something that no longer smelled at all human. She wrinkled her nose on the stench.
"Child," he said again. She took a step back, rustling bones like dry leaves. "I’ve been waiting for you all these years. Naughty of you to keep me in suspense."
Drusilla had the sense of something passing overhead, the way a lizard might sense the strike of a hawk, and no matter how much blood she had tasted, how many lives she’d broken, she knew in that instant that there were things she didn’t want to see and this was one, this terrible terrible thing, and she turned and ran for the doorway.
The door slammed shut. She battered at the dry wood, tore at it with her fingers, but it might have been made of solid iron. She was too weak. Empty. Tired.
He was at her back, cold and vast and terrible. She remembered night outside of another, long-ago church, Angel’s beautiful face, his burning eyes, blood spilling over her white surplice. She remembered what it had felt like to die.
"Please," she whimpered. Something too huge, too misshapen to be a hand clamped down on the back of her neck. Cold spread inside her like ink.
"I’m afraid this will hurt," the voice said. "Try to enjoy it."
She screamed.
###
"Whistler? What the devil -- "
"Know how I said oops, before?"
"Yes, but -- "
"This is more of an oh, shit." Whistler stared off into the darkness. A cry rose up out of it, high and thin enough to tear through Giles like a knife. He shivered at the pain in it. "You know anything about Drusilla, Giles?"
"Drusilla? More than I ever care to know, I can tell you that."
"Angel killed her when she was going to become a nun. On the day she was about to take her vows." Whistler took off his hat and wiped his forehead. In the dim light Giles saw, or thought he saw, two very small, very sharp horns rising up from his thin hair. "In other words, Giles old bean, she went in a virgin, she went out a virgin. Get my drift?"
"But she and Spike -- "
"Trust me, Giles, it would only count if she was still breathing. Them’s the rules. She died a virgin, she’s a virgin. It’s sort of a contractual thing, remember?"
"Hell really is made up of lawyers." Giles took in a deep breath. The screaming went on, and even though it was Drusilla, even knowing what he did, he couldn’t stand to imagine what might be causing it. "What can we do?"
Whistler jammed his hat back on his head with the air of a man who’d just made a decision. Not a happy one, either.
"What the hell," he said. "Let’s go kill a demon."
###
When he’d been breathing, Spike hadn’t been much for praying. Too much of it, in his opinion, had been puling nonsense, oh spare me, spare me, don’t take my money, my child, my wife. God was a vicious bastard, right enough, and there was no use begging him for favors because he was likely to tell you to turn the other cheek so he could smite it, too. But when he heard that scream, Drusilla’s scream, a sound worse than any he’d heard in all his life, he heard himself say what he’d always despised in others.
"Please, God, no -- "
He had no clear memory of getting to the church, but when he cleared the steps in one leap he found the door shut. The door shouldn’t have been a problem, wouldn’t have been if he’d been at anything close to full strength. He slammed against the wood, screamed in frustration, kicked and punched and tore at it until weakness swept over him and sent him howling to his knees.
"Easy." A girl’s voice. The Slayer. He’d forgotten her, forgotten everything but the deafening, slaughtering sound of Dru’s scream. Buffy moved him out of the way, not very gently, and kicked at the door. Wood shuddered, but held; she hissed in pain and sagged against the wall. He smelled fresh blood. She was useless with that wound, and she must have known it; it hadn’t stopped her from trying. He distantly wondered why she bothered.
"He’s killing her," Spike said. He didn’t know he’d said it out loud until he saw the Slayer looking at him, breathing too fast; her heartbeat was loud as a jackhammer. "I can feel it."
Dru was just on the other side of the door, just inches away. Just far enough to die alone. He pressed his hands against the wood, ignoring the prickles of splinters, and felt her there, cold with terror, hot with helpless rage. I’m with you, baby. I’ll always be with you. Hang on.
"Come here," Buffy said. She looked pale in the starlight, sweating, her hair plastered messily to her face. "Want me to say it in sign language?"
"Bugger off," he mumbled. He had no time for her, no time for anything but this huge aching moment. Baby --
"Fine. Far as I’m concerned, one vamp more or less, what’s the diff?"
He came at her in a helpless rage, ready to rip her throat out, bathe in blood just to do something, anything to blot out the sound of Drusilla’s anguish, even for a second.
She grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, used him for leverage, slammed into the door with both feet and all the power in her tensed muscles. Which, from a Slayer, was considerable.
The doors burst open.
Buffy fell, rolled away from him, came up with a stake that she fumbled. Her eyes were glazed with pain, and the hole in her leg was spilling blood like a burst pipe. It wouldn’t even be a contest now. One quick flick of his wrists and he could snap her neck like a stick. She knew it. She’d used up all her strength to open the door for him.
"Bloody fool," he said softly. He didn’t know which of them he meant.
He dashed inside the church.
###
In her mind, Drusilla was alive again.
She was walking, head down, intent on her prayers and on blocking out the Bad Things; Mother Superior said that once she’d said her vows and been made Sister Mary Constantine it would all stop, all the dreaming, all the visions, all the terrible death. Once she had been made a Bride of Christ, no demon could torment her again. Tomorrow she would be safe. Just enough time to pray, to thank God for giving her this last chance at goodness. Just enough time to walk the convent gardens in the peaceful moonlight, and say farewell to the spirits who had never really left her.
She could see her mother still, standing on the white rock path; moonlight glimmered through her like milk glass, and her lips shaped sounds Drusilla couldn’t hear. Warnings she’d never know. Secrets she couldn’t bear.
"I’m sorry, Mama," she said. "Truly. I feel it’s all my fault, somehow. I have been wicked, and I don’t know how."
"I do."
For a horrible, hopeful instant she thought it was Mama, and then Mama’s ghost shattered into a thousand shadows and chased away on the wind. What walked through those shadows was something else, something --
Beautiful.
She caught her breath at the sight of him, terror-stricken, aching, horrified. No man was allowed on convent grounds except the Father, and this was no priest. His eyes were hot, obsessed, beautiful with hunger. For the first time in her life, she felt like a grown woman. It terrified her.
He smiled and said, "You’ve been a very bad girl, Drusilla."
"I -- sir, please, I -- " Her voice failed when he stepped closer. He bent over, put his lips to where her ear was hidden by the wimple.
"Please?" he repeated. "Did I hear you say please? Please, Angel, forgive me? Forgive me for murdering my family?"
Angel. Of course he was an Angel, he was so beautiful, so -- cruelly perfect. The truth of it felt like a knife in her heart. "I did? I -- killed them?"
"Of course you did." He was still so close to her, what would Mother Superior say? But he was an Angel, surely it was all right to be near to him. "But you can make it up to them, Dru. Wouldn’t you like that?"
She realized she was weeping, tears cold on her cheeks. Her Angel smiled while she struggled for words.
"Please," she whispered. "Please, I didn’t mean to be bad. I didn’t mean to kill them. Please let me -- "
"Die," he finished for her, so softly she could hardly hear it. She fell against him and he was cold and solid and hard, and his hands cupped her chin and made her meet his eyes. "Say it."
"Let me die," she said. Part of her was screaming, horrified. Part of her wanted to kiss those marble lips. "Please."
"As you wish," he said, and opened his shirt. He cut himself with a taloned finger, and a blood ran in a thick black stream.
For one last second she prayed, but the prayer wasn’t answered. The taste of his blood burned, seared like acid in her throat, and as she began to gasp for breath and scream she felt him tear into the flesh of her neck, felt life flowing out of her in a rich stream, felt something so cold and monstrous growing inside her that she knew at last the difference between an Angel …
And a fallen one.
"Angel," she whispered. The darkness in her, around her, hovered like mist. No, not Angel, he’d betrayed her, he’d done this terrible thing to her. "Spike. Spike!"
"Forget Angel. You’re mine," the darkness whispered, and struck. She felt it hammering at her body for entry, a violation she’d never suffered, the one thing Angel had spared her when he’d taken everything else.
She screamed, despair and anguish and human terror in the sound, and heard the door slam open.
She heard Spike, darkness of his own in his voice, say, "Don’t think so, mate. She’s mine."
###
Buffy had been absolutely right. Whatever he was -- and Spike was sure he’d never seen the like -- this demon was truly ugly. Too ugly to be contained by a standard demonic form. It twitched from one to another, growing a tail, claws, tentacles, human limbs, a distorted screaming head. It covered Drusilla like a stinking black sheet, except for her face.
