Title: Watching the Watcher (2/2)
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
E-mail: spam@hagden169.fsnet.co.uk
Summary: Giles is back in England, with Spike, and they have a mystery to slove.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Giles/Spike (well, Rupert/William, really)
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None
Author Notes:
Story Notes: The languages they speak are based on what they say in the shows. If you can find a plot hole, let me know.
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, the BBC series would be happening a lot faster.
Thursday, 21st July
He woke at ten this morning, and I made him breakfast. I insisted he eat before I told him what happened, because I was afraid that if I didn't he would plunge stright into research without, and watching him now I'm glad I did. There are books everywhere- books on UFOs, books on alien abductions, books on demons, books on spells, even one -by a guy named Andrew Collins- that's called 'The Circlemakers' and looks like it's about crop circles and/or Stonehenge.
The laptop beeps at me again, and I go back to the research I was doing, searching for anything that might shed light on what is happening here. I haven't told him this yet, but the folks in Sunnydale are probably working on the problem, too- I sent Willow an e-mail with all the relevent information and a request for help. She seemed willing do help, particually with the parts that can be done on-line.
Come on, Google! You aren't normally this slow to give me anything!
"Himmeldonnerwetter!"
"Ist die Swearsprache vom Tag, dann deutsch?" I know my grammar isn't perfect, but from the look he gives me I guess he can't tell. "Is German the swear language of the day?" I translate, and he smiles.
"Something of the sort."
The lap top beeps to tell me that my server has timed out during my request, so I join him in the swearing and tell it to dial up the connection again.
"Don't you speak German, then?"
"No- I only did French at school, and then when I went to university I took Ancient Languages- Latin, Greek, Sumerian, and bits of demon languages."
"So you speak, what, five languages?"
"Four fluently, and I can read a fifth. Why- how many do you speak?"
"Six human, two demon- English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Gaelic, Tarian, and of course Fyarl."
"Of course. Not Chinese, then? You killed a Slayer in China."
"No- I never mastered languages that weren't basically Eurpoean, barring the occassional word, like...."
Beep. "Poq Gai!"
"Chinese swear word, I take it?"
"Yeah. Never found out what it meant, but it's statisfiying to say."
"Like my German one, huh?"
"Something like that." I shut the laptop- this research isn't going anywhere. "Look, it's elevn o'clock and neither of us are getting anywhere with books and the net. Let's have a break, make some tea, and think about what we do next."
"If you like- well, if you're voulentering to make the tea."
"Anything for you, love," I tell him- sappy-sweet doesn't suit me, so I get laughed at, but that's good enough for me. "I always wanted to be an actor, and I guess this is the closest I'm going to get.and, dear lord, I just said that aloud, didn't I?"
"I thought you wanted to be a poet?"
"A person can want more than one thing," I say, and add, "You were going to be a flying greengrocer," as I escape round the doorway into the kitchen.
When the tea is made and my blood warmed up, we sit at the table in the kitchen, sipping our drinks of choice and chatting. "What you described sounded like a classic alien abduction, the first time I heard it, but there are some odd points."
"Like the fact that alien abduction reports simply don't come in 'classic' flavour?"
"Yes- they are all different, one of the main reasons for doubting their factual basis. We know this really happened, and it wasn't aliens- or at least, if it was, aliens are responsible for many of the things we put down to ghosts and demons- so we're looking for a demon or ghost with previously unknown powers and motives."
"What do we actually know about genuine ghosts?"
"They have certain patterns- they have a message, whether good or bad, for the living; they rearly if ever hurt or attack people; they are normally rooted to one place or thing."
"Which suggests this isn't a ghost. It doesn't fit the patterns, so we're after a demon."
"A demon without a corpreal form, which has many minds as part of itself, produces an intense cold, and doesn't want people to know about it."
"How do you get to that?"
"It attacked a ghost hunter and me, when I was researching it. Amadain."
I force a grin, though I dislike the reminder of Angelus, and go on, "But it seemed to be scared of me- it waited until you were alone."
