Setting Up House

by Sandy S.

Tenth, Be Truthful with Other Family Members

Somehow, I find my way to the Magic Box, find a non-existent parking spot near the movie theater. . . without shade, of course. Seems like the closer I got to downtown Sunnydale, the brighter the sun became.

I have no choice but to leave Spike in the trunk. He's quiet, so I assume he'll be okay. I'll just hurry.

Several seconds later (yes, I ran), I burst into the door of the Magic Box, bell ringing to announce my arrival. Anya doesn't bother to appear interested in my harried appearance.

Without removing her eyes from the book she's reading by the cash register, she lifts up a slip of paper. "Giles called for you."

"H-he did?"

"Yep. He sounded all upset and flustered. I just reminded him that yes, his money is safe in my hands and that I am quite capable of handling the store myself. That man needs so much reassurance." She shakes her head so that her blond curls bob up and down. Licking a finger, she turns a page in whatever large volume she's reading today.

"What else did he say?"

She cocks her head to one side and flips a page. "That you should call him ASAP. He said he tried to call your house, too, but someone hung up on him."

Spike answered the phone this morning. At least, I can be grateful that he merely hung up instead of speaking. Although if the Watcher's Council is behind what's going on, Giles probably already knows about Spike staying with Dawn and me.

As I circle round the counter to reach the phone, I can't help but ask, "Anya, what are you reading?"

For the first time, she notices my physical presence, and she claps the book closed. Before I can catch a glimpse of the title, the volume vanishes, and a wedding magazine appears in its place. "Nothing. Well, about weddings. What else would I be reading about?"

"Big books about mystical stuffs?" I snag the bit of paper and dial Giles's number on the cordless receiver.

"Well, you know that anything I read these days has to do with the wedding. I mean, it's only a couple months away!"

"As long as I don't have to participate in any weird marriage rituals. . ." I trail off as the phone starts ringing. My heart pounds a bit. I haven't spoken to Giles since he left me. . . Sunnydale.

"Hello?" comes a familiar voice, distant but distinctly British.

I grasp the phone with both hands in an attempt get a better grip on my Watcher. "Giles. What's going on?"

Anya sneaks a glance at me when she hears the desperation in my voice, and I edge toward my training room.

"Buffy. Calm down. It's not a terribly serious situation, but it would behoove you to pay attention to what I have to say." Giles isn't giving me the reassurance I expected.

I whisper, "Tell me the truth."

"Buffy, the truth is that you've done some things recently of which the Council does not approve. You've been under close scrutiny since you came back. . ."

Now I'm getting pissed, and I shut myself in the training room and begin pacing. "Close scrutiny how? You left, if I recall. How have they been watching me?"

"You must understand that since your. . . return, the Council has been worried about the repercussions of your reinstatement as the Slayer."

"What do you mean?" Wait a minute. "Faith would still be the one. . . I mean, if Faith dies, she'll trigger the next. . ."

"We're not sure."

The anger flares back white hot. "We're not sure? Who's side are you on anyway?" Why did you leave me? "You can't just go away and not be on my side anym. . . ."

"Buffy," he interrupts, almost matching my anger.

I listen, leaning against the wall beneath the wall of sunlight pouring into the training room.

His tone softens, "I'm on your side. Always have been."

"Huh. Tell me why it doesn't feel like that right about now."

"I understand how you feel." I haven't heard Giles sound that tired in a while. "I do, but what you've been doing with. . ."

I can't quite bear him to say the truth aloud just yet. "They put cameras in my house, Giles. They made me think they were going to take Dawn away. That's lower than the lowest of the low." I close my eyes, but tears form behind my eyelids anyway. When I open them, the liquid splashes over my cheeks, and I sniff. "I can't believe you'd let them do this to me. Not after. . ."

"You're sleeping with Spike," he snaps out of the blue. Giles sounds almost. . . betrayed like after the time Xander caught me kissing Angel after he returned from hell.

I almost swallow my tongue, and a cough rises up out of my lungs before I can stop the spasm. Giles says nothing and lets me finish my hacking. Finally, I manage, "I wanted to show the social workers that Dawn had a stable home life. I didn't want her to get taken away."

"So, what the Council concluded from watching the recordings is bogus? I hardly call what you're doing at home provides her with a 'stable home life.'"

"What do you think?" How much have you exactly seen, Giles? Out with it already. I want this awkward, disapproving-father part to be over.

"From what I saw before I left, I would say there is something different about the way the two of you interact. I would say that it bordered on inappropriate before I left."

