Part 6
The sane in insane
Joy stood up, her head hurting like hell. She must've had some fall on the corridor. She could feel her arm was bruised as well. She looked around the little nursery of the school. The nurse was nowhere to be seen, but Dawn was there and she seemed concerned. The slayer's little sister had planned on bragging with her LA cousin, but found that she had been terribly frightened when Joy had passed out. It was a strange feeling she couldn't name. Like that girl with the white hair had some great importance in her life, like if she were to die some part of the universe would collapse. It was odd, especially for Dawn. She wasn't really the type who attached to people easily, but whoever this girl was, her blood was crying out to her to protect her, to keep her safe. How am I suppose to do that? Dawn asked herself as she wasn't able to shake off that feeling.
"I freaked for a moment there," Dawn told Joy with a smile. "I don't usually get freaked out over a total stranger."
"Is that a hint?" Joy asked rubbing her sore arm.
"It's probably because you came with Angel," Dawn tried to rationalize that strange feeling she had. "Or I'm suddenly turning gay," she thought in horror.
"Don't worry, you're a 100% straight, I guarantee it," Joy assured her. "It's probably just the energy contained within you that can pass beyond the barriers of all time and dimension and that is probably screaming at the top of its omnipotent lungs about now: relative, relative."
"Huh?" Dawn wasn't able to understand anything beyond the relative part because Joy had said it too fast.
"Everybody gets freaked when someone just happens to drop like dead next to them," Joy told her, not bothering to explain what she had said before. "Shouldn't you be in class?
"The teacher said I can sit here till you wake up and if I'm lucky she'll let me take you home so I'll ditch the whole horrible day. Math is so not my subject," Dawn seemed to feel better now that Joy was okay. "Do you go to school? You look like you're about my age."
"Yeah, you could say I do," and she added to herself: 'or did'. She had gone to a highschool in the not so mystical side of New Orleans, but she hadn't really enjoyed it much. Kids still called the place she lived in the bad side of town, because the police didn't rule there, the mystics did. They had often thought her a freak and her relation to Willow Rosenburg hadn't really improved her image. To people who feared magic and still didn't admit the existence of demons - and there were quite a few - Willow Rosenburg's actions had been horrendous.
Highschool was something Joy did because her mother had insisted she get an education that didn't imply stakes, axes and a good punch and that would eventually allow Joy to follow the school of her dreams. It was a British school Giles had talked to Buffy about. A place of higher learning where great mystics met and taught beyond magic, the old ways and where she would have been safe. Joy didn't know how she was able to stand that New Orleans highschool for 2 years. Her friends all pretty much got their education from Remy's school of witchcraft. She would've gone there too, but her father didn't want her to go anywhere near witchcraft and she had to admit it to herself she wasn't really fascinated by it either. Magic was Jacques' territory. It was a passion he had inherited from both his mother and father. But now, she thought bitterly, there was no way she could make it to the British Greenleaf University. She would not live to see the green paths hidden behind the iron gates of the GU or the infamous classrooms where floors were ceilings or the stairs that twisted into infinite circles and the gigantic dome of the library changing it's picturesque paintings according to the seasons - white mountains and wolves in winter, endless fields of flowers and birds in spring, crops and a torturing sun in summer and vineyards and colored leafs in autumn. She sighed. I could leave now and never look back, she thought, I could live in this time and forget about mine. She stared at the wall in front of her, she knew she couldn't do it and even if she did, the future would catch up with her. She even believed her mother would be capable of traveling back into the past just to kill her. And if there was one thing she had sworn to avoid at all cost it was having to kill her own mother. Even if she was a monster now. She could never bring herself to do it. She preferred to change the past and bring forward an unlikely future. But at least then, she thought, I wouldn't have to be the one who has to find an answer. Maybe she was a coward, but she didn't care.
"Where are you from anyway? You sound British," Dawn said, not noticing the shadow that had passed across Joy's face.
"Half-British," she corrected her. "I spent a few years there. I never managed to shake the accent. My dad used to say it's because it's in my blood." Her father had often taken her to England, a lot of times at Giles' country estate, so she had spent a lot of her summers there. Spike felt she needed to know all her roots. Her mother had taken her to Sunnydale so he had taken her to Britain. Her mother claimed that she had taken her to LA too, before the great transformation, when Angel and his crew had still been alive. She also said that she used to give Wesley a hard time when she would occasionally leave her in his care. Messing about in his weapon closet and shooting stray arrows from crossbows all around his apartment. Surprisingly, even if Wesley had changed on the outside, Joy had melted his rough exterior for the time of her visit. Joy wished she could remember anything, but the first years of her life, like everybody's, were just a big blur.
"My dad's in Spain. Somewhere," Dawn said with sadness in her voice. She hadn't seen her father in years. "So think we can ditch school and raid the mall?" she suggested pushing away the sad recollection.
"Sure, if I can get up," she tried to rise, but she turned her head directly towards the window. Outside the sun was shinning happily. She let out a cry and fell back down.
"What's wrong?" Dawn asked prepared to call the nurse from the principal's office at once.
"My glasses...Where are they?" she rubbed her sore eyes.
"Oh, here, I took them when you fell so they wouldn't get trampled on. They look pretty expensive," she handed her the glasses from her bag.
"They are. They're made out of ruby. My eyes are sensible to the light," she explained as she put them on. It was another one of the bad things caused by her vampire heritage. She had gotten the glasses from her aunt Willow. After finding her crying in the house on a sunny day when she was little, because she couldn't go outside, the sun hurting her, not being able to fix the problem through magic, Willow had consulted some specialists who had come up with the glasses. Joy had been so happy. She could finally play outside without being afraid.
