Chapter 4 - planning
"You're kidding, right?" Buffy said to her former Watcher. "There's no way I can just walk in there like I own the place and say, 'Hi, I'm the new slayer, and I've come all the way from America to take over'. No way!"
Giles sighed and cleaned his glasses. He looked to Willow for support, but found none.
"You really should have told us about this before we left," the witch said softly. "Buffy's right, we can't just got there and act like they don't know anything and we're these powerful superheroes or something that is here to save them."
Buffy smiled, thankful for being backed up by her best friend.
"What she said." Buffy looked at Xander. "And you, what do you think?"
The brunette looked back and forth between his two best friends and Giles. He didn't want to cross Buffy and Willow, but he did agree with Giles.
"Leave me out of this," he said calmly.
"Thanks ever so much for the support, Xander," Giles said sarcastically. He had become more and more sarcastic since he'd come back from England, Xander noted. "But all of you have gotten this all wrong. We're not here to take over, we're here to help. And the fact that there already is people here working for the same cause as us isn't a bad thing, really."
Buffy stared at him.
"Isn't a bad thing? I don't want to be negative or anything, but the last time we worked with a military organization it didn't go very well, remember?"
Giles patient was quickly coming to an end, they had been arguing about this for almost an hour.
"They are not a military organization. They are a group of people working together to keep the population living on the hellmouth safe, nothing wrong with that. And the council has had them under strict observation the entire time. From what I've heard they have successfully killed a large number of vampire's, and quite a few demons. That's nothing to frowned upon."
Buffy slammed her fists on the table in frustration, but said nothing more. She had become much more aggressive during the last couple of days, Xander noted from his position in the corner of the room. It was amazing how much you noticed about people by just watching them.
He briefly thought back at how it had been before everything had gone bad, before Joyce had died. Or maybe even earlier, long before chipped Spike had come to town. Then they'd been happy, or at least as happy as anyone can be living on a Hellmouth.
After a short moment of sorting through memories, he came to the conclusion, as he had done several times the last couple of weeks, that Spike was the cause of all this unhappiness. The only thing he hadn't been able to blame him for was Tara's death, but he was sure that if he just kept trying, he'd come up with something. He just couldn't stand the vampire.
And of course, there he was.
"'Lo, all." Spike said with a smirk. The soul hadn't changed him at all, no matter what Buffy said. "Hear you're planning the big fight. Rude to cut me out, in'nit?"
Xander could see how he searched for Buffy's eyes, but she looked away. The obvious pain in both of their eyes maid Xander want to heave. She shouldn't feel sorry for the vampire, he'd tried to rape her for God's sake! And only Spike himself knew of all the other horrible things he'd done to woman in the past. A soul could never make up for that, never.
But still he couldn't help that he felt a little sorry for the vampire that had gone all the way to Africa to get his soul back for her, and had become insane in the process. He was sane now, but there where still visible traces of that period in Spike's eyes and the way he acted. He seemed tired, worn out.
I'm not feeling sorry for Spike! Xander said to himself angrily, but not very convincing. He sighed and frowned at the blond.
"Why would we want you to be here, Spike?" he said, almost polite.
Spike scowled at him but kept quiet for once.
Giles finally gave up and stood.
"We're not accomplishing anything quarreling like this. I say we all get something to eat, and finish this later," the Englishman said.
Buffy jumped up from her chair, obviously happy to get out of the small room.
"Great, I'm starving. You coming, Will?" she asked, looking at Willow.
The witch hadn't time to respond before Buffy was grabbed in the arm by Spike.
"You don't mind, do you?" he asked Willow, but without taking his eyes off Buffy's. "Me and the Slayer's going to have a little chat."
"Spike." Buffy started, but was cut off by him laying a gentle hand over her mouth.
"Shh. Please. We need to talk. Everything went so wrong earlier in my room, now both of us has calmed down, and we can have a nice friendly conversation."
She hesitated for a moment before turning to Willow.
"I catch up with you later, okay?" she said to her.
Willow nodded and walked up to Xander.
"You hungry?" the red-haired girl asked.
"Starving."
~*~
Willow watched Spike and Buffy from another part of the restaurant. They where sitting opposite from each other at a small table near the windows. It was still a couple of hours until sunrise, and the sky outside was coal black. They seemed to be in a very serious discussion, but sometimes she could see Buffy smile. Willow was worried about her friend and she wanted her to be happy. Even if she didn't know if Spike was the right person to make her that, she wasn't against the idea to try it. But in the end it was Buffy's decision.
She turned her head around to look at Xander. He was watching Spike and Buffy just as she'd done, but with anger in his eyes. She sighed and leaned closer to him.
"Why are you so against Spike?" she asked gently. "What has he done recently that is so bad?"
Xander stared at her in disbelief.
"What he has done? I could make a list!"
Willow glared at him.
