"Still Bound" chapter 5
by BonnieD
Glory is vanquished. Buffy's secret has been discovered by Spike, who is relentlessly wooing her. This chapter: Buffy deals with finances and friends. This chapter rated R for brief graphic scene.
A shout-out to my beta Zyrya, who continues to do a fantastic job of helping me retool my work. Find out why she's so good by checking out her story "Crash" (a rewrite of "Crush" in which Buffy actually uses her brains to get out of the situation) here:
*********
The trippy music of Saturday morning cartoons blared through the house, reminding Buffy that her sister was alive and safe and as annoying as ever. She stirred her rapidly disintegrating cornflakes around the bowl, trying to chase down a runaway piece of banana then gave up on the mushy cereal and grabbed a blueberry Pop Tart from the box instead. She wandered into the living room and perched on the arm of the sofa next to Dawn.
"Something's wrong with the washer," Dawn announced without looking up from Spongebob Squarepants. "It's not filling up right."
"What does that mean?" Buffy asked.
"Water's too slow. I don't know. Check it out." Dawn was unconcerned.
Spongebob was driving Squidworth to tears with his squeaky boots and Dawn burst out laughing as if she hadn't seen the episode a dozen times before. Buffy gave up on sister share time and headed for the basement to see what was up with the washing machine.
It turned out the washer was fine but the plumbing was shot, as Buffy discovered when she tried to tighten a leaky valve and ended up breaking off the fitting, sending water exploding from the pipe. Drenched and desperate, she stood in the middle of the basement cackling insanely as water jetted out of the broken pipe and began pooling on the floor.
"I'm in hell," she announced to the world. "Glory's plan succeeded and I'm living in a hell dimension. No one on earth has luck this bad."
Xander agreed, when she called him and he came rushing to the rescue with his work-buddy Tito en tow.
"Jeez Buffy, you make Job look like a sissy. It's like the Powers That Be put a Kick Me sign on your back."
When Tito showed her the bottom line on the proposed repairs, Buffy knew this was the last pile on her dung heap. She had been barely making headway in paying the regular bills, keeping the lights and phone on and supplying Dawn with life-giving cable TV. Now the glory days of a warm home and food in the cupboard were about to be a thing of the past if she didn't find a way to get a powerful injection of cash flow fast.
She thanked Xander and his friend for coming out on a Saturday morning and for putting a temporary fix on the situation. After they left, Buffy called her bank to make an appointment with the loan officer, but since it was now Saturday afternoon, the bank was closed.
"I'm going to the mall with Janice. Got twenty bucks?" Dawn bounced into the kitchen and grabbed an apple. She took one look at Buffy's glowering face, heaved a dramatic sigh and said, "Never mind. I'll window shop, as usual."
"Dawn, we have to clean up the mess down there - mop the floor, get the boxes up out of the water. You can't just take off."
"Janice and her mom are already on their way over. I have to go! We can clean up tomorrow. It's not like things are going to get any wetter than they already are."
Buffy wavered since the idea of facing the basement again was daunting. Dawn caught the hesitation and pounced on it.
"I'll help tomorrow, I promise! Maybe we could just turn it into a garage sale, haul the stuff right out to the street and put up signs with balloons. Whaddya think?"
"Fine," Buffy sighed. "Go! Be a mallrat, and have fun." The words were barely out of her mouth and Dawn was out the front door.
Buffy poked around in the fridge, pulled out some expired bologna and a single slice of dried and curling cheese, and made a sandwich. She wandered up to her room, gathered all the bills from her dresser and spread them around on her bed in little piles, which ranged from 'must pay yesterday!' to 'will pay when hell freezes over'.
She stared at them for a while waiting for something to happen, then the doorbell rang and it was Willow coming over to hang out and complain about her love life.
"It's like she doesn't trust my judgment," Willow said. "Every time I use magic lately she questions me about whether it was necessary. I know what I'm doing and I don't appreciate her second-guessing all my actions! Don't get me wrong. I love her. She's my little snuggle-bunny and I wouldn't do anything in the world to upset her, but sometimes," she lowered her voice confidentially, "she's such a prissy-pants!"
"Well," Buffy considered how to answer the complaint delicately, "I'm sure Tara is only concerned about you. It shows how much she loves you when she worries. Kind of like a mom. But Willow, did you ever think that maybe she has a point? Tara's pretty smart about all that Mother Earth magic stuff. Maybe she's tapping into your aura or something and sees that you're off balance."
"Off balance! You think I'm off balance?" Willow's face screwed up into a wounded frown. "I'm not. I'm perfectly ... on balance. I'm as balanced as a Cirque de Soleil juggler on a tightrope!"
"I didn't say I thought you were," Buffy protested. "I said maybe Tara thinks you are. That's all."
Willow hugged the couch pillow to her chest and sighed, "Sorry. I'm a little bit cranky. You're right. Tara's just being over-protective and that's really, really sweet. I have to look at it the right way."
"Uh, yeah," Buffy agreed, wondering how Willow could be so intelligent and so ignorant at the same time.
The young women sat silently for a moment. Buffy knew this was the perfect time for sharing confidences, none of the others around for a change, the mood between them more relaxed and like high school days than it had been over the past year. But her mouth refused to work. She couldn't bring herself to tell her news. And then the moment was past.
"So," Willow cast the pillow away from her and stood up. "You ready to face the foe? I'm up for swabbing water and salvaging boxes if you are."
"Let's leave it 'til tomorrow. Today is too beautiful to be indoors. How 'bout we get a cappuccino at the Espresso Pump then hike out to the woods and see if the Knights of Byzantium are encamped there. I won't be comfortable until I know whether those medieval rejects are still after Dawn."
"Okey-dokey," Willow chirped brightly. "Puttin' on my hiking boots."
In less than twenty minutes they were on their way, leaving the Summers' house silent but for the drip, drip, drip of the basement pipes. Out on the street a black van pulled up and a man emerged and looked up and down the block at houses that drowsed in the afternoon sunlight.
The figure darted to the shrubbery in the Summers' front yard, tucked a kitschy garden gnome in the greenery, then trotted back to the van, which started to pull away. The short man pounded on the door. The van stopped. He reached for the handle and the vehicle began to drive off again as the man ran alongside. This stop-start cycle was repeated a few times before the man finally managed to get the door open and jump inside. The van pulled away with a squeal of tires.
*********
"What am I to you?" Anya turned to Xander and fixed him with her bright eyes.
"What are you to me?" he repeated, searching for the answer she wanted. "Why you're ... Anya, my sweet and ... and special girl." He cuddled her close to his side as they walked along the pathway dodging joggers and kids on skateboards.
