---
part six
---
"Yeah, I found where she was going," Buffy said, twirling the phone cord absently around her finger, "What was the stuff she bought for, anyhow?" She listened to Anya's sprightly, rambling explanations with a feigned patience. It had been a long day, and tracking always tired her. At least she hadn't been discovered.
"Can you figure out who the locating spell was for?" she asked. She knew the answer would be no.
"Ok. I need to go back now, I didn't want to stay there longer without any weapons... yeah, I will. Thanks, you too," she said, dropping the phone onto its cradle and running up the stairs to change and prepare. She wasn't sure what she was getting into, and found herself wishing Spike was around to watch her back.
She reached the landing and walked swiftly towards the bedroom door, when she froze in place, a familiar sound flowing from her mother's bedroom. Feminine laughter floated faintly from behind the door, and she remembered the soft soprano lilt as it danced through the air.
She turned and walked to the door, and froze again.
"Veni, lumen cordium, dulce refrigerium, lux beatissima..."
"Oh my God..." she whispered, and burst open the door.
Willow started, and dropped the glass bowl she held, and the water sprayed her as it landed on the carpet.
"Oh my God..." Buffy said, frozen again at the door.
"Bu--Buffy it's not magic."
"What are you doing?"
"Buffy, stop, it's not magic."
"What the *hell* do you think you're doing?" Buffy snapped, seizing the single candle from the floor, shaking it out as she clutched it with violent urgency. The hot wax fell across her hand, but she barely noticed.
"Buffy-- Buffy stop! Listen to me!"
"Do you think you're going to try to get her back? What are you trying to do to her? Are you insane?" She yelled the words, stepping towards Willow. Willow, still on the floor, scrambled back towards the window, leaning on back on her hands and staring at her friend with entreating desperation and some fear.
"Buffy it's not magic-- I was meditating, to make it easier to hear her... it was just meditation there's nothing magical there-- nothing. It's nothing, I swear..."
"Is this why you wanted to be here? Is this what you've been *doing* in here? What were you thinking, do you want to get us all killed!?!?"
"Buffy it's not like that-- she needs me," she said, tears welling in her eyes, "Think how she died... she can't move on, she's stuck here... she wants to be with me... she asked me to help her be with me-- she wouldn't ask me to do magic, you know she wouldn't."
Buffy stopped, her lip trembling with a strange combination of anger, fear, and sympathy.
"I know you think she's asking you these things..."
"Buffy, I need her... I need to talk to her-- things came out so wrong and I need the chance to change it. Everyone should have the chance to change it, and this is the only way..."
"Look. I need to go, I have something I need to do. I'll come by your dormitory later, we'll talk." Buffy reached down, took Willow's hand, and helped her to her feet.
"Ok," Willow said tremulously. Buffy placed the candle she'd been clutching in one hand on the dresser, and walked to the door.
"And Willow... I'm going to have to ask you to leave now," she said, fingering a necklace, still resting on the dresser, that Tara had placed there some four months ago.
---
Spike looked around the expanse of tombstones. The arms of the tree above him made a sound like musical laughter, and he looked up. He exhaled heavily, and looked up where Drusilla sat in it.
"Dru... thank God..." he called to her, standing in the fresh night air of the cemetery. After circling the tunnels and searching the streets, he'd come back here, to the crypt. And here she was, resting lightly on a nearby tree. Her skirt flew about her ankles in the wind, and she stretched herself across the length of the branch like a cat.
His relief bordered on hilarity,
She sat high in the branches, her skirt covered in the leaves and flowers she had plucked from all around her. She wove them into garlands idly, singing to herself. She dropped a pale white blossom down to him. It floated softly to his feet.
"Right then, Ophelia. 'Been looking for you everywhere."
"Everyone looks for me..." she whispered, staring intently at one small offshoot next to her on the tree branch.
"I wish I could make a cocoon. Wind myself up and change into something else. Something with colors and fluttering wings," she said, touching the shoot with uncharacteristic gentleness. She plucked it, and, in one, swift motion, she leapt to the ground. She landed silently in front of him, smiling. She offered him the stick she held in her hand. On it was a little green cocoon, bright as a small piece of jade.
