CHAPTER 3
It was approaching sunset as Giles turned the bus into the parking lot of the Harwood Terrace hotel and found his way to the bus parking area. The others on the bus had spent the trip packing their newly purchased belongings into newly purchased luggage, and were now trudging them to the front exit. Buffy had bought an extra-long soft-sided roller suitcase and had the scythe tucked snugly inside it as she was the first one off the bus, with Dawn right behind. They'd never been to this new eight story hotel with its luxuriant garden at the front, but seeing both grandparents standing under the front awning gave both sisters a feeling of being home. Dawn broke into a trot toward Carl and Joan; Buffy tried to keep up but, between the roller suitcase and her still feeling the effects of her wounds, came up a couple of steps later. The two sisters exchanged a tight squeeze and a kiss with each grandparent as Willow, Xander, Andrew and the new Slayers followed from the bus with Giles bringing up the rear.
"Buffy, are you sure you're all right?" Joan indicated the bloodstains on her blouse. "That looks terrible!"
"Nothing that a long hot shower and a good night's sleep won't fix, Grandma," Buffy tried to reassure her. "The quick-healing Slayer thing. I've been through worse, believe me!"
Joan stroked Buffy's hair and then rested a hand on her cheek. "Yes, Sweetheart. But dying from jumping off a tower and being resurrected doesn't really count!"
The Kolchaks exchanged embraces with Willow and Xander, then a handshake with Andrew.
"Glad to see you, Giles!" Carl said as he gave him a firm handshake and a quick hug, then smiled as he turned to Joan. "I understand you two already know each other."
"Yes," Giles smiled warmly as he clasped her hand in both of his, recalling that the last time he'd seen her was at Joyce's funeral over two years earlier. "It's been a while. Good to see you again, Mrs. Wilson. Or is it Mrs. Kolchak now?"
"It always has been Mrs. Kolchak, deep down inside, but it's about time you started calling me Joan," she smiled back. "Rupert, all these years I thought you were this eccentric school librarian who had this overly excessive and unhealthy familiarity with my daughter and granddaughters. If only I'd known that you knew my husband and were in the same general line of work he was in!"
"Well," Giles replied, "if only I'd known who your husband really was..."
They all entered the lobby where Carl had already set things up with the front desk. One clerk gave Buffy and Dawn each an electronic key card to the Kolchaks' suite; it happened that the other two-bedroom suite on the eighth floor across the hall was vacant, and was given to Giles, Xander and Andrew. Willow and Kennedy were given a room a couple of doors down, and the remaining Slayers were paired up and given rooms on the seventh or eighth floors.
There was a sense of surrealism among the Sunnydale survivors, checking into this hotel with its chandeliered, hardwood paneled and mirrored lobby and hallways only hours after fighting a horde of Ubervamps to the death at the Hellmouth. Giles recalled the quote by Theodore Roosevelt about being in the Arena, marred with dust and sweat and blood; they all certainly qualified for that, but seemed rather out of place in such luxury and cleanliness. After the ride up the mirrored elevator, Buffy and Dawn followed their grandparents into their suite, their sense of surrealism and incongruousness continuing.
Joan opened the door to the unused bedroom and ushered her granddaughters in. "This is your room for now," she smiled as Buffy and Dawn plopped down their luggage. It was a large room with a king-sized bed, a picture window overlooking a nearby golf course, and a widescreen TV. "Oh!" Joan added, "Before I forget, your dad called at Aunt Polly's while we were there, asking if we knew whether the two of you were all right. She promised she'd have you call him back tomorrow."
"Good," Buffy said as she sat wearily on the edge of the bed and pulled off her boots. "Tonight's not a good time." She eyed the open door to the adjoining bathroom. "Right now all I want is a long hot bath."
"Me too," Dawn nodded, "but since I'm not the one who became a human shish-kebab, you can go first."
"Actually," their grandmother said, "each bedroom has its own bath. One of you can use ours."