"And what does that mean," she pressed. "Does it mean you want to marry me? 'Cause if you asked, I would."
"Would? Would what would?" Xander stuttered. "Marry? Where did that come from?"
"Look around you, Xander! It's all over this park. Families! With children - little people and mommies and daddies. Isn't that what humans do, make families?"
"Whoa! Children? How'd we get from marriage to children in one sentence?"
"Well that's the logical progression: love, marriage, children, old age, death."
"And I thought I felt my life passing before my eyes when I went up against that Kuschol demon."
Xander saw the will-not-be-denied look in Anya's eyes and stopped teasing. "Look, An, I'm all for ... those things you mentioned. Just not right now. We're still young. We have plenty of time."
"No. No we don't. We're aging every day. Our flesh is deteriorating faster than new cells are growing. I saw it on the Discovery channel. Xander, we're just a blip in the history of time. We have to do things right now - seize the day - before we're toothless octogenarians moldering in some tastefully decorated but depressing institution."
Xander's mouth opened and closed fruitlessly. Anya pulled away from his side and spun around to face him on the path.
"So what do you say? Are you ready to make a commitment?"
"C-commit ...ment. You mean like today? This very minute?" he hedged.
"You love me don't you? We have beautiful sex together and we both like to watch the X-Men. What are we waiting for?"
"Anya, we're only . at least I'm only twenty years old. That's not considered aged in human life. I do care for you. You know I do. But I'm not ready for a lifetime commitment."
Anya's jaw set and she nodded her head in time to his words. "I knew it. My friend Halfrek told me. She reminded me about mortal men and their commitment issues. She reminded me of why I became a vengeance demon to begin with but would I listen? Oh no, I said, he's different. He's spec."
Before she could wind up into a full tirade, Xander grasped her upper arms and looked deep into her eyes with his puppydog browns. "Please . give me time. I've heard what you said and I'm not saying I never want to marry. I just need time to think about it."
Anya sighed deeply and relaxed her stance. She nodded, her dissatisfaction still evident in the twist of her mouth. Xander leaned in and kissed her pouting lips until she responded, grudgingly at first then with growing passion. Soon they were making out on the footpath in full view of the mommies and daddies and little kids.
"Hey! Want to take that somewhere private?" an irate daddy yelled, while the mommy diverted her preschooler's eyes to the duck pond.
"Sorry," Xander called back, a bit muffled by Anya's tongue in his mouth.
She pulled back, all glistening lips and sparkling eyes. "There are bushes behind the amphitheater. I read in Cosmo that sex is supposed to be even more intense when you have it in unlikely and semi-public places.."
***************
Spike lay on his new bed, smoking and staring up at the earthen ceiling, bored out of his mind. It was still daytime but he wasn't sleepy. All he could do was lie there and think of Buffy and how, against all odds, he'd had her in his arms two nights in a row. Of course she'd been unconscious the one time and crying her eyes out the other, but it was still progress.
His mind drifted back to the night they had shared in Las Vegas after Willow's spell gone bad. Funny, but the very thing that had appalled him when he awoke from the enchantment, all that fuzzy caring and sharing nonsense, was what he now cherished the most. Sure the roller-coaster sex, both during the spell and that one other time just before the rings disappeared, had been phenomenal. But finding a good lay had never been a priority for Spike. He'd had a few women, both vampire and human, during the road trip when he was trying to put Buffy out of his mind, but while the sex had been great it couldn't compare to those moments of quiet communion he had shared with his mortal enemy.
He wondered what Buffy was doing right now. Braiding Dawn's hair perhaps, or maybe doing something domestic like laundry. Or maybe painting her sexy little toenails bubblegum pink. He could just picture her, tongue barely poking out from between her lips as she concentrated on sweeping the brush over each tiny digit. He started to harden thinking of that last and his hand crept down toward his groin to relieve the pressure.
"Bollocks! I'm not going to lie about wanking all afternoon," he scolded himself. "I could be with the girl right now."
Spike jumped up and threw on some clothes then started down the tunnel. It was a familiar path from his crypt to the sewer drain near Buffy's house, and a quick dash to her front porch where he sheltered from the sun as he knocked on the door.
No one answered, so he quickly picked the lock and let himself in, proud to note that despite any animosity between them over the last year, she hadn't revoked his invitation. He wandered around the main floor once then climbed the stairs to find Buffy's bedroom - a place he'd never visited outside of his own mind. It was as girly-feminine as he'd expected. He looked at the New Kids poster on her wall, examined her cutesy knick-knacks and photos of friends, spritzed some perfume in the air and sniffed it then pocketed the bottle, rummaged in her underwear drawer and slipped some lingerie in his coat pocket as well. Then he sat on the edge of her bed, testing its firmness. He caressed the depression in the pillow her head had left, then leaned down and breathed deeply at the pillowcase.
Sitting back up, he noticed the piles of envelopes on the bed and began reading through them. There were hundreds of dollars worth of bills, many of them past due, spread across the four-poster. It was something that Spike, not requiring much income, hadn't even considered. Living in the human world was damn expensive and it looked like Buffy was swimming against the tide here.
"Where's her bloody Watcher in all of this? If he's so concerned about 'his' Slayer, then why doesn't he take care of her?" he muttered.
He thought he heard a car door slam and cast a glance at the shaded window behind him, a window he'd never thought to see from the inside looking out. He hurriedly stuffed a couple more of Buffy's personal care items, some fingernail polish and a brush, in his pocket and descended the stairs to wait casually in the living room for whoever might enter.
***********
".and that's when I told her, 'You pick up those clothes or else!' and she said, 'Or else what?' and I said, 'Just do it, young lady,' and right then I knew I'd turned into my mom."
Willow laughed aloud and then shrieked in alarm when she caught sight of the vampire lounging in the doorway of the living room. "Spike! What are you doing here? You scared the bejesus out of me!"
"How did you get in my house," Buffy demanded, coming up behind her friend, and leveling an accusing stare at him. "I know I locked the door."
"You did indeed, Slayer, and far be it from me to break and enter my friends' domiciles but I was kind of scorching."
"Then why didn't you stay home where it's nice and dank and dark the way vampires like," Willow suggested.
"I come bearing information," Spike said, spreading his hands to show his non-confrontation. "About Glory's minions . thought you might like to know, but if you're not interested.."
"All right, Spike. Sit down and talk," Buffy said, gesturing him into the living room.
