Giles rubbed his eyes wearily before cleaning his glasses. He'd finally
seen the last of the neo-Slayers onto planes home – or wherever they'd
wanted to go. Kennedy had opted for Rio, and Giles scrubbed his glasses
vigorously as he gave thanks for missing the sight of Willow saying goodbye
to Kennedy's tongue piercing.
There were only the 4 of them left now. Willow, Xander, Dawn and Buffy. Buffy. She seemed so much better lately, since Sunnydale had turned into a giant hole in the ground. Maybe that had been therapeutic for her. Filthy little demon-infested place, Giles thought sourly. It was almost worth the latest barely averted apocalypse to see the end of it.
"Giles!" Xander was chugging up, hauling Dawn behind him. "Willow's split! Look at this!"
"Xander, do stop exclaiming," Giles begged as he took the note Xander was flapping in his face. Just as he'd suspected, Willow had taken off to "find herself". Hmm, thought that became passé after the 80s. Girl always was a psychological straggler.
Giles started listening to Xander again, blessedly just in time to hear him interrupted by Dawn. "Shouldn't we all be getting on with our lives? Willow's got to deal with her power, I have to get back to school sometime, Xander needs a new job and Buffy . . . well, she'll be OK now? Won't she?"
"Hey, yeah, sure. I mean . . . she was almost like before she met Angel, there at the end." Xander looked hopefully at the other two.
"We'll see" Giles said with his usual caution, "now let's go find that lodging Faith and Wood got for us."
Before leaving for England to round up surviving Watchers and clue them in on the Slayer explosion, Faith and Wood had set up hotel rooms for the remaining Scoobies. Thankfully, Wood had upgraded Faith's Motel 6 tastes to a Best Western. He'd gotten them a pair of connected rooms for a week, with an open room service tab, on his card.
After checking in, Giles and Xander joined the Summers' girls in their room for a "planning session". In reality, it was an attempt to determine Buffy's mental condition.
Over the inevitable pizza dinner, they all gently probed their Slayer, trying to find out how she was remembering her life. She was, in fact, much clearer now, so much so that the velvet glove treatment quickly became irksome.
"OK, guys? What's going on?" Buffy asked.
"Going on?" Giles said innocently, "nothing is 'going on' Buffy. I've no idea to what you're referring."
Buffy's eyes narrowed. Giles' English was way too English. "You're all acting like that Twilight Zone episode – the lost, spacey one and you know what I mean so don't . . . "
"SPIKE!!" Dawn shrieked at a decibel level they hadn't heard in nearly a year, and leapt up to race across the room into the blonde vampire's arms. He was standing just outside the open door, dressed bizarrely in a woman's green wool coat, bare legs looking even more alabaster than usual in contrast to the bright fabric.
"Nice of you all to wait around, make sure I wasn't dead before you took off." Spike said over Dawn's head. "I'd be hitchhiking nude, at night, along highway 99 if it wasn't for my girl here". At Dawn's invitation, Spike stepped into the room, carrying the teenager with him.
His girl? Buffy was terribly confused. She certainly hadn't hung behind – she'd seen him die. At least, she thought she had, it seemed hazy now. Troubled, Buffy looked to Xander, only to notice he was still staring toward the door, slack-jawed.
Buffy followed his gaze to the woman who had taken Spike's place in the doorway and unhinged Xander's jaw. Despite the perfect hourglass figure, creamy, flawless skin and cloud of dark russet hair around her face, she gave off an air of sophistication that Buffy associated with people Giles' age. Buffy's Slayer sense told her this woman had been around longer and knew a hell of a lot more than she did.
Peering at the stranger over Spike's shoulder, Dawn managed to contain her happy sobs, quickly wiped her eyes, then held out her hand.
"You must be Karen the Slayer" she said, "I'm Dawn. Buffy's sister."
"Spike's told me all about you" Karen said, taking Dawn's hand. "He says you're becoming expert on the short sword. That's my favorite weapon, perhaps we can practice together some time."
