**DISCLAIMER: Buffy the
Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon, the WB, and all those other brilliant
people who aren't me (drat it all). Again, none of these characters belong to
me.**
Author's Notes: Here's the
next chapter. I hope you all like it. Please send some feedback or review! I
love getting your comments, and I will consider any suggestions that you have.
After all, I am writing this for you, and I do want you to like it. Enjoy
reading and long live Buffy, the Vampire Slayer!
Rating: PG
*******************
"The best and most
beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, not touched, but
~
Helen Keller ~
Her Gift is Life
by: The Silver Princess
The next night, Buffy Summerwinds returned to this other Buffy Summers's grave. The sky above was thick with stars like misty white clouds, and the moon shone large and silver, its ethereal light pouring around the gravestones like thick syrup. The air was still and quiet without the slightest stir of a breeze.
Buffy's shoes whispered against the grass; in the silence of the cemetery, it was a creepy sound as though the buried dead sighed faintly below the grass and dirt.
She paused before the other's headstone, several feet away so that she wouldn't trample on the freshly packed dirt and the newly laid sod, not to mention the body underneath.
Her fingers flexed instinctively as though she expected herself to be holding something. She frowned, her dark eyes faraway. A staff? No, that wasn't it. Something shorter…and sharper. Some sort of stick? She nibbled her lip as she gazed at her hand, scrutinizing the lines of her palm and the shape of fingers. The memory was close, niggling at the front of her mind. A stake! That was it! She grinned happily at the recovered memory. She usually carried a stake when she came to this graveyard.
She closed her green eyes, idly fingering her strands of blond hair and listening vigilantly to the minutest sounds in the cemetery. With the ease of long practice, she sifted through every noise that reached her, discarding the normal and pay attention to the abnormal. She grimaced suddenly as she felt her hair fall into over her forehead. She really should tie her hair back when she was out patrolling and slaying.
Buffy jerked as she snapped her chestnut eyes open with a shuddery gasp. Wrapping her arms around herself, she shuddered. Where the hell did that come from? She grabbed a clump of her hair tightly in her fist, tugging it to remind herself of its reality. Black. Black hair not blond. She had black hair. She stumbled away from the grave. Why did she remember having blond hair? Did she have a rebellious, foolish moment and dye her hair when she was younger? She shook her head vehemently. That wasn't it. And green eyes? She knew she had never worn contacts.
She raised her hand to eyelevel and clenched it into a fist. Why did she know the best way to make a fist? The way that would protect her knuckles and would prevent her thumb from breaking?
"There's too many questions without answers," Buffy whispered gloomily to herself.
Her head whipped to the side as she heard a sound.
She should leave; she should allow the person coming to mourn in peace without her intrusive presence. But her feet were frozen to the ground, and she could not bring herself to leave. But although she wanted to see this person—whoever it was—she instinctively moved into a position more advantageous if she were forced to fight. She breathed deeply, ignoring for now her baseless intuition that she might be attacked.
She immediately relaxed as the newcomer came into view.
"Hello, Spike," she said to the peroxide-blonde she had seen the night before.
He started and turned to glare at her. "Bloody hell, woman!" he shrieked, in his sardonic British accent. "What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?"
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't give that crap," she snapped acidly. "You don't even have a heartbeat."
He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Right you are, luv," he conceded unhappily as he gazed at the tombstone.
"Would you like to talk about it?" she asked gently.
He shrugged. "No," he said shortly.
Buffy remained silent and waited, and soon, he tore his eyes from the stone and glared at her with a mixture of anger and pain. "Buffy was…" he started haltingly. "She…There was always…" He broke off, shaking his head and staring at his hands. He fell silent again, a small tear coursing down his face. It glimmered in the moonlight like a small gemstone. "I loved her," he murmured finally. "I still love her, truth to tell. Buffy. Now there was a bird who deserved everything good and ended up six feet under. Shoulda been me. I was the one who bloody screwed up. After all this time, she finally trusted me, and I failed. And Doc got to her sister."
He snarled, suddenly vicious, and his features morphed into a bumpy-faced, fangy-toothed version of himself. With a howl of rage, he slammed his fist into a nearby tree. The wood splintered, cutting into his hand and hurting him in a way only wood could. But he didn't seem to care. "My bloody fault!" he yelled into the night sky. "Mine!" he cried, his voice cracking with angst-ridden grief. His hand fell limply to his side, and his shoulders shook with tears as his face reverted to normal.
Buffy cautiously set her hand on his shoulder. "It was her choice," she whispered softly. "She wouldn't want to cause anyone guilt because of that choice. Her choice."
"You remind me of her," he said, through muffled tears. "Somethin' about you, luv."
"Thank you," Buffy said tremblingly.
He cleared his throat and turned around. "She never gave me a chance because I didn't have a soul. I once told her that she made me feel like a man, but it was more than that even. I wonder if she ever realized that she was my soul, she had given me a soul. Now she's gone, and it's still there, and luv, you have no idea how much a soul can hurt you when you've become so used to it not being there."