"Buffy," Willow interrupted. "I've got to go meet Tara. I'll get back to you about us living here after I talk to her, but I'm sure she'll love the idea. It'll be like a slumber party every night!"
The girls exchanged a brief hug and Willow left without a glance at Spike, who was now sprawled on the couch, arms outflung along the back, legs stretched in front of him.
"You wouldn't happen to have a cold beer around the house would you?" he asked as Buffy turned her attention toward him. "It was flaming hot out there and I'm parched."
"No, Spike. I don't drink. Underage, remember?" she settled on the chair across from him, looking nervous and angry at the same time. "What news have you got for me and how much do you want for it," she asked tersely.
"Oh, so we're back to square one, are we?" He shook his head. "You acting like we didn't share a moment last night and me pretending I help you for money?"
"We didn't 'share' a moment last night and you have been known to take money for information," Buffy pointed out. "And by the way, if one word about ... what I told you should come back to me from another source I won't just stake you, I'll grind you into dust."
"I'll keep your secret Slayer, if that's what's bothering you. There's no need to get all shirty about it," he scowled.
"All right then," Buffy relaxed infinitesimally. "Spill about the minions."
"I caught one last night, slinking through my cemetery," Spike explained. "Collared him and coerced some information. It seems the whole lot of them fell apart without their god to worship and with no chance of returning home. Some left town and the rest got beaten to a bloody pulp when a demon biker gang took over the hotel they were living in. Sounds like we'll have to check those bikers out in the near future."
"Well, that's it then," Buffy was visibly relieved. "Willow and I combed the woods for the Key-seeking knights and there's no sign of them. I can't imagine where else they'd be - it would be kind of hard to hide a whole company of armor-plated soldiers and horses anywhere else in town. I guess since Dawn isn't a threat anymore they took off."
"So we're back to the usual suspects," Spike supplied. "No Big Bad, just the regular assortment of vamps and demons."
"We?" Buffy quirked an eyebrow. "You consider yourself on the team now?"
"Don't you?" he returned. "After all, I did get the stuffing beat out of me for your little sis. That should prove something."
"But what, Spike?" Buffy asked speculatively. "Your motives are still murky. Why do you want to help us?"
"I offered to spell it out for you the other night," he reminded. "You didn't want to hear." He added impatiently, "But you know what? Whether you're ready to know or not, I'm ready to tell you. Ever since your friend cast that spell on us last year I've been all twisted around. I can't stop thinking about you - about us and how bloody perfect it was."
"Oh, my god," she moaned. "Don't...."
He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, willing her attention with his piercing blue eyes. "No! Don't look away from me. It was perfect. You know it was."
"It was a spell, Spike!"
"Doesn't matter. Willow wished us married - not in love. But we were. For that one night at least we were in love, and I want it back."
"Well that's unlikely," Buffy said. "Get it through your head. It was an illusion."
"Not to me," he said quietly. "And what about that other. The last time...?"
"A mistake," she answered promptly. "We agreed it was leftover magic, remember?"
"I don't believe that anymore," he said. "Because it never stopped. I still feel those things." He rose and started pacing in front of her. "I want to be with you all the time. It's driving me insane. Even when I went away I couldn't stop thinking about you."
"Well try harder!" she snapped. "There isn't anything between us. There can never BE anything between us. Please Spike, you know everything I'm dealing with. Can you please not have a meltdown right now?"
He rounded on her. "I'm sorry my feelings are an inconvenience for you. Believe me, they're an inconvenience for me as well. But I can't stop it and I can't change it. I love...."
"Don't...."she pleaded one last time.
"...you."
"...say it."
He fell to his knees in front of her, holding her with his gaze again. "I love you," he repeated firmly. "And it doesn't have to be another burden if you don't make it one. I can help you. I can make things easier for you if you let me. You're going to need extra help with the slaying. You know you will. I can help." He pushed on relentlessly as she shook her head. "You don't have to love me back. Doesn't matter. Just let me be around you and I'll be happy."
"If I let you come around, that's encouragement. And I don't want you to think there's any hope... cause there's not," she explained, finally meeting his gaze. "Do you understand?" She regarded him with serious hazel eyes.
He nodded. "I know. No hope. Got it. But you'll let me help out? Look after Dawn? Beat up evil things for information? Watch your back when you slay? Maybe have dinner now and again?"
"Dinner? What...?"
"Scratch the dinner part."
Buffy was silent a long moment. She felt herself squirming under his earnest eyes and ... losing her willpower to his stubbornness. "I'll think about it. I guess an extra pair of hands will be helpful right now," she admitted. "You can patrol with me and that's it."
"Brilliant." Spike rose to his feet, grinning. "We'll be friends then."
"I don't know about friends. Allies, maybe."
"Fine. Allies."
"Now will you please go? I've been tramping around woods all day and I'm kind of tired."
"Certainly. See you later then?" he pushed.
"No hope Spike, remember?"
"Right. I'm hopeless. I'll just happen to see you if you happen to be out patrolling tonight or tomorrow night. Whenever." His coat billowed behind him as he swaggered to the door. He pulled the battered leather over his head and bounded out into the late afternoon sunlight.
Buffy got up and watched out the window as he dashed from shadow to shadow. She shook her head. Collapsing on the couch, she stretched out on her side and thought about the boatload of worms Spike had just opened. "This is going to be trouble," she thought, remembering what Angel had once told the Scoobies about Spike's tenacious pursuit of his desires.
"He won't stop," she murmured, as her eyes fluttered closed. "Not until he gets what he wants." Her breathing deepened. The frantic start to her day and the long hike in the hot sun had completely worn her out. Soon she drifted off into blessed sleep where reality took a holiday and anything was permitted.
She dreamed of soft lips nuzzling her neck, cool fingers tracing the contour of her hip and thigh and a deep, rumbling voice sending delicious tingles through her just from the tenor of it. She moaned and shifted on the couch.
"You're mine," the voice was telling her. "I'm yours. Forever, remember? We made a vow."
"No," her dream-self whimpered. "You're not the one. Angel. He's my.." She gasped as his hand stroked her through her panties then teased under the elastic for better contact.
"Soul mate," she choked out.
His chuckle of disbelief vibrated against her nipple just before he took it in his wet, wet mouth and began sucking - hard.
"Stop," she thought as she drew his head closer to her breast.
Then, because it was a dream, his clever, wicked tongue was everywhere at once; searching her mouth, licking her skin, penetrating her vagina, and whispering naughty, dirty things in her ear.
Buffy tossed and turned and moaned in her sleep, waking only when she almost fell off the couch. She was panting for air, slick between her legs and aching with unfulfilled need.
