Chapter One Hundred and Seventeen

Inferno: Nine Levels of Hell

A/N So, I have gone back to the structure that I had for S7, i.e. 22 episodes, some more important episodes having 3-4 chapters, and then some others having only 1. You can see what episode it is, but looking at the chapter titles drop down menu (or sidebar if you're using the app.)

San Francisco, the world without shrimp - February 2005

Silence. Just nothing. That was unusual, nay it was unheard of. Yet there it was. The hustle and bustle of the streets had dimmed to a barely noticeable white noise in the background. Buffy took an uneasy step, the placement of her heel had never been louder. A shiver of wind rippled over the grass, mud streaked the path in sloppy limping footsteps. There had clearly been a visit from the undead already tonight. Buffy scanned her surroundings a little more carefully, straining her eyes to see past the overgrown edges of the cemetery's perimeter. There were a pare of pale blue eyes staring at her through the leaves. "Buffy? Wait for me."

The slayer jumped, her knees clenching as she landed back on the path with her feet facing forwards. Dawn was standing behind her. "You have got to stop doing that!" she said, "you can't just creep up on me when I'm in the middle of patrolling ok, or one day I might accidently kill you or something." Dawn held her hands up in mock surrender and rolled her eyes. Buffy could be overly melodramatic when she was in slayer mood, though recently she'd been a bit less bitchy and a bit more big sisterly. Ever since Spike bad moved back, she hadn't liked him hanging around with Angel too much. Dawn knew this, she also remembered what'd happened when Buffy and Angel broke up, she knew how much it angered her when she found out Angel was charging people for saving them.

"Spike you can come out now," Buffy called to the thin air, two legs slowly appearing from behind the hedging. The vampire strolled towards the girls slowly, his black duster flaring out behind him. He bared his teeth in faux anger and then leaned in for a kiss. Buffy pushed him off, smirking at him as he pouted like a lost puppy.

"What you doing out here little bit?" He asked Dawn to try and distract himself from the cruel rejection Buffy had just given him.

"Buffy said I could come patrolling as part of my watcher training." Dawn replied politely, trying to edge around Buffy's actual words and give Spike a reason to stick up for her, when they eventually argued about this.

"No, I did not!" Came Buffy's justified reply. "I said you could come out only if and I repeat ONLY IF Giles was with us. And do you see Giles? Is he here? No." She exploded, waving her arms around and gesturing at Spike to back her up. To which the only response he gave was to drop his bottom lip out and tilt his head to the side in mock sympathy.

"I'm with Dawnie on this one Buff," he said, "she's not a little kid anymore." Dawn beamed, clinging to Spike's arm like he was Santa Claus. Buffy scowled, folding her arms she gave the two of them the death stare.

"Are you serious?" She directed at her boyfriend. "Dawn, you can stay with Spike, but we will talk about this later." Buffy continued, turning her back on the two of them and continuing down the path.

"You know, I'm eighteen Buffy! I don't have to listen to you." Dawn called after her, Spike looked at her sympathetically before following after the slayer. He approached her slowly, falling in step with her, boy could the slayer walk fast when she wanted to, not that he could get out breath.

"Buffy hold up," he said, tapping her shoulder, "Buffy?!" She finally turned around, her stake in hand, angry look on her face. "What is going on, you've been on patrol with her before? Give her a break will you?" He asks, his face crinkling as he tilted his chin downwards at her.

Buffy took a step forward, whispering to him, "I'm trying to keep her safe, ever since my birthday, I can't let her anywhere near harm. I can't go through it again Spike, not after everything." He enveloped her in a hug, pulling her into his chest, his soul warming the spot where he head lay.

"Guys, what are you doing? Can I stay or...?" Dawn called from a little ways down the path.

The look on Dawn's face the next day as she approached Leo, told him everything he needed to know about the kind of day they were going to have. He counted internally to five before he watched Dawn's mouth and a long string of connected words spilled out of her mouth and into his face. "I just can't believe her," and "I'm eighteen!" were the snippets of phrases he caught from her ramble. Taking her by the hand, Leo pulled her over to the wall and they sat down, he handed her sandwich and a cup of coffee, a smile and sympathetic head tilt. He was getting quite used to these Dawn ramblings, and he'd practiced how to deal with them.

"Thank you," Dawn eventually said, a little bit of her current annoyance towards Buffy disappearing as she graciously excepted a kiss from her boyfriend, and a bite of the sandwich he'd brought her. "Spike stood up for me though," she said through a bit of chicken salad, "he used to do that when I was younger, when he was you know, in love with Buffy the first time. To be honest I don't think he ever stopped." She hadn't told him what happened on Buffy's birthday, he wouldn't get it, it was a Hellmouth thing, it was a Sunnydale thing.

"Yes, I know." Leo tried to reply politely, but the edge of bitterness started to creep in as he sipped his own coffee and attempted to be supportive. This was the third time this week they'd had the same conversation.

