Something Old…..meme
I've enjoyed reading and remembering friends' extracts. Here are mine:
Something Old…. I decided to go with a piece from the first story I ever wrote, Splinters
Falling asleep with a vampire is not a good idea...
The pain woke Joyce. She’d been restless all night, sure at one point that she could hear voices downstairs, but she’d been mistaken. Then she’d drifted off to sleep only to be jolted awake by the throbbing inside her head. She swallowed another two pain killers and sat up in bed. The comforting familiarity of her bedroom eased her mind for a while, then she caught sight of her bag, sitting ready packed in the corner and her fears came flooding back.
For all her brave words to Buffy, she knew she wasn’t well. She tried to pretend that, yes, whatever it was, they had caught it at a very early stage, so a course of treatment of some kind and she would be fine. But deep down she knew that wasn’t true. Something had invaded her brain and was growing there.
She found herself smiling at a stray thought - now she could sympathise with Spike. This was what being chipped must be like. A foreign body nestling inside your head, altering the way you behave in every way.
Although the room was warm, she shivered. If it turned out to be as bad as she thought it might, what would happen to her girls? Their father would be no use at all. They would be on their own. No, that simply couldn’t happen. She pushed her thoughts aside. She was being maudlin and silly. Hundreds of people had little problems like hers and came through completely unscathed. If only she could truly believe that Buffy and Dawn would be all right.
Dawn worried her. Sometimes - Joyce struggled with her feelings - she almost felt as if she was someone else’s child. She didn’t remind her of any of her own family and certainly non of her ex’s. But she loved her deeply. And as for Buffy - she was physically so strong but emotionally.....
Joyce threw back the bedclothes and reached for her robe. She was so thirsty. She would go downstairs and make some tea....
At the kitchen table, Spike was sitting very, very still. For two hours he hadn’t moved. Buffy was fast asleep, her head resting against his shoulder. But he could tell she was dreaming. And the little moans and cries she made showed that whatever was running through her mind wasn’t of the puppy dogs and roses variety.
His arm had developed severe cramp an hour since, but he would have cheerfully staked himself rather than wake her. He told himself righteously that was because a sleepy Slayer who wasn’t at the height of her powers was a pretty feeble enemy. Although chipped he couldn’t kill her himself, other demons and vampires might. He wasn’t letting her sleep for her sake, but theirs. And if he bent his head just a fraction, the tousled blonde curls just touched his lips and the scent....
“Spike!” Joyce’s shocked whisper shot through him like the proverbial stake.
“Sssh,” he said without thinking or moving. “She’s asleep.”
One of the things he liked about Buffy’s mother was her ability to cope with a situation and move on. The sight of a vampire sitting at her kitchen table in the middle of the night with her eldest daughter fast asleep on his shoulder should have made her scream. Instead, Joyce walked across and sat opposite them. “Have you been here long?”
“Couple of hours, I think. Can’t see the clock on the microwave. I’ll have to move before sun up.”
“But why...?”
“Oh, don’t worry. Nothing drastic. I had, er, injuries to my fingers, - oh very slight, nothing to get excited about - but I needed a little first aid and Buffy obliged. Then she kindly made me a very nice cuppa - not as good as yours, but nice - and she sort of....fell asleep.”
“I see.”
There was a silence for a while then Joyce said, “And how have you been keeping?”
“Good, thank you.”
“When you came by last time for a chat, you mentioned a girl - ”
“Yes, I did. It’s very kind of you to remember. Her name‘s Harmony, she’s - ”
“Harmony Kendall? Oh she used to be in Buffy’s year - oh, vampire?”
Spike raised an eyebrow in reply and Joyce nodded sympathetically. ‘“Well, good. That’s nice for you. I never liked the thought of you living in that crypt on your own.”
Spike smiled and flinched as the cramp bit in his arm again.
“I’ll wake her,” Joyce said softly but he shook his head.
“Give her another minute or two.” His bright blue gaze flared across the table at her and he frowned as he sensed - smelt - something wrong. “What’s the problem, Joyce. Why is Buffy having a major wiggins tonight? She’s been kicking me around all evening, although to be fair, she did buy me some chicken wings in the Bronze.”
“Oh Spike, are you hungry? I could make you - ” Joyce half stood up, then swayed as the pain bit in her head, and sat down again.
Spike stared at her and for an instant he fought to keep his game face from breaking out. He felt a surge of white hot anger. NO! What he was thinking, sensing, could not be right, but every vampire instinct he possessed told him that this was a wounded member of the herd, something that could be cut out, run down and taken because she wasn’t right. But this was the Slayer’s mother and now he realised just why Buffy had been so upset all evening.
Joyce put he hand to her head, but said nothing. She looked across the table at Spike and he wondered, not for the first time, why she even gave him the time of day. What did she see in him that stopped her throwing him out of the house in a non heartbeat?
“Is it going to be bad?” he asked quietly.
Joyce smiled. “Bad is what Buffy faces every day of her life,” she said calmly. “I have a little headache that the hospital are going to investigate and cure. I have every faith in them, in modern medicine, in the doctors and nurses.”
Spike tensed and Buffy murmured crossly and slid down his chest until her head was pillowed in his lap. He stretched his arm in relief. “Sure. Hospitals. Great places. Love ’em to bits. Blood, blood and more blood. Sort of vampire super-markets. Fresh or frozen, take your pick - ”
“Spike - ” Joyce interrupted him “I know you and Buffy don’t see eye to eye over most things - ”
Spike frowned in what he hoped was a ferocious manner. That was the only problem with having no reflection - it was hard to practise your expressions. “Bleedin’ right there. I’m a killer. Evil. Slayer and me - mortal enemies. If it wasn’t for the chip - ”
Joyce broke in again. “Yes, yes, I’ve been sitting watching you with your mortal enemy. I’m not sure where the caring comes into the equation, but we’ll forget that for now. Spike, not that anything is going to happen to me, but just supposing - I need to know there’s someone there for my girls, a sort of guardian angel - ” She stopped when she saw the expression on his face.
“There’s an ordinary Angel in L.A. who’d be down here like a shot, all puffed up hair and comforting words. They wouldn’t need me.” He ran his fingers through his hair until it stood up in twists and rings. “Anyway, like you say, hospitals, good places. You’ll be fine.“
Joyce bit her lip and slowly stood up. “Don’t let’s play games, Spike. I think we both know that - Well, I’m going back to bed. I’m so very tired.” She turned in the doorway. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.” She gave a little laugh. “By this time next week, all this will seem like a silly dream. Goodnight, Spike. Wake Buffy soon. You need to go home. It’ll be sunrise in an hour.”
“Joyce!” He held up the hand that was dangerously close to smoothing the blonde curls that lay across his legs and the blue eyes gleamed. She was amazing. She trusted him, this woman who’d crashed an axe across his head when they first met. “For what it’s worth, I would do my best.”
Joyce smiled affectionately and he realised with a jolt that it was just for him. “That’s all any mother can ask for, Spike,” she murmured and turned away into the darkness that swallowed her up.
