Chapter 7

Seeley was tired, it had been a long day and his talk with Buffy had been draining on the both of them. His talk with Conner had also been replaying in his mind. He mused whether Buffy was going to stay or not, personally he couldn't help but think about the last time she left.

The hotel had been in state of chaos since Buffy, the Scoobies and the baby slayers as Xander likes to call them, had turned up. It had been two days since the group turned up to the Hyperion Hotel, asking for sanctuary after the destruction of Sunnydale. Angel and Buffy seemed to be trying their hardest to stay away from each other, even on the off chance that they in front of each other, the two star-crossed lovers could barely keep eye contact with each other.

It was wet day; the rain hadn't stopped the entire day. But today there seemed to a state of melancholy surrounding Buffy and Angel, only those who are close to the two star-crossed seemed to notice the sadness in the air. No matter how much the two of them had avoided each other, but they could still feel the electricity in the air of being so close to each other. But now Buffy, the Scoobies and the baby slayers were leaving for England, to set up The Watchers Council again.

Angel was standing in his office, when the door clicked open, a sense of calmness filled him. Even without turning around he could tell that Buffy had entered his office.

"We're heading out soon" her voice filled the silence around them, before he could say anything she continued, "I just wanted to say thank you for helping us".

"You're thanking me?" he asked incredulously, turning to face her, "Buffy you should know by now that you never have to thank me. If you ever need anything you know you can just ask".

"I know" she whispered.

Wanting to lighten the mood, "Still cookie dough?" he asked.

She laughed lightly and said, "Still cookie dough for now, I promise you will be first to know once I have finished baking".

With that he gathered her into his arms, Buffy let a sigh of relief at being back in his arms; allowing his strength to hold her up. "You can do this" he whispered into her ear. Silently eliminating her self-doubt about whether she could lead the slayers. Buffy pushed herself up to her tiptoes and kissed him on the lips passionately one last time. Before she turned around to leave for England, Angel turned around not wanting to see her leave.

Seeley could truthfully admit to himself, in the quietness of his son's room, that he didn't want Buffy to leave again, she fitted into his life seamlessly. Seeley quietly watched Conner sleep, before he slowly disentangled himself from Conner. He got off Conner's bed and tucked Conner's duvet around him tighter, Seeley brushed back Conner's hair and kissed him on the forehead before leaving the room.

Seeley headed to the front of the flat, to make sure that the door was locked, before turning the lights off in the living room and kitchen before he headed to his room. As he looked into his room, he found that it was mostly dark except for the single bit of light filtering in from the window. Buffy was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly feeling shattered, Seeley slumped down on the side of the bed. He felt so tired that sound, feeling nor time seemed to matter to him at this point.

He suddenly came back to himself, when he felt a pair of arms enveloped him from behind. Buffy kissed the back of his neck and her arms tightened around his waist. Seeley placed his hands over Buffy's and moaned lightly, Buffy smirked against the side of Seeley's neck, as she continued to kiss him, until she reached the pulse point at the side of Seeley's neck and sucked on his pulse point. Buffy rained kisses on Seeley's pulse point before catching his earlobe between her lips, she suckled on his earlobe, causing Seeley to moan louder. Breathing heavily, Buffy detached herself from Seely's earlobe and asked "What are you thinking about?"

The question seemed to snap Seeley out of his haze and back to reality and with a heavy hart he pulled himself away from Buffy. He went to stand by the window, he stood there with his back to Buffy. He could hear her breathing heavily but she didn't come closer, it was almost as if she knew he needed space. He realised that in some ways she still knew him better than anyone else, as suddenly as he need space, he needed her just as suddenly. Seeley turned abruptly and sat down next to her on the bed.

"I'm sorry" he whispered.

Buffy sighed, before she lightly bumped him with her shoulder as she said, "You have nothing to be sorry for".

Seeley looked over at Buffy and placed his arm over her shoulder, and pulled her closer to him. Buffy allowed Seeley to pull her closer to him and she snuggled into his side. "We need to talk Buffy" Seeley inaudibly, Buffy hummed in agreement.

Buffy and Seeley lay down on the bed, the two of them lay on their sides and faced each other, Seeley kept his arm on Buffy's waist. As they both quietly watched each other.

Buffy smiled and asked, "What do we need to talk about?"

Seeley sighed and rolled over on to his back, causing Buffy to be pulled along with him, she stayed quiet waiting for Seeley to respond.

"Today when we were at the park, Conner asked me a question, and I had no idea how to answer him" Seeley turned so that he could face Buffy once again.

"What did he ask you?"

"He asked me if you were going to stay, and because we've been trying to avoid talking about the future, I couldn't answer him. I know that we have been revelling in the time that we have together. But I can't forget that the impact that this has on Conner and he needs to be my main focus".

"Of course, he has to be your main focus" agreed Buffy, "and to answer the question that perhaps that all three of us need to know answers to is that yes I would love to stay here with you".

A sense of relief washed over Seeley at hearing that Buffy could stay with them…. With him, but there were questions bubbling over in his mind. Unable to keep them quiet anymore, he asked, "How…How can you stay here? What about your responsibilities as the slayer? Does this have to do with the bargain that you struck with the PTB?"

