Chapter Twenty-seven
When Buffy awoke, it took her a minute to remember where she was. The way Spike’s arm automatically tightened around her waist as she tried to get up quickly reminded her and she gently moved it, kissing his knuckles as she put his hand back down on the bed.
“I’ve got to get to class, Spike. I’ll be back tonight.”
“Better be,” he mumbled into the pillow as he burrowed into the bed, not really waking up enough to protest.
She quickly used the bathroom, showering and scrubbing her teeth with her new toothbrush. Buffy smiled as she saw the hairdryer, still in its box and waiting for her on a shelf. She was soon dressed and hurrying out the door with a quick glance back at the seemingly dead man on the bed. It surprised her that she wasn’t more wigged about spending the night sleeping next to a corpse, but shrugged it off as another perk of being a Slayer.
(All that practice being around dead things must be coming in handy.)
As she waited for the elevator, she looked around at the posh waiting area and vowed that she and Spike were going to have a long talk about how and where he got the money to live in a place like this. She also made note of the obvious mix of demons and humans in the lobby. Most of them greeted her cheerfully enough, although she could sense an undercurrent of fear coming from some of the less human-looking demons.
Since they all appeared to be on their way to some sort of legitimate work place, she pushed down her Slayer urge to start killing things and hurried out of the building toward the campus.
A quick stop at her dorm to change out of last night’s Bronzing clothes and grab her books and she was soon dashing into the auditorium where her first class was meeting. Her eyes searched the room for Willow and she gave the red head a grateful smile as she slipped into the empty seat beside her friend.
“I’m guessing from the circles under your eyes that it was a good reunion?” Willow whispered with a blush.
“It was wonderful,” Buffy whispered back, blushing slightly herself but with a very self-satisfied smile.
They had settled in to listen to the professor lecture them about concise, clear writing when Buffy felt Willow stiffen beside her. She followed her friend’s gaze to the doorway where a tall man with military bearing was staring at her. He lowered his eyes and moved away as soon as he realized Buffy was looking back at him and Buffy felt Willow nudging her hand. She grabbed the note her friend had just scribbled out and saw, “That’s the guy who was asking about you right after Lowell House blew up.”
Buffy nodded her head and shot another narrow-eyed look toward the doorway, but there was no sign of the lurking man. She turned her attention back to the instructor and concentrated on not falling asleep on Willow’s shoulder.
When class was over, they walked toward the campus café so that Buffy could ply her tired body with enough caffeine to get through the day. Buffy watched with interest and a certain amount of curiosity at the way Willow’s face lit up when Tara entered the shop and walked toward their table.
(Boy, the last time I saw her look at anybody like that, it was Oz. She must really like Tara.)
Conversation turned from more general things to Buffy’s description of Spike’s apartment and Willow volunteered to go on line and see what she could find out about the apartment’s occupant. With several hours before their next classes, they all walked to the Magic Box where Willow could use her laptop in relative quiet.
The three chattering girls arrived just as Giles and Anya were finishing their lunch and there was an awkward moment as they realized that they were interrupting what seemed to be a private meal. The Watcher stood up and began rapidly polishing his glasses as Anya gave the interrupting non-customers a glare. She gathered up the remains of their meal and carried it back to the small kitchen in the back while Giles attempted to pretend that he was not embarrassed by their arrival.
Buffy and Willow exchanged equally shocked and dismayed glances as they watched their best friend’s girl friend and her surrogate father try to hide the fact that they’d been enjoying a romantic lunch. At least, Giles was trying to hide it. Anya really wasn’t making much of an attempt to hide her irritation at being interrupted as she stomped over to the counter and began dusting perfectly clean candles.
Doing his best to appear unembarrassed at being caught in an almost compromising situation with Xander’s girl friend, Giles welcomed the three girls and asked them to have a seat at the table. “Not that I am not glad to see you,” he began somewhat stuffily, “but to what do I owe this middle of the day visit? Surely you all have classes to attend?”
“We’re free for a couple of hours and Willow’s going to do some research for me on her computer. We just thought this would be a good place to do it. You don’t mind, do you?” she added, with a glance at the still glowering Anya.