Something New...
This is part of the rough draft of the first chapter of new story set 9 years after Season 7. At present it is entitled Destiny, but that will probably change.
In nine years a lot can happen. People move on. Life changes. You get older, dreams are sometimes unobtainable. How would Buffy cope, passing her thirtieth birthday - and what about happiness? Is that still just out of reach ?
Chapter One: All grown up.
“At the next roundabout, take the third exit…”
“OK! OK! You’ve told me that already.” Buffy Summers quelled an overwhelming desire to disconnect the GPS or as Giles called it, the sat-nav - and hurl it out of the window. The woman’s voice was grating on every wriggling nerve-ending she possessed.
“In one hundred metres, turn left…”
She tried to relax: after all, the days of not being able to drive well had long gone. Here in England she’d learnt all over again, passed her tests and traveled up and down the country without any problems. She could even deal with roundabouts! She often thought that learning in Sunnydale when you were the only Slayer around had been so hard. It hadn’t been easy concentrating on driving when you could see a demon crossing the road or a vampire looming out of the dark, about to attack some poor, unsuspecting pedestrian.
“If possible, do a U turn…”
Buffy frowned. She’d been doing exactly what the wretched woman had told her. Why did she have to turn round and go back the way she’d just come?
Wearily, she pulled over into a gateway, competently reversed back and forward and drove on again: it was raining and her headlights cut through the sparkling shards into the blackness of the English countryside. She smiled to herself, wondering what Spike would have said if he could have seen her, driving through the dark on a wet, slippery road without turning a hair. Something complimentary? She doubted it.
Pushing the thought away, she frowned: she allowed herself to think about him twice a week: it was the way she’d learnt to cope with the loss all those years before - the only way. She’d schooled herself severely - at first thinking all the time, then twice a day, once a day, now she was up to twice a week. Perhaps the time would even come when she could get to once a month, once a year? Pain lanced through her body and she fought to keep her mind clear. There were now three days to go before she could think about him again.
“At least I do think about him,” she muttered out loud. “I think about all of them - and what we did, what we achieved. I reckon everyone else has forgotten Spike and Angel and Sunnydale even existed.”
She tried to remember the last time Willow or Giles had mentioned Sunnydale and reckoned it had been months and months ago. Sometimes Dawn would smile and speak affectionately about Spike - but rarely these days. Sometimes Buffy wondered if she’d dreamt it all - dreamt she’d loved and lost everything that made life worth living. “I have to go on living, so that one of us is living!” she sung under her breath, wishing she wasn’t dry-eyed: tears would help soothe the burning but she had none.
“In two hundred metres, take the next turning on your right…”
“Oh, come on! This is stupid. What’s wrong with you?” Buffy braked hard - thanking all her lucky stars that the road was empty behind her - and stared into the dark entrance to a narrow, grass-covered path. Trees drooped branches that cascaded rain onto the ground. “That can’t be the road to Winchester.”
She fiddled with the settings but the woman, with implacable politeness, kept insisting that she drove down the lane. “Perhaps it’s a short cut. Maybe there’s an accident somewhere and it’s directing me round.”
Buffy tried her cell to see if Willow could help, but there was no signal. Easing the car into the side of the road, she turned off the engine and sat for a long minute with her eyes shut. She gazed mindlessly at the trickles of water running down the window. She was tired. Ridiculous - she was a Slayer, she shouldn’t feel so bone weary.
“Maybe it’s part of getting old,” she muttered. She was thirty: how weird was that? Guilt crept into her mind as she remembered Dawn making a fuss about having a huge party for her birthday, inviting all her old friends - those who were still alive, of course. Giles, Willow, Xander, married to Kennedy’s sister, Giselle, living a life of luxury, Faith and Robin, still together, which was a minor miracle in itself. Dawn had even announced that she’d invited Andrew to fly in from Rome. Buffy had left the country the day before the party, even though she knew her sister had been upset. She was sure they’d all had a great time discussing her absence.
Still, if anyone had told her in Sunnydale when she was nineteen that she’d live to become thirty, she wouldn’t have believed them. So - “Yay for me! Wonder what I’ll be doing when I’m forty?”
It was odd; Slayers in the past had never lived this long so there were no notes or guidelines to follow. Giles had done endless research on the subject, which fascinated him. She’d wondered if her Slayer powers would fade as the years passed, but had to admit she could still fight effortlessly, kill vamps, even save the world when called to - although the younger girls usually rushed forward, eagerly pushing and shoving to get to the front when the word Apocalypse was ever mentioned.
So instead she lectured, advised, warned, travelled the world dealing with all the administrative problems that had arisen when the myriad Slayers had been called all those years ago. She wasn’t complaining: it was a worthwhile life, one her Mom would have been delighted she was living; she was useful, respected and - in no great danger. Yes, there was nothing wrong with her life, except - almost any other Slayer with a few years’ experience could have done the same thing.
On the plus side, she had homes in two countries, a sister who’d not only become a Watcher in her own right but had married another Watcher, Mark Mardell. Buffy had watched as Dawn fell in love at first sight - tall, brown-haired, thin, hazel-eyed Mark whom, to his ever-lasting credit had not batted an eyelash at the information about his beloved’s peculiar beginnings in life.
Now they were ridiculously happy with their baby boy, Stephen: a tight, exclusive little family who finished each other’s sentences. And Buffy was fiercely pleased for them. She wanted Dawn to know a love like that: one she herself had, once upon a time… So at last Dawn was no longer her responsibility. That felt weird and sort of - lonely. For so many years what Dawn was doing, where she was, whom she was with - all these factors had shaped Buffy’s life. She was as conditioned to look after her sister as she was to being the Slayer and now, in both parts of her life, she was redundant.
Buffy could tell by the polite expressions on the girls’ faces when she gave her lectures that they had moved on from her. They listened to stories of past Apocalypses with interest - as if she was talking about things that had happened in historical times! And to make matters worse, in the last meeting she’d spotted several of them not listening but texting - no doubt to each other - probably commenting on how boring she was. She had to admit, she sounded boring to herself. Listing the type of demons they might meet one dark day seemed a little old-fashioned now that modern day human demons could fly planes into buildings and kill people in numbers that most self respecting vampires and demons could only dream about.
“Even magic seems less aggressive these days,” she murmured, wanting to rub her eyes, but worried that she would smear her mascara and end up attending the meeting looking like a panda.
Willow, together with her current girlfriend or boyfriend - she didn’t seem to care these days - was never to be found in the same country for long. She zoomed happily around the world, connecting Slayers with witches in their local area, forming close-knit groups that flourished because they were based on so many of the ideas she and Buffy had experimented with when they were young. Since Kennedy had died - and Buffy felt a wave of annoyance at the girl for being killed, not by a vampire but through riding a motor bike that everyone, rightly, had told her was far too big and heavy for her to control - Willow had seemed released from all restraints, both physical and emotional.
