Spike’s lips lowered to meet Buffy’s without resistance. They touched hesitantly at first, nudging as if to test, before his firm cool lips finally settled over hers.
The kiss stayed gentle and chaste in a slow slanting of lips across the others’ mouth. But it held a promise that was echoed in their eyes as they drew back from one another.
Buffy’s eyes fell shut as Spike lifted his hand slowly to run it down the side of her face again, sweeping her hair back and behind her ear with a soft smile.
“I’m okay,” Buffy mumbled, as if to herself. Her eyes drifted open and locked with the blue of the vampire’s holding her securely in his arms as she looked up at him with shimmering eyes. “You came for me.”
Her smile was watery and Spike returned it with one of his own. “I came.”
Looking up, Spike noted the fact that the Watcher had both older men tied up and gagged before he looked back down at the Slayer in his arms.
“I’m sorry.” Spike looked down at her with a frown at the quietly spoken apology.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for, pet.”
Buffy shook her head gently, squeezing her eyes shut again at the pain that lanced through her with that small movement. “I should’ve…but he was…and I didn’t…I just couldn’t…”
“It’s okay, I understand. But you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You did what you thought was best to ensure the safety of those that you care about. Never apologize for that,” he said, smiling when she nodded gently. “Time to get you home, pet.”
He hoisted her up into his arms as gently as possible—one arm under the bend in her knees and the other under her back as her head came to rest on his shoulder. He stood slowly, careful of the bundle in his arms, before stepping out of the ritual circle with her.
Everyone in the room watched as it glowed faintly for a moment before disappearing completely.
The living room was silent as its three occupants sat lost in their own thoughts. If the plan was a success, Buffy would soon be safely back in their midst. Only once she was returned, someone would need to inform her of the fact that she was then going to be married off to Xander Harris—and Joyce knew that someone would have to be her.
Joyce sighed. Xander was their only option after all, yet looking at him absently stuff corn chips down his throat, she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there was a better option. Because you have so many of those. Don’t be stupid, Joyce
At least with Xander, Joyce knew that her daughter held some affection for him—and he for her in return—even if it was only the kind one felt for a friend. Given the chance, it could blossom into love one day… hopefully.
Countless scenarios had been playing out in her mind of her daughter being bound to some brainless lackey that the Council controlled. Where she was locked up and used only as a power source for their needs. No, she thought as she shook her head softly, better that she is married to Xander than the Council.
Still, even with these thoughts running through her head, Joyce couldn’t help but feel dissatisfied with the idea of her only daughter being married to Xander. The boy was certainly nice enough—if not a little close minded, bigoted and lacking in table manners—but Buffy held a fire that he couldn’t even begin to match.
Match. That was what was bothering her. Xander was most certainly not Buffy’s match.
He was not her equal in any sense of the word. Where she was brave, he was cowardly. Where she held warmth of fire and passion, he was lukewarm at best. She was a supernatural creature that would live forever, Xander was most certainly not.
Joyce highly doubted that the prophecy had been written about Buffy and Xander. It just didn’t fit, and the more she thought about it the less sense it made.
Joyce could imagine their life together in a few years’ time. Xander—belly-up on the couch like some beached whale—overweight from lack of exercise and too much junk food, and drinking at one o’clock in the afternoon—with a beautiful wife who looked as young as the day he married her.
Rationally, Joyce knew that it probably wouldn’t end up like that between them—not with Xander’s parents being alcoholics—but, she glanced over at him, where he was on his second packet of chips from her cupboard and barely stopping to breathe as he practically inhaled them. She could no more help the wrinkling of her nose at the sight than she could stop a sneeze.
If she could have any say in it, Xander would remain nothing more than a close friend. But the ritual needed to be completed if her daughter was to live, and Xander appeared to be the only viable candidate. Therefore, he would be married to Buffy—and likely before sunrise that morning.
Joyce was pulled from her thoughts at the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway, and she felt a burst of nervous butterflies in her stomach. Joyce watched as Xander and Willow perked up at the sound and she got up as they all quickly made their way over to the door.
A horrified gasp rang through out the night as the door was opened in front of them. Joyce stood temporarily paralysed to the spot at the sight of her daughter’s less than stellar condition.
“Let me through, Joyce, I need to get the Slayer up to her bedroom.” Joyce stepped back immediately at the softly spoken request from the vampire. Spike wasted no time in stepping over the threshold and disappearing up the stairs with Buffy in his arms.
Joyce turned back to watch as Giles made his way through the door with a still-unconscious Travers slung over his shoulder.
“Wha—?” Joyce began, only to stop as Giles’ entrance was immediately followed by that of Oz and Cordelia, dragging in the form of her ex-husband. “Oh my God! Are they dead?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Buffy’s mother turned confused eyes toward the Watcher in question.
“Unfortunately?” she squeaked out.
“Oh thank GOD!” Cordelia interrupted as she dropped Hank’s legs the minute she stepped inside the door. “Do any of you realise how heavy that guy is? I’m going to get man muscles in my arms if I carry him any longer!”
The small group watched as she flounced out of the room to dramatically flop down on the couch.
