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*

1

Redoubt (continued)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 Day 2                           

            

She glanced around the kitchen. It was a large open space lined with cupboards painted in a mellow yellow that was almost white. Almost. It was the kitchen on what had once been a working family farm and it was just right really.  This was just the right setting of domestic tranquility needed for practicing impermanence.  The stability of a 100 year old house to live their impermanent lives in. 

 

Impermanence.

 

Did that word come out of me?

 

Buffy thought and because no one could read her mind, no one near and about anyways; she took the problem solving initiative for which she was justly famous and considered the origin.of species and the process of evolution and every event with a beginning, or rather a transition or maybe she meant gestation and how come she didn’t know that was in her vocabulary? Where had it come from? Lots of things in herself she didn’t know about. Lots of things. 

 

Vi had called her Grandmother from the hospital yesterday (now and forevermore referred to as that day) and the older woman had insisted Vi bring them all, them all, no exceptions, plenty of room for all in the old farmhouse--plus there was always the barn, wasn’t there?  If they needed more room, that is--and shouldn’t they all stay together for awhile?)  And seeing it was only about an hour and half from the hospital and roughly the same distance to...well, you know where.

 

It had seemed logical and the notion of being in the country felt...right, comforting somehow.  Healing...

 

Once the decision had been made, Vi and Dawn had taken over the logistics of planning. They did this quietly and efficiently, drawing the least amount of attention possible to the effort they extended toward the others and this was the best evidence of the interlocking parts of the awesome Buffy machine. The apocalypse gob stoppers.  They were a team that had learned how to work together, utilizing strengths and pointing that strength to the appropriate hard knock.

 

 Knock, knock (who’s there?)

 

She couldn’t think of a single refrain, nothing left over from grammar school, nothing left over from non stop quick quipping, nothing left but to let them take the reins; she did this willingly as it was becoming increasingly difficult to focus on anything but ‘nothing’ as that day wore on.

 

There was…that feeling...she had that feeling she was forgetting something...something important. It was that space where the mind lapses, you walk into a room with the intention of doing something...and for the life of you, you just can’t remember what it was you wanted when you got there.

  

That’s o.k. it’ll come to me, it’ll come back.

 

 Come back.

 

 And then inexplicably she found herself washed and bandaged and between cool clean sheets scented with lavender.           

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

He is pressed, fitted, deep inside her, his body trembling at the effort not to move.   ‘Shhh..’ she whispers, ‘Shhh...’ and wraps her arms more fiercely around him, her legs, a vise around his hips to hold him still...’Shhh...’ and now she kisses the side of his head and says softly: ‘please don’t move’…and then (the truth) is whispered in his ear...’Don’t leave’ (me).

 

He groans...’ah luv..’ she can hear tears in the sound, ‘my lamb...’ he strokes her cheek and then buries his face in crook of her neck biting the side of her neck with his blunt teeth all in an effort not to move, all in an effort to give her want she needs.  She strokes his hair to calm him and then pulls his head back so she can look into his eyes.  My god he is so beautiful, always was, always will be, constant, constant, the tears slip from her eyes rolling down her cheeks, and he presses his forehead to hers, his tears joining hers, always joining, always joining.

 

 She begins to move.  For him.  For him. Slowly at first, her strong vaginal walls release him slowly and the freedom rings in a benediction and so he gasps and cries out, and then he pulls his engorged member away...out and away from the length of her channel before she changes her mind–

 

 ‘Come back…’  she whispers almost immediately desperate now that she had let him go.  ‘Spike...please…’

 

He looks deeply into her eyes as he pushes back into her, he holds her body pinned to the cement floor in basement in the House of Summers giving her what she needs with his open heart, with his open heart he holds her there, filling her and then holding still until his body begins to tremble with the effort, until he has to...until he has to leave, has to… He pulls out slowly, grinding down, so she can feel pleasure in passing, there is pleasure in leaving—oh god--she is so, so...’Buffy’ he whispers...oh god, ohmygod

 

She is his...she is...

   

‘Spike...’ She grips his back...’please...come back…’

 

 He moves back into her, almost slamming now in his own need to be back… safe… inside...she gasps, a sharp intake of breath as he takes her deeper.

 

‘Always...’ he whispers almost sobbing ‘always come back…’

 

 As if to demonstrate this he moves out more rapidly this time only to push quickly back inside where they both want to be.  Slam, slam, slam...she bites down on his shoulder to keep from screaming, slide out, loud sucking noise as air fills her vagina, her vacuum ‘Spike’ she gasps almost yowls into his shoulder...’help me...’  he pushes her back down on the floor, pinning her for leverage...’Buffy...’ it was gasp, it was invocation push, slide, suck, slam, the muscles of her vagina clamping down around him as he pushes deeper, trying to hold him, always trying to hold him, and the enormous physical strength it takes for him to leave, to pull out, the agony of the exit, the ecstasy of her entranceway, of filling her beyond what she begs for, filling them both with the joy of one...she can feel the heavens begin to open, almost, almost there, almost...slide, suck, slam, slam, stars, stars, stars AH! OH!  So!  So many stars fill her vision spin her head and shakes her, shakes her silly, poor rag doll girl is shaken boneless and the stars racing ‘round and ‘round  inside…oh god, I love you so much, I love you..his body hears hers singing and explodes--he fills her again and again he will drown her, oh my god he is going to drown her with his seed. And still he pumps again and again and on down to a sputter...she tightens her embrace and hangs on, she hangs on, her body spasms, muscles quivering around him one orgasm eclipsing the next, her spirit is open and yields, she wants, oh she wants...him. 

 

He feels her, he feels her body rejoice and is soaked up, lapped up, up into the very marrow of his Buffy…

 

Slowly, so slowly their entwined bodies still. The stars that fell from the sky are still singing in Buffy’s blood and she had to show him, can’t tell, no words–he lifts his head to gaze into the wonder of her eyes. The miracle that is female, unknown, undreamt of by men until it is shared by a willing woman. 

 

She lets him look; she lets him look into her eyes and see...God.    

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

Buffy awoke very slowly and something, some survival instinct, some siren was singing like the alarm you set before falling asleep--it was the crazy wake up call you prayed to God you would never have to hear. Something that said she wouldn’t like what was on the other side of sunrise and it was telling her all this in all CAPS. 

 

Her arm stretched behind her searching for Spike, for the comfort of his arm, the one he used to hug her to him, to spoon her body to his, they had only slept this way for a couple of nights, but already it had the familiarity of...what?  An old married couple, that’s what. And given what they had been through together over the years; she guessed that’s what they were.  All this passed through her mind, one thought chasing another, lickety split as she anticipated his touch–she liked to run her thumb over the flesh of his arm in small strokes, even while he was asleep she could feel his body resonate and respond to her touch; he was like a musical instrument.  He was music. Where was he?

 

She was a bit disconcerted at not finding his arm where it should be, she didn’t like it when he rolled away from her while they slept, it felt like an omen of some kind, but then everything was a harbinger of something these days.

 

Her arm stretched out as her eyes snapped open.

 

No.

 

NO.

 

She kept the howl inside. The survival instinct of a warrior contained the sound and now it was: don’t say a thing, don’t move a muscle until you remember...where you are...what happened...

 

And she did.  She did.

 

It all came back and no avalanche of information downloaded could compare. Maybe a new computer system getting the history of the past two centuries within a 5 second time frame, maybe THAT could compare and the only thing that kept her from melting away--the only thing keeping her from a complete meltdown was the memory of the dream. That dream. Or was the dream a memory of something real? Yes, oh thank god for that, it was real, it was the last night before that morning.  She and Spike had been holding each other as if their two hearts would break and heal back as one. Together again on the basement floor of her dead mothers house.

 

 She waited for the fall.  The crash into pain that she knew was there deep inside her waiting, waiting for her razor sharp and snapping. But it didn’t surface. Something was cushioning her fall.  Some warm, encasement around her emotional body was holding the pain away, away, away...magic?  Did Willow do a spell on her?  But even the possibility of that kind of violation brought no red blip. There was nothing, no pain, no anger. She could see it all, how she felt, how she would feel, but it was far away. She was up in the clouds held tight in a soft billowy cushion and she could see it all but it was so far away.

 

What a little princess....Buffy thought and didn’t every girl dream at least once of being in such an exalted station in life but oh what a way for a childish dream to come true. Buffy lay on the comfortable bed in the old farm house and she let herself float. She could still feel her womb alive and humming and absorbing every drop of everything Spike had given her and so she let herself slip into the comfortable place of her slayer healer, her easy bake oven and allowed herself to relax.  With her eyes closed she could still tune into the energetic pattern that shot through her system when she and Spike had pressed their hands palm to palm.  Oh...of course, that was the cushion.  The cushion was the peace from Spike’s soul. Spike.

 

 Something from Shakespeare flashed through her mind but she gave it no special attention-–something about a palmers kiss, hands pressed palm to palm…“then let lips do as...something, something...she would look it up later...instead she turned her attention to the energy Spike had shared with her–it was the gold singing in her veins and if she focused only on that, she knew it would keep her drugged for days, for she knew --and God help her when she did-- she knew she would come down. 

 

It would happen. Day by day the lack of him would become more and more. Instead of less and less, it would be more and more; she would come to feel the lack of him and always it would be more. Maximus, not minimus.

 

 Her thoughts were becoming strangers to her.                

 

*

2

Reckon

 

 Day 6

 

“You lost your man in battle.”

 

It came, it sounded out as part statement, part query, and part-time psychologist.

             

It was a sweet low gentle voice, bass tones chuckling with just the right crackle of age. Old enough to sound wise limber enough to be a half of a character shy of Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ And no matter what evil Buffy ever faced ever, all would be weighed and left wanting in comparison with that particular performance

 

But then, of course the evil you were exposed to as a child will always have the greatest and most lasting impression And what does it matter if something isn’t real as long as it affects you like it is? 

 

“You lost your man in battle.”                                                         

 

Now it was a full statement.  It was Vi’s grandmother.  Buffy had recognized the voice immediately. She recognized the voice and the power and authority that was present in an unassuming way.  When she spoke, the clatter of conversation dimmed of its own accord and as if of one mind, all deferred to the old woman and listened to her to catch what crumbs they could.  It always seemed worth the effort to pay attention, to sit up and take some healing balm, something, anything to help make sense of loss.

 

Buffy was no exception.  The events of the past few weeks had taught her more humility than a Slayer probably should possess and she needed to listen to a wise woman.  Well, it was, after all, every village treasure.

 

Vi’s grandmother Greata.

 

 

Greata was on the front porch snapping beans.  Rocking, quietly smiling to herself and at herself.  How very picturesque.  Is it a cliché if it’s actually true?  Wise ole woman, snappin’ beans, rockin’ away as the sun began to set. She chuckled.  At least she wasn’t wearing an apron and flower print dress–now that would be TOO much.  She waited for Buffy.  The girl. So thin, so small really and yet not at all...not small, no definitely not.

  

Greata could feel her standing behind the front screen door watching the sun set. And like wooing a barely tamed kitten, she had to wait...

 

He’s not my boyfriend...

He’s not my boyfriend…

Not, not, not, SNOT…

 

Old words twisted together into an almost poem.

 

He’s not my boyfriend…

 

And he wasn’t.  The word was too small, too young and unschooled for whatever it was he was to her.

 

“Yes…”  She spoke quietly, in answer to Greata.

             

“I lost my man in battle...”  

 

Finally the truth.  It felt good, well not good, a relief maybe to speak it out loud.

 

Greata sighed.  Snap, snap, snapping beans.

 

“Yeah...yeah, that’s hard, it’s...” her voice trailed away as if remembering. It was how her voice faded off that drew Buffy outside to look at Greata more closely; screen door open and sweet iron squeaking as it closed behind her. Some sounds just felt like...home.  Buffy was glad to be here, so grateful, they all were.  It helped. 

 

Greata inhaled a deep breath and allowed her hands to quiet down into her lap and rested her head against the back board of the rocker with her eyes closed for a moment, just a moment to center herself and see...

 

Buffy sat down on the top step watching her all the while.  With her slayer senses she watched Greata open up her third eye and stretch out and up, looking, looking.

 

Greata’s head jerked, a little startled and then her head relaxed and her body eased from the inside out.

 

She chuckled.  She couldn’t help it and shook her head in wonder.

 

“Well I must say...he was a pistol...wasn’t he?”

 

Buffy choked a little at the quaint old fashioned expression, but damn it if it didn’t suit him.

 

Greata chuckled. “Oh yes, a real piece of work...” She took another deep breath and opened her eyes and looking directly into Buffy’s.

 

“God broke the mold after that one.  Probably figured there wasn’t room in all creation for the likes of more than one of him, ‘cept maybe...you.”

 

Buffy was smiling.  She was pleased, oddly pleased that Greata seemed to like him. Not many did.

 

“He always said things like that, about how much alike we are.”  She almost corrected herself to past tense but did not, and would not.  Buffy continued.  “I never saw it.”

 

“Nah, nah...you wouldn’t.  You’re too close to tell on yourself.  But he had inherited the gift, you see, of sight.  Somewhat.  He had the ability to see into people, into situations.  You are a puzzle to many, because you can feel two different emotions at the same time.  And still be…effective as a warrior.  Part of the double duty of your nature.  He likes that.  Doesn’t always understand you completely, but understands you better than anyone else in your life.  But, that’s all right.  Can’t give it ALL away can we?  Some things a woman’s gotta keep a mystery even to her man.”

 

Greata chuckled again as if hearing something in response.  “…He’s funny…a little pigheaded maybe but honest, so honest and he loves you so, oh he does loves you. And the other one...long dark hair...”

 

“Dawn...”

 

“Yuh.  But you know that.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Greata smiled again and resumed rocking.  “I like him.  I like your man Buffy.” 

 

“Most people...”

 

“Pffft...goodness gracious girl.  Why a woman as strong and bullheaded as you let yourself be ruled by what others say and think is...” 

 

She stopped herself suddenly and then chased after Buffy with an interesting realization. 

 

“Except of course...when you wanted them to think badly of him…because then their distrust of him would be a wall you could stand behind.  And then when you started to change toward him, you never gave them the information they needed to help them form a new opinion.  To them, your friends and family, you just look plain crazy.  You can fix it.  If you want to.”

 

“Spike isn’t human...”

 

“I know full well what he was and wasn’t--no I take that back.  The creator only lets me see so much, gotta keep some secrets to himself--but I saw enough.”  She paused for a moment considering and then spoke again, amazed.  

 

“He’s strong. Very strong and there are so many different ways to be strong and have courage and what some could call weakness would be his greatest strength.  But you know that, you believed in him…and you’re a leader...a whatcha call it?  Well, whatever, that’s what you are and what do you do with your strongest warrior Buffy?”

 

Buffy looked away.

 

“That’s right. You give them the most to carry. You did the right thing.  You won’t and shouldn’t kick yourself because you know that.  And. And he had a long life and he went from white to black and back.  And there’s not many people on this earth, or this universe that can be up, fall down, and crawl all the way back up and farther than before while carrying a demon on their back and nothing but one small star from heaven to guide them. One small speck of light of love that he just wouldn’t let die.  Nope. Why you ashamed of that, you’ll have to explain.”

 

“I’m not.”  Buffy’s voice was firm.  “Not anymore, not for a long time...”

 

Greata sighed. “I know.  I know...I’m sorry dear.  It pains me I guess, it pains me a bit more...it hurts to see you separated.  World needs love.  It needs love like that so very much.  Love like that between a man and woman these days is almost a miracle.  Two people doing the hard work on themselves.  As soon as somebody gets so much as spaghetti sauce on their chin it shatters the dream of the perfect ‘soul mate’—which is all right in a way because it should be shattered but then it’s--off they go, ‘moving on’, ‘getting over it’—absolutely hate those phrases I hear on the TV.” She looked at Buffy and said emphatically:  “People are not chairs you can replace at a table!”

 

Greata sighed, leaned back into her rocker and they waited together quietly to see what else there was to be said.  It came quickly.

 

“I see one in your life like...like the roots of a great tree going straight into the ground. Feeding you, keeping you strong, upright and righteous, and loving you second only to the creators love for you. And I see another, like the elements, the wind that blows in a storm, rain crashing down in tears, all brooding drama.”  She laughed. “Princes in castles, Vi used to read those books, but a girls gotta find out on her own, doesn’t she?  What’s real, what’s worth the effort.  One of these two men holds you steady, the other whirls around you, coming and going but always wanting to be at the center of your attention.  The whirligig might make you stronger true, but only if you’re left standing.  The thing is do you know which one is which?” 

 

Buffy’s heart did a little double beat.

 

“I see you looking at an orange and calling it an apple. Look at a pair and call it nothing.  Not quite a pun but I like the image. Think I’ll keep it. So.  Which is which?”

 

“Does it matter?”  Buffy was getting irritated.  It was always so easy to look in from the outside and call a play that you couldn’t possibly handle yourself--bystander back seat drivers.  Buffy paused for breath and then barked. 

 

“One of them is gone.” 

 

“Yes.” Greata reply was quiet.  “Yes, it matters very much.  This poor world needs love.  The love between men and women that can survive and grow something.  Be wise with your heart.  Your life is not over.  You have the ability to accept most folks for who and what they are in the moment and let God judge them for their past, you won’t.”

 

Greata almost wagged a finger at Buffy.  “You don’t loose that Buffy, it’s one of your best traits.  Mercy...oh my dear, how sweet, how merciful you can be...” Greata looked at Buffy

 

“Now.  Ask your question”

 

“Is he o.k.? He’s not in...I mean…”  Buffy stammered herself into silence; she honestly couldn’t say the word let alone think of the place...

 

(Bloody hell...) 

 

Exactly.

 

“It’s just. I can’t feel him.  You know, around me...at all. After my Mom died, after about a month or so, I could sometimes feel her around.  Or she would pop up in my mind unexpected or in a dream.  And he...it’s like he not there, not anywhere or...or he doesn’t want to talk to me.”

 

These were more words than Buffy had put together for a while and she had to stop and do a little breathing.