"The important word was 'recently'. And with that I mean, after he got his soul back."
Xander looked angry again.
"Why is everyone so eager to forget everything his done just because of that soul? I don't think he's changed that much."
"Maybe not on the surface. But if you just gave him a chance, you would see that he has changed, at least in the ways that really matter," she said, harsher in her tone now then she'd been before.
He didn't look at her, or in any other way respond to what she had said. Soon she gave up her attempts to make Xander more positive of Spike.
~*~ Buffy avoided his eyes. She felt like everyone working at the restaurant stared at them, the blond nicely dressed young woman and the man with bleached hair and a leather duster. She told herself that it was just her imagination, but she would swear she saw a young boy watching them intensely, following their every movement with his eyes.
Buffy turned her head to Spike to tell him her observation, but forgot all about it when she saw the look on his face.
"What's wrong?" he said tiredly, looking extremely lost.
"Nothing," she whispered back.
He sighed and took her hand slowly.
"We need to talk," he said seriously.
Buffy nodded and waited for him to continue.
He took a deep unnecessary breath and leaned closer to her.
"I want you to know that I love you, and I know I've told you that before. But I can't go on like this. It's killing me."
She nodded once more, her confused thoughts noted humorlessly that he used the same words as she had when she'd broken up with him.
"I want more then anything to be you're friend, and I'll always be here for you if you need me, but I think it's best if I leave."
Buffy looked up at him, shocked.
"Leave? Why? We need you here right now. I don't really know what's going on, Giles still hasn't told me anything more then that there is a Hellmouth here, but I do know that its serious. And we need all the help we can get."
"But what about those soldier boys, then?" he asked.
One more time she was shocked.
"How did you know about them?"
He smirked, a trace of the old Spike.
"I listened to you for a while before I walked in. I heard you talking about them."
"Do you know anything about them, then? Giles didn't tell much." She asked curiously.
"No, I would guess they came here long after I was here the last time. That was almost thirty years ago. A lot can happen in thirty years, you know."
"Yes, I know," she replied, a little confused by the fact that he still held her hand. Hadn't he just said that he wanted to be just friends with her? But she wasn't going to protest, it felt good.
"Hey, can't you tell me about what you did the last time you where here, Spike? You never told us about it before."
He leaned back in his chair and smiled at her.
"Nothing much, just travelling around, looking at the usual tourist places. And eating a couple of the employees of course, but that goes without saying."
Buffy laughed and hit him playfully on the arm.
"Pig!" she laughed. "What do you say about leaving out those parts of the story, and just telling me the important stuff."
He grinned at her.
"What are you talking about, those where the important stuff," he said, immediately avoiding another hit. "You've lost you're touch, Slayer. You would never had missed me before," he teased her.
Buffy hit him again, and this time she found her target, and smiled. It felt good to do this, being friends with him, joking. She hadn't done that in a long time, with anyone. Not even Willow, and they had been best friends for years. But after Tara's death and Willow going crazy they hadn't entirely been able to o back to what they where before.
"Seriously, Spike, what did you do?"
He smiled at her once more before he shrugged.
"Not that much, honestly. Dru had had a vision where it was some big thing in Sweden so we came here. But nothing happened. At the time we didn't have much else to do so we decided to stay for a while. In the end it turned out to be 18 months."
Buffy stared at him in disbelief.
"You're saying you where here for 18 months and nothing interesting happened? And killing doesn't count."
He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
"Okay, I guess I have to come up with something then, can't make the lady disappointed can I? Lets see, well we traveled around a lot, and we met all kinds of demons." Suddenly he remembered something that might be important. "Hey, I met this demon girl not that far from here, she could read fortunes and sometimes look into the future. I don't know how accurate her information was since I didn't ask her anything, but maybe we should give it a try?"
Buffy stared at him.
"A demon fortune teller? That's a first. And what makes you think she would want to help us, I am the Slayer, if you remember."
Spike grinned at her.
"No problem. Whit my charm. I could make her do anything," he teased.
Buffy had to laugh a little but she quickly regained her seriousness and gave him a glare that could kill.
"Touchy today, eh? All right. She will help us 'cus she isn't really evil, she helps anyone for the right price, and she prides herself with being on neither side of the whole good and bad thing."
Buffy smiled at him, pleased.
"Okay, what are we waiting for? Let's go see her," she said eagerly. She was just about to get up when she was stopped by Spike's hand on her arm.
"Wait a sec, luv. There are only a couple of hours until sunrise. It's better to wait until tomorrow, plus we've had time to figure out exactly what to ask her by then."
Buffy sighed and glared at him.
"When did you become the sensible one?"
He laughed and got up.
"It's time for me to eat now, so if you excuse me." he said. She looked at him confusedly. "I can't drink my blood inside the restaurant, can I? That wouldn't be very considerate to the other guests."