"No, it didn't, or you wouldn't have seen it- it waited until I was in the bedroom. There must be something about that room, or about rooms where people sleep, that enables it to attack them."
"So- a set of minds, which can become visable only by drawing the heat energy out of the surrounding space, and are secrative."
"The ghosts of an ant-hill, killed when boiling water was poured on them?"
"Amusing, but no, William. I think we must be looking for a demon with many minds- say, something that in its original form had several heads."
"You think this isn't the way it was meant to be?"
"No- I think it has been made this way by someone, or something."
"A curse?"
"That would do it."
"Like the one Cordelia was saying, that the Wolfram and Hart kids did on Sahjhan, made him immaterial."
"What?"
"Sahjhan's a demon. Gonna get killed by Angel's son."
"I know that. 'What?' was about you talking to Cordelia."
"E-mail. The wonders of modern technology, Rupert." I grin smugly. It's fun to be able to surprise him sometimes.
"Anyway, yes, much like was done to Sahjhan, but not quite."
"Well, we've got a few new avenues to explore, anyway. Demons with several minds, and curses. Which do you want?"
He swallows the last of his tea, and replies. "Since the best book on curses I have is in Tarian, a languge you've just reavealed you read, I think I'd better take multi-minded demons. Don't you?"
"I guess so. I didn't know you were going to use everything I said against me, though," I grumble, getting up from the table and going to rinse out my mug. Rupert doesn't have a problem with my bags of blood being around, but he objects to washing it up, for some reason. He returns to his reading, and soon I go back to the lap top, seeking more information on our new areas of study.
About one, I wake with the imprint of a keyboard on my forehead. It takes me a good ten mintues to sort out the lap top, and it isn't until I've done so that I realise Rupert isn't here anymore. His coat isn't on the peg, his bag of spell ingridents isn't under the bookcase, and I can't find a note. He always leaves a note. I think they breed for note-leaving in Watchers, and he always does it- except today, apperently.
The English weather is uncooperative as ever. Sunshine streams through the one window without heavy curtains on, denying me access to the far end of the kichen- and to the outside world. Dear Gods, what can I do? I'll have to find someone who can- calm down, William, you're panicing. Try phoning some of the places he might have gone. Now you know how he must have felt when you ran to Willow that day, though I doubt he's gone because of a dream.
Where might he go? One of his friends in Bath, maybe. Who is there? The coven leader, that fat woman- um, Charlene. The one who sounds like she's trying to hide a cockney accent I'd have looked down on in life. I've got her phone number here.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Charlene. It's William here."
"Hi William. How are you?"
"None to good, actually. Look, Rupert's gone out and not left a note, and I'm kind of panicing." Not giving quite the impression I'd like, but who cares?
"Slow down. Didn't he say anything when he left?"
"No- we were working, researching, and I fell asleep over the laptop, and when I woke up- there he wasn't."
"Ah. Long night last night?"
"For me, yes."
"So what's the longest he can have been gone for?"
"An hour, maybe an hour and a half." That calms me down- a little. It isn't really very long, but I still don't like the idea that he's out there alone.
"What were you working on? Could he have gone to gather some extra information?"
"I don't know. The thing is, what we're working on- it's dangerous. We got onto it because one woman was put in hospital, and last night it attacked Rupert here."
"Oh- is this the thing that attacked Diane? Kevin told me about it, but there was nothing to see in the demon-finding ritual we did last night, so we concluded it must be a ghost."
"And we decided it must be a demon, because attacking people and moving locations aren't 'ghost' habits."
"I see- not demon or ghost, but something else, and potentionally looking for Rupert, who is now out there, alone?"
"Yes."
"And you're panicing about this? I can see why."
"We need to find him before something happens."
"Okay. Let me speak to a couple of members of my coven, and we'll come over to cast a finding spell. We'll have to be where Rupert slept last night, and have an item of the clothing he wore yesterday, so if you could sort that out in the next half hour or so, we'll see you."
