AS ALWAYS A SPECIAL THANKS GOES OUT TO MY SPLENDOROUS WONDROUS BETA THE_BRONZE
Spike really really really felt the need to kill something at that moment in time. He was beginning to regret the effect that he and Faith had on Willy's. It had only been 24 hours since half his surrogate family had hopped across the pond but he wanted to bury his feelings under a mountain of blood.
Not that seeing Buffy three sheets to the wind wasn't amusing; watching her try to keep up with himself and Faith was downright adorable. He had never thought in a million years she would accept Faith's invite to pound a pint or two after patrol but then realized they were the only "Family" she had left.
It was still downright hilarious watching the prudish slayer being this bloody soused.
So instead of bringing down some great big demon, he and Faith were carrying a nearly unconscious Buffy back to the house.
They walked in silence for most of the way; the Slayer was dead weight, even to two people with beyond average strength. The silence was broken by Buffy starting to retch.
"Stop, I'm going to be sick."
Spike lit up a cigarette as he watched Buffy decorate the geraniums. A lone cruiser decided to stop at that exact moment. Spike recognized the officers from the gym and gave them a polite nod. It took a moment for them to recognize him but they nodded back eventually, as they started chuckling at the goings on behind him. He grinned in contemplation that it did indeed pay to have the police force on their side.
He turned back to watch over his girls. Faith was holding Buffy's hair and rubbing her back as an ungodly amount of vomit left her body.
"You must hate me", Buffy said in between convulsions.
"Nah, B. I've been in your shoes before, it's not big."
"No …. It's a big …. I've been … such a bitch."
"You'll hear no arguments from me."
"From here … on out … we're equals … family … ok?"
"If you remember this in the morning", Faith laughed.
"I will remember", Buffy said as she shot up from her sitting position. "Whoa … definitely not the brightest idea..."
Spike caught her before she crumpled onto the sidewalk.
He sighed and Faith laughed as he hefted Buffy into his arms.
"Good thing tomorrow is a Saturday", Faith said.
Spike merely nodded as they continued on.
They had started climbing the porch steps before Faith spoke again.
"I'm pretty tired. Let's just get her straight up to bed."
Spike nodded as Faith opened the door and went right up stairs.
Faith pulled off Buffy's shoes as Spike leant to place her in the bed. Buffy's arms immediately went around his neck.
"You'll never leave me Spike, right?", she slurred.
Spike chuckled as he pulled off his duster and placed it over her.
"Right by your side, till forever dies, Slayer", he replied.
"That's nice, Buffy said before immediately starting to softly snore.
Faith stood in the doorway, watching him, watching her and somewhere beyond that strong gaze of hers dwelt a longing for someone to look at her the way Spike was looking at Buffy.
Buffy woke up with a crushing headache and wrapped in the smell of tobacco, blood and leather. Before she could catch herself, she pulled the coat even tighter around her. It felt right, it felt like home.
She shot up with a bullet at that fact that her sleepy mind had just equated a coat with the feeling of being at home; a coat belonging to Spike of all people.
She must still be drunk … or missing her family to the point of a malfunctioning brain. No way this would fly with logical Buffy in the driver's seat.
She really hoped Faith didn't need any hot water because she had been in the shower for quite a long time.
She'd rather be suffering from fighting a legion of demons that nursing this damn hangover. Her stomach lurched as it digested the Tylenol she had taken dry before the shower. She still barely felt human as she tossed on some clothes and dragged herself down the stairs.
"Look who's up at the crack of noon." Faith's voice cut through her head like a buzz saw. "Want some eggs princess …. No …. Hair of the dog? Just messing with you, B. Gatorade is in the fridge."
"A world of thank you", Buffy huffed softly as she sprinted to the fridge. "Did I do anything stupid?" She turned back to them nervously.
Spike peered at Faith over his newspaper and gave her a devlish grin. "Don't know if we can ever go back to Willy's the way you were grinding on that fella like a right tart?"
"You shut the hell up!" Buffy shouted as she nervously looked at him and his evil grin. "I so didn't?" Her eyes shot to Faith.
"Relax, B." Faith shook her head in humor as she started walking out from behind the island, her eggs and bacon in tow. "Besides assaulting a few flowers, you were just very very drunk."
They all stopped their laughing as they heard the door open and close.
"We expecting visitors?", Spike said as he started to rise from his seat.
Faith grabbed one of the knives from the wooden knife block, in the kitchen, as Whistler strolled in nonchalantly.
"For me! You're the best, doll!", Whistler said as he grabbed Faith's plate from her hand and proceeded to the breakfast table.
Everyone sat staring as he started chewing on a piece of bacon. He had a mouth full of eggs before he noticed all eyes upon him.
"You make a mean piece of bacon, doll." He grinned and raised Spike's cup of coffee towards Faith.
Buffy crossed her arms and looked at Whistler, a touch of distain in her gaze. Spike had told her that it was Whistler that had told him about her being in LA but she couldn't quite get over the fact that he had been so blunt before her final confrontation with Angelus. She shook her head at the ease in which she had just thought about killing the man she loved. It seemed like ages ago and as she sat in silence, the pain still fresh in her mind.