"Hold it!" Buffy yelled, "Karen . . . the Slayer!?! How did this happen? You're not a Potential, you're, like, two times a Potential."
"Keep your knickers on, Summers", Spike explained, "Karen here got resuscitated back in '84, after a nasty disagreement with a Fyral. You got some experience of comin' back from the dead yourself; nothing new goin' on."
"That's true, Buffy", Karen added. "There hasn't been only one Slayer in the world for nearly 60 years. At the moment, there are 5 of us who've come back from the dead. We think of ourselves as auxiliary Slayers – off the Council's leash, but lending a hand behind the scenes."
"But . . . "Buffy started, then stopped to stare around her flabbergasted. "Did anyone else know this?" she finally finished.
"I suspected," Giles admitted, "there have been rumors among the field Watchers, but nothing solid."
"Spike told me." Dawn chirped, still plastered to Spike's side.
"And me," Xander admitted. "And I kinda mentioned it to Anya. And Willow."
"But not to me? You didn't think I'd be interested?" A chorus of no's, not really's and enough on your plate's followed.
"All right. Fine. I suppose it wasn't important to tell me about Spike's love life either, after all he and I went through together," Buffy sniffed.
Three faces with shifty eyes looked at anything but Buffy, one face stared straight at her in astonishment.
"Had . . . together, Blondie?" Spike asked, "we've been through plenty side by side, but no more than anyone else here." Spike took his turn looking around at the others, who were still shifting their eyes. "What's the story?" he asked in a moderate growl.
Giles sighed and took his glasses off, not even bothering to clean them before putting them in his coat pocket. He wasn't going to want to see anything clearly for a good while. He turned to Buffy.
"After you were brought back, there were quite a lot of repercussions, mostly psychological. You were, unwell, for a long time. You still did your duty as a Slayer, instinct took over there, but your mind had trouble re-adjusting. You imagined things, sometimes hallucinated for weeks, and invented a history to go along with your delusions."
Looking over at Spike, he continued. "We told you she was just badly depressed because . . . well, because it seemed simpler. You had a lot of distractions yourself and were so rarely around . . . "
"Spike wasn't around? But he was stalking me for months before we started . . . "Buffy stopped, appalled. "How long was he not around?"
"Been starrin' in a few dreams, eh, Goldilocks?" Spike grinned rapaciously at Buffy until Karen squeezed his arm and gave him a mild, remonstrating look. Still grinning, Spike shrugged good-naturedly. "Knowin' when to shut my gob never was my strength. Don't know what you've been imaginin', Summers, but I been with my Karen nearly 3 years now and I'm strictly a one- woman man. Was keen on you once, that's the truth, but after the 57th time you broke my nose for no reason I figured I needed to be chasin' another bird." He gave Karen a hungry look, then continued.
"After that business with the Glory bitch was over, I started takin' free- lance killin' jobs to make money for Dawn's upkeep. Demon only, of course, 'cause of the chip. Kept me away a lot, even before Red brought you back. After that, a lot more of the ready was needed to keep things goin'. Anya and Xander couldn't cover it all, and the rest had their hands full taking care of you. Don't think I spent more than 5 days out of 30 in Sunnydale till the First started its antics."
Buffy absorbed this in silence. Over 2 years of her life appeared to be imaginary. "If so many things I remember didn't happen, what actually did?"
Taking a deep breath, Giles filled her in, with occasional help from the others.
After Buffy's death, Giles had given up his apartment to move in with Dawn and Willow, give them a stable adult guardian and keep Social Services out of their lives. Later, he'd stayed to help care for Buffy.
"But . . . when did you go to England, or come back?"
"Buffy," Giles said, faintly hurt, "I never left Sunnydale. A Watcher doesn't leave his Slayer, they're a team. Even during the few months of your death, I didn't leave because Dawn and Willow still needed help."