"Oh my god, Leo I'm sorry, I'm ranting again. I don't think I'm ever gonna stop doing that. Are you ok?" Dawn realised, gripping Leo's fingers tightly. She smiled and took a bite of her sandwich.

"Dawnie, there is something I wanted to tell you. My mother called," he paused, letting the words sink in. Leo's mother wasn't the biggest fan of Dawn, something she'd made abundantly clear in her phone calls and an extremely awkward dinner with her the last time she'd been sent out on covert operations. Eve Silvera was a big deal in the Watcher's Council, she flew out everywhere in the world for two nights at most, her little red suitcase following her behind wherever she went. Dawn thought she was creepy, it was her snide remarks, the way she didn't trust her or Buffy. For a watcher it was weird that she didn't trust a slayer, she thought their little gang was too independent. She was traditional, she still thought that slayers should work alone despite there being hundreds of them.

"Oh," Dawn said, tipping her head down and sipping her coffee.

"She wants me to go back to London, she doesn't want me working at the CA department anymore. I can't just not listen to her, I can call Helen but I'm not sure she'll listen to me over my mother." There was a worry in Leo's eye, a fear that he would be sent back, not that he didn't like home, he just felt like a grown up here. He felt like he was building his own future, away from the watchers' institution he'd grown up in.

"What Leo? That's not fair, she can't just dictate your life, you're an adult. I'm gonna call Giles and get him to talk to Helen too." Dawn stood up, pacing around the yard outside the student centre. Her face was screwed up into an awkward wrinkle, her hands randomly gesturing as she tried to think of a Buffy-like plan. But she wasn't Buffy, she wanted to be, and she wasn't. One day she would except that.

"Babe? Sit down, I don't think there's really anything we can do." Leo cut in, watching his girlfriend stress was not his favourite activity, but he couldn't unhear his mother's tone when she'd rung him.

"I just don't wanna lose you, I don't want you to be so far away when we've only just met. I love working at the CA department with you, I don't want you to go away." Dawn said tearfully, she sat back down next to Leo and stared hard into his eyes. She kissed him lightly and said, "we have to think of something."

As she took their clothes off the airer in their apartment, folding them neatly into piles, Tara asked Willow about the future. Their future. "Will?"

"Hmm?" Willow replied, looking up from her laptop on the kitchen table. It was annoying not to have a dryer in the building but with the balcony and the sunlight from a high-rise building, the clothes dried pretty quickly.

"Where do you see us in five years? I mean, together, where do you think we'll be? I'm twenty-four Willow, and we've been together for five years, I know we can't get married but I want to be somewhere. I think I want to be settled." She spilled out quickly, not looking at Willow at all, instead focussing all her attention onto a cloth she'd folded and refolded three or four times already. Willow closed the lid of her laptop slowly, inferring that this was something serious - something Tara had been keeping in for a while and now needed to get out.

"Um, right. Ok." She mumbled, puzzled over what to say next, she hadn't actually thought about anything remotely practical in a while. They'd been back from England for about six or seven months now, she was deep into writing her book, and her new wicca group was going really well. Her mind was very firmly stuck in the present, everything was going pretty well, she hadn't a need to think about the future at all. Clearly Tara wasn't thinking the same. "I don't really know Tare, everything is kinda falling into place anyway? Isn't it?"

Tara looked even further down, like there was a crumb on the table she hadn't previously inspected. Willow got up and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend from behind, her chin resting gently on the blonde's shoulder. "Willow do you want to have kids?" She asked bluntly, assuming the redhead hadn't really understood where she was going with this conversation.

"I-I... I-" Willow stumbled, she hadn't in fact, anticipated this question at all. She was so wrapped up in her own head she hadn't really thought about it. Going evil and almost destroying the world does tend to sway your thoughts into the 'staying alive' category. "I guess, I never really thought it would happen for me." She said, finishing rather abruptly and pulling back from Tara. "I suppose I thought about it when I was with Oz, I thought about it all the time when I was little, what me and Xander's babies would've looked like, ugh, actually now that is kind of a gross thought. But after you came along, I kind of abandoned the idea. I didn't think we could, I just went off it I guess, I was so happy just to be with you, you know?" Willow's run-on sentences not exactly improving over the last few years.

Tara nodded sadly, she'd expected this answer, and she knew Willow had been through a lot. But her feelings mattered too - she'd spent a lot of time on the sidelines through Willow's recovery - time she used to think about their future. She was impatient, she felt like she'd waited long enough for them to be finally happy, and in her mind, kids came along with that. "Will," she started, stepping back into her girlfriend's arms. "It's just that I've nearly finished my training, I'm going to be a teacher really soon, it'll be a real job, a job that will help us save for a house, help us settle. I suppose all I'm asking is that you think about it?"