At first she thought it had to be a tiny town, backwater beyond belief. After all, who really waved at strangers? It took Buffy a little less than a month to figure out that it wasn't that the town was tiny—it wasn't any smaller than Sunnydale had been—it was only that people were actually friendly, not constantly plagued by fear, persistently dogged by shadows.
These people felt safe.
The best part about it was that Dawn was already adjusting wonderfully.
"There are boys," she'd said matter-of-factly upon coming home form her first day at her new school. "Tall boys who like to play basketball. Basketball players!" She let out a little squeal and then pressed on. "And the best part is, I don't think any of them are demons or vampires or werewolves. This place is so… normal!"
Kids are resilient, Buffy remembered her mother saying. But she knew in her heart that it was more than that. As much as Dawn loved Willow and Xander and Giles, they were constant reminders of things best forgotten. Though she would have never expected it to be the truth, Buffy knew that in order for them all to heal, they would all have to stand on their own.
But she didn't want to stand on her own. In the darkest moments just before the sun began to lighten the sky, Buffy would reach out in her half-sleep, touching an empty, cold pillow. It was no matter—Spike had always left the bed cool anyway—but it would hit her that he was gone. She had no one to comfort her. While she told Dawn everything would be okay, reassured the girl and smoothed back her hair, she had no one to do those things for her.
He would have done it long ago, she reminded herself one sleepless night. She ached to be out patrolling, walking the town. But she wasn't well-known enough to freely roam the town just yet. He would have done all that for you long ago and you never let him.
Life in Indiana may have been simple and just what Buffy wanted, but it was also riddled with guilt. She needed to find something to do.
Because Giles and Wesley were the last of a dying breed, literally, they had more say in the Council than they could ever have been imagined. With his newfound authority, Giles took a drop from the Council's financial bucket to give Buffy a leg up. It nicely covered the down payment on a house and a full set of papers. She had papers certifying her to teach self-defense and martial arts, papers certifying that she was Dawn's legal guardian, and papers creating a solid credit background.
And after a month, she was starting to feel that was all she had. Papers. If she burnt them, she would have…
Ashes.
Ruthlessly choking back the tears that wanted to form, Buffy started to formulate a plan. It was time to act. It was time to live.
~~~
"He's either telling the truth or he's a loon who guesses very fortuitously." Hamilton shot a look over his shoulder at William, who sat comfortably sprawled in a chair, both of his long legs stretched out in front of him. All he needed was a cigarette to complete the pose of relaxation.
And a pose it was. He'd spilled his entire story to them, from the time Dru vamped him to the present moment, and what he wanted in return was a few answers. But the minute he'd ended his story they'd huddled on the far side of the room, Hamilton, Theodore, and a few other crusty-looking blokes he hadn't been properly introduced to. He calculated he would wait only two more minutes, and then he would have some answers.
"He's telling the truth," Theodore said, cleaning his glasses in a gesture eerily like Giles's. "There are too many details not to. Two souled vampires, one cursed and one rewarded?"
Hamilton sighed. "Dual Slayers, one dark and one light. A Slayer to top all others, to outlive all others."
"And the changing of the Choosing," another man spoke up. "I'd say that those three things alone hold up. That's, ah, not mentioning his vast knowledge about vampires in general."
"Watch how he moves," Hamilton said as William got up to pace the room. "And watch his eyes. He watches us as a hunter watches prey, and he doesn't even know it." Crossing the room with surprisingly long strides, he drew a cross out of his pocket and thrust it at William.
William regarded the icon with nonchalance, but Spike recoiled instantly. As a result, there was a flash of calm on his face followed by his immediate withdrawal.
"Stop fucking with me," he roared, throwing an arm out in front of me. "I came to you for help, not to be prodded like a bloody animal." As strong as his craving for nicotine was, his craving for Buffy was a thousandfold. Layered over and throughout that want, though, was another sensation: Worry.
He'd replayed the last few moments in his mind, telling her to go, thrusting her away from him emotionally so she'd leave him and leave the disintegrating building. But had she made it out? Or had she died despite his efforts?
"I left a woman I loved," he said, his breath coming in gusts now as he tried to hold back tears. "I left a woman I loved more than anything else I've ever encountered in my life, and I need to know if she was real. I need to know if I was real. And more than that, you are going to tell me how to get back to her."
That last statement got through the seemingly impenetrable shell of the gathered Watchers. The façade of calm broke a bit as they began murmuring among themselves and glancing at him warily.
"Please," he said, the anguish clear in his voice.
"What makes you think we would know how to get you back to her?" Hamilton was the first to regain his composure. Checking his cuffs, he sat down in one of the few chairs in the room and met William's blue eyes with unwavering intensity.
"So it's all true?" The hope was stark in his voice, unmasked and unrelieved.
Hamilton glanced back at the other Watchers and nodded. "Remarkably, yes." He tactfully looked away as the younger man let out a strangled half-sob, half-laugh.
"I thought I was going mad," he said, shaking his head. He raised two determined, haunted eyes to Hamilton.
That's the vampire, Hamilton thought, tilting his head. The man looking at me now is not the same man whom I brought in.
"I need her. Help me."
"Even if the Council could do such things, which they can't, they wouldn't. Such things are against the laws of nature, the laws of magic. They change the structure of the world as it is now and the world as it would be. We do not assist in creating paradoxes."
"The laws of nature?" With a feral growl, Spike leapt to his feet and wrapped a hand around Hamilton's neck. Unaided by the supernatural but aided by adrenaline, he lifted the man to his toes using only one hand. His arm, corded and defined, shook imperceptibly from the strain. "You'd blather about the laws of nature to someone who's seen hell on earth?" He tossed him aside as the other Watchers advanced. "I don't want to hear about your bloody fuckin' rules," he said, his voice low and lethal. "I want to get back to her, no matter what it takes."
Hamilton staggered to his feet, his breathing ragged and pained. "You will get no help with what you seek. You seek impossibilities."
"I bloody well am an impossibility," Spike retorted, but the man was already walking out the doors. One by one, the Watchers left the room, not saying a word. When he thought he was alone, he drew his knees up to his chest and whispered her name.
"Buffy…"
Another voice answered him from the shadows of the deep corners of the room.
"I will help you."