So yes, her life was very worthwhile - Giles, living in semi-retirement unless wanted - thought it all marvellous. He rang Buffy every week from his apartment in a row of Regency houses in Bath, extolling the virtues of constant vigilance, reminding her to keep up with the practicing because you never knew what was going to happen, checking - his voice wistful - that she had both his correct cell phone number and land line in case he was suddenly needed and reminding her that he was free to drop everything and come at once in an emergency.
“But you do know what’s going to happen, Giles,” Buffy muttered angrily to herself, trying to make the car’s CD player work. “We both know that tomorrow is going to be the same as today and today was the same as yesterday. Enough evil to keep us busy in a nice ‘I can finish everything by tea-time’ type of busy, but not enough to make everything - “
She stopped and laughed out loud. She’d always wanted to be a normal girl, lead an ordinary life. Some people would say she now had the best of both worlds and she still wasn’t content.
Her own love live wasn’t boring: she’d had men who loved her. Once or twice she’d been tempted to have a relationship that lasted longer than a few months. A Watcher she’d met in Australia - he’d been great but somehow when that dreaded word commitment had been spoken - followed by the even more dreadful word, marriage - she’d found herself on a plane flying back to England.
She checked now to make certain that her neat, elegant hair-style wasn’t escaping from its clips. She liked to look business-like and efficient when she was on Slayer duties. Buffy pushed away the thought that even when she was home, she never slouched around in comfortable old clothes anymore, her hair down around her shoulders, silly, fluffy slippers on her feet. That Buffy, so young, so idealistic, had gone for good. She was Miss Summers now: thirty years old, a cool, blonde, professional woman whose modern, streamlined flat, decorated in grey, beige and cream, was a perfect background for her passionless approach to the world these days.
Today was a perfect example of her life: breakfast, phone call to Dawn to check that Stephen’s cold was better, work out at the gym, lunch sitting on her balcony, looking out over Regent’s Park, and now this evening a meeting in Winchester with the Hampshire Slayers to discuss - jeez, she couldn’t remember what they wanted, but no doubt she’d find out when she got there. If she got there! The meeting would be followed by coffee and cake, provided by the members, which would give individual girls the ”chance to speak privately to Miss Summers but please keep your questions short as her time is limited”.
And that was the lie that burnt her soul. She had all the time in the world. Days drifted into weeks, months, years. Was this what getting old meant? Why couldn’t she feel any enthusiasm for anything she did? When had she started weighing up all the pros and cons before she made a decision? What had happened to taking a chance?
Making up her mind, she turned the key, spun the wheel and drove into the lane. She was in no hurry; it was just another conference, another training session with girls whom, she was quite certain, considered her old and past it. She sighed - maybe tonight she would feel that spark of excitement that made everything worthwhile.
Something Borrowed
Goodness, I don't know where to start with this one, but as my great niece is now into writing Buffy, I thought I'd put an extract from one of her stories here. There is a lot of Halloween confusion but I like her dialogue a lot - always have. This is from Memories of Another Life by Mia Vann.
“Well, at least you know that, but I guess you would since it’s on your t-shirt, and all,” said Willow. “Basically, everyone has become their costumes; I’m a ghost, Xander’s a soldier, and you’re a geek.”
“I didn’t know you could dress as geeks for Halloween.” Kim shrugged. “So I’m guessing this is some kind of spell, or something?”
“Yeah,” said Willow. “I suppose you could help, being a geek and all.”
A demon suddenly appeared behind them, but Xander leapt and hit it with his gun. “I suggest we get inside before we come across some more monsters.”
“Yes, let’s,” said Willow
She hurried towards Buffy’s house with Xander close behind, and Kim followed. This is the coolest dream ever! And to make it better, I’m not dressed as a princess; that would’ve been torture.
When they reached the house, Xander stepped in first to check. “All clear!”
Willow stepped in after. “Hello? Mrs. Summers?” When there was no reply, she sighed. “Good, she’s gone.”
“Where are we?” asked Kim, keeping up the act.
“Your place.”
“My place?”
“Yeah, you don’t remember, but you’re really Buffy,” replied Willow. “Now we just need to-”
There was a sudden banging at the door. Xander ran over to it.
“Don’t open it!” Willow ordered him.
“It could be a civilian,” he said.
“Or a demon.”
Kim walked over and picked up a picture of Buffy. The frame felt real in her hand. A really lucid dream. I’ll have to try and do this again sometime; maybe I can end up inside Star Wars or Thor. “Is this really me?” she asked.
“It is you,” said Willow. “Buffy, can’t you remember at all?”
“No.” While it was a lie, at the same time it wasn’t. While Kim knew who Buffy was and what had happened to her, she wasn’t Buffy, therefore there were no memories to remember.
A hand smashed through the window of the door - a demon hand.
“Not a civilian!” yelled Willow.
“Affirmative!” Xander stuck his gun through the gap and began to shoot.
Willow gasped. “Hey, what did we say?!”
“Big noise, scare monster, remember?” said Xander.
“Got it.”
There was a sudden scream outside. Xander cursed under his breath before yanking the door open and running out. A few minutes later, Willow opened the door and let him back in again; Cordelia was with him. “What’s going on?"
“OK, your name is Cordelia, you’re not a cat, you’re in high school and we’re your friends. Well, sort of,” said Willow.
Cordelia didn’t look amused. “That’s nice, Willow. And you went mental when?”
“You know us?” Willow shot her a look of confusion.
“Yeah, lucky me. What’s with the name game?”
“A lot’s going on!”
“No kidding! I was just attacked by Jo-Jo, the dog face boy! Look at my costume!” She gestured to where her cat costume had been ripped on the arm. “Do you really think I’m gonna get my deposit back from Party Town? Not likely!”
“Here.” Xander gave her his jacket.
Cordelia looked confused, but didn’t protest. “Thanks.”
“Willow here says that we’ve become who we’re dressed as,” said Kim. “She’s a ghost, that guy’s an army guy, and I’m a geek named Kim.”
“Buffy dressed up as a geek?” Cordelia’s eyebrow rose. “And here I thought she couldn’t get any lamer.”
“She was on a budget for her costume,” said Willow. “You guys stay here while I get some help. If something tries to get in, just fight it off.”
Something Blue...
OK, I couldn't do this meme without my lovely Agnes Pringle making an appearance. (She gets paid, you know!) This happens just after Buffy's been brought back from Heaven by Willow.
Business as Usual
The demon invasion of Sunnydale had swept through the town like an evil disease, terrifying, destroying, killing everything in its path. But eventually a strange silence fell outside the Willow Tree Tearooms and the owner Agnes Pringle, wiped away the tears of self-pity that had overwhelmed her. Spike wasn’t coming to her aid and she might as well accept the fact and get on with surviving.
Gingerly, she stood up, wincing at the ache in her legs and realised she was still gripping her best rolling-pin, her weapon of choice. Moving the chair she’d pushed under the door handle to stop any more demons coming into the Tearooms, she opened the door and peered out. The town looked as if the end of the world had happened. Fires flickered, smoke drifted through the air, burglar alarms were screaming and somewhere - a long way away - she could hear a police siren. But the demon gang had gone. Something had changed, too, something was different and Agnes suddenly realised that the weird metal tower that had dominated the skyline since Glory’s days had vanished.