“No, no. Of course not. You’re welcome here anytime. You know that, Buffy. I just wasn’t expecting you until this evening.”
“Yeah, well, I really need to know how Spike—“
“Spike? Spike is back? Why didn’t you tell me? Have you seen him yet?” Her watcher frowned as he threw questions at her startled face.
“Yes, he’s back. We said he would only be gone as long as it took for the claim to go away. And, I didn’t tell you because this is the first time I’ve seen you since he got back. It was late last night.”
Ignoring her explanation for not telling him immediately, the older man asked quietly, “And is it? Gone?”
“Yes,” was the short, curt answer. “It’s gone.”
He studied her face for a minute, taking in the tight jaw, and cleared his throat noisily.
“I am sorry, Buffy. But it is for the best. Surely you understand that?”
“Let’s be clear about something, Giles. The only reason I agreed to let the claim lapse is so that the Council wouldn’t be hounding me and trying to kill one or both of us. The claim was mutual and neither one of us was using it to control the other. It poses a danger to no one but us. The danger is from humans, I might add. It actually protected me from some demons. “
He cleared his throat again and looked at his surrogate daughter apologetically.
“I understand how you feel, Buffy. But, surely—“
“”No, Giles, you don’t understand how I feel. And I don’t want to talk about it any more.”
She turned away from his frowning face and asked Willow, “Finding anything, Will?”
“Yeah. It looks like the building is owned by a William Carlisle. He seems to have bought it fairly recently. Not much information about him, though. Everything seems to have been done through his lawyers. I think the apartment Spike is staying in belongs to the owner. Maybe the guy owes him money or something.”
“Or maybe Spike ate him and took over his apartment.”
Xander’s arrival made the atmosphere in the room even more uncomfortable than it already was. Once again, Giles looked like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, while Anya busied herself behind the counter, deftly avoiding having to give her boyfriend a kiss hello.
Buffy whirled on him and snapped, “He didn’t eat anybody. I’m just trying to find out how there can be a building in Sunnydale that has both human and demon residents and we never knew anything about it till now.”
Her watcher’s curiosity overcame his reluctance to get close to the angry Slayer and her oblivious dark-haired friend.
“Humans and demons? In the same building?”
“Yes.” She answered curtly, then went on to fill them in on what she had seen that morning. “And some of the…people…there are half-breeds. Half human and half demon. How is that possible?”
“I have heard of human/demon hybrids….” Giles went into full Watcher mode as he pondered the possibilities. “But I thought they were quite rare. And demons living side-by-side with humans and having jobs…it quite boggles the mind. This definitely requires more research.”
“Oh joy,” Xander groaned, dropping into one of the chairs. “Research. Always a fun time.”
“What’s to research?” Anya finally broke in. “If you’d bothered to look around, you would know there are demons working all over Sunnydale. Who do you think makes pizza deliveries after dark? Or cleans the sewers? Humans wouldn’t last 10 minutes in those jobs.”
They all turned to stare at her in amazement.
“You KNEW this? All this time? And you never told anybody?”
“It’s one of those things you never asked me,” she snipped back at them. “I’m surprised Spike didn’t tell Buffy, though. Just to keep her from killing anybody she shouldn’t.”
The Slayer’s face paled at the thought that she might have killed someone who was an innocent denizen of Sunnydale. She thought back to the people she’d seen that morning as they left for work and realized that most of them looked perfectly human and probably wouldn’t have triggered her Slayer radar unless they got very close.
Suddenly the funny responses she sometimes got from people in stores and at school began to make more sense. Every now and then she would enter a store and the proprietor would smile politely and back away, turning her over to another salesperson. If there was no one else available, they would shuffle their feet and fidget nervously until she left.
“I’ll bet if you check out the owner of that building, you’ll find he’s a demon too,” Anya offered. “That would explain why Spike is living there. He probably won a month’s rent in a poker game or something.”
Suddenly Giles got up and went to one of the shelves on which he’d begun to store his own collection of books. Taking down one that looked slightly familiar to Buffy, he thumbed through it until he came to the page he was looking for. Shooting an inscrutable glance at his slayer, he said quietly, “I think you might want to look at this, Buffy.”