 

Greata took up the slack in the conversation.

  

“Well you know, with the life he had, his review is gonna take a while.  You know that after you pass, you have to watch everything you ever did play out before you.  You feel it all again.  That, and you feel what the other people around you felt.  A nasty word here or there and you feel how it affected the other person and how they in turn affected those near them.  It’s the domino effect throughout all time and beyond. Our actions and thoughts never stand by themselves.    Now, they gotta go through his life review carefully cause what’s the point in doing that if it’s so hard it breaks the heart he’s built?

 

So it’ll take some time.  Try not to worry.  I still see you two with unfinished business.  I don’t know about that word—the “hell” thing.  But when I look, I feel all kinds of love and respect for him, where he is, coming to him from a lot of different places.  He has people who love him over there, people to hold him, plus it looks like he got a hero’s welcome of some sort. Doesn’t mean he’s off the hook of a life review.  Nobody can escape that. So he’s in school and may be for awhile.”

 

“He won’t like that.  He can’t stand looking back.”  Buffy sounded almost winsome.

 

“No he bloody well can’t…”

 

Buffy started at the near perfect inflection of Spikes accent coming out of the older woman and then burst out laughing.

 

Greata joined in.  Oh my, how beautiful is the sound of laughter, sweet laughter breaking open in the air is the sound of a soul applauding--the voice hap slapping the air with breath and yodel yell and all.

 

Laughter is applause, applause at how crazy life can be.

 

Buffy shook her head and stilled.  Suddenly still.

 

“Greata...”

 

“Hmmm...”

 

“I’m afraid.”

 

Greata held her breath and waited. 

 

Buffy’s voice was barely a whisper:

 

“What if it happens... what if...I mean, I can feel it already building, what happens if I let it come all the way, all the way alive inside me how much I love him and he’s not even here…what happens to me if I find out how much I really love him?  What’ll happen to me?  What’ll I do?”

 

“Let him know.”

 

Snap, snap, snapping beans.

 

*

 

“I have no life but this

to lead it here;

Nor any death, but lest

Dispelled from there;

 

Nor tie to earth to come

nor action new,

Except through this extent

The realm of you.”

 

Emily Dickinson                          

 

3

Campaign

 

Spike wondered, pondered almost mused. 

 

Hmm.  Hmmm indeed.  Which would be better?  That is, which would more advantageous for the bearer of the burden.  To be the bloke that dropped the BOMB on Nagasaki. Killing a million people all at once and in one fell swoop if you will.  OR.   Or be the bloody bastard who killed, oh say, close to 200,000 oh no that’s no good, you can’t round a figure like that down, be specific, say killed 204,232 people but. But.  One by one. Which door would you choose?  To experience the impact of a million souls simultaneously crying out in pain, confusion, fear and sorrow at the end of a sentence and be done with it.  Or a buffet, a multiplicity of death, but broken down, broken apart from life and dreams of love--all broken one...by one, by one, by one...

 

So, which one of these?

 

 

His sense of humor (and her) had kept him alive that last year in Sunnydale and had kept him flexible the previous 128.  But now this same humor was turning into a tool against him in his own hands.  It wanted to break him laughing for laughing.

 

“Whataya think Joyce?  Door number 1 or door number 2?  The tiger or the lady?  I mean they’re both war time scenarios right?”

 

It wasn’t hard to miss the fact that murder committed in the act of war, when the action remained that of ‘doing ones job’  had it’s consequences in lives broken, family members torn apart—but…but it wasn’t anywhere near the extremity in judgment as that of malicious foreknowledge.  But either in wartime or no, there was a special chair in this review reserved for those who delighted in destruction.  And truth being told most of Spike’s kills had been technically for survival and fell under the intention of ‘act of war’ but it still hurt, it ripped him from inside to out—because lets face it, believing yourself to be righteous as one does during war time does not the lesson the pain a victim feels when her heart is ripped out.  Literally.  And this little surround a sound review in living/dying color made sure he felt that pain.  All of it.  Every murder every mean word, every, every--(Ah, remember #8,435?—She had long red gold hair and he had killed her four days from her wedding day and her fiancé was so distraught he’d killed himself and then alone and without resources his Mother and then eventually his two young sisters fell into prostitution—poor Sophie only 12 years old and barely able to understand how or why her body and soul were being ripped in two—went mad…and on it went)  Most of Spike kills were like that.  Not tortured as Angel or even Dru may have done but crimes of separation and deep bereavement.  Lovers separated, beloved lost and the almost unstoppable spiral of pain through time that finally, finally wound down by a single person, a single descendant’s decision to forgive someone, sometime for something.

 

And they hadn’t even gotten to the ones he dreaded the most.  So.  Could he make a post mortem deal? 

                                                                                                                     

“So whataya say I trade going through this one by one for dropping the atom bomb eh?”

 

Joyce waited until he was finished and spoke in her best ’mom’ voice:

 

“I think you’re missing the point.”

 

 

“No, I bloody well got the point.’’ His voice broke as he spit the words out:  “Two points in fact, IN FANGS.  Two sharp points driven into…oh, I’d say about 204,232 necks wouldn’t ya say?  What am I doing here Mum?  Just send me to hell, just bloody do it, anything has to be better than this.”

 

She came up close to him and looked him full in the face and spoke evenly.

 

“Is that really, really what you want?”

 

Spike made no answer but held her gaze, melting, softening under her quiet reprimand.

 

“If you leave here without finishing the review, you’re finished.  That’s it.  What you learn here in this dimension is real, it matters, this moment now, the decisions you make here are as important as the ones in the dimension we are reviewing. Do you understand?”

 

And then almost as an aside.

 

“If you leave, you will never see her again.”

 

“Under the circumstances, not necessarily a bad idea—“

 

“Be quiet Spike, think before you speak.”

 

“It always comes to that.  She’s dangled like a carrot in front of me.  I don’t know if I really ever had any lofty ideas ‘bout savin’ the world, maybe in part, yeah, I wanted to help stop the pain, the hurting, but mostly…only…wanted to save her.  Couldn’t bear it, couldn’t bloody bear to see her suffer, I don’t know if I can ever change that.  What’s this review gonna change?   I see the people around me, not the world—“

 

 

“And what’s wrong with that?”  Joyce stopped him with her sharp voice.  “What does the world matter if the people in it aren’t real to you?  It’s the anonymous face that can make a certain kind of cruelty easy, the cruelty that you are susceptible to.  You would never dream of hurting the people you love—what you are beginning to understand is that most people in the world are loved by someone, and if not by the people in this world than by the beings in the next. Loving a few people has allowed other people’s stories to become real for you.  We want the world to be better so it will be better for our friends and family. If you can love the people next to you then maybe you can love the ones a little further away.    That’s where it begins, that’s how it begins.  The ones who are the most dedicated are the ones who have the most to loose.”

 

Her voice softened now almost gently stroking.

 

“There are a lot of souls who believe in you Spike, who have gone out on a limb and spoken in your behalf.  Most of whom you have never met.  All those little twinkles of good luck in your life…hmm?  Every time you fought to make something happen, to change something using your own free will choice, bought you another fan, another thumbs up, another wink of luck.  Somebody else up here saying, yeah, yeah, give that guy the ball—he’ll run with it. You’ve fought for it and not with the benefit of a whole lot of destiny working on your behalf—but don’t ever think you were alone.  Now.  I’ve seen you be a lot of things, but I’d never thought I’d see you indulge yourself, well, like ...the Poof.”

 

Spike stared, stammered....”Wwwhat...wwhat did you say?”

 

She tried out the phrase again, sweetly befuddled.

                                                    

“Oh dear…did I get it wrong?  It is ‘The Poof’ isn’t it?  What you call him?  Or is it ‘Poofter’?  I forget...” she shook her head.

 

Watching, hearing his description of Peaches coming out of her mouth was too, too rich, too sweet and the giggle that started deep inside Spike made a mad dash to a laugh.

 

“Oh Joyce...I love you...”  He spurted out between gales and tears of mirthy mirth.

 

She looked at him kindly “I know you do..” and then she continued.

 

“Now, things are going to get worse for a little while but then they’ll get better, you did some good things in your life too you know and we’ll view those as well, but you have to look at this process differently or frankly, you won’t make it.  Is that straight enough for you? This is not a hell dimension, this is not torture, and you can learn if you want to.” 

 

She stopped suddenly seized with an idea.  “Think like a detective, like one of those old shows we used to watch--the reruns, you know like...Columbo..”

 

“Colombo...pfft Mum please...” 

 

Joyce smiled; the derision in his voice was obvious and entertaining and he was back on course, he was going to be fine, well fine for Spike...              

 

“Colombo!”  He was still ranting.  “With that coat?   Pffft!”

 

“Hercule Peroit?”  Joyce suggested.

 

“FRENCH!”

 

“Well then?--“

 

 

“Miss Marple.”

 

Joyce was shocked once again with a Spike surprise. “Well that’s gotta be William talking.”

 

“Well...yeah.  What of it?”

 

“Nothing. Miss Marple it is.”

 

“I like Miss Marple.  Everyone always underestimates her.  And then she nails ‘em.  SLAM.  Very gratifying.  Don’t ever underestimate Miss Marple.”

 

Joyce looked at him keenly.  “No, I don’t think we should. So when things get too hot think...”

 

“Miss Marple.”

 

“Alright then.”

 

Spike felt himself being buffeted almost beloved from behind; he turned slightly and realized more beings or whatever they called themselves were standing behind him.  Some were standing on the grass beyond the pavillion looking in his direction; some were strolling along toward him.  He didn’t recognize them, but they seemed kindly and…strong.

 

Spike cleared his throat...”The uh...fan club?”

 

 

Joyce nodded, “Just a little cushion”—

 

--“For the fall?  Great bloody just bleedin’ great”

 

“They are all warriors of one kind or another. They will be able to empathize with you and support you without judgment.”

 

Spike continued muttering “Bleedin’ fan club no less...well… s’long as they don’t rush the stage.”

 

“I think you’re safe.”

 

...marple miss marple miss marple miss...you...miss you, miss you, miss you so much… 

 

 

*

 

4

 

‘Delicious Demon;

One person calls someone to pour the water

To plough takes two as well

But only one to hold up the sky

One plays the harp, beats a rock with a stick,

Becomes a priest at least

A delicious demon…’

 

The Sugarcubes

 

5

 

War Trophy

 

Day 32

Once a Slayer...

 

Once a slayer, always a slayer.

 

Hmmm. Buffy mused without rancor as she plucked a rather rotund tomato worm off the underside of a grouping of leaves. She was on delousing duty in Grandma Greata’s garden.   Hmm…almost prosaic.  Another odd word in her vocab.  She hadn’t felt like going in to town with Vi and Dawn and all the girls still staying at the house, and the trip to the library with Giles felt too much like practicing the violin, which she of course, would never play. Faith was crashed at the motel near the hospital, Robin would get released any day now and Xander and Willow went horseback riding of all things.  They stayed very close together these days.  That’s good. It’s good.  Kennedy had gone back east and when it happened it just seemed natural.  Willow accepted the change with barely a blink. Maybe they were all getting too used to loss--but thank god Will is here to hold Xander’s hand.  Buffy still felt too far away to be of much emotional assistance to anyone, or for anyone to be of help to her. Not that anyone would have thought to--because to the whole world she looked fine, just fine. 

 

Buffy snagged another gigantic green wormy crawly thing. So her slayer skills were required in an effort to keep the critter population down and this she could still do.

 

Go organic!

 

She dropped another of the ferocious looking green things into a bucket of hot water sitting next to her feet.  The receptacle was being used to drown the poor things.  Curious, she received no slayer satisfaction as the poor things died. On the contrary.  Quite contrary.

 

Maybe I can tell Greata I’m getting sunstroke or something.  She just didn’t want to kill one. More. Thing. 

 

Who was she kidding?  She could kill and kill and kill again.  She was a brick house.

 

Buffy sang the Commodore’s tune outloud...

 

“I’m a briiick HOUSE, I’m mighty, mighty...”

 

That was part of the problem.

That was part of the solution.

 

Little goose flesh.  Little tiny shivers rippling over, just skimming the surface of her skin and then the sensation, the nestling coming to rest at the nape of her neck.

 

Demon.

 

She looked, her face twisting slightly as she looked at the bucket o’ worms.  She looked at the ones still squirming in the water.  Little ugly buggers.  Mini demons?  But she knew right away--no way, so what then?    No, no the feeling, the density came from out there.  Somewhere out there, on the highway.  Day 32 and already demons were a novelty.  Pfft.  This life after wartime could make you soft. 

 

Her feet started walking almost unbidden by her mind.  Hand on her straw sunhat holding the brim over her eyes, scanning, scoping and then:  There. It was moving very fast.  She saw it now, red.  Maybe red, yes, shiny and red and...body by Volkswagen.  A demon car?  What was Stephen King’s car?  Christine?  Well, she’d bloody well faced everything else, why not a demon car? 

 

She watched its progress down the highway, and now there it was, turning right onto the country road, pausing at the end of the driveway with its left turn signal on--coming here, coming up, coming here.  Demon, but not hostile.

 

Clem.

 

“Clem!”

 

Her heart sprang into action again, (oh so now there you go, now you see?--you’re still alive.)  her heart was banging to beat the band to live another day.

 

Clem.

 

The door opened and he got out quietly, shyly.

 

(Thank god all the dogs were out) His tall frame and almost sweet pick eyes were steady on hers. Were they red rimmed from crying?  Or maybe they were always red rimmed.

                                       

“Clem.”

 

Spoke so soft, as soft as her footfall on the gravel of the drive.  Crunch.  Crunch. Clem. 

 

“Buffy.”

 

Embrace.  They hugged softly carefully.  Human arms here, demon bending there and then just held on.

 

Buffy buried her face in the solid wall that was Clem’s chest and his sorrow offered up to greet hers–this is what she needed.  To be with someone else who loved him.

 

They did not weep they did not speak just held and held and thought as one. My enemy. My friend.  Slowly they let go but still stood near each other in case of the need to reach out and touch. 

 

Buffy looked up at him smiling. 

 

“You picked a good time to show.  You could have had a handful of young ambitious slayers to shake hands with.”

 

“Instead of this old hand” Clem addressed her veteran status with respect.  

 

“Yeah, I’m an ole lady.”

 

“Speaking of which, you gonna introduce me and tell me who or WHAT that is?” Greata cackled at them, stepping outside the protection of the back porch.

 

“This is Clem...an old friend of the family.”

 

Clem hugged Buffy impulsively at that and she almost lost it.  Almost.

 

“Well, come on in the house before somebody driving down the road sees you and takes you for...for a democrat canvassing door to door.”

 

“Shotgun requirement?”  Buffy queried with a smile  

 

“Been known to happen.”  Was Greata’s simple reply as she stepped back inside accepting Clem and all his demon glory with barely a shrug.  She had always known they had existed; she was a Seer after all.  So why not actually SEE it. Or better still, have it in for a cold one.

 

“You like lemonade?”  She called over her shoulder.

 

Clems eartips almost jingled “Countrytime?”

 

“Pfft...please. Homemade.  Lemons, crushed ice and if you’re a sourpuss I’ll give you some sugar to sweeten you up.  You a sourpuss?”

 

Clem nodded enthusiastically.  “Meow.”  He growled.

 

Oh Clem.

 

He reached back into the car and grabbed a knapsack buried in the back seat and followed Buffy.  He watched her carefully as she spoke over her shoulder.

 

“How did you find me?  It’s supposed to be all secret and everything.” 

 

There was a pause and she turned to look at him.

 

“Now don’t get mad.”  For friends who knew each other, this could only translate to: Now don’t get mad at him.

 

“What.  What did he do?”

 

Buffy’s trepidation was obvious but it felt good to be on the familiar ground of his potential misconduct.

 

“No, no, nothing bad...uh very bad.  But you know he was cautious, always had a backup plan, I mean for being impulsive--well you know, he planned ahead.  You didn’t live to be his age...” and with this Clem choked realizing what he had just said but continued gamely...”Without instinct—“

 

“—What’d he do?”

 

Clem spoke in a rush.  “He gave me a bit of your hair to use in a locator spell.  For after.  That is if—“

 

“HE WHAT!”

 

A piece of hair is like an open invitation to a huge host of spells, very, very difficult to reverse.  Real damage in the wrong hands.  Reading her mind Clem spoke firmly.  “I kept it safe.”

 

Buffy shook her head slowly.

 

“What if I had died?”

 

“He uh...gave me...uh—“

 

“Dawns...”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And Giles.”

 

“Giles, yes well why not?  Gotta be through.”  It felt good, really good to be mad at him, familiar and suddenly:

 

“I miss him so much and nobody knows.”

 

Clem nodded and touched her shoulder.

 

Greata called out to them.  “You coming inside or shall I bring Moby Dick out for you to read aloud to each other?”

 

Clem smiled at Greata.  “Hmm...spicy...”  and followed Buffy into the house hoisting the knapsack higher onto his back and sighed.  Spike.

 

Greata greeted them, holding out tall glasses of cool liquid, condensation already seeping through to the surface of the glass.

 

“Lemon Aid”   She chuckled. 

 

Or cackled really, Buffy thought.  The trio stood in quiet contemplation of the impending lubrication.  Clem held his glass up in the gesture of a mini toast.

 

“To?”

 

Pause.  NO ONE wanted to say the obvious, it was Greata who supplied--

 

“To life after wartime?”

 

“Life after wartime” Clem and Buffy agreed.

 

They drank.  Liquid trickled down the gullet and then the ‘Ah!’

 

Greata sang out:

 

“Sweet and sour, sweet and sour, Ah! My life hour by hour!”

 

“What’s that from?”  Buffy asked

 

“Made it up.  Made it up, made it up just now for just you...two.  I’ll leave you now to catch up.”

 

Immediately Buffy stopped her.

 

“No, no please stay, please... you said that you liked him.”

 

Clem sighed happily at the prospect of a new zealot, a new convert to Spikeism. 

 

“Welcome to club Spike...that isn’t a double negative is it?”  He sat down at the table keeping the knapsack handy.

