Note #1: Since the age difference between Spike and Cole is quite small, I'm gonna clear some things up before we proceed, just in case anyone is confused. Spike was sired (i.e, became a vampire) in 1880, and Cole was born in 1885.
Note #2: The final episode of "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" was aired in Brazil last week, and even though I loved most things about that episode (don't worry, no spoilers!) there were a couple of things that made me really, and I mean really angry. So, I just wanted to tell the BtVS viewers that I'm adding a little "scenes of the next episode" chapter at the end of this story with my own version of the season finale.
Phoebe raised her eyes from the notepad on which she had been writing and looked at the people gathered in the attic. Piper was sitting on a rocking chair, watching Spike's every move as the vampire wandered about the room, and Leo was standing behind her, with his hands on her shoulders, talking to Xander. Cole was leaning on an old desk, chatting with Anya, and Dawn was standing next to them, prattling and making funny faces to Ben. Buffy was standing on the center of the pentagram that Paige had drawn on the floor, and Willow was watching with great interest and asking questions as Paige lit the last of the five candles that surrounded the Slayer.
"I'm ready," Phoebe announced.
"So am I," Paige said, standing up and walking towards her.
"Where are the sunglasses?" Leo asked as Piper stood up and joined her sisters.
"Actually," Phoebe said, "we decided to use a different spell. We don't really know what we're looking for, except that we'll be trying to sort out different patterns of magic. It may be something that you or Willow can recognize; not to mention the experience that Cole, Anya and Spike have with dark magic."
"So, which spell did you use?" Leo asked.
"I started out with the one to cause the seen to be unseen," Phoebe said, "but I've made a few adjustments, since this time it's gonna be the other way around."
With Piper standing at her left and Paige at her right, Phoebe held the piece of paper containing the spell so that the three girls could read together:
"May the magic
that hides now stand out and gleam,
as we cause the unseen to be seen."
Everyone looked at Buffy, who shifted her weight from one foot to the other, unsure. Then, a soft glowing light started to emanate from her, an intricate pattern of black and white that showed clearly the mixed nature of the Slayer's powers. Beneath the braided pattern of light and darkness, though, the essential righteousness of Buffy's soul shone bright enough to dissipate any doubts one might have about where her heart stood. Soon the light became so bright that it hurt the eyes, and Cole gently took Ben from Dawn's arms, holding the toddler firmly against himself as Ben buried his face on his chest to protect his eyes from the light.
Because Cole's attention had left Buffy for a moment, his eyes fell on Spike, who was right across the room, and for a moment Cole was so stunned that he actually forgot all about magic as he saw the look on the vampire's face, a look he could recognize very well, because he had been in that very same place about three years ago.
When Phoebe asked him how long he had been loving her before the day when his true identity had been revealed to her, Cole truthfully told her that he didn't know: between the day when he had first saw her and that night in the cemetery, he had changed more than he would have thought any creature could change, but most of that change had happened while he was either unaware of it or in denial. Still, if he had to point a benchmark moment, it'd been the day when Phoebe, Piper and Prue were sent back in time to the day their ancestor Melinda Warren was born. Even though the girls had arrived there without their powers, they still had managed to rescue Melinda's mother from the house where she was kept captive, but, since she was already in labor, they hadn't gone far with the bad guys on their heels. Cole was one of the bad guys then, and he witnessed as Phoebe connected with the ancient, elemental powers, and flew up in the sky, riding a broom and impersonating the archetypal wicked witch, spreading fear among their persecutors and scaring them away while baby Melinda was born in safety. As for Cole, he had just stood there just like Spike stood now, spellbound, looking at the woman who was his greatest foe, whose mission in life was to slay his kind, and all he could think was "God, she's so beautiful!..."
"What's that on her chest?" -- Piper's voice cut off Cole's musings, and he turned his attention back to Buffy.
"What's what?" Buffy said, looking down at herself.