Buffy took her time soaking in the tub and washing her hair. After toweling herself, she took some peroxide, Neosporin, bandage tape and gauze she'd purchased, and cleaned off, treated and bandaged the wound on her belly. It had stopped bleeding and no longer opened into her abdominal cavity, appearing to be an open but shallow cut. She opened the door and stuck her head into the bedroom to see the last sliver of red sun sinking below the horizon. Dawn was sitting on the bed, in one of the hotel's white bathrobes with her hair wrapped in a towel. She was watching the news on TV, which was still covering the Sunnydale earthquake almost exclusively and becoming repetitive.
"Good," Buffy said. "You're done. I need a hand with my back wound. Can't reach it." She handed Dawn the first aid medicines and bandage materials, then sat on the edge of the bed with her back to her and lowered the towel she'd wrapped herself in.
"Looks like it's down to a flesh wound," Dawn remarked as she wiped it with peroxide. "Better watch what you eat the next few days though. You know, soft foods, just in case your guts aren't completely healed."
"I... I don't have much of an appetite anyway."
Dawn squeezed some Neosporin onto the wound and bandaged it. "We've come a long way from the old days. You know, when you used to hide your wounds from Mom and me."
"Yeah, we have, Dawnie," Buffy smiled nostalgically and sniffled. "That one time with Riley, after I got stabbed by my own stake and you told Mom the alcohol smell was from your nail polish. That was a big turning point in our relationship."
"I remember."
There was a knock on the door. "Girls," Joan called out, "Grandpa and I were able to reserve one of the banquet rooms so everyone can eat in private. We can go downstairs for dinner as soon as you're ready."
"Thanks, Grandma," the sisters chorused.
The Sunnydale entourage had gathered in the eighth floor hallway and took the elevators down together. Like Buffy and Dawn, they had dressed simply and casually from their newly purchased wardrobes, mostly wearing T-shirts, jeans or shorts, and flip-flops or sneakers. Even Giles was wearing a golf shirt, khakis and deck shoes.
The restaurant had a buffet offering that evening, and Carl had already paid for everyone's meals. As the entourage entered the private banquet room, everyone noticed that Vi, Kennedy and a couple of the other new Slayers were carrying their swords, axes or crossbows into the room and placing them by their seats before going back into the main dining room for the food.
"What's with the weapons?" Dawn asked Vi.
"Just being a little superstitious," she smiled. "No offense to your grandpa, but some of us remember the last time he treated all of us to a fancy buffet dinner."
Dawn smiled back. That was the night after they'd gotten back the DNA test results that confirmed that she and Buffy actually were the granddaughters of Carl Kolchak. There had been a big celebration, interrupted first by the arrival of Grandma and Aunt Polly after Grandma had called, and Andrew answered the phone and let it slip that Carl Kolchak had shown up and entered their lives. The celebration was interrupted again when over a dozen of the Bringers of the First Evil burst into the house and a donnybrook of a fight ensued. They'd come to kidnap Carl and his descendants- Buffy, Dawn and Aunt Polly- to try to open a second Hellmouth seal in a cave several feet below the Seal of Danzalthar that they had started to open with Carl's blood before he'd managed to escape, over thirty years earlier. The Bringers had succeeded in dragging away a terrified Aunt Polly, but Dawn let herself also get kidnapped in order to rescue her. She'd managed to kill four of the Bringers in the cave, allowing Aunt Polly to escape before Dawn got slashed in the abdomen herself. Then in a million to one fluke of being both the Interdimensional Key and the granddaughter of the person whose blood they had last used to try to open the seal, Dawn bled on top of the seal and ended up making it disappear; as Giles pointed out later, keys can lock up as well as unlock portals.
