Epilogue
Constantine absently fingered the stiff cast on his reset arm, and wished that healing spells were in as much abundance in this world as they were in Toril. He sat in the kitchen, watching Giles interrogate Willow and Nalfein. They had been at it for more than an hour already – Xander and Anya had left with Buffy and Dawn for ice creams, and Spike had, irritatingly enough, visibly begun to heal from his terrible burns, fortified with blood. He had hit up a fast friendship with the panther with remarkable ease, and was stroking it as it purred from its position on the kitchen table.
"I bet five minutes," Spike said over the panther's bulk as he watched the interrogation with sardonic amusement. His wounds, though still rather grisly to look at, had already taken on the appearance of being fresh, healing scars, and in a few hours, would probably disappear altogether. Unfair.
"Five minutes?" Constantine wished that Buffy's house stocked beer. He was bored and tired, a situation in which being drunk might improve. Since Nalfein and Willow were occupying his sofa and Giles was sitting on the other two-seater, there was no place peaceful enough to sleep in the house, unless he counted going down to the basement to sleep on the hard floor. He didn't particularly want to use any of the upstairs rooms – unless invited, he usually felt like an intruder in them.
Willow had offered, but he declined. He had a feeling that she hadn't only been 'talking' to Nalfein in his crypt, and it was quite likely that they might go upstairs to do something more after Giles' lecture. In which case he would return to his sofa and sleep. Hopefully a silence spell cast on the living room would cut out any annoying noises.
"Before the elf snaps and zaps Giles with that stick."
Nalfein chuckled at that, and even Willow grinned. Giles sighed, and continued with his questioning.
Spike smirked at the elf – he rather liked him, despite his calculating, Machiavellian, relatively self-serving nature in everything else save situations involving Willow. He wondered if the Watcher knew that Nalfein was actually subtly manipulating him – already he believed Nalfein's story that Willow had come to him, and he had moved his crypt elsewhere so they wouldn't be disturbed. The Watcher had also believed that Nalfein had nothing to do with the pendant suddenly being able to trigger the key without any components or rituals. After that, most discussion points were quite juvenile, but Giles had been carefully herded into a spot where he now believed that whether or not Nalfein had an intrinsically evil nature was the most important topic of debate.
So far he had repeated his questions several times, due to the nature of Nalfein's helpful-on-the-surface, but nothing-in-depth answers. This had put Willow firmly on Nalfein's side as she thought that Giles was only trying to make trouble for Nalfein, whose artfully long-suffering expression was very ingenious.
"Clever bastard," Constantine murmured, also having gathered as much from the conversation and his personal assessment of the dark elf. He glanced at Spike, and Spike shrugged – if Giles couldn't see that Nalfein was a hell of a lot smarter than anyone in this house and was simply toying with him verbally for fun, then it wasn't their problem. Willow seemed perfectly happy with the dark elf so far – even protective, when Buffy had confronted Nalfein about the pendant earlier – so they saw no reason to disturb that – Nalfein looked as though he was devoted to her.
"Nalfein, or Jarlaxle?" Spike smirked. Meri had, with Constantine's help, explained everything to everyone to his or her satisfaction without her host falling asleep once.
"Both," Constantine shook his head, his eyelids feeling extraordinarily heavy, as was normal after an extended manipulation of Meri's power. "Dark elves."
Spike watched Constantine drop off to sleep, and patted the panther. "Just you and me left, eh?"
As he listened to the panther's reassuring purr, Spike considered ways of getting his back on Buffy that wouldn't piss her off enough for her to return to her 'Spike is an evil scumbag', cold-shoulder attitude. It was quite unfair that although he would allow her to do anything to him, ever since she had changed his attitude towards him he'd felt as though he had been dumped on unfamiliar grounds with treacherous footings, and he'd been only able to react to her. He considered taking a page out of Nalfein's book and gifting the Slayer instead of playing pranks – certainly Willow had seemed to react extremely favorably to that.
It did not occur to him that this might have been precisely why she changed her attitude.
**
"…And if I ever find out that you've hurt Willow or any of us with… with malicious intent… "
"Then you may try to kill me," Nalfein smiled ironically at the stammering Giles. "That is only fair."
"Good." Giles said, adjusting his spectacles in imagined triumph, missing the implication that he might not be able to kill Nalfein. In fact, he probably had as much chance of killing Nalfein in an outright confrontation as a normal ant had of killing a human armed with an Oxford dictionary. Willow fought to keep a straight face, though she understood that Giles was weary and the misunderstanding was not all his fault. "Willow, I am still not sure if this is actually um, very wise of you… "
"Well, Nalfein can teach me some magic too," Willow said, "And he doesn't take his magic from Gods, so… "
"There's Constantine."