A voice like the soul of terror came out of that darkness.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Sorry, mate" Spike said. "Nothing personal, but I've no idea. Get off my girl."
It did, flowing off of Drusilla and into the shadows, moving like a liquid wave of roaches, gave him the creeps, it did, and Spike was not easily creeped. He didn’t let that stop him, not when he heard Drusilla’s helpless sobbing; he leaped to her side and pulled her away from the shadows, lifted her in his arms and ran for the exit.
The door tried to slam shut on him, and might have if the Slayer hadn’t thrown herself in the gap, back braced against one set of doors, feet against the other; she held them open, screaming with the strain, as he ducked under her and out into the cool, silent night.
He whirled back to see the doors grinding closer together. Nobody’s strength could stand up to that, Slayer or not. She’d be crushed.
Well, he did owe her one, at least. He started to set Drusilla down, but she clung to him desperately and he couldn’t bear to pry her free.
"Jump!" he yelled. Buffy shot him an exasperated look that didn’t bely the strain on her face.
"Gee, good idea," she gasped. "Let me -- think about that." She screamed again. He heard something pop wetly and was damned sure it wasn’t the door. Blood dripped in a steady stream from her wounded thigh. "Pull me out," she whispered. "Can’t -- let go."
She held out her hand. He stared at it, stared at her. Bloody hell, didn’t she understand the rules? Didn’t she understand he had to kill her?
He lunged forward, Dru still dead weight in his arms, and grabbed her wrist. Yanked harder than he probably needed to. She flew out of the gap, hit the dirt and rolled as the doors snapped shut like a shark’s jaws.
"Spike," Dru whispered. "It wanted inside. I couldn’t keep it out."
"Hush, pet. You’re safe now."
"Not," Buffy panted. "Want to save her? Get the hell out of here."
Good advice. He looked down at her, at the blood soaking into the dust. "You?"
She bared her teeth. In a bizarre way, he thought, she was actually enjoying this. "I’m the Slayer, remember?" she said. "I’m not going anywhere."
Drusilla stirred in his arms, murmured fretfully. He gave her his wrist, an absent gesture, and winced when she bit. Rather like having a hungry child, he supposed. His Mum would be shocked at his maternal instincts. Buffy watched with narrowed eyes.
"Rather I let her shop the Buffy store?" he asked. "That’s enough, pet. That’s -- enough."
"Fresh," she sighed, licked blood from her lips and snuggled close against him. "That was lovely, Spike. I feel ever so much better. But I need some Slayer. You promised."
Buffy pulled herself to her feet. He wasn’t clear on how she managed it, given the pain she was obviously in, and he was frankly impressed by the appearance in her hand of yet another stake.
"Look, I’m dying to ask where you keep those, but let’s not get off track, here. What about our High Church friend?"
He nodded toward the closed sanctuary doors.
"Think a stake would do the job?"
"Against that? A bloody telephone pole wouldn’t do the job. Any better ideas, Slayer?"
She didn’t have any, but as it turned out, she didn’t need any, either.
The church exploded in a ball of white-hot flame.
###
"What do you think of me so far?" Whistler asked. He stood at the end of the street, arms crossed, and watched the blown-to-kingdom church rain fragments and embers over the town.
Giles was speechless. "But -- that’s Buffy! Buffy’s down there -- "
He pushed past on his way to where she was lying, stunned by the blast. Whistler grabbed his wrist and squeezed hard enough to grind bone.
"Wait," he said. "Time for the big boys to play, Giles. Go get her and head for the edge of town. Don’t try to cross the line. You’ll know when you can."
"What about -- " Giles glanced involuntarily at the two vampires tumbled near Buffy. One of them was moving -- Drusilla, he thought.
"My problem," Whistler said. "Go get her. Hurry."
He let go. Giles winced and worked his fingers to ease the ache, and ran, dodging falling coals and burning wood, to where Buffy lay. He dropped to one knee next to her and brushed at a burned spot on her shirt, saw the terrible wound in her leg and swallowed hard. There was a cut on her temple and the beginnings of a bruise; he slapped her cheek lightly but got no response. Still breathing, though. Still breathing. The sweet relief of that spread like cold water.
