Title: The Sacrifices

Author: mispel

E-mail: Willow and Dawn escape. Anya tries to influence Buffy.

Spoilers: Early season 7

Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing

Feedback: Any comments would be welcome.

A/N: Takes place in early season 7, not long after Beneath You and Same Time, Same Place.

Previously: Spike made a wish and got buried in a cave in. Anya and Buffy barely escaped with the baby. Willow came to rescue Xander and Dawn.






The Sacrifices

Chapter 18: Excavation




Xander moved the car closer to the hospital exit getting ready for a quick getaway. He waited in the car with the engine on, but Dawn and Willow didn't show up. From the parking lot things still looked quiet, but Xander expected a ton of police cars to pull up any second.

Watching the clock on the dashboard, he saw it had only been a few minutes of agonizing wait. He gave them another minute to show. When the time was up, he gave them another thirty seconds. Then he got ready to go back in and get them. His hand was on the door handle. Suddenly a face appeared in his window.

"Two heart attacks for the price of one," Xander gasped seeing that it was Willow again coming from a different exit and not the one Xander had been watching. She talked fast trying to sound casual and calling him Steve about a hundred times. Xander saw the same old woman Dawn had been harassing in the hospital slowly making her way to the car, her arm interlocked with Dawn's. Willow had a shopping bag in her hand, and she stowed it on the back seat.

"I get it Will. My name is Steve, and I will be your driver. And we've gone from possession of a kidnapped baby to kidnapping an old woman. Is that a step in the right direction? Do you have a dognapped chihuahua in that bag?" Xander said.

"No. But we wouldn't want to be ageist. Now shh. She isn't hard of hearing. But she did lose her glasses so she can't ID us," Willow whispered.

"Bonus!" Xander said feeling more welcoming and eager to get on their way.

Willow gave Mrs. Etcher Xander's fake, new name when they made introductions by the car. They drove off careful not to draw attention.




You couldn't even tell that there had been a hole there. There was a dip in the ground and some lose dirt. Buffy didn't know how long she stared at it. It was only when the kid she was holding shifted that she turned away.

The baby was warm in her arms. And filthy, probably hungry. Buffy didn't even want to know about her diaper. There were so many things the kid needed. The last thing she needed was to be stuck in the dark in the middle of nowhere. At least Buffy could hold her, reassure her. Or just plop her down on the cold, dirty ground.

Buffy didn't really want to set down the baby, but she couldn't dig while holding her. She chose a spot a little away from the unstable area. She took off her jacket and placed the baby on it gently while murmuring pleasant things to her.

"The icky demons guys are gone. We tore them up into tiny, little pieces. Tiny, icky, little pieces. Yes we did. Yes we did."

Buffy was done with the high pitched, yet reassuring, baby talk, and she was now measuring the hole with her eyes. Seeing her dirtgazing again, Anya must have guessed what she was up to.

"That stupid thing you are thinking of doing - maybe you shouldn't," Anya said looking from Buffy to where the hole had been.

"He's still alive down there," Buffy pointed out. "Well not alive. He is still undead."

Though he didn't need to breathe, Spike was too far down. Buffy didn't think he could dig himself out. He might stay there for years, pressed down by the weight of the rocks and dirt. Till someone decided to build a condo or hopefully a giant mall on the spot.

"We don't know that. Maybe a sharp rock chopped off his head. Either way, he won't be the same lovable, mentally unbalanced blood sucker you remember," Anya told her as she tried to brush dirt of her dress. Somewhere along the way Anya had put back her human face, and Buffy was glad. As Buffy waited for an explanation, Anya looked at Halfrek and then back to the ground where the hole once was.

"I saw him with the jewel. He didn't take it to accessorize, you know," Anya said and then she stopped. Like she expected Buffy to figure out the rest.

"I thought you stopped him," Buffy said irritated that she couldn't just leave, return the baby to her parents, and go to bed. It was still dark, but Buffy knew it was close to dawn. The eastern edge of the horizon was starting to glow a little.

"He made a wish. I didn't hear it. But from the way he was talking, I don't think you'll like what you find down there. If you find anything," Anya said leaving Buffy puzzled and annoyed.

Buffy jut shook her head. They would deal with what they find when they find it. Anya was like those newscasters who interrupt your regularly scheduled program already in progress just to speculate. Buffy was tired and she wanted to get this over with, see the rest of the episode and go to sleep.

"Lets find out! Lets solve this mystery, kids. Those with super-strength, raise your hands and help me dig," Buffy said with the shrill enthusiasm of a children's show host.

Buffy got down, but the others didn't join her as she started to shovel.




Xander watched as Willow got more and more relaxed as they drove away from the brightly lit parking lot of the hospital. Xander figured he could relax too, but it wasn't that easy for him. Maybe because he had the job of driving while implicated in kidnapping. He just wasn't cut out for a life of crime. Dawn hardly seemed phased. She chattered to the old lady and listened as the old lady chattered back as they made their getaway. It was almost enough to make Xander believe that nothing was wrong, except something with the old lady's legs that wouldn't let her sleep at night.

Once they got Mrs. Etcher home, Dawn stayed a few minutes to help her get settled in her apartment. Willow and Xander waited in the car. Small balconies studded one side of the building. A few windows still had lights in them, and they could see the flickering of TVs. It looked like the kind of place where old people with a little money in the bank go when their houses get too big for them, but before the nursing home.