"Like I've been a state to really know what's going on! I barely even know which way's up right now. . . let alone what's appropriate and inappropriate. And anyway, you guys worked with him all summer. And he took care of Dawn." Even I know that last piece is stretching the limits of a sound argument.

"And yet, none of us slept with him," he practically shouts.

Now my rage overcomes me, and I squeeze the phone a tad too hard so that it makes a small popping sound. I'm tempted to hang up on him. "You told me that you wanted me to make decisions on my own. . . that I needed to handle things. Well, I'm doing the best I can."

He sighs into the phone. "I know you are. I just want the best for you."

"What's best for me is for the Council to leave me alone and stay out of my personal affairs."

"And I want more for you than Spike. . . or Angel. . . or any vampire for that matter."

I study the toe of my sneaker, paying careful attention to the dark smudge on the white toe. "I know. But right now, he's helping me, and I. . . need him." I can't believe I just said that to Giles. Part of me wishes Spike was here to witness my confession. . . and part of me is very glad that he isn't.

"You will need all the help you can get," Giles acknowledges grudgingly.

Sliding to the floor with my knees poking into the air, I inhale. "Tell me what's going on with the Council, Giles. And why they're videoing my house."

xxxxx

An hour later than I wanted, I arrive at the car. The sun is now high in the sky and brighter than ever, but the air is crisper and cooler than normal. We must have had a cold front, but somehow I'm numb to the change of the weather. In fact, the weather is quite low on the list of things on my mind, and I feel a bit dizzy with the news I've just received. Running my hand over the metal bumper to steady myself, I wonder if Spike is asleep. Fingering the remote in my pocket, I click open the trunk.

For a brief instant, Spike's blue eyes blink up at me in panic, and then, I'm in the trunk beside him, my backside nestled against his hips and my back alongside his chest. I crack the trunk so that the light is a mere sliver against the black of the trunk. Spike's arms are warm from being in the trunk, and I snuggle close, needing the contact after the long string of confrontations I just had. Screw my convictions; what I admitted to Giles is true. I need him.

"Hey," he whispers in my ear. "Thought you were going to flambé me for a second there."

"I like my Spike extra flavorful," I find myself teasing back.

He pinches my behind. "I'm pretty intoxicating, huh?"

I elbow him with a pointy bone so that he emits a small grunt. "Whatever. Maybe I could use some alcohol about now." No, not really.

"So what are you doing here in the trunk with me?"

"You're in a better mood," I observe.

"That's because I'm starting to find this whole situation rather amusing. I've had time to think in the darkness of your trunk. And I discovered a spare tire, a stray tool or three, and a half-eaten granola bar covered in something sticky that smells rather like honey. A creation by the Nibblet?"

I laugh, a little half-laugh.

He continues, "You, on the other hand, are trying to be in a better mood, but you're really not."

"You're right. I'm not." I'm still finding this Spike-knowing-my-thoughts thing rather disconcerting.

"What'd Rupert tell you?" He strokes my hip as he talks, and his voice rumbles against my back, soothing me.

"Do we have to talk about it?" I ask, implying that the information is my personal business and none of his.

He's silent for several seconds, and I can tell he's swallowing back a myriad of emotions. "Yes, we do. I'm living in your house now. I deserve to know what the Council wants, especially if it involves the end of a pointy bit of wood for me."

"Fine. The Council knows about us. . . ergo, Giles knows about us. . . . Is that what you wanted to hear?" I'm still reeling a bit from what I learned at the Magic Box, so it's easier to barb Spike than deal with the real issues.

My voice is muted by the limited acoustics of the trunk, but I know I'm loud. I just hope no one is passing by the car right now. Talking trunks are unexpected and probably disturbing. . . even in Sunnydale. Don't need some passing stranger whipping up the half-open hood.

Spike tenses behind me, and his hand freezes on my thigh. "That's not what I was asking, pet."

"What were you. . . oh." He wants to know what the deal is with the Council. I'd much rather have to handle Spike's anger than my thoughts and feelings about the Council's motives. "They want to 'get rid of' Faith."

"What?" His head lifts behind mine, and I turn to view the dim outlines of his wide eyes.

I nod to confirm although I wish I could deny the truth. How ironic for me. . . queen of ignoring the truth. Maybe I'm getting better at it, unbeknownst to me. "And if I don't do it, they will."

His hand goes under his head to prop himself up in our limited space. "What does your Watcher say about this? And more importantly, why?"

"Know how Willow and the others cast that spell to. . . bring me back?" There, I just said it this time. I don't have the luxury of beating around the bush now.

