The sun hung low in the sky turning the floor of the vestibule into a kaleidoscope of color. Some higher power saw fit to spare this bored and aggravated chipped vampire. None of the stained glass windows had crosses in them, and not only were they pleasant but their coloring meant that he didn't have to worry about getting singed. He looked at the Glarghk Guhl Kashmas'nik, making sure it was still insensate. Willow had lured it here earlier and they beat it into unconsciousness. Nice little break in the monotony that was. While they used the chains from the thurible that got left behind to secure Uncle Fester, they wouldn't hold long. So Spike kept watch all day, beating the thing as needed, and sometimes just cause he was in the mood.
His ears perked at the sound of a conversation. "I love dusk. Looks like the sky became edible, like sherbet or something." Willow must have brought Dawn with her. "Are you sure Buffy and Xander will be okay? He looked really sick. His hangovers aren't getting any better. And Buffy, well, she looked sad."
"I needed you to make a smoke screen to get me out of there before they could ask any questions. I'd never be able to make them be okay with this." Willow sounded like she'd been dragged through gravel.
"At least Tara left a note and we know where her and Anya went. That quest thing, I mean maybe they can find a permanent solution." Dawn opened the church door just enough to get through, showing her second nature to avoid too much sun getting through. He supposed living with a vampire would do that .
The scent of her dessert cloyed the air. Dawn had a cone filled with orange and raspberry sherbet dripping over her fingers juxtaposed against fresh black eye makeup and hair twisted up to show she'd shaved the underneath again. Used a bladed razor this time. "Hey Nibblet. Welcome to the succubus club." He glowered at Willow, who just shrugged.
The two women looked like sisters of a sort. Willow braided her hair close on the sides, wore night colors, and swapped out the sixties floral motif for brushed steel sunglasses. They could easily pass for the same age, with Dawn looking too old for her own good and Willow having shed a couple years with her transformation.
Tossing the mushy cone into an old garbage can, Dawn scoped the church out. "How'd you manage here all day?"
"Learned a long time ago that patience worked better than burning to death. Been stuck worse places. What's Willow told you?"
"I covered the important parts." Willow stood over the demon, salivating at her need for a fresh meal.
Dawn wandered into the main part of the church not wanting to see this.
Striking faster than any vampire, Willow grabbed the demon by the throat, crushing its larynx with one hand as she used that pain to syphon its energy from it while blood oozed over her hand and absorbed into her skin. It gurgled as she took everything but the rags it had worn, not even a corpse left behind.
"That's never not going to be weird." She breathed hard for a moment as Spike watched Willow's glowing skin return to its earlier porcelain appearance as, he assumed, the energy transferred to Buffy. But Red hit the floor.
"You need a top off." Spike said wishing he hadn't quit smoking. Tara wouldn't budge on that though. If he was going to move in, he had to be smoke free. The witches didn't want Dawn's health to suffer the way her morality did. Morality could be turned around while lung damage couldn't. Still, his hand fidgeted and his lip twitched both begging for something to occupy them. He inhaled and groaned. Since the resurrection spell, Willow had been smelling more and more like Buffy. Every time she transferred energy to Buffy, Willow got a little trace of the Slayer in return. He knew that if he closed his eyes, Willow could slip into the role of Buffy for him if he took her. But he never wanted to take Buffy. He wanted Buffy to want him, to love him.
"Just take care of Dawn. Get her home. I have to pick up Giles from the hospital anyway. They only have room for the touch-and-go cases so they're kicking him out." Willow flashed a sardonic grin. "Make sure she steals nothing of consequence. And especially keep her away from anything with an engine." And then Willow was gone.
"Dawn!"
She popped her head back into the vestibule like she'd been waiting for the all clear. "Yeah?"
"I don't believe I've taught you how to drive a motorcycle yet." He could see her smile despite the gloom. The moon didn't shine this direction yet, but that didn't bother either of them.
"How dare you neglect your duties." Dawn wagged a finger at him as she passed him to leave the church.
They walked down the street, Dawn trying to lick the sticky off her knuckles to no success. "You should teach Willow too. She might have super strength and whatever, but she'll need more than that."
"You'll have to convince her more than me." Spike wrapped his trench around Dawn's shoulders when she shivered.