More worrying to her - there was no sign of Dawn or Spike. The Sunnydale streets were empty, but Agnes caught sight of various furtive movements as residents began to appear in doorways and windows, checking the damage, wondering if it was safe to come out. Agnes walked up the street a little way, worrying about her friends. She didn’t understand why Spike hadn’t come to see if she was all right. Not that he had any obligation to do so, of course, she thought hastily. He had other friends, other people to worry about. It was just odd that the other people were Unturneds! But she did hope that Dawn Summers was all right. Agnes had a clear memory of the young girl’s face earlier that evening as she’d pulled on her crash helmet over her long dark hair. She so enjoyed riding on the back of Spike’s monster bike.
Suddenly Agnes felt her legs quiver; she’d spotted something lying in the road in front of her. Arms, legs, oh no, there was a body and a head - oh no, please no. She took a couple more steps then felt a wave of relief rush through her as she saw the wires and chains, pieces of metal, rods and hinges. The ruins of the Buffy robot lay in front of her, the eyes wide open and staring, sightlessly, up into the starry sky.
“Oh you poor thing!” Regardless of the dirt and grit digging into her knees, Agnes knelt at its side. She knew the robot wasn’t human, of course, but it had still been happily alive in some strange computer way she didn’t understand. It had helped, done the job it was programmed to do and seemed to enjoy its life. Of course it hadn’t been human, didn’t possess a soul, but then neither did she and Agnes knew with a cold certainty that she would have been horrified to find herself abandoned in pieces on her death. At least she would descend into decent dust and scatter gently in the air. Being left by her friends in the middle of the road as if you were just rubbish - well, it was unseemly, rude, uncaring.
She felt a surge of anger at the way the robot’s owners had just abandoned her, like a game they’d finished playing with once it got broken.
It took Agnes two trips to carry the remains back to the Tearooms. They were heavier than they looked and it took a little time to collect the innards that were scattered over the road. She found carrying the head with those sightless eyes particularly distressing. For some reason it reminded her of how unpleasant she always found the sight of dead fish lying on ice slabs in the fishmongers. Eyes glaring up at you, accusing, defiant, dead.
Gasping - because really she wasn’t getting any younger even if she wasn’t getting any older either! - Agnes managed to get everything down the stairs into the basement. She longed for a nice cup of tea, but needed to get things sorted before she sat down to rest. Eric and Nancy, the vampire children she sometimes cared for, would be charging along the passages into her basement as soon as it was safe to do so. She didn’t want them to see these - remains. It might worry them. Children were odd creatures and although they happily killed things on their little computer games, Agnes wasn’t quite certain if they would find a dismembered body, even a metal one, unsettling.
She hesitated - what should she do with the pieces? She could put them in her shopping trolley and wheel them down to the garbage dump later in the week - but that was treating them as rubbish and so not an option. Well, perhaps she could dig a hole in one of the smaller passageways that ran under Sunnydale? Except she didn’t actually own a shovel and - Agnes was nothing if not pragmatic, she didn’t know if she was strong enough to dig a hole deep enough to bury a body, even a dismembered one.
Sighing, she opened the storage bin where she kept her bags of flour and sugar. A few minutes later, they were stacked neatly on the floor and Agnes was piling the metal pieces inside the bin. Gently, she placed the head in last, pushing down the little plastic eyelids over those dreadful staring eyes. Shutting the door, she stood up and wearily filled the kettle. Tea! She would die - well, obviously she wouldn’t, but she felt like she would - if she didn’t have a cup of tea right now.
Suddenly the door to the basement was flung open and Spike half fell down the steps. Startled, Agnes spun round. “Spike?” She stared at him in astonishment as he stood there, swaying slightly. His eyes were blazing with an inner joy she’d never seen before and his whole face was alight with a happiness that was shocking in its intensity. “She’s alive! She’s back. Buffy’s back!” He reached out, grasped Agnes round the waist and swung her into the air, round and round as if she was a child again.
“Spike! Put me down. Whatever’s happened?” Agnes found her feet and tottered across the room to sink into a chair. “What do you mean, Buffy’s back?”
“They rescued her from Hell - Willow and Tara and Xander. The devil knows how. Some mojo. I don’t care. She’s back. Oh, they didn’t do it that well; had to claw herself out of her own coffin. God knows how she did that. But it doesn’t matter. Agnes, she’s alive! Alive!” And before she could speak he’d turned and two great strides took him up the stairs and away again.
Agnes sat very still very a very long time, tea forgotten. The Slayer was back in town - and Spike found this something to rejoice about. That was so odd that she couldn’t quite grasp it, but the look on his face had told her quite plainly that the vampire’s feelings for that small blonde girl were far more complicated than she’d ever imagined.
His words about the coffin slowly began to penetrate - and she was thrown back to a night some time ago. To a funeral parlour, to damaging a coffin lid when fighting a demon and sewing the lining up quickly so no one could see. So, had she helped the Slayer return? Had she, Agnes Pringle, released a vampire killer back into her own little Sunnydale world, putting them all in danger. Why she might stake Shona or the children next! That was a horrifying, sobering fault. “Be sure your sins will find you out,” she muttered at last. “I should have confessed I broke the coffin lid, then her friends would have chosen a new one. This is All My Fault.”
At last she stood up and pulled on her second best coat. Buffy Summers returning from the grave had at least solved one of Agnes’ problems for her.
Just before dawn, a small, plump vampire could be seen pushing a trolley through the streets of Sunnydale, out to the main cemetery. It was a bit of a struggle getting the wonky wheels up the slope - the trolley had a tendency to steer to the right no matter how much she tugged it in another direction - but at last she manoeuvred it across the grass to the open grave.
“Well, the Slayer won’t be needing it any more,” Agnes murmured. The mud and grass had been scattered violently around and the lid of the coffin lay in pieces nearby. But the inside was untouched and, carefully, Agnes began to lay the pieces of the robot inside its final resting place. She was just placing the head inside, resting it against a silk cushion, when a noise made her jump. It was only a night bird but the head slipped from her grasp and fell a few inches.
To Agnes’s horror, the eyes opened, there was a small click and a voice said, “I can’t see! Is anyone there?”
Agnes struggled to make her voice work. “Yes, my dear, I’m here.”
“Am I sick? Willow should mend me. I feel broken. Tired.” The mechanical voice was getting softer and softer, as the final energy in the final battery was exhausted.
“You must go to sleep, my dear,” Agnes said. “I’ll…I’ll stay here until you do.” And she reached out to touch the plastic cheek that felt no warmer than her own cold hand.
“Mommy? Mommy!” And there was a lift of excitement, delight and then - nothing.
It didn’t take long to push the broken coffin lid back and smooth earth and grass back into place. It wasn’t perfect, but then who would come to look at it? Buffy Summers was no longer buried here. Agnes stood, leaning on her wonky trolley. She felt she should say a few words, but she needed to go home, to get away from this place before the horrid sun rose.
tbc
Something Old…. I decided to go with a piece from the first story I ever wrote, Splinters
Falling asleep with a vampire is not a good idea...
