Hello again. I say that in confidence that no one starts reading a fiction at the 19th chapter. Speaking of chapters, "Of Blondes that Bite and Stab," by me has a new one up. Oh goodie. It involves a fun game of "Meet the Scourges." My scourges, anyway.
On with this fic.
~Star Mouse
@ @ @
"Anya?"
"Xander?"
"We're surrounded, aren't we?"
The blonde bride licked her lips, unusually grave. They were attracting more and more attention, as the only beings with pulses in the area.
"Yeah."
Xander nodded. It made sense. Live your life on the mouth of hell, get killed vacationing in Spain. Perfectly logical.
If you were him.
"I love you, Ahn."
"He aqui! Una cena," a voice called, to their left, "antes de que la viaje."
"¿Quién soís vosotros? ¿De dónde estáis vosotros?" The nearest vamp bared his teeth, and stalked closer, slightly hindered by what appeared to be a decade's worth of luggage strapped to his back.
Anya backed up a step, adjusting her hold on her purse.
"Nosotros somos de Estados Unidos," she replied shakily. "Somos los reciénes casados."
The Spanish vamp's eyebrows rose, somewhat mockingly.
"Ah! ¿Qué hubo?"
Anya smiled a little, despite the situation. "Es divertido, hasta ahí."
Xander's brow furrowed. The vamps were closing in, and she didn't appear to be pleading for their lives.
"Uh, Ahn? What are you doing?"
"Shh. Qué haces con nosotros?"
He smiled. "Matar y comer."
"¿A qué viene eso? A la postre..."
"¡Chitón!"
Anya went silent. Xander blinked. He looked at the vampire.
"Hey, what was that you said? 'Cause I've been trying to do that for about three years--"
*Foggggghooooooooooorn* *Foggggghoooooorn* "
"¡El buque esta lancha!"
There was suddenly a mad dash for the gangplank, with Anya grabbing Xander's hand and pulling him in the opposite direction. 'Their' vampire joined the hustle, shouting enthusiastically,
"Vamos a la Boca del Infierno!"
And just like that, the vampires were on the boat, and it was pulling out to sea.
Xander blinked at the speed with which everything had changed from a certain-death-situation to a what-the-hell-just-happened situation.
He turned to his bride, who was digging in her purse.
"What the hell just happened?"
"We need to make a call."
@ @ @
There was a sterile little garden adjoining the hospital, a testimony to the attempt of man to make nature hygienic. Scruffy little trees and brown grass, and tiny little flowers that didn't even count. It was composed of everything that no one was allergic to because their bodies couldn't be bothered about it. The stuff it wasn't worth being allergic to.
Willow and Birdie walked right by.
As the red~headed witch started up the Passat, Birdie got the nerve to speak.
"Was there, uh, anything else?" She fastened her seatbelt.
Willow avoided her gaze by studiously checking the window and rearview mirrors while backing out of the parking lot.
"Not really. Coma. Most of the big bones broken, all the bleeding inside." Swift wheel~turning onto the main road. "But, just to make it more fun, we have the added bonuses of Slayer healing and demons and things, to better confuse the nice people in the white coats. It's so hard. We-- we can't just tell them," She shook her head.
She waved a finger around, smiling at an imaginary physician.
"'Hey, that size zero blonde girl in intensive care? Yeah, give her about twice as much medication, otherwise it won't do any good. What? Yeah, I know it would usually kill a person of her weight, but you really should trust me on this. See, she's special. What? No, I don't have any medical training, but hey! I'm a witch, so it's okay!"
Birdie watched from the passenger seat. Her throat ached from tears.
"I'm scared too," she whispered.
Willow shook her head back and forth a few times, biting her upper lip. "Oh God--" she choked out, suddenly transforming from concerned technical to sobbing sentimental. "Oh --God--!" She threw her arms back and hit at the wheel.
The car swerved dangerously as Willow's vision and concentration evaporated. Birdie lunged forward and grabbed the wheel, guiding the car to the side of the road. She jerked the stick into park, breathed a careful sigh of relief, then let herself collapse into the crying witch.
And she was crying as well.
@ @ @
The Watcherette and the vampire, looking for all the world like Punks on Parade, stood side by side in the sterile hospital hallway, in front of the observation window into the Slayer's 'room'.
She lay there, on the electric~powered hospital bed, literally dead to the world. Her audience, however, knew that somewhere inside, deep deep inside, a battle was raging.
But they didn't know who was winning.
Marion spoke softly, still staring at the tiny young woman that, even in
her short time in Sunnydale, she had come to regard as toppleless.
There was something about the girl that made it impossible to imagine
her defeated. So fragile, but so totally untouchable.
Perhaps that was exactly what drove the forces of darkness to her.
"I don't see why you hate her so," she quietly addressed the vampire beside her.
Spike shook his head. "I don't," he replied. "She wanted this. It was a soddin' favor."
