Buffy I - Showtime
She rushes every step of their way until they reach her house, but her hand hesitates on the doorknob. Buffy knows once she enters, her armour has to be put on once again. She inhales sharply and raises her walls up as she steps through the threshold with Rona right behind her. There is potencials gathered in her living room, so she smiles and says: - "You guys are all still up?" Xander answers with a quip as he always does: -" Ah! Who needs sleep?" She gives no atention to him and introduces the new girl: -" Everybody, this is Rona." As they greet each other, she glances at the door of her basement. She can not help but to get a flash back of the empty shackles that Spike was supposed to be in. Buffy blames herself for not having seen they were after Spike all along. She is pulled out of her reverie by Giles asking: -"Everything all right?" She did not even notice that he and Anya had come into the room. She shakes her head and says: -"We had a welcoming committee."
She was getting great at hiding her feelings she thinks as Xander asks: - "So, The First knows potential slayers are making their way here?" He does have a point, so she tries to focus. Her watcher states: -"I must warn the coven to be cautious". It all seems pretty useless to her. Buffy sighs and says: -"The First's always gonna be one step ahead of us, Giles. I need to know how to stop it. No, not stop it, hurt it. I want to hurt it real bad. Tell me how." His answer doesn't please her there is nothing to be done, what if she can not kill the first. Her minds wanders to Spike once again, but she shakes it off. She is the slayer, she has to focus. She listens as Anya says: -"Either way, we've got squat." It irritates her. There must be something to be done, so Buffy asks: - "Well, squat's not gonna cut it. What about the Turok-Han?" The only one to respond is Xander, with a not funny joke: -"The vampire time forgot?" She wishes she could just crawl inside her bed covers and cry, but instead she responds: -"Time may have forgotten him, but I sure won't. We know stakes don't kill it, but anything in those ancient books about what does? Sunlight, fire... germs?"
Come on anything that means business, but nobody answers. There is just silence until Andrew says: -"So, Giles, with that thing guarding the entrance to The First's crib, how will Buffy get to Spike?" The slayer frowns and says: -"I really hate to admit this, but he's not wrong. There's no way we'll be able to help Spike until that thing is out of the way." As she is thinking about a way, a potencial girl she does not know the name interrupts by saying: -"Spike? Sorry, I'm confused. He's that vampire who's been killing people, right? He's the one you're worried about helping?" Oh God, now she would have to explain her worries, she tries to think of something that would justify her worries but stammers saying: -" Well... we need him to... he's the one that's been...it's complicated, Chloe." The other potential says: -"I'm Chloe, she's Eve." Buffy is left flabergasted, she can't even keep their names straight. She listens as Chloe continues: -"It's just, well, we've been talking, and do we have some kind of plan? You know, any kind of plan to keep us from dying?"
Buffy feels exasperated, she stands and fidgets as she says: -"We're working on it." As she turns to leave, Giles walks up to her and says: -"There is one avenue that we haven't tried yet..." Anya interrupts him saying his name, but right now Buffy is willing to try anything. So she nods for him to go on and he says: -"Beljoxa's Eye..." Buffy frowns not understanding the what... so she asks: -"Wh-what is Botox's eye?" Giles takes of his glasses and cleans them as he answers: -"Beljoxa's Eye. It's an oracle type creature that exists in a dark dimension." He always does that, when she does something that does not please him and it weights on her. She listens as Anya says it is an
Internal vortex, but does not understand completely what they mean, so Buffy just says: -"Fun." But Anya clearly thinks otherwise and Giles points out that only demons can open the gateway to it. She can not help to think that Spike could do it. Buffy wished he was there, right now everything was on her shoulders and she could use a hand. She sighs as Anya says: -"Buffy look, there's no reason to think this Beljoxa's Eye will have any of the answers we're looking for."
It does not matter to her anymore. Buffy needs him back, he might be dead already. The thought panicks her, so she says:-"I'll take anything I can get. Anya, please, we're running out of time. Spike's running out of time." Everyone is now looking at her funny but she does not care the first has something of hers and she is now determined to get it back. Is later on the night when she is finishing of the Turok-Han, that the same thought fills her mind and she knows it to be true. Buffy punches, kicks and bangs the evil vampire head into the wall. Then she puts a barbed wire around its throat and pulls hard until his head explodes in a cloud of dust. She smiles at that, she won. The path was clear, they might have a chance at this. Buffy looks at the potencial slayers as she says: -"See? Dust. Just like the rest of 'em. I don't know what's coming next, but I do know it's gonna be just like this. Hard. Painful. But in the end it's gonna be us. If we all do our parts, believe it, we'll be the ones left standing. Here endeth the lesson." Her heart is beating fast as she walks away without looking back, she hopes he is still standing.. hopes he is not dust.