The pain woke Joyce. She’d been restless all night, sure at one point that she could hear voices downstairs, but she’d been mistaken. Then she’d drifted off to sleep only to be jolted awake by the throbbing inside her head. She swallowed another two pain killers and sat up in bed. The comforting familiarity of her bedroom eased her mind for a while, then she caught sight of her bag, sitting ready packed in the corner and her fears came flooding back.
For all her brave words to Buffy, she knew she wasn’t well. She tried to pretend that, yes, whatever it was, they had caught it at a very early stage, so a course of treatment of some kind and she would be fine. But deep down she knew that wasn’t true. Something had invaded her brain and was growing there.
She found herself smiling at a stray thought - now she could sympathise with Spike. This was what being chipped must be like. A foreign body nestling inside your head, altering the way you behave in every way.
Although the room was warm, she shivered. If it turned out to be as bad as she thought it might, what would happen to her girls? Their father would be no use at all. They would be on their own. No, that simply couldn’t happen. She pushed her thoughts aside. She was being maudlin and silly. Hundreds of people had little problems like hers and came through completely unscathed. If only she could truly believe that Buffy and Dawn would be all right.
Dawn worried her. Sometimes - Joyce struggled with her feelings - she almost felt as if she was someone else’s child. She didn’t remind her of any of her own family and certainly non of her ex’s. But she loved her deeply. And as for Buffy - she was physically so strong but emotionally.....
Joyce threw back the bedclothes and reached for her robe. She was so thirsty. She would go downstairs and make some tea....
At the kitchen table, Spike was sitting very, very still. For two hours he hadn’t moved. Buffy was fast asleep, her head resting against his shoulder. But he could tell she was dreaming. And the little moans and cries she made showed that whatever was running through her mind wasn’t of the puppy dogs and roses variety.
His arm had developed severe cramp an hour since, but he would have cheerfully staked himself rather than wake her. He told himself righteously that was because a sleepy Slayer who wasn’t at the height of her powers was a pretty feeble enemy. Although chipped he couldn’t kill her himself, other demons and vampires might. He wasn’t letting her sleep for her sake, but theirs. And if he bent his head just a fraction, the tousled blonde curls just touched his lips and the scent....
“Spike!” Joyce’s shocked whisper shot through him like the proverbial stake.
“Sssh,” he said without thinking or moving. “She’s asleep.”
One of the things he liked about Buffy’s mother was her ability to cope with a situation and move on. The sight of a vampire sitting at her kitchen table in the middle of the night with her eldest daughter fast asleep on his shoulder should have made her scream. Instead, Joyce walked across and sat opposite them. “Have you been here long?”
“Couple of hours, I think. Can’t see the clock on the microwave. I’ll have to move before sun up.”
“But why...?”
“Oh, don’t worry. Nothing drastic. I had, er, injuries to my fingers, - oh very slight, nothing to get excited about - but I needed a little first aid and Buffy obliged. Then she kindly made me a very nice cuppa - not as good as yours, but nice - and she sort of....fell asleep.”
“I see.”
There was a silence for a while then Joyce said, “And how have you been keeping?”
“Good, thank you.”
“When you came by last time for a chat, you mentioned a girl - ”
“Yes, I did. It’s very kind of you to remember. Her name‘s Harmony, she’s - ”
“Harmony Kendall? Oh she used to be in Buffy’s year - oh, vampire?”
Spike raised an eyebrow in reply and Joyce nodded sympathetically. ‘“Well, good. That’s nice for you. I never liked the thought of you living in that crypt on your own.”
Spike smiled and flinched as the cramp bit in his arm again.
“I’ll wake her,” Joyce said softly but he shook his head.
“Give her another minute or two.” His bright blue gaze flared across the table at her and he frowned as he sensed - smelt - something wrong. “What’s the problem, Joyce. Why is Buffy having a major wiggins tonight? She’s been kicking me around all evening, although to be fair, she did buy me some chicken wings in the Bronze.”
“Oh Spike, are you hungry? I could make you - ” Joyce half stood up, then swayed as the pain bit in her head, and sat down again.
Spike stared at her and for an instant he fought to keep his game face from breaking out. He felt a surge of white hot anger. NO! What he was thinking, sensing, could not be right, but every vampire instinct he possessed told him that this was a wounded member of the herd, something that could be cut out, run down and taken because she wasn’t right. But this was the Slayer’s mother and now he realised just why Buffy had been so upset all evening.
Joyce put he hand to her head, but said nothing. She looked across the table at Spike and he wondered, not for the first time, why she even gave him the time of day. What did she see in him that stopped her throwing him out of the house in a non heartbeat?
“Is it going to be bad?” he asked quietly.
Joyce smiled. “Bad is what Buffy faces every day of her life,” she said calmly. “I have a little headache that the hospital are going to investigate and cure. I have every faith in them, in modern medicine, in the doctors and nurses.”
Spike tensed and Buffy murmured crossly and slid down his chest until her head was pillowed in his lap. He stretched his arm in relief. “Sure. Hospitals. Great places. Love ’em to bits. Blood, blood and more blood. Sort of vampire super-markets. Fresh or frozen, take your pick - ”
“Spike - ” Joyce interrupted him “I know you and Buffy don’t see eye to eye over most things - ”
Spike frowned in what he hoped was a ferocious manner. That was the only problem with having no reflection - it was hard to practise your expressions. “Bleedin’ right there. I’m a killer. Evil. Slayer and me - mortal enemies. If it wasn’t for the chip - ”
Joyce broke in again. “Yes, yes, I’ve been sitting watching you with your mortal enemy. I’m not sure where the caring comes into the equation, but we’ll forget that for now. Spike, not that anything is going to happen to me, but just supposing - I need to know there’s someone there for my girls, a sort of guardian angel - ” She stopped when she saw the expression on his face.
“There’s an ordinary Angel in L.A. who’d be down here like a shot, all puffed up hair and comforting words. They wouldn’t need me.” He ran his fingers through his hair until it stood up in twists and rings. “Anyway, like you say, hospitals, good places. You’ll be fine.“
Joyce bit her lip and slowly stood up. “Don’t let’s play games, Spike. I think we both know that - Well, I’m going back to bed. I’m so very tired.” She turned in the doorway. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.” She gave a little laugh. “By this time next week, all this will seem like a silly dream. Goodnight, Spike. Wake Buffy soon. You need to go home. It’ll be sunrise in an hour.”
“Joyce!” He held up the hand that was dangerously close to smoothing the blonde curls that lay across his legs and the blue eyes gleamed. She was amazing. She trusted him, this woman who’d crashed an axe across his head when they first met. “For what it’s worth, I would do my best.”
Joyce smiled affectionately and he realised with a jolt that it was just for him. “That’s all any mother can ask for, Spike,” she murmured and turned away into the darkness that swallowed her up.
Something New...