"Hey, there's one of those Hellion bikes over there. All abandoned and up for grabs." Dawn's smile turned mischievous. "It can't be stealing if the owner's dead, right?"
"You're a bad influence, Bit. A right dodgy bint aren't you?" Spike ruffled her hair, throwing it in complete disarray.
"You're helpless to resist any request I make." She tried to pick up the bike, denting it more as it smashed against the ground, taking her with it. Sprawled over the bike, she winced as her knees dug into ridged metal when pushing herself back to her feet. "Perhaps some weight training before riding one of these."
"Or we'll just start you on something lightweight. There's a crotch rocket store the Hellions turned their metaphorical noses up at. The window should still be busted out though, making it easy pickings. What do ya say? Wanna fly?" Spike strode past Dawn just slow enough to catch the twinkle in her eyes.
"Sounds prime! Let's go." She giggled as she skipped down the street. Dawn felt light as air. She got her sister back, and while some drama and tragedy went down, she knew everything would turn out perfect. Tara and Anya had the quest avenue covered and Willow just got a major power up, so they'd be fine. Everyone she loved would be fine. So she let that lightness buoy her up.
Giles sat in the lobby of Sunnydale General waiting for Willow to pick him up. He'd asked for Anya to drive but it seemed he'd missed out on a lot while laying in that hospital bed. Midnight came and went before someone finally showed up. He didn't recognize her. If she hadn't said something to him, he'd have never believed she was Willow. Her hair had slick finger waves pulled back into a chignon, round sunglasses pulled straight from the beatnik era, fuller lips, gray leather pants and a fringed but sheer spaghetti strap top. Her heels looked as deadly as the rest of her.
Long dormant senses made him feel her changed power source. No longer pulling her magic from the earth, but from somewhere a lot more dangerous. It felt demonic.
She stood in front of him, letting him inspect her in silence, but he had to know. "Willow, what happened to you?"
Her laugh vibrated through him. "It's a glamour! Thought we all needed to lighten up."
She wheeled him out of the hospital and when he could see her again, she looked like the Willow he'd known since she was little more than a child. While no longer wearing the garish sweaters of old, her shirt and pants were bright, and her face back to normal. The sunglasses, however, were still in place.
"How can you see anything?" He asked as she helped him into his car. The new car was a manual he'd gotten both because he'd killed the transmission of the red sporty car, and because he thought none of the kids knew how to drive one.
"No worries, Giles. Just a side effect of the spell." She put the chair in the trunk and then got behind the wheel, but before she could turn the ignition he took the keys from her.
"You're an idiotic girl. Do you have any idea what you've done? The forces you've harnessed, the lines you've crossed? What kind of sacrifices you will have to make?"
"I always knew what it would take. What I was doing. What it would cost. So step off your high horse. Sunnydale was drowning and Buffy's death didn't create a new Slayer this time, and Faith refused to let me break her out. What was I supposed to do?" Her venom stung him.
"This is the glamour isn't it, and not what I saw in the lobby?" He handed her the keys again.
"Brace yourself, Rupert, I signed on for the long haul. I won't go back." She sighed as she let the glamour drop. "Giles, I'm sorry. But I didn't know what else to do. There was a bigger than big chance Buffy'd been sent to hell. The Hellions were just the latest of large scale attacks, we couldn't get a hold of Angel, and no one was coming to help us. Things got desperate. I didn't know what else to do."
Giles rubbed his stump. "I don't know what any of us could have done. But you can't move into the new place with us. Buffy shouldn't have to carry the burden of knowing the cost, and we all know how Xander is about demons. We can't risk them finding out. At least not this suddenly."
When he handed her back the keys, she started the car and pulled away from the curb. "Knew that the sold sign meant you bought the place. Does Buffy know?"
"I'm trying to ease her into everything. A lot's changed. Xander's eviction got finalized the other day. Did he tell you?"
"No but it wasn't hard to guess." She slowed to a stop at the next intersection. "Am I taking you to the new place or Buffy's pit of rubble."
