Part 14
Future versus Past, Past versus Past
Joy and Dawn entered the Summers house trying to be as quiet as possible. It had gotten pretty late and Buffy had started wondering what they had been doing out so long and what had happened to that night's hunting expedition. Angel had refused to comment on it and he seemed to be hiding something. Wesley and Willow had stared at each other in silence all the way through dinner, Cordelia and Connor had disappeared at some point before dinner to wonder the streets of Sunnydale in search of Cordy's memories, Xander had been talking nonsense all the time he had been at the house, while Anya had been feeling "funny" as she had put it all through the night. The ex-demon had thought it had something to do with a spell as she was almost allergic to some kind of magic and she had eyed Willow suspiciously, but the witch had played innocent and did not admit her accusation to be true. Buffy was beginning to suspect something was wrong and she was completely blind to what was happening. And of course someone had made some kind of spell. Probably a truth spell as she had realized she could not lie. But why would anyone need it? A lot of people could have done it, Willow, Wesley, Anya - though she doubted it was her as she had been complaining about the 'funny' feeling all night to everyone's exasperation -, Joy, even Xander, Dawn or Angel or maybe even Connor. Of course the most likely suspect was Willow. But again, why? As she pondered this, Angel sneaked up behind her.
"Boo," he said gently.
"Knew you were there," she didn't even turn her head, she just looked down in the cup of hot cocoa she was holding in both her hands while sitting at the table in the kitchen.
"Liar," Angel teased her.
"Something tells me no one's a liar in this house tonight," Buffy tilted her head slightly.
"You've noticed too?" Angel sat down at the table across from her.
"Yeah, kinda hard not to. Makes you realize how many lies you want to say in one day," she smiled slightly. "So...how about I ask you 5 questions and you have to answer them? I know you won't lie. And then I'll answer 5 questions you ask me."
"Fair enough," he smiled. "You start then."
"Do you ever regret leaving me?" she asked first.
"Sometimes," he pondered it for another moment. "Every time I see you. It's easier when you're not there."
"You could say I simply disappear?" she rose an eyebrow.
"It's like I have two lives. Our live together - my life with you, when you were the center of my universe and then there's the other life, the life I made for myself in LA. And I can't say I don't like it. I happen to love it. A lot. It has its bad things and its good things..."
"Like everything does," she looked down into the brown cocoa and realized it reminded her of Angel's eyes. "How bad do the bad things get?"
"As apocalyptic as they usually come here. Except we have evil lawyers from hell. Literally," he made her chuckle. "And being a 250 year old vampire doesn't help either. In that many years you're bound to have made yourself a lot of enemies, especially if you eviscerated most of their living relatives."
"Why didn't you ever ask for my help?" she asked, it was already her 4th question.
"I always felt like I was your protector and not the other way around. Come to think of it I could've used your help more than a couple of times."
"You never asked," she pointed out.
"We managed," he shrugged it off.
"Last question: if you had to choose between staying here with me and going back to LA with Cordy - with her memories and all, what would you choose?" He was silent for a few moments.
"You're asking me to choose between the past and the future," he looked her in the eyes. "If you had a choice between me staying here with you and me going back to LA, what would you choose?" she didn't answer and looked away. "See what I mean? I can't make this choice anymore then you can." Her questions were over and he had 4 left. "What would you choose, between a life here and a life in LA?" She smiled.
"Anywhere but here is good, but I guess a fight's a fight, no matter where it's fought," she sighed.
"You're tired?" he asked looking confused.
"I've been tired for 8 years. I never asked for this and now, it just doesn't end. Not even when I die," she rubbed her neck.
"Do you think you could ever leave it?" he asked leaning his head on his arms.
"I don't know. Maybe if there was something like an army of slayers," she chuckled at her own comment. "But that's not about to happen unless I die another 9998 times."
"If I asked you to come with me would you?" she was taken by surprise.
"I... I don't think I should answer that. It's an unfair question," she said and Angel looked down at her cup.