"It's beautiful," Spike said, smiling back at her gently. He found himself enchanted by it-- what would normally seem nothing seemed to be a miracle, because, in her eyes, it was. It was a little living jewel, a momentary poetry, lauding the brevity of seasons. He saw these things in her eyes, could read them there from long practice.
She had a way of seeing the world that was at the same time lovely and terrible.
"I think I'll keep it," she said, "Make it grow... it's bursting to come out and be in colors..."
Spike placed the thing back into her hands. He was beginning to feel suspicious. Drusilla rarely commented on the potential of hidden life. She had something in her mind, and that was never good. It had brought him to the point of which he was now certain.
"You should go now, quickly," he said gently, "You've gotten better... you can escape to somewhere remote now."
Drusilla touched his arm with a strange tenderness.
"I see things, Spike... I understand what I didn't know at all once... and I don't want to be alone. Not anymore," she whispered, "I can't do for myself... I was wrong to let you go... I need a family."
He sighed, looked at the little green cocoon, like a jewel hanging from the dry wood.
"I won't go with you, Dru," he said softly, "I can't. Not anymore. You know that."
"I know... you're not mine now... but she will be."
"What? What did you do, Dru?"
"It's so small... but it shelters quite well... I should have made her a cocoon"
He grabbed her by the shoulders.
"What did you do?"
"They wanted to kill me. But I saw them before they tried and I knew their plans for me. I turned it against them and they fell like a song..." she hummed a few bars and smiled at him sweetly.
"But she was too pretty to kill. She was strong and brave, and perfectly suited to me." Drusilla smiled at him as if communicating some private joke.
"And love," she said softly, "I couldn't have done it-- couldn't have survived them all-- not without you..."
He felt the rage welling up from him with his horror, but he wasn't sure to whom they were directed.
"My good William, my precious, you've always been my knight..."
---
Buffy shifted on her perch on the roof, muffling the noise of her crawling as she reached for the sky light. Pulling herself up to its rim, she peered down into the darkness of the room. There were no lights on.
"Great, they don't believe in electricity," she thought to herself, "I've been chased by the Amish."
She squinted, pressing her face closer to the glass. She could hardly make out the shapes within. She wiped at the dusty glass with her sleeve, cursing the obstructive streetlights and their glare.
It was difficult to make out what she saw. What she thought was a desk, some indeterminate shapes... a couch. What she recognized as a holy circle was painted on the floor. The white paint glowed in the light of the street lamps. It was smeared and obscured in places. And then something stirred in the dark room, and the old instincts stirred in the back of her skull. Then the whole image reconfigured itself in her mind, like a visual puzzle, and she saw it for what it was.
She kicked in the glass, and leapt down inbetween the bodies. The shape moved to run away.
"Hold it right there," she said abruptly. She had a stake aimed to strike. The sandy-haired woman froze. She reached up and touched her own face, her own feral fangs and seemed to shudder a moment.
A small glimmer of light caught Buffy's attention. A cross lay on the floor, the chain broken. She looked up at her companion, and saw the burns on her neck.
"She didn't even take it off me..." she said, "It's the first thing I felt when I woke up."
Buffy's stance softened. The vampire wasn't going to run.
"What's your name?" Buffy asked.
"Sarah," the woman responded, chuckling bitterly at the sound of her own name.
"What happened to you, Sarah?"
"We were hunting her... but apparently she was hunting us. She caught us in the middle of the ritual, we weren't ready."
Buffy was amazed at the calmness of this fledgling. She seemed full of despair rather than anger. Most fledglings could think of nothing but the kill.
"Who did this?"
"She should have killed me... she could have. She knew-- she just knew what I knew... It was like she anticipated my every move..."
"Who did?"
"Who else?"
Sarah laughed outright, a touch of hysteria in the sound.
"Speak the name of the devil, and she shall appear..."