She drew a long shuddering breath and let it out slowly, blinking her eyes to clear residual sexual images from her brain.
The front door banged and Dawn exploded into the house like a linebacker tackling a pass receiver.
"Hey!" she hollered. "Anybody home?"
"Uh, yeah." Buffy's face flamed and she shot to her feet, painfully aware of the continued throbbing between her legs and the fact that if her little sister had arrived only a few minutes earlier she would have been confronted with the sight of her legal guardian writhing like a cat in heat. "I was just.. I was taking a nap. I'll, um, get us some dinner now."
"That's okay. I ate with Janice." Dawn studied her intently. "Do you have a fever or something? You look really flushed. Maybe you're coming down with something, what with the fainting and all."
"Too much sun," Buffy said abruptly. "Willow and I were out all afternoon. I got burned." She quickly changed the subject. "How about some ice cream then? I think there's a little left. And a video?"
"Sure," Dawn agreed. "It's my turn to pick."
"As long as it's anything but that inane Scooby Doo movie again," her sister agreed.
******** Willow showed up to help with the garage sale the next day, pink nosed and puffy eyed.
'What now?' Buffy thought uncharitably. After her friend had sniffled and gulped enough times that she couldn't ignore it anymore, Buffy finally asked, "Something wrong, Will?"
"It's Tara. She's furious with me. I did something ... something amazing. Incredible really. Just to make her happy, and she doesn't get that at all. She's being so unreasonable!"
Buffy waited then prompted. "Well? What did you do?"
"I - I brought Miss Kitty back to life," Willow announced proudly.
"You ... who, what?"
"Our cat, you know Miss Kitty Fantastico. You've seen her before. Anyway, she got hit by a car yesterday. Tara was heartbroken. She was crying so hard and I wanted to make her feel better. Then I remembered something I'd read about a resurrection spell. I told Tara to leave the body, that I'd help her bury it after I ran an errand. I went to the Magic Box, found the spell, got together the ingredients, and voila! Brand-new Kitty Fantastico."
"Willow! That's um ... amazing all right. That's huge! You're sure the cat was really dead?"
"Dead as Winona Rider's career," she assured.
Buffy was dumbstruck. "And you think it was a good thing to bring Kitty back?"
"Tara was crying, Buffy. I can't stand it when she cries! The spell didn't hurt anyone, didn't change the course of the world, so what's the big?"
"Well," Buffy fished for something to say that would express her disapproval without alienating her friend. "Does she seem normal? Miss Kitty I mean, not Tara. She's not lurching around like a zombie or anything?"
"No. In fact she seems more hyper than ever. If anything she's kind of zinging off the walls with energy. It's weird."
"Huh," Buffy was noncomittal. "I don't know if I'm the best person to ask about this. Maybe Giles...."
"Oh no. Don't tell Giles!" Willow's eyes were wide. "He wouldn't understand at all. He doesn't even have a girlfriend."
"If you don't want Giles to know, it sounds like maybe you do think there was something wrong with doing the spell, Will," Buffy said gently.
"There was nothing wrong with what I did." Willow's tone suddenly dropped from nervous twitter to icy smoothness. "And I'm not afraid of Giles. Maybe he could learn a thing or two about magic from me!"
"Hey Super-Strength, are you gonna help carry these boxes or what?" Dawn's voice interrupted the blossoming confrontation. She was staggering along, face hidden behind a huge box from which Christmas tinsel straggled.
Buffy gratefully went to her sister's aid, taking the box and carrying it to the sidewalk, and by the time she faced Willow again the young witch had recovered her usual buoyancy.
"I'm sorry to unload on ya, Buffy," Willow apologized as she pulled damp Christmas decorations from the box and laid them in a neat display on a folding table. "I know you have your hands full with worrying about Dawn and taking care of your house and the slaying and all. I'll deal with Tara. She'll get over it and everything'll be cool again. By the way, she said it would be great for us to share your house after the term ends."
Bewildered but relieved by the abrupt shift in Willow's mood, Buffy smiled. "You have no idea what a big help it would be to have you living here."
"No problem, landlord," Willow teased. "I'd rather be paying rent to you than a stranger, plus, you know, Slayer protection against all the creepies in this town. We have to be out of the dorm at the end of May, so we could move in here then."
The subject of the resurrected Kitty Fantastico was evidently closed. The rest of the day drifted by. Buffy, Willow and Dawn sat in lawn chairs drinking iced tea, sunning themselves, sharing tidbits from glamour magazines and occasionally selling a piece of junk rescued from the basement flood. If it hadn't been for the fact that Buffy knew she ought to be down there mopping up water and her constant awareness of the genetic storm brewing in her uterus and Spike's embarrassing protestations of love yesterday and the unpaid bills on her dresser, she would have been quite content.
**********
The next afternoon Buffy slammed through her front door, cast her mail on the overflowing pile covering the little table in the hall and headed straight for the bathroom at a fast clip. After taking care of business, she surveyed herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Her outfit, carefully chosen that morning to reflect maturity and responsibility, was trashed. Who knew going to the bank could be so damaging to the wardrobe!
Buffy examined the bump on her forehead and the gash on her arm, which matched the slash in her beautiful white silk blouse. She turned sideways and shook her head over the slit she had been forced to cut up the side of her skirt. She wouldn't have minded the loss of the clothes so much if she had just gotten a loan for her sacrifice. But evidently saving loan officers from rampaging demons weighed nothing against lack of collateral or a job.
She furrowed her brow as she went over the details of her fight with the ridge-headed demon, which had no business being at a bank in the middle of the day anyway. She should have been quicker. She could have hit harder. She might have chased after it when it fled the building. There was no excuse for letting something that big and clunky get the best of her and escape. And pleading distraction because of the pregnancy or the financial woes was no excuse. She had to get back on her game.
As Buffy passed back through the front hall on her way to the upstairs the breeze from her passing sent the tottering stack of mail sliding to the floor. She cursed as she knelt to pick up the scattered mail, which contained - bill, bill, bill, sweepstakes, bill, catalog and . what was this? From somewhere in the pile a plain white envelope had fallen and spilling from it in an untidy fan were various denominations of bills.
Buffy dropped the rest of the mail and dove for the money. Stacked altogether it was a thick wad that totaled almost five hundred dollars. Her heart was beating in her throat as she picked up the envelope and examined it back and front. There was no writing of any kind. She scrabbled through the rest of the pile looking for a note that might have fallen out. Nothing.
Hands shaking, she picked up the bills again, sat back on her heels and began to count the bounty from her anonymous benefactor.