Willow's irresponsible and dangerous use of magic in bringing Buffy back from the dead had so repelled Tara that she'd left. Dawn got letters from her regularly, but there was no likelihood of the former lovers reuniting.
Crushed by the breakup with Tara, and guilt-ridden over Buffy's mental condition after the resurrection, Willow had stopped practicing magic altogether until the battle with the First Evil made it necessary again.
There'd been a brief bit of trouble with Warren Meers, who'd attempted to become a mad scientist in control of the demon world of Sunnydale, but ended up eaten by a bored vampire minion.
"What about the rest of the Nerd Herd?" Buffy asked, "Jonathan and Andrew?"
"Jonathan left town years ago, Buffy," Xander explained, "he's a psychology student at New Mexico University. And who's Andrew?"
"You know, Tucker's brother."
"Uh, Buffy, Tucker doesn't have a brother."
"OK, forget it," Buffy sighed, "what else really happened?"
Riley had come back briefly, chasing a South American demon who'd come to a colder climate to breed. He was married to a fellow soldier named Samantha and they'd left after killing the demon and paying their respects at Joyce's grave.
Xander and Anya had called off their wedding, after Xander developed a case of terminal cold feet. Anya had briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a vengeance demon again, but realized she no longer had the stomach for it and preferred the life of a capitalist merchant anyway.
The First Evil had started a new assault on the human world with the help of his harbingers and a psychotic preacher. Although a large number of Potentials had made it alive to Sunnydale, many more had died along with their Watchers.
"We spread out around the world and killed as many Harbingers as we could, clearing a way for the girls," Karen interjected sadly, "but there appeared to be no end of the First's rabble. We lost one of our own to them – Lara the Siberian Slayer. I'd decided to fight my way to Sunnydale for the final battle, but it took longer than I expected – I only arrived in time to pick up Spike outside the crater."
"Right glad you did, love," Spike said. "Didn't really fancy my chances getting a comfortable ride thumbin' it in my state." Buffy ground her teeth together through Spike and Karen's prolonged kiss before snappishly urging Giles to go on.
"There isn't much left to tell, Buffy. We won, with terrible losses, but the First has retreated. I think the rest of the story is Spike's. Don't take this wrong, William, but why are you still one of the living dead?"
"That's right! You turned into a column of flame while destroying the turnip tops." Buffy glared at the others, silencing their automatic correction.
"And you know this how, Summers? You left right after the flaming hand trick." Spike started to take off the overly warm coat, then thought better of it and continued his story. "Seems the bauble was spelled to turn me into a source of pure sunlight that would burn up anything in the vicinity that wasn't me – including my clothes and, thank God, that damned chip."
"Wait a minute!" Xander yelled, alarmed, "you're chipless?"
"Don't lose control of your bowels, Droopy Boy. I've done my share of changing over the past few years, courtesy of the damned chip and a pair of ladies." Spike smiled at Dawn and Karen. "I may still be a demon, but I'd say I'm more practical in nature now than evil. In any event, I've no plans to murder you in your sleep no matter how much of a tosser you are."
"But, your soul . . . "Buffy began.
"Was a particularly ornate hallucination of yours, Buffy," Giles finished for her. "There are no wish granting demons in Africa and in any case Spike never sought one out. He was in the Yukon clearing out a swarm of Yggiz demons during your Spike-goes-to-Africa phase."
"Buffy, are you going to be OK with this?" Dawn asked, noticing her sister's dismal expression. Buffy started to shake her head, then suddenly perked up.
"If it was all imaginary, that means I never worked at the Double Meat Palace!" she said, relieved.
"Actually, you did do that," Dawn explained, "You thought you could support us with a burger joint job."
Shame greater than her hallucinated affair with Spike overwhelmed the tiny Slayer. "Wow," she whispered, "I really was out of it."
"You seem much better now, though!" Dawn said comfortingly.
