Disclaimer: I don't own or profit from BtVS.
A/N: So if my child was essentially murdered and then I found out there was a conspiracy to keep it from me, I might actually go nuclear. I mean, really. How is a mother supposed to respond to that?
So many thanks to ObscureBookWyrm to being such a brilliant beta who hasn't told me to bugger off yet.
CupcakeCute has a new Wishverse fic About a Girl that I'm enjoying immensely. Y'all should check it out. She has a solid writing style, excelling in character and world building. There's just not enough Wishverse fics in my opinion. Such an underutilized storyline. Of course, I have a personal weakness for untamed wicked!Spike. Makes me want to put a collar on him and bring him to heel.
Remember When
Chapter Twenty-One
"So this girl is a Slayer as well?" Joyce motioned towards Kendra, who stood silently in the archway leading to the kitchen. The young woman kept shifting her weight impatiently, frowning at the basement door.
"Yeah. She was called after me." Buffy stood anxiously next to her Watcher. Giles sat in the wicker lounger, his calm eyes never leaving Joyce's face. Xander and Willow huddled on the couch, watching the conversation like a tennis match. Willow looked as if a tension monster was trying to eat its way out of her belly and for once Xander was wisely keeping his sarcasm to himself.
"But I don't understand. Mr. Giles was just telling me that a new Slayer is chosen only after the previous one…" Joyce trailed off, unable to say the words.
"Dies." Buffy finished for her.
Joyce's gaze sharpened on her daughter's pale countenance. A sick sensation fluttered in her chest. Her palms were suddenly sweaty and she wiped them on her beige pencil skirt. Belatedly she realized she hadn't called the gallery to tell them she wouldn't be coming in today. And then there were the Pattersons. Should she call the police or let their bodies be discovered by some other unsuspecting person?
She walked over to the wet bar, tucked neatly in the corner of the den. Though she had poured most of her alcohol down the sink when Ted left, she'd kept back the good bottle of brandy she and Hank had been gifted with during their last Christmas together. Ever the good hostess, she had thought she might need to offer a drink to her guests someday.
The pungent scent of distilled spirits hit her hard as she untwisted the cap. Her empty stomach churned, reminding her that her breakfast was splattered on the Pattersons' living room floor. Finding those bodies…Joyce shuddered.
The clock hadn't yet struck noon and already the day called for reinforcements of the liquid courage kind.
The liquid burned her raw throat as it slid into her belly. She briefly thought about offering Mr. Giles a drink, but she was so disgusted with the man that she decided he could do without. The way she felt about him she wouldn't offer him ice water in hell.
Joyce paced into the foyer to get a better look at Kendra. The dark-eyed girl stared back, seemingly unconcerned with the emotional undercurrent ebbing around her. There was hardness about the girl that was unsettling.
"Buffy, what aren't you telling me?" Joyce had to force the words out. She almost didn't want to know what her daughter was hiding from her. She wanted to stick her head in the sand. The bottom of a brandy bottle would have to do.
Buffy fidgeted, tugging on the hem of her shirt. She rolled it up, studying the stitching instead of looking at her mother.
"You remember the Homecoming dance last year? I wore the white dress the dry cleaner couldn't get the stains out of."
Joyce's brow creased. "You said you tripped and fell into a mud puddle."
"Uh, well. It was more like a vampire bit me and threw me into a mud puddle." Buffy paused, swallowing hard. Her friends shifted nervously in their seats. "Then I drowned."
Joyce's half empty glass fell from her nerveless fingers, shattering on the hard tiles.
"We'll clean that up for you, Mrs. Summers." Willow shot up from the couch, pulling Xander behind her. Emotional outbursts made her deeply uncomfortable. They didn't do emotions in her house. They did sensible family meetings where Willow was encouraged to talk about her feelings calmly and rationally, using her 'I feel' statements. It made her want to scream, because frankly, sometimes Willow wanted, no needed, to scream. But it wasn't allowed. Outbursts of any kind, even laughing too loudly, were frowned upon. So seeing the devastated shock on Mrs. Summers' face made her skin itch with the need to fix it, to make it better any way she could. At this moment, it meant cleaning up the mess of broken glass on the floor.