"Help me out, oh smart one, should we be feeling guilty about this?" Xander wondered.

"I can't help you. Guilty is my default setting these days," Willow told him keeping her eye out for Dawn to come out from the neat, little apartment building. "My moral compass is out for repairs," she added.

"You still got a good moral compass on your shoulders," Xander said as he patted her head.

"The needle was spinning wildly just a few months ago," Willow reminded him.

"You were going through the Bermuda Triangle. Anyone's needle would be spinning," he told her, and they both got serious for a minute.

"So to guilt or not to guilt. We did help that lady, sort of. But we did it with impure motives. And I impersonated a Steve. Do I look like a Steve?"

"You do have the nose of a Steve. But you definitely have the eyebrows of a Xander," Willow said after looking at him.

"Add nosenapping to the list," Xander said as they saw Dawn approach.

"What's the gloom about guys?" Dawn asked as she hopped into the back seat.

"Moral quagmire. And I have someone else's nose," Xander told her as he started to drive away.

"I've been no help," Willow elaborated.

"You mean for using Mrs. Etcher and lying to her? And when I was at her place, I hid her spare pair of glasses so she couldn't see me. It's Ok, I gave them to her when I left," Dawn assured them when Willow gave her a horrified look.

Then Dawn continued, "Let's say that this sweet, old lady benefited from our need for subterfuge which was necessitated by a good deed of returning the baby in a way that put his parents mind at ease as soon as possible while keeping us out of jail." The adrenaline rush was making Dawn sound a little hyper and out of breath.

Dawn's verbal torrent reminded Xander to worry that Dawn was too good at this. Then it hit him.

"She's going to be a lawyer!" Xander exclaimed.

"Not our Dawny," Willow said in desperate denial.

"You keep kidnapping and aiding and abetting like this, and you're going to be glad to have a lawyer in the family," Dawn huffed and leaned back.

Xander kept an eye in the rear view mirror and reminded himself that, despite the need for sneaking and lying, they just did a good deed. No, two good deeds. The way things looked to the untrained eye tainted their heroics and made him feel like a getaway driver in a heist. But they didn't take anything, they returned. And there was going to be a phone call and then some seriously overjoyed parents.




It was still dark, but looking at Halfrek, Anya noticed how much cleaner she was. Halfrek had blood and dirt on her too, but she wasn't nearly as much of a mess as Anya. Anya was still shaking dirt out of her hair. Plus she had swallowed some topsoil and possibly bugs. Anya longed for a shower, and then another shower, and then maybe a nice long bath. It was Buffy's fault that she wasn't on her way home to scrub and then soak in a bubble bath.

Digging with characteristic inefficiency, Buffy wasn't making much progress. She stopped and went to the baby every time the kid made a noise. Anya estimated that at this rate it would take hours or maybe days.

"Her persistence would be admirable if it wasn't so pathetic," Halfrek had said condescendingly. The weird determination to help was something that Anya recognized from her human days. She vaguely remembered feeling it and was determined to leave it behind.

Buffy would be better off doing the same thing. Maybe she would get tired of being filthier than a pig, using her hands as shovels, the dirt getting stuffed under her manicure permanently, and give up. Anya knew that Buffy didn't like to listen but she still hoped to get through her thick, slayer skull.

"You don't even want him out here. You didn't know what to do with him. Well, problem solved," Anya pointed out.

Buffy stopped digging for a second but only to give an exasperated sigh.

"I know you don't realize this, but a soul is..." Buffy paused like she was trying to figure out how to explain a tricky concept to a child. When she had hit on the right thing, she continued, "a valuable thing. You don't just leave it buried like an old bone."

Buffy went back to digging. Anya knew when she was being condescended to. Materialism wasn't all she was about. She was also about vengeance. As for Spike's soul, she wasn't sure it was even an issue any more.

"That's if that high-priced soul is still even in there," Anya said but Buffy didn't react as she kept digging, widening the hole she was making. There was a pile of dirt next to her.

The sight reminded Anya of a child playing in the sand. She had seen them do that on the beach - pushing around wet sand only to have the ocean ruin everything. She always had the urge to go over and tell them that what they were doing was a stupid waste of time.

Anya and Halfrek stood a little away from where Buffy was kneeling. Wind was rustling their clothes. Predawn light was turning everything a dark gray.

"Oh please, valuable, my gorgeous ass. What is the big deal? Souls are a dime a dozen. Every fool with a heartbeat has one," Halfrek said and contemplated her nails. Anya knew they must be full of cave dirt and demon blood and skin. Still she was in better shape than Anya. It just wasn't fair.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Buffy told her without raising her eyes from her work except when she looked at the baby to make sure she was OK.

"A vengeance demon's soul, now that's something, not this piddling human version," Halfrek said with contempt as she waved her hand in Buffy's general direction.

"Sort of," Anya corrected under her breath. Halfrek gave her a stern look. Anya didn't meet her eyes. She had a human soul too recently not to know the difference. Once, she had valued her demon soul leaving her human soul behind like it was nothing. The second time, she felt its absence. She was so screwed up.




To be continued