--
== 1 week later ==
It had taken a few days, but the Scoobies were mostly settled in to hotel life by now. They knew where the lobby's bathroom was, and where their rooms were, and where all the local shops were (courtesy of Cordelia). There was some tension between Angel and Spike with Buffy in the middle for the first few days, but Spike and Angel acted very maturely about the situation and avoided each other.
Spike figured Buffy's epiphany wouldn't hit for a few months at least, so he made the best of her love and kindness for now, and take her staking later. Angel watched them with forced apathy. Every time they went up to their room together, or kissed, or came down together in the morning, he'd remind himself in his head that he just had to hold out for a few more months. A year tops.
--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--
"Spike," Buffy moaned throatily as he slammed into her a final time. She gasped in unneeded air and he growled as they came. It wasn't an earth- shattering orgasm, but it was a brilliant wake-up call first thing in the morning.
He slid off her and pulled her into an embrace. Buffy sighed contentedly.
"We should probably get up," she said without opening her eyes.
"Mm-hmm," he said.
Neither of them moved until Buffy felt cheeky and opened her eyes. She opened her mouth and bit Spike's shoulder. Immediately his eyes opened and he looked at her with feigned annoyance. She grinned, her eyes flickering yellow. Without warning, he started tickling her.
"Ah! Stop it!" she said through fits of giggles.
"Make me," he said with a smile, thoroughly enjoying how his Slayer was wriggling.
Somehow, through her laughing and wriggling, Buffy managed to get her hands to clutch Spike's head and drag him toward her for a kiss. Still laughing, her mouth claimed his and he finally stopped tickling her, and instead traced patterns up and down her back with his fingers.
He pushed her onto her back and held her wrists above her head loosely. He leaned in for a kiss and when his lips brushed hers he said "I'm gonna get the shower first."
Her eyes opened.
"Hey!" She said. He laughed as he headed into the bathroom.
--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--
Angel walked away from the door without making a sound. He had been walking down the hall simply to get to the staircase when he had heard some unmistakable sounds emanating from Buffy and Spike's room.
He knew he should have just kept on going, like he had every day for the past week, but for some reason, today he stopped. His vampiric hearing picked up every unneeded breath, every moan. He closed his eyes and listened to Buffy mewl and pant like a bitch in heat until he couldn't stand it anymore.
He breathed deeply as he approached the end of the hallway.
--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--
"Please baby," Willow said in an almost pleading voice.
Tara whimpered, on the verge of tears, and clutched at Willow's skirt.
Xander, Willow, Dawn, Anya, Wesley, Giles and Cordelia had made plans to get out of the hotel. Giles and Wesley would visit the ancient bookshops to see what information they could gather on the Key and Glorificus, while the girls and Xander would hit the town.
But just as they were walking out the door, Tara caught sight of them leaving and had gotten scared and had torn after Willow, clutching at her like her life depended on it.
Willow knew Buffy would be down any minute. Buffy had promised Willow she'd look after Tara for the day.
Willow was torn between wanting to go shopping and wanting to stay with her girlfriend.
Just then, Spike came down the stairs looking freshly washed. He stopped as he took in the scene in front of him.
"Come on, honey. Please?" Willow coaxed. But Tara continued to fret and held on like a lost child.
"What's happening?" Spike asked.
"Tara's upset that Willow's going out, duh." Dawn said.
"Right," Spike said distractedly.
Spike wasn't completely positive he wouldn't be staked for what he was about to do but he figured he might as well try. He walked up to wear Tara was on the floor, her arms around Willow's legs, and squatted down.
"Glinda? Tara," Spike said in a soothing voice.
She looked at him warily and he smiled and locked eyes with her.
"Hey," he said quietly, never looking away.
Willow felt Tara's arms loosen slightly. Spike reached out and took Tara's good hand in his own. She didn't pull away. Angel watched from the office's doorway.
"Come on, pet." He said calmingly and stood up. Tara stood up too.
"W-what if the bad voices are right and it turns all gray?" Tara said, nearly panicking again. But Spike held her hand firmly and looked her in the eye again.
"Shh...They won't. See her?" He said and indicated Willow.
"She's bright," Tara confirmed, her eyes flickering to Willow for a second.
"Isn't she brighter than the gray voices? Doesn't she take the voices away? She'll always come back."
Tara swallowed some tears and looked at Spike again. He smiled at her and she smiled tentatively back.
Hugging her cast-bound arm close to her chest, Tara turned, her hand slipping out of Spike's. Then she looked at an amazed Willow with a smile and sloppily waved her hand.
Angel went back into the office. He had seen Spike do that before. He had been the only one who could calm Drusilla down after she had one of her fits. It was a very light form of the thrall the Master used. Except instead of outright controlling a person's actions like the Master, Spike taught himself to just calm a person's mind until they acquiesced. So he just put Tara's delusional fears of Willow not returning to rest.
"I don't know how long she'll remain this calm. Might want to hurry." Spike said to a near-speechless Willow, Xander, Dawn, Wesley, Anya, Giles, and Cordelia.
"Um...right." Giles said after a moment.
"Thanks Spike." Willow said with gratitude. "You have to let me know what you did later." She said as she went out the door.
After everyone had left, Buffy skipped down the stairs.
"So what I miss?"
--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--
"I didn't like that," Xander said.
"What?" Willow said through licks of her ice-cream. Dawn looked up from her milkshake.
"Spike going all mind-controlley on Tara."
