Chapter 2
The Summers' latest apartment was the ritziest that Willow had seen yet. According to Dawnie it had taken weeks of wheedling and coaxing by Buffy's wealthy beau (Willow tried hard to refrain from thinking sugar daddy), but her sister had finally agreed to let him "take care of his cherished ladies," and now home was a gorgeously-appointed penthouse in one of the upper-upper-upper-class sections of Rome.
"Buffy? ...Did you hear what I said?"
Buffy's face could have passed for one of the marble busts decorating her foyer. It was blank and still and completely unreadable. Every hair on her head lay neatly in place, every fingernail was professionally shaped and lacquered, her cosmetics and clothing were impeccable...and she sat rigid in her large expensive designer chair, staring at Willow.
"Buffy?"
"I heard." There was something so hard about her, and oh, my god, she was so thin. She'd greeted Willow in the airport with a brilliant flash of teeth and some silly quips, and had practically danced her friend through the city, but the smiles were...brittle, somehow, and her joy had seemed almost manic. In the taxi the young witch had tried to read Buffy's aura and found it to be a garbled mess. The sensation had almost made Willow cry.
It hadn't always been this way - there'd been a time when their lives and auras had been much simpler, vampire slaying not withstanding, and the happiness had been relaxed and honest, and they'd all been close. Then the bad years came.
They'd drifted away from one another, she and Buffy and Xander and Giles, and it had begun with Buffy's death and resurrection and gotten worse and worse without any of them even being aware of it. Beloved Tara had become Willow's entire universe, Tara and magic, and when Tara was taken away, Kennedy had marched in and...well, set up shop. And for a while that had been nice, if a little overwhelming. Kennedy had praised Willow's power and reveled in her own, and given constant advice in the two-woman kingdom she constructed for them. But as the months passed, her bragging and arrogance and aggressiveness began to grate on Willow's nerves, until finally all the flattery that Kennedy had to offer couldn't keep Willow from feeling like a trophy wife.
There'd been a loud, ugly breakup, for Kennedy was not a gracious loser. And when the dust had cleared and Willow was alone again, she'd looked up and discovered that continents now separated the Scooby Gang.
Guys?
GUYS?
...Where'd everybody go?
"You'll have to fly out there and see what's going on. You and Giles." Buffy was suddenly on her feet and moving around the room. "Take as many slayers as you need. And that warlock, what's-his-name...Damien Stephan, Darrin Stephens, whatever. Take him, too." Her agitation was growing by the minute, her eyes darting to everything but Willow, and she'd crossed her arms across her chest so tightly that Willow wondered how she could breathe.
"Buffy, you're not coming with us?" What's WRONG with her?
"I have to stay here. To protect Dawn." The words were clipped and toneless.
"But we don't know for sure if it's a Glory-thingy. Glory got smooshed, remember? It just felt sort of Gloryish, that's all. It could be anything, like - like some teen demon boy giving off a big blast of hormones. Which would make for a pretty gross visit, now that I think about it." Willow shook herself out of the visual that had crept into her head. "You could leave Dawn with the Watchers' Council; there's a pazillion slayers and witches to guard her there."
"No, I can't. I can't go. I have to stay."
"Not even to see if Angel's still alive?" Willow asked in amazement. "Or maybe what I saw was Spike, but either way..."
Buffy wheeled to face her, and Willow was almost frightened by the wildness in her friend's eyes. She looked like a trapped animal.
Then, just when the slayer's hysteria seemed to be reaching critical mass, the cold stone mask slammed down again with an almost audible thud.
"Dawn'll be home soon. I need to order dinner." Without another word, she walked over to a large expensive designer desk, picked up a phone, and dialed a number, unaware of the trickle of blood running down her arm where her fingernails had pierced into her own elbow.
Fred cooked dinner herself, in their brand-new house that they'd lived in always - a house that looked remarkably identical to the house of her fourth-grade friend Jo Ellen Myers, but Fred found nothing remarkable about that. The view from the kitchen doorway showed her their living room with its few pieces of worn furniture and polished pine floors. Spike was on the sofa. He got up and strolled across the room to the fireplace, and said something to her about...something; she couldn't make out what. Then he turned and accidentally bumped his chest hard against the sharp-pointed corner of the oak mantel board. In an instant he dissolved into dust.