 

Buffy sat on the open chair at the end of the table and Greata stood by the kitchen sink where she could watch them both.  She mused:

 

“I guess he was the kind of guy you either loved or hated—“

 

“—Sometimes both…”  Buffy and Clem spoke together and stared at each other in childlike glee.  They both went for the brass ring: 

 

“Jinx!  Can’t talk til I say your name...”

 

They all laughed, letting it ring out and then subside into sweet stillness, each left with their own thoughts and contemplated the contradictory aspects that was ‘their Spike.’

 

Silence.

 

The sound of a couple of birds debating over the occupation of a branch, the sound of a car in desperate need of a muffler working it’s way down the highway.

 

Silence.  Each other.  Time to begin.

 

Buffy at bat.    

 

“So. Clem.  Clement.  Explain to me why he would do something as dangerous as give you my, that is our hair.  I mean I know he trusted you—“

 

Clem puffed out at this.

 

“…And I do too.  You know that.  But.  Dangerous.  Come on.  Temptation Island much?”

 

“He wanted to make sure I would be able to find you—even if you had a shield around you, you know without involving... anyone else.”   

        

“But...”

 

Clem quickly continued. “He had something for you, he wanted to make things easier, oh heck let’s just cut to the train wreck o.k.?”

 

Buffy nodded. Her breath was getting little shallow and maybe, maybe vertigo...she held on to the side of the table.  And watched Clem open the sack.

 

“First of all, here is all your hair, whatcha call it, samples back.”  He slid a small box to Buffy.  It was a small match box, very light, presumably empty save for three hairs inside.  Matches.  Fire.  Cigarettes.  Spike.

 

She put it in her blouse breast pocket.

 

“O.k. there’s a couple of things here...let me get organized...oh yeah” 

 

Buffy heard a zipper being pulled and watched Clem draw three envelopes and placed them in a pile. Then a wooden box; it was fine plain wood topped with a high polish.  Clem picked up the top envelope and placed it on the box and with trembling fingers, slid in within range of Buffy.

 

“Just in case, you know, that is, he always knew you were a little short—“

 

“I’m 5’3” of course I’m a little short.”

 

“Ha ha.”

 

Buffy opened the envelope and puzzled at the small stack of bills.  Money.  She riffled through them, ten, twenties, fifties, hundreds.

 

“Just some ready money, pocket stuff.  If you were short.”

 

“How much?”

 

“About forty-five hundred, I forget.”

 

Buffy fingered the cash, some old, some new, that meant it came from different places.

 

“He was saving it up.”

 

“Seems so. And the box?”

 

Clem shrugged.

 

Buffy took a breath, bracing herself somewhat and opened.  Inside were small envelopes, each containing a piece of jewelry or gold coin.

 

“Where did he get this?”                          

 

“Where does Spike get anything?  Creative thinking.  But it’s clean if that’s what you want to know. There’s a couple of watches and rings that I saw him win playing poker.”

 

“Cheating?”  Buffy asked automatically.

 

Clem shrugged, if you call hearing heartbeats accelerate and watching blood pressure levels, cheating...”  Clem’s voice trailed off and then continued;  “It depends on your point of view.”

 

She fingered the treasure, some were common, but some had the ring of authentic and real value.  Years of exposure to her Mothers gallery had given her an eye for quality.

 

Clem was talking again.

 

“He always felt money, you know, the paper stuff wasn’t enough.  Capital, that’s what’s needed if you had to pick up and run—old school thinking maybe.

 

Buffy blinked.

 

“He checked everything over carefully.  It’s all basic gold or whatever.  Nothing too exotic or valuable (ie: not stolen) 

 

“Clem I can’t...”

 

She knew Spike had meant well, but even ensouled Spike’s parameters of right and wrong were, well, calling it “elastic” would be generous.

 

“I don’t think...”

 

“There is something else, well, a couple of something’s.”  Clem didn’t want to hear her say ‘no’.  Somehow, as Spike’s envoy, he could feel something of what Spike had felt in putting this together for his slayer.

 

Clem pulled a brown paper bag from his sack and slid it to Buffy, he then took a manila envelope and placed it on top.

 

She picked up the bag and felt the heft of a long rectangular shape it felt like...

 

“A book?”

 

Buffy pulled it out of the bag and looked at a hardback novel.  The cover was a solid navy blue with a red pinstripe running around it.  It was still vacuformed in plastic.

 

“Spike left me a little light reading?”

 

Clem pointed at the manila envelope.  “The first royalty and all subsequent payments will be deposited into this account.  All the rights, everything is in your name.  He only meant that cash for you if you needed something fast.  As for the jewelry take it or not, it’s up to you, but if you want my advice, keep 'em, it will eat no bread.”

 

“He wrote this?  Spike wrote this?

 

“There is a second book, oh no, sorry...novel.  Novel, who would’ve guessed Spike was a book snob?  Anyway there is another one.  That he dictated, guess he didn’t have time to…ah write it out…I had it transcribed, anyway the publishing company is gonna release it next year, something about timing, something like that.”

 

“When did he have time to write?”

 

“Well seems this one, this one here, he had been working on a year and half ago—it was hidden at the crypt.  He hated seeing you at that fast food place—personally, I think they have great hats, but he—“

 

“Clem?”

 

--“Oh yeah…he said it didn’t take much to finish it up—the soul thing made it angtsy, gave a little extra boost to the dash and slash.

 

Buffy slowly shook her head turning the volume over in her hands.  She saw her fingers tearing the plastic.  It felt almost profane ripping it away, stripping down to Spike’s final secret mind.

                                                                                                                                                           

“Have you read it?”

 

“No...ah…no…I haven’t..”  Clem’s voice broke and Buffy glanced up to see him look away trying for stoic but not stacking up.  She forgot sometimes that she was not completely alone in her grief.  She opened the door to the book and read the title. 

 

“A Body of Land”

 

Body of Land…a several layered pun hinting at complexity and heartbreak.  Hey, she knew her Haiku.  She read the dedication.

 

BuffyalwaysBuffy

 

It was too much I can’t, I can’t, and instead she asked:

 

“What is it about?”

 

“Some kind of historical novel set around the siege of Leningrad and into Stalin’s first purge.  Centered around these women snipers.  I remember him saying years ago that if anybody ever told any small sliver of what happened back then--society structure gone, cannibalism, you name it and still these humans at their worst, still were able to hang on to their city, stubborn probably—anyway, that would be a bloody book that would sell itself.  ‘Bloody’ in all caps being the selling point. The publisher was impressed by its authenticity.  He thought it was written by a Soviet ex patriot, hence the pen name—did you know Spike could speak Russian?  Rushin’ maybe, Russian--double ‘huh?’”

 

Greata barked and opened a cabinet door and pulled out a bottle of vodka.  She held it up to her comrades.

 

“In honor of the day--nostrovia!  I think it’s time we ‘spiked’ the lemonade.” 

 

They all laughed.  Greata poured, approximated a couple of shots into Clem’s glass. She poured one shot into her own and a cap size of liquor into Buffy’s glass.  Buffy looked into her glass and pouted.  Greata looked away and explained.

 

“You’ve been in the sun all morning and no vodka for you...”

 

Buffy shrugged and made her ice swim against each other all vying for close proximity to the dribble of alcohol in the mix.        

 

Clem raised his glass: “Spiked lemon aide!” 

 

Greata and Buffy heartily agreed.  They drank, they ‘ahhed’!

 

“I can’t take this you know.”

 

Clem put his glass down so he could use both hands to gesture emphatically at the book lying on the table.

 

“That never would have happened without you.  You gave him a safe place to stay, to recuperate.  He never would have survived out there, in the world or at the crypt.  He wouldn’t have been able to defend himself.  And he knew you wanted, that you would need to feel independent...and...” Clem shrugged.  ”He considered you his silent partner...”

 

“Not so silent partner...I’m not gonna take it, it’s too much—“

 

Clem slid the last envelope into Buffy’s hands.

 

Without comment she picked it up and opened it, pulled out a single piece of paper and in Spike’s left-handed script she read this: 

 

“Don’t be daft you silly bint, take it.  What am I going to do with it now?” 

 

And then below, he had drawn a small heart with a smiley face inside. 

 

The shocking incongruity was itself his autobiography.  In approximately 10 seconds and with his naked heart he had written a love sonnet of epic proportions.

 

Screw Shakespeare.  Screw them all.  Who said William was a bloody awful poet?

 

She felt a pain in her chest and batted her breast bone none too lightly and tried to cough it out. 

 

“Huh, that’s funny…I think I got something stuck...” 

 

 

She rubbed her chest and coughed until her breath hitched and a heartbreaking sob cracked the air.  Did that come from me?  And then another and another and oh my god--she reached out, her sobs cracking, trying to break her back, her heart, her body shaking.   Wordless guttural gasps for air.  Once begun there was no end.

 

Clem and Greata were there, Greata rubbing her back and Clem kneeling at her feet, his arms framed loosely about her...Her dry sobbing finally broke through to tears and she collapsed in Clem’s arms...

 

“Oh God...oh god...” her voice hitched, “what am I going to do Clem?  It’s too much...” 

 

The words broke apart from each other and fell down around her.

 

 

*

 

 

“Deus, Deus does not exist, but if he does,

he lives in the sky above me,

in the fattest largest cloud up there

he is whiter than white

and cleaner than clean

he wants to reach me…”

 

The Sugarcubes

 

6

 

White Flag

 

Day 32 Afternoon

 

She loves his skin.  Beneath her fingertips, her nose, lips, her eyes--moving her cheek slowly across his breast while he sleeps.  The tips of her lips skimming the top of his nipple-- puckering, perky and instantly alert even from the depths of his sleep--nipple sonar searching for another caress.  She considers the nipples plea then brushes her cheek against his chest, his breast, her mouth pausing at the top of said nipple for a sweet kiss.  This is the affection she never shows him when he is awake, it is only now in the deepest part of his sleep, very difficult to awake from where she kisses, gives love, he takes, she feels his pleasure when he takes.

 

She kisses his breast again.  And listens and waits and feels it fall so sweetly so softly so deeply into him.  A semi precious stone dropped into a cool silver sea.  She waits for the response, he calls back to her.  From within the coma of his deepest sleep with or without his willing his body hums and trills sweetly under her cheek.  This.  This more than any word spoken or soulfilled gaze or battle fought in honor of, in the manner of the knights of old, convinces her, wins her heart.  He loves her.  He loves her with or without his knowing.  With his silent sleeping body he will kiss her back.  At this moment she can almost…almost believe in a god—what was it Webb’s had asked her? But the evidence was too flimsy, no, the jury was still out.  Out to lunch, out to see, out to sea…she sighs and rests her head on his chest.  On the sea, on the sea, see his chest rise and fall, she is on the deck of a ship out to sea as his breath rises and falls.

 

Her eyes snap open. 

Spike breathing.

Buffy is wide awake.       

 

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

Day 32

Late afternoon

 

Giles was the first to arrive back home.  And it was home, he thought.  It was good to have everyone in the countryside, to be close to the earth.  The deepest best healing to be had is enhanced by close proximity to the ground that grows food and the sun that encourages it to do so. 

 

Greata was a godsend.  In a long life that had seen much heartbreak, great good luck but few true blessings in hard times and so Rupert Giles was grateful.

 

It had been a good day.  The local library was absurdly small but still proud in its eclectic collection of master writers.  He had expected to find nothing in the way of the occult and indeed he had not, but still. Still it was fine just to sit among the astounding variations of the use of English text.  The Empire was alive indeed.  It was fine to sit inside with fellow worshippers on a sunny summer afternoon.  He had been updating his journal and had progressed significantly to almost present day entries.  But there were still gaps, canyons really, to be filled only with the information Buffy could supply.  They would need to sit down and talk soon but for now, as always, he veered away from thoughts of Spike history and preferred to control and categorize the facts as: ‘observations from Buffy.’  It might not necessarily be empirically true but it felt safer, somehow if he could still categorize the vampire’s anomalies as subjective observations. 

 

Spike. The puzzle of Spike. Ordinarily contradictions inspired Rupert to the best use of his problem solving capacity; he should have relished tackling the incongruity, but, somehow, somewhere, some deep sense of his own psychological self preservation had kept him from delving too far, too deep, yet.  In his heart he had admitted, he was afraid of what he might find.  Paradigms challenged.  Challenged and broken?  It was possible. 

 

If only there was a prophecy.  He sighed.  As if a prophecy would be able to legitimize and make friends with chaos.  That was Spike.  But he doubted if there was anything as neat and tidy as a prophecy to explain away Spike.  A loose cannon from the get to go.  Paradigms lost.  Paradigms lost indeed. 

 

Given the train his thoughts were on, that and the decade’s long experience of living perpetually with the reality of living and undead nonsequiturs, he shouldn’t have been surprised to see a demon sitting with Greata on her front porch sipping cool drinks. 

 

But he was rattled.  He was rattled indeed. The front porch was sheltered by a large oak and so was not easily seen from the road but as the drive ran up the side of the house to the rear, he got a good look.  Quite.

 

He recognized Clem of course and smiled grimly at his knee jerk and rather prosaic American reaction, that is--the poem of reaching for your shotgun to protect your daughter from undesirable suitors.  Not Clem, of course.  But Spike. It was his automatic reaction to seeing anything or anyone having anything to do…with Spike.

 

Giles smiled at the thought of himself in overalls sitting on a rocking chair with a shotgun laid across his knee and had to smile.  He was absolutely obliged to consider himself completely absurd.  Spike was gone, after all.

 

By the time Giles got out of his rented car and walked across the lawn to the front of the house he was British again. All hail ‘courtesy’ the great savior, the greatest of social graces; he tapped this resource and greeted Clem.

 

“Clement.”  Giles inclined his head.

 

As Giles came to the edge of the front porch Clem rose in greeting.  His usual jovial and good spirited nature dampened now and sober as he looked down at the ripper in Rupert.

 

Clem nodded polite but cautious.  Giles nodded back.

 

“Clem... you can call me Clem?” His sad smiling eyes phrased it almost as a question.

 

“Ah yes...Clem...what brings you out?”  Giles let his voice die down as Clem looked up towards the top of the house.  Greata supplied the answer for the unasked question.

 

“Buffy’s taking a nap.  Been out in the sun all morning, got a little wrung out.  She’ll be up soon I expect.  Would you like a glass of lemonade Rupert?”

 

“Oh.  Thank you. That would be fine, but I’ll get it, I’ll help myself.” 

 

“No, no I’ll get it, I’ll bring the pitcher out for refills.  So sit down, sit down everybody.  The afternoon in summer is for sitting.”

 

Greata rose and went inside, door creaking open and closed.  She paused in the dining room and then again at end of the stairs; she listened and was rewarded with the sound of movement on the second floor.  Good.  Buffy was up.  She went into the kitchen humming a little and sing-songing these words:

 

“Ooohh boy, things are going to get verrry interesting.  Who need the soaps anymore?”

 

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

 

Buffy had splashed cool water on her face, her eyes, to reduce the puffy Buffy.  But.  Red was red.  And she didn’t feel like hiding up here for the rest of the day and evening besides she didn’t want Clem leaving.  She wanted him to stay.  (Would it offend him to sleep in the barn?)

 

She heard Giles and Clem talking on the front porch.  Giles had his high British on, using the super accent, the verrry Maggie Smith he used when trying to control untidy situations.  Clem’s voice was a little defensive and stubborn.

 

“No, no, you can’t relay a message, there is still something else she’s gotta know about—“

 

Buffy jumped into the pool.  (Everybody into the pool!)

 

“O.K.”  She said, opening the screen door and coming outside.                     

 

“I’ll take the bait, what ya got Clem?”

 

Clem’s obvious and sincere pleasure at seeing her almost undid her control.  To cover, she sat down on the loveseat glider at the end of the porch so she was in a position to watch everyone.

 

“O.K.  I’m sitting down, shoot.”

 

“Uh...I don’t know where to begin...”

 

“The beginning?”  Giles suggested.

 

“No, that’s too far back—“

 

“The end?”  More Brit less wit.

 

“Yeah I’ll start at the end.”  Clem took a deep breath.

 

“Illyana-alaya is going to soul sing Spike.”

 

Beat.

 

“Illy-you-hoo huh?”   Buffy asked.

 

“Illyana-alaya” Giles said softly, his eyes turned inward and upward to the vast personal filing cabinet accessing his almost total recall. 

 

“Illyana-alaya...guardian, yes?   Guardian of her race.  Then Giles addressed Buffy.  “She is the closest Earth has to what mythology describes as elf or elfin.  Extinct now...or…”  And now Giles peered at Clem.  “Assumedly...”

 

“Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated...”

 

Clem hee-hawed and then sputtered to a stop. 

 

“Uh...sorry, sorry, It’s just kind of neat how she pulled that one over on everyone...I mean, I didn’t know she was still alive or anything, I was just contacted recently...that is, when she saw me coming here to see Buffy.”

 

“Uh Giles you’re British, can you talk to me in English and tell me what this means...”

 

“I don’t believe I quite know.  There had always been a limited number of Elfin, and so records of customs and traditions are scant at best.  Clem may know more than I, but as you start relaying what you do know, I believe more will come back to me...”

 

Buffy shook her head as if to clear it, “Well tell me what this means, what is this thing she’s gonna do?”

 

Clem puffed his chest out a bit and began. 

 

Illyana-alaya will soul sing Spike.  She’s huge, a real world master, she can look into his life at everything he is and sing it...it’s a kind of eulogy thing they do.”  Clem spoke clearly to make sure Buffy understood. 

 

“It is an honor.”

 

“It is an honor...”  Giles spoke quietly; having canvassed his catalogue of information he was now back in the present.  Giles continued.  

 

“One of the Elfin gifts was that of empathy—to actually feel the joy and sorrow of another being...which is why, of course, living on this planet became so difficult for them.”

 

Clem picked up when Giles paused.

 

“So she feels and sings for the dead, who they were and their effect on the world.  It’s not always pleasant, you know, parts can be tough to listen to but it’s supposed to be amazing...”