As he picked her up, Drusilla lunged for his back. She fell short, her talons shredding his jacket, and Giles spun to see that Spike had hold of her foot, tethering her in place.
She was fully demonic now, her eyes glittering red, her face a hideous mask. Giles stumbled back from that face, that hate. He glanced down at Spike, whose eyes were glowing a muddy, sullen yellow.
"Better run along, mate," he grated. "It’s all I’m giving you. I’m fresh out of favors."
Giles ran, Buffy held close in his arms.
###
Something got up out of the ashes of the church. Whistler watched it stand up -- and up -- and up. It blotted out the stars. A snap of the black wings scattered ashes and fire in all directions like a bomb blast. He lost his hat, which totally pissed him off. He liked that hat. He’d had it since 1968, which had been his very favorite year.
"Yo! Azhrael!" he yelled. His human eyes couldn’t see anything in all that darkness, but he knew he’d gotten its attention. "What do you say? Two falls out of three?"
"I don’t know you, little man." It was the breath of Hell, the voice of the void. Souls screamed in the Pits at the sound of it. "Begone."
Whistler crossed his arms. "No way to treat a relative."
He saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Spike had wrestled Drusilla into his arms and was dragging her away. Good. He was rather proud how they’d turned out. Plan or not, you just never knew. Kids were so hard to predict.
Azrhael came for him. Whistler didn’t even bother to discard his human form. Azhrael’s sticky foulness flowed over him in a choking wave, and he burned it off. Just like that, like he was a match and Azrhael lighter fluid.
"Now that," he remarked as Azrhael screamed, "had to hurt. Want to go again?"
"I will destroy you!"
"Attaboy. Go for it."
This time it was worse, a smothering excrescence of evil that slammed into him like a wall, filled his mouth, his nose, his ears, and was basically a really disgusting inconvenience. Whistler, annoyed, shed his body. It was kind of spectacular, in that it incinerated three buildings and totally demolished the long-dead gas station and pounded Azhrael into the dirt like so much squashed lunch meat.
"Forgot to tell you," Whistler said, and stretched his massive shoulders, "You might want to bring a friend. I said I was a relative. Your elder relative, sonny."
He grabbed what was left of Azhrael and squeezed. Ahhhhh. Nothing quite like that feeling, life running between his fingers, crunching so satisfyingly. Although in his current position he wasn’t supposed to be enjoying that quite so much. Still, it was nice to get out of the skin for a while. He grinned down at the twisted remains of Azhrael of Endless Torments, Lord of the Outer Darkness, Master of the Hellborn, and his teeth gleamed as sharp as the edge of a star.
"Poser," he snorted, and folded himself back into the skin of Whistler. He hunted around for a while before he found what he was looking for. Ah, there. He kicked aside a fragment of Azhrael’s calcified body and dusted demon residue off the brim of his hat. He jammed it on his head and looked up at the stars. The cold, cold stars.
"Well?" he demanded, annoyed. "If I'm not inconveniencing you?"
The spell broke with the sound of shattering glass.
Can't get good help these days.
###
Drusilla was fighting like a wild animal, slippery as an eel. Spike set her down and captured both her hands in his, gave her a good solid smack across the cheek, and watched some sense float back into her unearthly eyes. She didn’t need to breath, but she was panting, mostly with hate.
"I want to kill it!" she snarled. "It hurt me, Spike. It hurt!"
"Yes, pet, I’d like to rip its head off and piss down its throat, but as it has no head, and I can’t piss, I suppose that we’d better just try to get the hell out of here, shall we?"
She didn’t look convinced. He picked her up again and carried her down the street, not sure where he was heading or why, but anything, even sunrise, was better than what he’d seen in that hellish church. Like he’d told Buffy once, he rather liked the Earth the way it was.
Above his head came a huge, world-destroying sound like a bowl shattering. He ducked and covered Dru with his body, expecting a rain of glass or toads or something equally mysterious, but all he got was rain. Icy rain slicing down his neck, drawing a shiver out of him even though he was scarcely warmer than it was.
"Spike?" Dru said. "I don’t like the rain. It gets me all wet."