She gasped when she saw a bright red spot right between her breasts.
"I think we've found something," Phoebe said, frowning.
"You'll bet," Buffy said, gingerly pulling a silver chain from underneath her blouse and revealing the small pendant that hung from it. The pendant was surrounded by a cloud of red light, and there was something ominous about that light: it made Leo think of his nightmare of the war, the cries of the hurt soldiers echoing in his ears; Paige thought of the fire in the car accident that had killed her parents; Piper shuddered with thoughts of miscarriage and stillborn children; Spike remembered his first kill.
"Is it evil?" Dawn asked, looking slightly nauseous.
"Worse than that," Cole said, huskily, as he held Ben tighter. "It's accursed."
"Buffy, step out of the circle," Piper said.
She tried, to no avail, to take her eyes off the pendant, feeling very lightheaded; she blindly reached out for Leo's arm, and even though her fingers barely grazed his elbow, it was enough to break his own trance, and Leo turned to her with a start, all thoughts about the war flying out of his mind as he saw her pale face.
"Piper!..." he called anxiously, taking a step towards her.
When Leo put himself between her and Buffy, Piper took a deep breath, starting to feel better as the pendant was out of sight.
"I'm fine," she said, whilst burying herself in his embrace. "But we need to get rid of that thing."
"I..." Buffy started to say, but then a gust of wind coming though the open window made one of the candles sway and fall, hitting her leg.
Dawn shrieked in panic as the candle touched Buffy's leg and the very inflammable fabric of her pants caught fire, and Cole quickly motioned his hand towards the fire, commanding:
"Off."
The flames burnt out right away and Leo turned to Buffy, whilst keeping his arms wrapped protectively around Piper:
"Are you hurt?"
"No," Buffy said, shaking her head. "Thank you," she said to Cole.
She stepped out of the circle, feeling much better now that the spell was broken and the pendant was just a small piece of silver on the palm of her hand again.
"You're welcome," Cole said. Noticing that Ben was waving his hand towards the remaining candles with great enthusiasm, Cole chuckled and extinguished their flames with a swift wave of his hand.
"And that's how it's done," he said to Ben, smiling at the puzzled look on the toddler's face. "You'll understand when you're older."
"Is Ben a witch, too?" Willow asked.
"It runs in the family," Cole said. "But his powers haven't developed yet."
"And if I have a say in that," Phoebe said, smirking as she walked across the room towards her husband and her son, "they won't develop anywhere in the near future."
She took Ben from Cole's arms and kissed the toddler.
"No magic for you, little one," she said. "Not yet."
"No no," Ben mindfully said, shaking his head. Not now. Maybe after dinner; he'd do better magic with his tummy full.
"It should only start when he's three or four," Cole explained to Willow. "In my family, there's been a few cases of children whose powers started to develop at the age of two, but it's very uncommon."
"He'll be controlling fire at the age of four?" Buffy said, raising an alarmed eyebrow.
"More like ten or eleven," Cole said, while he helped Paige pick up the candles from the floor. "There will be gap of two or three years between each element, and fire should be the last one."
"Buffy, where did you get this pendant?" Paige asked, putting the candles back in the drawer they had come from.
"I bought it," Buffy said, giving the pendant a suspicious look, "about one week ago. No wonder it was so cheap!" she muttered, shaking her head.
"Where did you buy it?" Willow asked.
"At 'Girls & Girls'. That little store that's two houses away from the Magic Box," Buffy said.
"I thought they had closed," Dawn said.
"Nearly," Anya said. "There was a small fire one month ago, and then someone broke in one week later and stole a lot of stuff, and some vandal threw a rock through the front window... But lately things have started to work out for them again..."
"Because they got rid of the pendant and passed their bad luck away," Xander finished, pointing at the pendant that Buffy was now holding as far from her body as the length of her arm allowed her.
"I feel so stupid," Buffy sighed.