To be continued..
Glory is vanquished. Buffy's secret has been discovered by Spike, who is relentlessly wooing her. This chapter: Buffy deals with finances and friends. This chapter rated R for brief graphic scene.
A shout-out to my beta Zyrya, who continues to do a fantastic job of helping me retool my work. Find out why she's so good by checking out her story "Crash" (a rewrite of "Crush" in which Buffy actually uses her brains to get out of the situation) here:
*********
The trippy music of Saturday morning cartoons blared through the house, reminding Buffy that her sister was alive and safe and as annoying as ever. She stirred her rapidly disintegrating cornflakes around the bowl, trying to chase down a runaway piece of banana then gave up on the mushy cereal and grabbed a blueberry Pop Tart from the box instead. She wandered into the living room and perched on the arm of the sofa next to Dawn.
"Something's wrong with the washer," Dawn announced without looking up from Spongebob Squarepants. "It's not filling up right."
"What does that mean?" Buffy asked.
"Water's too slow. I don't know. Check it out." Dawn was unconcerned.
Spongebob was driving Squidworth to tears with his squeaky boots and Dawn burst out laughing as if she hadn't seen the episode a dozen times before. Buffy gave up on sister share time and headed for the basement to see what was up with the washing machine.
It turned out the washer was fine but the plumbing was shot, as Buffy discovered when she tried to tighten a leaky valve and ended up breaking off the fitting, sending water exploding from the pipe. Drenched and desperate, she stood in the middle of the basement cackling insanely as water jetted out of the broken pipe and began pooling on the floor.
"I'm in hell," she announced to the world. "Glory's plan succeeded and I'm living in a hell dimension. No one on earth has luck this bad."
Xander agreed, when she called him and he came rushing to the rescue with his work-buddy Tito en tow.
"Jeez Buffy, you make Job look like a sissy. It's like the Powers That Be put a Kick Me sign on your back."
When Tito showed her the bottom line on the proposed repairs, Buffy knew this was the last pile on her dung heap. She had been barely making headway in paying the regular bills, keeping the lights and phone on and supplying Dawn with life-giving cable TV. Now the glory days of a warm home and food in the cupboard were about to be a thing of the past if she didn't find a way to get a powerful injection of cash flow fast.
She thanked Xander and his friend for coming out on a Saturday morning and for putting a temporary fix on the situation. After they left, Buffy called her bank to make an appointment with the loan officer, but since it was now Saturday afternoon, the bank was closed.
"I'm going to the mall with Janice. Got twenty bucks?" Dawn bounced into the kitchen and grabbed an apple. She took one look at Buffy's glowering face, heaved a dramatic sigh and said, "Never mind. I'll window shop, as usual."
"Dawn, we have to clean up the mess down there - mop the floor, get the boxes up out of the water. You can't just take off."
"Janice and her mom are already on their way over. I have to go! We can clean up tomorrow. It's not like things are going to get any wetter than they already are."
Buffy wavered since the idea of facing the basement again was daunting. Dawn caught the hesitation and pounced on it.
"I'll help tomorrow, I promise! Maybe we could just turn it into a garage sale, haul the stuff right out to the street and put up signs with balloons. Whaddya think?"
"Fine," Buffy sighed. "Go! Be a mallrat, and have fun." The words were barely out of her mouth and Dawn was out the front door.
Buffy poked around in the fridge, pulled out some expired bologna and a single slice of dried and curling cheese, and made a sandwich. She wandered up to her room, gathered all the bills from her dresser and spread them around on her bed in little piles, which ranged from 'must pay yesterday!' to 'will pay when hell freezes over'.
She stared at them for a while waiting for something to happen, then the doorbell rang and it was Willow coming over to hang out and complain about her love life.
"It's like she doesn't trust my judgment," Willow said. "Every time I use magic lately she questions me about whether it was necessary. I know what I'm doing and I don't appreciate her second-guessing all my actions! Don't get me wrong. I love her. She's my little snuggle-bunny and I wouldn't do anything in the world to upset her, but sometimes," she lowered her voice confidentially, "she's such a prissy-pants!"
"Well," Buffy considered how to answer the complaint delicately, "I'm sure Tara is only concerned about you. It shows how much she loves you when she worries. Kind of like a mom. But Willow, did you ever think that maybe she has a point? Tara's pretty smart about all that Mother Earth magic stuff. Maybe she's tapping into your aura or something and sees that you're off balance."
"Off balance! You think I'm off balance?" Willow's face screwed up into a wounded frown. "I'm not. I'm perfectly ... on balance. I'm as balanced as a Cirque de Soleil juggler on a tightrope!"
"I didn't say I thought you were," Buffy protested. "I said maybe Tara thinks you are. That's all."
Willow hugged the couch pillow to her chest and sighed, "Sorry. I'm a little bit cranky. You're right. Tara's just being over-protective and that's really, really sweet. I have to look at it the right way."
"Uh, yeah," Buffy agreed, wondering how Willow could be so intelligent and so ignorant at the same time.
The young women sat silently for a moment. Buffy knew this was the perfect time for sharing confidences, none of the others around for a change, the mood between them more relaxed and like high school days than it had been over the past year. But her mouth refused to work. She couldn't bring herself to tell her news. And then the moment was past.
"So," Willow cast the pillow away from her and stood up. "You ready to face the foe? I'm up for swabbing water and salvaging boxes if you are."
"Let's leave it 'til tomorrow. Today is too beautiful to be indoors. How 'bout we get a cappuccino at the Espresso Pump then hike out to the woods and see if the Knights of Byzantium are encamped there. I won't be comfortable until I know whether those medieval rejects are still after Dawn."
"Okey-dokey," Willow chirped brightly. "Puttin' on my hiking boots."
In less than twenty minutes they were on their way, leaving the Summers' house silent but for the drip, drip, drip of the basement pipes. Out on the street a black van pulled up and a man emerged and looked up and down the block at houses that drowsed in the afternoon sunlight.
The figure darted to the shrubbery in the Summers' front yard, tucked a kitschy garden gnome in the greenery, then trotted back to the van, which started to pull away. The short man pounded on the door. The van stopped. He reached for the handle and the vehicle began to drive off again as the man ran alongside. This stop-start cycle was repeated a few times before the man finally managed to get the door open and jump inside. The van pulled away with a squeal of tires.
*********
"What am I to you?" Anya turned to Xander and fixed him with her bright eyes.
"What are you to me?" he repeated, searching for the answer she wanted. "Why you're ... Anya, my sweet and ... and special girl." He cuddled her close to his side as they walked along the pathway dodging joggers and kids on skateboards.
