History Lesson
After Buffy hung up the phone with the now very flustered Council, she went to speak with Tara privately in the workout area.
Anya watched them curiously, but then figured that they knew she would rather help people give her currency for goods, and smiled at her friends as they walked away. "How considerate," she spoke to herself.
Buffy looked at Tara. "Ok, first we need to gather up all the books we have on Slayers, Watchers, Vampires, the rules of each of them...or codes they follow?" she took a breath trying to figure out the right word to describe what she wanted first.
"I think I know what you mean, like "How To Be A Vampire Without Really Trying," she giggled. "No problem, I'll get on it."
"I'll find "Slaying For Dummies," Buffy laughed back, and relaxed a bit. She didn't know she had tensed up so much, but too much thinking was never good.
"Fire bad, tree pretty."
"Huh?" Tara asked curiously.
"It's pretty much all I know sometimes...Ya' know? Fire is bad and a tree is pretty."
"Oh, ok," Tara said, still not quite getting it.
The girls scrambled through all of the things Giles had left behind, things a Slayer should have on hand for reference. Buffy went into the office and started walking back and forth to the research table with piles of books.
Tara had gone up to the loft area. This area held a lot of the rarer books.
After Buffy's fourth trip to the table, she went up with Tara, knowing there would be twice as many upstairs.
The rest of the day went by quickly as they settled into 'research mode.' The ladies had decided to use a simple system.
Anything even mildly relevant was to be written down and book marked. Relevant had to do with anything involving a Slayer and a Vampire having an alliance, a friendship, a relationship of any sort. This included spells that could cause love in a Vampire, anything involving mind control, loss of one's will, curses, hexes. This was Tara's department mostly, but Buffy had been around magic enough to recognize a good incantation when she read one.
Anya did her part as well. She sold as much merchandise as she could and didn't ask a single question.
A little after 3 P.M., Dawn walked in and saw both her sister and Tara buried up to their armpits, literally, in books.
"Oh, God. Now what? Am I a key again or something?"
"Huh? Wh-what?" both women answered.
"Oh, no, Dawnie. This is, well, personal research," Buffy answered.
"Personal, huh? Like what?"
"Dawn, if I told you it wouldn't be personal."
"Jeez, I thought we were gonna 'share' now. Nope. Back to 'Dawn is too young' and 'Dawn won't understand'."
The young teen dropped her purse and books on the table near the research area and flopped into a chair while continuing her tantrum. "Next thing ya know, I'll be eating dinner alone every night."
Buffy looked up from her leather bound book and Dawn continued once more. "Unless I invite Spike over for a bite." and followed that with a giggle.
"Dawn!! That is so not funny." Buffy was red and had to take a moment to calm down.
"Relax, Buffy, I might invite him over to eat, or keep me company, but even if he wanted to bite me, which he doesn't, he couldn't." Dawn tried to explain, disturbed by her sister's sudden anger.
"I-I know, it's just, well, Spike is...he's not really...but"
"He's not the best influence in your life is all, Dawn." Tara tried to finish for Buffy. "We know he's not going to bite you, but sometimes those stories of his are not for kids' ears."
She looked inside herself a moment and finished with, "Not for grown-up ears, either, now that I think about it."
Anya had been listening to the mild argument. "I like the one about how he met a Slayer in New York in the '40s."
Slowly Tara and Buffy looked over at the ex-demon.
"Anya," Buffy said, "Spike only killed two Slayers. One during The Boxer Rebellion and one in...wasn't it '77, 1977?" she spoke while looking for a SPIKE diary.
"Where's Spike's Diary at?" Buffy asked no one in particular.
"Spike has a diary?" Both Anya and Tara spoke this time.
"Yeah," Dawn and Buffy both responded.
Buffy bore into her sister's eyes.
"How do you know about the diary?" Buffy asked.
With all eyes on her, Dawn finally answered. "I saw it?" She looked at her Slayer Sis and hoped she wouldn't decide to ground her for a month.
Just then Willow walked in and she eyed the entire group. Dawn was scared, Anya was curious, Buffy was angry and Tara, 'yay Tara's here!', was bewildered.
"Is it another baddie?" The red head finally asked.
No one had even heard her come in and Tara looked her over and then down back at her books. ''She looks like she's doing well...she looks good...she looks 'yay!'."
"Willow!" Buffy's face brightened at her best friend, who was soon followed by Xander.
He also eyed the books with concern and a bit of fear creeping into his skin. "I know I will be sorry for asking this, but...What's up?" he asked while trying to fake a smile.
Anya ran to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek while wrapping her arm around him and saying, "Buffy is doing something personal with her books and needs Spike's diary."
"Huh?" Xander replied, looking confused.