"Yes, vanquishing the First and sharing your calling with all the Potentials seems to have had a marvelous recuperative effect on you." Giles smiled warmly at Buffy. "I think this is a fresh beginning for all of us."
TBC ::sound of ominous music::
There were only the 4 of them left now. Willow, Xander, Dawn and Buffy. Buffy. She seemed so much better lately, since Sunnydale had turned into a giant hole in the ground. Maybe that had been therapeutic for her. Filthy little demon-infested place, Giles thought sourly. It was almost worth the latest barely averted apocalypse to see the end of it.
"Giles!" Xander was chugging up, hauling Dawn behind him. "Willow's split! Look at this!"
"Xander, do stop exclaiming," Giles begged as he took the note Xander was flapping in his face. Just as he'd suspected, Willow had taken off to "find herself". Hmm, thought that became passé after the 80s. Girl always was a psychological straggler.
Giles started listening to Xander again, blessedly just in time to hear him interrupted by Dawn. "Shouldn't we all be getting on with our lives? Willow's got to deal with her power, I have to get back to school sometime, Xander needs a new job and Buffy . . . well, she'll be OK now? Won't she?"
"Hey, yeah, sure. I mean . . . she was almost like before she met Angel, there at the end." Xander looked hopefully at the other two.
"We'll see" Giles said with his usual caution, "now let's go find that lodging Faith and Wood got for us."
Before leaving for England to round up surviving Watchers and clue them in on the Slayer explosion, Faith and Wood had set up hotel rooms for the remaining Scoobies. Thankfully, Wood had upgraded Faith's Motel 6 tastes to a Best Western. He'd gotten them a pair of connected rooms for a week, with an open room service tab, on his card.
After checking in, Giles and Xander joined the Summers' girls in their room for a "planning session". In reality, it was an attempt to determine Buffy's mental condition.
Over the inevitable pizza dinner, they all gently probed their Slayer, trying to find out how she was remembering her life. She was, in fact, much clearer now, so much so that the velvet glove treatment quickly became irksome.
"OK, guys? What's going on?" Buffy asked.
"Going on?" Giles said innocently, "nothing is 'going on' Buffy. I've no idea to what you're referring."
Buffy's eyes narrowed. Giles' English was way too English. "You're all acting like that Twilight Zone episode – the lost, spacey one and you know what I mean so don't . . . "
"SPIKE!!" Dawn shrieked at a decibel level they hadn't heard in nearly a year, and leapt up to race across the room into the blonde vampire's arms. He was standing just outside the open door, dressed bizarrely in a woman's green wool coat, bare legs looking even more alabaster than usual in contrast to the bright fabric.
"Nice of you all to wait around, make sure I wasn't dead before you took off." Spike said over Dawn's head. "I'd be hitchhiking nude, at night, along highway 99 if it wasn't for my girl here". At Dawn's invitation, Spike stepped into the room, carrying the teenager with him.
His girl? Buffy was terribly confused. She certainly hadn't hung behind – she'd seen him die. At least, she thought she had, it seemed hazy now. Troubled, Buffy looked to Xander, only to notice he was still staring toward the door, slack-jawed.
Buffy followed his gaze to the woman who had taken Spike's place in the doorway and unhinged Xander's jaw. Despite the perfect hourglass figure, creamy, flawless skin and cloud of dark russet hair around her face, she gave off an air of sophistication that Buffy associated with people Giles' age. Buffy's Slayer sense told her this woman had been around longer and knew a hell of a lot more than she did.
Peering at the stranger over Spike's shoulder, Dawn managed to contain her happy sobs, quickly wiped her eyes, then held out her hand.
"You must be Karen the Slayer" she said, "I'm Dawn. Buffy's sister."
"Spike's told me all about you" Karen said, taking Dawn's hand. "He says you're becoming expert on the short sword. That's my favorite weapon, perhaps we can practice together some time."
"Hold it!" Buffy yelled, "Karen . . . the Slayer!?! How did this happen? You're not a Potential, you're, like, two times a Potential."