Her hand traveled up to press against his cheek, but he averted his head, embarrassed that he had gushed out something so personal to a stranger. She stared at him with tender eyes as she dropped her arm. "She probably realizes now," Buffy said kindly. Her lips curved in a slight smile as she again reached up to touch his face. She should be repelled by who he was, by what he was, but she only felt trust and emerging affection. He was different, and she saw that with opened eyes.
He leaned into her touch for the barest second before pulling away, shaking his head. "'Bye, luv," he grunted awkwardly. Then, hunching his shoulders, he strode away, reaching into his pocket for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.
Tilting her head thoughtfully, Buffy watched him go, the brightness of his hair like a beacon in the gloom. She glanced again at the headstone, drawn to that name, and then she knelt beside it. Her fingers wistfully traced the letters of the name. Her hand drifted down to the grass below the stone. She pressed her hand against the dirt. Buffy Anne Summers wasn't down there, she thought irrationally.
Shaking her head, she stood, wiped her hand, and dusted off her jeans. She turned to look at the direction Spike had headed. "Spike," she whispered to herself. He was a vampire, and that didn't surprise her for some reason. She knew him. She knew vampires. She wiggled her fingers, recalling the feeling of smooth wood in her hand. She smiled grimly. If she had to ignore her questions in order for these strange memories to come quicker, then that's what she'd do. Firmly repressing her uncertainties, she began walking in a familiar direction, her feet her guide.
To a shop.
To a special shop.
She carefully kept her mind clear of questions, letting her subconscious rise to the fore and overcome her conscious mind, and a few seconds later, she grinned as the name popped into her head.
To the Magic Box.
*****
The store should have been closed as it was the middle of the night, but it was still lit up like a lantern, the light inside glowing invitingly through the windows. Buffy's lips quirked into a half-grin. She had known they'd be gathered there still. She wasn't completely certain who these they were, but she knew that they were there.
The door jingled too loudly in the mournful hush of the shop as Buffy pushed the door open. The occupants turned to stare at her with disapproving frowns, and she paused in the entryway, feeling awkward. She made an uncomfortable noise and said, "Sorry."
"Excuse me, but the shop is closed now. You'll have to come back later," the man, the eldest in the grim group, said in a cultured English accent as he stood up.
"Hey," a familiar voice interrupted. "You're that bird a met earlier tonight," Spike identified her with a slightly confused expression. He stood up as well, stepping forward. "Yeah, the one at…Buffy's grave."
She nodded at him, her hair slipping across her forehead with the movement.
"Well," Giles said—for that was the older man's name, she was certain. "I suppose you could come in for awhile," he conceded as he settled back into his chair.
Buffy faintly smiled her thanks as she walked down the steps, the clunk of her shoes on the floor loud and irreverent. Spike offered her his chair, preferring instead to lounge against the counter.
As she sat down, silence fell again like a stifling blanket, suffocating and oppressive.
Willow—the redhead from before—cleared her throat and asked, "How did you know her?"
"Hmm?" Buffy said, jerked from her thoughts.
"Buffy. How did you know her?" she repeated, resting her chin on the palm of her hand.
"She saved me from a big baddie when she ran away to L.A. We kept in touch after that," she said, the lie coming easily into her mind. Of course, Buffy had once run away. Of course, she would save innocent people from various demons that appeared.
Willow nodded, satisfied with her answer.
Silence fell again as words seemed to dry up from lack of meaning and value like a stream fading from shortage of rain. Something niggled at Buffy, and she glanced around the table, identifying each individual. A frown creased her forehead. Where was Dawn?
"I'm right here," a voice said, and Buffy blinked, not having realized she'd spoken aloud.
Dawn stopped short. "Who are you?" she said guardedly.
"She knew Buffy. Buffy saved her from a demon in L.A.," Anya explained in her matter-of-fact way.
Dawn gazed at her, hostile wariness shining in her eyes. "I saw you at the cemetery. You were standing across from me when they buried her. You gasped," she stated accusingly. "Why?"
She grappled for a believable explanation, lighting on one that seemed the closest to the truth. "She never told me her last name. I was surprised when I saw that it was Summers."
"Why?" Dawn repeated in the same unfriendly tone.
"Well, I also go by the name Buffy. That was one of the things that first got us talking. But her last name surprised me because mine is Summerwinds," she explained awkwardly.
The faces around the room arrayed themselves in various expressions of shock. Dawn gasped audibly, her eyes widening. "Buffy Summerwinds," she whispered incredulously.
Buffy nodded nervously, wondering if she should have continued as Elizabeth. She opened her mouth to speak, to say something to somehow reassure Dawn and alleviate the tension.
A tinkling of glass halted her as something flew through a window, clunking to the floor of the shop.
"What the—" someone said.
Then everything exploded around them.