"Don't worry, Xander, just some," she looked at Tara quickly, "some Slay-ie questions I have. I think the way I'll get the answers I need is to look for them myself."
"Ok, let's get crackin'," Xander replied while walking towards the stacks of books that almost completely covered the table's surface.
Buffy halted him. "No, I mean 'myself'."
Then he looked over at Tara.
"Tara is helping me with any magic stuff I don't get, which pretty is much...all of it," Buffy finished.
Willow quickly began apologizing for not being able to help.
"It's fine, Wills. Even though you had a lot of knowledge and power practicing, I think Tara would be better with this particular kind of stuff, with her practically raised on it and all." She smiled at her friend, hoping this explanation took some of the pain from Willow's eyes. It did, a bit.
Willow walked over to one of the unoccupied seats at Dawn's table, trying to pretend she wasn’t hurt, and help the littlest Summers with any homework she didn't 'get'. This was one of the new rules instated after Dawn's 'accidental' wish. Willow helped her every Tuesday and Thursday after school. "Oh, and Buffy, the diary for Spike is behind the desk in the office in a secret cubby in the wall," Willow revealed.
Xander and Anya walked back over to the counter, quietly going over a few wedding plans.
Dawn looked up. "How did you know?"
Buffy answered, "How did you?" looking straight at her sister.
"I...I kind of, found it." she smiled nervously.
"Found it? You went snooping." It was a statement, not a question.
Dawn didn't answer. Buffy stood and walked into the office. She pulled the old wood desk away from the wall and looked at what seemed to be a very small door. There was a lock on it. "Willow, you wouldn't happen to have a key, would ya?"
"No, sorry, Buff."
''Ok, not a problem.'' With that, she tore the 2'x2' door open and saw a file folder box with a book on top. She hefted it out, box and all, and carried it to what was the last space left on the table. Everyone was a bit curious, and she welcomed them over. There was no reason she could think of that this part of her research couldn't be shared. They knew everything about Spike's past anyway.
"Anya, what was the story Spike told you, what year?" Buffy asked.
"Oh, it was '40...no, '43. Yeah, 1943."
Buffy ruffled through the diary's pages. "I don't remember many entries in here during the '40's." She flipped through it some more. Nothing, three different entries, but no Slayer story.
"So, what was the tale he told?" Buffy asked again.
"It's very romantic," she began and was immediately interrupted by Xander.
"Romantic?! What did he do, turn some woman while he was...EW!" he was visibly sickened...and then not so much.
"So, what did he do?" Xander asked again.
"Well," she began again, "He had been tracking this Slayer for almost two years," she was interrupted again, this time by Buffy's laughter.
"Two years? Big 'ol bad Spikey...I thought he was supposed to be good at tracking down Slayers?" she said while trying to get her giggling under control, which is hard to do when everyone else is laughing too.
"Hey! Interrupting is rude, he told me so." Anya yelled while pointing at her fiancé, "And Xander, quit laughing!" she brashly spoke.
"I'm sorry An...go ahead," Xander said apologetically.
Anya paused a moment longer to make sure she had everyone's undivided attention.
"Ok...so, he was hunting down this Slayer, but every time he caught up with where she was supposed to be, she had moved again. This happened eight times in two years, and he was about to go nuts." She paused and told the room, "See, this was WWII and a lot of nasties happen during a war. I can't tell you how many women were calling me to bring vengeance on their husbands, boyfriends, lovers. Mostly because they had cheated on them during a 'tour of duty,' usually not wanting them dead, just hurt really bad." She realized she had gone off her point.
"Well, this particular Slayer apparently knew that where war went, demons like to play, and she had to be out there. The Council had to send her all over the world."
"Hmm, maybe I could call them and politely request a trip to China. I think it would be fun to take a stroll on that wall," Buffy quipped.
"Somehow I think they just might do it, Buffster," Xander laughed while answering.
Buffy giggled, then asked Anya to continue.
Anya was getting miffed by the interruptions, but these were her friends and they would ultimately appreciate the story so she went on. "He apparently caught up with her in NY, close to the turn of the war. She was getting ready to board a ship headed for England. I remember, Spike said he'd planned to try to snatch her ticket and visit home. He and Dru were apparently having 'alone time'."
"So, he went right up to her...she was an amazing beauty from they way he talked about her."
Buffy started to feel angry, but wouldn't let herself realize why.
"She must have been really in tune to her 'Slayer senses', because Spike said he didn't make a sound. He watched her back and when he was right behind her she just turned around and smiled at him. No stake, no cross...nothing."
"I guess she didn't read "Slaying for Dummies"," Buffy whispered under her breath.
Tara muffled a laugh.
"Then she simply said to him, 'You don't want to do this'," Anya repeated Spike's words.