Joy got up and with Dawn's help left the nursery. In the hallway they met the nurse and while Dawn was busy explaining to the nurse that she was going to get Joy home so she could rest properly, something caught Joy's eye, or rather her senses. A door leading to the basement. It seemed to call out to her, something wicked... It oozed of evil and she felt an unhealthy attraction towards it. And there was a song. A mesmerizing beat that seemed to draw a part of her in, but the other side of her screamed for her to leave right then. That part of her knew what that song was.
"Dawn, can we go now? I don't feel so good," she interrupted Dawn's conversation with the nurse.
"Go," the nurse told Dawn, understanding. As she disappeared, Joy asked:
"Would you mind if we just get some ice cream or a banana split instead of going to the mall?"
"As long as I'm not in my math class right now I'm okay with it," Dawn said happily as she guided her out of the highschool. Once outside, Joy felt safe and out of the reach of whatever demonic being was hidden beneath the school.
Back at the Summers house, Cordelia was finally awake and still trying to recall the place. She walked in each room of the upper level feeling lost. The house seemed familiar in some way, but she couldn't place it anywhere in her past. It wasn't her own, yet she felt it held a great deal of memories. Memories she could no longer reach. She went downstairs and found Connor and Angel both asleep or pretending to be. She smiled, Connor had such a serene face when he slept, Angel on the other hand seemed tormented by something and she felt it wasn't always so. She stepped into the kitchen trying to make as little sound as possible. Where did she know this place from? It reminded her of drinks, snacks and endless discussions. Of what? She could not recall. She just felt some of them had frightened her.
"Hey, Buff!" she heard someone yell as the front door opened and closed. Xander entered the kitchen and was surprised to find Cordelia there. "Hi, Cordy."
"Hi yourself..." she obviously had known him at some point in her life. She wished someone would be there to tell her who he was and to explain her condition to him. There was a long moment of embarrassing silence.
"Let me guess. You're playing big city girl who can't remember the little people anymore? What? The overwhelming fame got to you?" he gave her his best sarcastic tone.
"I was famous?" was the only reply he got.
"Come again?" Xander began suspecting something was wrong.
"Look, I'm sorry, but I kinda lost my memory and if you'd fill me in on what ever kind of history we have together, I'd really appreciate it," she told him. "Angel didn't bother to fill in the blanks when we came here."
"Really? And how did this little predicament happen?" he wanted to know.
"If I'd remember I'd tell you," Cordelia felt strange around him, she wanted to bicker with him over nothing and was contented to see him at the same time. "Did I hate you?" she suddenly asked.
"Well...I wouldn't say that. Close to hating at some point, but I kinda hoped you were over that."
"Why would I hate you?" Cordy inquired.
"You'll probably-eventually find out or remember so I guess I should tell you... We used to be together in highschool, you picked on me for a couple of years before that. I sorta cheated on you with my best friend. Whose a girl. Willow in case you met her," he told her the truth. "Who kinda turned gay a couple of years ago."
"You cheated on me with a lesbian?" she couldn't believe it. "You're one twisted son of a..."
"Thank you, and if you want to smack me around a bit I also left my girlfriend at the altar," Xander thought that would be her reaction, but didn't blame her for it, especially now that he had been through something similar with the whole Anya and Spike deal.
"No wonder I hated you," Cordelia was appalled.
"You kinda got over it before you left Sunnydale, what with the Mayor turning into a supersize snake and trying to eat everyone at graduation. There's a tendency not to hold a grudge with an impending doom closing in," Xander remembered the last weeks of highschool.
"I wouldn't know. Or remember actually," Cordy's head hurt from all the sudden information. "No offense but you don't seem my type."
"What's your type then? Tall, dark and handsome? Or British and bookish? Why you had a crush on Wesley and no relationship to Angel?"
"I had a crush on Wesley? The dark-always-seems-to-have-an-apocalypse-on-his-mind guy? And I didn't have a relationship with Angel here?" she seemed surprised which Xander thought to be strange.
"Sure, maybe if you had a chance you would've tried something, but as we all painfully remember Angel and Buffy were glued together at the time," he explained.
"So they were together and that's why Angel and I never had anything," Xander nodded.
"Besides I don't think you're Mr. Brood-a-lot's type. He likes his women dead and dangerous or angsty fighting machines," Xander pointed out. "And not really all that superficial," he stopped, knowing he had said something bad.
"I'm superficial?" Cordy couldn't believe it. And Angel was in love with her whatever this guy said, she felt the truth and saw it in the vampire's eyes. He would've done anything for her.
"You used to be. Maybe you're not anymore. Haven't really seen you in a while," Xander tried to repair the damage.
"What's your name anyway?" she realized he hadn't introduced himself yet.
"Oh, sorry, I'm Xander," he found the whole situation funny.
"Hey, you're up," Connor appeared in the kitchen smiling at her.
"And you'd be...Connor, right?" Xander asked. He could definitely see parts of Angel in him. "Hey, your mom tried to bite me a couple of times."
"You knew my mother?" Connor questioned surprised.
"Before your dad killed her," Xander again thought he had said something inappropriate. "And before she...miraculously came back to life," Angel had shared Darla's story only with Buffy so Dawn wasn't able to tell him and Willow much about Connor's strange birth. "But she didn't really give me the time of day. It was just 'I want to eat you grrr'."
"She was a monster," Connor said taking Cordy and Xander by surprise. They didn't know that he had been raised to hate both his parents, not only his father. "Did you sleep okay?" he turned to Cordelia.
"Yeah, surprisingly well," she didn't know how come, but she had the sensation she believed people who felt at home had. Even if she felt odd not remembering anything or anybody, there was a strange ease inside her, like she was safe there.
"Where's Buffy anyway? I wanted to talk to her," Xander remembered why he had come there.
"She left," Connor said with a smile.
"Well, at least they didn't punch out their differences," Xander sighed. "I'm just gonna go then. Cordy, nice seeing you again and nice to meet you Connor," and with that he was off.
"Can you believe I used to date him?" Cordy was amused.
