CHAPTER TWO
Spike laid there with his hands behind his head, his chest bare and his red satin sheets covering him to the waist. He was deep in thought when the laptop across the room pinged, alerting him to an incoming email. 'Prolly Angel or one of his misfits,' he thought to himself, wondering if it was worth it to get up and find out what was so important that it couldn't wait until morning.
Just lately, he'd become technologically advanced – well, for a hundred and something year old vampire anyway. He wasn't going to start writing code or hacking into the Pentagon or anything, but Connor had set the group up with email accounts because he thought it was way past time that his father and uncle? (hard to figure out the family designations, considering how twisted their 'family' tree was) 'got down with the kids,' so to speak. Connor's words... definitely not his.
Spike shuffled off the bed and sat down at the laptop then just stared for a while. The sender was Andrew Wells and he didn't know if he could open the message. His mind was going into over drive thinking that something had happened to Buffy. After many scenarios of her final demise – each more bloody than the last – had filtered through his brain, he decided to end the suspense. He sighed deeply and muttered, "Only one way to find out, I suppose," then clicked it open.
From: Andrew Wells
Subject: Greetings
Date: 23/09/08 03:23
To: Mr. Angel, William the Bloody, Charles Gunn, Connor Angel
Greetings from Slayer Central!
We have had some really big news this evening, which I thought you may want to know about. But first, let me set your minds at ease... We've had no demon activity in over two weeks, although the seers at the coven in England think something is going down because there's been a lot of demon activity at the Cleveland Hellmouth since Sunnydale's demise.
Mr. Giles has asked me to inform you of our latest developments when we have some to report. Mr. Angel and Spike, though your presence is not needed in Cleveland just now; he would like it if you were prepared to make a move at any time.
Finally, it is at the request of Miss Rosenberg that I inform you of Miss Summers and Mr. Caverly's upcoming nuptials to which a formal invitation will be sent via courier at a later date. Totally awesome, right? Well, Mr. Giles is now yelling at me so I guess this email ends here.
PS for Connor. Don't forget Comic Con is in LA this weekend. I'm totally jealous, and if you could get as many autographs as you can, I'd appreciate it.
From the desk of Andrew Wells,
Watcher in training.
'Well that was a boat load of nothing, except the fact my Niblet is all grown up now,' he said to himself. He debated for a moment whether or not he should send Dawn an email; they'd spoken a few times since the whole 'back from the dead thing' he had going on, as she put it, and they'd made peace. He had emailed Buffy once, with no response, and had decided to leave her be, figuring that she'd moved on and didn't want to be reminded of him.
From: William the Bloody
Subject: Congrats!
Date: 23/09/08 03:55
To: Dawn Summers
Niblet,
Received a pretty dull and rather uninformative email 'from the desk of Andrew Wells, Watcher in training.' I beg you (a fourth time) to take me off his mailing list.
The email bored me senseless, but I do believe some congratulations are in order for you and your bloke. Though I have yet to meet this elusive Jordan Caverly, I am happy for you, Niblet. Hope he's treating you right – I don't want to have to bite him.
See you soon,
S x
With that, an exhausted creature of the night turned off his laptop in favour of sleep and crawled into his bed, resuming his earlier position of hands behind his head. The thought sprang to his mind that in a few months' time, he would be face to face with Buffy for the first time in years, and that scared the hell out of him.
He spent the night tossing and turning, not being able to settle his mind or his nerves enough to get a good night's sleep. By 8 am, he'd had enough, wearily climbing out of his rumpled bed, opting to watch his collection of Passions on his laptop – another gift from Connor. How that boy was the seed of Angelus, he'd never know. As the laptop booted up, an email came through.
From: Dawn Summers
Subject: Thank You!
Date: 23/09/08 07:35
To: William the Bloody
Spike,
As I told you last time, Giles insists on Andrew emailing you guys with updates and crap, so it's beyond my control. Trust me; Giles even pulled rank on me and everything! I can't get away with anything now that I'm a Watcher. It so totally sucks.
Thanks for the congratulations, it means a lot to me, and Jordan is not elusive, Spike – you are! Would it kill you to visit? I mean, it's not like you don't know where Cleveland is, so you'd better be able to make the wedding, mister!
I miss you, you know... and so does Buffy.
D x
XXXXXX
"Hey, Dawnie, whatcha doing?" smiled Buffy as she entered the office her little sister shared with Jordan.
"Blah... just emails," said Dawn, quickly checking the message for errors before clicking send, hoping and praying that Buffy wouldn't see the screen.
"Oh. Anything important? Apocalypty stuff?" asked Buffy, plopping down in the chair in front of Dawn's desk.
"No, nothing important. Just your basic boring old Watchery stuff," Dawn babbled as she moved her sent message to the folder labelled 'WTB.'
Buffy's eyes narrowed as she asked suspiciously, "Uh-huh. So why are you babbling? And why did you almost jump out of your seat when I came in?" Buffy stood up as Dawn's face melted into that look that said she was hiding something. "What are you doing over there, Dawnie?" she asked as she made her way around the desk to look at the screen.
Dawn tried her best to close the email program before Buffy saw anything, but at that precise moment an email came through. "William the Bloody? Spike emails you?" she asked with a solemn tone.
"Uh yeah, not often, just when I've needed help with demon languages or texts... that sort of thing," Dawn babbled nervously as she quickly scanned Spike's message.
From: William the Bloody
Subject: Wouldn't Miss My Niblet's Wedding
Date 23/09/08 08:10
To: Dawn Summers
Touché, Bit. Sorry I haven't visited, been busy being a hero every now and then, you know how it goes, but I wouldn't miss your wedding for the world.
I miss you, too. Both of you.
S x
'Both of you? Hmmm, does he mean me too?' Buffy thought. "He's never emailed me... Maybe because I don't have email," she said sadly.
"Sure you do. Everybody here has email. Willow set it up."
Dawn clicked and typed her way into Buffy's email account. "See? You have 203 unread messages," said Dawn cheerfully. "Most of this is just junk mail, though," she said as she scrolled through and started deleting emails. "Oh," said Dawn, shocked.
"Oh?" asked Buffy.
"There are emails from Faith, Rona, and... Spike," said Dawn, rising from her chair. "I'll leave you to read through them," she said, heading for the door.
'Spike emailed me? My life gets weirder every day,' she thought to herself as she opened the email.
From: William the Bloody
Subject: You'll Never Guess What Happened To Me
Date: 09/10/07 04:34
To: Buffy Summers
Buffy.
'That's it? Just my name? No explanation at all? No nothing?' Buffy ranted to herself. 'What kind of idiot just puts a person's name on an email and sends it?' she raged, shutting down the computer and stomping out of the room. She needed to hit something and fast, so naturally she headed for the training room. 'There's nothing quite like beating the hell out of make shift vampire punching bags.'
Her mind jolted back to Sunnydale, remembering when Angel had come to town to give her that stupid amulet that had so far caused her too much pain to think about.
She remembered all too vividly walking down the steps into the basement to find Spike punching the hell out of a DIY Angel punching bag. She had fond memories of that night, the connection that had grown between them when he'd just held her in his embrace. That night she'd realised she was truly in love with him. 'Yep, that punching bag is so totally gonna get it!'