"You should drink that before it gets cold," he pointed towards the cup. She smiled and took a sip from it.
"So who do you think did this?" she changed the subject to a more lighter tone.
"Willow," he simply said.
"Why does everyone suspect her? I don't think it's fair to blame her every time a spell shows its ugly face," Buffy defended her, but then added: "Even if most times it's true."
"Fine, then let's take everyone else. We're out of the question. Cordy too, she doesn't even remember her name I doubt she'd start making spells. And Connor. He hates magic. Then there's Wesley...I see him doing this."
"Yeah, I noticed he's changed a lot. Never thought I'd say this, but he even looks a little dangerous," she smiled. "Let's see...Spike wouldn't do it, he's not really into magic. Anya could, but she probably didn't, she said she's allergic to whatever kind of spell was made. Xander...definitely not. Dawn...she could, but I don't really think she'd have a reason for it. And of course Willow," she paused for a moment. "Wait. What about Joy?"
"Could be," Angel said. Now that he thought of it, it seemed like a logical choice.
Meanwhile, Joy sneaked inside Dawn's room, which she shared with Cordy during her stay at the Summers home, after saying goodnight to Dawn. She was surprised to find that Cordelia was missing and Willow was there instead.
"Something told me this was coming," Joy admitted.
"Something or someone?" Willow stood up defiantly.
"Do you really think a little truth spell is going to affect me?" she asked shaking her head. "You should know me better."
"That's the whole point, I don't," Willow crossed her arms over her chest. "I dare you. Break the spell."
"I will. You taught me well enough," she said more to herself and rising her hands in the air she let out a few words in Latin that were followed by a brief flash of light. She paused for a moment then said: "I like burgers and hot sauce with a little blood on top. Well, that wasn't right." She turned to Willow. "Why didn't it work? That spell's suppose to break any truth spell you'd throw at me."
"Not one made by gypsies," Willow smiled.
"Touche," Joy was surprised. She pondered taking Willow on as she wasn't as powerful as she knew her to be in the future, but something told her she was a lot more dangerous and uncontrollable now. As Willow herself had once told her, a powerful enemy is not as dangerous as one whose not in control of his own abilities. And she wasn't really keen on starting a scandal when she was close to achieving what she had come to do. What then, tell her the truth? She eyed the witch for a moment. Not like she could tell a lie. She wondered what the truth spell was conditioned to. The truth Willow needed from her? Well there was more than one way to tell the truth. "What do you want from me?" she eventually asked a smile creeping up her lips at the idea she had just gotten.
"Why did you really come here?" Willow asked ready to act if Joy proved to be more hostile than she had imagined.
"To help my family," she simply said.
"And your family doesn't happen to be a herd of big nasty demons?"
"No. I'm here to help my parents. They're dead or well, my dad died a long time ago but he won't die for a few more years and my mom died more then twenty years ago which would be two years ago or six if you were to take the first time or the last time from here, not there and a lot more years from now, except she wasn't really dead then until she died for good. Got it?" Technically she had explained it and meanwhile told the truth, but Willow gave her a confusing look like anyone sane would have. Joy had basically listed her parents' deaths, from Spike's turning to his death in the future, from the time Buffy had drowned for a minute, when she had been resurrected by her friends, turned by Spike in the future and her last death, when Willow had killed her.
"What?" the witch asked.
"I don't like to explain myself twice," she smiled, but Willow saw it more as a satisfied grin.
"You didn't make any sense at all," she pointed out.
"Oh, I think I made all the sense in the world. And I didn't lie."
"So are your parents dead or not?" Willow asked in an attempt to clear the matter, but Joy wasn't really looking to cooperate.
"Yes, you could say that," Joy nodded.
"You could say that?!" she was beginning to loose her patience and for Willow that was never a good thing. "What were they, turned by vampires?"
"At some point, but they got over it," Joy said and it was all it took Willow to snap and throw Joy across the room in a wall and to levitate a blade to her neck.