"But I don't think he'd be staying very long," Willow pointed out, "He told me he would leave for a bit, then come back occasionally to check on us. He's not a very um, permanent person."
"I heard that," Constantine muttered from the kitchen.
**
"Buffy, can I have my coat back?"
"No."
"Please."
"No."
"C'mon, Buffy… "
"No."
"What do you want for it?"
"I love this coat."
"I'd buy you one that looks like it, luv."
"Buy it for yourself."
"Slayer!"
"Careful, Spike. I bet I can make you beg me to keep the coat."
"Oh really… Buffy! Bloody hell, woman, what are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing, Spike?"
"Bloody hell…"
"You've got very strong handcuffs here, Spike. Wanna test their strength?"
"God, Slayer!"
**
"That is Legolas?" Nalfein sounded extremely unimpressed.
"Yes," Willow, Buffy and Dawn were just about nearly drooling all over their seats. They'd gone to watch the Lord of the Rings again, after everything, though this time all the guys had declined to come along save Nalfein, who still wasn't sure how the large pictures on the screen moved, and didn't really want to know. "Isn't he gorgeous? The eyes… the long hair… "
"The way he draws the bow!" Buffy mimed the action.
"Did you see the part in Moria where he used the knives?" Dawn agreed.
"Or when he used the arrow to stab the orc later… " Willow took it up. They seemed to be doing this in some strange sequence.
"And the quiver! I like his quiver."
"The bracers… "
"He is so gorgeous… "
"He should speak more… gah, stop showing Frodo already! Geez, that one freaks me out. The eyes."
"Or Aragorn, he looks like a walking haystack."
"Did you know Legolas was actually named Galdor in the first drafts of the book?"
"Really? Well, so long as he still looks this good… "
"Spike just bought me the books… ooh, look at him go."
Nalfein sighed as the three girls continued gushing over Legolas. As far as he could tell, they seemed to adore every part of the imaginary character right up to the boots, which were apparently 'cute', and the way he fought with knives, bows and arrows, which were apparently 'cool', though he could not see how that had to do with temperatures. Belatedly, he recalled the warnings from Spike and Constantine about following the girls to the movie, since they were all only going for the second time just to watch Legolas. The extent of their obsession had been quite clear when all three turned on Spike for repeating that Legolas was a 'pansy' even in the books as he screamed when the Balrog came – and then proceeding to use a girlish voice and quoting: "Ai, ai! A Balrog! A Balrog is come!"
Buffy had said that she thought Legolas was still cute, Dawn and Willow had agreed rather firmly.
He was beginning to get jealous.
**
"Are you leaving so soon?" Willow protested. Constantine leant on the doorframe, smoking, as Buffy, Dawn, Spike and Willow attempted to talk him out of it.
"S'matter, luv?" Constantine raised an eyebrow. "You don't need me here any longer – you've got the elf for teachin' – mind you watch yourself with him – and now that Spike's moved in, the place is gettin' a bit too crowded."
"But I'm moving out… " Willow pointed out. Nalfein had somehow managed to get a terrace house in Sunnydale, a lovely place with shady trees, whitewashed walls, slate tiles, lavender bushes and a well-designed cheery interior of warm shades of brown. She had a feeling that both Constantine Spike had hands in this somewhere, but she was very happy – the new house was cozy, and gave the both of them the privacy that was sometimes lacking in Buffy's house.
"Yeah, Spike moved in," Constantine grinned.
"But I sleep in the basement," Spike said, putting his arm around Buffy and smirking at her. "Usually."
Constantine snorted. "That's another problem. The two of you – it's amazin' that Dawn gets any sleep at all." Dawn snickered at this.
"We try to be quiet!" Buffy insisted. "It's just that Spike can't seem to stop making noises."
"If I remember last night, luv," Spike drawled, "I wasn't the only one makin' noises. Especially when I… "
"Shut up," Buffy glared at him.
"Make me."
"No sex for you tonight."
Spike smirked. "Bet you can't keep your hands off me."
Constantine exchanged sympathetic looks with Dawn, who rolled her eyes. Then she returned to the subject. "Um. You will visit often, right?"
"Yeah… keep you lot out of trouble and all."
"You really want to go?" Willow sighed.
"I need to check up on things in London, luv… don't worry, the cat'd be around to bleedin' mother me. As always." The panther, sitting patiently at John's feet, purred at his mention of it.
"Good bye," Buffy smiled. "And thank you."
As Constantine strolled off down the road, the panther padding on in front of him, he reflected on how 'thank you' was probably the phrase he heard least of all in any sort of dealings he was involved in.
He rather liked it.