With a sigh at the thought that she might actually WANT to read something, she approached him and gave the book a cursory glance.
“I’ve already seen that, Giles. I know all about Spike’s past as William the Bloody. Why do you want me to look at it again?”
“Because it tells you in here what his name was before he was turned. I think you might want to take a look.”
She grabbed the book from his hand, sending him an apologetic glance when he winced at her treatment of the rare book. She started at the beginning this time, reading down the page and stopping occasionally to reread something. She looked up at Giles with her mouth open.
“Spike is William Carlisle? A stuffy Victorian gentleman? A graduate of Oxford? MY Spike? “
“It would appear that his turn as William was not as much of a stretch for him as we thought. It WAS quite obvious that he was educated and had, at one time, learned some manners; but I had no idea that he came from such a…”
“Ok, whoa. Just whoa!” Xander marched over to them and grabbed the book out of Buffy’s hand, causing Giles to wince again. “Sorry, G-man,” he mumbled as he looked over the page. The 19th century drawing of Spike when he was first turned looked eerily like the William they’d spent time with, except for the Victorian clothes.
Xander skimmed through the text, frowning as he read about William Carlisle’s education and wealthy family.
“Well,” he said, tossing the book on the table, “obviously they screwed up and found some guy who looks like Spike and thought he was William the Bloody. Spike has less education than I do – and it certainly was never a Victorian gentleman!”
He gazed around the room triumphantly, his smile fading as no one else seemed to agree with him.
“Guys! Come on! It’s SPIKE, for Pete’s sake. He doesn’t have any money. He wears the same clothes every day. He bleaches his hair!”
“Not anymore, he doesn’t,” Willow interjected mildly. “He can’t bleach it and still be William. Not for awhile, anyway.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still going with that goofy plan to pretend to date him, Buffy?” The dismay and disbelief in Xander’s voice made her flinch in spite of herself.
“Yes, Xander,” she answered, squaring her shoulders and looking him in the eye, “that is exactly what we plan to do. And we won’t be pretending,” she added, with a frown. “Where did you get that idea?”
He stammered and appeared genuinely surprised, “Well, I just assumed…I mean if the claim is gone, then there’s no reason for you to…” He blanched as he remembered how she’d left with the vampire the night before and what Anya had said about their plans.
“Where did you go with the bloodsucker last night, Buffy?” he demanded, not even noticing the shocked looks from everyone in the room. “I thought you were going to tell him to forget it and just wanted to let him down easy.”
Buffy stared at her friend incredulously. “Why would you think that, Xander. You were there when we talked about why he was leaving and how long he would be gone. You know how I fe-“
“I don’t know anything about how you feel,” he snarled at her. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you that you have to keep hooking up with the undead when there are perfectly nice human men yours for the asking.”
“And we all know who would be first in that line, don’t we, Xander,” Anya snipped from her place behind the counter.
“Shut up, Ahn,” he snapped, not even looking in her direction. Instead of the flinch that would have accompanied his less-than-loving treatment of her in the past, she just shrugged and turned back to her counter-polishing.
Anya’s remark reminded Buffy of what Spike had said about Xander’s jealously, and she made one last attempt to prove to herself that they were wrong.
“Xander? I don’t understand. I thought we were friends. Don’t you want me to be happy? I love Spike. And he loves me. We want to try to make this work. I was hoping my friends would be supportive…”
“You can’t to expect me to support you when you want to wallow in filth with an undead demon. I thought you might have learned something from your little walk on the wild side with Angel, but I guess getting a cold, dead happy is more important to you than risking your friend’s lives! I’m sure Giles is all onboard with that!”
Buffy recoiled in shock and dismay at the venom coming from Xander’s mouth. Tears sprang into her eyes at his reminder that her moments with Angel had cost Jenny her life. Before she could find a way to respond, her Watcher’s voice rang out.
“That will be enough, Xander! You will apologize to Buffy immediately, or you will leave my shop.” The look he was giving the boy was pure Ripper as he saw the pain flash across Buffy’s face.
“Fine!” he answered with another snarl, “Let’s go, Ahn. We’ll leave these demon-huggers to find out the hard way.”