"And what does that mean," she pressed. "Does it mean you want to marry me? 'Cause if you asked, I would."
"Would? Would what would?" Xander stuttered. "Marry? Where did that come from?"
"Look around you, Xander! It's all over this park. Families! With children - little people and mommies and daddies. Isn't that what humans do, make families?"
"Whoa! Children? How'd we get from marriage to children in one sentence?"
"Well that's the logical progression: love, marriage, children, old age, death."
"And I thought I felt my life passing before my eyes when I went up against that Kuschol demon."
Xander saw the will-not-be-denied look in Anya's eyes and stopped teasing. "Look, An, I'm all for ... those things you mentioned. Just not right now. We're still young. We have plenty of time."
"No. No we don't. We're aging every day. Our flesh is deteriorating faster than new cells are growing. I saw it on the Discovery channel. Xander, we're just a blip in the history of time. We have to do things right now - seize the day - before we're toothless octogenarians moldering in some tastefully decorated but depressing institution."
Xander's mouth opened and closed fruitlessly. Anya pulled away from his side and spun around to face him on the path.
"So what do you say? Are you ready to make a commitment?"
"C-commit ...ment. You mean like today? This very minute?" he hedged.
"You love me don't you? We have beautiful sex together and we both like to watch the X-Men. What are we waiting for?"
"Anya, we're only . at least I'm only twenty years old. That's not considered aged in human life. I do care for you. You know I do. But I'm not ready for a lifetime commitment."
Anya's jaw set and she nodded her head in time to his words. "I knew it. My friend Halfrek told me. She reminded me about mortal men and their commitment issues. She reminded me of why I became a vengeance demon to begin with but would I listen? Oh no, I said, he's different. He's spec."
Before she could wind up into a full tirade, Xander grasped her upper arms and looked deep into her eyes with his puppydog browns. "Please . give me time. I've heard what you said and I'm not saying I never want to marry. I just need time to think about it."
Anya sighed deeply and relaxed her stance. She nodded, her dissatisfaction still evident in the twist of her mouth. Xander leaned in and kissed her pouting lips until she responded, grudgingly at first then with growing passion. Soon they were making out on the footpath in full view of the mommies and daddies and little kids.
"Hey! Want to take that somewhere private?" an irate daddy yelled, while the mommy diverted her preschooler's eyes to the duck pond.
"Sorry," Xander called back, a bit muffled by Anya's tongue in his mouth.
She pulled back, all glistening lips and sparkling eyes. "There are bushes behind the amphitheater. I read in Cosmo that sex is supposed to be even more intense when you have it in unlikely and semi-public places.."
***************
Spike lay on his new bed, smoking and staring up at the earthen ceiling, bored out of his mind. It was still daytime but he wasn't sleepy. All he could do was lie there and think of Buffy and how, against all odds, he'd had her in his arms two nights in a row. Of course she'd been unconscious the one time and crying her eyes out the other, but it was still progress.
His mind drifted back to the night they had shared in Las Vegas after Willow's spell gone bad. Funny, but the very thing that had appalled him when he awoke from the enchantment, all that fuzzy caring and sharing nonsense, was what he now cherished the most. Sure the roller-coaster sex, both during the spell and that one other time just before the rings disappeared, had been phenomenal. But finding a good lay had never been a priority for Spike. He'd had a few women, both vampire and human, during the road trip when he was trying to put Buffy out of his mind, but while the sex had been great it couldn't compare to those moments of quiet communion he had shared with his mortal enemy.
He wondered what Buffy was doing right now. Braiding Dawn's hair perhaps, or maybe doing something domestic like laundry. Or maybe painting her sexy little toenails bubblegum pink. He could just picture her, tongue barely poking out from between her lips as she concentrated on sweeping the brush over each tiny digit. He started to harden thinking of that last and his hand crept down toward his groin to relieve the pressure.
"Bollocks! I'm not going to lie about wanking all afternoon," he scolded himself. "I could be with the girl right now."
Spike jumped up and threw on some clothes then started down the tunnel. It was a familiar path from his crypt to the sewer drain near Buffy's house, and a quick dash to her front porch where he sheltered from the sun as he knocked on the door.
No one answered, so he quickly picked the lock and let himself in, proud to note that despite any animosity between them over the last year, she hadn't revoked his invitation. He wandered around the main floor once then climbed the stairs to find Buffy's bedroom - a place he'd never visited outside of his own mind. It was as girly-feminine as he'd expected. He looked at the New Kids poster on her wall, examined her cutesy knick-knacks and photos of friends, spritzed some perfume in the air and sniffed it then pocketed the bottle, rummaged in her underwear drawer and slipped some lingerie in his coat pocket as well. Then he sat on the edge of her bed, testing its firmness. He caressed the depression in the pillow her head had left, then leaned down and breathed deeply at the pillowcase.
Sitting back up, he noticed the piles of envelopes on the bed and began reading through them. There were hundreds of dollars worth of bills, many of them past due, spread across the four-poster. It was something that Spike, not requiring much income, hadn't even considered. Living in the human world was damn expensive and it looked like Buffy was swimming against the tide here.
"Where's her bloody Watcher in all of this? If he's so concerned about 'his' Slayer, then why doesn't he take care of her?" he muttered.
He thought he heard a car door slam and cast a glance at the shaded window behind him, a window he'd never thought to see from the inside looking out. He hurriedly stuffed a couple more of Buffy's personal care items, some fingernail polish and a brush, in his pocket and descended the stairs to wait casually in the living room for whoever might enter.
***********
".and that's when I told her, 'You pick up those clothes or else!' and she said, 'Or else what?' and I said, 'Just do it, young lady,' and right then I knew I'd turned into my mom."
Willow laughed aloud and then shrieked in alarm when she caught sight of the vampire lounging in the doorway of the living room. "Spike! What are you doing here? You scared the bejesus out of me!"
"How did you get in my house," Buffy demanded, coming up behind her friend, and leveling an accusing stare at him. "I know I locked the door."
"You did indeed, Slayer, and far be it from me to break and enter my friends' domiciles but I was kind of scorching."
"Then why didn't you stay home where it's nice and dank and dark the way vampires like," Willow suggested.
"I come bearing information," Spike said, spreading his hands to show his non-confrontation. "About Glory's minions . thought you might like to know, but if you're not interested.."
"All right, Spike. Sit down and talk," Buffy said, gesturing him into the living room.
"Buffy," Willow interrupted. "I've got to go meet Tara. I'll get back to you about us living here after I talk to her, but I'm sure she'll love the idea. It'll be like a slumber party every night!"
