REPRECUSSIONS
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the new ones that I created.
Author's Note: This takes place right after Buffy saves Kennedy, Faith, and the other potentials with the scythe, however in this Molly didn't die in that fight in the vineyard but instead is in the hospital and Angel and his gang will show up in Sunnydale, although the reunion won't necessarily be a happy one.
CHAPTER 1-THE FIRST RIPPLES
"So that's what Caleb was trying to keep from you eh...," Spike asked with a look of reverence on his face as he stared at the scythe in Buffy's hands. Although it was only a weapon it seemed to be alive, humming softly to itself. Buffy appeared not to be able to hear it but Spike could, but only if he listened carefully.
"Yeah…," Buffy replied with a tired yawn as she sat down beside Spike, directly in the line of fire for the warm rays of sun that filtered in through the window. After saving Faith and the potential slayers that had followed her down into the tunnels only to be ambushed by first a bomb and then the ubervamps Buffy had quickly returned to the house that she and Spike had spent the night together in. She knew that someone had been there as when she left the front door had been shut and it she had found it standing wide open. At first she thought Spike had left, but then as per the norm he had appeared behind her, almost as if from thin air, with a relieved smile on her face. The two had made their way back to the bedroom before trying to decompress and take stock of what had happened since they saw each other last.
"Red and the others wankers were here earlier looking for you, I hid in the attic until they left," Spike added with what he hoped was little or no emotion to the tone of his voice as he tried to hide his feelings.
"They're probably just worried about me Spike, Giles probably sent them," Buffy said with a somber tone of voice as she let her head drop a bit before leaning into Spike, glad that she had someone to confide in.
"They didn't appear to worried when Andrew and I came back last night…scheming behind your back to take what's rightfully yours…this is all their fault you know…yeah…they put all of this pressure on you, ole Rupert probably even said that they'd all like to help but in the end it's all up to you, but then when things get rough they…," Spike growled softly at first before his emotions got the better of him and the level of anger in his voice began to steadily rise.
"They thought that they were doing the right thing…for everyone, maybe they were right," Buffy interjected with a sad and self pitying frown on her face as she laid her head on Spike's shoulder and breathed deeply the scent of leather and tobacco.
"I thought that we cleared all of that up last night pet…they were wrong and you proved it," Spike shot back with a tepid scowl on his face as he turned his head down to look at Buffy.
"Maybe…but what are we supposed to do now, I don't feel like going back…they probably gave Faith my room and Dawn's room is already all booked up," Buffy mumbled back sadly as she tilted her head and soon locked gazes with Spike.
"So then we don't go back…ever, they wanted you gone Buffy…so you went," Spike whispered back in an almost harsh whisper before Buffy frowned up at him.
"Great plan Spike, but tell me something, if we don't go back where are we supposed to go," Buffy asked with a sarcastic smile on her face, never thinking that Spike was being deathly serious about leaving.
"Who cares…hey how about this, I'll sneak back into your house tonight and get some clothes and by morning Sunnyhell will only be a bad memory, they want to fight the First their way…then I say let them, there's plenty for us to do elsewhere," Spike declared with a devilish smile on his face and a lustful look in his eyes that Buffy found hard to resist. While he had been gone that summer she had found it easy to hate him. What he had tried to do to her was unforgivable, but no matter how hard she tried to keep her hatred for him alive it always fell apart when her memory fell upon the way she had treated him. That day that she had found him in the school basement, almost completely out of his mind being barely able to recognize her, all of the feelings that she had been keeping bottle up inside of her burst out with unrelenting force. She had never let anyone know but after she had saved Dawn and got back home she had locked herself in her room, burrowed under the covers, and cried herself to sleep. After several weeks of knowing that he was back she had told herself that she had all of her emotions under control, but like everything else in her life she was proven wrong. The night that he had shown up in the living room doorway offering to help had changed everything. She had sensed that there was something different about him from the moment that he had shown up, but for most of the night she hadn't been able to put her finger on it. Anya had seen it at the Bronze, causing Spike to wig out and try to force her to stay quiet.
When she had found him at the old church she had been ready for anything, even ready to dust the one person that had helped her feel again after being rudely ripped out of heaven. When he had finally gotten around to filling her in enough for the ultimate secret to be revealed to her she found that all of the anger and hate that she had garnered towards him disappear in an instant. The space in her soul that it had taken up was soon swallowed up by other emotions, causing her to want to drop the stake that was in her hands and fall to her knees with body wracking sobs. But instead she had stayed in her place, transfixed like one of the stone angel's in the cemeteries that she patrolled every night. When he had finished and draped himself over the cross she used what little strength that she thought that she had to get him back to the school basement, trying to keep from puking at the smell of burnt flesh, her eyes overflowing with tears. Xander and Dawn had been waiting for her at home, giving her odd looks as she staggered through the door, eyes a dark crimson from crying. But she had only remembered the looks on their faces days later, for when she had passed through the doorway her body was on autopilot as her heart, mind, and soul were running in overdrive in their desperate attempt to take in the new revelation.