Buffy nodded in agreement and smiled when he kissed her playfully on her hand as goodbye.
~*~
Just after sunrise all of them where gathered in Giles room, mind set on making the plans.
"All right, who wants to start?" Giles said, looking around at the others.
Buffy looked up at him expectantly.
"Why wont you do that? You still haven't told us much about what we're here to do, just that we're needed."
Giles nodded and sat down on the small couch under the windows that were covered with blankets to keep the sun out.
"I don't know were to start. But I guess I could begin with when I found out about this," he started hesitantly. "It was four months ago in England, Willow was still recovering. The council contacted me and told me about a new hellmouth that was about to open, and that it was in desperate needs of a Slayer. After a lot of thought I agreed to assist you and I immediately started gathering information about this place. It seems like this small town on the hellmouth is being protected by an organization of ordinary people who in different ways have figured out that something isn't right here. None of them have any earlier experience of vampire and demon killing," he stopped to take a sip of his tea.
"So you're basically saying we not only have to kill the demons and keep us alive, we also have to baby-sit a bunch of amateur soldiers?" Spike cut in before Giles had a chance to continue.
Giles looked at the vampire impatiently.
"I don't think you can really call them amateurs, they've been doing this for five years, quite successfully. And they've also managed to keep it discrete, almost none of the other inhabitants no of the dark powers rising her."
"Have you ever considered going into poetry, Giles?" Xander said with a grin, gaining a number of annoyed looks from his friends.
Before there was a chance for an argument to start, Buffy led them in to another track.
"Spike and I are going to see this fortune teller tomorrow."
Everyone turned their heads to look at her.
"A fortune teller? How come she'd allowed to have fun when I'm not?" Anya said.
Spike sighed.
"She's not really a fortune teller, more of a seer," he said impatiently.
Willow looked at Spike curiously.
"Is she for real?" she asked.
Spike shrugged.
"From what I've heard, she has yet to fail. But I haven't tried her myself."
Dawn looked at him enthusiastically.
"Can she tell you anything? And why didn't you ask her anything?"
The vampire smiled at her.
"Yes, I guess so, and second, I didn't want to make Dru jealous."
Buffy laughed.
"You weren't allowed to talk to other woman?"
Spike rolled his eyes at her.
"No, I could talk to anyone I wanted. And I didn't want to talk to Anna 'cus I knew she was a better seer then Dru, and THAT would make her jealous."
"Anything you say," Buffy teased him.
Giles put his cup down on the table hard enough to catch their attention.
"You're leaving the subject. So, you and Spike are going to see her tonight?" he asked Buffy.
She nodded in response.
"Can I come too?" Dawn asked.
Spike and Buffy exchanged looks, and he shrugged.
"All right. But I'll be the one asking the questions, okay?" Buffy said seriously to her sister.
"Party spoiler," the teenager muttered, but kept quiet after that.
"Fine, now that that's settled, we can decide when to meet the soldier boys," Anya said happily. "Do they have uniforms?"
All eyes turned to her.
"What?" she exclaimed loudly.
Before anyone else had time to say anything, Giles stood up.
"All right. This is how it's going to be. Buffy, Spike and Dawn, you go see that demon tonight. Willow and I will research here and Xander will go see the army-lads." Anya stared at him. "And of course, Anya will also go there." He looked at her mildly. "Anything else you want?"
"I'm good!" she said with a smile.
"Fine then. I advise you all to get some rest then. All of us, except Buffy, Spike and Dawn, will leave in two hours."
Everyone nodded and soon they had all left the room. Giles looked out to the hallway outside to make sure that no one was within hearing range. There was no one there.
He picked up the phone and made a call to England.
"It's all going just as planned," he said to the person in the other end of the line. "Even better, in fact."
~*~
Anya was in a good mood. Not only where she going to meet a whole bunch of military men, which was probably all incredibly good-looking, she also had the perfect opportunity to see if she still could make Xander jealous.
Her former fiancé wasn't as cheerful as she, but in a better mood then he'd been in days. Maybe it was the thought of having much to do that was making the difference. Lot to do meant little time to think about all that had gone wrong in his life, and in his friend's.
The building that was just as headquarters was a two-floor office building. It was steel gray and the small windows where all covered with dark curtains, making it impossible to look in from the outside.
"Nice plays," Xander said sarcastically. "You feel right at home, don't you think?"
Anya shrugged and walked up to the front door and knocked loudly. Soon they could hear the sound of footsteps coming towards them.
"Ja?" (yes?) a male voice called out as he saw them after he'd opened the door slightly. "Kan jag hjälpa er med någonting?" (Is there something I can help you with?)
Anya gave him her most winning smile and reached out her hand though the thin opening between the door and the doorframe.
"Hi, I'm Anya. I'm afraid I don't speak Swedish, so is it okay if you speak English?" she said.
He looked at her surprised before answering her in shaky English.
