Xander woke up to water dribbling on his face. "What the hell? Is there a leak in the roof?" But when he got his eyes open he saw a pitcher, and a Spike with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Fuck off death breath."
"A tow truck's here. They're repossessing your car. I'd take care of it for you but the driver's human and then there's the sun." Spike laughed as Xander threw on a pair of boxers and rushed out in time to see the back end of his car round the corner.
When Xander realized it as a lost cause, he headed back inside, flipping off a laughing Spike on his way. "Do we have cereal?"
"Supplies are low, and without Willow, we've got to make what Giles has left stretch. Get to work and pray they haven't fired you if you want to eat." Spike smirked as he picked a kitten out of the bin. "Given the wood you were sporting, I assume you're missing your bird."
"That's gross." Xander flopped into a chair at the kitchen table. "Dawn hates when you feed that way. I miss Anya more than I'd miss my penis if it fell off, but if that happened she'd mercy kill me, so. And again eating kittens is gross."
Spike pet the kitten, and baby talked his reply to Xander to it. "And how do you expect me to eat? The hospital barely has enough blood for the patients, I can't kill anyone, and with no butchers around anymore what do you expect? But we have plenty of stray cats and dogs." With a smile at Xander's exaggerated disgust, Spike made sure he was looking when he sunk his fangs into the fur ball.
Xander shut his eyes and covered his ears with a funny look of disgust on his face as the kitten mewled to its last breath. "How can you kill pets?"
Bagging the body for the trash, Spike licked his teeth clean. "Don't name them and they're not pets."
"I don't think I'm hungry anymore." Xander got up and dragged his feet out of the kitchen.
"So you going to work then?" Spike asked as he followed him.
"You know there's been no construction in town for nearly two months. The site's two towns over and I can't get there on foot." Xander groaned as he stumbled up the stairs when he realized Spike was still on his heels. "Don't you and Willow need to start Dawn's lessons for the day?"
"That'd be difficult since Dawn only fell asleep an hour ago and I believe I mentioned Willow won't be round anymore."
"Why not?" Xander asked as he climbed back into bed, tossing the wet pillow away then folding the other in half.
"Buffy found out the truth, and Willow's a smart enough chit to keep her distance." Spike's tone was so casual it took a moment for the words to sink into Xander's brain.
When they did he bolted up. "Where's Buffy? Is she okay?"
"She's sleeping. Let her. Ta now." Spike whistled as he waltzed out of Xander's room.
"I fucking hate that monster." Xander fell back on the bed, but couldn't get back to sleep after that bomb. "I hope things calm down so I can dust the bastard myself." He pulled the flask out from under the mattress when his hands shook and chugged it until he felt even again.
Something felt wrong. Buffy's spidey senses were tingling. When she found Spike sleeping on the couch, she thought it might just be her vampire radar, but that wasn't the case.
Dawn ran through the house and stopped short of the kitchen when she saw her sister. "Buffy?"
"Shh, there's something in the house." Buffy glared at Dawn when she laughed.
"That's impossible. I put up an alarm last night. Tara and Willow used the same spell when Glory was after me. If there was a threat there'd be this high pitch screeching noise and flashing lights." Dawn walked into the kitchen, noticed the bagged kitten in the garbage, and threw a towel over it before taking a breath and looking for something to eat. She hoped for something other than crackers again. "Please tell me Willow went shopping."
"I hope she did, too." Buffy opened cupboards in the search of sustenance. Then she hit pay dirt. The entire kitchen pantry overflowed with food. "Head's up!" She tossed Dawn a box of cereal, happy to see her sister had milk to go with it.
They found the bowls and spoons without trouble and munched on cereal with sugar as the first ingredient.
When Buffy heard the basement door shut, she swallowed the food in her mouth, signaled for Dawn to be quiet, only to be told, "It's probably Willow getting her stuff. She's still got three major projects for work to get done. She can't leave her computer here and get fired, now can she?"
"Shh!" Buffy crept out of the kitchen and glimpsed red hair as it streaked through the yard just outside the window. With a sigh she returned to the kitchen.
"Willow?" Dawn asked through a mouthful of cereal.
"How'd you know?"
"Because everyone's here, and the alarm would have sounded if there was a threat. Willow's never been a threat ergo it had to be her."
Buffy straightened when she realized something Dawn said before they even got to the kitchen. "What do you mean you did the alarm spell? You don't do magic."
"Willow and Tara have been teaching me the basics. Things to help keep me safe, but I've reached minnow stage. Got past the awkward guppy stage a few weeks ago."
"And you're using the old swimming levels to measure your skill level. Great. Now I have to fix Willow's mistakes. You can't do magic. It's too dangerous." Buffy sat at the table again but Dawn got up and threw her dish in the sink.
Dawn turned to Buffy with a mix of hurt and rage in her eyes. "You lost the right to tell me what to do when you jumped off the tower. You can't give orders when you haven't been here through the shit we've gone through the last four months." She left Buffy stunned silent in her wake.
"The girl's right."
Buffy turned to see Spike, hair tousled from sleep and scratching his neck. "And what could you possibly know about raising a teenage girl?"
"Since I've been doing just that for the last four months, I'd say quite a lot." He opened the bin with the kittens to find it empty. "You let my food go?"
"Ew. They were your food? What happened to the bags of pig's blood?"
He rolled his eyes before turning to look at her. "I may love you, but you're being willfully daft right now. Telling Dawn she can't protect herself and throwing away my food when you've seen the town. We've told you what happened. Enough that you should know that there aren't any butcher shops here anymore, and if Dawn can't protect herself, she's as good as dead."
Buffy followed him until he disappeared up the attic stairs. She'd wanted to yell at him and tell him to go to hell, but by the time they made it to the attic door, she realized he was right. And then thoughts of Willow broke her.
"You're kidding!" Anya couldn't contain herself when she heard the answer to their request. "That can't be worth what we went through. We killed eighteen demons, quelled a hurricane, and grounded a lightning bolt. There's no way you're sending us somewhere else. That's not how you work. You're supposed to have answers. Now cough 'em up buddy!"
"I don't have to answer with what the person thinks they want. I have to answer them with what they need. I do not have what you need. You must ask the demon that spawned the cubare. Find the tomb of Osiris and you will get the information you seek. But be warned that you might not get the answer you want." And Clay melted into the darkness.
"You've always been ass, Clay!" Anya shouted before looking at Tara. "Let's get our soggy selves out of here."
Tara winced with every step they squished out of the cave. "He won't come after us will he?"
"He can't. We passed the trials, we've earned safe passage. And considering we have to go to either England or New Zealand next, let's get a move on, and get me far away from the bastard before I kill him."
"Is there a way to find out which is better?"
"Only a guardian of the Well would know. And since they don't leave that position till they die, I don't think we stand a chance of finding out ahead of time." Anya wrung out her hair. "If this weren't so damn important I'd just go home. Every step of the way, we keep getting sent to things that mean more and more, and we need the answers or questions or whatever. There's nothing more serious than the Deeper Well and an Old One. I mean, they drilled a hole through the world. With hand tools! They needed to do that in to contain the Old Ones. They play with the world from their freaking tombs. I mean can't they die like the rest of us?"
"So New Zealand first? It is closer." Tara said as they returned to the suffocating heat of desert midday.
"They couldn't even drill a straight line. The Well had to be crooked so there'd be an entrance on both sides." Anya sucked in a lung-filling breath, held it for a ten count, and then released it. "Yes. New Zealand first."
Tara smiled when Anya used the technique she'd suggested to calm down, happy it appeared to work.