"Good- I can do that. If anything changes, ring me back."
"I will. I'll carry my mobile with me- you have the number, don't you?"
"Yes."
".so we're all set to keep in touch. Okay, Will, see you soon!" She puts the phone down and I am alone again. It takes me all of two mintues to tidy the bedroom and pick up Rupert's clothes, not discarded until this morning and still lying in the laundry basket. Then I pace up and down, moving little things around, not doing anything useful and unable to settle down to anything. I think of the kids in Sunnydale, and wonder how I'll tell them if he's dead, how I'll cope. When Dru left me, I despaired, but there was still hope of seeing her again- if Rupert died, I really would kill myself.
Where can he have gone? I imagine him, lying on the floor as he did last night, but now not breathing, cold and dead. I see images of him that can only have come from my nightmares, tied up, bleeding, dead, still eyes open and staring, frozen, pale, his side ripped open and his guts spilling out, images of my lovers and my victims distorted into one. They find me huddled in a corner, weeping, nearly driven mad by the images in my mind.
He is my only stablity, the thing that keeps me from the darkness of fear and guilt, and without him I am nothing but the weepy, wimpy, pathetic little shit I was a human. I hate that part of myself, and normally that hate controls it, but when I am scared, when my world begins to fall to pieces, the only way I can hide from it is alcohol, and that doesn't always work.
"Hush, William," Charlene says, holding me to herself, "Hush," and she sounds like an echo of the voices from my past- my mother, my princess, my friend the witch.
The three women work very effiencently, making me wonder how often they have done this in the past. I don't see the spell they cast, because Charlene keeps in the sitting room, calming me and reassuring me while the other two perform it, but when they return from the bedroom their faces and voices are less axuios that when they arrived. He is in Bath, somewhere in a street called "Queen's Road" - and how many of them are there in Britian?- which they know. Apperently it's a bit of an abandoned area, old factories and such like that evil guys like. I should know, I used to like them too.
Charlene the matriarch decides to go with Helen 'the clever one' to find Rupert, leaving me alone with Katrina. Katrina looks like a wimp, the youngest of the three and clearly the most junior. She is the kind of girl who is normally relgated to making tea, but I get the impression that the other two regard her more highly than that.
My guess is that's she's a more powerful witch than she knows. Her first reaction to being left alone with a vampire is the mild fright that everyone gets, and then a teenage kind of excitement- she can't be much out of her teens- but that quickly evaporates into 'caring mode'.
She gets a look on her face that I recognise from Willow and my sister, Joan, when Eliza wasn't around. 'Poor William face', I call it. Usually people wear it when they expect me to burst into tears at any moment, and mostly they're right, but I can often- as now- use the expression to push back my feelings and become Spike again. I hate being made to feel weak. Spike existed as part of William long before I met Drusilla, and although in my efforts to please Rupert, make him feel safe with me, I channel William and let the poet in me make most descions, there are still some that Spike must make. I don't like it, I'm not comfortable with being two people all the time, but what choice do I have, and I'm babbling. Leave that to the Sunnydale kids and listen to Katrina.
"I don't expect it'll take them long. The spell never fails and Helen used to live in that part of town. They'll find him, don't you worry."
She must be attempting to comfort me, but it sounds like she's worried herself. How can I calm her, when what I need is Rupert to calm me?
"I'm sure they will, pet," I say, my voice rough, and imideatley I feel like an idiot.
"Yes, they will," she replies. "Do you want a cup of tea or anything?"
No, I want Rupert. "Tea would be nice, thanks." It's not lying, it's giving her something to do.
"I'll go and put the kettle on, then."
She bustles out of the room and I blink hard. The girl is so much like my sister, it's uncanny. The same expressions, the same tones of voice, the same simple British comforts- tea and scones, sandwichs on the lawn- Katrina could be Joan, almost down to the atom. The same mousy hair, a shade closer to true brown than mine, but still pale, coiled into a bun. The same grey-blue eyes, darker than mine, Father's eyes rather than Mother's. Those eyes are why Joan left home as soon as she could work as a governess- not because we really needed the money, Father left us well off, but because Mother couldn't bear to see those eyes every day.
