Bequest
The room was messy, not filthy by any means, but it wore the distinctive look of a long time single males apartment. The bed was not exactly unmade, but with the haphazard way the comforter had been pulled straight was far from being truly neat. The same was true of the dishes in the sink, not the festering pile of moldy food you would find in the home of a mentally unstable old person, nor the piles of unwashed socks and underwear of a college boys dorm, but more then the couple of unrinsed plates a smart young couple might leave while the watched the end of their show or enjoyed a glass of wine.
The single male that lived in the room was currently in the bathroom, standing before the sink in his boxers and brushing his teeth rapidly with a toothbrush, pausing to rinse with a tooth mug and turning his face so that the single unpatched eye he possessed could inspect his pearly white teeth. Satisfied he rinsed the last of the toothpaste from his mouth and dumped the brush into its holder, glancing at his watch, a tired, battered looking old digital model with a strap that had begun to fray. Swearing he grabbed his jeans which had seen better days. Though not worn out by any means but were certainly nearing that day. He pulled a black T-shirt over his muscular torso.
"Late..." He muttered to himself, grabbing his keys and phone from the bedside as he walked from the bathroom into the living/sleeping area and towards the door. Glancing at the phone he frowned, seeing that he had a missed call. He'd check it later.
He liked the familiar feel of the vans seat against him as he sat for a moment, looking at the morning. It would be a good day today, of that he was sure. Slipping the key into the ignition, pulling slowly away from the curb and heading for the end of the street. The phone in his pocket vibrated and he rolled his eyes, pulling it out and glancing at the caller.
"Hey Willow!" he said, sliding his thumb to answer the call, and put her on speaker, "What's up?"
"Hi." Her voice was full of warmth, and he wondered why he didn't keep in touch more, but since he'd left all that behind it had just been that way. He eased the nose of the van into traffic, thankful that he could choose his own hours and thus avoid the madness of rush hour, "How's the weather?"
"Balmy..." He smiled, "I think its gonna be good down on the beach later...oh yeah..." he thought happily of the surfboard strapped to the inside wall of the van behind him, waiting for work to be finished, "How's things back home?"
He knew she was jealous of the Hawaiian weather even if she wouldn't be seen dead on a surf board.
"Oh…the usual…"
"What's up?" He kept his voice friendly, he was always there if she needed him but really he had better things to do then play word games.
"Uhh.. its...complicated." she paused then said in her real low thoughtful voice, "really really complicated...and...I…don't know how to say it.."
"Complicated? For Willow Rosenberg?" He laughed, "Come on, we've known each other for how long? Best pals forever..."
"Oh..." she breathed, "Its.." He gripped the wheel, suddenly worried.
"Willow! What's happened?"
"I'm flying you home tonight...on the Council dime…" She was crying, "Its...Oh JESSIE... I really need to see you."
He found a car waiting for him at the airport, the driver a typical council goon with close cropped gray hair and an expensive suit holding a printed sign for "McNally"
"Would you like me to take your bags sir?" he offered in an accent Jesse didn't recognize, all clipped, with hard constantans.
"Nah...I'm fine." he followed the guy to his car, a blacked out Mercedes. The guy even held the door for him. HQ was a in an old warehouse with offices above and as they drove inside Jesse felt a tingle pass over his skin from the magical charm that made the place 'dim', seen but unnoticed by those who walked past. The goon told him that "Miz Roz'nberg" wanted to see him right away and led him straight up to her office.
The guy knocked hard on her door and Jesse's hart left just a little when he heard Willows voice call out, inquiring who was there.
"Van Kemp, Miz.. I have him." The way he spoke made it sound like Jesse was in cuffs or something..
The door opened suddenly and Willow was enveloping him in her arms, hugging him close. He held her tight, not sure what could possibly have happened to make her drop her total cool infront of other Watchers.
"Watch the door." she told the goon who nodded as she pulled Jesse inside, shutting the heavy door and running the bolt.
"Willow…whats up?" He was genuinely worried.