Like before she had locked herself in her room and burrowed under the covers before letting another torrent of tears escape, not caring if anyone heard. Dawn and Xander had stayed outside of her room for almost an hour, softly beseeching her to tell them what had happened. But she had stayed silent in her own realm of misery at all that had happened. When she had finally summoned up the courage to tell them about Spike's soul neither had blinked an eye, acting as if the voluntary acquiring of a soul by a vampire, let alone Spike, was normal. Buffy remembered that she had to ferociously fight back the urge to strangle them both for their apparent apathy to the situation. The next few weeks had gone along oddly enough until she had discovered that Spike had been feeding again, albeit firmly out of his control and against his will. That night as they talked, with him chained up to the wall in her basement, she had tried to explain her maze of feelings for him. But they had been interrupted by the bringers and by the end of the attack he was gone.
All at once her resolve and strength had evaporated into thin air. Complicated even more by Giles' untimely arrival with news of the council's destruction and three apprentice slayers, with one almost instantly reminding her of what she guessed that Spike had been like as a human. Soon the more bossy of the three potential slayers was dead and she had barely survived her latest encounter with the ubervamp. No matter to what lengths she tried to go to placate herself she found herself wanting nothing more than to be wrapped up in Spike's arm, lying her head on his chest and listening as he showered her with one type of reassurance after another. But he was God only knew where.
The night that she found him it took all of her resolve to keep from crying out like a terrified child at the sight of him, chained up to the wall looking like a choice cut of meat. The sparkle in his eyes, that she had loved so much, had been dashed away, replaced by a fear that scared her to the bone to see. When his first shackle had been cut and he had used her to balance himself the love and thanksgiving that she had seen in his healthy eye had turned her hardened heart into mush. Had she not had to help him limp out of the cave and somehow get him back to her house she would have made a futile attempt to express her feelings towards him. In any event the words had not come and the pair had stayed silent until arriving back at her house.
And so he had spent a time chained up to the wall, lying on an old cot, while not helping her train the potential slayers. When the chip had first started to misfire she had felt as helpless as she had when her mother had developed cancer and later died from it. For a time it seemed that no matter what she did she couldn't help him. Her only comfort was that when she was near he seemed to calm down a bit, if only until the chip would misfire again and his screams would chill her to the bone. When given the choice of whether to remove the chip or simply repair it had come up it had truly been no decision at all, she had used the excuse that in the coming battle she would need him without being handicapped by the chip, however another reason had snuck into the back of her head. That she had wanted the chip removed so as he had said that she could have a little monster in her man. Her man, that thought still stumped her as she tried to wade through the sea of feelings that she had for her former mortal enemy turned lover.
She had tried to go out on a what she thought was a normal date with a normal guy. But all that had changed the second that she had found out who Robin Wood's mother was. She had been trying to make the best of the situation and was actually beginning to enjoy herself, something that she hadn't done in a long time, when her azure eyed confidant had interrupted her dinner with dire news. On the way to the school she had stumbled through an explanation of her relationship to Spike, topped off by the questioning look that he had cast her way, one that she had chosen to ignore. The fight to free Xander had been easy enough, no end of the world threat, but her heart had skipped a full beat when Spike had been knocked to the floor and looked to be about ready to pass out. After the demon had been beheaded she had rushed to the side of the vampire that had attempted to rape her, with a soft hand on his cheek and worried look in her eye, rather than to the side of one of her oldest and dearest friends. Robin had taken note of that act but said nothing until much later, the night that he and Giles had conspired to reduce Spike to a pile of dust.
That night she had thought it odd for Giles to drag her out to a cemetery to debate philosophical points while fighting a vampire that was nowhere near her caliber. Throughout that fight she had been wracking her brain in a desperate attempt to try to figure out what the point of the whole matter was. As Giles had begun talking about how Angel had been much smarter by leaving rather than cause her any more pain but Spike had been persistent and obstinate, staying even if he wasn't wanted. But that had been part of how he had screwed up. Because to Buffy, Spike was wanted, and always had been ever since her nightmares and anger towards him had subsided, finally being clinched by her discovery of his soul and how he had changed as a result of it. She had felt almost ready to pass out as she pushed herself to get to Wood's house before the unthinkable happened. Her heart was almost seizing as she saw a bloodied and battered Spike slowly step out of the garage and slip his duster back on. His answer to her blank stare had made her hold her breath for a few seconds before adding on to Spike's ultimatum to Wood. Later that night Giles had tried to act guiltless and imply that what he and Wood had tried to do was right and for the best. She had fully relished the look of utter astonishment on his face when she had shut the door on him.