The girls exchanged a brief hug and Willow left without a glance at Spike, who was now sprawled on the couch, arms outflung along the back, legs stretched in front of him.
"You wouldn't happen to have a cold beer around the house would you?" he asked as Buffy turned her attention toward him. "It was flaming hot out there and I'm parched."
"No, Spike. I don't drink. Underage, remember?" she settled on the chair across from him, looking nervous and angry at the same time. "What news have you got for me and how much do you want for it," she asked tersely.
"Oh, so we're back to square one, are we?" He shook his head. "You acting like we didn't share a moment last night and me pretending I help you for money?"
"We didn't 'share' a moment last night and you have been known to take money for information," Buffy pointed out. "And by the way, if one word about ... what I told you should come back to me from another source I won't just stake you, I'll grind you into dust."
"I'll keep your secret Slayer, if that's what's bothering you. There's no need to get all shirty about it," he scowled.
"All right then," Buffy relaxed infinitesimally. "Spill about the minions."
"I caught one last night, slinking through my cemetery," Spike explained. "Collared him and coerced some information. It seems the whole lot of them fell apart without their god to worship and with no chance of returning home. Some left town and the rest got beaten to a bloody pulp when a demon biker gang took over the hotel they were living in. Sounds like we'll have to check those bikers out in the near future."
"Well, that's it then," Buffy was visibly relieved. "Willow and I combed the woods for the Key-seeking knights and there's no sign of them. I can't imagine where else they'd be - it would be kind of hard to hide a whole company of armor-plated soldiers and horses anywhere else in town. I guess since Dawn isn't a threat anymore they took off."
"So we're back to the usual suspects," Spike supplied. "No Big Bad, just the regular assortment of vamps and demons."
"We?" Buffy quirked an eyebrow. "You consider yourself on the team now?"
"Don't you?" he returned. "After all, I did get the stuffing beat out of me for your little sis. That should prove something."
"But what, Spike?" Buffy asked speculatively. "Your motives are still murky. Why do you want to help us?"
"I offered to spell it out for you the other night," he reminded. "You didn't want to hear." He added impatiently, "But you know what? Whether you're ready to know or not, I'm ready to tell you. Ever since your friend cast that spell on us last year I've been all twisted around. I can't stop thinking about you - about us and how bloody perfect it was."
"Oh, my god," she moaned. "Don't...."
He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, willing her attention with his piercing blue eyes. "No! Don't look away from me. It was perfect. You know it was."
"It was a spell, Spike!"
"Doesn't matter. Willow wished us married - not in love. But we were. For that one night at least we were in love, and I want it back."
"Well that's unlikely," Buffy said. "Get it through your head. It was an illusion."
"Not to me," he said quietly. "And what about that other. The last time...?"
"A mistake," she answered promptly. "We agreed it was leftover magic, remember?"
"I don't believe that anymore," he said. "Because it never stopped. I still feel those things." He rose and started pacing in front of her. "I want to be with you all the time. It's driving me insane. Even when I went away I couldn't stop thinking about you."
"Well try harder!" she snapped. "There isn't anything between us. There can never BE anything between us. Please Spike, you know everything I'm dealing with. Can you please not have a meltdown right now?"
He rounded on her. "I'm sorry my feelings are an inconvenience for you. Believe me, they're an inconvenience for me as well. But I can't stop it and I can't change it. I love...."
"Don't...."she pleaded one last time.
"...you."
"...say it."
He fell to his knees in front of her, holding her with his gaze again. "I love you," he repeated firmly. "And it doesn't have to be another burden if you don't make it one. I can help you. I can make things easier for you if you let me. You're going to need extra help with the slaying. You know you will. I can help." He pushed on relentlessly as she shook her head. "You don't have to love me back. Doesn't matter. Just let me be around you and I'll be happy."
"If I let you come around, that's encouragement. And I don't want you to think there's any hope... cause there's not," she explained, finally meeting his gaze. "Do you understand?" She regarded him with serious hazel eyes.
He nodded. "I know. No hope. Got it. But you'll let me help out? Look after Dawn? Beat up evil things for information? Watch your back when you slay? Maybe have dinner now and again?"
"Dinner? What...?"
"Scratch the dinner part."
Buffy was silent a long moment. She felt herself squirming under his earnest eyes and ... losing her willpower to his stubbornness. "I'll think about it. I guess an extra pair of hands will be helpful right now," she admitted. "You can patrol with me and that's it."
"Brilliant." Spike rose to his feet, grinning. "We'll be friends then."
"I don't know about friends. Allies, maybe."
"Fine. Allies."
"Now will you please go? I've been tramping around woods all day and I'm kind of tired."
"Certainly. See you later then?" he pushed.
"No hope Spike, remember?"
"Right. I'm hopeless. I'll just happen to see you if you happen to be out patrolling tonight or tomorrow night. Whenever." His coat billowed behind him as he swaggered to the door. He pulled the battered leather over his head and bounded out into the late afternoon sunlight.
Buffy got up and watched out the window as he dashed from shadow to shadow. She shook her head. Collapsing on the couch, she stretched out on her side and thought about the boatload of worms Spike had just opened. "This is going to be trouble," she thought, remembering what Angel had once told the Scoobies about Spike's tenacious pursuit of his desires.
"He won't stop," she murmured, as her eyes fluttered closed. "Not until he gets what he wants." Her breathing deepened. The frantic start to her day and the long hike in the hot sun had completely worn her out. Soon she drifted off into blessed sleep where reality took a holiday and anything was permitted.
She dreamed of soft lips nuzzling her neck, cool fingers tracing the contour of her hip and thigh and a deep, rumbling voice sending delicious tingles through her just from the tenor of it. She moaned and shifted on the couch.
"You're mine," the voice was telling her. "I'm yours. Forever, remember? We made a vow."
"No," her dream-self whimpered. "You're not the one. Angel. He's my.." She gasped as his hand stroked her through her panties then teased under the elastic for better contact.
"Soul mate," she choked out.
His chuckle of disbelief vibrated against her nipple just before he took it in his wet, wet mouth and began sucking - hard.
"Stop," she thought as she drew his head closer to her breast.
Then, because it was a dream, his clever, wicked tongue was everywhere at once; searching her mouth, licking her skin, penetrating her vagina, and whispering naughty, dirty things in her ear.
Buffy tossed and turned and moaned in her sleep, waking only when she almost fell off the couch. She was panting for air, slick between her legs and aching with unfulfilled need.