This is part of the rough draft of the first chapter of new story set 9 years after Season 7. At present it is entitled Destiny, but that will probably change.
In nine years a lot can happen. People move on. Life changes. You get older, dreams are sometimes unobtainable. How would Buffy cope, passing her thirtieth birthday - and what about happiness? Is that still just out of reach ?
Chapter One: All grown up.
“At the next roundabout, take the third exit…”
“OK! OK! You’ve told me that already.” Buffy Summers quelled an overwhelming desire to disconnect the GPS or as Giles called it, the sat-nav - and hurl it out of the window. The woman’s voice was grating on every wriggling nerve-ending she possessed.
“In one hundred metres, turn left…”
She tried to relax: after all, the days of not being able to drive well had long gone. Here in England she’d learnt all over again, passed her tests and traveled up and down the country without any problems. She could even deal with roundabouts! She often thought that learning in Sunnydale when you were the only Slayer around had been so hard. It hadn’t been easy concentrating on driving when you could see a demon crossing the road or a vampire looming out of the dark, about to attack some poor, unsuspecting pedestrian.
“If possible, do a U turn…”
Buffy frowned. She’d been doing exactly what the wretched woman had told her. Why did she have to turn round and go back the way she’d just come?
Wearily, she pulled over into a gateway, competently reversed back and forward and drove on again: it was raining and her headlights cut through the sparkling shards into the blackness of the English countryside. She smiled to herself, wondering what Spike would have said if he could have seen her, driving through the dark on a wet, slippery road without turning a hair. Something complimentary? She doubted it.
Pushing the thought away, she frowned: she allowed herself to think about him twice a week: it was the way she’d learnt to cope with the loss all those years before - the only way. She’d schooled herself severely - at first thinking all the time, then twice a day, once a day, now she was up to twice a week. Perhaps the time would even come when she could get to once a month, once a year? Pain lanced through her body and she fought to keep her mind clear. There were now three days to go before she could think about him again.
“At least I do think about him,” she muttered out loud. “I think about all of them - and what we did, what we achieved. I reckon everyone else has forgotten Spike and Angel and Sunnydale even existed.”
She tried to remember the last time Willow or Giles had mentioned Sunnydale and reckoned it had been months and months ago. Sometimes Dawn would smile and speak affectionately about Spike - but rarely these days. Sometimes Buffy wondered if she’d dreamt it all - dreamt she’d loved and lost everything that made life worth living. “I have to go on living, so that one of us is living!” she sung under her breath, wishing she wasn’t dry-eyed: tears would help soothe the burning but she had none.
“In two hundred metres, take the next turning on your right…”
“Oh, come on! This is stupid. What’s wrong with you?” Buffy braked hard - thanking all her lucky stars that the road was empty behind her - and stared into the dark entrance to a narrow, grass-covered path. Trees drooped branches that cascaded rain onto the ground. “That can’t be the road to Winchester.”
She fiddled with the settings but the woman, with implacable politeness, kept insisting that she drove down the lane. “Perhaps it’s a short cut. Maybe there’s an accident somewhere and it’s directing me round.”
Buffy tried her cell to see if Willow could help, but there was no signal. Easing the car into the side of the road, she turned off the engine and sat for a long minute with her eyes shut. She gazed mindlessly at the trickles of water running down the window. She was tired. Ridiculous - she was a Slayer, she shouldn’t feel so bone weary.
“Maybe it’s part of getting old,” she muttered. She was thirty: how weird was that? Guilt crept into her mind as she remembered Dawn making a fuss about having a huge party for her birthday, inviting all her old friends - those who were still alive, of course. Giles, Willow, Xander, married to Kennedy’s sister, Giselle, living a life of luxury, Faith and Robin, still together, which was a minor miracle in itself. Dawn had even announced that she’d invited Andrew to fly in from Rome. Buffy had left the country the day before the party, even though she knew her sister had been upset. She was sure they’d all had a great time discussing her absence.
Still, if anyone had told her in Sunnydale when she was nineteen that she’d live to become thirty, she wouldn’t have believed them. So - “Yay for me! Wonder what I’ll be doing when I’m forty?”
It was odd; Slayers in the past had never lived this long so there were no notes or guidelines to follow. Giles had done endless research on the subject, which fascinated him. She’d wondered if her Slayer powers would fade as the years passed, but had to admit she could still fight effortlessly, kill vamps, even save the world when called to - although the younger girls usually rushed forward, eagerly pushing and shoving to get to the front when the word Apocalypse was ever mentioned.
So instead she lectured, advised, warned, travelled the world dealing with all the administrative problems that had arisen when the myriad Slayers had been called all those years ago. She wasn’t complaining: it was a worthwhile life, one her Mom would have been delighted she was living; she was useful, respected and - in no great danger. Yes, there was nothing wrong with her life, except - almost any other Slayer with a few years’ experience could have done the same thing.
On the plus side, she had homes in two countries, a sister who’d not only become a Watcher in her own right but had married another Watcher, Mark Mardell. Buffy had watched as Dawn fell in love at first sight - tall, brown-haired, thin, hazel-eyed Mark whom, to his ever-lasting credit had not batted an eyelash at the information about his beloved’s peculiar beginnings in life.
Now they were ridiculously happy with their baby boy, Stephen: a tight, exclusive little family who finished each other’s sentences. And Buffy was fiercely pleased for them. She wanted Dawn to know a love like that: one she herself had, once upon a time… So at last Dawn was no longer her responsibility. That felt weird and sort of - lonely. For so many years what Dawn was doing, where she was, whom she was with - all these factors had shaped Buffy’s life. She was as conditioned to look after her sister as she was to being the Slayer and now, in both parts of her life, she was redundant.
Buffy could tell by the polite expressions on the girls’ faces when she gave her lectures that they had moved on from her. They listened to stories of past Apocalypses with interest - as if she was talking about things that had happened in historical times! And to make matters worse, in the last meeting she’d spotted several of them not listening but texting - no doubt to each other - probably commenting on how boring she was. She had to admit, she sounded boring to herself. Listing the type of demons they might meet one dark day seemed a little old-fashioned now that modern day human demons could fly planes into buildings and kill people in numbers that most self respecting vampires and demons could only dream about.
“Even magic seems less aggressive these days,” she murmured, wanting to rub her eyes, but worried that she would smear her mascara and end up attending the meeting looking like a panda.
Willow, together with her current girlfriend or boyfriend - she didn’t seem to care these days - was never to be found in the same country for long. She zoomed happily around the world, connecting Slayers with witches in their local area, forming close-knit groups that flourished because they were based on so many of the ideas she and Buffy had experimented with when they were young. Since Kennedy had died - and Buffy felt a wave of annoyance at the girl for being killed, not by a vampire but through riding a motor bike that everyone, rightly, had told her was far too big and heavy for her to control - Willow had seemed released from all restraints, both physical and emotional.
