Lost in the Smoke
Chapter 2
(Disclaimer in part one)
Buffy flung off the covers and ran down the steps to the living room. Dawn was standing in front of the television set with a look filled with horror and disbelief spread across her face. She turned around, stared wide-eyed at her older sister, and pointed at the screen. Buffy's gazed followed her sister's arm to the tv. On it were plastered images of police cars, emergency response vehicles, and a charred mass of ruble.
There were multitudes of graves and tombs in the background of the shot to indicate to anyone that the scene before them was taking place in one of Sunnydale's many cemeteries. The firefighters were hosing down the smoldering ashes of what had at one time been a somber mausoleum. Buffy stared in disbelief at the remnants of a crypt she often visited, his crypt.
She bounded up the stairs to her room and put on the first thing she found, the jeans and navy blue top she had worn out on patrol last night. She threw on her shoes and went back to the living room where Dawn was till standing with her mouth gaping open in shock. Buffy grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look at her.
"Dawn. I'm going to call Xander and have him stay with you for a little while, okay? Everything will be alright. Don't worry, I'll take care of it." She hugged her little sister and maneuvered her over to the couch.
Buffy walked over to the phone and picked it up. For a minute, she just looked at the receiver. It would be so easy to retreat into her shell, wait to come out until everything was okay and the pain would be gone, but she had to be strong. Finally, she dialed the familiar number and he picked it up on the third ring.
"Hello."
"Hey Xander. Could you come over and stay with Dawn for a little while?"
"Sure Buff. What's happening at this time of the morning? Surely, no demons get up this early. Of course, having to be up this early is kind of evil in itself."
"Turn on the news."
"Which channel?"
"It doesn't matter."
There was a lull in the conversation as he turned on the television and put it on the news. It was obvious when he found it because of his sudden glee. "Wow. Somebody finally did it. Good for whoever…"
"Xander. I don't want to here it right now. I have to go find out what happened because Dawn is freaking out. Or at least she will be when she comes out of her catatonic state the sight of Spike's crypt being blown up put her in. So, will you come over or not?"
"Yeah. I'm leaving right now. Bye." He hung up before she could even say bye. It weren't for helping Dawn, Buffy knew that seeing to Spike's well-being wouldn't rank very high on Xander's priority list.
Buffy paced in the foyer until Xander arrived a few minutes later. She grabbed him before he could go to Dawn. "I don't know how long this will take so try to help her however you can. Watch her mostly. And absolutely no crude remarks about Spike. There's no telling how she would react right now and I don't want to have to deal with it later." She turned around and yelled to Dawn, "I'm leaving sweetie. I'll be back later," before she fled out the door.
Buffy wasn't sure if she had ever ran from her house to the cemetery that quick before. One minute she was leaving her front porch, then the scenery bled together into a blur, and she was standing in front of the crypt in the next moment of clarity. She realized that not only does the camera add ten pounds to actors, but also it glosses over many of the harsh realities of life.
She could feel where heat still radiated off the ruins in places. There were still wafts of smoke floating away on the breeze. The stench of brunt materials enveloped the area, all kinds of smells, but mostly the smell that lingers when you blow out a match. The aroma that can be pleasant but is too strong when something this big is blown out. The colors were more vibrant. The blacks, grays, and browns standing out at a stark contrast to the light blue of the sky and the discolored ground.
Buffy saw a man who and just come out of the remains and over-heard him talking to one of his buddies. "Man, you should see it down there. It looks like someone had been living in there. It's all decked out. There was even a bed in the second level. How many tombs have two levels? And what kind of freak lives in a crypt anyway?"
"Yeah, what kind of freak indeed," Buffy thought to herself. She walked up to the man who had been talking when his buddy trudged off. She tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around to look at her.
"Excuse me, but, you just came out of the crypt didn't you?" She asked. She must have looked worse than she thought because of his response.
"Yes ma'am I did. Are you alright? You look like you need to sit down. You shouldn't be here."
" I know. Could you tell me what you found down there? Were there any piles of ashes?" She felt silly for asking. She knew that they wouldn't know what to look for, but she couldn't go back to Dawn without asking.
"Well, there are lots of ashes down there miss. Looks like bed used to be in there and chair. Maybe a table. Sort of looks like there used to be some appliances, lord know what all else, or how whoever it was got electricity to this place. Did you know the person living down there?"
"Yeah. He was my …friend."
"Well I doubt he was in there when the bomb went off. We haven't found a body and we've been through the whole place. Maybe you should just go home and see if you're friend calls."
"You wouldn't find a body," Buffy thought but answered only with an, "Okay," and walked away. She trudged back toward Revello Drive dreading telling Dawn what she suspected and feared. How could she tell her sister that her best friend was gone? For that matter, how could she tell herself?
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In the cargo hold of ship floating across the Atlantic, Spike was trying to avoid the rays of sunlight that were coming through cracks in the deck. The fact that there were cracks in the deck worried him slightly, but it wasn't like he had to lose sleep about drowning. His weight shifted with every pitch and roll of the ocean surface.
He tried to envision the trials ahead of him. He wondered why no one else had ever thought of this when the information was so easy to get. But most all, he thought about her. How would Buffy react to a complete Spike? Would she run to him happy, or do what was more likely, and still run from him? He could only hope for her to welcome him home, but he expected the swift staking he deserved for leaving her.
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This is some longer than the other part. Hope everyone likes it. Please R/R. Thanks for reading.