Had she had time to look back at it she would have admitted that she had been pushing the girls too hard. But after all they were facing an apocalypse and didn't have time to be petty about it and worry about people's feelings any more than was absolutely necessary. But to say that she had not been surprised when everyone in the house turned on her, her own literal flesh and blood included, would be the understatement of the decade if not the century. Even hours, a good battle, and a good restful sleep in the arms of her only friend at the moment later she still couldn't wrap her head around what had transpired. Two questions kept coming up again and again in her mind, how and why. How could they do such a thing after everything that she had done for them, not only taking them from being the shadows and stepped upon in the hallways and classrooms to being the almost popular kids in school but dying for them, twice. Much of her heartache over the years had been indirectly caused, or amplified, by those that she now was no longer certain that she could consider friends.
But true to his word he had been there for her. When he had appeared in the doorway of the house that she had commandeered she thought that he was perhaps only an illusion of her tortured mind. Even when he had spoken up she still did not want to believe that it was actually him only to have him rudely taken away as only being in her mind. But then through his words, and the fact that she had felt his touch, she knew that he was real. That fact had uncorked all of her feelings of pain, sorrow, frustration, and fear that she had been storing up for quite some time. She had given him the proverbial mike and asked him to tear her up, something that he had done as only he could. By the end she could not think of getting through the night without his strong and supportive arms around her. Her voice had faltered as she made the request but her heart had leapt with joy when he had lain down on the bed beside her and pulled her close. She had written the note hastily, not even close to being sure of what to say but trying anyway.
Saving Faith and Kennedy and the others had been her duty as the slayer. But at the moment when Spike had offered to take her away from all of the troubles of Sunnydale she felt the number of reasons to decline and stay beginning to disappear faster than her trust in her friends.
"You know what…on second thought…let's do it, let's get out of here, they wanted Faith to lead them…fine, Faith's in charge now, after she recovers they can fight the First, I'm done with this town," Buffy said softly and with a nervous frown on her face at first before her tone became more and more filled with resolve and almost total relief as she continued.
"Me to…meet me at my crypt at ten and we'll kiss ole Sunnydale goodbye…," Spike said with an elated grin on his face as the sparkle seemed to have returned to Buffy's eyes.
* * * * * *
He squinted at the few stray spires of sunlight that came near him. He had taken one of the new cars that Wolfram and Hart had given him, complete with the special glass in the windshield and doors allowing him to be able to drive towards his destination in the middle of the day, rather than having to wait until nightfall. Lilah had given him the amulet and file on the first only a day earlier and he had initially wanted to rush to Sunnydale to see Buffy and lend her his aid. But Lilah had been persistent about getting everything set up and so he had been forced to wait an agonizing twenty four hours before he had been able to slip out. He had heard, via some of his informants, that there was something big and bad going down in Sunnydale and as he pressed the accelerator down even further he only hoped that he wasn't to late.
* * * * * *
Willow and Xander had been about to go back out in search of Buffy when Kennedy had nearly kicked the front door off of its hinges in an attempt to get help for Faith and the others. The house had gone into full panic mode, with Xander ushering all of the potentials downstairs to do more training while Giles carried Faith upstairs and laid her in Buffy's bed. After making sure that Kennedy was alright Willow had rushed to Faith's side to give what aid she could to her new leader. In the back of her mind she could still hear the mumblings of one of the potentials that had guessed that they were being punished for turning against Buffy. She silently prayed that was not the case but a gnawing in the pit of her stomach had started to make her think otherwise. Finally once everyone had gotten settled and the wounded taken care of, an act that took the entire day as Faith and a couple of the wounded potentials needed round the clock aid, Giles had asked Willow to do another locator spell to try to find Buffy. Willow had started to do the spell as the stars became visible in the night sky. Giles and Xander had been talking in the living room about what their next move should be when a tearful and frightened Willow slowly walked back into the room.
"Willow…what's wrong," Giles asked with a very worried frown on his face as he quickly rose to his feet and wrapped a steadying arm around the shaking redhead.
"I…I did the spell but…," Willow babbled out softly before a flood of salty tears cut her off.
"But what Will…," Xander asked as he scooted over on the couch so as to let a still shaking Willow sit down beside him.
"They're gone…I did the spell and they're gone…both of them, Spike and Buffy are no longer in Sunnydale…," Willow managed to get out before her tears overtook her and she collapsed into Xander, burying her face into his chest.
AUTHOR'S NOTE 2: Wesley and the A.I. gang will show up next chapter as Wesley travels to good old Sunnydale…and wackiness ensues.
END OF CHAPTER 1