Joyce and Buffy ignored the two teenagers as they scurried out of the room. The two family members were frozen in a terrible tableau. Joyce was staring with horrified shock at her daughter while Buffy's head hung in shame as if she had committed some unforgiveable sin.
"Do you mean to say you died?" Joyce wasn't sure if she'd be able to hear Buffy's reply over the pounding of her heart.
Buffy wrung her hands. "It was only for a second. Xander brought me back with CPR." The boy in question entered the room with a towel. He halted at the sound of his name, looking anxiously at Mrs. Summers. Joyce glanced at the thin, gangly boy who smelled like acne cream. She swallowed and looked back at Buffy, who was watching at her with a hopeful expression. It almost seemed as if she was trying to talk her way out being grounded. Did her daughter really think she would punish her for dying? When did she start coming off as such a heartless bitch?
Joyce crossed the room and gathered her daughter up into a desperate hug.
"Oh, my God, Buffy. I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
Buffy returned her mother's hug fiercely. "I know. We couldn't tell you and…Well, I'm okay now. It's all of the good."
Joyce held onto her little girl a while longer as the words sunk in. Slowly, she untangled herself from the embrace. She looked first from her daughter, to Mr. Giles, then finally the two teenagers cleaning up the mess on the floor.
"You all knew," she breathed.
Buffy smiled brightly, relieved to have the weight of such a terrible secret off her chest. Only Giles shifted in his chair.
"Yeah, but I was cool. I got up and totally kicked the Master's ass right after. He was all, 'Impossible! It is written you would die,' and I was all, 'I flunked the written.' Then I impaled him on a table leg. It was awesome."
Joyce held Buffy by the shoulders and just looked at her. She studied every line of Buffy's face, the golden strands of her hair, the depth and clarity of her eyes. There must be some evidence somewhere of her daughter's trials. Some clue that Joyce had missed. How could her daughter have died and she not have known it?
She shifted her gaze to Mr. Giles, who was seated next to them. The man stared back at her with knowing eyes.
"You kept it from me," Joyce accused in a breathless whisper.
Buffy stiffened, realizing the danger was far from over. Her mother could go from idyllic calm to thunderous rage in ten seconds flat.
The teenager backed away, wringing her hands again. "It's not like that. I mean, yeah, we kept it from you, but that's part of the whole Slayer package. If I told you I died, you'd want to know the whys and hows and I wouldn't have any answers for you."
Joyce's mind was reeling. She'd suffered too many shocks for one day, and her brain was no longer processing new information. A dull thudding formed behind her eyes, and her eyesight blurred. She pressed her fingertips to her temples, rubbing small, persistent circles in the hopes she could massage the pain away.
"Mom?" Buffy's voice floated from a distance. Joyce could hear concern and fear in the soft tenor.
"You could die again. This thing you do. This Slaying. It's dangerous. And…" Joyce shifted so she could face Mr. Giles fully. He rose to his feet, a perfect study of unaffected maleness. Rage swelled in her chest, nearly choking her.
"If that boy hadn't been there to give her CPR, she'd be dead right now. And I would've never known…" Her voice shook before she steadied herself. "I would've never known the real reason for her death. You would've kept it from me."
Mr. Giles looked at her kindly, but all she saw was the deceptive mask of a practiced liar. "Mrs. Summers, I know this is a shock to you. But please understand this is how it's been done for centuries."
"Understand? What exactly am I supposed to understand? That you steal little girls from their homes, turn them against their families, and use them for your own twisted purposes, leaving them to die alone without their loved ones?"
A sound escaped Buffy like that of a wounded kitten. Joyce wrapped one arm around her daughter's quaking shoulders and pulled her into her side.
Until her mother gave voice to it, Buffy hadn't given much thought to the Council's part in her calling. Every time she had lied to her mother she felt as if she was betraying her family, and doing so at her watcher's insistence. Institutionalizing her was an unavoidable result of destroying public property. Her mother had no choice in the matter, but who's to say that if Giles hadn't sat down with Joyce when they first moved to Sunnydale and explained Buffy's calling, that things wouldn't have been as strained between them? If she had been allowed to be honest with her mother, their relationship wouldn't have been tainted.