"Yes, I know. Hang on." He lifted his head and looked out at the still, calm night, the eerie downpour. It stopped as suddenly as it had started. Where it had hit the ground, steam rose. He stood up again, settled Dru more comfortably, and resigned himself to walking. Sunrise was another problem, but he’d deal with it when --
An engine started up behind him. He turned to see two headlights flick on. The purr of the engine was remarkably familiar. He went toward it, not quite at a run, and saw that the old black Dodge was idling, as if it had never run broken down. The windscreens, front and back, were entirely intact.
He stared at it a moment, then shrugged and eased Drusilla into the passenger side.
"Spike?" she asked as he was about the close the door. He opened it again to look at her.
"Yes, pet?"
"I never want to come back here. Never ever."
He gently closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side. "I can’t think of anything less a problem."
As they passed the NEW HOPE, POP. 15 sign, he noticed that there was another car parked there. Buffy’s ride, he supposed. Well, then. Luck to her, and to whoever went up against her next. Wouldn’t be him, if he could help it.
Of course, things didn’t always go according to plan.
He didn’t relax until they drove across the border into Arizona.
###
Buffy came awake warm and safe, wrapped in a blanket. She was lying down -- in a car. A moving car. She sat up, blinked, and saw the back of the driver’s head.
"Giles?" she said. He almost went off the road. "Whoa. Sorry. Back off the Vivarin, would you?"
"Buffy!" He pulled the car over, parked, and turned to take her hand. Behind the glasses, his eyes were wide and warm and not very Giles-like at all. "You had me -- worried. Oh, and I’m -- I’m very cross with you. You left without a word -- "
"Had to," she said. Some of it closed around her again, a hard black shell sealing her off from Giles and comfort. "Don’t ask, don’t tell. Let’s just -- hang. Can we?"
"Can we what?"
"Hang."
"Oh." That was a non-comprehend if she’d ever seen one. "Well. Yes. I suppose -- how are you feeling?"
"Like I’ve been shot by a bad Johnny Depp wannabe and had my butt kicked by a really ugly demon. Basically, your usual Slayer day. Ow." She probed the bruise on her head. "How’d that happen?"
"I think you’d prefer not to know."
"Wait! What about -- the really ugly demon? I mean, shouldn’t we be -- "
The passenger door of the car suddenly opened, and she recognized the guy who got in -- wimpy, skinny, scary as hell. And that hat. Only a demon could love the hat.
"The old guy has left the building. Also the universe," Whistler said. "Get some rest, kid. You’re gonna need it. I can’t hang around forever bailing your butt out of trouble, you know. I got a life. Well, not technically, but you get the idea."
"We left you a hundred miles ago. Where did you come -- " Giles was staring at Whistler like he had horns coming out of his head. Which would explain that hat.
"I jogged," he shrugged. "Giles. Focus. Drive. I am really hungry. There’s this great all-night diner couple of miles up ahead."
"Oh, no, I’m not eating with you," Buffy said. She was just working up a good mad. "You -- you -- demon. You stuck me in that town, didn’t you? What is this, some sort of master plan? You want me to get some sort of experience?"
"Smart girl," he said. "Nap time."
She was in the middle of telling him, in detail that was likely to give Giles a stroke, where he could go with his nap time, when she fell asleep.
Strangely enough, she dreamed of Angel. He was walking along a white path through a garden talking to a nun. He must have felt her watching because he looked up, and it was her Angel, sweet, vulnerable, loving. He kissed the nun on the cheek and came to her to take her hand. His lips moved, telling her things she couldn’t hear, couldn’t bear to know. She could touch him, kiss him, feel him loving her, but there were no words, not anymore. That was when she understood that he was really gone, forever gone. But never lost. Not to her.
"I love you," she said to him. Her fingers traced those full, perfect lips. "I’m going to go on. I understand now."
He smiled.
When she woke up, they were passing the sign that said WELCOME TO SUNNYDALE. Whistler was no longer in the car. Giles had a wide-eyed, shocked look in his eyes. "Are you all right?" he asked her.
She pushed her hair back from her face and thought about a bath, a change of clothes, and her friends. She missed Willow. She missed Xander. Even Cordelia, God, that hurt to admit.
That was what Angel had been saying. Go home.
"Yeah," she said. "I think I really am."
... an author's note. This is actually my first attempt at Buffy fanfic, back in the day; not sure how successful it is, but from an archival standpoint, well, here it is. :)
J.