Her head felt like it was going to explode.
How in the world was she supposed to remember everything they'd told her? Kelly supposed, in a way, it was all her fault. After all, she had wanted to know the whole story in order to help her friend. It wasn't anyone's fault that the "whole story" turned out to be hopelessly complicated and completely bizarre, even for a Slayer.
She'd had to take notes to remember it all.
Now she looked at the page she'd scribbled about Spike, whom Kelly deemed the most important part of the whole story. He was the knight, the champion, the man who had saved the world. He had fought to gain a soul so he could better love Buffy, and he had died in the nobility which that soul had given him. That was, at least, the impression that Kelly had gleaned from the myriad people who had spoken to her. But she thought perhaps they didn't have a good grasp on things, as an outsider would.
It seemed to her that Spike's nobility had come before the soul, not the other way around.
And the worst part of it was, Buffy had more or less watched him die.
"She didn't actually love him," the girl called Kennedy had conjectured brashly. "She just felt obligated." There had been murmurs then, of dissent, but a few of agreement. The man named Robin—Robin Wood, the thought still made Kelly giggle—had agreed. And shockingly enough, the other vampire with a soul had went right along with them.
But Kelly, newcomer though she was, had more to say about that. "That's where you're wrong," she said softly, shocked at how the commotion on the other end died down. "You don't cry yourself to sleep every night over a man you felt obligated to." Forgive me for telling on you, Buffy, she had thought as she said it.
And there was a chance that he was alive, and human. The thought made Kelly's heart quicken in her chest, with both hope and fear for her friend. No wonder things had been worse for her lately.
Kelly was more mixed up than she had been when she called, but now, at least, she could help. She was another ear kept to the ground, another set of eyes watching for the return of the man whom Buffy mourned for.
~~~
"I don't know that I can call these better," Laramie plucked at the white tee-shirt and dark jeans he was wearing. "They're not precisely comfortable, are they?"
Spike rolled a cigarette between his fingers, looking at it as though confused. Finally, he looked up at Laramie. "You look like a model. You should suck in your cheeks like a nancy." He demonstrated but didn't respond when Laramie followed suit.
This was not, Laramie thought, what he would have thought soullessness was like. The man wasn't violent, he wasn't mean, he was just… blank. He had the same knowledge, the same conversational quirks, the same thoughts, but… there was no pleasure in them or reason behind them.
If Laramie had known of such things, he would have said that conversing with Spike was like conversing with a robot. Tired of trying out small talk on his passionless friend, he changed tactics. "Why don't you care if you find Buffy or not?"
Spike shrugged and felt that great, yawning pit inside him stretch its walls a little more. "Does it matter? It doesn't. She's somewhere, doing something, probably with someone else. It's just another day, you know."
The Hub didn't take your bloody soul, Laramie thought. He just took part of it… your hope. Your pleasure. He took what you call your heart. The thought made his eyes water and his stomach churn. Something had to be done, but the Hub was unbeatable. Only…
Only the Hub had admitted something bigger was out there, and that Spike was involved in it. And he needed a companion, Laramie thought. So a companion he would be. "Well, it is too bad you feel that way, mon ami. For you and I, we are finding your Buffy no matter what you say." He looked for something, anything to change in the formerly bright eyes of his friend, but nothing shifted, nothing changed.
"I don't want to do anything, and you bloody well can't make me." Spike glared at Laramie, his brows drawn into a stark frown.
Ramie bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Anger, at least, was something apparently not rooted completely in the soul. And if anger would fuel him, then so be it. "I do not know as that's the truth, William, but we will see." He was tempted to call the Hub again, force him to tell them where Buffy was. But he knew the Hub would give him only evasions, so he did the only thing he knew to do.
He headed for the Council.
~~~
For the first night since the averted Apocalypse, Buffy went patrolling. She and Kelly strolled side-by-side, each with a stake in their pockets and a not-so-secret yearning for a fight in their hearts.
"You know," Buffy said, fingering the smooth wood of the stake she clasped loosely, "For the first time in my life, I say I wish we were near a Hellmouth."
"Spoken like a true psycho," Kelly judged, looking around. "Or a true native of the Hellmouth."
"Not a native," Buffy insisted petulantly. "Just a very bored Slayer looking for something to turn into a pile of dust."
"It's Indiana. People die in hunting and boating accidents around here," Kelly laughed. "No one gets vamped."
"It'd be a hell of a lot easier to get you all trained up if they did," Buffy muttered. "C'mon. Graveyard." When they made it to the town's sprawling cemetery, however, it seemed as though some of the fight had been taken out of Buffy. She approached a huge, marble crypt, running her finger over the engravings in the door.
"You don't ever talk to me about him," Kelly said quietly, standing beside her. "Maybe if you talked, it would be easier…"
"I don't want it to be easier," Buffy said, the words surprising her. Going with the train of thought that had started, she added, "If it's easier, I might forget. I don't want to forget him, ever."
Nothing seemed appropriate to say after that, and so the two Slayers, two of many, walked in silence in the humid Indiana air.
~~~
"Something's wrong." Willow sat up in the middle of the night, the orbs of her eyes briefly flashing black. "Things are shifting." She pressed a hand to the pit of her stomach and raised her eyebrows at the butterflies she felt there.
Kennedy had already been awake. It seemed harder and harder to get to sleep these days. She went out with Angel and his crew now and then, fighting when they needed fighters and… well, not much more than that. They treated her as superfluous, though she'd never admit she was. But when she was with Willow, or any of the people left over from Sunnydale, she may as well have been invisible. Days and nights were consumed by Buffy, and Kennedy was starting to wonder if maybe it had always been that way. Maybe she'd just been too hardheaded to see it. Keep on pushing, a tiny, niggling voice was telling her, keeping her awake. Keep on pushing, and they'll hate you before long.
She knew when she was wrong. It was just easier to twist things around until she was right than to apologize for her flaws. Now, however, her lover was her prime concern.
"What's the matter, Red?" She put a bracing arm around the witch's shoulders.
"I haven't felt like this since the stirrings of the First," Willow said. "Only… I don't think this is bad." She rubbed her stomach again and shot a shaky smile at Kennedy. "It's just… powers are shifting, things are happening. It makes me wonder what's going on."
"Hopefully nothing that involves us," Kennedy said, pulling Willow down to her and stroking a hand through her hair. "But I've been having dreams. Just flashes, really, nothing I can put my finger on."
"Well," Willow said, somehow comforted by the fact that she wasn't the only one feeling things, "At least we won't ever be bored."
Kennedy grinned and slid her hand down Willow's body in the dark. "Honey, you'll never be bored with me."