Being sent out to die alone was something that always weighed heavily on Buffy. It was why she wanted to stop slaying in the first place. Even after accepting her calling, Buffy still buckled under the unfairness of it all-the knowledge that not only was she going to die young, but more than likely alone, with only her enemy's fetid breath at her throat.
"Mrs. Summers, things aren't as simple as you'd like to pretend. It's easy to cast blame—"
"Easy!" Joyce laughed scathingly. "There is nothing easy about this. You send my daughter out into the dark to fight monsters."
"It is her duty," he replied heatedly. "She will fight until she dies and then there will be another. That's how it's always been."
The crack of flesh on flesh was terribly loud in the silent room. The children watched the adults with round eyes, their breath caught in butterfly nets in their chests.
"You evil, wretched man. I want you out of my house."
"Mom. No." Buffy couldn't stand all the tension writhing around the room, all centered on her.
"Buffy!" Her mother rounded on her, and Buffy withdrew. She kept her eyes on her feet, unable to look up and see the perfect red handprint on Giles' cheek and the helpless agony in her mother's eyes.
"He can't leave, Mom. We still have to talk about Angel. We have to make a plan to stop him."
"No, Buffy. This can't go on."
Buffy lifted her head to peer into her mother's distraught gaze.
"It doesn't stop. Not ever. Giles is right. I fight until I die, then another takes my place. When Kendra dies another will take her place." The second Slayer's unrelenting gaze didn't waver when Buffy motioned to her. She knew her duty and accepted it.
"The hordes are always coming. There is never a lull or ebb. They're always there in the dark, waiting. Angel has to be stopped tonight. It can't wait. The apocalypse doesn't stop because I need to take a time out."
Joyce reached out a hand to caress her daughter's cheek. When she looked into Buffy's eyes she didn't see her little girl anymore. She saw a mature woman who carried far too much responsibility on her slender shoulders.
"I love you, Mom. And I'm really sorry this hurts you. But I promise from now on I'll always be honest with you."
Joyce gathered up Buffy in a tight hug. "I love you too, baby. I just…" Joyce didn't know what else to say. Queasiness overwhelmed her. "I think I need to lie down," Joyce said shakily. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor as she carefully crossed the room to ascend the stairs.
"Mom?" Buffy appeared at her elbow, her tone urgent. Joyce spared her a glance, but had to quickly look away. It hurt to look at her. It hurt that her daughter had died and somehow she hadn't known it. Hadn't felt it. Everyone had known, including the children her daughter called friends. They were practically strangers. Buffy hadn't even known them for a year and yet they were privy to her deepest secrets while her own mother was kept in the dark.
"It's okay, baby. I'm just…It's been a very long day already and I just need to rest a bit." Joyce patted the small hand resting on her forearm, before brushing past her. Exhaustion rolled over her, and ascending the stairs took Sisyphean tenacity that nearly drained her entirely.
Once upstairs, she lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the muffled murmurs of conversation downstairs.
"Is your mother going to be alright?" Willow asked timidly.
Buffy was still wringing her hands. It was a sight that made her friends anxious. The slayer was the epitome of confidence. She was never nervous. Yet, somehow her mother turned her into a normal teenage girl who worried about being grounded and disappointing her parents. As much as they liked Buffy, they disliked seeing this side of her. This weakness in her. It would be easier if Buffy's normal life was as normal as possible. That way she could concentrate fully on her duties without distractions. Xander knew he was more of a hindrance than a help when it came to Buffy's supernatural activities, but perhaps he could do more to see that her regular life was less rocky. Stability was what Buffy needed, especially once this debacle with Angel was over.
"I don't know. Maybe? I haven't seen her like this since Dad asked for a divorce."
Willow and Xander exchanged a glance, but before they could say more Kendra stepped forward.
"Your friends told me that the vampire you call Angel has turned on you as expected."
Buffy grimaced at the lack of tact the other slayer displayed. But she supposed she did deserve it. Angel had turned on her.
"It wasn't expected," Buffy snapped.
"T'was by me. A soul does nothing to curb true evil." The Slayer's smug little grin made Buffy's blood boil. She crossed the room to face off with the taller girl.
"Angel loves me. It's only because he lost his soul that he's the newest big bad in town."
Kendra laughed. It startled the others in the room, because none of them had ever heard her make such a sound before. They were used to the cold, stoic girl from her last visit.