Then again, maybe I just see my sisters in every woman in my life who comforts or teases me. Seeing Eliza in Joyce, the two of them in Willow and Drusilla that day, and Joan in Katrina here- who is, by the way, just coming back, bearing cups of tea, neatly balanced on their saucers. I never saw them in Buffy, or Dru before she was chipped. I saw them in Darla, just the once, when she was left with the job of comforting me because Angelus had left and Drusilla couldn't cope.
Jo.Katrina hands me a cup, and sits on the armchair opposite, the one piece of the three-piece suite we almost never use. We curl up on the settee to watch television or just to cuddle, and Rupert inhabits one of the armchairs when he's reading and I and the laptop are streched out, but we never use the other one. perhaps we should. When (if) he comes back, I must be sure to make him sit in that chair sometimes. It gives me a good view from here of her face, frowning- and William, you're staring. Don't, please, it's not polite to stare at the ladies. My mother's voice forces me to drop my eyes, and Katrina's echos, "Are you okay, William?"
"I'm fine," I respond automatically, and then add, aware of what I said, "I'll kill myself if he doesn't come back."
She nods, failing to understand how they are the same. What I mean is, I'm fine because I've decided. If he doesn't come back, I'll end this torment of waiting another way. I know what to do when I can't bear it any longer. Somehow, there are no words to say that, so I sip my tea and stare at the carpet, the blue carpet with swirls in that we picked out together.
"I don't want to chose a carpet, Rupes," I said when he dragged me out to 'The Carpet Warehouse' or some such place. "Can't we just shag on the floorboards?"
"No," he told me, and gripped me by the wrist to pull me along. He's only human and the grip wouldn't have held me foe long had I choosen to struggle, but something inside me, part William, part Spike, enjoys the feeling of submitting, being owned and ordered around just as Angelus did, just as my mother did, so I let him haul me round.
"Do you like this on?" he asked, pointing at some grey-green monstroisty.
"It's ugly," I tell him. He wouldn't let me have what I wanted- sex- so why should I cooperate?
"On what do you base that?"
"I ate a decorater once, something must have stuck," I answer, my stock reply for all comments on my choice of décor. The memory of saying it to Buffy comes back to me, and it shakes me out of the bad mood I've been in. No need to make him suffer more, there's enough to do already.
When he asks, "And this one?" pointing at the blue-with-swirls, I say, "Yeah, that's okay. Do you like it?"
"It's not bad. It goes with what we've already got."
"If you're sure- we can keep looking."
"No, let's buy this. It isn't expense, so we can change it later."
"Okay."
When we got home, I got the shag I'd been after for the past twenty fours hours, on our still almost new sette. I suppose I ought to be able to draw a moral about being helpful from that, but the phone is ringing and I can't.
"Hello?" Katrina picks it up. I strain to catch both sides of the conversation, but only manage to hear her replies.
"Good, good."
"I see. Yes, of course."
"So both, rather than not either."
"Unusual, indeed."
"I think that's for the best."
"I'm sure we can look after him."
"So we'll see you fairly soon, then."
"Fifteen mintues. Right.
"Yeah, will do."
"Bye."
Quarter of an hour later, Rupert is in my arms again. "It was the ghost of a demon," he explains, but I tell him 'hush' and lift him into the bed room. When the women try to come in, to help or whatever, I go into game face. It wasn't deliberate, and I changed out as fast as I could. It was just the idea that they might come in, take him away- something snapped inside me.
His injuries will heal in a week or two, but the emotional effect will be much longer lasting. I love him dearly, but to go off and not leave a note- it's going to take something special to make up to me for reducing me to tears in front of Charlene the Busty Witch.
And he knows that: or he will, when he wakes up. I'll tell him so.