 

Buffed considered.  “So this elf person is going to sing for Spike...”

 

“Why?  I mean...why Spike?”  Giles thought it might be tactless but someone had to ask.

 

Buffy and Clem looked at Giles in tandem, almost playing in concert.

 

Giles slowed down and turned his gaze inward as he considered how to proceed. Maybe he was the one with something to learn.

 

“I ask, because, I would genuinely like to know...”

 

Buffy relaxed, almost visibly.  Good.  Her days of being a Spike apologist were way over.  Buffy looked at Clem with a question mark.  Clem shrugged a little as he answered.

 

“You know Giles might know more about this than me, Spike mentioned something once, but you know him, I thought he was bragging you know...I’ve met the queen yadda, yadda and he was drunk or he might not have mentioned it at all cause ‘shush it’s a secret,’ you know how he talked...cept...most of the stuff he bragged about always turned out to be true...huh.  Anyway, all’s he told me was that she owed him one, big time.  Like a favor or something.  And then I was contacted by one of her children before I set out to come here.  She wanted to let you know, wanted to come and pay her respects, but because she’s been in hiding, she’s had to be extra careful, wanted to check the water first.  What with all the slayers around and...and...and your connection with that other one... you know, the other vampire...”

 

“Angel.”  Giles breathed.  “Of course...”   Giles ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed his brow.  “Of course...”

 

“Uh guys...I’m still at ‘double duh’”.  Buffy was getting a little snap hap.

 

“Buffy, when I did that extensive research on Angel back...when…”  He stopped at the thought of Jenny and then continued. “Part of his profile was to torture the pure of heart, the saints of this world...”

 

“Yes I remember--Drusilla was on her way to becoming a nun…”

 

“Yes, his cruelty consisted of cutting down those closest to love, to the light, if you will, also to exterminate, xenocide was his...hobby if you will.  Species extermination.  He considered it an art form--made Hitler look like a bloody upstart.”

 

“Oh my god...”  Buffy moaned softly

 

“Yes...quite, quite...so it would appear Illyana-alaya is hiding from Angel.  Yes?”

 

“And...and Spike?...”

 

“Well, this is deductive reasoning mind you, but if Angel was exterminating species, and the whole world thought the Elfin to become extinct sometime in the late 19^th century and an Elfin matriarch owes Spike a boon—“

 

“Man, he would have done anything to put that guy’s nose out of joint…“ interjected Clem.

 

“Yes exactly, what his motives were, we may never know, but clearly by the Elfin offering to honor him, I would suspect he interceded on their behalf and therefore prevented total annihilation.”  

        

“Spike...”  Buffy spoke softly.

 

“Yes...”  Giles watched her and became quiet, thoughtful.  He spoke carefully.

 

“I would of course, love to hear the whole story...”

 

Buffy looked at him and then at Clem. 

 

“Of course she should come here.  She’s gotta come, she’ll be safe, let her know she’ll be safe.  Angel is three hours away in L.A.  He’s not coming here is he?”

 

“I haven’t heard anything...”  Giles was rubbing his forehead again.   

 

“When is she coming?”

 

“Today.  Before sunset.  Dusk.”  Clem was smiling.

 

“Cutting it a little short, aren’t cha’ busty boy?”

 

“Security reasons...they didn’t want too many people to know they were coming...”

 

“We have to have a party!”  This was from Greata, who had quietly rejoined the group and was refilling glasses.

 

“Whooo!  Are you the original surfer girl or what?” Clem wondered aloud.

 

Greata sang Beach Boy ode to car #409:  “Nothing can stop my, nothing can stop my 409....409....Nothing can stop my, nothing can stop—“

 

“Stop!” said Giles 

 

“Stop!” said Buffy

 

“Stop.  No boy bands on a Spike day.”

                                      

Fair enough. They all smiled at each other and said nothing. 

 

Such self control.

 

 

*

 

 

“’T was a long parting, but the time

 For interview has come;

Before the judgment - seat of God

The last and second time

 

These fleshless lovers met

A heaven in a gaze

A heaven of heavens, the privilege

of one anthers eyes.”

 

Emily Dickenson

 

 

7

 

Paradigms Lost

 

She turned her head slowly.  She turned her head to look at him...languidly?  Was that a languid look?  From the position of audience member, one simply could not tell.  The only one who saw it, who knew, were they two. 

 

From the position they stood in, her in front and he behind--braced, head lifted from the torn flesh of her neck--she had to look back up into the face of the thing that killed her--but because of the position in which they stood.  What passed between them was private.  And only he knew--

 

--“What did she say?”

 

Spike looked at Joyce.

 

“What did Su Yan the Vampire slayer say to you in that moment?  She said something with her eyes, said enough of some thing to make you snap her neck. She shortened her life, it was important enough to her to do that.  She lost 5 minutes of life in order to tell you something that provoked you to finish her.  Spike.  What did she say?”

 

When he didn’t reply, Joyce continued.  “Let’s replay it alright?  We’ll get another look and refresh your memory.  Let’s take a look at the moment when you found out you were better at killing than creating.”

 

Spike was a tough nut to crack and admittedly Joyce was one of the few people who could do it.  All the Summers women.  God, maybe there was something to the idea of genetic memory after all.  Apples not falling far from the tree and al’.

 

As the scene started to replay for the third time in the open air between two pillars of the pavilion, Spike spoke:

 

“It wasn’t what she said or thought it was what she felt, what she was in that moment.”

 

Joyce nodded, her eyes said go on, go on, go, go, go...

 

“Like a little girl, a child who had fallen asleep an’ had just woke up to see who was holding her.”

 

“My Lamb.”  Joyce’s voice was quiet, reflective.

 

“Yes.”  Spike said.

 

“And so you broke her neck.”

 

“Had to.”

 

“Why?”

 

He thinks, considers and reveals...”Or she would have turned me.”

 

Slapping Love’s outstretched hand.  Slayer, slayer, once, twice...

 

“Third times the charm...”  Spike waggled a brow, but the glint in his eye was gone.

 

“Every baseball fan knows it.”  It was Joyce’s job to keep the ball bouncing from heavy to whimsy.

 

“Cor, American sport’s ‘L put you to sleep.”

 

“Then let’s talk the ultimate sport. Why the Slayer, Spike?  Why did you kill my lambs?”

 

It was time to push him.

 

“Why did you want to hurt Buffy?”

 

“Mum, please...”

 

“Think Miss Marple...”

 

Spike drew in a ragged breath and rubbed his face with both hands letting himself go back to that space, that space that held a single directed death wish for the best, the brightest, the most beautiful of girls.

 

“It’s too easy to say this all has something to do with Cecily.  I mean that may be part of it an al’.  You know, taking down the top.”

 

“What happened that night?  The definitive moments, those are the clues.”

 

“Well, Cecily flattened me really...”

 

“And...”

 

“Dru...”

 

“Before that.  What comes to mind almost immediately and without thinking about it—“

 

The image that rose to mind, strangely, wasn’t that mottley upper crust crew making sport of him...no, and it wasn’t what they or Cecily did to him, it was…it was what he did to himself:

 

William tearing his sheets.  William in tears tearing his own words. The words he had written with joy in his heart.

 

Why should that be important?  They were bloody awful, everyone said so, t’ was a mercy to relieve the world of it.

 

“Would you destroy your child, a child you loved dearly if it came into the world with a finger missing or a club foot?”

 

 

“No.  Never.”

 

“Even if people in the world found the child imperfect, difficult to look at?”      

 

“They can all SOD OFF!”

 

“What if the child is retarded and has seemingly, no real function in the world.  No purpose?”

 

“Well, the bit would have a purpose in my life wouldn’t it then? I’d make it feel important. The bairen’ would be important to me.”

 

“Exactly.  So, should your writing, or for that matter, any creation of your heart, mind or body be treated with any less kindness or respect?” 

 

Spike was floored flat.

 

Joyce smiled.  “Take a few moments and put it all together.  Look around at the key clues.  I’ll wait.”

 

Spike drifted in the pavilion, looking from one scene to another, he saw flashes of mayhem, blood and destruction juxtaposed alongside moments of inspired love and there it was…one of the defining moments of his life.

 

William ripping the words was William ripping his faith.  It wasn’t just the words that were destroyed; it was the faith in where the words had come from.  If inspiration leads to faulty works than how honest and true could the source of that inspiration be?

 

Buffy.  Eyes of Buffy.  Buffy eyes. 

 

More images of William at his desk, writing his sheets and sheets, that amazing feeling of achievement, of mountains ascended, it was the Matterhorn, and it was K3 and Everest.  His pen in hand was the mountain climber’s spike.  The white sheets of paper--the expanse of virgin snow and not even reaching the summit of an impossible climb could not compare to the elation that came when thoughts and feelings were completed and realized on the pure untouched page.  The sweet courage it takes to create.

 

Next was the image of his words being mocked, shocked, Cecily dressing him down.

 

William in tears tearing paper. 

 

William closed his eyes and went back; the demon went with him and why not?--in for a penny in for a pound. 

 

He allowed himself to feel that pain again, raw and fresh and dared to look behind it.  At the source—what caused the pain?  He looked at the some thing else in hiding.

 

Heart hurting.  Lies.  Because of a lie.  Betrayal.  And there it was. Hiding behind his pain leading to anger at Cecily, at those high society bully’s was his anger at...love. 

 

At love itself. 

 

He was angry at the nature of love.  He felt betrayed and abused not by people, but by love itself--that shining effulgent beckoning hand that inspired the lowest clod to climb the mountain in search of the Blue Rose to present to his love to resurrect her. 

 

He had trusted love and why not?  He had had the gift of his Mothers love as proof positive that love was a real and valiant force.  But that same love had set a high standard.  And cost. To be close to that kind of love was to feel a glimmer of God alive on earth and then to be separated from it was...unthinkable, unimaginable. 

 

William was being slowly pressed into the oblivion of heartbreak every time his Mother coughed up blood.  Consumption. Consumption indeed. 

 

He had trusted love and now he needed it and that same need had taught him to fear it. 

 

He had trusted that his love of writing and the written word meant he was being pointed in a special direction.  That inspiration itself would secure glory and success, that the nature of love itself would guarantee a happy end.

 

He had trusted his love for his Mother.  And then watched her die daily.  He had believed that the very nature of love would protect those who bowed before it and shouldn’t it?    But if God was love and then love turns to ashes, if love is just the lure, the bait to being the butt end of a bad joke—then if love fails, the gods fail.  If love is bait and switch—then God is a con artist.  The unbearable agony of betrayal.  How could one love like that and not be protected BY it?

 

This has been the single most important issue of his existence. To be living in the very center of love, of inspiration and imagination as he did and ever would—his nature commanded this, to do that to be this fool for love and then…and then the perpetual slack jawed amazement of the child being slapped by God for kissing. Some passionate jealous God in an Italian movie, a Latin lover, wanting demanding and then allowing no one. 

 

God in Latin fooling everyone with ancient jumble speak--it sounds real, because it sounds olde. 

 

Deus…Deus ex Machina… 

 

 

Timed from the moment that poem was read aloud at that party, to Cecily, to tearing his words, there it was--all his faith had been shattered within 17 minutes. 

 

A hostile 17. 

 

HA.

 

Ha bloody ha by any ‘road.

 

No.  He had been betrayed by love.  And what is love but God?  God inspired him to love and then broke his back for doing it and what kinda of crazy equation is that? 

He had been pissed.  Deep down, he had been royally pissed.

 

He still was.

 

Spike looked at Joyce.

 

“I went for the Slayer, the holy lamb, cuz I felt fucked over, buggered up and pissed in the extreme.”

 

And then he took a deep cleansing and breath and spoke so low, he barely even heard himself.

 

“I wanted…revenge…to get even…to break heavens little piggy bank…”            

 

Joyce nodded.  “I think so.  At least that’s part of it, one side of the coin.  Now flip it.  Heads or...”

 

“TAILS.”  Spike called out rather emphatically and then: “Ah....” 

 

Spike cautiously looked at Joyce, this double entendre was directed at her daughter after all. 

 

Joyce winced a bit, but smiled shaking her head.  Spike will be spike.

 

“Consider this to begin with.  You wouldn’t have been that angry if you hadn’t still cared.  If some part of you still didn’t believe in love.  Please.  100 years with Drusilla?”

 

He nodded in agreement.

 

“I’m loves bitch.”

 

“And banner.”

 

Spike looked at her, cocking his head to one side considering her comment.  Slowly he smiled

 

“Holy hell and saints alive I get to be a poster boy.”

 

Joyce laughed aloud, free and like the wind blowing through chimes.  The warriors around the pavilion chuckled, the pleasant rumbling almost a purr.

 

“And that is why we love you.”   

 

What could he say to that?  “I feel a blush coming on.”

 

How a bout a brush with death coming on?  Joyce indicated images of Spike fighting the Slayers.  “Talk to me of the Slayers...”

 

“I hated them...”

 

“Yes we determined that, and...”

 

“I loved them, the way they fought, it was past self survival, it...it was like they fought with vision, with a...I dunno, fighting the slayers made me a better fighter.  Facing off with them brought me up to a new level, every time, every fight and well…with Buffy... being with her…everyday…it was a place I couldn’t get to on my own—“

 

“No one can.”  Joyce interrupted.  “Other people are the catalyst.  That’s why family, friends, lovers make you stronger.”

 

Spike nodded and continued.

 

“And...I wanted it.  That feeling, it’s this place you’re in when your fighting see?  And it’s beyond what your mind can do by itself or your body, everything’s connected and...and there could only be one thing better than killing her…”

 

His voice trailed off, winded down, dripped to a drop.

 

 

Now that might have been a mistake. 

 

His first ‘morning after’ etiquette was not quite the stuff of snuff.

 

But what the hell.  How do you stop the chain?  If he hadn’t been stroking himself, his ego, then he might not have alienated Buffy and then in turn made the next few months of their relationship so difficult for her to believe in that she might not have broken it off and if she hadn’t broken it off, then he wouldn’t have been desperate and selfish enough try to force himself back into her life, back into her body.  (Double wince).  But if he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have realized that even with his deep love for her, without a soul, without a hotline to more light, so to speak, then he would have continued living in darkness, drawing dark temptation to himself like a magnet.  And Buffy had been drawn to him, he knew she was and if he drew her to him, could he stand to put her at risk, because lets face it, even with his deep love, living in the deep dark made him unstable enough to hurt her, oh bugger al’, if he hadn’t been blinded long enough to try to force her--than would he ever have been desperate enough to seek restoration of his soul?  

 

So.  Undo one bad choice and everything could fall apart.  So.  It was not the poor choice it was the moment after...Spike could see clearly it was the moment after that mattered.

 

And loving the slayer is all that mattered.  And…oh my god and here was the bloody payoff, trusting his deep feeling enough to do whatever was necessary to give that love a chance.  Loving Buffy with or without her reciprocation had been all about getting his faith back.

 

Spike was spinning.  Different thoughts ran parallel--racing each other to the finish line.

 

I loved the slayers and…and…they knew it, some part of them musta felt it…

 

Su Yan’s quiet almost peaceful gaze, almost, already half asleep…

Nikki on her back, on her back…

 

 “They recognized me, they trusted me, some part of them saw I loved who they were and in the moment...in that moment they relaxed, they let it be me.

 

“I think so.” Joyce agreed.   “That doesn’t take away from your fighting skills but ironically, it was the love pattern retained in William that made them yearn for home, for heaven.”   

 

“I didn’t kill Buffy.”

 

“You would have.  That first fight in the school.  It would have been the end…”

 

“Except for Mom the old battle axe...”

 

Joyce smiled.  “You’re welcome by the way.” 

 

Spike stopped, humbled again, his throat constricted, eyes quite suddenly filling with tears.

 

“Thanks Joyce.  For her...and me.  Well, the world, it turns out.  Joyce, you saved the bloody world two times over when you did that.”

 

You know you can joke, but that’s actually true.  All our deeds large and small, everything is connected and counted. Take one action away, good or bad and the subsequent lesson learned is gone.  If one is capable of learning, it makes it difficult to have real regret.  Just say thanks for the lesson, learn something and move on. 

 

 

“O.K. coach, send me in, no argument there.”

 

“Really Spike?   Would you like to get back in the game?”

 

“Oi’ eh I was just talkin’.  What are you talkin?”

 

“Buffy has been calling for you.  But you won’t even go near the phone.”

 

“Joyce...”

 

“There are ways to send a message if you want to. And you have been leaking small memos out to her, small thoughts for her to pick up in her sleep, but she’s in the dark and she’s scared for you.  She wants to know that you’re o.k.”

 

“Joyce.   I’m not o.k... I mean I’m o.k. but I’m never gonna be o.k. far away from her.  Now is that what you want me to lay on Buffy?”

 

“Spike.”  Joyce’s voice was gentle but firm.  “Look at me.”

 

He did.

 

“Is there ever going to be anything, any human being, anyone undead or alive that will ever be able to love you enough?”

 

Spike was shocked into silence.

 

“Was there ever a creature created that was pure enough to love the way love itself can?  We carry the memory of heaven with us on Earth and so it can sometimes make what people offer each other so puny in comparison. Why do you think Buffy turned to you when she came back from heaven to the Earth plane?  Your love for her shone out the brightest and reminded her most of home. 

 

Was she ultimately disappointed in you because you could not BE home.  Of course.  You both had it wrong, it wasn’t self loathing that brought you together, it was self survival.  It was because she wanted to feel at home again.  Now, you didn’t have enough light and the reality is that over exposure to your darkness made you dangerous and painful to her.  She could absorb a lot of your dark nature and be a catalyst to help you transmute quite a lot into love, but only to a point.  The demon had to make a free will choice to dissolve the rest of the black, the rest of its contract.

 

When we are down there, on Earth, we’re just these muddy things with our pure spirit buried alive.  Just recognize it for what it is and where you are.  We are like light shining through the mud.  The light of unconditional love trapped in little bodies made of clay from up out the earth.  It’s going to look dim and inconsistent at best.”

 

Joyce took a breath but she was on a roll and had a bit more butter to spread on it.