So yes, her life was very worthwhile - Giles, living in semi-retirement unless wanted - thought it all marvellous. He rang Buffy every week from his apartment in a row of Regency houses in Bath, extolling the virtues of constant vigilance, reminding her to keep up with the practicing because you never knew what was going to happen, checking - his voice wistful - that she had both his correct cell phone number and land line in case he was suddenly needed and reminding her that he was free to drop everything and come at once in an emergency.
“But you do know what’s going to happen, Giles,” Buffy muttered angrily to herself, trying to make the car’s CD player work. “We both know that tomorrow is going to be the same as today and today was the same as yesterday. Enough evil to keep us busy in a nice ‘I can finish everything by tea-time’ type of busy, but not enough to make everything - “
She stopped and laughed out loud. She’d always wanted to be a normal girl, lead an ordinary life. Some people would say she now had the best of both worlds and she still wasn’t content.
Her own love live wasn’t boring: she’d had men who loved her. Once or twice she’d been tempted to have a relationship that lasted longer than a few months. A Watcher she’d met in Australia - he’d been great but somehow when that dreaded word commitment had been spoken - followed by the even more dreadful word, marriage - she’d found herself on a plane flying back to England.
She checked now to make certain that her neat, elegant hair-style wasn’t escaping from its clips. She liked to look business-like and efficient when she was on Slayer duties. Buffy pushed away the thought that even when she was home, she never slouched around in comfortable old clothes anymore, her hair down around her shoulders, silly, fluffy slippers on her feet. That Buffy, so young, so idealistic, had gone for good. She was Miss Summers now: thirty years old, a cool, blonde, professional woman whose modern, streamlined flat, decorated in grey, beige and cream, was a perfect background for her passionless approach to the world these days.
Today was a perfect example of her life: breakfast, phone call to Dawn to check that Stephen’s cold was better, work out at the gym, lunch sitting on her balcony, looking out over Regent’s Park, and now this evening a meeting in Winchester with the Hampshire Slayers to discuss - jeez, she couldn’t remember what they wanted, but no doubt she’d find out when she got there. If she got there! The meeting would be followed by coffee and cake, provided by the members, which would give individual girls the ”chance to speak privately to Miss Summers but please keep your questions short as her time is limited”.
And that was the lie that burnt her soul. She had all the time in the world. Days drifted into weeks, months, years. Was this what getting old meant? Why couldn’t she feel any enthusiasm for anything she did? When had she started weighing up all the pros and cons before she made a decision? What had happened to taking a chance?
Making up her mind, she turned the key, spun the wheel and drove into the lane. She was in no hurry; it was just another conference, another training session with girls whom, she was quite certain, considered her old and past it. She sighed - maybe tonight she would feel that spark of excitement that made everything worthwhile.
Something Borrowed
Goodness, I don't know where to start with this one, but as my great niece is now into writing Buffy, I thought I'd put an extract from one of her stories here. There is a lot of Halloween confusion but I like her dialogue a lot - always have. This is from Memories of Another Life by Mia Vann.
“Well, at least you know that, but I guess you would since it’s on your t-shirt, and all,” said Willow. “Basically, everyone has become their costumes; I’m a ghost, Xander’s a soldier, and you’re a geek.”
“I didn’t know you could dress as geeks for Halloween.” Kim shrugged. “So I’m guessing this is some kind of spell, or something?”
“Yeah,” said Willow. “I suppose you could help, being a geek and all.”
A demon suddenly appeared behind them, but Xander leapt and hit it with his gun. “I suggest we get inside before we come across some more monsters.”
“Yes, let’s,” said Willow
She hurried towards Buffy’s house with Xander close behind, and Kim followed. This is the coolest dream ever! And to make it better, I’m not dressed as a princess; that would’ve been torture.
When they reached the house, Xander stepped in first to check. “All clear!”
Willow stepped in after. “Hello? Mrs. Summers?” When there was no reply, she sighed. “Good, she’s gone.”
“Where are we?” asked Kim, keeping up the act.
“Your place.”
“My place?”
“Yeah, you don’t remember, but you’re really Buffy,” replied Willow. “Now we just need to-”
There was a sudden banging at the door. Xander ran over to it.
“Don’t open it!” Willow ordered him.
“It could be a civilian,” he said.
“Or a demon.”
Kim walked over and picked up a picture of Buffy. The frame felt real in her hand. A really lucid dream. I’ll have to try and do this again sometime; maybe I can end up inside Star Wars or Thor. “Is this really me?” she asked.
“It is you,” said Willow. “Buffy, can’t you remember at all?”
“No.” While it was a lie, at the same time it wasn’t. While Kim knew who Buffy was and what had happened to her, she wasn’t Buffy, therefore there were no memories to remember.
A hand smashed through the window of the door - a demon hand.
“Not a civilian!” yelled Willow.
“Affirmative!” Xander stuck his gun through the gap and began to shoot.
Willow gasped. “Hey, what did we say?!”
“Big noise, scare monster, remember?” said Xander.
“Got it.”
There was a sudden scream outside. Xander cursed under his breath before yanking the door open and running out. A few minutes later, Willow opened the door and let him back in again; Cordelia was with him. “What’s going on?"
“OK, your name is Cordelia, you’re not a cat, you’re in high school and we’re your friends. Well, sort of,” said Willow.
Cordelia didn’t look amused. “That’s nice, Willow. And you went mental when?”
“You know us?” Willow shot her a look of confusion.
“Yeah, lucky me. What’s with the name game?”
“A lot’s going on!”
“No kidding! I was just attacked by Jo-Jo, the dog face boy! Look at my costume!” She gestured to where her cat costume had been ripped on the arm. “Do you really think I’m gonna get my deposit back from Party Town? Not likely!”
“Here.” Xander gave her his jacket.
Cordelia looked confused, but didn’t protest. “Thanks.”
“Willow here says that we’ve become who we’re dressed as,” said Kim. “She’s a ghost, that guy’s an army guy, and I’m a geek named Kim.”
“Buffy dressed up as a geek?” Cordelia’s eyebrow rose. “And here I thought she couldn’t get any lamer.”
“She was on a budget for her costume,” said Willow. “You guys stay here while I get some help. If something tries to get in, just fight it off.”
Something Blue...
OK, I couldn't do this meme without my lovely Agnes Pringle making an appearance. (She gets paid, you know!) This happens just after Buffy's been brought back from Heaven by Willow.
Business as Usual
The demon invasion of Sunnydale had swept through the town like an evil disease, terrifying, destroying, killing everything in its path. But eventually a strange silence fell outside the Willow Tree Tearooms and the owner Agnes Pringle, wiped away the tears of self-pity that had overwhelmed her. Spike wasn’t coming to her aid and she might as well accept the fact and get on with surviving.
Gingerly, she stood up, wincing at the ache in her legs and realised she was still gripping her best rolling-pin, her weapon of choice. Moving the chair she’d pushed under the door handle to stop any more demons coming into the Tearooms, she opened the door and peered out. The town looked as if the end of the world had happened. Fires flickered, smoke drifted through the air, burglar alarms were screaming and somewhere - a long way away - she could hear a police siren. But the demon gang had gone. Something had changed, too, something was different and Agnes suddenly realised that the weird metal tower that had dominated the skyline since Glory’s days had vanished.