"Keep your knickers on, Summers", Spike explained, "Karen here got resuscitated back in '84, after a nasty disagreement with a Fyral. You got some experience of comin' back from the dead yourself; nothing new goin' on."
"That's true, Buffy", Karen added. "There hasn't been only one Slayer in the world for nearly 60 years. At the moment, there are 5 of us who've come back from the dead. We think of ourselves as auxiliary Slayers – off the Council's leash, but lending a hand behind the scenes."
"But . . . "Buffy started, then stopped to stare around her flabbergasted. "Did anyone else know this?" she finally finished.
"I suspected," Giles admitted, "there have been rumors among the field Watchers, but nothing solid."
"Spike told me." Dawn chirped, still plastered to Spike's side.
"And me," Xander admitted. "And I kinda mentioned it to Anya. And Willow."
"But not to me? You didn't think I'd be interested?" A chorus of no's, not really's and enough on your plate's followed.
"All right. Fine. I suppose it wasn't important to tell me about Spike's love life either, after all he and I went through together," Buffy sniffed.
Three faces with shifty eyes looked at anything but Buffy, one face stared straight at her in astonishment.
"Had . . . together, Blondie?" Spike asked, "we've been through plenty side by side, but no more than anyone else here." Spike took his turn looking around at the others, who were still shifting their eyes. "What's the story?" he asked in a moderate growl.
Giles sighed and took his glasses off, not even bothering to clean them before putting them in his coat pocket. He wasn't going to want to see anything clearly for a good while. He turned to Buffy.
"After you were brought back, there were quite a lot of repercussions, mostly psychological. You were, unwell, for a long time. You still did your duty as a Slayer, instinct took over there, but your mind had trouble re-adjusting. You imagined things, sometimes hallucinated for weeks, and invented a history to go along with your delusions."
Looking over at Spike, he continued. "We told you she was just badly depressed because . . . well, because it seemed simpler. You had a lot of distractions yourself and were so rarely around . . . "
"Spike wasn't around? But he was stalking me for months before we started . . . "Buffy stopped, appalled. "How long was he not around?"
"Been starrin' in a few dreams, eh, Goldilocks?" Spike grinned rapaciously at Buffy until Karen squeezed his arm and gave him a mild, remonstrating look. Still grinning, Spike shrugged good-naturedly. "Knowin' when to shut my gob never was my strength. Don't know what you've been imaginin', Summers, but I been with my Karen nearly 3 years now and I'm strictly a one- woman man. Was keen on you once, that's the truth, but after the 57th time you broke my nose for no reason I figured I needed to be chasin' another bird." He gave Karen a hungry look, then continued.
"After that business with the Glory bitch was over, I started takin' free- lance killin' jobs to make money for Dawn's upkeep. Demon only, of course, 'cause of the chip. Kept me away a lot, even before Red brought you back. After that, a lot more of the ready was needed to keep things goin'. Anya and Xander couldn't cover it all, and the rest had their hands full taking care of you. Don't think I spent more than 5 days out of 30 in Sunnydale till the First started its antics."
Buffy absorbed this in silence. Over 2 years of her life appeared to be imaginary. "If so many things I remember didn't happen, what actually did?"
Taking a deep breath, Giles filled her in, with occasional help from the others.
After Buffy's death, Giles had given up his apartment to move in with Dawn and Willow, give them a stable adult guardian and keep Social Services out of their lives. Later, he'd stayed to help care for Buffy.
"But . . . when did you go to England, or come back?"
"Buffy," Giles said, faintly hurt, "I never left Sunnydale. A Watcher doesn't leave his Slayer, they're a team. Even during the few months of your death, I didn't leave because Dawn and Willow still needed help."
Willow's irresponsible and dangerous use of magic in bringing Buffy back from the dead had so repelled Tara that she'd left. Dawn got letters from her regularly, but there was no likelihood of the former lovers reuniting.