"We have a big problem...Big opportunity… " She pulled him over to her desk, which was in full battle mode- two laptops and a pile of books along with copious notes. Jesse stiffened slightly, forcing a smile when he saw the blond girl sitting at the table, for just a moment it could have been Buffy, but then she looked in his direction and the illusion was broken by thick lensed glasses and the worst acne he'd ever seen.
"Hi..." the girl smiled gormlessly at him, every bit the geeky teenager, a trace of British on her accent, "You probably don't remember me...?"
"Jenny? Your all grow'd up!" He said, grinning his trademark grin, "Man...I'm getting old."
He ignored her offered hand, instead leaning down to hug her briefly, "You work here now?"
"A bit..." She made a horrible sound, like she was trying to giggle and breathe underwater at the same time, blushing bright red….ugh, teenagers…had he ever been that young?
"Jenny's great..." Willow told him, "Just like her dad." She glanced away, not wanting to meet his gaze for a moment, instead walking over to pour herself a coffee, glancing back with a quizzical look.
"Got a beer instead?" He caught the thrown bottle expertly, cracking the top and capturing the escaping foam with his mouth as he slid into the other chair, demanding "OK…spill!"
Willow nodded at Jenny who was rummaging through a pile of papers, pushing one over to him she watched his face as Jesses eyes ran over the copy of a charcole sketch, "You know this thing?"
"Some kinda demon...Ugly. Don't think I ever saw one." He shook his head, "She Aint go'to win any beauty contest." all veiney and lumpy, wearing some kind of weird frock and holding something as if towards the viewer. Jesse looked closer, frowning, it looked like some kind of pendant.
"This is a Vengeance Demon...named...uhh...Annie."
"Annie?" Jesse frowned, "Like the orphan, for real?"
"It wont tell us its real name." Willow shrugged, sitting in her own chair and drinking some coffee, "We trapped it a couple a'months ago."
"How'd you do that?" he was impressed, trapping something like that was a feat.
"Annie..." Jenny spoke up, grinning meanly, "kinda had a PHOBIA."
"Demons got phobias?" Weird, the idea had never occurred to Jesses back in the old days when he and Buffy and the gang had been fighting them... back then things had been pretty simple, you saw a bad thing, you killed it, you went home and... he blinked , realizing that he had missed what she was saying, "Sorry...say that again?"
"We have her in a holding cell and have been interrogating her."
"Kinda dangerous…"
"You think?" Willow deadpanned, "Yeah...but no so much danger after we took this off her." She pushed a box across the table towards him; it held an ugly pendant set with a stone.
"What is it?" Jesse knew better then to try to touch it, it looked like an overdone piece of costume jewelry, aside from the sinister cool that seemed to emanate from it. Oh yeah, this was the real deal...
"As far as we can tell it's where she gets her power from…or maybe just the focus..." Jenny shrugged, she was obviously the new resident expert on magics and artifacts. He wondered if the flash of pain he felt was jealousy or pity.
"Either way, she was a little upset when we took it."
"Oh yeah..." He breathed, returning his captivated gaze to the evil thing, fingers gliding through the air just above its surface "I'll bet..."
"McNally!" Willow snapped her fingers, breaking the spell so that he looked away from it again and up at her.
"Yeah.." She nodded knowingly, "It does that."
"What you plan to do with it?" he made a point of not looking at the stone, fixing his eyes instead on the two women.
"The council hasn't decided yet." Willow smiled thinly.
"So...what do YOU plan to do? And why am I here?" he stole another glance, just a glance at the stone, "You know I don't do this STUFF anymore."
"I know." Willow looked away for a second, blushing a little with what he took to be shame, "But…" She glanced over at Jenny who went on for her with the wide mouthed impetuosity of youth.
"But Willow doesn't trust anyone else with the stone-Not even ME!"
"Your too young." Willows voice told Jesse that she had had this conversation before, many times, "I promised your Mom…"
"I don't know that you should trust me…" Jesse shook his head, "You know I had…I HAVE…a problem with this stuff." He felt the familiar itching in his fingers and the slight warmth of his palms, the coppery taste in his mouth he always got, no, HAD, past tense, always got before pulling a big spell. Magic…Crack for the spiritual, who'd have thunk it?
"I don't know that you should do anything with this thing."