"Yes, of course. I was wondering what you wanted?"
Xander looked at the man with hatred as Anya gave him another smile.
"Oh, we're just visiting from America. We thought we could give you a hand with the slaying of demons and vampires."
The man looked at her shocked.
"I'm sorry, but I must have misunderstood. Did you mean vampires as in people who drink blood?"
Xander stared at him in annoyance.
"Yes she did, and don't pretend not to know what we're talking about, we know what you've been doin'."
The man still looked very shocked.
"I don't."
Anya sighed and gave Xander a deadly glare.
"Ever tried being polite?" she asked, gaining an amused look from Xander. She ignored him and returned her attention to the soldier. "What's you're name?" she asked, still smiling.
"Stefan," he got out nervously. "Look, I don't know who you people are, but I think it would be best if you." He got interrupted by someone behind him that placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Du kan gå nu, Stefan," (you can leave now) the person said.
Anya smiled once again and lightly but determined pushed the door opened totally.
"Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Anya, and this is Xander. We're visiting from America and we thought we could help you out a little."
The man standing in the door opening gave her a small but not very pleasant smile back.
"I know, I heard you before. I'm Johannes, and I want to make you both feel very welcome. We've been expecting you, come," he said, making it clear he wanted them to follow him inside.
Confused Xander and Anya looked at each other.
"Did they know we where coming?" Anya whispered to Xander.
"I have no idea," he replied.
Not knowing what else to do, they followed Johannes inside the building.
~*~
Willow sat at a computer in the city library they had gone to an hour earlier. She had searched the site's for what felt like days but found nothing, at least nothing that was useful to them.
"God, this is boring," she said to herself as she got up from her chair and walked up to Giles. "You finding anything?" she asked.
The Englishman sighed and shook his head.
"No. I was hoping that the books I sent for from England would have arrived by now, but I'm afraid it isn't so. There is only a few books here in English, and none of them are of any use to us."
Willow wasn't surprised. She'd had a gut feeling that this trip wasn't going to get them anywhere.
"What do you say about leaving?" she asked tiredly. "I doubt that we will find anything here."
"I take it you haven't found anything either?" he asked her softly.
"Nope, not one word about hellmouth's and demons in this little town. Apparently those that no anything about it here hasn't found it important to write it down somewhere were others can find it and use it for good causes such as closing the hellmouth."
Giles smiled a little at the witch.
"I guess you're right, we might as well leave right away," he said grabbing his coat.
Just as they where about to leave they where stopped by a young woman.
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but overhear you're discussion. I might know things that can be of use to you," she said with a slight Swedish accent.
Willow turned to look at the girl. She looked like she was about twenty, maybe a little older, but not much. She had long blond hair that looked a little red in the bright light from the lamps in the ceiling and her eyes were bluish gray. At the same second Willow saw her she thought that this girl must be the most beautiful person she'd ever seen. She couldn't help but blush a little when she answered her.
"You have. That's really great! But how do you know anything about that?" she asked, her face quickly turning into the color of a tomato.
The girl smiled at her.
"I think I should introduce myself first, I'm Alexandra."
Giles watched the girl hesitantly.
"I'm Rupert Giles, and this is Willow Rosenberg. How come you know anything about the matters that we where discussing?"
Alexandra gave him a small smile.
"I can understand that you're wondering how someone like me knows anything about the forces of darkness, but things aren't always as they seems. I know about these things because my ant Anna told me, just as she told me just three hours ago that you would be here and that I should come and meet you."
Giles stared at her, shocked.
"Anna, as in Anna the seer?"
Alexandra smiled brightly.
"That's right. I'm surprised you know of her. She said one of you would know her, but I didn't think you all did. I guess he told you, then."
"Who?" Willow said, not being able to take her eyes of the blond.
"The vampire of course," Alexandra said sweetly. "Spike is his name, if I'm not mistaken. He met my ant a couple of years ago, and she's been waiting for his return. She became very excited this morning when she saw him in one of her visions. She sent me over her immediately."
"Let me get this straight," Giles said thoughtfully. "You're ant is a several thousand year old demon? You seem to be a normal human, if my eyes don't play tricks on me. How is that possible."
Alexandra looked at the former Watcher impatiently, before turning her attention to Willow, who seemed to be less hostile.
"What do you say about going somewhere else to talk about this? There's a café only five-hundred meters from here."
Willow shrugged and followed the blond towards the exit. But she was soon stopped by Giles who looked at her seriously.
"We can't trust her. We've only just met the girl."
Willow gave him an annoyed look.
"Giles, you can't go around being all suspicious about everyone we meet. Then we'll never get friends here."
"We're not here to make friends! We're here to save these people and close the hellmouth!" he whispered harshly.
"You coming?" Alexandra called from outside.
Willow walked towards her and soon Giles followed, all though not very happy about it.