 

“Spike, William, the kind of love you crave will never come from another being like the peace found in heaven.  Think about cutting Buffy some slack.  She loves you dearly more and more and more than you, or she knows now, but will she ever love you in the way love itself loves you?  No wonder you’ve been slapped silly every time.  How could she?  Will she ever love you the way you love her?  A second better question is, can anyone, ever love you the way you love them. Your ability to love is almost unparalleled.  It inspired you to crawl out of hell.  That doesn’t happen every day or to everyone.  Could she love you like that?  I believe so.  She is a slayer after all.  Her heart, her love is the fire of heaven itself, but she is afraid of submitting and with good reason.  So the question is do you love her enough to love her regardless?

 

Everyone waited, the nearby brook broke its babble, the warriors in supportive attendance held their breath and Joyce looked quietly down at Spike’s bowed head.

 

He spoke.

 

“You know the answer is yes, I know the answer is yes, but I still need one thing.”

 

Spike continued without looking up.

 

“She has to come to me.”

 

“I know...” Joyce considered a moment, turned and looked at a guardian cloaked in blue standing behind her.  The blue cloaked figure shrugged and nodded, Joyce turned back to Spike.

 

“Spike, you’re a gambling man...”

 

At this Spike piqued, a piqued Spike drew his brows together and smirked.

 

“Joyce what are you on about?”

 

“We can’t guarantee anything, you know, there is always free will choice, but there is a 75 /25 split that she will come to you—“

 

“--But what does that mean?  Cuz I don’t want her dying to be with me, so what are you on about?  And wait a minute which way would that split?  75 to yes or 75 to no?”

 

“You had a mystical death, under the physical law you could be reconstituted under the myth clause. 

 

“Is that like Santa Clause, cause I don’t fancy being in charge of redistributing wealth, no Robin Hood gig thank you bloody poofter.”

 

Joyce continued undisturbed.  “The phoenix myth is saturated throughout the text of the Earth matrix and coupled with the shanshu prophecy there is an accepted thought structure in place where you could be re-introduced. 

 

“Shanshu…shoes?  Footwear…huh, had the strangest dream…huh…and thanks for the lecture ‘Giles’--oh and by the by, Buffy told me about the top of the police car.”

 

Spike winked at her.

 

Joyce fluttered and slapped the side of his head.  “I’m sorry, but every once in a while that just seems like the right thing to do.”  She continued. 

 

“You would not be what you were in the way you were.  But because you would be reconstituted from your ashes you can’t be more or less than what you were, just arranged differently.” 

 

“Joyce you’re speaking Jabberwock and I’m about to be dead bored.”

 

Joyce stood in front of him and took his chin in her hand and looked him in the eye.

 

“Your strengths could be made stronger at the cost of your weakness making you weaker.  But even that is from a certain point of view.”

 

“And I’m guessing non-negotiable?”

 

Joyce shrugged. 

 

“Well I faced Glory, went through what was supposed to be impossible trials to get my soul back and have loved Buffy for 6 years, so how hard could it be?  No forget I said that.”

 

“So is that a ‘yes’?”

 

“Yeah right, like I ever had a choice anyway, sure go ahead punk me out, put me on the bleedin rack, lets have another round of kick the Spike—“

 

--“Buffy’s pregnant.”

 

Spike’s eyes widened, awe, wonder and again and again…humility. 

 

 “It’s not a solid thing, there is no destiny holding you two in place, just free will choice, the wind could blow in from the north and she could miscarry as simple as that.

 

Joyce relaxed and stepped back from him and he faced her squarely.

 

“Will you fight for her?  Will you fight for your family?”

 

Spike felt his energy flow down through his feet through the floor of the pavilion and up through the top of his head throughout all time and space and beyond.  He then declared firmly to all present and the cosmos besides.

 

“I will.” 

 

There was a simultaneous roar of appreciation from the gathered warriors awaiting this, their battle cry.  For love, for lover, for child, for family, for friends, for et. for all...

 

William the Spike WILL.

 

“And that...” Joyce said hands clasped to her heart, tears in her eyes...

 

”Is why we back you.”

 

Joyce kissed the side of his head, stepped back and spoke her last speech to him.

 

“We’re putting you back in the game and believe you me there are other warriors with better karma, better histories, which have been better prepared and had been waiting in line but you knocked us out.  You’re the dark horse in this race, the long shot, but we’re betting on you because you proved you can run with the ball.  That you love running with the ball. We all love that.  William, you will have access to great power and the temptation that comes with power but no destiny to pave the way, to make it easy--just you, like always, on the ball, the pigskin…well, pigs blood—whatever. O.K. enough sports metaphors I was told it would fire up your machismo, but, you get the idea.”

 

Joyce contemplated him and smiled as if it meant goodbye.

 

You’ll forget most of this, but hold Dawn’s hand...don’t let the tough guy act fool you--she always feels so alone in the world and...and kiss Buffy for me--right on the very top of her head, so she’ll know it’s from me, will you?”

 

 

*

 

“I dreamed I was in a Hollywood movie

and that I was the star of the movie…

It really blew my mind…

The fact that me, an overfed long haired leaping gnome                                       

Should be the star of a Hollywood movie…

But there I was!”

 

Eric Burden

 

8

 

Nights in White Satin

                       

 

DAY 32 6:35 P.M.

 

FADE IN

FRONT OF GREATA’S FARMHOUSE - EXT - TWILIGHT

As seen from the country road, wide angle establishing shot.  Three vehicles pull into frame, running caravan style with each other it is a

 

BLACK CHEVY BLAZER

Grey GMC Jimmy and a dull green Volkswagen van with a large orange flower decal on the hood.  They pull onto the lower end of the farmhouse lawn, parallel parking next to each other and positioned so the Volks Van is sandwiched between the other vehicles.

GREATAS FRONT PORCH - MS

BUFFY rises from the glider, DAWN, VI, RONA, all standing on porch step aside to make room for her to walk between them.  Buffy stands poised on the top step of porch.  Framed by GILES standing at attention at the foot of the stairs and CLEM who steps a little in front so the visitors can see him easily from the end of the front lawn about 200 feet away.

 

THE THREE VEHICLES

with the farmhouse in the background.

Like 100 clowns emerging from a tiny car in a three ring circus, the ELFIN folk emerge from the vehicles.  All told, and all out, and as they stand--there are 21 Elfin.  The Elfin and Humans  (mostly) regard each other in silence for the stretch of a few minutes.

 

WARRIOR ELFIN

have taken flanking and point positions as the honor guard. 

 

BUFFY ‘S POV-  

Buffy notes their positions and smiles.  She approves.

The grouping of Elfin begin to move slowly toward the front porch.  Four of them maintain flanking positions by the edge of the road, as the group moves toward the porch two or three deposit themselves as sentry flanking position protecting the middle of the lawn. 

As they walk, an Elfin figure emerges, power and light emanating from her core.  She leaves the middle of the group to walk in the lead.

There is an audible gasp from the people on the porch as they see.  Her.  Anyone who had been seating stands immediately as a sign of automatic respect.  They square their bodies off in an almost subconscious urge to emulate the Elfins body language.

The Elfin walk almost in slow motion or distended and selected time, feet barely seeming to skim the surface of the ground.  LOW HARMONIC ascending notes of a BAGPIPE of similar wood and wind instrument carved from nature is heard on soundtrack.  It is the bittersweet sound of celebration and lament.

(Or at least that’s the way it felt to Buffy. Like some kind of crazy foreign art film ensouled Spike had dragged her to.  Some kinda crazy Aussie art film.  What a party that was.  Girls go on a picnic in the early twentieth century Australia outback and all save for one disappear into the wilderness.  And the sole survivor can’t remember what had happened.  ‘That’s based on a real event, Slayer, it really happened—and in answer to the question you’re not asking NO it was not me.  I was on the other side of the planet at that time—I swear!’ They had laughed and then had stopped and what did it mean that they could joke about things like that?)

The elfin had reached the front porch.  The matriarch. The glowy one was talking now.

Back to the flick.

                        

 ILLIYANA-ALANA

It is a beautiful day, is it not?

 

 BUFF

It really is.

 

 ILLIYANA-ALANA

It’s in the ground, this is a good place—can you feel it?

 

They all nod that they do.

 

 ILLIYANA-ALANA

 A good place for singing, better than the other, yes ?  But over there facing the west?

 

The Elfin behind her follow her gaze.  They do not nod their heads but one gets the feeling they all agree.  She shifts her attention back to group on porch. 

 

ILLIYANA -ALAYA

An Elfin woman appearing in human terms to be in her mid forties.  Long flowing hair Golden red with white highlights, Her skin an almost a high blue. 

 

BUFF VO

Hmm… BUFF thinks this must be a real blueblood 

 

 ILLIYANA-ALAYA 

I am Illyana-alaya, royal guardian of we few survivors, we the living Elfin of old earth.

 

--Well that’s spooky–

 

 ILLIYANA-ALANA (laughs)

 You can call me Illy.

 

 BUFFY  

Cozy.  You can call me BUFF, because I am.  BUFF that is, of old...that is, the lost city of Sunnydale.   That’s me.

 

ILLLY

THE slayer.

                             

 BUFF

One among many now—

 

 ILLY

 --Not to him

Well there was nothing to say to that.

 

 ILLY

 I owe a boon to the Widow of William the Spike.

 

BUFF smiled a little at her getting the moniker wrong like the quaint way a foreigner might learn a slang, say it wrong but have it come out sounding actually more right. William the Spike.  She liked it. As she started to respond Giles interrupted her from behind and spoke sotto voche.

 

 GILES

 BUFF, this is an energetic contract, binding in the eyes of the cosmos-- 

 

Buffy looks at him, smiles gently and turns toward Illy.

 

ILLLY

You are the last of William’s family?

 

Dru and Angel flutter and disappear. .

 

BUFF

 I am the best loved of his family.

 

 ILLY

 It’s good to know who you are.

 

Beat.

 

ILLY

(continues-tries the official language again)

 May we speak widow to widow?

 

 BUFFY

 Yes.  I am Spike’s widow.

 

Out of the closet with a bang and boom.  She felt a shift, a change in her soul and knew with this quiet truth--everything, everything in her, in her life had just shifted and changed.

Illy smiled into her eyes and spoke lower so only BUFF could hear.

 

 

ILLY

I’m glad he found you.

 

BUFF

So am I.

 

The shocking simplicity of her words as her heart stood up for itself commanded respect. Even the little blades of grass percolated and giggled under her feet.

After all this time, it was so easy, so easy to love him, to be his.

 

ILLY

I know you all have many questions and what remains unanswered...after, I will address in the morning.   Yes?

 

Again everyone nods mutely.  Let’s all go jump into a spittoon says Illy and everybody would nod.  Jeepers.  That’s charisma baby.

 

ILLY

 Buffy.  I offer you a boon.  How may I be of service to you?

 

Beat as BUFF considers Everyone waits.  Oh boy.

 

 BUFFY

There is something...that is, I don’t know if you can, how much time it would take, or if it would be too much trouble, it’s just...well..(suddenly grounded now)  there has been so much...loss for everyone, that is and sometimes it’s all we can do is just go on without making a fuss.  Could you help us?  Will you make a      fuss about them?  I’m so happy you are going to do this thing for Spike, but could you do...would you sing for the all the dead?

 

There.  She used the verbotin “d” word.

Illyana-ALANA walked to Buffy and in a gesture that was so a Spike thing,

It was Spike.

With his right hand, he reached out at touched Buffy gently on the side of her cheek. He was here, he was here, he was alright, he was safe and o.k. and not in H-E-double-hockey-sticks-couldn’t-say-the word-or-barely-think-it---but now its o.k. and this is the sign, the ‘thing’ that she was waiting for and Buffy could have fainted with relief.

He touched her.  Illy spoke.

 

ILLY

Buffy.  How I love thee, in the heart, in the mind, in the spirit, in the soul in the stars, in the body cell and the space between...I love thee...

 

I guess that means “yes”

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ *           

 

Day 32    8:16 p.m.

 

Alexander Lavell Harris had never been horse back riding before.  But his new credo, to color co-ordinate with his new glass eye. Was this.  New was good. Different was better.  Nothing like the same old, same old experience of the yearly attendance with an apocalypse to get old.  To make you feel old.  He was only twenty two years old but had the accumulated life experience of say Mel Brooks’s 1000 year old man.  How did that routine go?  No wonder he had loved an 1000 year old ex demon.  It was a match.  

 

Anya.

 

So many feelings and unguarded thoughts came back to a loved one done gone.  They were all widows and widowers and had been content with the status quo at Vi’s grandma’s house.  But he could feel it drawing to a close.  That intuitive ability that had been slowly developing over the years was pop popping.  He knew something was coming to a head.  Freud would have loved it.  What had been hidden, kept breaking the surface all the time now through all the unbidden, unasked for thoughts dropped into the social mix of conversation that would jar someone or remind someone of someone done gone.  He had just let one slip himself. 

 

He was driving Greata’s truck with Willow beside him.   She had pulled down the visor on the passenger side of the truck to part and comb her hair and he had said:

 

“Must be nice to have a widows peak right there in the middle of your forehead, kinda of like a plumb line for the part in your hair...” 

 

And the words were still hanging in the air.  He had let his voice trail off, but couldn’t erase the words.  There they were, like hard knocks in life to bang against. And it wasn’t Kennedy--she had gone back east and no hard feelings.  It was Tara. It would always Be Tara.  And now Anya.  And Xander almost shrugged against this one, Spike.

 

Widows and Widowers all and daily conversation was a mine field for the canny to traverse.

 

Somebody needed to do something.  But it was so huge.  How, where, to begin?  So they smiled and made quips and quit thinking about the future, at least for today.

 

The rest of the ride back was silent.  Not awkward, not stressy, just the sound of the truck chug chuncking and maybe I can change the oil for Greata....hmm...

 

“Xander look... looks like there’s some kinda party going on. Did we forget something? Were we supposed to get chips and dip? Oh...blue chips and cheese dip we should a stopped.   Ohhh...”

 

Willows extempore observation broke into Xanders day dreams of handy man fix it ups he was planning on Greata’s farm. And yes indeed something did look a brewin’.  Three SUV’s he had never seen before where lined in the front lawn.  Lights blazing in all the windows which in itself wasn’t unusual.  But.  That sound of music.  Someone had Bob Segar jacked up to 10 and was rocking out the Michigan mad man.  This was new.

 

Xander and Willow looked at each other.   Eyebrows raised.  And with almost identical expressions got out of the truck and walked through the back porch and into the kitchen.  .          

 

People were laughing.

 

Not the wry controlled chuckle, but out right emotional release.  Righteous and contagious.  Xander and Willow started smiling almost in spite of themselves.

 

Vi raced past them and slid into her Grandma by the kitchen sink.

 

“I think I’m going to Katmandu!  That’s really, really where I’m going to!  If I ever...”

 

“Xander!   Willow! “

 

Dawn slid into the kitchen chasing Vi and almost bowled the confused bemused duo down.

 

“I’m so glad you made it back in time.  Buffy will be Sooo happy!   They’re gonna begin at dusk which is well, NOW!  So I’m gonna run, I just came back to help Vi get Rona and Greata and leave a message for you guys.  Everybody’s back behind the barn.  Grab a jacket and a blanket it might get cool and maybe last all night.”

 

Dawn broke away from them without further explanation.  “Hey Vi I got Andrews camera, lets go NOW!  I don’t know if it will record fairies but—

 

That got Willows attention:  ”Fairies?”

 

“Elfin.”  Greata broke in to stop gap bad info.

 

“Oh and Xander can you load the truck up with wood from the stockpile for the bon fire?”

 

The Bob Segar music came to an abrupt stop. And the silence held the sweet chill of expectation.

 

“VI!  RONA! NOW! Dawn almost screamed.  “I’m not gonna miss one minute of her singing about Spike”

 

She took off running with Rona close behind her. Vi stopped:

 

“I gotta help my Grandma...that’s too far for her to walk in the near dark.”

 

“You go on ahead this handsome young man will drive me out in the truck.”

 

Greata nodded toward the Zan man.

 

And with a swoosh, a smooch and greasy spotted tire marks, goodbye was all they wrote.   

 

Xander felt punched in the gut.  He had to sit down.  This was for Spike?  All this hull a baloo?  Some kinda party, it sounded like...for Spike?

 

Willow looked like Miss Kitty Fantastico caught between her favorite mouse and some fresh sparkling new cat nip.   An Elfin singing.  To hear such a thing was a...well, a once in ...a gazillion lifetime experience.  

 

Greata explained quickly.  “Some old friend of your friend Spike—

 

--“He was NOT our friend.”  Xander spit out emphatically.

 

“Xander...”  Willow’s quiet reprimand slowed him down bit. 

 

“Yeah, I know he saved us all, but...”

 

Greata spoke quickly:  “Sorry to break up the debate, but someone is finally going to pay tribute to the dead of Sunnydale, and Spike’s friend is going to do it.  That’s all I know and that sounds good to me.”

 

“Me too. I’m going to go out, Xander, I gotta be there.  I can feel it.  I gotta. Come on out if you can.  Out behind the barn right?  That’s what Dawn said? “

 

“Go on girl. Grab one of the plaid jackets hanging in the washroom on the way out.  Keep you warm--here let me show you.”

                                       

Greata led the way out of the kitchen.  And with that Willow was gone. 

 

Xander was left alone in the house with his thoughts and with loves sharp edges cutting into his heart. All these years, all this time he had known Buffy, 7 no almost 8 years now and not once, NOT ONCE had she ever thrown him a party or barely even remembered his birthday.

 

All these years of service and devotion and never, never, well unless you count hyena boy and being Drac’s butt monkey and that didn’t count really cause it wasn’t done with his free will and never, ever, never had he ever sucked the blood out of even one innocent human being.  In all those years he had never gotten so much as a cake or even cup of a cake from her and here Dead boy Jr. Gets a party, the fatted calf and a singing Diva on top?       

 

One more puff and his heart could break, it really could.

 

Greata called out from the back porch.

