Chapter 3: Same as It Ever Was
The next morning, the first person Buffy and Spike encountered was Dawn. That wasn't particularly unexpected, since she lived in Buffy's apartment in the Council compound. What was unexpected was that she was coming in the door clutching a grocery bag at the same time the two of them were about to leave.
Buffy's eyes darted to the clock on the mantel, which confirmed it was still gracefully before noon.
"Oh. My. God," Buffy's little yet much taller sister exclaimed. "Mental and emotional scar-age! So you know, I'm totally moving into Vi's apartment while you two are in town. Because I need to sleep and that's so not of the happening here in Screamy Jungle Nighttime World."
"Um, sorry?" Buffy grimaced. Yeah, they had gotten loud last night.
"Not sorry," her vampire lover unhelpfully contributed to the discussion, smirking as he looped his arm over Buffy's shoulder. Then, probably seeing the patented Dawn "glare of painful deathness," he backpedaled. "Well, that's to say, Bit, I am sorry to have put you out. Never want to do that. I'm just still over the moon, what with being all corporeal and able to spend time with your sis without having to hide it."
"Yeah, I get that," Dawn said, still a bit grumbly. Shaking her head, which didn't entirely hide the amusement that had started to twinkle from her eyes, she said, "But seriously. Get a spell to soundproof your room, or something."
"Maybe when we get Willow back." Buffy sighed, remembering they were still not closer to resolving the Willow and Sheila Rosenberg body-swappage problem.
"Too bad the Council's resident witch-on-call's reversal spells fizzled last night." Dawn was back in Junior-Watcher mode. "And that we couldn't find anything that Willow and her mother had done, received, or shared in common recently. Nada."
"She seemed pretty surprised to find out that the coven had detected some magical dampening field across Great Britain that started within the past several hours. Like, suspiciously around the time when Willow and her mom were swapped."
Spike snorted. "Was more surprised, myself, that the witch-ladies collaborated over the telephone. Was a bit of a letdown, that. A tad mundane after having experienced Red shouting directly in my noggin' a time or three. Just saying."
"No kidding. We've both had more of Willow in our heads than is probably normal." Buffy squeezed Spike around the waist, then shrugged away from his loose embrace. "But we should go. Let Dawnie have some peace and quiet."
Buffy's younger sister rolled her eyes. "I have to go meet my tutors for what passes for school, here, in the Watcher Highlands. But first I'm going to drown myself in comfort food I bought specifically for this occasion." She shook her shopping bag. "And I'll have you know, given the so-called 'village charm' of the stores out here in the Scottish boonies, shopping requires more than the usual creativity. All I'm saying is Nestle Shreddies are not the breakfast of champions until you add mix-ins. Maraschino cherries and Reddi-Wip for the win. And, in the immortal words of Bart Simpson, Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger!"
"You're a savage!" Buffy hoped her sister was fibbing about her planned breakfast, but strongly suspected she wasn't.
"Your boyfriend drinks blood for breakfast."
"She's got you there, love." Spike nudged the Slayer. "Best we leave the Bit to her debauchery while we toddle along."
"Wait, before you two noisy love-leopards go, you might want to know that Willow's mom was in the common room this morning demanding we let her leave the compound so she can continue her journey of symbolic self-discovery." Dawn snorted as she wandered toward the kitchen.
Buffy blinked. "I'm starting to wonder if Willow's mom was big on recreational edibles in the hippy era. And no, I don't want one-liners about eating druggies at Woodstock." She proactively whapped Spike on the arm. More loudly, she asked, "Dawn, who was with Sheila when you saw her?"
Her sister peeked from the kitchen door. "Jeez Buffy, I can hear you. And Willow's mom was with Shannon, who looked like she was weighing the pros and cons of escorting not-Willow out the front door to start her quest-thingy on her butt in the driveway."
"Shannon must've lost the coin toss with Vi for Sheila shepherding duty."