"You did?" Connor felt a twist of jealousy inside. From the living room Angel had listened to their conversation pretending to be asleep. He hoped that their trip to Sunnydale would at least pay up for Cordelia.
That afternoon as the sun lowered itself on the horizon, the inhabitants of the Summers house began returning home. Buffy wasn't really glad to find Angel, Cordy and Willow in such good spirits when she arrived, while Connor watched over them with an observer's interest, making Angel feel slightly awkward. The vampire and Willow were trying to trigger memories inside Cordelia with stories of their past together, their many battles and adventures. When the slayer entered, Willow was in the middle of the story of Xander's love spell gone bad. Cordelia laughed at the thought of Xander being chased through town by a mob of women desperately in love with him.
"Hi," Angel was the first one to notice Buffy.
"Hey, I was just telling Cordy some stories from the good old times," Willow said, but her smile faded when she saw the slayer wasn't really cheery. "Is something wrong?"
"Everything's fine," she said, but her face said something was definitely wrong, but Willow didn't know if it was some great doom or something else.
"So are we gonna go slay those things today or what?" Buffy asked annoyed.
"The sun didn't quite set yet," Angel pointed towards the covered windows of the kitchen behind which the rays of a weak sun still shined.
"Never stopped you before," Buffy reminded him in an unpleasant tone. Willow was beginning to understand what was wrong. The Buffy-Angel incident from that morning hadn't ended well. They usually did, but, she thought to herself, every rule has at least one exception. Connor had passed from observing to being extremely amused. With any luck the slayer would get so tired of his father she'd stake him.
"We have to wait for Joy, we don't want to kill her brother," Angel felt frustrated by the whole situation.
"Right now, doesn't matter what I kill as long as I kill something," the slayer said feeling the need to kick some serious ass. Angel didn't have time to reply as Joy and Dawn entered the kitchen, both very happy, holding ice-cream cones.
"Ice cream? Isn't it a little cold for that?" Willow asked but Dawn shook her head.
"It's never too cold for ice-cream. Besides Sunnydale doesn't really get cold cold," Dawn said taking a lick from her cone.
"You just better not wake up with your throat sore," Buffy warned her sister. Joy noticed the slayer wasn't in the best of moods. She must've fought with Angel.
"So how do you like Sunnydale so far?" Willow asked Joy. She had a strange feeling about her. Like she didn't fit in with the picture, like she was torn from somewhere and forcefully put in this reality. She could see the universe twisting, turning and screaming around her. She did not belong there.
"Like your average hellmouth I guess," Joy answered. Actually the whole town seemed to press down upon her heart, like a mountain, crushing her. Everything living in that city seemed to yell at her to let known the truths she hid, begging for her to spare it and its people. Why would she let it be destroyed? With a few words she could let it live...But no, it wasn't meant to be. Some things could be changed, but some should remain as they were. Sunnydale was better off dead, she would let only few die in order to save the generations that would suffer from its survival. The hellmouth had to be closed. Forever.
"There's more than one?" Connor asked curious.
"I hope not," Buffy said horrified at the thought. "So now that everyone who has to be here is here, I say we go slaying."
"Well spoken," Joy agreed with her. "And on that subject, I think I know where the nest is."
"You haven't wasted your time," Willow noted.
"Gholas are easy to track. Less rats, more smell. They're in the sewers," Joy told them.
"You went in the sewers?!" Buffy shot Dawn an irritated glance.
"No, she didn't. I checked it out when she was standing in line at the donut shop. I didn't go too near them, they have keen senses. I didn't want them to feel my presence," Joy explained. "So do we split up or something? It would be better if we could surprise them from the back."
"Yeah, I guess that's a good tactic," Angel agreed. "Me and Buffy go in from the front and you and Connor go from the back."
"I thought I'm staying with Cordelia," Connor reminded his father of the reason he came along.
"She'll be safe with Willow. She's a witch," Angel tried to assure his son.
"You can stay with her," Buffy decided. "I'm gonna go with Spike from the front. Angel and Joy take the back. I did mention Spike's coming, didn't I?" she asked with a wicked little smile on her lips. There was a moment of silence in which Angel and Buffy stared at each other.
"Who's Spike?" Cordy interrupted their silent dispute.
"A vampire one of my children made," Angel told her.
"And whose technically harmless now and currently lives with Xander," Dawn added.
"Is that why Xander was here this morning?" Cordy asked.
"Yeah, he told Spike about the demons and he wanted to come along. I said yes," Buffy admitted. No one noticed that the sun was slowly, but surely setting. There was a knock at the door and Joy started fidgeting about, nervous at the encounter, while Angel looked away from the others trying to conceal his anger. But it was obvious to Connor, who just continued to smile. Cordelia understood him. You're bound to get jealous over your ex's new lover, whoever he may be. As Spike entered the room, it was quiet.
"I don't know about you lot, but I feel like I could kill a bloody army," he stated breaking the silence. "Living with that boy is enough to turn any person into a homicidal maniac," he shivered. "Well, if it isn't the big poofer himself," he said when he noticed Angel at the table. "No hard feelings, mate?" he extended a friendly hand, but his grandsire would not take it.
"Let's go," he simply said standing up.
"What's his bleeding problem?" Spike asked, then gave Buffy a quick look that showed his fears. But as his gaze wondered in the room, his eyes set themselves on Joy. Instinctively Joy took off her ruby classes so he could get a better look at her. The vampire lowered his head towards his shoulder as if she'd look different from another angle. What was wrong with this girl and why was that wrong so familiar to him? He asked himself.
"Spike?" Buffy asked trying to snap him out of his concentration. It was time for them to go. Suddenly the vampire moved with great speed throwing Joy into the wall and then pulling her up by her neck, pinning her there.
"Who the bloody hell are you? Tell me! Tell me! Who are you?!" he screamed at her, but Joy would say nothing. She just sat there, not breathing, yet not choking either. The slayer immediately reacted moving towards Spike and pushing him away from Joy, sitting herself between the girl and the vampire.