There was no answer to his question, as he gazed down at the beautiful woman that was gazing right back at him, there was hint of sadness and a sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. So, Seeley waited giving her the time that she gave him, he pulled her closer to him to the point where he could feel her breathe on the side of his neck.

It took a while before she answered, "You died before coming to this world, so did Conner, what makes you think it was different for me?" Seeley stared at in silent horror Buffy, understanding what she was trying to tell him, but he quietly wished that she lying to him. "I died one more time" she laughed morosely.

"How?" he was unable to say more even if he wanted to.

"When you died and I was brought to the PTB, I made a bargain with them so that Conner could also come to this universe with you" Seeley swallowed thickly, before he could say anything she carried on. "There was a big bad coming and they weren't sure if I would put this big bad down" Buffy tightened her grip on his arm and tried hard to ground herself back into the present.

"Why would they assume that you wouldn't go after the big bad?"

"Because the big bad was Willow"

"WHAT? HOW? WHAT?" shouted Seeley, while thinking, how can Willow be the big bad that the PTB are worried about.

Buffy nodded, "Yeah, they didn't tell me that it was Willow all they did was warm me that something big was coming. Apparently after Willow became dark after Tara died and Giles had taken her to England for rehabilitation. However, some of the darkness still remained it was so little that the witches in the coven wouldn't have been able to detect it".

Seeing how hard this was for Buffy to talk about, Seeley's heart broke he could see where this was going. But he still didn't say anything, he gave her time to think about how to explain the rest of events in her own time. Buffy fell in love with Seeley again all over again, when he tightened his grip on her again, silently giving her the emotional support she needed. Buffy kissed Seeley on the side of his neck and slowly organised her thoughts.

"Over time the more exposed Willow was to the darkness of other beings, the more the darkness inside her started to grow. None of us saw the signs because she was able to hid it really well. Then when the Cambions attacks started all over the world, we had no idea what was happening and to help, I made sure that there was a team of slayers in each country and the main cities to help control the attacks. One of the worst attacks was when they got in to elementary school, it was a bloodbath and by the time the slayers got there, all the kids and adults were dead and most of the slayer in that group were eliminated. Whistler was sent down to remind me of what the PTB had warmed me of and we started to do more research into it. Willow started to act really weird as we got closer to the truth, and we decided that we should capture a Cambion to see what we could find out".

"What is Cambions?" questioned Seeley, Cambions was something he was not familiar with, and he had never heard of them before.

"Cambions are like changelings, they are placed in the ear of a baby, they would hatch a travel to the heart of the baby. Cambions would infect the baby slowly changing the DNA of the baby, the baby would be half human and half demon. There are two different types there is Alpha class and Beta class, they can stay in either form as a human or demon. One Alpha would have at least five Beta under them, almost like a wolf pack. Apparently, Willow was able to control the Alpha Cambions and the Betas through their link to their Alphas" Buffy said in matter-of-fact tone.

Seeley grinned, "Looks who been studying".

Buffy shrugged, "I needed to know who I am up against".

The grin on Seeley's face slipped off at the reminder of why Buffy needed to know what Cambions were. Seeing the look on Seeley's face Buffy decided it would good to carry on with her story, "It took a while for us to capture an Alpha Cambion and the Betas in his pack, eventually Faith's and Xander's group of slayers teamed up and together they captured a Cambion pack. I headed to Africa to question the Cambion alpha. When I left Willow decided that would be the perfect time for her to show her hand". Seeley watched as a tear ran down her cheek. "Using her magic, she slaughtered all the training slayers and blew up the council headquarters. She then publicly tortured and killed Giles and Dawn leaving them in front of the council headquarters with a declaration of war. I broke down once I heard the death of Dawn and Giles, Xander couldn't believe that it was Willow that killed them and Faith had to take command because I couldn't do it", Buffy's dam broke and she couldn't stop the tears from falling.

"I am sorry, so sorry, baby" Seeley crooned in her ear, and kissed the crown of Buffy's head and gave her the support she needed to break down.

Buffy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and she sniffled, "We had no idea where she went after she left England. The only clues that we had were the Cambions attacks started to change and most of them became more focused where there were dormant Hellmouths and the one in Cleveland. But we couldn't find where Willow was, until Whistler came down to give us the clue that we needed, Willow was in LA, mainly near the crater of Sunnydale. Faith gave me a kick up the backside and remind me it was my job to lead the slayers, and to be honest she had enough of their whining" Buffy snorted remembering the look on Faith's face that day.

"Why was Willow in Sunnydale?" wondered Seeley.