"There was no way you could have known," Piper said, gently.
"So, what now?" Paige said. "We can't just throw out the pendant, or someone else will find it."
"I say we destroy it," Phoebe said.
"Yes, but how?" Buffy asked. "How do you destroy such a small piece of silver?"
"Piper, do you think you can explode it?" Phoebe asked.
"I don't know," Piper said, giving the pendant a critical look. "Buffy, put it on the floor, will you? I'll see what I can do."
As Buffy placed the pendant on the floor and quickly backed away from it, Piper raised her hands and motioned them towards the pendant. There was a loud explosion, but it didn't affect the pendant, which just laid still on the floor.
"Ideas, anyone?" Piper said, giving the pendant an annoyed look.
"Do you think it's protecting itself?" Paige said.
"Maybe," Phoebe said, scratching her head.
"Maybe we could just keep it in a safe place," Xander offered, "where no one would find it."
"I don't think that would solve Buffy's problem," Phoebe said, shaking her head. "She'd still own the pendant, after all."
"What if it has to do with wearing the pendant, not owning it?" Willow offered.
"I wasn't wearing it when the ATM ate my credit card, nor when I almost got hit by the bus on Sunday," Buffy said, shaking her head.
"Also, I borrowed it on Saturday and nothing happened to me," Dawn added.
"You know," Buffy said, frowning at her sister, "it's only called 'borrowing' if you ask first."
"You borrow my stuff without asking, too!" Dawn protested.
"Yes," Piper said lightheartedly, "because that's what sisters do. Come on, we're done here: let's go back downstairs and discuss it over dinner."
"In the meantime," Paige said, "why don't we take turns 'owning' the pendant? I'm sure Buffy could use a break."
"Good idea," Phoebe said. "As long as anyone who's pregnant" -- she eyed Piper -- "or already has a curse of his own" -- she elbowed Cole lightly -- "is out of the deal."
"Works for me," Buffy said, picking the pendant from the floor. "So," she said, smirking as she showed the pendant around, "who'd like some bad luck?"
"I'll take it," Spike suddenly said, walking towards her. Ignoring the surprise on the others' faces, he held out his hand and, after a brief hesitation, Buffy placed the pendant on it.
"That's it?" Paige said, skeptically. "Isn't this the same as when Dawn borrowed it?"
"I think it's all in the intention," Piper said.
Spike hung the chain around his neck and slid the pendant into his shirt. As he took one step back, he stepped on a loose board, lost his balance and fell backwards, hitting a coat hanger, that fell on top of him, along with all the bags, scarves and hats that were hanging on it.
"Either that or we have a very clumsy vampire here," Phoebe added, giggling.
As things turned out, they didn't mention the curses during dinner, and talked about several other subjects instead. Willow had a lot of questions for Leo, Anya was worried about her upcoming wedding and wanted to know how Phoebe and Piper had dealt with the supernatural factor in theirs, Xander and Leo exchanged experiences on post-battle house restoration, and Cole caught Anya up with Sarsour's whereabouts. Between that and Piper's Caprese Pasta Salad, it was quite a pleasant dinner, and dessert found everyone in a very good mood.
"So," Phoebe said to Anya while she poured more chantilly on top of her fruit salad, "how did you and Xander meet?"
"Work," Anya said. "Xander's girlfriend wanted revenge on him."
"What about you and Cole?" Xander quickly asked Phoebe, clearly unwilling to talk about his ex and the reasons why she wanted revenge on him.
"Work, too," Phoebe said, shrugging. "Cole was sent to kill my sisters and me."
"So," Buffy said, looking at Phoebe and Cole with renewed interest, "Cole was still a demon when the two of you got together?"
"Yep," Cole said, nodding.
"But he was already good," Phoebe quickly added.
"The bad guy / good girl thing seems to have worked out pretty well for the two of you," Buffy said, somewhat melancholically, watching as Phoebe and Cole smiled at each other.