"What are you doing here?", she said through clenched teeth, causing both Spike and Faith to look at her with concern at the amount of anger that seeped through her sentence.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, Buffy", Whistler said as he quickly finished off the last bite of his pilfered breakfast with the last gulp of pilfered coffee. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and he continued. "I'm here to help you."
"I'm kind of tired of getting your brand of help, Whistler", Buffy growled.
"Need the new Watcher here before I can start." Whistler shrugged off Buffy's anger as he made his way to the coffee pot. "Need all the knights of good in the know on the big evil."
Wesley examined the unkempt man before him. He didn't seem the type to have his fingers on the pulse of the goings on in the eternal battle between good and evil.
"Who are you?", Wesley demanded.
"Well I guess they never taught manners and civility to at least this Watcher. My name is Whistler. I am the eye candy slash mouthpiece of a little thing called the Powers That Be. Papa was one of their agents, Mama was a demon and I was their bouncing baby boy. I've got a pretty good record with a few bumps in the road and if you need references you can ask your boy Spike here, Buffy or if you really need someone with a little bit of umph get Arthur on the telephone."
"Arthur?" Wesley gave him the eye.
"As in King." Whistler blew on his fingernails and polished them on his shirt "Helped him locate a blade, become a legend etc..."
"Are we done comparing swords here?", Spike scowled. "The Watcher is here, Whistler. Get to the talkin'."
"All right, ladies and gents, let's get down to brass tacks. There is something very terrible coming down the tubes right here in our back yard. Seems like your little red headed witch did a little hocus pocus that she was ill equipped to deal with and we got realities bleeding into one another."
"Willow, she started this? I'm sure we can get this sorted out. Where is she? Where are they?", Buffy stammered, nervous yet hopeful at hearing something about their long missing friends.
"That's one of our problems. We don't really know."
Oz screamed as he set the bone back into place. Nest watched in amusement as he tore his shirt into strips and used a metal pipe to hold his arm in place. It was quite amusing to watch him do it one handed.
Nest had broken the arm when the boy was in his wolf form. He was bored, as Caleb had told him not to go out and even though the priest brought him plenty of weeping nubile flesh, Nest had spent decades trapped beneath the school before being freed so staying put wasn't his style. Breaking the wolf had been something to pass the time.
"Would you like to eat something boy?", Nest laughed as he threw a half dead girl in front of the boy. "All you have to do is change and your belly will be full."
"It's not a full moon, you idiot", Oz spat through aching teeth, barely able to get through a sentence without exhausting himself.
"You do not obey the moon, wolf! You will obey me and only me! You are an instrument that I will use at my leisure and you will kiss my boot for the privilege!" Nest punctuated each sentence with a steady stroke of a switch across the boys back.
Oz glared at the old vampire, no longer afraid of death because whatever this was, it was worse than any Hell.
"Good boy, use that hate. You may hate me with every fiber of your being; boy but you will RESPECT ME!"
With that, Oz collapsed into unconsciousness.
Angel could smell the tang of Oz's blood in the air, his ears could hear the screams that would ring through the house, and his body could feel the damage endured by The Master's "tender mercies".
Cordelia had told him the name and even though he had never really met the man, his heart went out to him. Willow and Xander were a cake walk compared to Nest. The man could make even the strongest will as pliable as a kitten.
He dare not tell Cordelia what was happening to her friend. He didn't think her body could take it.
As always, they remained absolutely still as the door creaked open again, pretending to sleep, even though Caleb was quite aware of the contrary.
He placed the pitcher of water and the food on the dresser beside the bed and watched them for what seemed like hours.
"I can't wait until the hour she lets me kill you both. Soon, you wretches, soon", he growled as he made his way out the door. "You're alive only for the purpose of weakening the Slayer so she will be all the more easily reaped. How does it feel to be pawns?" The question was a rhetorical one as the door was closed immediately after.
Cordelia quietly sat up and ate and drank her fill at a steady pace. She would never tell Angel that the only reason she did this was to make him eat himself. She prayed for her own death while wishing this Angel nothing but freedom. Gone was the brooding and dark Angel of Buffy. This Angel, her Angel was nothing but tender and protective. Angel, the broken beast that had the heart of a man, deprived of everything but torture and pain; a soul crying out for comfort.
How long had it been? A few days? A week? A month? She wasn't sure either of them were aware but in that time, in these harsh circumstances, they had found each other, the last embers of a dying light and they clung to one another.
She knew the penalties that Buffy had faced last year so she never gave words to this notion inside her, never vocalized how much he had meant to her. Her heart could face death and welcome it but it couldn't stay together if the man beside her ever turned to the monster they had faced.
"When the time comes, I'm counting on you to not let him have the satisfaction", she whispered, only loud enough for him to hear.
Angel sighed and then he pressed the piece of wood, he had pulled from underneath the bed frame, into her palm. "Same goes for you."