"Let's see if you'll be so funny now," Willow said with her eyes black. Wesley took this moment to enter the room and was shocked at what he saw.
"Wes," Joy only managed to say as the blade was dangerously close to her neck.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Wesley asked outraged. Willow seemed to come to herself a bit and let the blade fall at Joy's feet before letting the girl off the wall.
"Sorry, I lost myself for a moment there," she hated when she had this kind of outburst, residue from her 'gone bad' days.
"Joy, get out," Wesley told her in a commanding voice and the girl scattered off. "What's wrong with you?" he asked the witch when they were alone in the room. "You just put a blade to an innocent girl's neck."
"I doubt she's that innocent," Willow smirked, then added: "I did overdo it."
"This truth spell was enough overdoing as it is."
"You really think so?" the witch picked up the blade from the floor and placed it back on Dawn's desk.
"I couldn't really lie, could I?" Wesley reminded her.
"Oh, right," Willow sat down on the bed. "I really don't like it when people keep secrets from me. Especially something that might turn out bad. She's obviously not who she says she is. That's enough of an excuse to try and force her hand."
"Don't you mean her vital signs?" Wesley crossed his arms over his chest. "I realize all this magic hasn't been good for you and that now you can't separate yourself from it, but you have to try and keep it under control or you'll wind up doing something you might later regret."
"I already did and there's nothing I wouldn't do to take it back, but the only thing you can't take back is time. That much I learnt," she told him and Wesley thought that she was right, that time did not excuse anyone or anything and even if Joy changed the line, it would eventually lead back into the same old maze no human could escape. But Joy herself had made her own maze and something told him she had found a way out of it and into a new web of inexplicable things only time could understand.
"But you keep on wishing you could," everyone had regrets, even Wesley. He sat down on the bed next to her.
"Yeah," they both stared into nothingness for a moment. "So why is she here?"
"Buffy's gonna die," he simply said.
"Again?" her curiosity had seemed to suddenly stop.
"Yeah. That's why Joy's here. She's doing everything she can to stop it from happening. And I'm afraid we can't really help her. You could say she was destined to save her," he smiled at the irony of his words.
"Funny, she kept mentioning her parents," Willow said distracted. "I guess her counter-spell did work after all. Never trust gypsy spells, they're bound to have a fluke or two."
While they sat there, both somehow lost in their own contemplation of the past, each one far away from one another, even if they were only a palm away from each other on the bed, the crystal in Willow's drawer began cracking and turning back to dust.
Meanwhile Joy had reached the kitchen, only to be confronted by Buffy and Angel.
"Is this truth spell your doing?" Buffy asked.
"No. Willow made it," she told them the truth.
"Why would she?" the slayer couldn't have guessed, though Angel suspected the reason behind it. It was pretty clear Joy never intended to tell Willow the real motive of her sudden appearance in Sunnydale.
"Why don't you ask her?" Joy suggested.
"Maybe I will," Buffy said and headed upstairs.
"Did you tell her?" Angel asked her when the slayer had disappeared.
"Not really," Joy said. "Nothing that could make her understand anything. Wes must've told her something, otherwise I think they'd be thrashing Dawn's room by now."
"He didn't..."
"No. Wesley knows better," Joy smiled. "So how are things with Buffy?"
"Good," he said and Joy instantly realized he was lying which meant Willow's spell had been broken. Great, she thought to herself, now that she could have actually used it, it was broken. She wondered what else could go wrong.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"No, everything's fine," and again it was a lie.
"Is Xander home?" she felt the need to talk to Spike.
"I think so. Why?" Angel was curious.
"Nothing, he just said he was going to help me built...this...thing," she said and headed out leaving a confused Angel behind.
Upstairs, Buffy was talking to Willow. Wesley had gone downstairs to sleep, leaving the two alone to talk.
"Joy said you made the truth spell," Buffy told her.
"I did," Willow admitted.