“I’ll explain in a minute,” Giles supplied, when all except Oz looked back at him for answers, “but first we need to tie these two up in the basement before they come to.”
Spike let the voices coming from the others downstairs fade into the background as he made his way up the stairs, kicking open the door to Buffy’s room. It was the first time he had entered it and as he looked around at the things with which she surrounded herself, he decided that it told him absolutely nothing about the girl that he held in his arms.
The room was the room of Buffy Summers the girl, not the Slayer. This was the room of the face she presented to everyone—a normal 17-year-old girl on the cusp of becoming a woman. There were hints of the child she had been in the few toys that were still randomly dispersed throughout the room, posters of her favourite bands stuck up on the wall, and a large double bed with virginal white sheets still stretched out across the mattress. But it was as if time had stood still once she had been called.
If Spike looked closely though, he could see hints of the Slayer he knew her to be. The multitudes of crosses hanging from her dressing table, the small bottle on her nightstand that he knew didn’t contain plain water, but rather holy water meant to be used against his kind, the tee shirt thrown into the corner of the room that was stained with traces of her blood. Those items belonged to the Slayer.
Crossing the room quickly, Spike laid Buffy out on the bed trying not to jostle her any more than necessary, and slowly peeled off his duster that he had wrapped around her small frame to try and bring some warmth back into her overly cold skin.
“There you go, sweetheart.” She made a small murmuring sound in response as he brushed a light kiss over her forehead.
“Stay,” she mumbled softly. He smiled and ran his hand down the side of her cheek.
“I’ll be right back, kitten. I need to go get some blood.” He hovered over her for a minute longer as he watched her fall back into the limbo between consciousness and oblivion.
Sighing, Spike took a step back and turned to see Joyce standing in the doorway to the Slayer’s room. Her hand was covering her mouth in shock as she gazed at her little girl stretched out on the bed and looking to all the world as if she were dead.
“Joyce?” Spike called softly, trying not to startle her out of the dazed state into which she seemed to have fallen. She didn’t respond to him, unable to tear her eyes away from her daughter’s body and the clothing that usually fit her curves snugly now hanging loosely around her body.
“Joyce?” This time she turned to look at him with horror in her eyes as he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It looks a lot worse than it is. I’ll have her right as rain in no time.”
“She…she looks…” She didn’t seem to be able to finish the thought that she was forming as her eyes were pulled back to her daughter. Spike frowned and gave her shoulder a light squeeze.
“Why don’t you sit with her while I nick down to the kitchen and pick up some blood packets, yeah? She floats in and out, but once I get some blood into her she’ll be more alert.” The woman nodded and moved further into the room.
Spike hesitated in the doorway for a moment, unwilling to leave either of the women alone before logic won out and he turned and made his way out the door.
He could hear the hushed tones of the witch and the cheerleader talking in the lounge as he made his way down the stairs and the sound of Giles talking to the other two in the basement as they dealt with the wankers who were responsible for his Slayer’s state.
Spike let out a small growl as he thought about visiting them later. But not now. The Slayer needs you. Despite the circumstances, that thought sent a rush of pleasure through him and brought a reluctant half smile to his lips.
He ground to a halt as he entered the kitchen, finding Xander sitting on the bench rather than down stairs like the others. Spike eyed him warily, his demon snapping and raging within him to deal with the thing that was stopping him from taking the Slayer as his own. The urge to challenge him over his rights was strong but he was well versed when it came to suppressing such urges. If being with Drusilla for over a century had taught him anything, it was control.
Briefly, thoughts of his sire danced across his mind as he wondered where she was now that her daddy was finally dust. Angelus had been everything she lived for; he influenced everything she did and Spike couldn’t imagine Dru being able to live in a world where Angelus no longer existed. In his mind, the most plausible theory was that she had dusted herself after she had felt him disappear; but, Spike knew it not to be true for he still felt the deep-seated connection he held with her through the childe/sire bond.
“How is she?” Spike was pulled from his musings as the whelp addressed him and once more he had to fight down the urge to slip into his demon’s visage. He didn’t know what he had been expecting from the boy, but he hadn’t been expecting the subdued tone that rang through clearly.
“She’ll be fine as soon as I get some blood into her,” he replied tightly as he made his way over to the fridge, his ‘big bad’ persona in full swing.
He watched out of the corner of his eye as the boy just nodded solemnly, looking down at the hands that rested in his lap. “So, how do you feel knowing it’s you?” he asked finally.
Spike frowned and turned to look at him. “It’s me?”
“Yeah, what with being able to step into the circle and all.” The boy wasn’t making sense—of that much Spike was sure—but he had the feeling that he needed to hear what was being said.
“I tried to tell Giles originally that you guys felt something for one another, but he turned into Mr. Denial Man and told me to shut up. Guess he can’t ignore this, though.”
“Ignore what, exactly?” Spike asked as he absentmindedly closed the fridge.
Xander looked up at him and frowned. “You don’t know?”
“Would I ask if I bloody well did?” Xander grew silent suddenly and couldn’t meet the vampire’s eyes. “Whelp?”
“The prophecy. It’s talking about you. You’re the one that is supposed to be bound to Buffy. Not me”