"Couldn't forget, love," he touches my shoulder, urging me to keep going.

"Well, their sources. . . their mystics, witches or whatever have sensed a change in the balance of forces here on this plane. . . whatever that means." I roll my eyes at this point even though Spike can't see me. "And somehow this change has something to do with me."

"What does that have to do with killing Faith?"

"Not killing her necessarily. . . just 'getting rid' of her. They think it will solve the 'balance' problem."

I feel his immediate anger against my back. . . how he pulls away, and now Spike is being loud, too. "What the hell? First, they have to define the problem and their solution. . . with a lot more clarity."

I lower my voice so that he'll with any luck imitate it, "In the world of logical problem solving, yes."

"I don't understand."

I huff a little and try to elucidate what Giles explained in much more detail over the phone. "Well, I think that their idea is that because I was brought back in an unnatural way, it's like I never died in the first place."

"What does that have to do with 'balancing the forces'?"

I frown, trying to think how to word Giles's explanation. "Hmm. I think it's like I never died. . . not even the first time."

Spike turns his head so that his lips are close enough to lightly contact my hair. "Like hitting a reset button on the whole Slayer line button."

"Exactly."

He hits my rhythm and comes out with the next point before I can, "'Cepting now there's two active Slayers and two active lines. . ."

"Unbalancing the forces and creating a world with two times the forces of good. . . a world that's vulnerable to evil. The Council is worried about the unstable repercussions of my return. . . which is why they've been watching me. . . er, the house."

"The house? Why would they watch the house?"

"Supposedly, the home of a Slayer. . . by the nature of me residing in it. . . contains a lot of mystical energy that's almost like a fingerprint to say, 'Slayer lives here.'" Like I said, I'm having a hard time buying that line of horse hooey.

Of course, Spike corrects my incredulity with a single sentence, "Well, I can sense it. . . other vamps and demon-types can sense it. . . if they get close enough to your house."

I turn my head slightly. "You never said anything like that before."

"Because you never asked, pet."

"Oh," I say to the top of the trunk.

"And I never really thought of it before. . . at least consciously," he adds.

His hand falls loosely over to the front of my belly, and I nudge my hand up underneath his palm. The tenderness is easier to share in the darkness. . .so far anyway, and it's easier to achieve when he's listening so intently. "Anyway, their cameras have special. . . magical sensors in them to help them assess possible changes in the house's energy."

"Have they detected anything?"

"Apparently so. . . hence the 'let's get rid of Faith to end the other line' plan. Because the Council can't get Faith out of prison without her consent and because they need a Slayer in the field, the Council wants to send her to another plane of existence and keep me here to man the war."

"You don't believe them," Spike concludes.

"Nope. Never have. . . never will. And it's not exactly fair to Faith. . . despite what she's done in the past." Spike doesn't exactly know everything Faith did to me and mine.

For the moment, he chooses to ignore my ironic tone. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, we have to get to Faith before the Council does. Giles is working on a mystical way to sort out the imbalance and allow both of us to remain where we are. The Council skipped right to the elimination solution, and they aren't listening."

"So, we're heading to the City of Angels then?"

"Well, just me and the gang," I correct him. He remains motionless and nonverbal, so I keep talking, "You know. . . me and Willow and Xander."

"What about me?" He doesn't bother to disguise his hurt.

"I need you to watch after Dawn." I can't have you and Angel together in the same room. . . not yet. . . if ever.

He jerks his hand away, but he can hardly move too far because there's the sun above and only so much room in the trunk. "You just don't want Angel to know about us."

I cradle my arm up to my chest. . . have to protect myself. If I can't even admit to myself what I share with Spike, how can I even begin to express the connection to Angel. . . the one. . . "You're right. I can't have both of you in the same room. I have to focus on the mission. And plus, Giles will be coming eventually. I-I don't have time to run interference among all of you."

"And we're right back to where we were last night," he retorts.

I refuse to say anything in response because if I do, I'll be tempted to throw up the trunk lid myself and leave Spike in a pile of dust.

The thought of him being utterly decimated shifts my thoughts.

In my smallest, most non-Slayer voice, I whisper in echo of a past exchange to honor the truth, "Say I do want you to come. Say I need you to come. Can you stay out of Angel's way enough for us to get things done and get back to Sunnydale in a timely fashion?"

"And when we get back and the cameras come down?"

This time the silence is longer.

TBC...

So, we finally made it to the real plot...don't worry...more silliness will ensue...eventually! Thanks for all your support in my fic:o)