"Why?" she asked and the witch realized she couldn't tell her the truth. If Buffy knew she was going to die again she would probably not take it well. Her horrible previous experiences were living proof of that. And she did not want to put her through that again. She just hoped that Joy could change this turn of events if she was the only one that could.
"I-I...Dawn! I thought Dawn started stealing again and I wanted to find out if-if it was true. She's not. I-I talked to her and she said she didn't and I found the earrings under my bed," Willow lied.
"Will, you're really not a good liar. Besides, you wanted to talk to Joy," Buffy reminded her.
"No, I didn't," she tried to lie, but the slayer gave her a look that made her understand she thought she was lying again. "Okay, yes I did, but only because she slept in my room the other night and I thought maybe she saw the earrings. Tara gave them to me."
"Oh," this lie was convincing enough for her. "Just warn us next time, okay?"
"I'll do that," the witch sighed relieved while the slayer, satisfied with the answer, left.
Connor and Cordelia walked on the streets of Sunnydale, hoping to come across anything that could spark a memory inside Cordy. So far they had no luck whatsoever. The night was silent, if you ignored the few vampires occasionally appearing out of nowhere thinking the two made an easy snack. They couldn't have been more wrong as Connor actually enjoyed a little fight now and then. He found it liberating. Cordelia had killed a vampire or two herself, but out of pure frustration as she was beginning to be exasperated by her situation. Everyone here expected her to suddenly remember something they just mentioned or something they just showed her. But it wasn't that easy. It was nothing like that actually. Everything was strange and new to her and every minute she seemed to find out something horrible and unknown to her, something she had at some point known in her life. Even the names seemed to ring strangely in her ears. Even her own.
As they reached a hill overlooking the city, Cordelia sighed. Something told her she had seen this view before, yet it wasn't familiar. It was just a logical assumption. If she had lived 18 years of her life in this city she had probably at some point come here. Looking over at the lights shining across the city, something caught her attention. A big building that seemed to stand out between the others. Something seemed to call out to her from there. Something she knew, but couldn't recall.
"What do you think is there?" she pointed towards the building.
"I don't know. It's pretty big," Connor looked at it, but he didn't really have much experience with buildings to tell what it was.
"I know," it suddenly came to her. "Sunnydale High."
"You remembered!" Connor realized. "You want to go there?"
"Not now. Something tells me it's not safe to go there at night," Cordy said. "We'll go there tomorrow. In the morning."
"Okay," Connor agreed and wondered if she remembered everything would she still spend as much time with him as she did now? Or would she go back to Angel? He admitted to himself he wouldn't be able to stand to see her together with his father.
At Xander's apartment Joy was banging on the door. She hadn't gotten an answer for more than ten minutes and she was getting seriously annoyed. Eventually the door opened.
"What the bloody hell were you doing? Sleeping in the freaking bathtub?" Joy let out furious before noticing it had been Xander who had opened the door, not Spike.
"You're right about the sleeping part," he let out sleepily. "What are you doing here at this hour?"
"I wanted to speak to Spike," she said entering the apartment.
"Obviously," he rubbed his eyes, tired. He had had a hard day at work and someone screaming at him in the middle of the night didn't make it any better. "Have I mentioned you remind me of someone when you're angry? If I wasn't half-asleep right now I'd probably remember." HerhHHr
"He's not here?" Joy asked looking around.
"Nope. He was here when I got home, then I think at some point he either freaked out, started talking to himself and left in a hurry or started dancing around in a tutu, but I think it was the first."
"And you didn't go after him?" Joy asked angrily.
"Well, besides the fact I'm, as you can see, *sleeping*, I happen to not be Spike's guardian and don't quite care what he does at night," Xander told her and Joy left like a storm. She headed straight for the cemetery and Spike's old crypt. It was empty and destroyed.
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!!!!" she yelled, but it was hopeless, he wasn't there. Where was he then? Had he left? No, he would have told her. He started talking to himself, she remembered Xander's words. "Oh, no," she let out. That could only mean one thing.