There were several large round tables in the banquet room, but as the entourage members returned from the buffet with their plates, they immediately polarized into two groups, with the new Slayers segregating themselves and sitting at one table while the Scooby Gang and the Kolchaks sat at the next table. The segregation had been completely spontaneous and voluntary; Willow had actually set aside a seat next to her for Kennedy at the Scooby table, but after a second of eye contact, Kennedy sat with the other Slayers. Willow was neither surprised nor seriously hurt by this.
The polarization wasn't one of "leadership vs rank-and-file", or even "the old folks vs the young folks" although Dawn and Kennedy were the only age overlap of the two groups. As the new Slayers sat down, they became much more excited and chatty, with Kennedy and Vi the most vocal. It had been hours now, but they were still wired over their new powers, their exhilaration at having gone into the Hellmouth, actually slaying several Ubervamps on their own turf and then coming out alive. The exhilaration actually overshadowed the loss of so many of their friends and peers, and it was that aspect in particular which was beginning to bother Giles at the other table. He stood and cleared his throat loudly, but the chatter persisted. He rapped a fork against his water goblet repeatedly with increasing loudness to no effect.
"Ladies!" he called out sharply, and finally got their silence. He glanced over to Buffy and Xander, who were sitting next to each other between Dawn and Willow, then continued, "Shall we have a moment of silence, and prayer if you so choose, in memory of those friends whom we lost today?"
The others at his table linked hands, Dawn holding hands with Carl, who held Joan's. Giles took Joan's other hand and grasped that of Andrew, who then reached across two empty chairs- even though one had originally been intended as Kennedy's, they now suddenly served a deeper symbolic purpose- and held Willow's hand, completing the circle. There was audible sniffling from most of the others at that table, most loudly from the two sisters and from Xander. There were also some sniffles from the Slayers at the other table, but they weren't as conspicuous.
"Thank you," Giles said after several seconds. The Slayer table was slightly more subdued, but the girls picked up where they were interrupted in their conversation.
The Scooby table ate in almost total silence, with Xander and Buffy actually eating very little. Buffy confined her meal to a cup of soup and small portions of Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes, heeding Dawn's advice about being careful about her gut wounds.
Although she too was feeling the loss of Spike and Anya and the other Slayers, Dawn found herself with a somewhat better appetite than her sister and the other Scoobies. She guiltily began to wonder why. Her relationship with Anya had always had its frictions, but they had been part of each others' lives since Anya became involved with Xander. Her relationship with Spike had cooled off after she learned that he'd tried to rape Buffy, to the extent that Dawn had threatened to set him on fire while he slept if he ever tried it again. But Spike had, for most of the time they'd known each other, and especially between Buffy's death and resurrection, been her protector, and toward the end she had begun to see the more than superficial changes in him as Buffy had. She'd lived in close quarters, at times sharing her bedroom, with all the Potentials who hadn't come out of the Hellmouth with Buffy and the other survivors; Amanda had been a casual friend and classmate before her discovery as a Potential, and was particularly close. Dawn wondered whether all the losses she'd suffered her young life- Dad moving out, moving from LA to Sunnydale, Mom dying, Buffy dying (albeit then getting resurrected by Willow), then Tara dying, then her friend Cassie- had desensitized her to loss. But she also recognized that a part of her was feeling the same exhilaration that the girls at the other table did. Not that she wanted to go over and join them. She knew she belonged at this table with Buffy and their extended family, and besides, she knew the other Slayers might not welcome her.
The other Slayers! Dawn smiled to herself. They don't know! She glanced to either side of her and found it fitting that she was sitting between Buffy and Grandpa. It's still just the three of us who know! We've managed to keep the secret all this time! Then she thought, Of course, with all that business with Xander and the chloroform, Buffy seemed to be pretending she didn't know.
The dinner had broken up fairly early and everyone returned upstairs, but few went to bed right away. Most of the Slayers were still wired and, even though they now finally had semiprivate sleeping arrangements after months crammed up at the Summers home or Xander's apartment, most of them congregated in Vi's room and continued to talk and blow off steam into the night.