"What's wrong with you?" Buffy asked him and Spike just sat there blunt like he didn't understand what he had just done. Then he felt his sanity slowly slipping away like sucked out of him by some great black hole - Joy - and that blurry state overtaking him. The world wasn't the world anymore but a weary mass of energy and evil that presented itself so purely to him that he couldn't hold a rational thought within him. This new world had no reason only chaos and there, everything was clear to him. In this state he stared back at the girl now standing behind the slayer. Joy neared him ignoring Buffy's pleads. And Spike could see through her, she wasn't born or made, and that blood... it smelled so much like something he'd tasted before and those piercing green eyes...white, white, why was the hair white? He reached out to touch it. Joy didn't pull back. Green eyes, green eyes, green eyes, it was all his mind could register. Something stolen, something living, something dark and scary.
"Get away!" he suddenly pushed the girl away. "I know what you are! Bad bad! I can hear it. It's inside your head. You think I can't see it?! Do you think I'm blind?! You're a stupid girl coming here....I know what you are!!!" he yelled then his mood changing as quick as his sanity, he kneeled down next to Joy and whispered: "Why did you come here? It's all going to end soon. All like it's supposed to. Don't cry over broken things, they're not worth it, luv."
Joy startled. It sounded like her father had spoken to her, knowing what she was going through, what she was about to do. Her heart melted and she felt like collapsing crying in his arms, but she could not. I miss you, she only thought, while the disturbed vampire ran out in the streets feeling like her presence was intoxicating him.
"Spike! Spike!" Buffy tried to stop him, but he just pushed her out of the way and ran as fast as he could down the street.
"Okay, now I know what an insane vampire sounds like," Cordy said a little terrified of what she had just witnessed.
"I don't know what went wrong," Buffy was worried. "This hasn't happened since I got him out of the basement. Maybe he freaked out because some people were rude," she shot Angel a look.
"I'm sure that was it," Angel said annoyed.
"Probably just the shock of seeing you again after so much time...now that he has a soul and everything," Joy suggested.
"He seemed more shocked to see you," Willow said suspiciously.
"I look a little weird, I gotta admit it," Joy played it as a joke promising herself to calm down Spike as soon as she could. Preferably that night while everyone else was sleeping.
"So it's just the three of us," Buffy disregarded Willow's words.
"If she's safe, I'll come too. I won't do her much good sitting here. Willow can tell her more of those stories," Connor said suddenly changing his mind, he was curious to see how the slayer and this strange girl fought.
"Then me and Connor we'll take the back and you and Angel take the front," Joy decided before Buffy could have a word in it. The vampire and the slayer both mumbled a fine and they left. Joy had been lucky to find the demon nest in the sewers that day. Not quite gholas, but very close to them. A rare vicious species with gooey green blood was close enough for her. She'd convince Connor to attack earlier and the boy would definitely take the chance to prove to his father he can take an entire nest down with a little help. Connor wouldn't know the difference between gholas and this species. The problem was Angel. She'd have to make enough of a mess for him to not recognize the demons. Disfigurement would be the proper word, she thought. If she was right, Angel would be too busy with Buffy to notice her little switch in demon species. It was a long shot, but she hoped she could pull it off.
Buffy and Angel entered the sewer Joy had found the nest in without speaking a word to one another. Angel was mad that Buffy had even thought of bringing Spike with them knowing how much it bothered him, while the slayer couldn't get the image of him looking so lovingly over at Cordelia in *her* kitchen out of her head. As they advanced the silence between them became uncomfortable and they found themselves both thinking it was about time to put an end to it.
"You had no..." Angel spoke at the same time with Buffy who said: "How could you..." They stared at each other for a moment.
"So are these gholas hard to fight?" Buffy decided to start with something off topic.
"A bit," he went along with it. "Their heads are so hard you can barely crack them open, even with that," he pointed towards the ax she carried.
"Hard heads," she repeated. "Always hard to crack."
"Sometimes human ones are harder."
"Are we still talking about cracking heads?" Buffy asked. Angel let out an unnecessary sigh.
"Why did you have to call him?" he eventually gave in to the real topic that they wanted to discuss.
"I didn't. Xander said he was getting feisty. He was afraid he'd rampage his apartment or something if he didn't get some action," she stopped realizing her choice of words wasn't really the best. "Demon killing action."
"And you thought by telling him to come with us you'd be doing something for the greater good?" Angel wasn't going to let her off easy this time.
"He would've come anyway," Buffy rose her voice so it sounded a bit more empowered now.
"You should've let him," he told her angrily.
"What is your problem?" Buffy jumped. "It's okay for you to make googly eyes at Cordy all day and I can't let Spike slay with me because you're suddenly feeling jealous? Maybe you should've thought of that 4 years ago when you literally walked out on me!"
"I walked out on you because I wanted you to be..." he started.
"Bla bla bla...I've heard it a thousand times and every time it sounds less convincing," she interrupted him.
"I wanted you to be happy!" he continued and then, not holding back his anger yelled: "And look where it got you, in bed with Spike! If you just wanted to get..." that was the last straw as Buffy didn't even wait for him to finish the phrase and punched him in the face. He was happy to return the hit. It wasn't long before they got into a serious fight and forgot all about the gholas, Joy, Connor and for the moment, even Spike and Cordy. If love made you feel like you are the only two existing in the world, pain and a good fight made you forget about everything. Even who you love.
Somewhere else in the sewers Connor and Joy had found the nest and all its demons awake. They made a hansom fighting couple, because after all, Connor fought like Angel and Joy fought like her mother.
While these two fights were stirring the otherwise deaf silence of the sewers, a car passed the Welcome to Sunnydale sign and inside it was none other than Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, feeling still as troubled as in the moment the spell in the warehouse had ended. Like something grim was silently slipping inside the world - his world - and devouring it alive.