"Yes, it did," Phoebe said softly, while Cole brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.
"Maybe," Spike said, sourly, "because the bad guy had the guts to stick around."
The look Buffy gave him was a mix of hurt and anger, and despite the nonchalant look on his face Spike flinched slightly.
"Shut up, Spike," Xander said sharply.
"I..." Spike started to say, frowning.
"Just. Shut up."
Piper turned to Anya, in an attempt to break the awkward silence and change the subject:
"So, did your friend manage to find out Liusaidh's sigil?"
"Yes," Anya said, taking a piece of paper from the pocket of her jacket and giving it to Piper. It contained runic symbols like the ones Cole had written to try and summon Anya and, after taking a quick look at it, Piper handed it to Cole across the table.
"So," Phoebe said, while Cole folded the piece of paper and put it in his own pocket, "what exactly should we expect? What are the powers of a vengeance demon?"
"To grant vengeance wishes," Anya said. Phoebe raised an eyebrow and she explained: "The powers of a vengeance demon will expand in order to meet the task she's been assigned. If you wish that someone was an insect, the vengeance demon will have the power to turn people into insects; if you wish that someone was eaten by wolves, the vengeance demon will have the power to summon a pack of hungry wolves..."
"If one wishes someone was sent straight to hell...?" Cole asked, not so sure whether he wanted to hear the answer.
"Then you've got a really powerful vengeance demon to deal with," Anya said. "What on earth did you do?" she asked him, grimacing.
"What about our powers?" Paige asked, before Cole could answer. "Can she fight our powers?"
"If Phoebe's father specifically wished for that, yes," Anya said, nodding.
"He wished Leo couldn't help me," Cole said, and Phoebe drew a sharp intake of breath.
"Well, I was able to freeze her before," Piper said. "If dad didn't mention my powers, it's unlikely that he would've mentioned Phoebe's, or Paige's."
"Right," Anya said, "but once she is here, everything you do to try and stop her from getting Cole, she'll develop a new power to fight it."
"So, I won't be able to freeze her?"
"I don't know about that," Anya admitted, "because I had never seen a power like yours. But I know she can develop the power to deflect an energy ball that is sent towards her, or to break through a force field that's between her and her victim, or..."
"How can we defeat her, then?" Paige asked, slightly impatient.
"By being one step ahead of her," Phoebe said. "She will only develop the power to fight us once she knows what powers she'll be fighting. We have to take her by surprise and destroy the power center before she has time to counter attack."
"Then I say Piper freezes her," Paige said, "and I call for the necklace."
"What do you mean, call for the necklace?" Willow asked.
"I mean this," Paige said, pointing at Willow's napkin. "Napkin," she called, and Ben clapped his hands in delight as the napkin orbed to her waiting hand.
Paige blew her nephew a kiss and handed the napkin back to Willow, but frowned when Anya shook her head.
"No," Anya said.
"What do you mean, no?"
"I mean, no, it won't work," Anya said. "The link between a vengeance demon and her power center is magical, it can't be broken with magic. Not even by a Charmed One."
"Are you sure?" Paige asked. "Has it ever been tried?"
"Not that I know," Anya admitted. "But you should try to get the necklace by non-magical ways."
"It won't hurt to try magic," Paige insisted.
"Probably not," Anya said, looking slightly annoyed. "But it won't work, either."
"If it doesn't, we're gonna need a distraction," Phoebe said.
"That shouldn't be hard to provide," Buffy said. "I mean, with the eleven of us, I..."
"Eleven?" Phoebe said, raising her eyebrows.
"Buffy," Piper gently said, "we weren't exactly planning on having you guys around when we did that."
"Why not?" Buffy said, surprised.
"For starters," Phoebe said, "you already have your own curse to worry about."
"It's Spike's curse, now," Buffy pointed out.
"Besides," Paige said, "we're supposed to protect the innocents, not drag them into our problems."