"That's not what I meant, Spike. This--" she gestured vaguely at the tiny form-- "This is quite possibly the sweetest thing I've seen you do for her."
The young Watcher swallowed, pulling back hospital tears.
"There's something deep running between you two. It's like a resined rope, binding you. Connecting you. I can't say what it is, but it acts like hate."
She tore her eyes from the stricken Slayer, and to the startlingly intelligent face of a demon.
"Why do you hate her?"
Spike met Marion's gaze, searched her eyes for anything. He looked back at Buffy, approached the wire~enforced glass of the window and brought a pale hand up to touch it.
"She killed me," he said simply. "She killed the thing I was, thing I knew how to be, destroyed me down to my very core, until nothing was left but ash. And she spit on the dust and ground it beneath her heel."
He shrugged. "And I can accept that. Not a major loss there. Except..." he swallowed. "...First, she made me human enough to feel it." He paused, to let this sink in, then swallowed and elaborated.
"She inspired that which she destroyed. She built me up, then tore me down more wholly than I would've thought possible. She made me feel human. And for that I can never forgive her.
She drew lines in the sand and threw me across them. She inspired me to do evil after making me a better person than I'd been in a hundred years."
Marion stared, aghast, at the wounds visible on Spike's face. She looked back at the catatonic young woman through the window glass.
"I. I can't see that. I can't see Buffy doing that to anyone."
Spike let his fingers slide down the glass. They didn't leave oil streaks, of course. He too stared at Buffy, but Marion didn't see any hate in him. None directed at the Slayer, anyway.
"She didn't know," he whispered. "Even as she ripped me to bloody pieces, she truly didn't know it hurt."
Marion swallowed again. "And that's why you won't forgive her?"
Spike shook his head and turned away from the glass, down the hospital corridor.
"No," he said quietly. "That's why I don't hate her."
@ @ @
Noon.
For some, a siesta.
*Brinngibeep* *Bringibeep*
Giles leaned over to answer the phone. "H-hello?"
"Giles! Vampires! Lots and lots of vampires!"
The Watcher-cum-bartender furrowed his brow. "Vampires?
"Vampires! Lots and lots of vampires! They nearly ate us!"
Giles shook his head into the phone. "But it's the midday."
There was a pause. "What?"
The unidentified, hysterical voice was calmed down by confusion enough so that he could recognize it.
"Anya?"
"Yes!"
"Vampires."
"Yes!"
"Are you and Xander unhurt?"
"Basically. They were going to eat us, but the boat left."
...
"How late is it there?"
"About nine."
"Ah. That would explain it. Ah, Anya, could you give the phone to Xander?"
There was muffled talking and rustling, then, "Yello?"
"Xander."
"Giles."
...
British sigh. "Vampires?" he prompted.
"Yeah. Lots and--"
"--lots of vampires. I got that already. Where?"
"Spain. You know, like us? Except not anymore."
"Oh?" Giles stood, and carried the cradle to the kitchen counter, so that he could reach the Scotch. It sounded like he was going to need it, to keep up with this conversation. "Why not anymore? Did you kill them?"
"Nah. Anya talked to them. Scared em so bad they all hopped a boat to Boca."
Giles took the cap off a bottle one~handed. "Boca? They went to 'Mouth?'"
There was more muffled talking.
"Sorry. The whole thing went down en español. I got confused. Ahn says they were yelling 'Boca del Infierno.'"
"Boca del-- The Mouth of Hell?"
...
"Oh. Crap."
@ @ @
"...and us down a Slayer."
"Indeed."
Willow watched the Watchers, a bit red~eyed, but all the better for a good long cry. At least something was happening for her to deal with, now. Distractions had gotten her through some of the hardest trials of her life. Yup. Something bad happens, it's a guarentee there's something coming along right behind it. It was good to see that something stayed constant.
"I-I don't understand. Why would they come here?"
Giles whipped off his glasses. "Well, the tentative walls of reality here do draw the forces of darkness. It can be a rather powerful pull, I'm told."
"Yeah, but why right now? Why would they all get up and leave like that? All sudden~like?"
Marion turned to Giles. "Perhaps they heard that the Slayer was fallen?"
Giles waved a dismissive hand. "There's no way they could have heard so quickly. And there's nothing to be gained for them in that. There is no Slayer in Spain. To my knowledge," he added wearily.
Willow did the worry~face. "I'm worried." She wrung her hands until she realized her ...uh, something person... was watching. Hands: tuck firmly into her lap. Don't wiggle.
"It's... From what I've heard, it sounds like they're massing for something. Getting all in one place."
Giles stopped rubbing his spectacles. "To catch the show."
Marion's eyes darted to Willow's. "Or to get in on it."
@ @ @
After some aimless wandering and constructive weeping with Willow, Birdie had ended up back at the hospital. She had stood at the doors for a long time.