TBC
"You're kidding, right?" Buffy said to her former Watcher. "There's no way I can just walk in there like I own the place and say, 'Hi, I'm the new slayer, and I've come all the way from America to take over'. No way!"
Giles sighed and cleaned his glasses. He looked to Willow for support, but found none.
"You really should have told us about this before we left," the witch said softly. "Buffy's right, we can't just got there and act like they don't know anything and we're these powerful superheroes or something that is here to save them."
Buffy smiled, thankful for being backed up by her best friend.
"What she said." Buffy looked at Xander. "And you, what do you think?"
The brunette looked back and forth between his two best friends and Giles. He didn't want to cross Buffy and Willow, but he did agree with Giles.
"Leave me out of this," he said calmly.
"Thanks ever so much for the support, Xander," Giles said sarcastically. He had become more and more sarcastic since he'd come back from England, Xander noted. "But all of you have gotten this all wrong. We're not here to take over, we're here to help. And the fact that there already is people here working for the same cause as us isn't a bad thing, really."
Buffy stared at him.
"Isn't a bad thing? I don't want to be negative or anything, but the last time we worked with a military organization it didn't go very well, remember?"
Giles patient was quickly coming to an end, they had been arguing about this for almost an hour.
"They are not a military organization. They are a group of people working together to keep the population living on the hellmouth safe, nothing wrong with that. And the council has had them under strict observation the entire time. From what I've heard they have successfully killed a large number of vampire's, and quite a few demons. That's nothing to frowned upon."
Buffy slammed her fists on the table in frustration, but said nothing more. She had become much more aggressive during the last couple of days, Xander noted from his position in the corner of the room. It was amazing how much you noticed about people by just watching them.
He briefly thought back at how it had been before everything had gone bad, before Joyce had died. Or maybe even earlier, long before chipped Spike had come to town. Then they'd been happy, or at least as happy as anyone can be living on a Hellmouth.
After a short moment of sorting through memories, he came to the conclusion, as he had done several times the last couple of weeks, that Spike was the cause of all this unhappiness. The only thing he hadn't been able to blame him for was Tara's death, but he was sure that if he just kept trying, he'd come up with something. He just couldn't stand the vampire.
And of course, there he was.
"'Lo, all." Spike said with a smirk. The soul hadn't changed him at all, no matter what Buffy said. "Hear you're planning the big fight. Rude to cut me out, in'nit?"
Xander could see how he searched for Buffy's eyes, but she looked away. The obvious pain in both of their eyes maid Xander want to heave. She shouldn't feel sorry for the vampire, he'd tried to rape her for God's sake! And only Spike himself knew of all the other horrible things he'd done to woman in the past. A soul could never make up for that, never.
But still he couldn't help that he felt a little sorry for the vampire that had gone all the way to Africa to get his soul back for her, and had become insane in the process. He was sane now, but there where still visible traces of that period in Spike's eyes and the way he acted. He seemed tired, worn out.
I'm not feeling sorry for Spike! Xander said to himself angrily, but not very convincing. He sighed and frowned at the blond.
"Why would we want you to be here, Spike?" he said, almost polite.
Spike scowled at him but kept quiet for once.
Giles finally gave up and stood.
"We're not accomplishing anything quarreling like this. I say we all get something to eat, and finish this later," the Englishman said.
Buffy jumped up from her chair, obviously happy to get out of the small room.
"Great, I'm starving. You coming, Will?" she asked, looking at Willow.
The witch hadn't time to respond before Buffy was grabbed in the arm by Spike.
"You don't mind, do you?" he asked Willow, but without taking his eyes off Buffy's. "Me and the Slayer's going to have a little chat."
"Spike." Buffy started, but was cut off by him laying a gentle hand over her mouth.
"Shh. Please. We need to talk. Everything went so wrong earlier in my room, now both of us has calmed down, and we can have a nice friendly conversation."
She hesitated for a moment before turning to Willow.
"I catch up with you later, okay?" she said to her.
Willow nodded and walked up to Xander.
"You hungry?" the red-haired girl asked.
"Starving."
~*~
Willow watched Spike and Buffy from another part of the restaurant. They where sitting opposite from each other at a small table near the windows. It was still a couple of hours until sunrise, and the sky outside was coal black. They seemed to be in a very serious discussion, but sometimes she could see Buffy smile. Willow was worried about her friend and she wanted her to be happy. Even if she didn't know if Spike was the right person to make her that, she wasn't against the idea to try it. But in the end it was Buffy's decision.
She turned her head around to look at Xander. He was watching Spike and Buffy just as she'd done, but with anger in his eyes. She sighed and leaned closer to him.
"Why are you so against Spike?" she asked gently. "What has he done recently that is so bad?"
Xander stared at her in disbelief.
"What he has done? I could make a list!"
Willow glared at him.