"Call it professional courtesy," Buffy said. "You help me with my curse, I help you with yours."
"Buffy, thanks, but we can handle that," Cole said. "And it'll be easier if we don't have to worry about your safety."
"I won't stand in the way, if that's what you're implying," Buffy said, looking offended.
"I'm not..." Cole started to say. He got sight of Spike's half smile and said, frowning: "What's so funny?"
"You have no idea what kind of hornet's nest you have stuck your hand into," the vampire said with an amused grin.
"I'll tell you what," Buffy said to Cole. "Let's arm wrestle over this."
"What!" Cole exclaimed, astounded.
"Let's arm wrestle," Buffy calmly said. "You and me. If you win, we'll wait at the hotel until you call and say it's safe for us to come over. If I win, I'll help you get the vengeance demon."
"Buffy," Cole said, not so sure whether to be shocked or amused, "I am not gonna arm wrestle with you."
"Why not?" she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"Because..." Because you're a girl! he almost said, but held his tongue just in time. "Because I'm not!" he exclaimed, frustrated. "Buffy, this is nonsense; I know that you're the Slayer, but arm wrestling isn't about prowess or speed: it's about brute strength."
"Are you afraid?" Buffy asked with a soft smile, and a shocked silence fell over the room, as Cole's eyes grew as wide as saucers.
"What?" he asked.
"I said," she repeated softly, "are you afraid, big guy?"
Cole looked at the girl smiling at him across the table, while his family looked from him to Buffy, stunned, and the Slayer's friends tried to hide their amusement.
"Let's wrestle," he said in a low voice, and Buffy grinned.
She stood up and went sit at the corner of the table, next to him. The awkwardness of the situation was evident as both she and Cole took position, their elbows resting on the table, and her hand could only touch his wrist. Paige promptly stood up and left the room, coming back a few seconds later with a heavy dictionary that she placed on the table next to Cole's arm, so that Buffy could rest her elbow on it.
"Anya, would you do the honors?" Cole asked.
"Sure," Anya said, promptly standing up.
As Cole closed his hand around Buffy's, Anya placed her own hand over his and said:
"Ready. Set. Go!"
Anya took her hand off Cole's, and the muscles of the arms of both Cole and Buffy tensed as each one started to try and force the other's arm down towards the table. Despite what he had said about brute strength, Cole knew the importance of never underestimating an opponent: he only had to think of his mother to know how much strength could hide behind a pretty face, and that sometimes an opponent with half your size could use your own strength against you if you let your guard down. At first, he simply kept his arm still, just making enough pressure to hold Buffy off; then he slowly started to increase the pressure, intending to pin her arm without hurting her. But he wasn't at all prepared for the Slayer's sheer strength, and when her arm didn't move an inch he frowned in confusion. The look on Cole's face quickly went from surprise to astonishment and, as Buffy decided that she had given him enough time already and started to wrestle for real, it turned into a mix of shock and disbelief as she began to slowly yet inexorably push his arm down towards the table.
When Cole's hand finally touched the table, Buffy let go of his hand and leaned back on her chair, a small grin on her lips as she stared at him. Without a word, she wiped the sweat off her forehead and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear.
The heavy silence was finally broken by Leo, who shot Cole an incredulous glare, saying:
"You lost to a girl!"
The look of betrayal on Leo's face was so evident that the girls didn't even bother to take offense on his outburst: he and Cole had arm wrestled before and the Whitelighter had lost, which meant that, when Cole lost to Buffy, so did Leo.
"For all that matters," Xander said, with a sheepish shrug, "you were not the first one."
Spike snorted and Buffy raised a mocking eyebrow towards him, saying:
"Save it, Spike; you didn't even last as long as Cole did!"
The vampire huffed, annoyed, but didn't reply, and Buffy turned to Piper, saying with a smile:
"So, what time tomorrow?"