Crushed by the breakup with Tara, and guilt-ridden over Buffy's mental condition after the resurrection, Willow had stopped practicing magic altogether until the battle with the First Evil made it necessary again.
There'd been a brief bit of trouble with Warren Meers, who'd attempted to become a mad scientist in control of the demon world of Sunnydale, but ended up eaten by a bored vampire minion.
"What about the rest of the Nerd Herd?" Buffy asked, "Jonathan and Andrew?"
"Jonathan left town years ago, Buffy," Xander explained, "he's a psychology student at New Mexico University. And who's Andrew?"
"You know, Tucker's brother."
"Uh, Buffy, Tucker doesn't have a brother."
"OK, forget it," Buffy sighed, "what else really happened?"
Riley had come back briefly, chasing a South American demon who'd come to a colder climate to breed. He was married to a fellow soldier named Samantha and they'd left after killing the demon and paying their respects at Joyce's grave.
Xander and Anya had called off their wedding, after Xander developed a case of terminal cold feet. Anya had briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a vengeance demon again, but realized she no longer had the stomach for it and preferred the life of a capitalist merchant anyway.
The First Evil had started a new assault on the human world with the help of his harbingers and a psychotic preacher. Although a large number of Potentials had made it alive to Sunnydale, many more had died along with their Watchers.
"We spread out around the world and killed as many Harbingers as we could, clearing a way for the girls," Karen interjected sadly, "but there appeared to be no end of the First's rabble. We lost one of our own to them – Lara the Siberian Slayer. I'd decided to fight my way to Sunnydale for the final battle, but it took longer than I expected – I only arrived in time to pick up Spike outside the crater."
"Right glad you did, love," Spike said. "Didn't really fancy my chances getting a comfortable ride thumbin' it in my state." Buffy ground her teeth together through Spike and Karen's prolonged kiss before snappishly urging Giles to go on.
"There isn't much left to tell, Buffy. We won, with terrible losses, but the First has retreated. I think the rest of the story is Spike's. Don't take this wrong, William, but why are you still one of the living dead?"
"That's right! You turned into a column of flame while destroying the turnip tops." Buffy glared at the others, silencing their automatic correction.
"And you know this how, Summers? You left right after the flaming hand trick." Spike started to take off the overly warm coat, then thought better of it and continued his story. "Seems the bauble was spelled to turn me into a source of pure sunlight that would burn up anything in the vicinity that wasn't me – including my clothes and, thank God, that damned chip."
"Wait a minute!" Xander yelled, alarmed, "you're chipless?"
"Don't lose control of your bowels, Droopy Boy. I've done my share of changing over the past few years, courtesy of the damned chip and a pair of ladies." Spike smiled at Dawn and Karen. "I may still be a demon, but I'd say I'm more practical in nature now than evil. In any event, I've no plans to murder you in your sleep no matter how much of a tosser you are."
"But, your soul . . . "Buffy began.
"Was a particularly ornate hallucination of yours, Buffy," Giles finished for her. "There are no wish granting demons in Africa and in any case Spike never sought one out. He was in the Yukon clearing out a swarm of Yggiz demons during your Spike-goes-to-Africa phase."
"Buffy, are you going to be OK with this?" Dawn asked, noticing her sister's dismal expression. Buffy started to shake her head, then suddenly perked up.
"If it was all imaginary, that means I never worked at the Double Meat Palace!" she said, relieved.
"Actually, you did do that," Dawn explained, "You thought you could support us with a burger joint job."
Shame greater than her hallucinated affair with Spike overwhelmed the tiny Slayer. "Wow," she whispered, "I really was out of it."
"You seem much better now, though!" Dawn said comfortingly.
"Yes, vanquishing the First and sharing your calling with all the Potentials seems to have had a marvelous recuperative effect on you." Giles smiled warmly at Buffy. "I think this is a fresh beginning for all of us."
TBC ::sound of ominous music::