He turned and gestured imperiously at the door as she strode past the counter where Anya was looking at him coldly.
“You do remember I was a demon for over a thousand years, don’t you, Xander?” she asked in a chilly voice.
“Of course I do. Almost every time you open your mouth. But you’re human now. You have a soul. Let’s go,” he added impatiently as he held the door.
“I’m not through working today, Xander,” she answered slowly. “I guess you’ll have to go on without me.”
She met his astonished look defiantly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Fine,” he ground out. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Without another word or look at anyone else in the room, he whirled and left the shop, slamming the door behind him and leaving five very disturbed people behind.
Chapter Twenty-eight
There was shocked silence for several minutes after the dark-haired man’s abrupt departure. The little bell over the door continued to chime as the vibrations from Xander’s slamming kept it from stilling.
Giles stepped closer to Buffy as the tears continued to flow down her face, but when he tried to hug her, she cringed and turned away.
“I’m sorry, G…Giles,” she hiccupped, “I kn…know I was a bad Slayer before; but Spike isn’t going to hurt anybody. He promised me. He even has his refrigerator full of pig’s blood so he won’t get hungry.” She took a deep, shaky breath and continued in a determined voice, “And if he does, I know what I have to do. I’ll never shirk my duty again, no matter how much I love—“
Her ex-Watcher interrupted her before she could finish.
“Buffy, I never blamed you for Jenny’s death. It was not your fault. I blame Angelus, and to some extent, Jenny herself. If she had been honest with us about what she knew, we might have been able to avoid the entire Angelus incident. I never thought you were a bad Slayer.” He looked at her anxiously, waiting for her hiccupping to stop. When she took a deep breath and gained control over her emotions, he added, “And I trust Spike considerably more without a soul than I do Angel with one. I’m not sure what Xander is so angry about; but please don’t let his words upset you.”
With an apologetic look at Anya, Buffy said hesitantly, “Spike says he’s jealous. I told him that was ridiculous, but he—“
“He’s right,” Anya said flatly. “Xander wants Buffy for himself. He always has. He tries to pretend they’re just friends, but that’s not what he wants. The reason I dragged him into the bathroom during the spell is because he wanted to stake Spike for kissing Buffy and I knew she’d hurt him if he tried to do it while
she thought she was in love with him.”
“I thought he got over that a long time ago…” Buffy frowned in confusion. “He was in love with Cordelia – and now you. I don’t get it.”
Anya shrugged her shoulders. “What’s not to get? He wants you. He can’t have you, so he makes do with whomever else he can get. It wasn’t a problem until you fell in love with Spike. You couldn’t have sex with Angel, and your human boyfriends didn’t bother him because he knew you weren’t in love with them, but Spike…” Her voice trailed off as everyone nodded, agreeing that it was very obvious how she felt about the vampire.
“He would hate him anyway – just because you love him. The fact that he’s a vampire just makes it worse because he knows he can’t compete with him physically, and now that he knows William was educated and has money…”
“Terrific.” Buffy slumped back down in her chair. “What are we going to do about this?”
“I’m sure he’ll come around, Buffy.” Willow tried to reassure her best friend that her other best friend would get over his anger. “He got used to Angel. He’ll get used to Spike. After all, he’s got Anya and…”
She stopped when Giles abruptly cleared his throat and Anya suddenly left the room.
“Now what?” Three sets of eyes looked at the Watcher for an explanation.
“It appears,” he began, talking off his glasses to polish them vigorously, “that Anya has become somewhat… disenchanted… with Xander and his constantly treating her as though he were ashamed of her. She is seriously considering…well, she is considering terminating their relationship.”
“Anya’s going to break up with Xander?” Willow’s eyes were large green searchlights. “Oh, this is not going to lead to anything good.”
“Yes, well, we will just have to see, won’t we. It is entirely her decision and I feel I…we…should support her.”
Willow and Buffy exchanged looks, remembering the intimate little lunch they had interrupted when they arrived.
“Okaaaay,” said Buffy with a forced smile. “I think I’ve had just about enough new information for one afternoon. I’m off to class. Coming Willow? Tara?”