Author: Am-Chau Yarkona
E-mail: spam@hagden169.fsnet.co.uk
Summary: Giles is back in England, with Spike, and they have a mystery to slove.
Rating: PG
Pairing: Giles/Spike (well, Rupert/William, really)
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None
Author Notes:
Story Notes: The languages they speak are based on what they say in the shows. If you can find a plot hole, let me know.
Disclaimer: Not mine. If they were, the BBC series would be happening a lot faster.
Thursday, 21st July
He woke at ten this morning, and I made him breakfast. I insisted he eat before I told him what happened, because I was afraid that if I didn't he would plunge stright into research without, and watching him now I'm glad I did. There are books everywhere- books on UFOs, books on alien abductions, books on demons, books on spells, even one -by a guy named Andrew Collins- that's called 'The Circlemakers' and looks like it's about crop circles and/or Stonehenge.
The laptop beeps at me again, and I go back to the research I was doing, searching for anything that might shed light on what is happening here. I haven't told him this yet, but the folks in Sunnydale are probably working on the problem, too- I sent Willow an e-mail with all the relevent information and a request for help. She seemed willing do help, particually with the parts that can be done on-line.
Come on, Google! You aren't normally this slow to give me anything!
"Himmeldonnerwetter!"
"Ist die Swearsprache vom Tag, dann deutsch?" I know my grammar isn't perfect, but from the look he gives me I guess he can't tell. "Is German the swear language of the day?" I translate, and he smiles.
"Something of the sort."
The lap top beeps to tell me that my server has timed out during my request, so I join him in the swearing and tell it to dial up the connection again.
"Don't you speak German, then?"
"No- I only did French at school, and then when I went to university I took Ancient Languages- Latin, Greek, Sumerian, and bits of demon languages."
"So you speak, what, five languages?"
"Four fluently, and I can read a fifth. Why- how many do you speak?"
"Six human, two demon- English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Gaelic, Tarian, and of course Fyarl."
"Of course. Not Chinese, then? You killed a Slayer in China."
"No- I never mastered languages that weren't basically Eurpoean, barring the occassional word, like...."
Beep. "Poq Gai!"
"Chinese swear word, I take it?"
"Yeah. Never found out what it meant, but it's statisfiying to say."
"Like my German one, huh?"
"Something like that." I shut the laptop- this research isn't going anywhere. "Look, it's elevn o'clock and neither of us are getting anywhere with books and the net. Let's have a break, make some tea, and think about what we do next."
"If you like- well, if you're voulentering to make the tea."
"Anything for you, love," I tell him- sappy-sweet doesn't suit me, so I get laughed at, but that's good enough for me. "I always wanted to be an actor, and I guess this is the closest I'm going to get.and, dear lord, I just said that aloud, didn't I?"
"I thought you wanted to be a poet?"
"A person can want more than one thing," I say, and add, "You were going to be a flying greengrocer," as I escape round the doorway into the kitchen.
When the tea is made and my blood warmed up, we sit at the table in the kitchen, sipping our drinks of choice and chatting. "What you described sounded like a classic alien abduction, the first time I heard it, but there are some odd points."
"Like the fact that alien abduction reports simply don't come in 'classic' flavour?"
"Yes- they are all different, one of the main reasons for doubting their factual basis. We know this really happened, and it wasn't aliens- or at least, if it was, aliens are responsible for many of the things we put down to ghosts and demons- so we're looking for a demon or ghost with previously unknown powers and motives."
"What do we actually know about genuine ghosts?"
"They have certain patterns- they have a message, whether good or bad, for the living; they rearly if ever hurt or attack people; they are normally rooted to one place or thing."
"Which suggests this isn't a ghost. It doesn't fit the patterns, so we're after a demon."
"A demon without a corpreal form, which has many minds as part of itself, produces an intense cold, and doesn't want people to know about it."
"How do you get to that?"
"It attacked a ghost hunter and me, when I was researching it. Amadain."