"Do you think you could use it… if you had to?"
"Oh Yeah…" his own voice and the hunger in his tone scared him and for a second he hated Willow for bothering him with this…this was HER life, vamp's and Demons and magic was WATCHER stuff.
"Ok…cut to the chase- what do you want?"
Willow hesitated, and at that moment he knew it was something so bad, so dangerous that there was no way she'd get the cone heads on the council to let her do it.
"I need you to save her…I want you to bring Buffy back."
Jesse took at deep breath, eyes widening with shock as Willow said the words. She stared at him, watching his reaction while Jenny's eyes moved between the two of them.
"You want to resurrect Buffy…" he nodded slowly, tried to keep the eagerness out of his voice, the idea was crazy, crazy bad, "I WANT to, you know I...we...I WANT to do it...but…there's no…NO…NO way would that work out good…you've got no idea."
"I do tec… you're the magic-ey guy." She smiled, puffing air upwards in a self depreciating manner, "But even I'm not dumb enough to try bringing someone back from the DEAD…Jenny had another idea."
The teenager grinned, "What if Buffy never died?"
"She...uhh…kinda did." Jesse rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation.
"Sure…" Jenny spoke slowly, "But what if she DIDN'T die…what if you'd been there just a second sooner…what if you had gotten there just a bit sooner and saved her before she died? Before Angelus…before he…" she looked eagerly at him, expectantly watching for his reaction.
"You weren't even born then!" He growled, angry all over again, suddenly as angry as he had been that night and for years afterwards, "What do you even know about it?"
"Not much." She replied in a hurt tone and he felt like a jerk suddenly as the anger drained away. She's lost someone that night too.
"What's the plan?" He might as well hear it.
"I think you can use the pendant to open a…a…uhh…time portal." Jenny glanced at the pile of papers infrount of her, tapping a finger on a line of equations, "I think we can intervene and save her."
Buffy...alive and in his arms…oh yeah, that sounded good. He thought about the years since then, all those empty wasted years.
"Wont that throw a wrench in the universe or something?" he frowned suddenly, "Not that I know much about that kinda thing but…" his frown deepened into a scowl, false modesty aside he knew plenty about magic and he didn't like to think about what might happen if he showed up two minets before himself and saved Buffy…just because HIS personal world had pretty much ended that night didn't mean that he was willing to risk screwing up the entire real world for other people…only a complete jackass would do that. Back then he'd have done it in a heartbeat whatever the cost, but now fear or wisdom held him back.
"Your crazy…" he shook his head, "You don't KNOW what that would do…I don't know what it would… What about Kendra? If she didn't get called…and Faith…but…" His brain was trying to think in four dimensions and he could already see lots of things Buffy living through that night might mess up…big, world changing, close run things with no guarantee that they would turn out better/
"Your Crazy!" He repeated, "You could mess up the whole world!"
"Not the way we plan to do it!" Willow held up a hand, stopping him as she went on, "Buffy died that night…if she lived through then it would kinda make the world…go..,well…uhh…"
"Wibbly wobbly!" Supplied Jenny, causing Jesse to roll his eyes.
"But!" Willow went on, so excited that she was actually bouncing in her seat a little, "But…BUT…if you travel back to that night, the night she died, and BRING her back here! Then everything that happens still happens…until now is the NOW… where we have Buffy."
"Holy moley…" Jesse's eyes widened, it was STILL a crazy bad idea but it might just work.
"I came up with it!" Jenny piped up excitedly, showing her immaturity by actually clapping her hands, "I did the math's and it should work…but I cant do that kind of magic. Mom could, but Willow…" she trailed off as the older woman shot a warning look.
"But…there are problems…the body.." He took a gulp of his beer.
"We have taken that into account."
Jesse found himself suddenly out of the portal, breathing sharply in with shock and blinking with horror at his suddenly blindness. The moment of panic subsided as he realized his eyes were not damaged, it was just dark outside. A moment before he had been in the brightly lit warehouse Willow had rented on the south side of town. Back then….back NOW, it had been a run down park.