“Oh yeah. Class. Class is good. We go to class to learn things, and…not that we aren’t learning things here, but…” Tara’s soft hand on her arm put a stop to her babbling, and Willow looked at her gratefully.
Waving at Giles and throwing quick “good-bye”s toward Anya, the three girls left the Magic Box and began the walk back to campus. They were silent for most of the walk, Buffy and Willow each pondering the things they’d learned about both Xander and Spike, and Tara, as she always did, keeping her own counsel until asked for an opinion.
Finally, Buffy had exhausted her ability to keep her thoughts to herself and she turned to Willow, asking, “If Xander’s already upset about me and Spike, what do you suppose he’s going to do if Anya breaks up with him?”
“I don’t know, Buffy. I’ve seen him get mad before, and I’ve seen him be hurt, but I’ve never heard him sound as…vicious as he did today. I never thought I’d hear him talk to you like that. Or to any of us. Although,” she frowned, “I guess we have just gotten so used to hearing him tell Anya to shut up or that she’s stupid that we just don’t notice it anymore. That’s really not very nice of us.”
“H…hi…his aura was really very dark,” Tara ventured.
“His whata?” Buffy looked at the blond girl in surprise.
“Tara sees auras. She can tell if someone is happy, or sad, or angry, or…”
“Oh. Well, that’s just really… cool. In a disturbing sort of way.” Buffy looked at the other girl out of the corner of her eye. “What does…what does mine look like?” She tried to look casually curious, but her tense shoulders gave away her anxiety.
“Oh, Buffy, yours is always so bright. It’s full of light. There’s a little tinge around the edges, probably because you’re worried about Xander, but the rest of it is glowing. I’m guessing the arrival of the attractive vampire last night has something to do with that,” she added with a sly smile.
Buffy blushed and nodded vigorously as she sped up. Tara and Willow hurried after her as the Slayer entered the main building and headed for her next class. With a promise to meet that evening at the Magic Box, Willow and Tara went off in the other direction for an afternoon Wicca meeting.
When Buffy came out of class and started toward the exit, she stopped abruptly when she heard someone say, “Miss Summers?”
She turned to see the man who had been watching her earlier and narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. A quick glance around the busy hallway didn’t indicate any lurkers who might be additional military types and she relaxed slightly and allowed him to approach. She was careful to remain out of arm’s reach, just in case he had one of their tasers with him. He shook his head and gave her a rueful smile when he noted her caution.
“My apologies, Miss Summers, if I’ve given you any reason to worry about my presence. I’m not here to try to capture you, or to interfere with you in any way. My job is simply to observe you for a brief period of time and determine that you are, in fact, who we’ve been told you are.”
“Ok, we established that I am Buffy Summers. Who the hell are you and why have you been watching me?” She continued to glare at him suspiciously. He quickly introduced him self as Colonel John Edwards and offered his hand, which he withdrew when she ignored it.
“It was important that I verify that you are, in fact, the Slayer. And that I observe you attending to your duties as you so diligently do every night. We had to be sure that the hellmouth was going to be protected before we completely wrapped up our operation here.”
“It’s just as protected as it was before you came here – and as protected as it will be after you’ve gone.”
“So it would seem. I’ve been quite impressed. You seem to be out there every night removing any hostiles that appear.”
“Slaying,” Buffy said coldly. “I SLAY any ‘hostiles’ I find.”
“And yet, you protected Hostile 17,” he fired back at her. As they talked, they had been walking toward the exit and Buffy stopped in the middle of the quad, putting her hands on her hips.
“Hostile 17 was rendered harmless. There was no reason for me to slay him anymore.”
“I take it you knew it/him before we captured him?”
“Yes, he helped me save the world a couple of years ago.”
Buffy met his astonished look with such stony-eyed conviction that he eventually nodded his head and agreed, “I guess that might entitle him to a pass if he isn’t eating people anymore.”
“He isn’t,” she said, with no elaboration.
The man gave a sigh and asked, almost pleadingly, “Miss Summers, I know that you and our organization got off on the wrong foot. I can assure you the government wishes me to extend sincere apologies for any harm that may have come to you or to your family and friends due to the…overly zealous…activities of our former administrator.”