End Part 6
The sane in insane
Joy stood up, her head hurting like hell. She must've had some fall on the corridor. She could feel her arm was bruised as well. She looked around the little nursery of the school. The nurse was nowhere to be seen, but Dawn was there and she seemed concerned. The slayer's little sister had planned on bragging with her LA cousin, but found that she had been terribly frightened when Joy had passed out. It was a strange feeling she couldn't name. Like that girl with the white hair had some great importance in her life, like if she were to die some part of the universe would collapse. It was odd, especially for Dawn. She wasn't really the type who attached to people easily, but whoever this girl was, her blood was crying out to her to protect her, to keep her safe. How am I suppose to do that? Dawn asked herself as she wasn't able to shake off that feeling.
"I freaked for a moment there," Dawn told Joy with a smile. "I don't usually get freaked out over a total stranger."
"Is that a hint?" Joy asked rubbing her sore arm.
"It's probably because you came with Angel," Dawn tried to rationalize that strange feeling she had. "Or I'm suddenly turning gay," she thought in horror.
"Don't worry, you're a 100% straight, I guarantee it," Joy assured her. "It's probably just the energy contained within you that can pass beyond the barriers of all time and dimension and that is probably screaming at the top of its omnipotent lungs about now: relative, relative."
"Huh?" Dawn wasn't able to understand anything beyond the relative part because Joy had said it too fast.
"Everybody gets freaked when someone just happens to drop like dead next to them," Joy told her, not bothering to explain what she had said before. "Shouldn't you be in class?
"The teacher said I can sit here till you wake up and if I'm lucky she'll let me take you home so I'll ditch the whole horrible day. Math is so not my subject," Dawn seemed to feel better now that Joy was okay. "Do you go to school? You look like you're about my age."
"Yeah, you could say I do," and she added to herself: 'or did'. She had gone to a highschool in the not so mystical side of New Orleans, but she hadn't really enjoyed it much. Kids still called the place she lived in the bad side of town, because the police didn't rule there, the mystics did. They had often thought her a freak and her relation to Willow Rosenburg hadn't really improved her image. To people who feared magic and still didn't admit the existence of demons - and there were quite a few - Willow Rosenburg's actions had been horrendous.
Highschool was something Joy did because her mother had insisted she get an education that didn't imply stakes, axes and a good punch and that would eventually allow Joy to follow the school of her dreams. It was a British school Giles had talked to Buffy about. A place of higher learning where great mystics met and taught beyond magic, the old ways and where she would have been safe. Joy didn't know how she was able to stand that New Orleans highschool for 2 years. Her friends all pretty much got their education from Remy's school of witchcraft. She would've gone there too, but her father didn't want her to go anywhere near witchcraft and she had to admit it to herself she wasn't really fascinated by it either. Magic was Jacques' territory. It was a passion he had inherited from both his mother and father. But now, she thought bitterly, there was no way she could make it to the British Greenleaf University. She would not live to see the green paths hidden behind the iron gates of the GU or the infamous classrooms where floors were ceilings or the stairs that twisted into infinite circles and the gigantic dome of the library changing it's picturesque paintings according to the seasons - white mountains and wolves in winter, endless fields of flowers and birds in spring, crops and a torturing sun in summer and vineyards and colored leafs in autumn. She sighed. I could leave now and never look back, she thought, I could live in this time and forget about mine. She stared at the wall in front of her, she knew she couldn't do it and even if she did, the future would catch up with her. She even believed her mother would be capable of traveling back into the past just to kill her. And if there was one thing she had sworn to avoid at all cost it was having to kill her own mother. Even if she was a monster now. She could never bring herself to do it. She preferred to change the past and bring forward an unlikely future. But at least then, she thought, I wouldn't have to be the one who has to find an answer. Maybe she was a coward, but she didn't care.
"Where are you from anyway? You sound British," Dawn said, not noticing the shadow that had passed across Joy's face.
"Half-British," she corrected her. "I spent a few years there. I never managed to shake the accent. My dad used to say it's because it's in my blood." Her father had often taken her to England, a lot of times at Giles' country estate, so she had spent a lot of her summers there. Spike felt she needed to know all her roots. Her mother had taken her to Sunnydale so he had taken her to Britain. Her mother claimed that she had taken her to LA too, before the great transformation, when Angel and his crew had still been alive. She also said that she used to give Wesley a hard time when she would occasionally leave her in his care. Messing about in his weapon closet and shooting stray arrows from crossbows all around his apartment. Surprisingly, even if Wesley had changed on the outside, Joy had melted his rough exterior for the time of her visit. Joy wished she could remember anything, but the first years of her life, like everybody's, were just a big blur.
"My dad's in Spain. Somewhere," Dawn said with sadness in her voice. She hadn't seen her father in years. "So think we can ditch school and raid the mall?" she suggested pushing away the sad recollection.
"Sure, if I can get up," she tried to rise, but she turned her head directly towards the window. Outside the sun was shinning happily. She let out a cry and fell back down.
"What's wrong?" Dawn asked prepared to call the nurse from the principal's office at once.
"My glasses...Where are they?" she rubbed her sore eyes.
"Oh, here, I took them when you fell so they wouldn't get trampled on. They look pretty expensive," she handed her the glasses from her bag.
"They are. They're made out of ruby. My eyes are sensible to the light," she explained as she put them on. It was another one of the bad things caused by her vampire heritage. She had gotten the glasses from her aunt Willow. After finding her crying in the house on a sunny day when she was little, because she couldn't go outside, the sun hurting her, not being able to fix the problem through magic, Willow had consulted some specialists who had come up with the glasses. Joy had been so happy. She could finally play outside without being afraid.