"Probably after we consult with the Watcher research party, we should rescue your Slayer."
"Sometimes I hate being responsible," Buffy moaned as she went through the apartment front door into one of the long hallways on the manse's second, residential floor.
"In that case," Spike paused, leaning back toward her apartment with a glint in his eyes,
Buffy grabbed one of his lapels and pulled him after her down the carpeted hall. After he had fallen in step next to her, she let go of his collar and slipped her hand down to twine with his. She ran the fingers of her spare hand along the top of the oak wainscoting. The hall wasn't quite as dark as before she'd left for LA. Partly because someone had replaced the old sconce lighting with modern fixtures. Also, several of the Slayers, along with Dawn, had taken executive action to replace the frowzy, velvet flecked wallpaper with simple, sponge-painted pastels.
Even so, it still wasn't home.
"Spike, if we move somewhere nearby, but outside the compound, do you think Dawnie would move with us." With a wry twist of her lips, she quickly added, "That is, after we have Willow do thorough sound-dampening spells throughout."
Head slightly tilted, he replied, "Not sure. She's been here, on her own in your flat for a few months. She can hang with the Sunnydale Slayers what are here. And she gets to mingle with the Watcher types. I'm thinking this might be her sweet spot. At least until she flies the nest for college."
He pursed his lips. In a more thoughtful tone, he said, "In my day, she'd have been lined up for marriage by now. A different type of flying the nest, yeah? Old places like this remind me of all that, but I prefer the world the way it is."
"Yeah, I can't even imagine that." Buffy exhaled. Turning to walk down the broad, wood-balustered stairway to the main room, she continued with her earlier thoughts. "I do think you're right, though. Dawn has really grown up this past year. I need to figure out how to feel alright about letting her find her own path. And, as she's reminded me often enough, I also need to have this conversation with her, rather than just having a discussion in my own mind and then showing up all Slayer decide-and-announce."
"I detect a direct quotation in there." Spike teasingly jounced against her side.
"Picture hands on hips and a couple Dawnie hair flips and you have the complete scene."
Spike barked a laugh.
They reached a broad landing between floors where their staircase merged with another one. Faith bounded down the other set of steps and joined them in their passage to the main floor.
"What'cha laughing at, Blondie?"
"Memories. Good ones."
"Glad you've got ones that make you laugh." The dark-haired Slayer smiled a bit ruefully. "But, speaking of memories, what really went down in LA? Literally nobody is saying anything, and Angel doesn't return calls even in normal times." By the time she finished speaking, she was almost whispering.
Buffy paused, which brought all three of them to a huddled stop. She looked around, but for the moment they were alone. "It was bad. I'd met up with Rona while in LA dealing with my father. We'd gone on patrol a few times, noticing that demons seemed to be on the move. Peaceful species seemed to be moving out with their families. Meanwhile some big nasties were moving in. We heard rumblings of a big throw-down coming, of changes and assassinations already underway."
She took a deep breath, "I'd avoided calling Angel because… well, I don't have much to say to him anymore. Plus, you know, evil law firm. Finally I did, though, and you're so right about the not-calling-backness that is Angel. Although I guess there was a reason that time."
"But there was a big battle, right?"
Figures Faith would be all about the fighting, Buffy thought, perhaps a bit uncharitably.
"That there was." Spike, who was also 'all about the fighting', picked up the narrative. "It was the Circle of the Black Thorn we were ranged against. An old cabal of the powerful and corrupt, they were. Demons and humans, they spent centuries driving pure evil into the world and calling shots on Earth alongside Wolfram and Hart. Through his position, Angelus infiltrated to find out who the leaders were, and set all of us to eliminate them. Cut off the heads of the snakes, he thought. Weaken the beast."
Buffy reached for one of his hands, which had begun to ball into fists as he spoke. "'Course it wasn't that simple. We regrouped on home ground after taking out the heads of the Circle, only to find a whole army from a hell dimension pouring through a rift between dimensions."
