Hey guys! I'm sorry the last chapter took so long, I don't really have much time during the week. I'm trying to do so many things I barely have time to exercise anymore, I really need to get some kind of schedule or something so I can give you updates more often. I'll try to upload at least another two chapters this following week, and we're getting closer to a big chapter for Ally and Spike! Here's a clue, it will involve someone from L.A. Try to guess who! I hope I can surprise y'all.
I think that's it. Thanks to HarriettWithTea once more for her lovely reviews, everyone follow her fic "The Book of Knowledge Chronicles", it's absolutely amazing.
Enjoy!
Lee out.
She knew something was different even before she woke up. To start off, she hadn't had any nightmares. The room was dark, but it felt like she'd been asleep for a long time, longer than she had since way before she'd died. Not only that, but she was rested. And heck, it felt good. Then, she realized she was not in Dawn's room. She was in Buffy's. Why?
Spike.
He'd stayed with her. That would explain the closed blinds and the darkened room. But he wasn't there anymore. Had he left? When?
She glanced at Buffy's alarm clock and had to hold back a gasp. It was half-past ten, in the morning. She'd slept for over nine hours, nightmare free. Had the witches found a solution while she was asleep? God, it felt good. Like she'd spent a year sleeping, recharging batteries.
And she was hungry.
She went down to the kitchen, feeling light and energized, only to find every current resident of the house gathered there, plus her vampire.
Her vampire. She had taken to referring to him like that in her head, and she really liked the sound of it. Would he like it too?
There he was, sitting on the kitchen counter, behind Tara, who was placing some of her pancakes on Dawn's plate, Willow and Giles next to the teen. The latter was looking at the vampire warily, and Ally wasn't sure what Spike had told them about him being there in the morning.
Then, all heads turned towards her, standing on the doorway, her hand in her hair, trying to get the strands out of her face. "Morning." She smiled lightly before making her way to the counter, near Spike, where the bowl of fruit was standing, hearing similar greetings shot her way, yet knowing everyone was staring at her, like they were trying to see her reaction at having the bleach blond there among the others.
She lifter herself to the counter, sitting next to the vamp with the bowl of fruit in her lap, nonchalantly biting into the first piece, locking eyes with the redhead. "Did you do something? A spell or...? I slept like a log."
"No nightmares?" Willows eyebrows shot up, sincerely surprised. "We didn't do anything. We're still searching."
"Huh." That was weird. There had to be something that made her nightmares go away. Could it be...? Her eyes moved over to the leather clad man sitting next to her, meeting his baby blues in sudden understanding. It was him. His presence.
"So" Dawn spoke up, breaking their silent stare down and making Ally's head whip towards the young brunettes voice. "you're fine? No need to chug down a gallon of coffee?"
"I'm terrific. Can we train today, Giles?" She smiled widely at the prospect of having a good training session for once. She had been too exhausted before to do anything more than patrol a couple times with Xander and Willow.
"Sure. I'll be at the Magic Box. Why don't you come by in the afternoon?"
"No prob. I'll be there." She nodded, taking a bit bite of the apple in her hand, feet dangling happily over the edge of the counter, excited.
Soon, Giles and the witches left for the magic shop, Dawn and Spike started playing some card game in the living room after the girls lowered the blinds, joking about the vamp not wanting to get a tan. He frowned, more like pouted, for a moment before sitting down, facing the youngest girl, while his love picked up a book and sat on the other side of the living room, where a small window let some sunshine in.
And she felt good. Her vampire was there, with her, playing with her sister. She imagined they'd done that same thing several times when she was dead, she imagined the nights he'd spent right there, taking care of the teen because of a promised he'd made to her before she died. It felt good to be part of it now, to see them talk and joke, the atmosphere light, friendly. That was rare whenever Spike was near her friends.
Spike was still home when Ally and Dawn left for the Magic Box, telling her he'd watch TV until the sun went down and he could go back to his crypt. Dawn left first, understanding the strange couple needed a moment alone, walking slowly so it wouldn't take her sister long to catch up with her.
When Dawn had stepped out, Ally approached the vampire, sitting on the couch with a bored expression.
"Thanks for staying last night." She stood a couple feet from him, hand on her jean shorts' pockets, her gaze flickering between the television screen and the bleach blond.
"T'was nothing, pet."
"No. It meant a lot. I think you... somehow, kept the nightmares away. Thank you."
His eyes shot up to her face, not knowing what to say to that. "I didn't do anything."
"You did, even if you don't know how. I'm pretty sure it was you." She smiled lightly, stepping closer and leaning forward to press her lips to his. "Thank you." She whispered, still kissing him, before leaning back and backing away.
He simply watched her, a bit stunned at the unexpected kiss, following her figure as she left the house.
How she'd missed it. The sweat running down her back, the rush, the movement, hot and, oh, so intense. Her breathing coming in short huffs, her hips and arms moving of their own accord. God, it felt good. So good.
With one last shift, her fist hit the protector, the Watcher stumbling back with the force, impressed with the new Slayer's abilities. He had seen her in action when she was just a Potential, as she was definitely very capable of performing the Slayer duties even back then, but right in that moment, she was probably one of the deadliest slayers ever to exist. She had been trained to maximize her effectiveness when she had no superhuman power, the combination of the extremely intensive training and her new power was lethal.