"And that works? All this time I've been staking Vamps, but now I know all I have to do is tell them they don't want to do this. Which by the way, I know for a fact, doesn't work." Buffy finished with, "Sorry, Anya, I had to say something to that one."
Anya's lips twisted into a slight grimace, then softened. "I thought it was weird too when he first told me, but then I understood why."
"Why?" Dawn asked.
"I was just getting to it, this is the romantic part," and she winked at her fiancé.
"Ok, so...Spike tried to be sneaky, it didn't work. When he asked her what made her think he didn't want to, she gave him a very good reason," dramatic pause, "Akoshta," and she awaited the question of the 'gift' from her friends, knowing full well they had to know what 'Akoshta' meant.
"What's an Oshkosh?" Buffy finally asked.
"Not Oshkosh. Akoshta. You mean you've never heard of 'Akoshta'?"
All heads around her shaking, she tried to explain, "The PTBs sometimes reward heroes, champions, whatever you call them with an Ultimate Gift. There are Two women whose tests must be passed, prophesies are usually involved, but mostly it's like a one-wish Genie. The trick with Akoshta is it's always done in pairs."
"But you just said one wish?" Willow asked.
"A pair of people, not wishes. See this Slayer had gone from one end of the earth to the other to fight demons. She must have done an amazing job, Akoshta is not your everyday reward. The point being, someone was called at the same time as her, and was tested. For that to happen there had to have been a deep connection between her and whoever it was."
This time it was Tara. "Didn't Spike tell you who the other person was?"
Anya had given up on telling this with no questions when she discovered they had no idea what she was talking about.
"First of all Tara, it might not have been a 'person' like you think. A lot of different species have champions. Second of all, she never told Spike, so he couldn't tell me."
Buffy asked next, "So what was the woman's wish?"
"How did Spike put it...'That another would be called so she and her love could live out their 'natural' lives together'."
"Wow, that's almost poetic," Willow interjected.
"I thought so, too," Anya replied.
Tara thought to herself for a moment. "Anya, is that A-K-O-S-H-T-A?"
"Yeah, why?"
"It might help with the research, you know, since it happened to a Slayer."
But that wasn't quite the reason. On the note pad she had the words "Akoshta, test, 1943, pair, connection." Something made too much sense here, and she hoped it might help Buffy if she found out what. It had to do with 'natural lives.' Something about 'our natural lives' seemed off.
Dawn wondered, "Anya, how old was the Slayer?"
"I think Spike said early 20's. Why?"
Dawn didn't reply, but she looked over to her sister who suddenly understood her little sister's question, and its meaning.
"She might still be alive," Buffy answered.
Without a name for the Slayer Spike did not kill, and after searching the dates of all of the diaries, Tara and Buffy went back to researching Tara's original query: 'Has a Slayer ever had a relationship with a Vampire?'
Willow and Dawn soon left for home, and Buffy said not to expect her home for dinner.
Dawn had wanted to protest, but she knew something was really bothering Buffy. She needed to figure something out. So she smiled to her older sister and wished her luck.
Xander kissed his love and headed home, letting her know dinner would be ready when she got there.
The hours passed and soon Tara and Buffy had some information to compare. Anya had closed the store and reminded them to lock up if and/or when they left. She also wished the Slayer luck as she strolled out the door.
The two remaining ladies compared their findings, but there wasn't much.
A Slayer had let one Vampire go after he had saved her from a demon that the Vampire had wanted dead. He had no reason for letting her go, yet he didn't even try to fight her, just walked away. Even stranger, she had not given chase.
Another account was described by a Watcher as "an undeniably equal battle." In this case a Vampire and a Slayer fought almost every night, but neither was the victor. Then one night she simply didn't see the Vampire, or the next night, or the next.
All of the entries that had been marked started with a fight, and then one of the fighters would either disappear, or simply turn tail and run, but the Slayer in question never went to find the Vampire to finish the hunt and her kill. The Vampires in question always seemed to react the same way, not even trying to feed for the sake of bloodlust.
That was another thing, always a 'he' Vamp. Another one of those 'relevant' things. They never said anything about feelings, or a relationship...just one of the two running off.
Buffy looked at the clock and stood up. "Tara, will you be ok here for about an hour. I need to go patrol."
"Sure, Buffy, but if you run into Spike, and you want to take longer than an hour..." she let her sentence run off while smiling at her friend.
"Not happening, especially with the things we are looking up. Nope, if I see him, the only thing that will happen is me asking more questions about the un-killable Slayer."
And with that she turned, making sure Tara locked the door behind her.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I really like writing Anya. Her character is just so flamboyant that coming up with dialogue for her is plain old fun.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks again for those reviews. I decided to post 2 chapters just because of them. Also I'm considering putting up my season 7 fic. There are loads out there, and at the time everyone had different takes on what would happen after season 6. So keep an eye out.