She'd had to move twice to avoid wheelchairs and small children.
In there... Well, one of the best friends she had ever had was in there. Which was pretty sad, considering they really didn't know each other all that well.
But also in there was her. It could have been her. Someday it probably would be. Giles and Marion both had made a point of being frank about that.
Slayers don't get old and wither. They don't get cancer at the age of sixty~eight, fight it for a year and a half, then slip quietly away, pain eased by strong medication, surrounded by sniffling family and friends, with their veiny, arthritic hand held by their second husband.
Live fast, die young.
That's the deal.
Except you don't get a choice.
Buffy had mentioned something, under her breath, about Slayer death~wishes. Birdie had pretended she hadn't heard, as people do when they don't want to cause tension or sound like an idiot.
But she had thought about it. And there was one thing she was sure of:
She didn't have a death wish. She didn't want to die. She'd been too close too many times for it to hold any appeal at all as a painkiller.
But she would die. And it would probably hurt a lot. She would probably want death when it came.
She just hoped it wouldn't come too soon.
She just hoped she'd get to save the world first.
She looked up at the hospital, and turned her back on it.
She needed to go home.
@ @ @
Dawn was taking it remarkably well, everyone thought. Most people, if their sister was in a coma, would be distraught. Dawn was just quiet. A bit teary, perhaps, but all in all, a bit lacking in the spaz and freak department.
She, in particular, seemed to lack guilt. Just being in on the casting was the kind of thing that tended to send Scoobies into fits of self~loathing. But she didn't appear to be having a fit. The other members of the little troupe regarded this behavior with slight suspicion, but couldn't really find any rationale to encourage grief. They all had enough already.
But what the other Scoobies couldn't see was the epiphany. The lingering sparkle of a flash realization that had just possibly sent little Dawn into the realm of the nice white jackets with buckles on.
They had missed the birth of a strength.
When Dawn had first been told, but a stuttering, fatherly Giles, that Buffy had, once again, taken one for the team, her first instinct was to shoot the messenger and cry all her fear out.
But just before the first tears fell, it had been like the living room ceiling had opened, and light had shined down, and she'd felt bathed in it and it had crystallized her, but made her so much more than glass.
And she had no longer wanted to cry.
She had wanted payback.
But even as she manically searched the stock of the Magic Box for relevant texts, she knew it wasn't the Witchy Willow kind of payback. It didn't feel good enough. It felt like she was heartbroken and lost, but not without a map. Like she was finally doing something right for someone else. For her sister, who had died for her, she would research, and she would find, and she would plan, and she would die, if she really really had to, because favors should be returned.
And in her studies, she found a slim volume, forgotten, in a little drawer beside the cash register. She opened it and frowned. It was all Latin~y.
It really put a crimp in save~age plans when you couldn't even read half the texts.
She flipped through, hoping for pictures, and stopped to admire the little illustrations on a page near the middle. Looked like planetary alignments, or something. Interesting.
The bell dinged. She set the book down on the counter with the rest and turned to greet the customer.
"Hello, woah."
"I know, I know. Point me at the mugwort."
Dawn pointed silently, eyes glued to the man. He trundled off in the direction she had pointed, and scanned a shelf until he found what he was looking for.
"Ah!" He popped the cork and dumped the stuff over his head.
"Pico tanna," he said, and waited a moment.
Dawn overcame her stupor and giggled. "Feel better?"
The man looked down at his arms, turning them over and touching his face.
"Less blue. Yeah." He stretched his neck out, like skin color had made him tense.
Well, the skin color he'd been sporting probably had.
"Don't you hate it when spells go wrong?" he asked, placing the empty bottle on the counter for her to ring up.
Dawn ran a hand through her hair.
"Yeah."
@ @ @
In the sewers...
Spike stalked. Just because he could. Oh, and also, he'd just hospitalized the woman he didn't love.
And the sewers were crowded.
Probably some kinky blood festival coming up, or something. He was sort of out of the loop on that. Local vamps coming out of the woodwork, raising the dead with their poncy chanting and such.
Distracted, he bumped into one of the other denizens of below.
"Sod off," he muttered, out of habit.
"Shokken."
Spike stopped and knit his brow. "What the hell--" he turned back around. "Oi! What's a soddin' Netherlander doing in California?" he called at the vamp's retreating back. He was ignored.
With a 'today is today, why fight it' sigh, he turned back around, into yet another vamp.
"Forsiktig, hurtig."
@ @ @@ @@@
Hmm. Interesting. Why are all the vamps heading for Sunnydale? We wonder...
Well, I mean you wonder --hopefully-- and I know --mostly.
Review. It rocks my world, and it doesn't hurt you any.
You'll get a warm fuzzy feeling inside, I bet.
You'll have to try it out if you want to prove me wrong.
Oh, just do it.
~Star Mouse