"Soul or no soul, a vampire can't love. If it were possible then he would've loved you still when his soul flew away. All that evil inside him was just waiting beneath the surface, writhing to get free. We are what we are, and that never changes. We are Slayers until we die. And all vampires are monsters, souled or not."
Buffy withdrew from the bigotry and hate in the other Slayer's eyes. Kendra had been honed as a child to be a weapon against vampires and demons. There was no forgiveness in her heart for those she was indoctrinated to kill. Buffy hated to admit it, but Kendra was what a true Slayer should be. A merciless warrior of the people.
Buffy turned her back on Kendra. The fierce frown of disapproval on the other girl's face made her feel small and dirty.
"We don't have time for this. We have to make a plan of attack. According to Spike, Angelus has this nasty old statue called Acathla that's going to unleash hell on earth tonight."
"Spike!" Willow and Xander gasped in unison.
"Acathla!" Giles grabbed a pad of paper off the coffee table and started making notes.
"If your boyfriend," Kendra spat the word with distaste. "Is no longer, then why is there a vampire in your house?"
The looks of wide-eyed shock from her friends made Buffy cringe. She should have known the other Slayer would be able to sense Spike. The only one who wasn't startled by the revelation was Giles.
"What else did he have to say about Acathla?" Giles asked calmly.
"No, wait!" Xander stepped forward. "Spike's here? In the house?"
"In the basement." Kendra nodded at the tightly shut door leading downstairs.
"What?" Xander jumped like a scalded cat. He and Willow scuttled out of the foyer and into the den, extending the distance between them and the basement door. "What is he doing here? How could you let him into the house?" Xander demanded accusingly.
Buffy sighed, rubbing her temples. At that moment she looked very much like her mother. Giles couldn't help but to notice that it seemed as if she was aged twenty years.
Emotional exhaustion and blood loss were starting to take their toll. Buffy sank onto the couch, leaning forward to brace her elbows on her knees.
"He saved Dawn," she said simply, too tired to elaborate.
Sensing her friend's need, Willow sat beside Buffy, running a calming hand down her back. She frowned when she felt the delicate knobs of Buffy's spine. The stress of the last few months had taken its toll on the Slayer's health and appetite. She had lost much of her baby fat, and was slimming out into a beautiful woman, but she was on the cusp of becoming too thin. Willow was sure that her oatmeal raisin cookies were just the thing to make her friend feel better and get the calories she needed.
"What do you mean, he saved Dawn?" Willow asked gently.
Inhaling deeply, Buffy explained the whole sordid story, from finding the Pattersons' dead bodies to Spike's entrance into the kitchen. She turned to her watcher as she elaborated on the deal she and Spike made to ambush Angelus at his mansion later that evening. As she glossed over his demand for her blood, the bite marks on her breast tingled, an insistent reminder of her body's defectiveness.
"You can't trust that bloodsucker, Buffy. He's just trying to lure you into a trap." Xander was shaking his head vigorously. When Kendra stepped up next to him, Buffy noted wryly that her heated prejudice was enough to dissipate her nervousness around boys.
"Vampires cannot be trusted," Kendra said deliberately as if talking to a child.
"I'm inclined to agree. We cannot be sure that this is not a trap." Giles leaned forward to engage his charge's attention. Only Willow remained a silent figure next to her. Buffy couldn't ascertain if the silence was disapproval or support.
Buffy felt desperation welling up inside of her. Instinctively she knew she was no match against Angelus and Dru on her own, and her friends wanted to rip the only support she had away from her. If she didn't have Spike as backup then what did that leave her with? Her friends were bravely willing to follow her into battle, but they were only human. She couldn't take them into the lair of two master vampires, perhaps even three if their suppositions about Spike betraying them were correct, and expect them to survive. That left her with Kendra, an untried, unimaginative Slayer that Buffy knew in her heart was destined to have a short life. The girl just didn't have the fire needed to survive. Buffy needed a real fighter by her side. Someone who had the grit to get back up off the floor even when all the chips were down. She needed a fighter as talented as she.
"But Spike saved Dawn," Buffy defended.
"That could very well have been a ploy to gain your trust," Giles said gently.