End Part 14
Future versus Past, Past versus Past
Joy and Dawn entered the Summers house trying to be as quiet as possible. It had gotten pretty late and Buffy had started wondering what they had been doing out so long and what had happened to that night's hunting expedition. Angel had refused to comment on it and he seemed to be hiding something. Wesley and Willow had stared at each other in silence all the way through dinner, Cordelia and Connor had disappeared at some point before dinner to wonder the streets of Sunnydale in search of Cordy's memories, Xander had been talking nonsense all the time he had been at the house, while Anya had been feeling "funny" as she had put it all through the night. The ex-demon had thought it had something to do with a spell as she was almost allergic to some kind of magic and she had eyed Willow suspiciously, but the witch had played innocent and did not admit her accusation to be true. Buffy was beginning to suspect something was wrong and she was completely blind to what was happening. And of course someone had made some kind of spell. Probably a truth spell as she had realized she could not lie. But why would anyone need it? A lot of people could have done it, Willow, Wesley, Anya - though she doubted it was her as she had been complaining about the 'funny' feeling all night to everyone's exasperation -, Joy, even Xander, Dawn or Angel or maybe even Connor. Of course the most likely suspect was Willow. But again, why? As she pondered this, Angel sneaked up behind her.
"Boo," he said gently.
"Knew you were there," she didn't even turn her head, she just looked down in the cup of hot cocoa she was holding in both her hands while sitting at the table in the kitchen.
"Liar," Angel teased her.
"Something tells me no one's a liar in this house tonight," Buffy tilted her head slightly.
"You've noticed too?" Angel sat down at the table across from her.
"Yeah, kinda hard not to. Makes you realize how many lies you want to say in one day," she smiled slightly. "So...how about I ask you 5 questions and you have to answer them? I know you won't lie. And then I'll answer 5 questions you ask me."
"Fair enough," he smiled. "You start then."
"Do you ever regret leaving me?" she asked first.
"Sometimes," he pondered it for another moment. "Every time I see you. It's easier when you're not there."
"You could say I simply disappear?" she rose an eyebrow.
"It's like I have two lives. Our live together - my life with you, when you were the center of my universe and then there's the other life, the life I made for myself in LA. And I can't say I don't like it. I happen to love it. A lot. It has its bad things and its good things..."
"Like everything does," she looked down into the brown cocoa and realized it reminded her of Angel's eyes. "How bad do the bad things get?"
"As apocalyptic as they usually come here. Except we have evil lawyers from hell. Literally," he made her chuckle. "And being a 250 year old vampire doesn't help either. In that many years you're bound to have made yourself a lot of enemies, especially if you eviscerated most of their living relatives."
"Why didn't you ever ask for my help?" she asked, it was already her 4th question.
"I always felt like I was your protector and not the other way around. Come to think of it I could've used your help more than a couple of times."
"You never asked," she pointed out.
"We managed," he shrugged it off.
"Last question: if you had to choose between staying here with me and going back to LA with Cordy - with her memories and all, what would you choose?" He was silent for a few moments.
"You're asking me to choose between the past and the future," he looked her in the eyes. "If you had a choice between me staying here with you and me going back to LA, what would you choose?" she didn't answer and looked away. "See what I mean? I can't make this choice anymore then you can." Her questions were over and he had 4 left. "What would you choose, between a life here and a life in LA?" She smiled.
"Anywhere but here is good, but I guess a fight's a fight, no matter where it's fought," she sighed.
"You're tired?" he asked looking confused.
"I've been tired for 8 years. I never asked for this and now, it just doesn't end. Not even when I die," she rubbed her neck.
"Do you think you could ever leave it?" he asked leaning his head on his arms.
"I don't know. Maybe if there was something like an army of slayers," she chuckled at her own comment. "But that's not about to happen unless I die another 9998 times."
"If I asked you to come with me would you?" she was taken by surprise.
"I... I don't think I should answer that. It's an unfair question," she said and Angel looked down at her cup.