More worrying to her - there was no sign of Dawn or Spike. The Sunnydale streets were empty, but Agnes caught sight of various furtive movements as residents began to appear in doorways and windows, checking the damage, wondering if it was safe to come out. Agnes walked up the street a little way, worrying about her friends. She didn’t understand why Spike hadn’t come to see if she was all right. Not that he had any obligation to do so, of course, she thought hastily. He had other friends, other people to worry about. It was just odd that the other people were Unturneds! But she did hope that Dawn Summers was all right. Agnes had a clear memory of the young girl’s face earlier that evening as she’d pulled on her crash helmet over her long dark hair. She so enjoyed riding on the back of Spike’s monster bike.
Suddenly Agnes felt her legs quiver; she’d spotted something lying in the road in front of her. Arms, legs, oh no, there was a body and a head - oh no, please no. She took a couple more steps then felt a wave of relief rush through her as she saw the wires and chains, pieces of metal, rods and hinges. The ruins of the Buffy robot lay in front of her, the eyes wide open and staring, sightlessly, up into the starry sky.
“Oh you poor thing!” Regardless of the dirt and grit digging into her knees, Agnes knelt at its side. She knew the robot wasn’t human, of course, but it had still been happily alive in some strange computer way she didn’t understand. It had helped, done the job it was programmed to do and seemed to enjoy its life. Of course it hadn’t been human, didn’t possess a soul, but then neither did she and Agnes knew with a cold certainty that she would have been horrified to find herself abandoned in pieces on her death. At least she would descend into decent dust and scatter gently in the air. Being left by her friends in the middle of the road as if you were just rubbish - well, it was unseemly, rude, uncaring.
She felt a surge of anger at the way the robot’s owners had just abandoned her, like a game they’d finished playing with once it got broken.
It took Agnes two trips to carry the remains back to the Tearooms. They were heavier than they looked and it took a little time to collect the innards that were scattered over the road. She found carrying the head with those sightless eyes particularly distressing. For some reason it reminded her of how unpleasant she always found the sight of dead fish lying on ice slabs in the fishmongers. Eyes glaring up at you, accusing, defiant, dead.
Gasping - because really she wasn’t getting any younger even if she wasn’t getting any older either! - Agnes managed to get everything down the stairs into the basement. She longed for a nice cup of tea, but needed to get things sorted before she sat down to rest. Eric and Nancy, the vampire children she sometimes cared for, would be charging along the passages into her basement as soon as it was safe to do so. She didn’t want them to see these - remains. It might worry them. Children were odd creatures and although they happily killed things on their little computer games, Agnes wasn’t quite certain if they would find a dismembered body, even a metal one, unsettling.
She hesitated - what should she do with the pieces? She could put them in her shopping trolley and wheel them down to the garbage dump later in the week - but that was treating them as rubbish and so not an option. Well, perhaps she could dig a hole in one of the smaller passageways that ran under Sunnydale? Except she didn’t actually own a shovel and - Agnes was nothing if not pragmatic, she didn’t know if she was strong enough to dig a hole deep enough to bury a body, even a dismembered one.
Sighing, she opened the storage bin where she kept her bags of flour and sugar. A few minutes later, they were stacked neatly on the floor and Agnes was piling the metal pieces inside the bin. Gently, she placed the head in last, pushing down the little plastic eyelids over those dreadful staring eyes. Shutting the door, she stood up and wearily filled the kettle. Tea! She would die - well, obviously she wouldn’t, but she felt like she would - if she didn’t have a cup of tea right now.
Suddenly the door to the basement was flung open and Spike half fell down the steps. Startled, Agnes spun round. “Spike?” She stared at him in astonishment as he stood there, swaying slightly. His eyes were blazing with an inner joy she’d never seen before and his whole face was alight with a happiness that was shocking in its intensity. “She’s alive! She’s back. Buffy’s back!” He reached out, grasped Agnes round the waist and swung her into the air, round and round as if she was a child again.
“Spike! Put me down. Whatever’s happened?” Agnes found her feet and tottered across the room to sink into a chair. “What do you mean, Buffy’s back?”
“They rescued her from Hell - Willow and Tara and Xander. The devil knows how. Some mojo. I don’t care. She’s back. Oh, they didn’t do it that well; had to claw herself out of her own coffin. God knows how she did that. But it doesn’t matter. Agnes, she’s alive! Alive!” And before she could speak he’d turned and two great strides took him up the stairs and away again.
Agnes sat very still very a very long time, tea forgotten. The Slayer was back in town - and Spike found this something to rejoice about. That was so odd that she couldn’t quite grasp it, but the look on his face had told her quite plainly that the vampire’s feelings for that small blonde girl were far more complicated than she’d ever imagined.
His words about the coffin slowly began to penetrate - and she was thrown back to a night some time ago. To a funeral parlour, to damaging a coffin lid when fighting a demon and sewing the lining up quickly so no one could see. So, had she helped the Slayer return? Had she, Agnes Pringle, released a vampire killer back into her own little Sunnydale world, putting them all in danger. Why she might stake Shona or the children next! That was a horrifying, sobering fault. “Be sure your sins will find you out,” she muttered at last. “I should have confessed I broke the coffin lid, then her friends would have chosen a new one. This is All My Fault.”
At last she stood up and pulled on her second best coat. Buffy Summers returning from the grave had at least solved one of Agnes’ problems for her.
Just before dawn, a small, plump vampire could be seen pushing a trolley through the streets of Sunnydale, out to the main cemetery. It was a bit of a struggle getting the wonky wheels up the slope - the trolley had a tendency to steer to the right no matter how much she tugged it in another direction - but at last she manoeuvred it across the grass to the open grave.
“Well, the Slayer won’t be needing it any more,” Agnes murmured. The mud and grass had been scattered violently around and the lid of the coffin lay in pieces nearby. But the inside was untouched and, carefully, Agnes began to lay the pieces of the robot inside its final resting place. She was just placing the head inside, resting it against a silk cushion, when a noise made her jump. It was only a night bird but the head slipped from her grasp and fell a few inches.
To Agnes’s horror, the eyes opened, there was a small click and a voice said, “I can’t see! Is anyone there?”
Agnes struggled to make her voice work. “Yes, my dear, I’m here.”
“Am I sick? Willow should mend me. I feel broken. Tired.” The mechanical voice was getting softer and softer, as the final energy in the final battery was exhausted.
“You must go to sleep, my dear,” Agnes said. “I’ll…I’ll stay here until you do.” And she reached out to touch the plastic cheek that felt no warmer than her own cold hand.
“Mommy? Mommy!” And there was a lift of excitement, delight and then - nothing.
It didn’t take long to push the broken coffin lid back and smooth earth and grass back into place. It wasn’t perfect, but then who would come to look at it? Buffy Summers was no longer buried here. Agnes stood, leaning on her wonky trolley. She felt she should say a few words, but she needed to go home, to get away from this place before the horrid sun rose.
tbc