Buffy stared down at her tightly clenched hands. Images from that morning kept flashing through her head. Spike's ravaged body as he lay prone in her dirty laundry, Dawn's tear-stained face as Buffy helped her into the bath. But it was the day in the alley that Buffy's thoughts kept returning to. The look of astonishment on his face when Dawn rambled on about how he needed to come stay with them where he'd be safe from Angelus' cruelty, and the devastation in his eyes when he realized he'd lost the young girl's admiration. His crumpled form as he knelt amidst the trash was burned in her mind. His desperate pleas to see him as the vampire he was still rang in her ears. Finally, it was the look of wonderment in his eyes as he stared down at her after their kiss that convinced her that he could be trusted.
"It's no ploy, Giles. Spike is going to help me."
"Buffy, don't be—"
"Don't be what?" Buffy's eyes flashed as she dared Xander to finish his sentence.
Xander swallowed nervously. "It's just. You know. What Kendra said. It's in a vampire's nature to stab you in the back."
Buffy looked away from him. "Maybe. But Spike won't."
Kendra snorted.
"How can you be certain?" Giles asked with honest curiosity.
"Because it's the only way he can get his black goddess back." She refused to examine any deeper motivations Spike may have. Whatever they may be, they were unacknowledged not only by her, but by Spike himself.
Xander snickered. "Seriously?"
"Seriously." Buffy's hard tone sobered him.
"Oh."
"Buffy." Willow's timid tone urged Buffy to look at her friend. She noticed Willow exchange a questioning glance with Giles, before looking down at the toes of her purple Sketchers.
"This may all be a moot point."
"What do you mean, Willow?" Buffy dipped her head, but Willow wouldn't look her in the eye.
"I sorta found something."
Buffy didn't like the tight feeling forming in her stomach. "What did you find?"
Willow hesitated and Giles cleared his throat. "Willow found Angel's curse."
"I can put his soul back. I know I can." Willow interjected quickly, when Buffy didn't reply immediately.
Willow's sudden enthusiasm was startling, but Buffy was reeling from the shock. She could have her Angel back. His kind eyes gazing at her with love instead of disgust-his calm, reassuring presence instead of the eruption of disgust across her skin whenever he was nearby. They would replace his soul and everything would be perfect again.
"I'm only missing a few ingredients. The Magic Shop owner promised they would be coming in this afternoon's shipment. I can cast the spell tonight."
Buffy shuddered. By then it may be too late. "Spike and I still need to go to the mansion. We have to hold off Angelus long enough for you to do the spell."
"So that's it then?" Xander asked scathingly. "We put his soul back and all's forgiven?
"Xander," Willow chastised softly.
"We can't just kill him." Buffy defended.
"Why not? He killed Ms. Calender."
Willow winced and Giles looked away.
"He is right," Kendra nodded shyly towards Xander. "A demon shouldn't be excused his sins just because you want to keep him."
Despair crashed over Buffy. So much blood coated her hands. She'd unleashed a monster on the world and now she was drowning in his sins.
Buffy shot up from the couch. "I can save him."
"Save your boyfriend, you mean," Xander spat, emboldened by Kendra's support.
"No!" Buffy squeezed her eyes closed, her hands fisted along her thighs. "I couldn't save Ms. Calender and everyone else Angelus murdered, but I can save Angel's soul." Her eyes were flooded with pain when she opened them. "Don't you get it, Xander? I have to save him. It's the only way to save myself."
Tears threatened to choke her as she brushed by her friend.
"Buffy, where are you going?" Giles called.
"Out," she replied desperately. "To get Spike some blood." Her hand was wrapped around the handle when she suddenly spun on her heel. She grabbed Kendra by the throat and thrust her hard into the wall, coating the other Slayer in a fine layer of drywall.
"Don't you dare touch Spike while I'm out," she hissed. She looked over her shoulder to Giles, her delicate, young features hardened with conviction. "He's here to help. If you dust him, you might as well put out a welcome sign for the hordes of hell."
She bounced the Slayer off the wall to enforce her words. She knew the by-the-book Slayer wouldn't do anything without a Watcher's approval, and Giles was smart enough not to dismiss a possible advantage until he had all the facts.
Buffy turned her back on her friends, slamming the door behind her so their accusatory voices couldn't follow her.