Joy got up and with Dawn's help left the nursery. In the hallway they met the nurse and while Dawn was busy explaining to the nurse that she was going to get Joy home so she could rest properly, something caught Joy's eye, or rather her senses. A door leading to the basement. It seemed to call out to her, something wicked... It oozed of evil and she felt an unhealthy attraction towards it. And there was a song. A mesmerizing beat that seemed to draw a part of her in, but the other side of her screamed for her to leave right then. That part of her knew what that song was.
"Dawn, can we go now? I don't feel so good," she interrupted Dawn's conversation with the nurse.
"Go," the nurse told Dawn, understanding. As she disappeared, Joy asked:
"Would you mind if we just get some ice cream or a banana split instead of going to the mall?"
"As long as I'm not in my math class right now I'm okay with it," Dawn said happily as she guided her out of the highschool. Once outside, Joy felt safe and out of the reach of whatever demonic being was hidden beneath the school.
Back at the Summers house, Cordelia was finally awake and still trying to recall the place. She walked in each room of the upper level feeling lost. The house seemed familiar in some way, but she couldn't place it anywhere in her past. It wasn't her own, yet she felt it held a great deal of memories. Memories she could no longer reach. She went downstairs and found Connor and Angel both asleep or pretending to be. She smiled, Connor had such a serene face when he slept, Angel on the other hand seemed tormented by something and she felt it wasn't always so. She stepped into the kitchen trying to make as little sound as possible. Where did she know this place from? It reminded her of drinks, snacks and endless discussions. Of what? She could not recall. She just felt some of them had frightened her.
"Hey, Buff!" she heard someone yell as the front door opened and closed. Xander entered the kitchen and was surprised to find Cordelia there. "Hi, Cordy."
"Hi yourself..." she obviously had known him at some point in her life. She wished someone would be there to tell her who he was and to explain her condition to him. There was a long moment of embarrassing silence.
"Let me guess. You're playing big city girl who can't remember the little people anymore? What? The overwhelming fame got to you?" he gave her his best sarcastic tone.
"I was famous?" was the only reply he got.
"Come again?" Xander began suspecting something was wrong.
"Look, I'm sorry, but I kinda lost my memory and if you'd fill me in on what ever kind of history we have together, I'd really appreciate it," she told him. "Angel didn't bother to fill in the blanks when we came here."
"Really? And how did this little predicament happen?" he wanted to know.
"If I'd remember I'd tell you," Cordelia felt strange around him, she wanted to bicker with him over nothing and was contented to see him at the same time. "Did I hate you?" she suddenly asked.
"Well...I wouldn't say that. Close to hating at some point, but I kinda hoped you were over that."
"Why would I hate you?" Cordy inquired.
"You'll probably-eventually find out or remember so I guess I should tell you... We used to be together in highschool, you picked on me for a couple of years before that. I sorta cheated on you with my best friend. Whose a girl. Willow in case you met her," he told her the truth. "Who kinda turned gay a couple of years ago."
"You cheated on me with a lesbian?" she couldn't believe it. "You're one twisted son of a..."
"Thank you, and if you want to smack me around a bit I also left my girlfriend at the altar," Xander thought that would be her reaction, but didn't blame her for it, especially now that he had been through something similar with the whole Anya and Spike deal.
"No wonder I hated you," Cordelia was appalled.
"You kinda got over it before you left Sunnydale, what with the Mayor turning into a supersize snake and trying to eat everyone at graduation. There's a tendency not to hold a grudge with an impending doom closing in," Xander remembered the last weeks of highschool.
"I wouldn't know. Or remember actually," Cordy's head hurt from all the sudden information. "No offense but you don't seem my type."
"What's your type then? Tall, dark and handsome? Or British and bookish? Why you had a crush on Wesley and no relationship to Angel?"
"I had a crush on Wesley? The dark-always-seems-to-have-an-apocalypse-on-his-mind guy? And I didn't have a relationship with Angel here?" she seemed surprised which Xander thought to be strange.
"Sure, maybe if you had a chance you would've tried something, but as we all painfully remember Angel and Buffy were glued together at the time," he explained.
"So they were together and that's why Angel and I never had anything," Xander nodded.
"Besides I don't think you're Mr. Brood-a-lot's type. He likes his women dead and dangerous or angsty fighting machines," Xander pointed out. "And not really all that superficial," he stopped, knowing he had said something bad.
"I'm superficial?" Cordy couldn't believe it. And Angel was in love with her whatever this guy said, she felt the truth and saw it in the vampire's eyes. He would've done anything for her.
"You used to be. Maybe you're not anymore. Haven't really seen you in a while," Xander tried to repair the damage.
"What's your name anyway?" she realized he hadn't introduced himself yet.
"Oh, sorry, I'm Xander," he found the whole situation funny.
"Hey, you're up," Connor appeared in the kitchen smiling at her.
"And you'd be...Connor, right?" Xander asked. He could definitely see parts of Angel in him. "Hey, your mom tried to bite me a couple of times."
"You knew my mother?" Connor questioned surprised.
"Before your dad killed her," Xander again thought he had said something inappropriate. "And before she...miraculously came back to life," Angel had shared Darla's story only with Buffy so Dawn wasn't able to tell him and Willow much about Connor's strange birth. "But she didn't really give me the time of day. It was just 'I want to eat you grrr'."
"She was a monster," Connor said taking Cordy and Xander by surprise. They didn't know that he had been raised to hate both his parents, not only his father. "Did you sleep okay?" he turned to Cordelia.
"Yeah, surprisingly well," she didn't know how come, but she had the sensation she believed people who felt at home had. Even if she felt odd not remembering anything or anybody, there was a strange ease inside her, like she was safe there.
"Where's Buffy anyway? I wanted to talk to her," Xander remembered why he had come there.
"She left," Connor said with a smile.
"Well, at least they didn't punch out their differences," Xander sighed. "I'm just gonna go then. Cordy, nice seeing you again and nice to meet you Connor," and with that he was off.
"Can you believe I used to date him?" Cordy was amused.