"That's what Rona and I spotted," Buffy jumped in. "The rift was like a fire halfway up the sky. We got there just as Angel was showboating by fighting a freaking dragon instead of working to hold back the line." Her lips pressed together as she inhaled in unconscious imitation of the dragon's hissing breath.
"In fairness, love, it kept the dragon from frying our lot on its flyover."
She tossed her head impatiently. "Angel saw me take out The Judge with a rocket launcher. Did he learn? No. He led three or four fighters, carrying axes and swords, to a full-court battle against fifteen-foot rhinoceros demons, multi-headed tentacle thingies I can't describe, and a giant dragon. There was blood everywhere."
"I know, pet." Spike pulled her closer. "You and Dark Avenger arrived just in time. I surely needed a blow by then, Charlie was down for the count, and Angelus was in bad shape soon after. That's when he lost his sword arm, burned clean off. We needed you to hold the line while Blue, that's Illyria the Old One, had a chance to figure out she was on our side and close the rift. Then you three, and those other two SoCal birds you called mid-fight, took care of the beasties what stayed on our side of the dimension wall. Saved the day, you did."
Buffy nodded in his arms. Spike was good with the heroic narrative-ness. She was better at the wanting to go find Angel's missing arm, reconstitute it from ashes or whatever, and beat him into a pulp with it. He'd created his own apocalypse so he could be all destiny-guy, which apparently meant getting himself and others dead while saying "nya nya nya" at a bunch of immortal, evil lawyers. Oh, and getting to ride on a dragon. Seriously, what had she ever seen in him?
Faith interrupted her inner tirade with a two-word question said in barely a whisper. "Wes died?"
Buffy felt Spike shift as he looked at her face. "Yeah, English died taking out one of those snakes I mentioned. Didn't make it to the battle. But being there for his death gave Illyria a reason to choose our side and save the world for the rest of us. Kind of a martyr, he was."
Having pulled free from Spike once again, Buffy saw Faith's eyes glistening a bit more than usual.
Before she could try for some type of reassurance, her dark-haired, former foe said, "Hey, gotta roll or I'll be late for my training gig over at the gym." She slipped past them to continue down the stairs.
They followed Faith's passage down the stairs, but turned the opposite direction after they reached the ground floor. They reached the big common room where Sheila had previously been, according to Dawn. She'd left, but as soon as they appeared in the doorway, Andrew popped up from one of the ghastly velvet sofas near the room's piano.
"The heroes arrive, together as they were meant to be. It's fate."
"It almost wasn't fate, you big ninny. When I was in Italy, you convinced me that the Slayer was finding a new life for herself with that poser what calls himself Immortal."
"Our cunning ruse worked. Yay us."
"Not yay, Andrew," Buffy interrupted what was likely to turn into a self-congratulatory, epic monologue of major dumbness. "The whole 'Buffy is dating the Immortal' thing was a ruse to infiltrate his inner circle and dig into how he fits into the Triumvirate from those prophecies they found in those cave monasteries in Cappy-doozie."
"Cappadocia," Andrew muttered in helpful correction before Spike slapped him on the back of the head.
Unaware of their interplay, Buffy crossed her arms. "I still can't believe my life consists of saying sentences like that. Anyway, the fact that it was a ruse means you were supposed to be fooling the Immortal and his connections at Wolfram and Hart, not my friends."
Andrew's eyes darted briefly around the room before landing again on Buffy. In a nervous voice, he explained, "Well, you know Angel was head of their LA branch and Spike was with him. I couldn't tell Angel one thing and Spike something else. Besides, they were visiting the Rome branch of Wolfram and Hart for whatever mysterious and possibly nefarious reason they might have had. Discretion was in order."
By the time he finished speaking, he was again speaking confidently and standing straight. Buffy had to admit that the overeager pain in her backside had a valid point. Then of course he blew it.