 

“Hiney, would you go get my cane and my big pink sweater sitting on the chair in my bedroom?  Would you dear?”

 

And because he was a good man and because he would always be of service to good women he called out a friendly response and with a constricting throat went to do her bidding. 

 

Greata’s bedroom was on the ground level and off the dining room and close to the bathroom. A logical setup for her old bones, he thought idly, ever the carpenter, ever the man who would fix things while no one was looking.  He found the sweater and cane easily enough but when he pulled the sweater loose from the chair, something fell to the floor with a smack and a flutter.  An old book had hit it’s binding in the fall and split the book open almost in two. Xander bent to pick it up.  It looked like an old family Bible.  Ah...double heck.  How was he going to tell Greata?  Maybe he could plead the plight of the handicapped one eyed man.    

 

He knelt down, and carefully raised the book, re inserting stray papers that had broken out.  One was obviously well read, being yellow highlighted was a dead giveaway, his eye caught, and his heart tripped over the last passage on a page.  Xander Harris of trembling hands and  compassionate heart, stood in a little old lady’s bedroom in western California and on a temperate summer night in late June and from her century old Bible, he read this:

 

“…But he was angered and would not go in.  His father, therefore, came out and began to entreat him.

But he answered and said to his father, “Behold these many years I have been serving thee, and have never transgressed one of thy commandments and yet thou hast never given me a kid that I might make merry with my friends.

But when this thy son comes, who has devoured his means with harlots, thou hast killed for him, the fattened calf?

But he said to him, ‘Son thou art always with me, and all that is mine is thine;

but we were bound to make merry and rejoice, for this thy brother was dead, and has come to life; he was lost, and is found.’ ”

 

The words rose up off the page to greet his heart and kiss his eyes or rather...eye. “Thou art always with me and all that is mine is thine...he was lost and is found...”

 

Alexander Lavell Harris, a full grown man began to cry.

 

“Xander! Are you there, did you find it alright? I don’t want to miss the previews.  And there’s still popcorn to buy and those little chocolate covered raisons.”  Greata laughed at her own joke.  She continued: 

 

“Did you know the Russian word for raison was ezume?”

 

Xander took in a deep breath, laid the book on her bed and with sweater and cane in hand went to join the party.

 

“Hey!”  He called out to Greata.  “You’re never supposed to laugh at your own jokes. It’s some kind of comedian credo. Like step on a crack you’ll break your Mothers back.   Real bad ju ju.  You want I should give you some pointers?”

 

He followed the sound of Greata’s howling laugh like a trail of bread crumbs.

 

We begin again.

 

*

 

“If I am frightened,

than I can hide it.

If am crying,

I’ll call it laughter.

If I am haunted,

I’ll call it my imaginary friends.

If I am bleeding,

I’ll call it wine.

But if you leave me,

Then I am broken,

And if I’m broken,

Then only death remains...” 

 

Elvis Costello

 

9

 

Mourning

 

I think I know why it’s sunset, always sunset, because here you have it all spread before you with a butterknife.  Every color you ever saw, everything, everybody you ever knew all tangled together in a last gasp before goodbye.  The sunset is reality t.v.

 

Willow thought.

 

She stayed to the outskirts of the group, careful, always careful when her emotions were running a little high to give space, breathing space between herself and all else. She was always careful as to not influence or overwhelm by the reality of the powerful physical law of osmosis anyone around her.  Respect. Integrity and respect for others. Some deep breathing was needed here. And now look, do you feel that?  The air was beginning to soften around them.  And the gentle hum conducted through the earth and up their feet and sung in their spines—bodies like a tuning fork to empathy to empathize. 

 

Willow relaxed and sat at the edge of a spread blanket about ten feet from Buffy and Dawn.

 

It was beginning.

 

Buffy sensing her presence turned to her and smiled and looked at her with those strange new calm Buffy eyes.  She was a woman now, Willow thought.  Girl gone.

 

Willow smiled back, tears in her eyes, her heart in her throat.  Look.

 

Out of the deep hum, from the throng resonating in the ground rose the voice of Illyana-alaya. Her clear contralto was warbling in Elfese.  No one understood the exact meaning of the words in the mind, but the heart grasped and suckled at the invocation. 

 

Willow recognized the tenor, the feel of the introduction, the salutation offered to creation before casting.

 

It felt like this:

 

“See us, sweet creator, highest source of unconditional love,

we are here, right where you left us.  We have not forgotten you.  Can you see us?  How we love thee, be with us now, your creations in the very beginning of this, our creation so we may see only the truth, hear only the truth and speak only the truth as we sing the colors of our friends the dead…”

                                                                                                                                   

It began with blue, clear, high, clean and almost too sweet to be in this world.

 

William.

 

Buffy looked at Dawn and the others, could they tell it was him.  It was him at the very beginning of his life, the blue that draws no direct attention to itself.  A color that doesn’t stand out, that doesn’t seem important save for this:  It was the blue of the sky.  The sky holding its arms around the world.

 

It was the sparkling light that rang a single clear note through Spike throughout all the time she had known him.  She thought it had been vampire magnetism or charisma but it was this.  Her heart vibrated and thrilled with a mind of its own.  She could hear that clear note Illy sang and saw the backdrop against which everything else chugged along.  It’s quiet contribution holding everything together, not knowing how much you need it, rely upon it…love it…until it’s gone.  Missing sky blue William.  Ever-present, loyal, true, oh my god true blue—that’s where it comes from. The loyalty in Spike began in William.

 

The group of Elfin stood assembled about sixty feet away from Buffy and the crew sitting on blankets and bales of hay. They stood with their backs to Scoobies ET all to face the west, the setting sun and Sunnydale.               

 

Illy leading, voices entwined ascending into the blue sky smiling down on the rest of the world, Illy’s voice receded, and a high clear soprano surveyed the hills and valleys, mountains, trails and trees.

 

William sung, Spike would wait his turn and let the world roll by.

 

It was green now.  The deep sultry green of the ancient forest, new growth under the wisdom of canopy and the smokey look from beneath, between the trunks of trees the dark brown locks of hair—

 

“Jenny…”  Giles voice broke.  Then there was the awe and the sweet relief of being with beloved again--the other, softer side of self.

 

“It’s Jenny.  Can you see her?”    

 

They could. All in their own way and not in the way Rupert Giles owned her.  But it was the miracle of this night.  She was here absolutely, her hand in his.

 

“She’s taken my hand…”

 

Buffy started, and was a little alarmed at this.  She had recognized William, but had not felt him.  He certainly did not make an appearance.  But from Gile’s voice she knew that what he said was true.  Jenny.  His Jenny. It was so easy to forget how all of them had loved and lost.  She would never let her own life consume her to the point where she lost sight of this again.

 

And the truth in the trees turned inward, into trunk, into roots, into ground, into Earth, into

 

“Tara…”

 

Earth.

 

Of course, of course, of course…

 

So solid, so strong, the honest ground to walk upon.  And how I fell down when you were yanked out from beneath.     

 

“Tara baby…”  Willow crooned.

 

Buffy stole a sideways glance at Willow to check her dear friend out.  Willows eyes were alight with love and Buffy smiled at the glow on Willow’s face lit now by the growing bonfire.  Xander had been busy.  Of course.

 

Xander stopped tending the fire and stood abruptly when the singing turned from brown to orange.

 

“Jesse…Buffy!  Willow!” He almost shrieked.  “It’s Jesse!”

 

Jesse.  The first casualty in their long war.

 

“God I loved that guy.  I almost forgot.  How could I forget?”

 

“This is what we needed.  This is what we needed.”  Buffy took Giles hand in hers in an act of affection so spontaneous, strange mysterious water filled his eyes and did the drop and slide.

 

They stood together and all their souls sang silently out in concert.

 

No one can appreciate the fallen warrior more than the ones left behind frazzled and still in the fray.  We are here.  We saw you. We see you still.  We know how hard you tried.  How you added your effort to mine.  We know how much you wanted to live, but oh how much more you wanted a world worth living in! 

 

This is what it meant to be a Scoob to be aligned with the Scoobs.

 

And on it went. Joyous recognition now.  Colors changing, morphing, jump cutting and someone would call out a name or if they’d had forgotten the name they would say: “It that guy, you know the dummy, you know—

 

“Sid.”

 

“Yeah the dummy who killed the demon on talent night.  Remember?”

 

Or.

 

“It’s my biology teacher, Dr. Gregory--Giles, he was no nice to me when I really needed it—“          

 

“Yes, I remember…he was a good man…”

 

Beige.

 

“Philip…Philip Henry…hello old man…”  Giles whispered almost to himself.

 

“It’s Chloe!”  Vi shrieked.  “You guy’s its Chloe!  Chloe! Chloe...”

 

Chloe is pink.  Too tender for this world, but how we need this color in the spectrum how we need pink.  Chloe.

 

Yellow.

 

“Mom.  Mummy…”

 

Dawn and Buffy drew close together to listen to the harmonic joy that was, is Mom.

 

The yellow now ascending into something golden…white gold shining and…bright--

 

“Buffy.”  Willow gasped.  “Buffy it’s you…”

 

A stunned Buff shook her head…but I’m here and that can’t be me anyway, I don’t look like that…besides I’m here…”

 

 

“But you fell in battle…”

 

Twice, no one said.

 

Giles, Willow, Xander, Dawn buffeted around their Buffed out one as if to remind themselves though fallen, she was here, shining still, but in quite the solid three dimensional way.

 

Buffy looked into the mirror.  No one should see themselves like this.  Or. Or.  Everyone should.

Then we could all accept love when it came, we would love ourselves enough, know ourselves to be worthy, to be strong …enough, and not waste all that bloody time.  Did she just think “bloody?”

 

Gold sun in a blue sky.

 

Buffy and Spike, Spike and Buffy and there is Grant a light green and Molly rose red and Amanda, purple, purple and KENDRA!  Loud base and bump of burnt umber Kendra! Cassie, Cassie is ivory and Eve is here and not lying on the floor in that motel room she’s here and amber always and with a violet trim—and Lynn who loved light red and Annabelle sharp in chartreuse--that Monk, THAT Monk--ah his name was Aloysha, we never knew, he’s pumpkin orange and there’s dark plum Jonathan and all, and all held against the blue sky, sometimes clear, sometimes the blue rain that crashed to earth in a downpour, sometimes the light rain, that fell steadily, fell incrementally, insidiously, insinuating itself into a flood rising, rising, until the world was overwhelmed by…

 

“Spike.”  Giles said it that ‘tone’ but touched now with amusement and…something else…

Respect perhaps at the power and energy contained in water, at the gradual but complete transformation directed by a single focused will but made foaming with spirit.

 

And through the rain a secret was played, there, do you hear the intro music for the big number and now jumbled and confused but so sincere in it’s effort that the rest of the world is crashed to a standstill when it speaks the truth.

 

They spoke almost all at once.

 

“Anya.  Ahnyanka. Ahn.  (short for honest) made-up-maiden-name-Jenkins.

 

Xander said nothing, but nodded.  So proud, so proud of his girl.  Her almost desperate need to understand.  To feel love. To be loved.  Standing at the end to defend one insignificant male-boy.  Take back the night.  Take it all back and stand upright without even thinking about it.

 

This is what it means to be a human being.

 

Her crescendo lit a roar, her desperate struggle to transmute the pain of being alive; this was the earths struggle itself in dealing with the human life that crawled upon it. That pain is the earth’s pain and pain as it does--pain leads to anger, to the boiling point that needs expression, NEEDS so badly to vent or the whole shebang will cave and crash. This is the violent shrug to obliterate the gentle hand that would calm a temper.  Don’t wanna calm down! 

NEED, NEED, NEED

To blow

The tops off volcanoes,  earth quake rattle and roll, spike me, hit me harder don’t wanna let go of the blow, hurri-cane me, storm the sea, blue water crashing now tidal wave high, turbulent and uncontrollable. 

Smashing vessels.  Dangerous, frightening, murderous, murderous unthinking black to dark blue to black, to black, to black and blue--to be back in blue...  

 

Revelation.  Behind every act of destruction, behind every, smash and grab, every evil act, every serial killer, every joy taken in destruction is…pain.  Pain is the catalyst evil uses when it preaches, converts. Just or unjust, not relevant, it is, quite simply true.  Pain. This will be good to remember the Scoobies thought.  

 

An illness in the body will cook it to a fever until you sweat it out, wait the virus out in a battle of wills.  Will you, won’t you, nil you, naught you, not you, BUT I, but me, I, my choice, I choose, I CHOOSE!

 

Sweat out the virus, the pain--use the blue water to ease, to loose the toxins from mind, soul, spirit and body.  And when the fever brakes and the storm stills:  see the air is so clear?  See the blue sky?  Blue sky, blue sea and all the shades in-between. 

 

And all this for me?  You broke a sweat so I could see sweet.

 

Sailors set sail to a blue sea fall in love with water and sky and never look back  

 

And this is why Buffy had been afraid to love him.  She would be out to sea and never need for another thing, not family nor friends just, the rolling, mesmerizing, violent, serene, destructive, ambiguous, loving complete embrace—

 

“Who is that?”  It was Willow asking.   No one knew. 

 

Oh god…no one knew him, not at all. No one knew his secret better nature. And she, Buffy only got it now because he was in her heart.  Dawn spoke low. 

 

“It’s Spike isn’t it?”  She loved him too.  Buffy nods. And Dawn repeats it for everyone to hear. They gotta know they oughta know who this was.

 

And now it was the sun rising, golden, golden, effulgent shining, a path lit over the water easing, calming, persuading, inspiring the black and blue night to begin again.  The sun roasted water and sky, changing the color of both by proximity alone, just by being close by--blue became gold and green and pink and yellow and purple, and, and, and…this is why Spike had been afraid to love her.  He could smell the change happening, toasted, roasted by the sun but went ahead and did it anyway. He loved her anyway.  He loves her still.

                                                                 

Illyana-alaya sang it so.

 

It felt…alive.

 

And then:  “Oh my god, his eyes are blue.” Buffy laughed.  Well, duh.

 

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

 

They were gathered, huddled around the bonfire back behind the barn.  Humans, Elfins and Clem.  They sat quietly, spatters of subdued conversation here and there then quite suddenly someone would remember something about someone that would induce a chuckle or the hiccup of a sob—but it was all good.  It was goodbye and hello again.  It was good to remember, respect and release.  And now the whole world knew about their friends.  They had felt it.  They had felt the news travel around the world and the Scoobies sat humble in their gratitude for service rendered and the gift of their history being conducted energetically throughout the globe and cosmos and even—hey, why not throw in, beyond all time and space in-between?

 

It was all of the good.   Remember, respect and release.  The new 3 R’s of Scooby philosophy.

 

It had felt alive.

 

Buffy looked and liked looking at the Elfin sitting at ease next to her friends.  Somehow she had thought they would slip away after the singing but no.  Now she realized that singing the souls of the Scoobs beloved was such an intimate act, that they had become one.  One of ‘them’ now.  In with the inner circle.  The new Scooby gang forever and a day.  As if to cement the deal, Greata’s blackberry brandy was being passed, chugged, sipped or dumped into cups of tea or coffee.  There was Kahulia for coffee but some went the brandy way.  There was also some kind of Elfin nectar.  Incredibly sweet though, Buffy sipped at it and let out an

 

“Ahhhwooo…”

 

The Elfin giggled.  They stood almost as high as average humans, but were very slim and impossibly demure.  Even the male posturing was so precious.

 

Spike would have lost his mind.    

 

Buffy was suddenly so overwhelmed by a wave of loving gratitude for her friends, her family, Illy and the others whose names she’d never remember unless they were repeated as needed.

 

Illy and her amazing gift.  All the Elfin could sing souls.  But Illy was able to touch and render the complex tapestry that is Spike and Spike synonymous with world, with life lessons.  How did she do that?   It had to have cost her.  You need to be open to sing open. What a risk she took in opening herself to Spikes nature.  (Any different than yours?)

 

Perhaps that is what fueled her respect and gratitude.  Opening to something evil, and make no mistake, Spike was, and hoping, hoping there was enough, that that spark she guessed was there would be enough to balance the black.   Buffy knew her own reason for opening to Spike. For letting him in.  But why would Illy?  It was such an amazing gift and service to offer…well, until this evening, to strangers.  Why did she do it?

 

“So how did you know Spike?”

 

It was Dawn. 

Speaking the secret thought aloud to break the peace.  Everyone froze.  No really. They really did.  Wherever, whatever was going on seized up tight.  Something terrible could happen now.  Poor Dawn--would she be remembered as the one who sucked it up and asked out loud what they all wanted to know or, OR be the one who delivered the death blow to a miraculous night.

 

Buffy spoke cautiously into the void.  “Dawn…”

 

“How funny...” Illy said.  “It is almost…’dawn’.” 

 

And she pointed to the skyline.  Indeed the velvet blue black of night sky was muted now.  Illy continued, “And I always bow to synchronicity.  In honor of the dawn I shall answer Dawn.  There was gentle relieved laughter.  And now they all settled down, drew in closer to hear her low voice, the gathering quiet before a story.

 

“This is a story that must be told in the dark and so I’ll tell it quickly. And it is a story that must be told truthfully to feel it properly.  I’ll tell what I remember, what I thought and what I guessed and be done before the sun.” 

 

Giles leaned forward, head down, in full listening mode. Buffy stared into the fire. And she knew that any which way around this was going to hurt.  And as if to confirm this, Illy began. 

                                                                                                       

“The Vampire--not yours, not now…’It’…The Other.  The Other one.  ‘It’ wanted to discover how it was the Elfin glowed. Where did that pretty light come from? And so.” 

 

Beat.