Buffy grabbed her by the shoulders, and threw her against the wall. Sarah couldn't stop laughing even in the violence of the impact.
When she said the name, Buffy struck clean. As she walked out, the dust swirled among the assembled dead. Drusilla's victims.
---
She rushed down the alleyway, unsure of what she was doing. And what should she do? Should she tell Spike? She should... he'll need to be prepared if she tries something. She leapt over a fallen crate and began a full run into the main road. A voice from behind stopped her.
"The fledgling?"
She paused, and swallowed hard.
"Dust."
"Good..." he said simply. He was looking straight at her, she could feel his eyes on the back of her neck. It felt uncomfortable.
"So you knew... you *knew*. That was why they chased us in the cemetery-- that's why they left when they saw me, because they knew she was coming to you-- because they thought that I was her..."
She wheeled around, the old fire burning in her eyes.
"I couldn't just leave her," he said, his tone even. He did not move.
"You did what-- helped her? Watched after her? What-- no, I'm not sure I want to know," she said, "But people are dead now. She killed them. Even if they were out to kill her, too-- it happened."
"I couldn't leave her..." he whispered. Unwilling to defend his actions, he simply stated the fact.
Then she tilted her head to the side, inhaled deeply, and wound up to strike in her frustration.
With a lightening speed he grabbed her hand as it sprung, bent the elbow and pulled her back against him. He spoke into her ear, over her shoulder.
"You still leave your side exposed in the attack," he said. She stood still in his grasp. He released her, and she turned to speak to him again. This time, the anger had faded, and sadness filled her eyes.
"You know what it's like here, Spike, our lives are hard. And sometimes-- sometimes I don't have anyone but you..." she whispered, "In this fight, you're all I have. And how can I trust you...?"
He looked down, remembering Dawn and her wounded eyes.
"With her... with all that she was to me... if I just left her to die, would you trust me then?"
It was all he could say. He reached out one hand, tentatively, towards her. And she bowed her head, and whispered softly.
"No."
And she walked away, leaving him standing in the alley, alone.
---
"Yeah, I found where she was going," Buffy said, twirling the phone cord absently around her finger, "What was the stuff she bought for, anyhow?" She listened to Anya's sprightly, rambling explanations with a feigned patience. It had been a long day, and tracking always tired her. At least she hadn't been discovered.
"Can you figure out who the locating spell was for?" she asked. She knew the answer would be no.
"Ok. I need to go back now, I didn't want to stay there longer without any weapons... yeah, I will. Thanks, you too," she said, dropping the phone onto its cradle and running up the stairs to change and prepare. She wasn't sure what she was getting into, and found herself wishing Spike was around to watch her back.
She reached the landing and walked swiftly towards the bedroom door, when she froze in place, a familiar sound flowing from her mother's bedroom. Feminine laughter floated faintly from behind the door, and she remembered the soft soprano lilt as it danced through the air.
She turned and walked to the door, and froze again.
"Veni, lumen cordium, dulce refrigerium, lux beatissima..."
"Oh my God..." she whispered, and burst open the door.
Willow started, and dropped the glass bowl she held, and the water sprayed her as it landed on the carpet.
"Oh my God..." Buffy said, frozen again at the door.
"Bu--Buffy it's not magic."
"What are you doing?"
"Buffy, stop, it's not magic."
"What the *hell* do you think you're doing?" Buffy snapped, seizing the single candle from the floor, shaking it out as she clutched it with violent urgency. The hot wax fell across her hand, but she barely noticed.
"Buffy-- Buffy stop! Listen to me!"
"Do you think you're going to try to get her back? What are you trying to do to her? Are you insane?" She yelled the words, stepping towards Willow. Willow, still on the floor, scrambled back towards the window, leaning on back on her hands and staring at her friend with entreating desperation and some fear.
"Buffy it's not magic-- I was meditating, to make it easier to hear her... it was just meditation there's nothing magical there-- nothing. It's nothing, I swear..."
"Is this why you wanted to be here? Is this what you've been *doing* in here? What were you thinking, do you want to get us all killed!?!?"