"That-that will be enough for today." The Watcher announced, lowering the protective gauntlets and hunching over, trying to catch his breath. "You-you can go re-rest now."
"Great." She shrugged, shaking her arms on the way to the main room of the store, where her friends were gathered, chatting happily among themselves.
"There's our Allygator." Xander welcomed her cheerily as she approached the table they were sitting around. "How was training?"
"Good. I missed it." She received a bottle of water from Tara, always so attentive and ready to give, and leaned back against a bookshelf near the group, right behind Dawn.
"Are you patrolling tonight?" The teen asked, turning around in her seat to look at her.
"Yup. Lots of evil crawlies are waiting for a taste of my magic wand." She smirked, rolling her shoulders to ease off the tension.
"And a certain bleach blond waiting for you, too, I'm sure." The kid smirked back, making the Slayer go fifty shades of red.
"Uh... yeah, we wanted to talk to you about that, Alls." Xander intervened, making the girl gulp. Bad, bad, bad. They wanted to talk about Spike, and she wasn't going to lie to them. "The... uhm... he... Are you two... involved?"
"Kind of." She admitted, taking a big gulp of water to get a few more seconds to think about how to tell them. "We... haven't talked much about it, so it's not like... we're together, but... I guess we are."
"He's a vampire, Alls." The dark haired male reminded her, saying exactly what she didn't want to hear from them. Not that.
"And he's on our side, Xander. I think he has more than proved himself already. Vampire or not, he's good, and that's all I really care about." She shot back, annoyance tainting her voice before she got a grip on herself. "I don't care if someone is human, vampire or demon, as long as they are on the good side. You know, before I came here, in L.A. most of my friends were either demons or half-demons, and they were some of the best people I've ever known."
"We didn't know that." Dawn muttered, a hint of sadness noticeable in her words.
"Yeah, Alls." Xander agreed. "All we know is you're the female Bruce Wayne, fighting to keep the demonic version of Gotham city somewhat safe. Not like you've told us a whole lot more." He complained, his eyes hardening while the rest of the occupants of the room averted theirs.
He was right. She had barely told them anything about her past. But it wasn't just her story, and she wasn't sure if her old friends would like her to tell the Slayer's Gang about them. What if something went wrong and her new friends went after the old ones? Whose side would she take?
"It's not that simple, Xand." She confessed, her voice dropping, trying to calm him down. "I left a life back there. My friends were my family for three years. My ex was my everything. It's not easy to talk about it." She took a deep breath, knowing everyone, even Giles, who had come from the back room, was listening. "I broke a promise when I stayed here, and I... I miss them, but... I don't think I'm going to go back anytime soon. They were hoping I would get out of this life and now... well, sacred duty, no getting out, right?" Her gaze went to her little sister, whose baby blues were set on her, empathetic. "And I have a new family now. I have sisters, something I'd never had before, and... I don't want to leave this place. And that makes it hard to remember them, to remember my life before."
"You don't have to. Really." Dawn assured her, earning a light smile from her big sis.
"Yeah, Alls, don't worry, we just... We're worried about you and Spike. We... met him when he was evil and... what if he gets the chip out of his skull? What if he goes bad...?"
"Wait a minute." Ally interrupted the witch, recalling the times when that blasted chip had been mentioned. "I still don't know what the thing about the chip is. Jeez, I keep forgetting to ask somebody about that. Can someone explain?"
"He didn't tell you?" Tara asked, frowning lightly.
"Of course he didn't..." Xander shook his head, treading a hand through his hair and biting his lower lip, looking like he wanted to punch the vampire. "That chip is the reason why he plays on our side, Alls. He can't hurt humans. A government scientist group captured him and put that chip in his head, which basically gives him a hell of a headache if he so much as punches a human. They neutered him."
Well, that was a bit too much science fiction for her. Demons, ok. Vampires, cool. Government scientists messing with vampires and neutering them? That was way too crazy even for her.
"He tried to kill Buffy several times before he got the chip." Willow explained, hating the fact that her friend's face got more and more broken-hearted with each word. "He tried to kill me too. That's how he found he couldn't hurt humans. He tried to bite me, and he got this... headache."
"He once kidnapped Willow and I when Drusilla had left him, so she would make a love spell for him. He nearly killed me back then." Xander added. His only intention was making sure Ally knew what she was getting into if she chose to keep on seeing him.
"I think he's changed." Dawn cut them, her voice gaining strength. "One thing is not being able to kill us anymore, but... the things he's done for us? That's more than he would have ever done before. I think he really is good now; or as good as he can be, being a vampire and all. After all, he doesn't have a soul."
"That's true." The redhead agreed and smiled lightly at the stunned Slayer. "He's done much more than he would have done if it was only to save himself. I think he cares. He's not completely evil."
"But he's still a monster." Xander reminded her, not letting the girls' words sway his opinion.
"I-I... need to talk to him." Ally left her water bottle on the table and grabbed her bag, ready to go straight to his crypt. Her mind was reeling, replaying her friends' words and mixing them with her memories of the vampire. Her vampire. She just couldn't imagine him trying to kill Willow, or any human for that matter. Ever since she'd known him, she'd thought he was good because he really was good, not because he simply couldn't be evil anymore.
She needed to talk to him, listen to what he had to say on the matter. She couldn't just label him as 'neutered evil' on the Gang's opinion on him. He had the right to defend himself.