"The important word was 'recently'. And with that I mean, after he got his soul back."
Xander looked angry again.
"Why is everyone so eager to forget everything his done just because of that soul? I don't think he's changed that much."
"Maybe not on the surface. But if you just gave him a chance, you would see that he has changed, at least in the ways that really matter," she said, harsher in her tone now then she'd been before.
He didn't look at her, or in any other way respond to what she had said. Soon she gave up her attempts to make Xander more positive of Spike.
~*~ Buffy avoided his eyes. She felt like everyone working at the restaurant stared at them, the blond nicely dressed young woman and the man with bleached hair and a leather duster. She told herself that it was just her imagination, but she would swear she saw a young boy watching them intensely, following their every movement with his eyes.
Buffy turned her head to Spike to tell him her observation, but forgot all about it when she saw the look on his face.
"What's wrong?" he said tiredly, looking extremely lost.
"Nothing," she whispered back.
He sighed and took her hand slowly.
"We need to talk," he said seriously.
Buffy nodded and waited for him to continue.
He took a deep unnecessary breath and leaned closer to her.
"I want you to know that I love you, and I know I've told you that before. But I can't go on like this. It's killing me."
She nodded once more, her confused thoughts noted humorlessly that he used the same words as she had when she'd broken up with him.
"I want more then anything to be you're friend, and I'll always be here for you if you need me, but I think it's best if I leave."
Buffy looked up at him, shocked.
"Leave? Why? We need you here right now. I don't really know what's going on, Giles still hasn't told me anything more then that there is a Hellmouth here, but I do know that its serious. And we need all the help we can get."
"But what about those soldier boys, then?" he asked.
One more time she was shocked.
"How did you know about them?"
He smirked, a trace of the old Spike.
"I listened to you for a while before I walked in. I heard you talking about them."
"Do you know anything about them, then? Giles didn't tell much." She asked curiously.
"No, I would guess they came here long after I was here the last time. That was almost thirty years ago. A lot can happen in thirty years, you know."
"Yes, I know," she replied, a little confused by the fact that he still held her hand. Hadn't he just said that he wanted to be just friends with her? But she wasn't going to protest, it felt good.
"Hey, can't you tell me about what you did the last time you where here, Spike? You never told us about it before."
He leaned back in his chair and smiled at her.
"Nothing much, just travelling around, looking at the usual tourist places. And eating a couple of the employees of course, but that goes without saying."
Buffy laughed and hit him playfully on the arm.
"Pig!" she laughed. "What do you say about leaving out those parts of the story, and just telling me the important stuff."
He grinned at her.
"What are you talking about, those where the important stuff," he said, immediately avoiding another hit. "You've lost you're touch, Slayer. You would never had missed me before," he teased her.
Buffy hit him again, and this time she found her target, and smiled. It felt good to do this, being friends with him, joking. She hadn't done that in a long time, with anyone. Not even Willow, and they had been best friends for years. But after Tara's death and Willow going crazy they hadn't entirely been able to o back to what they where before.
"Seriously, Spike, what did you do?"
He smiled at her once more before he shrugged.
"Not that much, honestly. Dru had had a vision where it was some big thing in Sweden so we came here. But nothing happened. At the time we didn't have much else to do so we decided to stay for a while. In the end it turned out to be 18 months."
Buffy stared at him in disbelief.
"You're saying you where here for 18 months and nothing interesting happened? And killing doesn't count."
He rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
"Okay, I guess I have to come up with something then, can't make the lady disappointed can I? Lets see, well we traveled around a lot, and we met all kinds of demons." Suddenly he remembered something that might be important. "Hey, I met this demon girl not that far from here, she could read fortunes and sometimes look into the future. I don't know how accurate her information was since I didn't ask her anything, but maybe we should give it a try?"
Buffy stared at him.
"A demon fortune teller? That's a first. And what makes you think she would want to help us, I am the Slayer, if you remember."
Spike grinned at her.
"No problem. Whit my charm. I could make her do anything," he teased.
Buffy had to laugh a little but she quickly regained her seriousness and gave him a glare that could kill.
"Touchy today, eh? All right. She will help us 'cus she isn't really evil, she helps anyone for the right price, and she prides herself with being on neither side of the whole good and bad thing."
Buffy smiled at him, pleased.
"Okay, what are we waiting for? Let's go see her," she said eagerly. She was just about to get up when she was stopped by Spike's hand on her arm.
"Wait a sec, luv. There are only a couple of hours until sunrise. It's better to wait until tomorrow, plus we've had time to figure out exactly what to ask her by then."
Buffy sighed and glared at him.
"When did you become the sensible one?"
He laughed and got up.
"It's time for me to eat now, so if you excuse me." he said. She looked at him confusedly. "I can't drink my blood inside the restaurant, can I? That wouldn't be very considerate to the other guests."