 

“’It.’ The Other.  ‘It’ was torturing three of my children slowly, so slowly to death.  The process was slow, to see, to find out.  ‘It’ was fascinated, determined to find out where the light came from.  And so it went from one to another of my children, peeling them, their skin, to see?  Is it there?  ‘It’ would ask.  Hee hee, ho no, how about here?  ‘It’ would laugh. ‘You are so shiny little thing, maybe it comes from here.  If I cut you, burn you, will your mother feel it too?’  ‘It’ would look at me and say:  ‘she is feeling something…but is it emotional pain or true empathic pain…hmmm? Let’s find out for sure.  There has to be no doubt.  NO DOUBT! Let’s find out for sure…try again, try again.’ ”

 

“This went on and on…Hendsrick, Amalya, Mani; my small children made smaller still through loss of flesh and blood and bone.  ‘It’ would tie off a finger to prevent bleeding too quickly and—chop. ‘It’ would put ‘It’s head down and drink the blood trickling as if from a fountain.  And laugh with…”

 

Beat.

 

“And we…me and my three other little ones, my Tomi, Buckne, Clarsii, all across, all forced to watch and wait…our turn.”

 

Illy stopped.  Kept breathing, stayed in the zone, the monotone of recall.

 

“It was evil beyond recall.  Nothing, no sliver of humanity remained in ‘It’.  I could not see any part of value in the human it once was.  What kind of human being could be so black as to cast no glimmer?” 

 

Illy sang out as she did that night 128 years ago from the top floor of an old dried up estate in Germany, in the Black Forest.  In supplication she had sung in Elfin:

 

“Oh creator!  Oh creator! How I love thee!’--I sang in my heart ‘see us here! If it is indeed our time to be released and walk the world no more I bow, I bow, but not polluted, not at the hands of such a thing as It.  The Other. I claim this from divine source of love within my being and from the center of my free will choice.”               

 

Three Elfin rose from where they sat around the fire to stand behind Illy.

 

“My song pierced the darkness of ‘It’. The Other and it howled in rage and came at me—“

 

“A bottle flew through the air--I remember it so clearly…” 

 

The Elfin male standing to Illy’s extreme right spoke.  “This is Buckne speaking and I was there and I saw it spin over and over, liquid spill from the open end as it spun—strange what one remembers…”

 

Tomi picked up the story.  “The bottle smashed ‘It’ on the back of the head with such force ‘It’ was knocked it to the ground to lay in front of us and we saw him…”

 

“The William one was standing almost falling down laughing in the doorway.”

 

“I christen thee ASSHOLE!”  Clarsii added.  “That is what he said.”

 

Illy was in control of herself again, enough now to continue the story. 

 

“I could see by his field, his energy field--that he was a very young childe. Very young.  Too young to assault such a thing as ‘It’.  I could see he had cuts and bruises and had been in a fight or fought upon.  Are these the signs of a warrior or someone just too stupid to live long?  Is this what my song had called forward?”

 

Tomi spoke quietly almost inaudible.  “I saw him watching us…cocking his head to listen, he was listening from down the hallway--before the bottle flew.”

 

Illy continued speaking what she had thought that night.

 

“So maybe it was planned, or planned so fast it was impulsive, that’s alright, impulsive could work in our favor.  We all watch to see what happens next.”

 

“‘It’. The Other jumped to it’s feet and him, William supplicated ‘It’ with laughter…”

 

“Oops…Musta slipped…nah, it didn’t slip—just a love tap.  I’m bored.”  Clarsii in the zone of recall speaks William’s words. 

 

“He strolled swollen faced into the room like he hadn’t a care and looked at us in almost amusement.”  Illy said and Clarsii continued:

 

“Fightin’ the good fight again, eh?”

 

Illy took up the words ‘It’ spoke.

 

“Artisrty, William, always artistry, something you could never begin to appreciate—“

 

“Oh I’m an artist alright.  Who can make who scream louder?  You with these little things you poke at with a knife—or me poking our Dark Goddess until she screams …my name…”

 

“‘It’ turned away from us and seized him by the throat and threw him across the room hitting the wall with a crack.  He got up laughing.  The laughter was directed toward ‘It,’ but his eyes looked straight into mine and with such evenness I understood his intention, I heard him think to me:  ‘Run’. I heard him say to ‘It’ this:”

 

“I know you can bang me better than that.”

 

I saw ‘It’s’ eyes light up and ‘It’s’ lips smile.  ‘It’ liked the way he bounced back.  And I understood how he had stayed alive as a young childe in ‘It’s’ company. 

 

Itwasn’t stupidity. 

 

I remember thinking, if I get out of here; he’s going to be one to watch.

 

But before ‘It’ could get it’s hands on him.  A female ‘It’ came into the room--dark and tall and ‘It’ grabbed her in an arm lock and dragging her out of the room ‘It’ said:

 

“As much as I enjoy hearing you scream in pain William, I think I’ll enjoy your pain at hearing her scream…more.”

 

‘It’ left and He just stood there looking at us for a while as if he could kill us.  When her screaming started he stopped standing and then moved very fast.  He undid bindings around my hands—“

 

“He shook each one of us as if to wake us up and opened the shutters that hung on the window.  It was almost sunrise.”

 

“NOW or never.” Clarsii intoned as William

 

“I stood staring at him.” Illy said

 

“You can make this jump easy.  I’ll toss those ‘uns down to you.” It was Clarsii again

 

“He pointed at us.”  Tomi said in his small voice.            

 

 “I went to the window to look down, yes I could make it, an adult Elfin could make that jump, my children, no.  I would have to go first. I would have to catch them.  I went to Hendsrick to unbind him from the chair he was tortured in.  He said—“

 

“No not them.  Even with daylight coming, you won’t get half a mile away from Angelus. ‘Sides I’m burning the place down to cover your tracks, you can’t be bleeding, soddin’ blood all over the place. Back track through the woods the way he brought you here and he’ll never be the wiser.  But not them, you can’t bring them.  Bring the mostly dead ones with you and you’ll all be dead, me too, an’ I fancy a long undead life.”

 

“I stood firm, resolute, ‘I will not leave without all my children’ I say to him, looking into him, into the eye for that part of him I could get to bend my way, to my will.  William’s face relaxed completely and I had him, I thought I did—but then a blur, I only saw a blur move to Hendsrick, snap his neck,  Amalya, snap her neck, Mani, snap his neck.  Just like that.  He walked to the side of the window, taking a care to watch for the sunrise.”

 

Clarsii spoke Spike speak:

 

“If you want to live it has to be now.  I need time to set the fire and get Dru out.  The others in the barn, you’ll have to get them out yourself.  But it has to be now, right now. Or I tie you back up and tell the Poof I got tired of hearing those three, those dead ‘uns whine.  Tis’ in your hands, but you’ll not take me down with you—“

 

 Drucilla screamed.

 

“NOW, BLOODY, NOW!”

 

I moved.  I called,

 

“Clarsii”  Clarsii said.

 

“Buckne.”  Buckne said.

 

“Tomi.”  Tomi said.

 

“I went out the window without looking back, couldn’t look back and had to believe he would do what he said and drop my children out to me.  (What if he doesn’t do it--what if I’m alive, but alone without them—then only madness, only madness...)

                                      

But he did.  Each one. 

 

“Cold hands, I remember he had cold hands, cold hands like winter right around…here…” Tomi pointed to his chest.

 

“I stood on the ground and looked him in the eye and choking on my anger, my grief, my pain--I stood looking upon the one who killed, who saved, my children and I saw He would be one to watch, he could be somebody.  I took a risk and I called out the bond in the olde way: “Tell me your name.”

 

“William well…er…Spike…”

 

“William the Spike I, Illyana-alaya owe a boon to you and yours.   By my blood I offer this with the creator as my witness, I commit this.”

 

He looked for a moment from the open window down at me standing on the ground. His expression was completely unreadable.  His actions--incomprehensible.  He killed three of my children, he saved three of my children.   He killed them to save us, and saved us for…what?  For spite? For fun?  For game?  For love? For song? For creator?  For the last of creations, for we few survivors?  I will never know and I was there.”

 

“I know why.” Clarsii’s voice rang with something new, something true she had discovered in the telling, in playing Williams part in the play.  Everyone waited to hear.

 

“He did it because you were beautiful.”      

 

Yes.

 

Everyone thought at the same time.

 

The sun came up and Illy stopped speaking, she nodded her head and they all sat together watching the earths star.  And if you had never seen it before, if you had never seen it change--who would have guessed that from the humble beginnings of its first light, the sun could rise so high and hot and claim the day for the life of plants and animals, for the death of plants and animals, for fun and for farts. 

 

*

 

10

 

Morning

 

Greata had insisted on making breakfast for everyone.  She wouldn’t take ‘no’ just wouldn’t take ‘no’ which was good because no one wanted to give it.  Everyone must stay for breakfast (and what do Elfin eat--does anybody know?--and-lets-go-vegetarian-just-in-case.)  Everyone must stay. And so three picnic tables were put end to end and two more tables besides were dragged from the barn.   Xander and Buckne were seeing to the manhandling of outdoor furniture. Bonding and already engaged in a friendly male one-up-man-ship.

 

Greata took charge of the kitchen, of course and soon it was potatoes hashed and American fries, eggs scrambled (real, real vegans? Or is eggs ok?—that’s all right they aren’t fertilized eggs--oh so it’s o.k.—yeah).  Grapes, this was California after all, chunks of cheese, melons--apple and blackberry pie.

 

Feeding a large crew already living in-house meant plenty of food, prepared or prepped and available and took relatively little effort to assemble.  And what could be called effort could be called joy. Females inside chattering and bustling the males scattering to find chairs enough or sit down things so all could be seated within close proximity of each other.  Of course these jobs weren’t gender specific, but they were at Greata’s place so they bowed to the custom of her generation.  Not that she probably even noticed.

 

 Buffy was designated coffee pourer--but not coffee maker.  Dawn had been very clear about that.  Buffy was not to be let near the making of the brew.

 

“You all just wouldn’t be happy, no not all.”

 

Dawn was joking of course but Buffy noticed something tight in her voice, but Dawn wouldn’t give her eye contact, so it would have to wait for later.

 

Now it was all about the brew, the bright brown elixir that was coffee.  She was the pourer--but richer (hee hee) for being able to look at everyone and greet and re-meet and thank all if not in actual words, than with cups of hot coffee.  (Unless you like it cold?  Would you like an iced coffee? Cuz I can do that?)

 

Coffee was poured and the food was beginning to hit the tables when a dark green Monte Carlo pulled up the drive and parked in front of the garage next the morning gathering.    Faith burst from the driver’s side.

 

“’B’!  ‘B’! I drove slamming it all the way, I had the most fuckin’ amazing slayer dream—“

 

Her voice cut off as she surveyed those assembled for the breakfast party, eyebrows popping.

 

“Uh, maybe it wasn’t just a dream….”

 

Buffy put the coffee pot down.  “You dreamed us?  You were here?  Faith…” Buffy grabbed her in a slayer bear hug. “I’m so glad you were here for that…”

 

Faith choked out.  “What did the tooth fairy put unnnnder your pillow B?  And can I have some—uhhhh gonna need those ribs”---

 

But Buffy wouldn’t let go. She opened her heart and let Faith feel it.  On a sigh, Faith relaxed and hugged her back.  Buffy spoke low. Repeating what she had said.  “I’m so glad you were here.  I’m so glad you are here.”

 

She felt Faith nod and let her go.  Faith said nothing but looked down and coughed a little to clear the lump in her throat.  Time for a diversion. 

 

“Hey look who I picked up hanging around the outside of a hospital.”

 

Robin Wood got slowly out of the passenger side of the car, healed and still healing. Buffy inclined her head toward him.

 

“Robin.”

 

“Buffy.”

 

“You’re looking spry.”        

 

“More like ‘sprung’—was going nuts in there—“

 

Greata hollered. “Over here, over here, haul your conversation and your asses over here.  This is where the real booty is.  Come on, breakfast is served and it’s every man for himself.”

 

Introductions were made all ‘round.  Faith and Robin were made to feel welcome and at ease in the midst of the already obvious familiarity of this odd group.

 

They ate for hours, setting the relaxed pace of a long brunch. They were lingering at the table over the donut, pie and of course coffee again cycle.  Giles was in heaven a droolin’ and a gog at the mass quantity of info gathering he’d been all a bustle about.  He was assuming the role of patron, and Buffy felt, well, kinda proud of Dad. He made every one feel so at ease, hooking one party up to another when conversation lagged.  He stopped, up left of Buffy where she was sitting at a table next to Illy.

 

Buffy squinted up at him and spoke so low only he could hear.  “Check out Willow…”

 

Willow was seated across from Buffy and Illy and staring transfixed, listening avidly to all Illy said.

 

Giles brows raised slightly.  “You don’t think…”

 

Buffy cut him off “Oh no not that…starstruck.  Our Willow is totally starstruck.”

 

Giles smiled in agreement. They both turned their attention to Willow when she said.

 

“So, can…um, can you, that is, can anyone…um learn how to do what you do? What you did last night.  Can just anybody learn how to soul sing?  Can people who can’t even sing that is…really at all, or that is, well--can someone like that learn?”

 

“Anyone willing can learn.”  Illy regarded Willow with a keen eye. “You are Willow, yes?”

 

Willow nodded the affirmative.  She was definitely Willow.

 

“Willow is a good name, as a solid tree you have the innate ability to bend with the forces that would see to break you.  Willow. Your name also has willing, a willingness to it.  And anyone willing can learn anything.”

 

Illy’s answer seemed to satisfy her, for the moment. In the next moment the phone rang. Buffy almost rose to get it, but was stopped when Vi called out.

 

“It’s o.k. I put the machine on.”

 

She listened with half an ear for any message being left that might be important while laughing at Clarsii instructing Xander about how to put a bun in Willow’s hair.

 

“It’s just I’ve never seen you with your hair up Wil—“

 

The answering machine discharged a long beep, clicked and then the voice was there, low in volume but clear enough.  Clear enough.

                         

“Buffy…it’s me…“

 

Oh shit, shit, shit, just don’t say your name.   

 

“It’s Angel…”

 

Why did he have to say his name, like, she wouldn’t, you know, recognize his voice?

 

“Lorne picked up something big, that something big was happening in your neck of the woods. Not necessarily bad, but…well, just thought I’d call and give you a head’s up.  And if you need anything, anything at all, just call, you know what? Call anyway. Let me know you’re o.k. one way or the other, matter of fact if I don’t hear from you…ah this is about 10:15 if I don’t hear from you by say 2:00 I’m coming out.  Can always catch me at my cell.  Talk soon.”

 

Click. Disconnect.  Mercifully it finally ended.  Buffy looked around the table.  The conversation was still lively around the table.  The machine had been so low, maybe no one had heard—she could quick, duck inside call him back say all was ok—

 

--“We have to go…”

 

Illy’s hand covered Buffy’s as it lay on the table.

 

No,no,no,no,no,     

 

“I can call him back quick, he won’t come out—“

 

“We have to go.” Illy spoke louder now so that Buchne and Clarsii heard her.  Immediately they moved gently among the other Elfin spreading the word.  Within 20 seconds they had left their places and conversations and stood loose on their feet ready to leave.  Illyana-alaya had spoken.  Very impressive.  But of course it was all survival skills, heightened, because of the voice on the answering machine.

 

Buffy stood along with Illya and spoke quietly to her.

 

“You don’t have to go you know, he would never—“

 

“It doesn’t matter what he would do.”  Illy spoke a little sharply, and then softened as Buffy winced.  “Forgive me, let me speak again, it doesn’t matter what he would do or not do, if he finds out we are here, that we are alive—It. The Other would know too.  You think of them being as two separate beings, we know them to be one.  Has not William shown this to you?”

 

Buffy took her hands like a greedy child.

 

“Will I ever see you again?”

 

Illy looked surprised and slightly puzzled.  “You are my sister now; if you call me from your heart I will hear you.  The same is true from me to you.  We must leave now.  If ‘It’ has a Seer we cannot afford to stay in one place too long.  Please Buffy, I love you, let us go, and don’t make me regret taking this risk. Please, tell everyone to say nothing of us, we will be able to... what’s the phrase:  ‘go public,’ soon, but not yet.”

 

“I’ll get a blood oath from everyone.”

 

Buffy hugged her and then kissed Illy’s cheek which really seemed so presumptuous—sorta like calling god ‘Mack’. But she did it anyway.  Illy turned to leave—.

 

--“Take me with you.”

 

“Wil!” 

 

“Willow!” 

 

“No!   Wil” and various other sounds of shock and distress.

 

“Please I wanna come with you. Please take me.”

 

“Willow, do you know what you’re asking?”  This was Giles, concern and hurt and already feeling the pain of yet another possible loss.

 

“Please Giles, they’re in a hurry, can’t talk or explain, it just feels so right.  There’s no body else to teach me, there is no one else to help me--like in that movie ‘crunching tiger, hidden drag.’--If I can learn anything, about what to do with myself, how to be, this is how I can do that. What I did with the slayers, that was the beginning but I need control—“

 

“You are unstable.”  Illy spoke kindly.

 

“I’m learning how to be grounded, see?  Feet seeded like a sequoia.”

 

Illy looked. Indeed they were.

 

“You are emotionally erratic.”

 

“Was Spike any different?” 

 

Zing. There might be something to this girl. Illy nodded to the Elfin.  The Elfin sang a single note that felt for all the world like:  ‘goodbye.’  They waved, the Scoobs waved back and the Elfin walked enmasse down to the vehicles still parked on the lawn by the road

 

“Please take me with you, I’m good with computers and stuff, and…and…I don’t eat much—“

 

“Can you leave now? Right now?”

 

“Yes.” 

 

“Willow, we need you.”  Buffy was almost crying--not again, not again, not Willow gone, not gone…

 

Willow hesitated; the old pull of obligation was so strong.

 

“Buffy.  I need this.”

 

“If you can leave now, right now, then run on down and join Tomi, maybe you can help him with his hard drive problem, this techno magic,” Illy sighed, “How one needs to keep up.”     

 

As she spoke, Willow embraced Xander, Giles, Dawn and Buffy.

 

“Will you come back?”  Buffy whispered into her neck.

 

Willow stepped back feeling the need to run before Illy changed her mind.

 

“Who can say?”  She answered, smiling, crying and laughing too, she turned and ran past Illy down to the van where Tomi hugged her and helped her inside. Giles spoke.