"You did?" Connor felt a twist of jealousy inside. From the living room Angel had listened to their conversation pretending to be asleep. He hoped that their trip to Sunnydale would at least pay up for Cordelia.
That afternoon as the sun lowered itself on the horizon, the inhabitants of the Summers house began returning home. Buffy wasn't really glad to find Angel, Cordy and Willow in such good spirits when she arrived, while Connor watched over them with an observer's interest, making Angel feel slightly awkward. The vampire and Willow were trying to trigger memories inside Cordelia with stories of their past together, their many battles and adventures. When the slayer entered, Willow was in the middle of the story of Xander's love spell gone bad. Cordelia laughed at the thought of Xander being chased through town by a mob of women desperately in love with him.
"Hi," Angel was the first one to notice Buffy.
"Hey, I was just telling Cordy some stories from the good old times," Willow said, but her smile faded when she saw the slayer wasn't really cheery. "Is something wrong?"
"Everything's fine," she said, but her face said something was definitely wrong, but Willow didn't know if it was some great doom or something else.
"So are we gonna go slay those things today or what?" Buffy asked annoyed.
"The sun didn't quite set yet," Angel pointed towards the covered windows of the kitchen behind which the rays of a weak sun still shined.
"Never stopped you before," Buffy reminded him in an unpleasant tone. Willow was beginning to understand what was wrong. The Buffy-Angel incident from that morning hadn't ended well. They usually did, but, she thought to herself, every rule has at least one exception. Connor had passed from observing to being extremely amused. With any luck the slayer would get so tired of his father she'd stake him.
"We have to wait for Joy, we don't want to kill her brother," Angel felt frustrated by the whole situation.
"Right now, doesn't matter what I kill as long as I kill something," the slayer said feeling the need to kick some serious ass. Angel didn't have time to reply as Joy and Dawn entered the kitchen, both very happy, holding ice-cream cones.
"Ice cream? Isn't it a little cold for that?" Willow asked but Dawn shook her head.
"It's never too cold for ice-cream. Besides Sunnydale doesn't really get cold cold," Dawn said taking a lick from her cone.
"You just better not wake up with your throat sore," Buffy warned her sister. Joy noticed the slayer wasn't in the best of moods. She must've fought with Angel.
"So how do you like Sunnydale so far?" Willow asked Joy. She had a strange feeling about her. Like she didn't fit in with the picture, like she was torn from somewhere and forcefully put in this reality. She could see the universe twisting, turning and screaming around her. She did not belong there.
"Like your average hellmouth I guess," Joy answered. Actually the whole town seemed to press down upon her heart, like a mountain, crushing her. Everything living in that city seemed to yell at her to let known the truths she hid, begging for her to spare it and its people. Why would she let it be destroyed? With a few words she could let it live...But no, it wasn't meant to be. Some things could be changed, but some should remain as they were. Sunnydale was better off dead, she would let only few die in order to save the generations that would suffer from its survival. The hellmouth had to be closed. Forever.
"There's more than one?" Connor asked curious.
"I hope not," Buffy said horrified at the thought. "So now that everyone who has to be here is here, I say we go slaying."
"Well spoken," Joy agreed with her. "And on that subject, I think I know where the nest is."
"You haven't wasted your time," Willow noted.
"Gholas are easy to track. Less rats, more smell. They're in the sewers," Joy told them.
"You went in the sewers?!" Buffy shot Dawn an irritated glance.
"No, she didn't. I checked it out when she was standing in line at the donut shop. I didn't go too near them, they have keen senses. I didn't want them to feel my presence," Joy explained. "So do we split up or something? It would be better if we could surprise them from the back."
"Yeah, I guess that's a good tactic," Angel agreed. "Me and Buffy go in from the front and you and Connor go from the back."
"I thought I'm staying with Cordelia," Connor reminded his father of the reason he came along.
"She'll be safe with Willow. She's a witch," Angel tried to assure his son.
"You can stay with her," Buffy decided. "I'm gonna go with Spike from the front. Angel and Joy take the back. I did mention Spike's coming, didn't I?" she asked with a wicked little smile on her lips. There was a moment of silence in which Angel and Buffy stared at each other.
"Who's Spike?" Cordy interrupted their silent dispute.
"A vampire one of my children made," Angel told her.
"And whose technically harmless now and currently lives with Xander," Dawn added.
"Is that why Xander was here this morning?" Cordy asked.
"Yeah, he told Spike about the demons and he wanted to come along. I said yes," Buffy admitted. No one noticed that the sun was slowly, but surely setting. There was a knock at the door and Joy started fidgeting about, nervous at the encounter, while Angel looked away from the others trying to conceal his anger. But it was obvious to Connor, who just continued to smile. Cordelia understood him. You're bound to get jealous over your ex's new lover, whoever he may be. As Spike entered the room, it was quiet.
"I don't know about you lot, but I feel like I could kill a bloody army," he stated breaking the silence. "Living with that boy is enough to turn any person into a homicidal maniac," he shivered. "Well, if it isn't the big poofer himself," he said when he noticed Angel at the table. "No hard feelings, mate?" he extended a friendly hand, but his grandsire would not take it.
"Let's go," he simply said standing up.
"What's his bleeding problem?" Spike asked, then gave Buffy a quick look that showed his fears. But as his gaze wondered in the room, his eyes set themselves on Joy. Instinctively Joy took off her ruby classes so he could get a better look at her. The vampire lowered his head towards his shoulder as if she'd look different from another angle. What was wrong with this girl and why was that wrong so familiar to him? He asked himself.
"Spike?" Buffy asked trying to snap him out of his concentration. It was time for them to go. Suddenly the vampire moved with great speed throwing Joy into the wall and then pulling her up by her neck, pinning her there.
"Who the bloody hell are you? Tell me! Tell me! Who are you?!" he screamed at her, but Joy would say nothing. She just sat there, not breathing, yet not choking either. The slayer immediately reacted moving towards Spike and pushing him away from Joy, sitting herself between the girl and the vampire.