Buffy nodded in agreement and smiled when he kissed her playfully on her hand as goodbye.
~*~
Just after sunrise all of them where gathered in Giles room, mind set on making the plans.
"All right, who wants to start?" Giles said, looking around at the others.
Buffy looked up at him expectantly.
"Why wont you do that? You still haven't told us much about what we're here to do, just that we're needed."
Giles nodded and sat down on the small couch under the windows that were covered with blankets to keep the sun out.
"I don't know were to start. But I guess I could begin with when I found out about this," he started hesitantly. "It was four months ago in England, Willow was still recovering. The council contacted me and told me about a new hellmouth that was about to open, and that it was in desperate needs of a Slayer. After a lot of thought I agreed to assist you and I immediately started gathering information about this place. It seems like this small town on the hellmouth is being protected by an organization of ordinary people who in different ways have figured out that something isn't right here. None of them have any earlier experience of vampire and demon killing," he stopped to take a sip of his tea.
"So you're basically saying we not only have to kill the demons and keep us alive, we also have to baby-sit a bunch of amateur soldiers?" Spike cut in before Giles had a chance to continue.
Giles looked at the vampire impatiently.
"I don't think you can really call them amateurs, they've been doing this for five years, quite successfully. And they've also managed to keep it discrete, almost none of the other inhabitants no of the dark powers rising her."
"Have you ever considered going into poetry, Giles?" Xander said with a grin, gaining a number of annoyed looks from his friends.
Before there was a chance for an argument to start, Buffy led them in to another track.
"Spike and I are going to see this fortune teller tomorrow."
Everyone turned their heads to look at her.
"A fortune teller? How come she'd allowed to have fun when I'm not?" Anya said.
Spike sighed.
"She's not really a fortune teller, more of a seer," he said impatiently.
Willow looked at Spike curiously.
"Is she for real?" she asked.
Spike shrugged.
"From what I've heard, she has yet to fail. But I haven't tried her myself."
Dawn looked at him enthusiastically.
"Can she tell you anything? And why didn't you ask her anything?"
The vampire smiled at her.
"Yes, I guess so, and second, I didn't want to make Dru jealous."
Buffy laughed.
"You weren't allowed to talk to other woman?"
Spike rolled his eyes at her.
"No, I could talk to anyone I wanted. And I didn't want to talk to Anna 'cus I knew she was a better seer then Dru, and THAT would make her jealous."
"Anything you say," Buffy teased him.
Giles put his cup down on the table hard enough to catch their attention.
"You're leaving the subject. So, you and Spike are going to see her tonight?" he asked Buffy.
She nodded in response.
"Can I come too?" Dawn asked.
Spike and Buffy exchanged looks, and he shrugged.
"All right. But I'll be the one asking the questions, okay?" Buffy said seriously to her sister.
"Party spoiler," the teenager muttered, but kept quiet after that.
"Fine, now that that's settled, we can decide when to meet the soldier boys," Anya said happily. "Do they have uniforms?"
All eyes turned to her.
"What?" she exclaimed loudly.
Before anyone else had time to say anything, Giles stood up.
"All right. This is how it's going to be. Buffy, Spike and Dawn, you go see that demon tonight. Willow and I will research here and Xander will go see the army-lads." Anya stared at him. "And of course, Anya will also go there." He looked at her mildly. "Anything else you want?"
"I'm good!" she said with a smile.
"Fine then. I advise you all to get some rest then. All of us, except Buffy, Spike and Dawn, will leave in two hours."
Everyone nodded and soon they had all left the room. Giles looked out to the hallway outside to make sure that no one was within hearing range. There was no one there.
He picked up the phone and made a call to England.
"It's all going just as planned," he said to the person in the other end of the line. "Even better, in fact."
~*~
Anya was in a good mood. Not only where she going to meet a whole bunch of military men, which was probably all incredibly good-looking, she also had the perfect opportunity to see if she still could make Xander jealous.
Her former fiancé wasn't as cheerful as she, but in a better mood then he'd been in days. Maybe it was the thought of having much to do that was making the difference. Lot to do meant little time to think about all that had gone wrong in his life, and in his friend's.
The building that was just as headquarters was a two-floor office building. It was steel gray and the small windows where all covered with dark curtains, making it impossible to look in from the outside.
"Nice plays," Xander said sarcastically. "You feel right at home, don't you think?"
Anya shrugged and walked up to the front door and knocked loudly. Soon they could hear the sound of footsteps coming towards them.
"Ja?" (yes?) a male voice called out as he saw them after he'd opened the door slightly. "Kan jag hjälpa er med någonting?" (Is there something I can help you with?)
Anya gave him her most winning smile and reached out her hand though the thin opening between the door and the doorframe.
"Hi, I'm Anya. I'm afraid I don't speak Swedish, so is it okay if you speak English?" she said.
He looked at her surprised before answering her in shaky English.