I force a grin, though I dislike the reminder of Angelus, and go on, "But it seemed to be scared of me- it waited until you were alone."
"No, it didn't, or you wouldn't have seen it- it waited until I was in the bedroom. There must be something about that room, or about rooms where people sleep, that enables it to attack them."
"So- a set of minds, which can become visable only by drawing the heat energy out of the surrounding space, and are secrative."
"The ghosts of an ant-hill, killed when boiling water was poured on them?"
"Amusing, but no, William. I think we must be looking for a demon with many minds- say, something that in its original form had several heads."
"You think this isn't the way it was meant to be?"
"No- I think it has been made this way by someone, or something."
"A curse?"
"That would do it."
"Like the one Cordelia was saying, that the Wolfram and Hart kids did on Sahjhan, made him immaterial."
"What?"
"Sahjhan's a demon. Gonna get killed by Angel's son."
"I know that. 'What?' was about you talking to Cordelia."
"E-mail. The wonders of modern technology, Rupert." I grin smugly. It's fun to be able to surprise him sometimes.
"Anyway, yes, much like was done to Sahjhan, but not quite."
"Well, we've got a few new avenues to explore, anyway. Demons with several minds, and curses. Which do you want?"
He swallows the last of his tea, and replies. "Since the best book on curses I have is in Tarian, a languge you've just reavealed you read, I think I'd better take multi-minded demons. Don't you?"
"I guess so. I didn't know you were going to use everything I said against me, though," I grumble, getting up from the table and going to rinse out my mug. Rupert doesn't have a problem with my bags of blood being around, but he objects to washing it up, for some reason. He returns to his reading, and soon I go back to the lap top, seeking more information on our new areas of study.
About one, I wake with the imprint of a keyboard on my forehead. It takes me a good ten mintues to sort out the lap top, and it isn't until I've done so that I realise Rupert isn't here anymore. His coat isn't on the peg, his bag of spell ingridents isn't under the bookcase, and I can't find a note. He always leaves a note. I think they breed for note-leaving in Watchers, and he always does it- except today, apperently.
The English weather is uncooperative as ever. Sunshine streams through the one window without heavy curtains on, denying me access to the far end of the kichen- and to the outside world. Dear Gods, what can I do? I'll have to find someone who can- calm down, William, you're panicing. Try phoning some of the places he might have gone. Now you know how he must have felt when you ran to Willow that day, though I doubt he's gone because of a dream.
Where might he go? One of his friends in Bath, maybe. Who is there? The coven leader, that fat woman- um, Charlene. The one who sounds like she's trying to hide a cockney accent I'd have looked down on in life. I've got her phone number here.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Charlene. It's William here."
"Hi William. How are you?"
"None to good, actually. Look, Rupert's gone out and not left a note, and I'm kind of panicing." Not giving quite the impression I'd like, but who cares?
"Slow down. Didn't he say anything when he left?"
"No- we were working, researching, and I fell asleep over the laptop, and when I woke up- there he wasn't."
"Ah. Long night last night?"
"For me, yes."
"So what's the longest he can have been gone for?"
"An hour, maybe an hour and a half." That calms me down- a little. It isn't really very long, but I still don't like the idea that he's out there alone.
"What were you working on? Could he have gone to gather some extra information?"
"I don't know. The thing is, what we're working on- it's dangerous. We got onto it because one woman was put in hospital, and last night it attacked Rupert here."
"Oh- is this the thing that attacked Diane? Kevin told me about it, but there was nothing to see in the demon-finding ritual we did last night, so we concluded it must be a ghost."
"And we decided it must be a demon, because attacking people and moving locations aren't 'ghost' habits."
"I see- not demon or ghost, but something else, and potentionally looking for Rupert, who is now out there, alone?"
"Yes."
"And you're panicing about this? I can see why."
"We need to find him before something happens."
"Okay. Let me speak to a couple of members of my coven, and we'll come over to cast a finding spell. We'll have to be where Rupert slept last night, and have an item of the clothing he wore yesterday, so if you could sort that out in the next half hour or so, we'll see you."