She drew a long shuddering breath and let it out slowly, blinking her eyes to clear residual sexual images from her brain.
The front door banged and Dawn exploded into the house like a linebacker tackling a pass receiver.
"Hey!" she hollered. "Anybody home?"
"Uh, yeah." Buffy's face flamed and she shot to her feet, painfully aware of the continued throbbing between her legs and the fact that if her little sister had arrived only a few minutes earlier she would have been confronted with the sight of her legal guardian writhing like a cat in heat. "I was just.. I was taking a nap. I'll, um, get us some dinner now."
"That's okay. I ate with Janice." Dawn studied her intently. "Do you have a fever or something? You look really flushed. Maybe you're coming down with something, what with the fainting and all."
"Too much sun," Buffy said abruptly. "Willow and I were out all afternoon. I got burned." She quickly changed the subject. "How about some ice cream then? I think there's a little left. And a video?"
"Sure," Dawn agreed. "It's my turn to pick."
"As long as it's anything but that inane Scooby Doo movie again," her sister agreed.
******** Willow showed up to help with the garage sale the next day, pink nosed and puffy eyed.
'What now?' Buffy thought uncharitably. After her friend had sniffled and gulped enough times that she couldn't ignore it anymore, Buffy finally asked, "Something wrong, Will?"
"It's Tara. She's furious with me. I did something ... something amazing. Incredible really. Just to make her happy, and she doesn't get that at all. She's being so unreasonable!"
Buffy waited then prompted. "Well? What did you do?"
"I - I brought Miss Kitty back to life," Willow announced proudly.
"You ... who, what?"
"Our cat, you know Miss Kitty Fantastico. You've seen her before. Anyway, she got hit by a car yesterday. Tara was heartbroken. She was crying so hard and I wanted to make her feel better. Then I remembered something I'd read about a resurrection spell. I told Tara to leave the body, that I'd help her bury it after I ran an errand. I went to the Magic Box, found the spell, got together the ingredients, and voila! Brand-new Kitty Fantastico."
"Willow! That's um ... amazing all right. That's huge! You're sure the cat was really dead?"
"Dead as Winona Rider's career," she assured.
Buffy was dumbstruck. "And you think it was a good thing to bring Kitty back?"
"Tara was crying, Buffy. I can't stand it when she cries! The spell didn't hurt anyone, didn't change the course of the world, so what's the big?"
"Well," Buffy fished for something to say that would express her disapproval without alienating her friend. "Does she seem normal? Miss Kitty I mean, not Tara. She's not lurching around like a zombie or anything?"
"No. In fact she seems more hyper than ever. If anything she's kind of zinging off the walls with energy. It's weird."
"Huh," Buffy was noncomittal. "I don't know if I'm the best person to ask about this. Maybe Giles...."
"Oh no. Don't tell Giles!" Willow's eyes were wide. "He wouldn't understand at all. He doesn't even have a girlfriend."
"If you don't want Giles to know, it sounds like maybe you do think there was something wrong with doing the spell, Will," Buffy said gently.
"There was nothing wrong with what I did." Willow's tone suddenly dropped from nervous twitter to icy smoothness. "And I'm not afraid of Giles. Maybe he could learn a thing or two about magic from me!"
"Hey Super-Strength, are you gonna help carry these boxes or what?" Dawn's voice interrupted the blossoming confrontation. She was staggering along, face hidden behind a huge box from which Christmas tinsel straggled.
Buffy gratefully went to her sister's aid, taking the box and carrying it to the sidewalk, and by the time she faced Willow again the young witch had recovered her usual buoyancy.
"I'm sorry to unload on ya, Buffy," Willow apologized as she pulled damp Christmas decorations from the box and laid them in a neat display on a folding table. "I know you have your hands full with worrying about Dawn and taking care of your house and the slaying and all. I'll deal with Tara. She'll get over it and everything'll be cool again. By the way, she said it would be great for us to share your house after the term ends."
Bewildered but relieved by the abrupt shift in Willow's mood, Buffy smiled. "You have no idea what a big help it would be to have you living here."
"No problem, landlord," Willow teased. "I'd rather be paying rent to you than a stranger, plus, you know, Slayer protection against all the creepies in this town. We have to be out of the dorm at the end of May, so we could move in here then."
The subject of the resurrected Kitty Fantastico was evidently closed. The rest of the day drifted by. Buffy, Willow and Dawn sat in lawn chairs drinking iced tea, sunning themselves, sharing tidbits from glamour magazines and occasionally selling a piece of junk rescued from the basement flood. If it hadn't been for the fact that Buffy knew she ought to be down there mopping up water and her constant awareness of the genetic storm brewing in her uterus and Spike's embarrassing protestations of love yesterday and the unpaid bills on her dresser, she would have been quite content.
**********
The next afternoon Buffy slammed through her front door, cast her mail on the overflowing pile covering the little table in the hall and headed straight for the bathroom at a fast clip. After taking care of business, she surveyed herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Her outfit, carefully chosen that morning to reflect maturity and responsibility, was trashed. Who knew going to the bank could be so damaging to the wardrobe!
Buffy examined the bump on her forehead and the gash on her arm, which matched the slash in her beautiful white silk blouse. She turned sideways and shook her head over the slit she had been forced to cut up the side of her skirt. She wouldn't have minded the loss of the clothes so much if she had just gotten a loan for her sacrifice. But evidently saving loan officers from rampaging demons weighed nothing against lack of collateral or a job.
She furrowed her brow as she went over the details of her fight with the ridge-headed demon, which had no business being at a bank in the middle of the day anyway. She should have been quicker. She could have hit harder. She might have chased after it when it fled the building. There was no excuse for letting something that big and clunky get the best of her and escape. And pleading distraction because of the pregnancy or the financial woes was no excuse. She had to get back on her game.
As Buffy passed back through the front hall on her way to the upstairs the breeze from her passing sent the tottering stack of mail sliding to the floor. She cursed as she knelt to pick up the scattered mail, which contained - bill, bill, bill, sweepstakes, bill, catalog and . what was this? From somewhere in the pile a plain white envelope had fallen and spilling from it in an untidy fan were various denominations of bills.
Buffy dropped the rest of the mail and dove for the money. Stacked altogether it was a thick wad that totaled almost five hundred dollars. Her heart was beating in her throat as she picked up the envelope and examined it back and front. There was no writing of any kind. She scrabbled through the rest of the pile looking for a note that might have fallen out. Nothing.
Hands shaking, she picked up the bills again, sat back on her heels and began to count the bounty from her anonymous benefactor.
To be continued..