Buffy found herself sitting with Xander and Willow on the living room couch in her family's suite. They sat quietly for a long time. Dawn returned to the suite with Carl and Joan; she was about to join her sister when she realized that this was a very private moment between Buffy and her two closest friends- a wake really- that even she would be an intrusion on. Dawn instead sat with Carl and Joan in their bedroom; she and Carl began reminiscing about Spike, Carl telling his wife and granddaughter all the details he could remember about his 1970 encounter with William the Bloody and Drusilla over the course of five days and nights during Mardi Gras week in New Orleans, when he and the two vamps traded positions between hunter and hunted. After Joan commented that Carl's description hardly matched the aloof but roguishly charming fellow she had known only briefly, but who was obviously a loving protector to both her granddaughters, Dawn in turn shared everything with her grandparents from her perspective about Spike's transformation from the same sadistic killer but still worthy opponent Carl had fought to a draw, through to his world-saving self-sacrifice that very morning.
When Dawn left her grandparents' bedroom, Buffy, Xander and Willow were laughing softly over a memory of one of Anya's many social gaffes, and she still felt uncomfortable with the idea of joining them. She gave them a quick "Good night, guys," and went to Buffy's and her bedroom.
But Dawn had trouble falling asleep, and was still more or less awake when Buffy came in over an hour later and started changing into her nightclothes without turning on the light.
"Buffy, you okay?"
"I guess. I'm exhausted, but still pretty wound up."
"Me too."
For as far back as they could remember, Buffy and Dawn had almost always guarded their personal spaces against each other, but there were also times when they chose to sleep in the same bed for mutual consolation and comfort, or to reaffirm their sisterly bond: they both slept with their mother for the first several nights after their father left them, and they slept together, among other occasions, after Dawn's aborted attempt at a resurrection spell after their mother died, and then when Buffy finally snapped out of her months-long depression after her own resurrection. So even though there was plenty of room in the king-sized bed, when Buffy got in, they automatically clung to each other.
"I miss him, Dawnie!" Buffy whispered brokenly.
"Me too," Dawn whispered back as she stroked her sister's hair.
"It took me all that time to admit to myself that I loved him, and to finally tell him, and now he's gone!"
"You told him that you loved him?" Dawn sniffled. "At least you had a chance to. I never did."
"But he told me he didn't believe me." Buffy sobbed. "I said 'I love you' to him and he said, 'No you don't, but thanks for saying it.'"
"He knew, Buffy. He knew you loved him. Maybe he knew the end was near, so he tried to convince you you didn't, just to spare you from the grief."
"It didn't work. It only makes it hurt more!... And I think you may be the only one who understands that, Dawn. Willow and Xander were never close to Spike, never really saw the good in him. They don't feel the loss... That was Anya's wake we were holding out in the living room, not Spike's."
"But at least you got to tell him you loved him. I never did. I think he died thinking I hated him."
"No. Maybe he was a little scared of you, but he knew you didn't hate him."
Dawn let out a short, muffled giggle of disbelief. "Spike was scared of me?"
"Something you said to him that night the first time he came to the house, after he got back from Africa. After he got his soul back."
"Oh," Dawn nodded to herself, remembering that she had threatened to set him on fire if he ever hurt Buffy again. "That was before we learned he got his soul back."
"Anyway, he loved you, Dawn. In a lot of ways, I envied you for what the two of you had between you. He and I may have been sleeping together, and we did love each other in our own strange, twisted ways, but what he felt for you was pure. I have no doubt about that."
"Buffy, in all my sixteen years, this is the first time I can remember you ever saying you envied anything about me!"
"I do, Dawnie," Buffy sobbed. "I still envy you for that. I really do!"
They clung tighter to each other, and then Dawn started rocking Buffy in her arms and softly humming Early One Morning. Yes, it was the song that The First had used to trigger Spike, but they also know that it was his favorite childhood song, the song his doting mother had used to comfort him. The two sisters then drifted off to sleep stroking each other's hair.
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