"Both. We'll pick up Buffy and Xand…" Giles stopped when he looked at her and her glasses. "You can't glamour away the eyes can you? And if we show up with you in sunglasses they'll…"
"Ask why I wear my sunglasses at night? It's a pickle that's for sure." She grabbed Giles's hand and squeezed it. "Things will be fine. They have to be. I couldn't have sacrificed this much to not get what we needed. So of course everything will work out."
"Take me to Buffy's. Then go to my new place and make sure it's ready for us tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
"I don't want to know why you're dressed that way do I?"
"Nope. But if it makes you feel better, I'm anti-comfy in this getup." She shrugged as she turned around the bend just before the Summers house.
"It does actually." When they came to a stop. Giles grabbed her hand, holding her in the car. "Don't lose everything about yourself. I don't think I could bare losing any of you. And you've always been so important to me. I may be Buffy's Watcher but I've been your mentor and I tried and will continue to help you with your magic as much as I can."
"How do you think I helped take down Glory? Giles you're my teacher. And I learned something when I figured out you killed Ben."
"A little too fast for my comfort."
"Deduction. But I understood something then. The mission sometimes means sacrificing ourselves so that the real heroes can do their job. You've been doing it for years. It was my turn." She saw movement in the living room window. "Let's get you into the fire hazard before Xander leaves for a drink."
"I don't know what to do with him." Giles sighed, Willow too far away to hear. Or so he thought.
"I don't either," she said as she unfolded the wheelchair next to his open door. Her glamour up again. "But at least Dawn and Spike made it home. They can help you out if you need it."
As if saying his name made him appear, Spike walked out the front door and swaggered up to them. "I think Red here needs to go before she's seen driving at night in sunglasses."
"Well, I'll go if you promise to take care of everyone, Yellow."
His nod solemn, Spike said, "You know what I'd do for Buffy."
"I do." She left Giles with Spike and drove off without a backward glance.
"Think she's prepared for what's ahead of her?" Giles asked Spike as they watched the car disappear.
"None of us is prepared for anything, Rupes. You know that." He stepped behind the wheelchair and got Giles into the house.
"This can't be right," Tara said as she stood in front of the drive-thru speaker imbedded in a giant smiling and waving fiberglass hamburger.
Anya sighed. "This is right. You should appreciate the tenacity some of these oracles have. There's been a statue of some kind here since the dawn of time, and they kept that up through the rise of the greasy fast food craze. I am a bit disturbed about the backwards evolution I keep seeing everywhere though. Do the thing."
Tara gulped and began the ritual to call on the Loa by setting a bowl of myrrh in front of the hamburger. "Mange sec Loa, alegba, accept this offering - and open the gates of truth"
The Hamburger statue grew five hundred percent and towered over the women, taking on a small amount of animation including some aggressive red glowing eyes. "How dare you call on the Loa!"
"I come i-i-n supplication, oh great one, begging for a solution." Tara did her best to keep her voice steady but lost some ground when steam billowed around them.
"The solution you seek will never be. The sacrifice is made and will burden all surrounding the cubare." The Loa Burger swayed with a malice that crept up Tara's spine while Anya just got annoyed.
"Beljoxa said you had answers."
The Loa got even bigger and loomed. "You have the answer. You need the question asked by every companion of a cubare. Find it in the caves of request. Now go and disturb the Loa no more." And the Loa was gone, leaving only a drive-thru speaker in a fiberglass humanoid hamburger.
Anya groaned and slapped her purse against the statue. "I hate oracles and quests. Beljoxa could have told us that if they weren't all just laughing at us."
"Um, Anya? Do you know what it meant?" Tara asked.
"We have to go to freaking Africa. Clay hates me! Never found out why." Anya sighed and took a deep breath as if steeling herself for battle. "This will take a lot of personal prep work on my part."
"We should probably go." Tara linked her arm through Anya's and guided her off. "We'll get to that prep work tomorrow. We should find a hotel and get some sleep."
"And you'll find my plight funny! But if you dare laugh at me, I swear I'll…"
"I wouldn't laugh at you, Anya. I just begged a hamburger, and you didn't make fun of m-me."
"Does this mean we're more than just Scooby girlfriends? That we're friends, real friends?" Anya asked.
"Yes, Anya, we're real friends."
The two women walked back to the car, smiling. The load not gone but lighter.