"Yes, of course. I was wondering what you wanted?"
Xander looked at the man with hatred as Anya gave him another smile.
"Oh, we're just visiting from America. We thought we could give you a hand with the slaying of demons and vampires."
The man looked at her shocked.
"I'm sorry, but I must have misunderstood. Did you mean vampires as in people who drink blood?"
Xander stared at him in annoyance.
"Yes she did, and don't pretend not to know what we're talking about, we know what you've been doin'."
The man still looked very shocked.
"I don't."
Anya sighed and gave Xander a deadly glare.
"Ever tried being polite?" she asked, gaining an amused look from Xander. She ignored him and returned her attention to the soldier. "What's you're name?" she asked, still smiling.
"Stefan," he got out nervously. "Look, I don't know who you people are, but I think it would be best if you." He got interrupted by someone behind him that placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Du kan gå nu, Stefan," (you can leave now) the person said.
Anya smiled once again and lightly but determined pushed the door opened totally.
"Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Anya, and this is Xander. We're visiting from America and we thought we could help you out a little."
The man standing in the door opening gave her a small but not very pleasant smile back.
"I know, I heard you before. I'm Johannes, and I want to make you both feel very welcome. We've been expecting you, come," he said, making it clear he wanted them to follow him inside.
Confused Xander and Anya looked at each other.
"Did they know we where coming?" Anya whispered to Xander.
"I have no idea," he replied.
Not knowing what else to do, they followed Johannes inside the building.
~*~
Willow sat at a computer in the city library they had gone to an hour earlier. She had searched the site's for what felt like days but found nothing, at least nothing that was useful to them.
"God, this is boring," she said to herself as she got up from her chair and walked up to Giles. "You finding anything?" she asked.
The Englishman sighed and shook his head.
"No. I was hoping that the books I sent for from England would have arrived by now, but I'm afraid it isn't so. There is only a few books here in English, and none of them are of any use to us."
Willow wasn't surprised. She'd had a gut feeling that this trip wasn't going to get them anywhere.
"What do you say about leaving?" she asked tiredly. "I doubt that we will find anything here."
"I take it you haven't found anything either?" he asked her softly.
"Nope, not one word about hellmouth's and demons in this little town. Apparently those that no anything about it here hasn't found it important to write it down somewhere were others can find it and use it for good causes such as closing the hellmouth."
Giles smiled a little at the witch.
"I guess you're right, we might as well leave right away," he said grabbing his coat.
Just as they where about to leave they where stopped by a young woman.
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but overhear you're discussion. I might know things that can be of use to you," she said with a slight Swedish accent.
Willow turned to look at the girl. She looked like she was about twenty, maybe a little older, but not much. She had long blond hair that looked a little red in the bright light from the lamps in the ceiling and her eyes were bluish gray. At the same second Willow saw her she thought that this girl must be the most beautiful person she'd ever seen. She couldn't help but blush a little when she answered her.
"You have. That's really great! But how do you know anything about that?" she asked, her face quickly turning into the color of a tomato.
The girl smiled at her.
"I think I should introduce myself first, I'm Alexandra."
Giles watched the girl hesitantly.
"I'm Rupert Giles, and this is Willow Rosenberg. How come you know anything about the matters that we where discussing?"
Alexandra gave him a small smile.
"I can understand that you're wondering how someone like me knows anything about the forces of darkness, but things aren't always as they seems. I know about these things because my ant Anna told me, just as she told me just three hours ago that you would be here and that I should come and meet you."
Giles stared at her, shocked.
"Anna, as in Anna the seer?"
Alexandra smiled brightly.
"That's right. I'm surprised you know of her. She said one of you would know her, but I didn't think you all did. I guess he told you, then."
"Who?" Willow said, not being able to take her eyes of the blond.
"The vampire of course," Alexandra said sweetly. "Spike is his name, if I'm not mistaken. He met my ant a couple of years ago, and she's been waiting for his return. She became very excited this morning when she saw him in one of her visions. She sent me over her immediately."
"Let me get this straight," Giles said thoughtfully. "You're ant is a several thousand year old demon? You seem to be a normal human, if my eyes don't play tricks on me. How is that possible."
Alexandra looked at the former Watcher impatiently, before turning her attention to Willow, who seemed to be less hostile.
"What do you say about going somewhere else to talk about this? There's a café only five-hundred meters from here."
Willow shrugged and followed the blond towards the exit. But she was soon stopped by Giles who looked at her seriously.
"We can't trust her. We've only just met the girl."
Willow gave him an annoyed look.
"Giles, you can't go around being all suspicious about everyone we meet. Then we'll never get friends here."
"We're not here to make friends! We're here to save these people and close the hellmouth!" he whispered harshly.
"You coming?" Alexandra called from outside.
Willow walked towards her and soon Giles followed, all though not very happy about it.
TBC