"Good- I can do that. If anything changes, ring me back."
"I will. I'll carry my mobile with me- you have the number, don't you?"
"Yes."
".so we're all set to keep in touch. Okay, Will, see you soon!" She puts the phone down and I am alone again. It takes me all of two mintues to tidy the bedroom and pick up Rupert's clothes, not discarded until this morning and still lying in the laundry basket. Then I pace up and down, moving little things around, not doing anything useful and unable to settle down to anything. I think of the kids in Sunnydale, and wonder how I'll tell them if he's dead, how I'll cope. When Dru left me, I despaired, but there was still hope of seeing her again- if Rupert died, I really would kill myself.
Where can he have gone? I imagine him, lying on the floor as he did last night, but now not breathing, cold and dead. I see images of him that can only have come from my nightmares, tied up, bleeding, dead, still eyes open and staring, frozen, pale, his side ripped open and his guts spilling out, images of my lovers and my victims distorted into one. They find me huddled in a corner, weeping, nearly driven mad by the images in my mind.
He is my only stablity, the thing that keeps me from the darkness of fear and guilt, and without him I am nothing but the weepy, wimpy, pathetic little shit I was a human. I hate that part of myself, and normally that hate controls it, but when I am scared, when my world begins to fall to pieces, the only way I can hide from it is alcohol, and that doesn't always work.
"Hush, William," Charlene says, holding me to herself, "Hush," and she sounds like an echo of the voices from my past- my mother, my princess, my friend the witch.
The three women work very effiencently, making me wonder how often they have done this in the past. I don't see the spell they cast, because Charlene keeps in the sitting room, calming me and reassuring me while the other two perform it, but when they return from the bedroom their faces and voices are less axuios that when they arrived. He is in Bath, somewhere in a street called "Queen's Road" - and how many of them are there in Britian?- which they know. Apperently it's a bit of an abandoned area, old factories and such like that evil guys like. I should know, I used to like them too.
Charlene the matriarch decides to go with Helen 'the clever one' to find Rupert, leaving me alone with Katrina. Katrina looks like a wimp, the youngest of the three and clearly the most junior. She is the kind of girl who is normally relgated to making tea, but I get the impression that the other two regard her more highly than that.
My guess is that's she's a more powerful witch than she knows. Her first reaction to being left alone with a vampire is the mild fright that everyone gets, and then a teenage kind of excitement- she can't be much out of her teens- but that quickly evaporates into 'caring mode'.
She gets a look on her face that I recognise from Willow and my sister, Joan, when Eliza wasn't around. 'Poor William face', I call it. Usually people wear it when they expect me to burst into tears at any moment, and mostly they're right, but I can often- as now- use the expression to push back my feelings and become Spike again. I hate being made to feel weak. Spike existed as part of William long before I met Drusilla, and although in my efforts to please Rupert, make him feel safe with me, I channel William and let the poet in me make most descions, there are still some that Spike must make. I don't like it, I'm not comfortable with being two people all the time, but what choice do I have, and I'm babbling. Leave that to the Sunnydale kids and listen to Katrina.
"I don't expect it'll take them long. The spell never fails and Helen used to live in that part of town. They'll find him, don't you worry."
She must be attempting to comfort me, but it sounds like she's worried herself. How can I calm her, when what I need is Rupert to calm me?
"I'm sure they will, pet," I say, my voice rough, and imideatley I feel like an idiot.
"Yes, they will," she replies. "Do you want a cup of tea or anything?"
No, I want Rupert. "Tea would be nice, thanks." It's not lying, it's giving her something to do.
"I'll go and put the kettle on, then."
She bustles out of the room and I blink hard. The girl is so much like my sister, it's uncanny. The same expressions, the same tones of voice, the same simple British comforts- tea and scones, sandwichs on the lawn- Katrina could be Joan, almost down to the atom. The same mousy hair, a shade closer to true brown than mine, but still pale, coiled into a bun. The same grey-blue eyes, darker than mine, Father's eyes rather than Mother's. Those eyes are why Joan left home as soon as she could work as a governess- not because we really needed the money, Father left us well off, but because Mother couldn't bear to see those eyes every day.