She is running full speed by the time she reaches the cave. There is a bringer on the entrance she pounds through him quickly then enters the maze. Buffy tries to catch her breath and steady her heart, trying to use her slayer senses to find him. She walks through the cave in haste until she sees him. Shackled to the cave wall, looking as beat down as the day he was captured by Glory. Oh my God, she can not believe Spike is still alive, it is a relief. Buffy walks to him with unshead tears, she can see he is in pain and it hurts her. Spike sees her too and says: -"A knife, now, is it?" OH God, he thinks I am the first. She walks slowly towards him knife in hand as Spike mumbles:-"What'll...what'll that...you...you can't hurt me. You're—you're just a bloody figment, you are. You're just... Buffy tries to show him she does not mean harm and carefully cuts him loose of the ropes. He stumbles forward onto her shoulder and the contact of his weight feels liberating.
She watches as he tilt his head sligthly and smiles at her saying: -"You". Inside she is screaming, yes Spike is me, is me I got you, we will be just fine. But she says nothing just looks at him, he is so bruised, the fisrt had hurt him, but now he would be fine, they were fine she kept repeating to herself as he puts his arm over her shoulders. She puts her arm around his waist and they walk out from the cave. As they make their way home, Spike moves too slowly and Buffy has to keep herself from crying. Once again she had caused him pain.. you always hurt the ones you love spike had told her once. Buffy wished they could walk faster, at this pace maybe bringers could come and take him again. She could not bear and would not let that happen, but she could not carry Spike. Well, she fisically could, but he would not let her. She decides to ask anyway: -"This would go a lot faster if I carried you..." He stares at her with eyebrowns raised and takes of his arm from her shoulder. But Buffy refuses to loose the grip on his waist as she says: -"I am just saying, we kinda bait material here."
Spike remains staring at her as he says: -" I can walk." Buffy laughs loudly for a moment, but stops at the look on his face. He pushes her hand away and starts walking faster. In a swag/stride/limp way ... Buffy shakes her head negatively and walks to catch up with him. She catches his arm, slides her hand once again around his middle while saying: -"Slow it is." He is so stuborn, she wants to call him out on that, but it is hardly the time to do that. Spike is bitting his tongue, she knows and there is no winning this fight. He will not let her carry him. She is glad that he is leaning against her again and they start walking once again in silence. Buffy sighs, souled Spike almost never says a word anymore, she wonders what is the deal with that. At last she can see the light of her house in the distance, this pilgrimage is almost over, yeyyy! However, as they make up the front porch steps, the door of her house opens. Spike pulls away from her and her heart constricts a little at the lack of contact. She wants to touch him, to be reasured of his presence, but Giles is at her door looking worried.
Buffy listens as her watcher voices his concern: -"Buffy, glad you are back. You should not have gone alone." She smiles and answers: -" Well, the vampire here needed saving ASAP." She says this not just to annoy Spike, but to stand her ground to her watcher. Buffy smiles as Giles takes of his glasses to clean and Spike says: -"Bugger that, I am no damsel in distress." Buffy smiles as Giles changes the subject: -"That's quite alright, I need have word with you. About the Beljoxa's eye." She glances at Spike, he can barely stand by himself, so she says: -"I need to get Spike to the basement first." But before she can move to him Spike is going through the door while saying: -"I can get settled by myself." She is about to voice her disagrement when her watcher says: -"Buffy, this is important." Her eyes roll internally as she stares at Giles, but she breaths hard, gets inside the house and says: -"Okay, spill."
She watches as Giles closes the door and heads to the living room. He sits on the couch and waits for her to join her. Buffy hears Spike cussing through the door of the basement, getting down the stairs is probably being no picnik. She shakes her head and makes her way to the couch saying: -"So what is with the suspense, information any good?" Ouch Buffy says as she drops onto the couch. Her own bruises form the uber fight, now starting to hurt. Giles smiles proudly at her and says: -"You did well by fighting and killing the Turok-han. However, the BELJOXA'S Eye said that the First Evil can not be fought or killed. That it choose to attack because the slayer line has been altered after your death." Buffy stands up angrily: -"I can not believe that. There must be someway to kill it" She looks straight at Giles as he says: "That is what I said, but aparently there is no way to kill it, nor to destroy it... However, the BELJOXA'S Eye said it could be stopped if the son of Hades fixed the slayer line or if the first submited to the son," Buffy blinked her eyes hard, she was so tired: -" Son of what now?"
Hades her watcher repeated and she remained looking at him, until he explained: -"Hades is his roman name, Pluto in Greek, Osíris in Egypitian, or more commonly refered as God of the Underworld." Buffy remained static and snorted: -"Well not the first time we dealed with Gods, but what does the son of this God has to do with the slayer line?" Buffy had not noticed Willow had come into the living room until she had answered: -"I called to Osiris to bring you back Buffy. It is all my fault the slayer line is messed up and now the first is taking advantage." Giles responded: "It is not the time to point blame, it is done you brought her back, now we have to deal." She kept looking between Giles and Willow, not quite understanding anything as she asked: -"And this Hades' son can help how?" Giles took off his glasses on again and said: -"Well, we do not know exactly. It is all the information we could get." Willow quickly added: - "We are trying to get more info about which Hades' son it was refering to and how to find him." Buffy only nooded, she looked to the basement door and said: -"I am tired. I think I should rest a bit, tomorrow we do more research okay." She did not even listen for their answer as she made her way upstairs. But she thought that every step she took to her bedroom was one step further than Spike, Buffy counted each step until she dropped to her bed.