 

“You are taking a risk with her, but you know that…”

 

“As Willow pointed out, it will not be my first, nor, I wager.” She winked at Giles.  “My last…”

 

She nodded to them all, but addressed Buffy.

 

“You will have to decide completely and forever.  You can not ride two horses at once and those two will never run in tandem. When in doubt,” Illy gestured subtly toward Buffy’s womb so only Buffy took her meaning.  “Let the majority rule, we are, after all, in America.  The pull of destiny is so strong but free will choice is your divine right.”  She laughed.

 

“Until we meet again.” 

 

A horn honked from the Chevy Blazer. 

 

“Oh Clarsii will never let me hear the end of this.  Had to honk to get the ole lady going yadda, yadda, I’m going to hear about this for days.”

 

Illy began moving her arms in and energy sweep, clearing the air and ground of any Elfin energy patterns or Willow traces that could be tracked, as she did this. her son and honor guard, Buckne stayed behind and spoke to Buffy.

 

“When I saw him throw that bottle, that way…back then, I knew who I wanted to be.”

 

Without another word Buckne picked up a butter knife and looking for a target, spotted the pole for the outdoor overhead lamp about 200 feet away in a clearing.  He tested the heft of the small blade and then let it fly.  Over and over it rolled coming to a slamming stop buried up to the hilt dead center in said pole.  Pole-axed.     

 

“Ah Buck, stop showing off,  Good bye all—“  Illy continued her energetic cleaning and clearing, Buck tossed a grin to Buffy that looked to be strangely like a Spike smirk and took off in a swaggering run to catch up to his Mother. 

 

They walked to the front of the house and stood watching the vehicles as they pulled onto the road, braced for a moment, everyone held their breath and then the caravan rolled away. 

 

Willow was hanging out from an open window.  Strangely not waving, just watching and maybe weeping.  It was difficult to tell from so far away.

 

Morning sounds, little birds in the trees doing their best to galvanize the day.  As one they all thought this:

 

Dear god, how life can change so very quickly.  But it is good to know. it is good to know that separation isn’t always caused by death.  That sometimes it can be of the good.  This is a good thing, isn’t it?  Watching the beloved go off to school, our loss is her gain.  It’s  natural.

 

“Oh shit, I gotta call Angel.  Hey Giles! Illy winked at you!  You got a winky.  What do you all think?  You think Illy likes Giles? ” 

 

Her friends took up the patter and teasing as they began clearing the table.  Buffy went into the house so pleased with herself for setting the mid morning entertainment in motion. 

 

The phone.   

      

  

*

 

“It’s a sky blue sky

Satellites are out tonight

Let x equal x…”

 

Laurie Anderson

 

11

 

The Lull

 

Day 33

11:15 a.m.

 

 

Angel sat at the high end of the long wide expanse of highly polished wood. He did a little finger drum thumping. 

 

Pllldddaadaadadadum bump.

 

Just a nice little rhythm to keep him company in the big sunlit office.   He may never get used to that.  Not bloody likely. 

 

See now, that’s funny, every since the end, his catch phrases had been popping up in Angels mind.  Just don’t go saying them out loud.  Now what would Freud have to say about a symptom like that.   Not guilt.  What had he to feel guilty about in regard to Spike?

 

Maybe it was nostalgia.  Angel couldn’t quite believe that he was grieving over the roasted vamp but he couldn’t shake the feeling of something gone forever and he had to admit to himself, Spike was synonymous with Sunnydale, more so than himself—Spike gone, Sunnydale--gone too.  It made sense, and was maybe even right—but he still felt, well, a loss.  

 

An era lost. The slayer had become them slayers.  Sunnydale gone and if Spike had been synonymous with Sunnydale and Sunnydale was Buffy--did that made her synonymous with Spike?  Inductive reasoning?  Whatever will I attempt next.

 

Angel sighed.

 

Nostalgia, that’s all it was.      

 

He looked at the sunlight playing on the table while he waited for the call.  Hmm what kind of wood is that?  An odd purple brown with gold and red highlights.  He studied the table suddenly captivated.  Hey wait a minute.  This table appeared to be seamless.  He stood up to study it better, walking around it, ducking his head and checking under.  It was seamless.  That meant it had to have come as a plank from one single tree.  What kind of tree these days could grow so wide?  And the answer; Sequoia, or the rainforest or…he shook his head.  They were unholy evil bastards after all and it would be a piece of undead poetry to have a testament like this in the office of the big cheese. 

 

That’s me.

 

Should I get rid of it?   Huh. What the hell.  Damage was done, and it was a damn fine looking table and….wait another minute.  How did they get this table in here?  The door was only say six feet wide, the center of the table was at least 8 feet. Plus take in the length and having to swing it around and….

 

There must be another entrance into this room.  Perhaps there is a wall that slides in on itself, something like that. Well, well, well, what else hadn’t Lilah told him.  Plenty. He was sure.  But he wasn’t surprised.

 

First on the questionnaire had to be:  ‘Why had she given him that Amulet?’

 

Of course the new credo was to serve, serve, serve—so humble, so verrry humble, in her best Uriah Heep. So he could possibly buy that she had served him in order to save Sunnydale which would have been in his interests.  Because, after all, what’s an apocalypse or two, another one could be brewing around the corner.  But had she intended for Angel to wear the Amulet?  She must have known that he would have—if Buffy hadn’t stopped him—if another candidate had not been available.  But how could she have counted on those factors?  So the real question was, why bring him in here, go through all this song and dance just to kill him? 

 

Seems so convoluted.       

 

His cell phone rang.

 

As he picked it up off the table and swung it open, he wondered idly, does Dru know? 

 

Probably.

 

“Hello…Buffy?”

 

 

*

 

 

12

 

…The Front

 

Day 47

6:03 a.m.

 

Ronnie Jablonski would be turning 45 next month in August.  But mile markers in life meant nothing to her now, ever since her family ceased to exist.  So did the importance attached to the odd ends of the picks and pains of day to day life. Being 45 meant nothing to her now. Absolutely nothing.  It held the same empty space that her dead nieces lay in. Her two precious girls killed by some monsters that never should have existed outside of a Ridley Scott romp. Vampires. 

 

She had taken the girls in after her sister had died.  Gave up her life on the road as a Stage Manager, a life she had dearly loved, for a steady job, a steady home for her two dear girls and never looked back.  Remember Lot’s wife.

 

Nancy and Svetlana were 16 and 20, respectively.  She had taken a midnight shift job so she could be there for the girls during the day.  But it was all about the night, wasn’t it?  She knew that now.  And didn’t kick herself for not knowing it then.  No point in that nonsense.  The girls had stepped out for a moment, just a moment, 15 minutes tops to get some ice cream on a hot summer night.  Ronnie had come from work early, come home feeling strange and sick, something she just never did, ever, and saw the girls walking on the street, side by side, bumping into each other in a friendly way when the two vampires struck them down.

 

Almost without thinking, she used the weapon she was driving and drove up onto the sidewalk, startling one of the things, making it run off and pinning the other beneath the driver side front tire.

 

She hadn’t handled roadies for 15 years and not learned a few ‘people’ skills along the way.

 

All that, but it was too late.  The girls throats had been ripped out, jugulars gone. And she sat with them on the curb, waiting for the ambulance, sitting there, to be close to her girls, while staring at the snapping, snarling thing under her car.  When she thought back on it, that’s what bothered her the most.  The last moments on Earth with her beloved nieces and it was upstaged by that thing she felt compelled to stare at.   Had too. When the cops came, one of them knew what to do and quickly, without comment, he had staked the thing to dust.  She remembered that.  Always.  Because she had to believe that such evil could not exist, could not walk the face of the earth without recourse.  It just wouldn’t be fair.    

 

She didn’t mind a tough life.  Hell, she loved a fight.  But there had to be rules.  There had to be recourse.  God could never be that cruel…or lazy.

 

She had a choice.  Insanity or obsession.  And, granted, obsession might be just another version of tamed insanity.  But she could deal.  She could peel away all the roadblocks that said ‘don’t’.

 

She became obsessed, sold everything, bought a Chevy blazer, and camped out in the back. And because she lived in her car and called it ‘home’, she was protected at night by the “invite” clause in the vampire’s handbook.  Still, she took other precautions and wore the biggest, baddest, most blessed crucifix a charitable donation could buy.  Sprayed her car down in holy water and in the back was her stake out equipment for the road. There were boxes of supplies, survival kits, and of course her video equipment.  She would stake out a hot spot and tape the creatures of the night and their machinations. 

 

This is what she could do.  This was a thing she was good at.  Tape it all, edit and download it on to her web site.  Shatter ignorance.  Break the blissed out oblivion of the masses.  Information helped to break the ground for free will choice.  How can somebody use their free will choice if they don’t even know what the hell is going on?  Fight back.  Do it on the internet, cable access, whatever.  She would post eyewitness accounts and have the footage to back it up, if she had it.  Oh yeah, baby, she was in the game and a major player--1,500 hits a day and climbing. 

 

And now she didn’t give a dam, a hoot in holler or a holy moly about anything, except:

 

What in the hell, happened to Sunnydale? 

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

“Mud slide my ass…”

 

She realized with a smile that without the proper punctuation, that could be a rather unsavory invocation.  Be careful what you ask for Ronnie.  She always had a concern for the shape and condition of her body.  And all this laying about on a stakeout—well, softy, soft baby tissue to the touch .that’s what you’ve become.  She did, thank god, have the gift of amusing herself--which did not necessarily make her a ‘laughingstock’ (hee, hee).  With herself, being her own and best company and comfort, it was good she never bored herself, and kept the monologues a rockin’.

 

“Mudslide…this was no mudslide…”

 

It had been a little over a month and ‘They’ that is, ‘The Man’ hadn’t filled the deep and almost mile wide crater that was Sunnydale. ‘They’ hadn’t done that yet,the way ‘they’ did the site of the Oklahoma City bombing.  All guessing and clues related to the inconsistent presentation of available facts and been buried alive and forever under tar–-the new millenniums version of the prehistoric tar pit. 

 

Yahoo irony. 

 

But not here, not yet.   And so she camped out day and night, because you would be stunned silly at the kind and quality of material that just a little patience could reap. 

 

She saw him first in the pop aside view finder of her video camera that she had left running on a tripod.  Hmmm.  At first she thought it was an old tape running. Some old tape of…

 

“What’s this?”

 

She looked up to see, (mouth agape) at what had to be the most beautifully proportioned man she had ever seen.  And she had seen her share of actors, musicians and muscled roadies.  Her first thought was, well…how he fit together.  She was slack jawed astonished at the nonsequitur of a naked man crawling up and over the lip of the mysterious crater of ex Sunnydale.

 

Timing was everything.  Oh boy indeed. 

 

It was his beauty that kept her still. And of course she had to look at his danglies.  I mean there they were, all dangling. Venus out from the half shell, straight from the mind of Zeus, no wait that was Athena, and double wait, both of those were girls—was there a male version?

 

What is the masculine derivative for Venus - - Ve-nut?  Oh man. 

 

Not that he was huge or anything, but a lot of men, that is, their danglies, just look, well, awkward.  Like they don’t were to go or be, ‘should I stand up when a lady comes in the room?’ ‘Should I sit down?’   Just awkward. But on him, his danglies looked like a gift.

 

The mid morning sun was in his eyes, so he didn’t see Ronnie right away and this gave her a chance to make sure he was in focus and in frame, (and get some more ripe footage.)

 

The morning sun hit him like a spotlight and she should know she could pin point a spot light from the back of any theatre.  In the old days, that is.

 

His light brown hair was lit up to almost gold.  The light stroked the harsh straight plains of this face that were in contrast to a soft mouth in a very firm chin.  And those eyes.  Well, ‘gasp,’ was enough said.    

 

And power. Even in her dazed, discombobulated condition, she could feel power rolling away from him, in, well…waves. Power.  Charisma.

 

Who was he?

 

Could he possibly be a survivor?   Buried alive all this time?  But as soon as she got that thought she dismissed it—look at the condition of his body—there were scrapes and cuts but they looked new—probably from the climb. No signs of dehydration, or starvation.

 

A distraught family member returning to the scene of the crime—lost in grief?  Man. She knew what grief could do to you. (Insanity or obsession….hmmm, which one of these?)

 

“Hey Buddy....Hey...” 

 

She kept her voice low and soft, the one she used to woo stray kitty cats and she was good at it.  Being all alone on the road, her only companions were the wild things, the leftovers of this world.

 

“Hey Buddy….whatcha’ got going on over there?” 

 

He turned toward her voice and regarded her.  Not distraught, no he didn’t look in distress. More like – asleep. Yeah.  Svetlana used to walk in her sleep.  He was like that.  Absolutely.    

 

Don’t wake him up.  That was the rule.  Lead him gently to safety and let a sleepwalker wake up, gradual like.  O.K. Now that she knew what to do.  She did it.

 

 

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

 

 

They were standing at the back of her Blazer, tale gate open, rear glass up to help conceal him from, you know, from curious eyes and (the eyes in the sky).  Satellites. Government big time spooking. They gotta have this place staked out for surveillance.  Gotta. She would have.  If I was them that is and thank god I’m not.

 

She thought briefly about a hospital as she dressed him in one of her blue plaid lumberjack shirts.  She wasn’t a dyke, she really wasn’t she just liked guy type jobs and wearing guy clothes a little on the large side. Too large even for Buddy here.  She pushed him off the tailgate, and slipped the jeans the rest of the way up over his hips.

 

To hospital or not to hospital.   His pulse was steady, even after that climb.  ‘Sides the hospitals might still be staked out by ‘them’.  They might be looking for post trauma stress victims who might start talking.

 

Hey. Don’t take anything for granted in this world.

 

And.  Be honest.  He came crawling up out of there so maybe he was here when it happened or maybe he knew somebody and came back looking for them.  Got stressed out, took all his clothes off and ran amuck.  She looked at him closely.  He didn’t look dangerous, well yeah, actually he did kinda, but she knew how to take of herself.  Reflex check of the mace in right hand cargo pants, pepper spray in left.  Better than hand to hand combat any day of the week.  Dust and run.  Anyway, either way, this story was gonna get totally busted by her and he was the key.

 

“Dawn is the key”

 

That was him.  Was she talking out loud again?

 

“What’s that Buddy?  Dawn is the key?” 

 

She looked around at the morning.  Well it was past dawn, maybe he had come out here for some kinda dawn something.  She looked at him.  He was gone. Talking in his sleep.  But at least he was in there.

 

“You just need to rest a bit.  Let’s book the hell out here huh?  You game with that?  I can always drive you back if you left your car somewhere, cuz my insides are screaming go, go, go…”

 

She tucked him unresisting into the back of the Blazer where he could stretch out and pull himself together.

 

“I know what it’s like Buddy, I swear to god, I really do.  And you don’t wanna go to a nut hutch believe me you don’t, so we’ll book and you just take the time you need to pull it together, ok Bud?  And then, then, you can tell me all about it.   Alrighty?”  

 

Ronnie closed the rear gate as gently as she could to avoid making loud bangs and bops to make him blow his top.  In her best Bogart she recited (unoriginal but appropriate) 

 

“Buddy, I think this going to be the beginning of a beauuutiful friendship.”

 

And then she remembered another quote, a John Lennon classic from the era when Dick Nixon had him tagged and trailed.

 

“You’re not paranoid, if it’s true…”

 

Or something to that effect.  Man, her skin was screaming, go, cat, go...

 

She did.  Or rather, now, with her new booty in tow, they did.  Hmm, road trip. 

    

Ronnie Jablonski had no idea how right she was—well…um…maybe she did.    

 

 

*

 

13

Reconcile

 

Day 47

8:16 a.m.

 

 

“Dawn?”  “Dawn?”

 

No answer.  Buffy looked in the study to see if she had buried herself in there, no, dining room, no—she went to the foot of the stairs and called up—

 

“Dawn…Dawnie?”

 

No answer. What was going on?  Buffy could feel her around somewhere, she just wasn’t answering. Buffy climbed the stairs and walked down the upstairs hall to the room Dawn shared with Vi and Rona.  They loved being roomies.  Good on them. Buffy knocked softly on the door before entering.

 

“Dawn?  We gotta get ready to leave this afternoon, you want something to eat…?”

 

She was there standing by the window.  Poised and collected, with one hand on the curtain looking out onto the front yard. She seemed, calm, but Buffy could feel the tension coiled within her getting ready to spring.  She had been cool toward Buffy for the past week or so, ever since the memorial and Buffy had been waiting for her to pop the zit that was bugging her—maybe this would be it.

 

“Dawn, what’s up—I’m going into town, before we get going--do you wanna—“

 

--“Why Buffy?”

 

The intensity in Dawn’s voice stopped Buffy short.  It had the cool collected ring of wisdom and maturity.  As if Dawn had grown up over night.  Dawn continued talking to Buffy while she looked out the window, as if unable to face her, to look at her.    

  

“Just tell me why, and make it simple so I can understand it fast cause after last week, I really need to know.  Because…because I loved him too, you know, and I lost that.  I don’t mean what just happened; I mean this whole last year.  I cut him out of my heart, for you….and I lost my friend--maybe my only friend.  I know you’ll say all your friends love me, and maybe they do but he really liked me, he liked who I was, he would have liked me even if I wasn’t your sister.  I could feel that coming from him, I could feel it, so I lost a friend and maybe bad things happen, and people fall apart and I can accept that maybe he was evil sometimes and I didn’t want to believe it…but…but when you knew who he really was,  Is.  When you figured it out, and maybe he changed too, but when you knew who he was, what we felt last week—you could have given me my friend back. You could have explained…something.  And even if…you didn’t love him…I could have.  I did love him, maybe way before you, and I could have been his friend again when he needed help.  So twenty words or less, and maybe I totally broke that, by rambling on—just tell me why.

 

Buffy sat down; she smoothed out the wrinkles on her shorts.

 

“It’s so complicated.”

 

“No I don’t think it is.  You hated him so much for daring to love you that you had to punish him, what?  In everyway, all the time?  Even this past year, when you were helping him you told none of us about how he