"Buffy it's not like that-- she needs me," she said, tears welling in her eyes, "Think how she died... she can't move on, she's stuck here... she wants to be with me... she asked me to help her be with me-- she wouldn't ask me to do magic, you know she wouldn't."
Buffy stopped, her lip trembling with a strange combination of anger, fear, and sympathy.
"I know you think she's asking you these things..."
"Buffy, I need her... I need to talk to her-- things came out so wrong and I need the chance to change it. Everyone should have the chance to change it, and this is the only way..."
"Look. I need to go, I have something I need to do. I'll come by your dormitory later, we'll talk." Buffy reached down, took Willow's hand, and helped her to her feet.
"Ok," Willow said tremulously. Buffy placed the candle she'd been clutching in one hand on the dresser, and walked to the door.
"And Willow... I'm going to have to ask you to leave now," she said, fingering a necklace, still resting on the dresser, that Tara had placed there some four months ago.
---
Spike looked around the expanse of tombstones. The arms of the tree above him made a sound like musical laughter, and he looked up. He exhaled heavily, and looked up where Drusilla sat in it.
"Dru... thank God..." he called to her, standing in the fresh night air of the cemetery. After circling the tunnels and searching the streets, he'd come back here, to the crypt. And here she was, resting lightly on a nearby tree. Her skirt flew about her ankles in the wind, and she stretched herself across the length of the branch like a cat.
His relief bordered on hilarity,
She sat high in the branches, her skirt covered in the leaves and flowers she had plucked from all around her. She wove them into garlands idly, singing to herself. She dropped a pale white blossom down to him. It floated softly to his feet.
"Right then, Ophelia. 'Been looking for you everywhere."
"Everyone looks for me..." she whispered, staring intently at one small offshoot next to her on the tree branch.
"I wish I could make a cocoon. Wind myself up and change into something else. Something with colors and fluttering wings," she said, touching the shoot with uncharacteristic gentleness. She plucked it, and, in one, swift motion, she leapt to the ground. She landed silently in front of him, smiling. She offered him the stick she held in her hand. On it was a little green cocoon, bright as a small piece of jade.
"It's beautiful," Spike said, smiling back at her gently. He found himself enchanted by it-- what would normally seem nothing seemed to be a miracle, because, in her eyes, it was. It was a little living jewel, a momentary poetry, lauding the brevity of seasons. He saw these things in her eyes, could read them there from long practice.
She had a way of seeing the world that was at the same time lovely and terrible.
"I think I'll keep it," she said, "Make it grow... it's bursting to come out and be in colors..."
Spike placed the thing back into her hands. He was beginning to feel suspicious. Drusilla rarely commented on the potential of hidden life. She had something in her mind, and that was never good. It had brought him to the point of which he was now certain.
"You should go now, quickly," he said gently, "You've gotten better... you can escape to somewhere remote now."
Drusilla touched his arm with a strange tenderness.
"I see things, Spike... I understand what I didn't know at all once... and I don't want to be alone. Not anymore," she whispered, "I can't do for myself... I was wrong to let you go... I need a family."
He sighed, looked at the little green cocoon, like a jewel hanging from the dry wood.
"I won't go with you, Dru," he said softly, "I can't. Not anymore. You know that."
"I know... you're not mine now... but she will be."
"What? What did you do, Dru?"
"It's so small... but it shelters quite well... I should have made her a cocoon"
He grabbed her by the shoulders.
"What did you do?"
"They wanted to kill me. But I saw them before they tried and I knew their plans for me. I turned it against them and they fell like a song..." she hummed a few bars and smiled at him sweetly.
"But she was too pretty to kill. She was strong and brave, and perfectly suited to me." Drusilla smiled at him as if communicating some private joke.
"And love," she said softly, "I couldn't have done it-- couldn't have survived them all-- not without you..."
He felt the rage welling up from him with his horror, but he wasn't sure to whom they were directed.
"My good William, my precious, you've always been my knight..."