"You should drink that before it gets cold," he pointed towards the cup. She smiled and took a sip from it.
"So who do you think did this?" she changed the subject to a more lighter tone.
"Willow," he simply said.
"Why does everyone suspect her? I don't think it's fair to blame her every time a spell shows its ugly face," Buffy defended her, but then added: "Even if most times it's true."
"Fine, then let's take everyone else. We're out of the question. Cordy too, she doesn't even remember her name I doubt she'd start making spells. And Connor. He hates magic. Then there's Wesley...I see him doing this."
"Yeah, I noticed he's changed a lot. Never thought I'd say this, but he even looks a little dangerous," she smiled. "Let's see...Spike wouldn't do it, he's not really into magic. Anya could, but she probably didn't, she said she's allergic to whatever kind of spell was made. Xander...definitely not. Dawn...she could, but I don't really think she'd have a reason for it. And of course Willow," she paused for a moment. "Wait. What about Joy?"
"Could be," Angel said. Now that he thought of it, it seemed like a logical choice.
Meanwhile, Joy sneaked inside Dawn's room, which she shared with Cordy during her stay at the Summers home, after saying goodnight to Dawn. She was surprised to find that Cordelia was missing and Willow was there instead.
"Something told me this was coming," Joy admitted.
"Something or someone?" Willow stood up defiantly.
"Do you really think a little truth spell is going to affect me?" she asked shaking her head. "You should know me better."
"That's the whole point, I don't," Willow crossed her arms over her chest. "I dare you. Break the spell."
"I will. You taught me well enough," she said more to herself and rising her hands in the air she let out a few words in Latin that were followed by a brief flash of light. She paused for a moment then said: "I like burgers and hot sauce with a little blood on top. Well, that wasn't right." She turned to Willow. "Why didn't it work? That spell's suppose to break any truth spell you'd throw at me."
"Not one made by gypsies," Willow smiled.
"Touche," Joy was surprised. She pondered taking Willow on as she wasn't as powerful as she knew her to be in the future, but something told her she was a lot more dangerous and uncontrollable now. As Willow herself had once told her, a powerful enemy is not as dangerous as one whose not in control of his own abilities. And she wasn't really keen on starting a scandal when she was close to achieving what she had come to do. What then, tell her the truth? She eyed the witch for a moment. Not like she could tell a lie. She wondered what the truth spell was conditioned to. The truth Willow needed from her? Well there was more than one way to tell the truth. "What do you want from me?" she eventually asked a smile creeping up her lips at the idea she had just gotten.
"Why did you really come here?" Willow asked ready to act if Joy proved to be more hostile than she had imagined.
"To help my family," she simply said.
"And your family doesn't happen to be a herd of big nasty demons?"
"No. I'm here to help my parents. They're dead or well, my dad died a long time ago but he won't die for a few more years and my mom died more then twenty years ago which would be two years ago or six if you were to take the first time or the last time from here, not there and a lot more years from now, except she wasn't really dead then until she died for good. Got it?" Technically she had explained it and meanwhile told the truth, but Willow gave her a confusing look like anyone sane would have. Joy had basically listed her parents' deaths, from Spike's turning to his death in the future, from the time Buffy had drowned for a minute, when she had been resurrected by her friends, turned by Spike in the future and her last death, when Willow had killed her.
"What?" the witch asked.
"I don't like to explain myself twice," she smiled, but Willow saw it more as a satisfied grin.
"You didn't make any sense at all," she pointed out.
"Oh, I think I made all the sense in the world. And I didn't lie."
"So are your parents dead or not?" Willow asked in an attempt to clear the matter, but Joy wasn't really looking to cooperate.
"Yes, you could say that," Joy nodded.
"You could say that?!" she was beginning to loose her patience and for Willow that was never a good thing. "What were they, turned by vampires?"
"At some point, but they got over it," Joy said and it was all it took Willow to snap and throw Joy across the room in a wall and to levitate a blade to her neck.