"He didn't hurt her. She looked happy. Maybe he can get her to eat something. She's become more restless lately."
"I still didn't like it."
Willow sighed.
"Are you ever going to stop picking on Spike? He's not that bad."
Just then, Cordelia and Anya, their arms loaded with shopping bags, walked up to the little table outside the ice-cream shop.
"Hey guys," Cordelia said. "Wow. Is anyone else getting major deja-vu?"
Xander, Anya, and Willow all raised their hands. Dawn sucked up her milkshake loudly through a straw.
--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--
"So then this guy's all 'hey baby, what's your sign?' and Willow gives him this look and says 'a big neon one that says 'lesbian'' and the guy just kinda walked away looking annoyed." Later that day, Dawn was telling Buffy the highlights of their outing.
"Sounds like you had fun. I wish I could have been there." Buffy said a little sadly.
"Buffy. Don't worry. There's lots of things we can do together at night. Like say...patrolling."
Buffy gave her sister a look.
"Dawn..."
"Please Buffy. I need to learn sometime. What happens if one night I'm attacked or something?" Dawn gave her sister a large pout, her attempt to get Buffy's mind off not being able to go out working.
"Alright. After this whole Glory mess is over, I'll start training you."
Dawn grinned. Giles walked into Buffy's room via the open door.
"Or better yet, Giles will start training you."
"What?" Giles said nonplussed.
Both girls laughed. Giles sighed.
"Did you need something Giles?" Buffy said after a second.
"No. I just wanted to give you this." He said and handed her an aged book. "It's a record of all the Slayers."
"Like the Watcher Diaries?"
"No, actually. These stories are nonbiased. The author is unknown, though I think the book is continuously written with a specific spell."
Buffy flipped open the book near the end and was met with her own history.
"Oh cool." Dawn said, looking over Buffy's shoulder.
"As you can see, it's pretty up to date. I saw in one of the old bookstores Wesley took me to and I recalled how you had wanted to learn about past Slayers and how unhelpful the Watcher Diaries had been."
"Wow. Thanks Giles. This is...amazing." Buffy smiled as she closed the book. "Did you find anything referring to the Key?"
"Sitting right here." Dawn said.
"I did actually. The monks that made Dawn your sister actually kept a record. The store owner was reluctant to let it go but I paid him well."
Giles produced another book. This one looked older and dustier than the Slayer Records.
"It includes the history of the Key, the spell that transmogrified it from its original form to human form, and information on how to return it to its original form." Giles continued.
Dawn looked scared. But Giles smiled warmly.
"Not that we would ever consider it in a thousand years."
A thought nagged at the back of Buffy's head. /If this information was so easy to obtain, why hadn't Glory or her minions discovered it?/
--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--
Ben looked at the small bottle of pills in his hand. Would he really do it? He, himself, couldn't honestly say.
/Come on Ben,/ he thought to himself. /You keep complaining that she's taken your life away, that she's got the power. Well, here's your chance. Here's where your power lies. This has to be better than being left to rot in oblivion./
A grim smile spread across his face and Ben realized that if he didn't do it now, he'd never get another chance.
He wandered into an alleyway near the video store. /Well, this is Sunnydale. Who's going to notice one more body in an alley?/
He leaned against the wall, twisted the cap off the little plastic bottle with a crack, and a memory flit across his mind.
--
"You know why I wanted to be a doctor?"
"Flattering drawstring pants?" Gronx offered.
"To be close to people. To witness their lives and their deaths, to be there alongside them, a part of everyday humanity." He sighed. "Maybe it's the drugs."
He walked past the little minion.
"Drugs, sir?" She said and followed him.
"Find the right combination, keep her buried where she belongs."
--
"I guess it was the drugs," he said, before collapsing, the empty bottle slipping from his hand.
--= * =-- --= * =-- --= * =--
"Buffy!" Angel said.
"Buffy!" He yelled louder.
She was screaming and thrashing around in her sleep and Angel couldn't figure out how to wake her up.
"Buffy!" He said and shook her by the shoulders. Her vampire visage melted onto her features and she swiftly sunk her fangs into Angel's wrist. He pulled away.
"Spike!" He yelled after a snap decision.
Spike came running into the lobby, where Buffy had been napping, with Dawn right behind.
"Get her up." Angel said.
Spike quickly went over to his childe, took her by the shoulders, and shook her gently, much like Angel had done. Except when Spike did it, Buffy snapped awake and sat up abruptly, efficiently slamming her head into Spike's.
"Ow!" They both yelled simultaneously. Buffy fell back down on the couch.
Dawn laughed at the sight of them both rubbing their heads while Angel looked at the fading bite mark on his wrist.
"What happened?" Dawn said after she had finished giggling.
"Glory's dead," Buffy said simply, slightly shaken.
Everyone was silent for a minute.
"I guess that means we can go home." Dawn said quietly.
Angel unfocused his eyes and thought for a minute. He had been hoping for a miracle, that Buffy would hit her epiphany while she was staying at the Hyperion. It was extremely improbable but he had hoped...
His eyes wandered back to the twin puncture marks that had begun to heal on his wrist. Buffy had bitten him. But that was all it was: a bite-mark. Her fangs had left a permanent mark in Spike's neck, and vice versa. Those marks would be there for eternity. But the marks on Angel's wrist would vanish like any other wound.
"Yeah, Dawnie," Buffy said, looking up at her sister, her face returning to normal. "We can go home."
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