Jesse calmed his breathing, slowly letting his pupils adjust to the night and his heart rate slow… he ran thought the plan in his mind, checking each step before he moved a muscle. Handling heavy magics in the past had taught him to never, NEVER, rush off half cocked and the pendant was really heavy, and far darker then anything he'd ever handled before.
"Ok my precious…" he muttered sarcastically as he checked the stone was still on its chain around his neck… he didn't want to have to live through the last 20 years all over again. He took a breath as each step carefully drilled into his brain over the last two days was rehearsed and visualized, finally, in his minds eye opening the portal and stepping back to the future.
"Lets go…" He took off at a fast jog across the park, keeping an eye open for vamps or even the possible (if rare, this was after all Sunnydale) actual stroller out for an evening. He couldn't let ANYONE even see him, if possible. Actually TALKING or interacting in any way was totally off-limits.
He reached the road, ducking behind a park trashcan as a car went by. The small cemetery on the other side of the road was dark, but he could hear voices. Slipping unseen across the road he dropped to a crouch and moved from stone to stone towards the action.
Unseen Jesse stopped behind Jones crypt, hearing the voices clearly for the first time.
"Ahh… I couldn't possibly let you miss this…." Jesse almost vomited when he heard Angeluses voice, snide and sarcastic, "After all you're the one who made ALL this possible…"
"Angel…." Buffy sounded tired, Jesse knew that she had been up all the previous night arguing with him about…he pushed THAT thought away, he'd moved on from Buffys infidelity long ago and now it was almost show time. He could afford no distractions.
The bang was what had drawn him, the him from back now, here tonight…the sound still surprised him though he knew it was coming.
He didn't recall her scream, but he took a breath and waited as he heard her fall against the tomb, breath coming in heavy sobs.
"Ahh… will ya look at that, someone brought a stake to a gun fight…" even though he knew what was going to happen next it took every ounce of Jesses self control to keep still.
"You…You…" She was trying to say something, and he heard her nails scrabbling on the wall of the crypt as she stepped, falling around the corner and moaning.
"You Bastard!" Jesses was surprised by the sound of his own, much younger sounding, voice. Did he still have that nasal whine?
"Ahh, now look…it's the boy wonder…" There was the twanging crack of a powerful crossbow followed by a derisive laugh from Angelus, "Nice shot...close but you dont win no Teddy Bear for missing, Boy."
Jesse ignored the old drama playing itself out on the other side of the crypt for the first time , instead moving around and reaching Buffy who was staring silently into space. With one hand he slapped the small brown root onto the earth beside her, rubbing it in the blood that was pumping slowly from the hole in her chest. With other hand was already on her.
"J…Jes.." she was moving her mouth, trying to say something but he ignored her, instead gripping the stone with his now free hand and focusing his mind on what he had to do next…. Had anyone been watching they would have seen the two pop out of existence and a second later the brown root he had left behind began to grow, taking on a vaguely human form that rapidly became more and more like Buffy.
An observer would have been distracted by the sound of fighting coming from around the corner. There was a second twang and a womans voice, crystal clear despite the hate dripping from each word spoke, "That's for Giles….Burn in hell you son of a bitch."
####
Buffy looked pale, unnervingly dead to Jesses eye as he stood beside the bed in the small room. Willow stood beside him, dressed in an over sized sweater despite the warmth of the room. The two friends didn't speak, instead she dropped a hand down beside his, briefly touching hands and squeezing his fingers so quick that he was almost not sure it had happened.
The doctors, mystical and medical, had worked fast on her, drawing out the single .45 caliber bullet in her lung and fixing the damage.
Now they just had to wait for the damage to heal, for the slayers supernatural strength to fix their friend. As they stood beside the bed they saw Buffys eyelids flutter as she stirred a little in her sleep, opening open eye and then another she smiled, looking confused but happy, "'Wil'? What you doing in my room?" a flash of confusion passed over her face as she ran her last memories over in her minds eye, "I dreamed…" she shook her head, "No…I…and Jesse…but…" She looked over her friends faces, blinking and repeating the slow examination of the two.
"Angel…shot…Oh no…No! I was in a coma wasn't I? For years and years and now I'm all crinkly and old like you guys!"