---
Buffy shifted on her perch on the roof, muffling the noise of her crawling as she reached for the sky light. Pulling herself up to its rim, she peered down into the darkness of the room. There were no lights on.
"Great, they don't believe in electricity," she thought to herself, "I've been chased by the Amish."
She squinted, pressing her face closer to the glass. She could hardly make out the shapes within. She wiped at the dusty glass with her sleeve, cursing the obstructive streetlights and their glare.
It was difficult to make out what she saw. What she thought was a desk, some indeterminate shapes... a couch. What she recognized as a holy circle was painted on the floor. The white paint glowed in the light of the street lamps. It was smeared and obscured in places. And then something stirred in the dark room, and the old instincts stirred in the back of her skull. Then the whole image reconfigured itself in her mind, like a visual puzzle, and she saw it for what it was.
She kicked in the glass, and leapt down inbetween the bodies. The shape moved to run away.
"Hold it right there," she said abruptly. She had a stake aimed to strike. The sandy-haired woman froze. She reached up and touched her own face, her own feral fangs and seemed to shudder a moment.
A small glimmer of light caught Buffy's attention. A cross lay on the floor, the chain broken. She looked up at her companion, and saw the burns on her neck.
"She didn't even take it off me..." she said, "It's the first thing I felt when I woke up."
Buffy's stance softened. The vampire wasn't going to run.
"What's your name?" Buffy asked.
"Sarah," the woman responded, chuckling bitterly at the sound of her own name.
"What happened to you, Sarah?"
"We were hunting her... but apparently she was hunting us. She caught us in the middle of the ritual, we weren't ready."
Buffy was amazed at the calmness of this fledgling. She seemed full of despair rather than anger. Most fledglings could think of nothing but the kill.
"Who did this?"
"She should have killed me... she could have. She knew-- she just knew what I knew... It was like she anticipated my every move..."
"Who did?"
"Who else?"
Sarah laughed outright, a touch of hysteria in the sound.
"Speak the name of the devil, and she shall appear..."
Buffy grabbed her by the shoulders, and threw her against the wall. Sarah couldn't stop laughing even in the violence of the impact.
When she said the name, Buffy struck clean. As she walked out, the dust swirled among the assembled dead. Drusilla's victims.
---
She rushed down the alleyway, unsure of what she was doing. And what should she do? Should she tell Spike? She should... he'll need to be prepared if she tries something. She leapt over a fallen crate and began a full run into the main road. A voice from behind stopped her.
"The fledgling?"
She paused, and swallowed hard.
"Dust."
"Good..." he said simply. He was looking straight at her, she could feel his eyes on the back of her neck. It felt uncomfortable.
"So you knew... you *knew*. That was why they chased us in the cemetery-- that's why they left when they saw me, because they knew she was coming to you-- because they thought that I was her..."
She wheeled around, the old fire burning in her eyes.
"I couldn't just leave her," he said, his tone even. He did not move.
"You did what-- helped her? Watched after her? What-- no, I'm not sure I want to know," she said, "But people are dead now. She killed them. Even if they were out to kill her, too-- it happened."
"I couldn't leave her..." he whispered. Unwilling to defend his actions, he simply stated the fact.
Then she tilted her head to the side, inhaled deeply, and wound up to strike in her frustration.
With a lightening speed he grabbed her hand as it sprung, bent the elbow and pulled her back against him. He spoke into her ear, over her shoulder.
"You still leave your side exposed in the attack," he said. She stood still in his grasp. He released her, and she turned to speak to him again. This time, the anger had faded, and sadness filled her eyes.
"You know what it's like here, Spike, our lives are hard. And sometimes-- sometimes I don't have anyone but you..." she whispered, "In this fight, you're all I have. And how can I trust you...?"
He looked down, remembering Dawn and her wounded eyes.
"With her... with all that she was to me... if I just left her to die, would you trust me then?"
It was all he could say. He reached out one hand, tentatively, towards her. And she bowed her head, and whispered softly.
"No."
And she walked away, leaving him standing in the alley, alone.
---