A disbelieving snort was the unladylike reply, but he continued bravely.
“I am authorized to tell you that we are pulling our remaining personnel out of the Sunnydale area and leaving it to you to handle any hostiles that may present a problem here. However, should you at any time require our assistance, please contact me and we will respond at once.”
He handed Buffy a business card with his name, a phone number and an e mail address. She reluctantly extended her hand and took the card, staring at it suspiciously.
“That’s it? You’re leaving?”
“That’s it. There are other…hot spots…around the globe that do not have a resident Slayer and our time will be better spent there.”
“Oh,” Buffy was left without much to say, as the man waited for her response. “Well, that’s…that’s good then,” she responded weakly.
“It’s been a pleasure watching you work, Miss Summers,” he responded. “Please don’t lose the card. We look forward to working with you sometime in the future.”
“Uh, sure. Likewise, I guess. Bye now!” she finished cheerfully, walking off before he could say anything else.
When she got back to her dorm room, she found that Willow and Tara were both there, lounging on Willow’s bed. Buffy blinked her eyes, sure for a second that she had seen them kissing just as she walked in the door. Shrugging the thought off, she greeted them enthusiastically and told them about her meeting with the Army officer.
“So, they’re just going to go away and leave us alone?” Willow asked dubiously.
“That’s what he said. I guess we’ll see if he means it.”
When Willow saw Buffy throwing some things in an overnight bag, she winked at Tara and asked innocently, “Going somewhere tonight, Buffy?”
The blond slayer started to stammer out an explanation, then noticed the twinkle in her friend’s eye and Tara’s quiet laughter.
“Very funny, Will,” she grumbled. “You know I am. I’ll be at Spike’s if you need me. I guess I’d better get a cell phone so that you can reach me if you need to.”
“Is that where you’re going right now?”
“Yeah, Spike should be waking up soon and I want him to come to the Magic Box with me tonight after patrol. I’ll see you guys when I get there.”
With a flip of her hand, she grabbed her bag and left the room; once again brushing off the feeling that Willow and Tara were sitting much closer together than seemed necessary.
When she entered the apartment building, having stopped to grab a salad along the way, she noticed the people she’d seen in the morning returning from work, and another group obviously leaving for their evening jobs. She studied them closely, trying to sense which ones might be demons and which ones were fully human. She found that she recognized a few of those leaving as people who worked in the restaurants and bars that were open late, as well as some that were dressed for evening shifts at the hospital.
She realized she was making them uncomfortable when several of them turned away and hastened out the door, and she quickly looked away and headed for the elevator.
“You’d think I was the demon, the way some of them were looking at me,” she grumbled out loud to herself.
“To some of them, you are, darling,” said a sweet voice entering the elevator right behind her.
Buffy turned to see an attractive, middle aged woman carrying a grocery store bag and smiling at her in a friendly fashion. The woman pressed the button for her floor, as well as pushing the penthouse button for Buffy.
“Uh, do I know you?” Buffy asked.
“Oh dear, that’s right. We haven’t actually met. I’m Millie,” she said, holding out her free hand. “My son is the concierge and I helped him stock the apartment for Mr. Carlisle. I feel like I know you through your toiletries,” she added, then looked embarrassed. “I suppose that was quite rude of me.”
“Oh no, not at all. I’m sorry,” Buffy stammered. “And thank you. It was wonderful to wake up this morning and find my shampoo and body wash waiting for me.”
“Well, Mr. Carlisle was quite specific about what brands to get. He was very concerned that you have everything you might need or want. He’s such a sweet man.” She beamed at Buffy.
“Uh, yes…yes, he is,” Buffy agreed, wondering if she should tell the woman that Spike was a vampire. Then she remembered her saying that her son was the concierge and realized that this was the woman who had been married to a demon.
The older woman waved and smiled cheerily as she got off on her floor, insisting that Spike and Buffy join her for dinner as soon as they got “settled in”.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I'm going to try to post a total of 4 chapters today as I probably won't have access to both my filles and the internet at the same time for the next few days. So no weekend updates unless my newly repaired laptop arrives tomorrow. After that, though, i promise daily updates until the story is finished.