"We assumed it was because that is where it all began" Buffy shrugged in nonchalant manner, almost as if she didn't care. But Seeley knew that inside it was killing her, almost as if she blamed herself. "We gathered the remaining slayers, once we had confirmation that she was there, we moved back to Hyperion hotel. From what our intel we gathered she had linked the Hellmouths portals together, and she had somehow found a way to reopen the Hellmouth. She had also linked the Sunnydale Hellmouth to the rest of the dormant Hellmouths portals, which would also open and the only time she could do that was during a blood moon. Of course, that was only a couple of days way" Buffy sighed warily. "Finally, we decided that they best thing was to attack before the blood moon so that she couldn't have the chance to try her spell. I went to war with my best friend. We lost a lot of slayers that day against the Cambions, somehow Xander was able to get to Willow, he tried to reason with her, to reach her last bit humanity but it didn't work. She killed Xander without any mercy, Faith went down after being over whelmed by the Cambions, I killed the Cambions that got in my way as fought to get to Willow. You should have seen her Seeley, looking at her you would never think that she is Willow, her hair had gone completely black, her eyes were blood red and her skin had black cracks running throughout her body. I finally got to her as last of the slayers hunted down the Cambions. Willow and I fought for a very long time before I could land the final blow with the scythe" Buffy laughed humorlessly, "But she got me too".

Tendrils of horror slowly gripped the base of his heart and mind and reached deeper as Buffy continued to talk, even though he knew where her story would end, he couldn't stop the terror that gripped him.

"Before I could realise what had happened, I had been brought in front of the PTB. I had done the impossible according to them, when I killed Willow and she killed me, there was a huge magical backlash which caused the Hellmouth to collapse into itself again and because it was linked to the other Hellmouths it caused them to collapse as well. There were no more portals to Hell. For my service I was offered a reward, A chance to have the life I always dreamed of… with the man I always dreamed of" Buffy shrugged, "How could I refuse? Whistler brought me to this universe, to the council here and he helped build my back story".

"There's a Watchers Council here? In this universe?" wondered Seeley out loud.

Buffy laughed, of all the things to focus on, he focuses on that fact that there is a council in this universe. Seeley sees the amusement on her face and he pushes her lightly on the shoulder, "What? I am surprised that's all".

"Yes, there is a Watchers Council in this universe, they main goal is to preserve the history and if there are any remains left of supernatural world such as demons or vampires, then the Council works to hide that information. Giles is still alive in this world, but I couldn't face him after knowing what happened to him in our universe" confessed Buffy, knowing how hard it would have been for her, Seeley just wrapped his arm around her to give her the comfort she needed.

"How long were you there? And why were you at the council? You should have come straight here" pouted Seeley, at the thought that Buffy didn't come to him first. And also, to redirect her thoughts from Giles and her sister.

Buffy kissed Seeley, "We had to build me a backstory, and I have been at the council for nearly three years"

This shocked Seeley more than anything, "WHAT? You have been here in this universe for three years and you didn't bother to let me know. Why why would you do that?"

"I came to see you, when I first came to this universe and I saw your life, I saw how amazing your life is and I didn't want to disrupt it" she confessed.

"You could never disrupt my life" countered Seeley.

"I knew that in my heart but I wanted to be a part of your life and I wanted be someone you could be proud of, so I joined a university in England and I studied criminal psychology there and worked with the police".

"I am so proud of you" amazement coloured his tone. Before he pulled Buffy to him until she is flushed against his chest and kisses her heavily and hotly. "I love you" he whispers against her lips and kisses her again. "I hate the fact that you died again, I hate that you lost all your family and friends". Kiss. "I hate that you had to go against your best friend and that you had to be one to kill her". Kiss. "However, I love the fact that you choose to come here to me". Seeley kissed her harder, "I love the fact that you are here in my life again" Buffy moaned and pushed her hands into Seeley's hair, as he sucked on the bottom of her lip. "Now, come on tell me your backstory".

Buffy pulled herself away from Seeley with a groan, "Most of it similar to before, I am the only child of Hank and Joyce Summers, I was born in Pittsburgh, my parents and yours were friends. Soon we moved to LA and we lost touch until we reconnected when I was in junior year and the summer before you signed up for the army and we started to date. In my senior year my dad passed away in a car accident, and soon after I went to UCLA. When you were on holiday you would come to LA and spend time together. Soon in my second year at college mum passed away, same as my real mum, with a brain aneurysm. I lost myself soon after, you took emergency leave and helped me through it. I finished college; you were there cheering for me. Then you left, and I got a job as intern in psychology clinic in England while you met the woman who would give you greatest thing in the world, Conner. I worked hard and became a psychologist and a criminal psychology degree and worked with the police, and now I am here"

"Now you're here" a touch of relief in his voice, "But you have a job, a life in England now. Will you go back?"

"Do you want me to go back?"

"No never, I want you to stay"

She smiled at the man, who lay under her, "Before I got call about you being hospitalised, I worked with the IRT and I became good friends with the members of the team".

"IRT? The ones attached to the BAU?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Anyway, I called them the second week here and there is a job offer not with the IRT but with the BAU. There is travelling involved but it won't be international. I know that with Conner here it might not be a stable thing for him or for you but Seeley I worked really hard for my degree and this is something I want to try" determination ringing in her voice.

Seeley grinned, "How could I ever stop you? I can imagine how hard you worked for your degree; I know that we will need to work harder to make time for each other. You don't need to worry about Conner, Bea is always here to help out as well. I just want you to be happy and I will always support you Buffy", and he pulled her head down to kiss her and wrapped his arms around her, slowly pushing her top up.