Shock clamped around Fred like an icy vise.
Spike's GONE. He was here and alive a second ago, and now - now a second later there's nothing left of him.
We were just about to have supper.
He's DEAD.
She stared at the circle of dust in stunned disbelief. Then a sadness so lonely and painful and all-encompassing that it felt like suffocation took hold of her, and she began to cry.
...She was still crying - into her pillow - when she woke from the nightmare and opened her eyes. In the dim pre-morning light she saw the motel room around her, the room that they actually lived in, and she turned over with a terrified dread that she'd find the other half of the bed empty.
He was there, though, safe and whole, and sound asleep. Fred burrowed up against him with a little sob and shook him awake.
"Whuh - huh - Fred, what're you doin'?"
"I had a bad dream," she whispered.
Spike rolled onto his side and wrapped his arms around her; draped a leg over hers; crooned into her hair. "Everything's all right now. Don't be afraid. Dream's all gone." Her ear and cheek pressed tight against his chest and she felt the words rumble there. "What was this one about? Pylea?"
Her voice came out in a watery sniffle. "Uh-uh. ...I dreamed you'd died."
"Bloody hell," he murmured. He ducked his head down to hers and began wiping and kissing the tears from her face. "Don't cry, Lamb. 'M not dead - well, yeah, I am dead, but I'm still okay."
"Don't SAY that!" she wailed. The intensity - the panic in her voice - startled him. "You're NOT DEAD; your body just changed an' it works a little differently than it did before. Don't EVER call yourself dead!"
It upset her that much to think of losing him? He hated to see her grief, but at the same time it filled him with joy. There was someone in the world who would miss him.
"All right, I won't, promise, not even a joke." He groped around under his pillow and pulled out a remote control. "Want the telly on for a night-light? Reno 911 is still in the DVD player."
"Okay," she agreed. She was calmer now and her breathing had steadied somewhat. She took the remote and held it with both hands to aim it at the TV set. When the program started, she turned the sound down low and curled up with a shaky sigh.
Spike pulled the covers up over them both. "Go back to sleep. Sweet dreams this time."
Giles and Willow arrived at London's Heathrow Airport bright and early of a spring morning, and checked their baggage through without delay. The troll hammer would not travel in this method; it had survived the bombing of the original council building by virtue of its sheer density, and that same weight and density made taking it via airline too cost-prohibitive. They'd arranged to have it teleported to Arizona instead.
At the ticket counter, Giles heard a familiar voice at his elbow, and looked down to see Paul Yoder confirming a boarding pass.
"Surprise," Yoder greeted. "Yep, I've been assigned to this case, too." He paid no attention to Giles' startled expression, but when the agent handed him a ticket envelope he pointed it at the watcher and bobbed it in cadence as he spoke. "If that vampire's still around, I'm gonna make damn sure he gets interviewed." Then he tucked the envelope into the inner pocket of his jacket, grasped the handle of a carry-on flight bag beside him, and pulled it on its tiny wheels to one of the rows of chairs inside the gate. Giles closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, feeling the onset of a headache.
"Room for one more, Honey." Another well-known voice, this one female and joking-eerie, piped up behind him.
Buffy.
Giles' face registered a mixture of alarm and relief. The last place he wanted this girl to be was anywhere near Spike or Angel, but if it came down to battling another hell god, she was the slayer in which he placed his faith.
She gave him a wan smile. "Sorry. Little Twilight Zone stewardess humor." She shifted her tote bag higher up on her shoulder.
"You've decided to come with us after all, then?"
"Looks like. Where's Will?" The shifting settled into her feet: nervous, restless.
"Oh - oh...she went to get something to drink. She'll be back soon."
Buffy nodded. "That's good." She bit her bottom lip and twisted the tote's strap back and forth.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.