"Let's see if you'll be so funny now," Willow said with her eyes black. Wesley took this moment to enter the room and was shocked at what he saw.
"Wes," Joy only managed to say as the blade was dangerously close to her neck.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Wesley asked outraged. Willow seemed to come to herself a bit and let the blade fall at Joy's feet before letting the girl off the wall.
"Sorry, I lost myself for a moment there," she hated when she had this kind of outburst, residue from her 'gone bad' days.
"Joy, get out," Wesley told her in a commanding voice and the girl scattered off. "What's wrong with you?" he asked the witch when they were alone in the room. "You just put a blade to an innocent girl's neck."
"I doubt she's that innocent," Willow smirked, then added: "I did overdo it."
"This truth spell was enough overdoing as it is."
"You really think so?" the witch picked up the blade from the floor and placed it back on Dawn's desk.
"I couldn't really lie, could I?" Wesley reminded her.
"Oh, right," Willow sat down on the bed. "I really don't like it when people keep secrets from me. Especially something that might turn out bad. She's obviously not who she says she is. That's enough of an excuse to try and force her hand."
"Don't you mean her vital signs?" Wesley crossed his arms over his chest. "I realize all this magic hasn't been good for you and that now you can't separate yourself from it, but you have to try and keep it under control or you'll wind up doing something you might later regret."
"I already did and there's nothing I wouldn't do to take it back, but the only thing you can't take back is time. That much I learnt," she told him and Wesley thought that she was right, that time did not excuse anyone or anything and even if Joy changed the line, it would eventually lead back into the same old maze no human could escape. But Joy herself had made her own maze and something told him she had found a way out of it and into a new web of inexplicable things only time could understand.
"But you keep on wishing you could," everyone had regrets, even Wesley. He sat down on the bed next to her.
"Yeah," they both stared into nothingness for a moment. "So why is she here?"
"Buffy's gonna die," he simply said.
"Again?" her curiosity had seemed to suddenly stop.
"Yeah. That's why Joy's here. She's doing everything she can to stop it from happening. And I'm afraid we can't really help her. You could say she was destined to save her," he smiled at the irony of his words.
"Funny, she kept mentioning her parents," Willow said distracted. "I guess her counter-spell did work after all. Never trust gypsy spells, they're bound to have a fluke or two."
While they sat there, both somehow lost in their own contemplation of the past, each one far away from one another, even if they were only a palm away from each other on the bed, the crystal in Willow's drawer began cracking and turning back to dust.
Meanwhile Joy had reached the kitchen, only to be confronted by Buffy and Angel.
"Is this truth spell your doing?" Buffy asked.
"No. Willow made it," she told them the truth.
"Why would she?" the slayer couldn't have guessed, though Angel suspected the reason behind it. It was pretty clear Joy never intended to tell Willow the real motive of her sudden appearance in Sunnydale.
"Why don't you ask her?" Joy suggested.
"Maybe I will," Buffy said and headed upstairs.
"Did you tell her?" Angel asked her when the slayer had disappeared.
"Not really," Joy said. "Nothing that could make her understand anything. Wes must've told her something, otherwise I think they'd be thrashing Dawn's room by now."
"He didn't..."
"No. Wesley knows better," Joy smiled. "So how are things with Buffy?"
"Good," he said and Joy instantly realized he was lying which meant Willow's spell had been broken. Great, she thought to herself, now that she could have actually used it, it was broken. She wondered what else could go wrong.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"No, everything's fine," and again it was a lie.
"Is Xander home?" she felt the need to talk to Spike.
"I think so. Why?" Angel was curious.
"Nothing, he just said he was going to help me built...this...thing," she said and headed out leaving a confused Angel behind.
Upstairs, Buffy was talking to Willow. Wesley had gone downstairs to sleep, leaving the two alone to talk.
"Joy said you made the truth spell," Buffy told her.
"I did," Willow admitted.