And again, like a dozen times before, she pulled him to her neck, hidden by her collar so that Caleb would never be aware of it and her fingers ran through his hair. They disappeared, for just a little while, miles away from their personal Hell.
"What do you mean you don't know?!", Spike screamed out loud, not so much for the others but for the visible strain that the answer had put on Buffy. "Bloody hell, don't your big, bleeding bosses know every damned thing?!"
"Well, this universe business has had an effect on what they can see. We can only decipher bits and pieces and it kinda has us with one arm tied behind our back", Whistler replied.
"What can you tell us?", Wesley chimed in.
"You were given the crash course, in Caleb, by Mr. Personality over there, correct?"
They all nodded.
"Well, the thing is, you were given the who but not the why", Whistler continued. "Like I said before, the spell messed with the dimensions, caused a bit of a kerfuffle and created the loophole to end all loopholes."
"Exactly what do you mean by a loophole?", Wesley inquired.
"On top of the dimensions being mingled, the spell made the timeline shift and bleed into itself. The time and place we are in should have never existed. The spell created a time paradox, the result of which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe! Granted, that's worst-case scenario. There are circumstances and events that the powers have not even made me privy to. They should not have occurred at this juncture, along with certain bad things."
"Bad things?", Faith spoke up
"The bad thing, Kiddos. The First Evil. The darkness, the snake, the man in the desert whatever you wanna call it. It is pure and simple evil in its base form."
"How the bloody hell can we kill the root of all evil?!", Spike yelled.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa there bleached and fangy; Never said anything about vanquishing all evil. That is fundamentally impossible due to universal balances and checks but that is either here nor there for us right now. The long and short of it is that Mr Caleb has become an avatar, for The First Evil, who can only become flesh when the dead outnumber the living on earth and that will be the end of days."
"How do we stop it?" Buffy stood up and walked towards Whistler.
"You need to destroy the avatar."
"And how do we do that?"
"It is not for thee. It is for her alone to wield", was Whistler's only reply.
They waited until after dusk, as Whistler insisted that Spike accompany Buffy and himself on their little field trip. Spike zoomed his way around the roads and from the backseat, Whistler knew every turn as if they were tattooed on his eyelids. Eventually, they ended up in a vineyard. "There's a vineyard in Sunnydale?", was the first thought that crossed Buffy's mind as they entered the gates.
Spike insisted on taking the front, as they made their way through the darkness. Buffy held onto his coat as he also insisted that they go through, in the dark. Whistler again led them, as if he had been there a million times before and eventually they reached a staircase with the faintest light issuing from the bottom.
The staircase went on forever but eventually Buffy was able to see only slightly as they neared the Bottom. They entered a cavern lit by torchlight.
"A rock …again… really gotta think of something more original." Whistler rolled his eyes as he looked at the ceiling.
Buffy had never felt drawn to something more in her life. Everything melted away, until nothing existed but her and the red scythe, that was a few steps in front of her. A hum filled her ears as if it was ringing only for her. It became louder and louder, the closer she stepped. As her hand grasped the handle, a feeling of peace washed over her and it almost leaned into her hand as it was only sculpted for her. This thing was hers. They moved as one as she pulled it from the rock.
"A weapon. A scythe. We forged it in secrecy for one like you."
Buffy came out of her stupor and her eyes were captured in others that seemed so full of warmth. Spike went to make a move towards them but Whistler raised an arm to stop him and shook his head.
"I am the last Guardian, my child. I and the others before me have waited eons for this moment. It is for her alone to yield." The elderly woman bowed her head and then returned to Buffy's gaze with a tender smile.
"But this wield alone is now not enough. For if you face him alone, you will die, child." The old woman caressed Buffy's face and saw the fear. "Fear not child. For when two become one and one become two, the darkest of evil it will undo."
"Wha..", Bufy started.
"In time, my child, in time." She stroked her thumb across the tear that slid down Buffy's cheek. "Mine is at an end, so I shall use the last of it to bring you your guiding light."
"That's my cue", Whistler said as he made his way forward. "You may wanna stand back, girlie."
"Oh Whistler, I haven't seen you since I was but a girl. Are you here to help me on my way?"
Whistler's face lost the cocky grin and it was replaced by the most tender smile Buffy or Spike had ever seen.
"Yes sweetheart. You have no idea what your sacrifice means even to them and they are making sure you get your rest."
"How is it there, Whistler?"
"Do you remember the meadow that smelt, first thing in the dewed morning, of daisies and dampness. It's like that but it goes on forever."
"Lovely."
"Are You Ready?"
"Yes Whistler and thank you."
"For you dear, it's my pleasure."
Spike and Buffy watched as Whistler and the woman joined hands and were blinded by an explosion of light.
They both rubbed their eyes and they were both gone, replaced by a sole figure they could not make out.
They both stared at the figure, confused and bewildered by what had transpired but as the fog cleared their minds and Spike looked at the person that stood before them in shimmering white and his mind flashed back to a night not so long ago in a Brazilian alley.
"Glinda …"