Then again, maybe I just see my sisters in every woman in my life who comforts or teases me. Seeing Eliza in Joyce, the two of them in Willow and Drusilla that day, and Joan in Katrina here- who is, by the way, just coming back, bearing cups of tea, neatly balanced on their saucers. I never saw them in Buffy, or Dru before she was chipped. I saw them in Darla, just the once, when she was left with the job of comforting me because Angelus had left and Drusilla couldn't cope.
Jo.Katrina hands me a cup, and sits on the armchair opposite, the one piece of the three-piece suite we almost never use. We curl up on the settee to watch television or just to cuddle, and Rupert inhabits one of the armchairs when he's reading and I and the laptop are streched out, but we never use the other one. perhaps we should. When (if) he comes back, I must be sure to make him sit in that chair sometimes. It gives me a good view from here of her face, frowning- and William, you're staring. Don't, please, it's not polite to stare at the ladies. My mother's voice forces me to drop my eyes, and Katrina's echos, "Are you okay, William?"
"I'm fine," I respond automatically, and then add, aware of what I said, "I'll kill myself if he doesn't come back."
She nods, failing to understand how they are the same. What I mean is, I'm fine because I've decided. If he doesn't come back, I'll end this torment of waiting another way. I know what to do when I can't bear it any longer. Somehow, there are no words to say that, so I sip my tea and stare at the carpet, the blue carpet with swirls in that we picked out together.
"I don't want to chose a carpet, Rupes," I said when he dragged me out to 'The Carpet Warehouse' or some such place. "Can't we just shag on the floorboards?"
"No," he told me, and gripped me by the wrist to pull me along. He's only human and the grip wouldn't have held me foe long had I choosen to struggle, but something inside me, part William, part Spike, enjoys the feeling of submitting, being owned and ordered around just as Angelus did, just as my mother did, so I let him haul me round.
"Do you like this on?" he asked, pointing at some grey-green monstroisty.
"It's ugly," I tell him. He wouldn't let me have what I wanted- sex- so why should I cooperate?
"On what do you base that?"
"I ate a decorater once, something must have stuck," I answer, my stock reply for all comments on my choice of décor. The memory of saying it to Buffy comes back to me, and it shakes me out of the bad mood I've been in. No need to make him suffer more, there's enough to do already.
When he asks, "And this one?" pointing at the blue-with-swirls, I say, "Yeah, that's okay. Do you like it?"
"It's not bad. It goes with what we've already got."
"If you're sure- we can keep looking."
"No, let's buy this. It isn't expense, so we can change it later."
"Okay."
When we got home, I got the shag I'd been after for the past twenty fours hours, on our still almost new sette. I suppose I ought to be able to draw a moral about being helpful from that, but the phone is ringing and I can't.
"Hello?" Katrina picks it up. I strain to catch both sides of the conversation, but only manage to hear her replies.
"Good, good."
"I see. Yes, of course."
"So both, rather than not either."
"Unusual, indeed."
"I think that's for the best."
"I'm sure we can look after him."
"So we'll see you fairly soon, then."
"Fifteen mintues. Right.
"Yeah, will do."
"Bye."
Quarter of an hour later, Rupert is in my arms again. "It was the ghost of a demon," he explains, but I tell him 'hush' and lift him into the bed room. When the women try to come in, to help or whatever, I go into game face. It wasn't deliberate, and I changed out as fast as I could. It was just the idea that they might come in, take him away- something snapped inside me.
His injuries will heal in a week or two, but the emotional effect will be much longer lasting. I love him dearly, but to go off and not leave a note- it's going to take something special to make up to me for reducing me to tears in front of Charlene the Busty Witch.
And he knows that: or he will, when he wakes up. I'll tell him so.