"Why?" she asked and the witch realized she couldn't tell her the truth. If Buffy knew she was going to die again she would probably not take it well. Her horrible previous experiences were living proof of that. And she did not want to put her through that again. She just hoped that Joy could change this turn of events if she was the only one that could.
"I-I...Dawn! I thought Dawn started stealing again and I wanted to find out if-if it was true. She's not. I-I talked to her and she said she didn't and I found the earrings under my bed," Willow lied.
"Will, you're really not a good liar. Besides, you wanted to talk to Joy," Buffy reminded her.
"No, I didn't," she tried to lie, but the slayer gave her a look that made her understand she thought she was lying again. "Okay, yes I did, but only because she slept in my room the other night and I thought maybe she saw the earrings. Tara gave them to me."
"Oh," this lie was convincing enough for her. "Just warn us next time, okay?"
"I'll do that," the witch sighed relieved while the slayer, satisfied with the answer, left.
Connor and Cordelia walked on the streets of Sunnydale, hoping to come across anything that could spark a memory inside Cordy. So far they had no luck whatsoever. The night was silent, if you ignored the few vampires occasionally appearing out of nowhere thinking the two made an easy snack. They couldn't have been more wrong as Connor actually enjoyed a little fight now and then. He found it liberating. Cordelia had killed a vampire or two herself, but out of pure frustration as she was beginning to be exasperated by her situation. Everyone here expected her to suddenly remember something they just mentioned or something they just showed her. But it wasn't that easy. It was nothing like that actually. Everything was strange and new to her and every minute she seemed to find out something horrible and unknown to her, something she had at some point known in her life. Even the names seemed to ring strangely in her ears. Even her own.
As they reached a hill overlooking the city, Cordelia sighed. Something told her she had seen this view before, yet it wasn't familiar. It was just a logical assumption. If she had lived 18 years of her life in this city she had probably at some point come here. Looking over at the lights shining across the city, something caught her attention. A big building that seemed to stand out between the others. Something seemed to call out to her from there. Something she knew, but couldn't recall.
"What do you think is there?" she pointed towards the building.
"I don't know. It's pretty big," Connor looked at it, but he didn't really have much experience with buildings to tell what it was.
"I know," it suddenly came to her. "Sunnydale High."
"You remembered!" Connor realized. "You want to go there?"
"Not now. Something tells me it's not safe to go there at night," Cordy said. "We'll go there tomorrow. In the morning."
"Okay," Connor agreed and wondered if she remembered everything would she still spend as much time with him as she did now? Or would she go back to Angel? He admitted to himself he wouldn't be able to stand to see her together with his father.
At Xander's apartment Joy was banging on the door. She hadn't gotten an answer for more than ten minutes and she was getting seriously annoyed. Eventually the door opened.
"What the bloody hell were you doing? Sleeping in the freaking bathtub?" Joy let out furious before noticing it had been Xander who had opened the door, not Spike.
"You're right about the sleeping part," he let out sleepily. "What are you doing here at this hour?"
"I wanted to speak to Spike," she said entering the apartment.
"Obviously," he rubbed his eyes, tired. He had had a hard day at work and someone screaming at him in the middle of the night didn't make it any better. "Have I mentioned you remind me of someone when you're angry? If I wasn't half-asleep right now I'd probably remember." HerhHHr
"He's not here?" Joy asked looking around.
"Nope. He was here when I got home, then I think at some point he either freaked out, started talking to himself and left in a hurry or started dancing around in a tutu, but I think it was the first."
"And you didn't go after him?" Joy asked angrily.
"Well, besides the fact I'm, as you can see, *sleeping*, I happen to not be Spike's guardian and don't quite care what he does at night," Xander told her and Joy left like a storm. She headed straight for the cemetery and Spike's old crypt. It was empty and destroyed.
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!!!!" she yelled, but it was hopeless, he wasn't there. Where was he then? Had he left? No, he would have told her. He started talking to himself, she remembered Xander's words. "Oh, no," she let out. That could only mean one thing.
End Part 14