Like the narrator of an overdone movie complete with finger quotes, he intoned, "It was the heroic story of star-crossed lovers. Two 'vampyres with souls' seeking redemption for their blood-soaked pasts, each in love with the Slayer but for different reasons. Her heart owning theirs, but yet she finds her future with someone else, leaving her former paramours to find closure in heroic action."
"You're a complete tosser, you know that right? I got your 'heroic action' right here. Seeing one's true love dance with one's enemy and then finding out she's shackin' up with the wanker doesn't bring closure."
He looked ready to land a single, devastating fist on Andrew's face. But Buffy knew half of his anger belonged elsewhere.
"Honey, don't be jealous of Niccolo the Immortal. That was always Bonnie glamored to look like me. I was never dating him."
"And don't be mad at me, either," Andrew quickly interrupted.
"No, you can still be mad at Andrew, just like I am." Buffy smiled in a sweet, deadly expression that made Andrew sensibly back a couple yards away. He wasn't sensible enough to just leave, altogether.
Meanwhile, Spike was still wound up. "Niccolo, is it now? It's not jealousy I'm feeling. Isn't even a desire for vengeance, because what's an occasional spot of harassment and torture between friends?"
He paused to catch Buffy's gaze with his eyes, which were flickering between ice blue and fiery amber. "It's that I just don't trust the arsehole. He's the type of old-school, European ponce what's slippery and all urbane-like while, in the background, he's got a total hard-on for power and to end the world. It's part of the same reason your lot went after him. Got enough of those blowhards in my family to know 'em when I see 'em."
She reached out to cup his face, feeling him lean into her touch. "I think I understand what you're saying. And it makes sense." Pulling her hand away far enough to feather her fingers around his hairline, she added, "But it's moot right now because Angel's boneheaded and stupid crusade to take down Evil Lawyers Incorporated, and did I mention yet that it was boneheaded and stupid? His actions temporarily put the kaibosh on the whole 'fool the Immortal' plan. Although maybe we should look into 'kaiboshes' and how to better use them ourselves. Maybe it's a whole thing."
"It's just an expression, love." Spike had returned from angry vamp-land.
At the same time, a thought slotted into Buffy's brain like the final piece of a puzzle. Squinting, she slid her eyes toward Andrew, who was looking even more squirrely than usual. In a deliberately even tone, she caught his attention. "Hey Andrew, got a question for you. Was that whole 'fake Buffy ruse' thingy still going on while I was in LA mopping up Angel's apocalypse? After I called Giles in the middle of demon-evisceration to request reinforcements, which he wouldn't send so I had to find my own."
"Um, yeah, it was." His words were so tentative that she almost imagined them like individual toes feeling out whether the water was icy or not.
"Did Niccolo find out that Bonnie wasn't me?"
"Well, maybe. Probably. We did have to extract Bonnie really quickly. She's in Argentina now. Wearing a wig. Which is like top-secret so I probably shouldn't tell you. Except you're the head Slayer and her Vampyre Mate."
Spike's mouth was open as he stared at Andrew. Not much silenced her vampire, but abject dumbness was one thing that could.
"Well Andrew, that's the kind of awesome that's really not." She started pacing. "You know, I told you guys having someone pretend to be me was a craptastic idea, right? Now Niccolo and everyone in Rome knows we were playing him."
"Gotta agree with the Slayer, here. The big git thrives on his pride. You just made him look like a rube."
"Oh." Andrew's eyes were round as realization in his dense head. Then he proved he still had the ability to come up with unexpected insights of surprising usefulness, which was why they kept him around despite everything. "Um, do you guys think he maybe had anything to do with Willow's switch with her mom?"
Spike looked thoughtful. "Hates magic, he does. Is loud and in your face about it, too."
"I could say the same of you," Buffy replied. "But you had no problem using magic to heal Dru. And you were ready to try another spell when you abducted Willow and Xander that time."
"Yeah, and look what those times got me. Don't trust it."
"Neither does Niccolo."