"What's wrong with you?" Buffy asked him and Spike just sat there blunt like he didn't understand what he had just done. Then he felt his sanity slowly slipping away like sucked out of him by some great black hole - Joy - and that blurry state overtaking him. The world wasn't the world anymore but a weary mass of energy and evil that presented itself so purely to him that he couldn't hold a rational thought within him. This new world had no reason only chaos and there, everything was clear to him. In this state he stared back at the girl now standing behind the slayer. Joy neared him ignoring Buffy's pleads. And Spike could see through her, she wasn't born or made, and that blood... it smelled so much like something he'd tasted before and those piercing green eyes...white, white, why was the hair white? He reached out to touch it. Joy didn't pull back. Green eyes, green eyes, green eyes, it was all his mind could register. Something stolen, something living, something dark and scary.
"Get away!" he suddenly pushed the girl away. "I know what you are! Bad bad! I can hear it. It's inside your head. You think I can't see it?! Do you think I'm blind?! You're a stupid girl coming here....I know what you are!!!" he yelled then his mood changing as quick as his sanity, he kneeled down next to Joy and whispered: "Why did you come here? It's all going to end soon. All like it's supposed to. Don't cry over broken things, they're not worth it, luv."
Joy startled. It sounded like her father had spoken to her, knowing what she was going through, what she was about to do. Her heart melted and she felt like collapsing crying in his arms, but she could not. I miss you, she only thought, while the disturbed vampire ran out in the streets feeling like her presence was intoxicating him.
"Spike! Spike!" Buffy tried to stop him, but he just pushed her out of the way and ran as fast as he could down the street.
"Okay, now I know what an insane vampire sounds like," Cordy said a little terrified of what she had just witnessed.
"I don't know what went wrong," Buffy was worried. "This hasn't happened since I got him out of the basement. Maybe he freaked out because some people were rude," she shot Angel a look.
"I'm sure that was it," Angel said annoyed.
"Probably just the shock of seeing you again after so much time...now that he has a soul and everything," Joy suggested.
"He seemed more shocked to see you," Willow said suspiciously.
"I look a little weird, I gotta admit it," Joy played it as a joke promising herself to calm down Spike as soon as she could. Preferably that night while everyone else was sleeping.
"So it's just the three of us," Buffy disregarded Willow's words.
"If she's safe, I'll come too. I won't do her much good sitting here. Willow can tell her more of those stories," Connor said suddenly changing his mind, he was curious to see how the slayer and this strange girl fought.
"Then me and Connor we'll take the back and you and Angel take the front," Joy decided before Buffy could have a word in it. The vampire and the slayer both mumbled a fine and they left. Joy had been lucky to find the demon nest in the sewers that day. Not quite gholas, but very close to them. A rare vicious species with gooey green blood was close enough for her. She'd convince Connor to attack earlier and the boy would definitely take the chance to prove to his father he can take an entire nest down with a little help. Connor wouldn't know the difference between gholas and this species. The problem was Angel. She'd have to make enough of a mess for him to not recognize the demons. Disfigurement would be the proper word, she thought. If she was right, Angel would be too busy with Buffy to notice her little switch in demon species. It was a long shot, but she hoped she could pull it off.
Buffy and Angel entered the sewer Joy had found the nest in without speaking a word to one another. Angel was mad that Buffy had even thought of bringing Spike with them knowing how much it bothered him, while the slayer couldn't get the image of him looking so lovingly over at Cordelia in *her* kitchen out of her head. As they advanced the silence between them became uncomfortable and they found themselves both thinking it was about time to put an end to it.
"You had no..." Angel spoke at the same time with Buffy who said: "How could you..." They stared at each other for a moment.
"So are these gholas hard to fight?" Buffy decided to start with something off topic.
"A bit," he went along with it. "Their heads are so hard you can barely crack them open, even with that," he pointed towards the ax she carried.
"Hard heads," she repeated. "Always hard to crack."
"Sometimes human ones are harder."
"Are we still talking about cracking heads?" Buffy asked. Angel let out an unnecessary sigh.
"Why did you have to call him?" he eventually gave in to the real topic that they wanted to discuss.
"I didn't. Xander said he was getting feisty. He was afraid he'd rampage his apartment or something if he didn't get some action," she stopped realizing her choice of words wasn't really the best. "Demon killing action."
"And you thought by telling him to come with us you'd be doing something for the greater good?" Angel wasn't going to let her off easy this time.
"He would've come anyway," Buffy rose her voice so it sounded a bit more empowered now.
"You should've let him," he told her angrily.
"What is your problem?" Buffy jumped. "It's okay for you to make googly eyes at Cordy all day and I can't let Spike slay with me because you're suddenly feeling jealous? Maybe you should've thought of that 4 years ago when you literally walked out on me!"
"I walked out on you because I wanted you to be..." he started.
"Bla bla bla...I've heard it a thousand times and every time it sounds less convincing," she interrupted him.
"I wanted you to be happy!" he continued and then, not holding back his anger yelled: "And look where it got you, in bed with Spike! If you just wanted to get..." that was the last straw as Buffy didn't even wait for him to finish the phrase and punched him in the face. He was happy to return the hit. It wasn't long before they got into a serious fight and forgot all about the gholas, Joy, Connor and for the moment, even Spike and Cordy. If love made you feel like you are the only two existing in the world, pain and a good fight made you forget about everything. Even who you love.
Somewhere else in the sewers Connor and Joy had found the nest and all its demons awake. They made a hansom fighting couple, because after all, Connor fought like Angel and Joy fought like her mother.
While these two fights were stirring the otherwise deaf silence of the sewers, a car passed the Welcome to Sunnydale sign and inside it was none other than Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, feeling still as troubled as in the moment the spell in the warehouse had ended. Like something grim was silently slipping inside the world - his world - and devouring it alive.
End Part 6