Spike's lips pulled to the side, conceding her point. "Right. 'Not trusting' doesn't mean 'not using'. It could be the Immortal what did the swap. Or someone he paid to make trouble." He paused. "Do we need another visit with Head Watcher?"
She sighed. "Probably. Let's see if he's in his office."
"Oh, he definitely is," Andrew blurted out, giving away any chance his nominal boss might have had to avoid the two rather tightly-wound blonds.
"Let's go," Buffy turned toward the passage leading to the offices. Spike followed crisply behind her. Andrew hovered in their wake like a ghost tethered to haunt them with annoyingness.
For one brief moment, she had a pang of sympathy for Angel, considering that he'd endured some months of having Spike essentially tethered to him in an evil sitcom of harassment. She had even greater sympathy for Spike, forced into that strange symbiosis. No wonder he'd followed Angel into his apocalypse. It was like he'd lapsed into reverse Stockholm Syndrome, or something.
With those fun-time thoughts still occupying her mind, she shoved open Giles' door.
The Senior Watcher looked at them, managing to seem like a disapproving uncle as he peered over his glasses from behind a ridiculously large, polished wood desk. "One wonders if knocking before entering is even taught any longer."
"Yeah, you've been wondering that since you met me. It's like an eternal puzzle I've gifted you. A special Rubik's Cube, just for you."
Breezing over her snark, he murmured, "And Andrew's here as well. Lovely." He paused for a sip of tea, which of course was right there on his desk in a frumpy teacup that looked like something Buffy's grandma might have owned.
Neatly setting down the cup, he asked. "Will anyone else be joining us?"
"No. Just us, this time, for all the love share-age we're having. Oh, and also to tell you about something we've figured out that you probably want to know."
"And that would be?"
Buffy ignored Spike's stage-whispered, "Christ, I never missed this parlor room manners shite."
Stepping forward so she was in front of his desk, slightly taller than him as he sat. "So Giles, remember how you had Bonnie all glamored up and pretending to be me. Dating the Immortal. Probably having to more than just date him, which eew. But anyway, think about the fact that you didn't pull Bonnie out when you found out I was a front-line, last-minute addition to Angel's battle in LA. So Wolfram and Hart knew I was in LA. And they knew Niccolo was dating someone who said she was Buffy at the exact same time in Rome."
Giles blinked. Andrew squirmed. Spike stood motionless near the door, out of direct sunlight but coiled like a deadly spring. She could feel it all along her Slayer senses, just like how she knew everyone's position in a fight.
"Just imagine if proud, dangerous, and resourceful Niccolo Apollinaris, the Immortal, found out he was being played and that maybe Buffy the senior Slayer was in on the fun. Imagine if he figured out a way to put one of her main weapons, Willow Rosenberg, out of commission. Imagine if that was perhaps only his opening move."
She watched as dust motes twinkled in the window light filtering to Giles' desk. A clock somewhere in the office tick-tick-ticked its way slowly through the seconds. The almost bird-like susurrus of voices from an office somewhere down the hall filtered through the door. And then, finally….
"Oh, dear lord." Giles pulled his glasses off in a familiar gesture. But this time they sat forgotten, stem between his fingers, as the ramifications of his former Slayer's words fully bloomed in his mind.
…
To be continued...
END NOTES
This third chapter fulfills the following Challenge Prompt(s) for the 2022 Elysian Fields Mystery Month Challenge.
1. Quote Prompt: A 1990s Slogan
Buffy's younger sister rolled her eyes. "I have to go meet my tutors for what passes for school, here, in the Watcher Highlands. But first I'm going to drown myself in comfort food I bought specifically for this occasion." She shook her shopping bag. "And I'll have you know, given the so-called 'village charm' of the stores out here in the Scottish boonies, shopping requires more than the usual creativity. All I'm saying is Nestle Shreddies are not the breakfast of champions until you add mix-ins. Maraschino cherries and Reddi-Wip for the win. And, in the immortal words of Bart Simpson, Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger!"