Chapter 3
“We’re seriously going to London?!” Dawn asked as they sat at the breakfast table.
“We’re seriously going,” Buffy said with an absolute nod. Bella and Bex grinned widely at the idea of going somewhere they’d never been before. Their faces were covered in strawberry jelly from one of the filled donuts.
“You’ll have to bring your homework though, because I won’t let you get behind. Especially in a summer semester.”
“I think saving the world from impending doom is a little more important than homework, Buffy,” Dawn said with a roll of her eyes, crossing her arms.
“Ix-nay on the ad-bay fluence-inay,” Buffy said, looking toward the twins.
“I’m not a bad influence!” Dawn insisted, mouth full of a cinnamon tiger tail.
“I rest my case.”
“Daddy, can we go to the park?” Bella asked, looking over at him expectantly. Buffy let out a secret sigh of relief. It seemed as if her daughter had forgotten all about the early morning conversation. Hopefully, Buffy prayed, Bella wouldn’t bring up the subject again for a long while.
“Yeah! I wanna go on the monkey bars!” Bex said excitedly.
“No! No monkey bars,” Buffy insisted. “Last time you almost fell off. No more.”
“But Mommyyyyy,” he whined. “I wanna try again!” Buffy gave Spike a look as if to say ‘deal with your son,’ and he shrugged sheepishly at her.
“Why don’t you both go upstairs and pack your very favorite toys to take to London?”
“Can’t we take them all, Daddy?” Bella asked with those puppy dog eyes the twins knew could melt their father’s heart with a few batted eyelashes.
“You can each take three. The rest of your toys’ll be waiting for you when you get home.”
“Okay,” Bex said with a sight. The twins scurried off to their rooms to pack up their toys. Buffy, Spike, and Dawn sat quietly at the kitchen table. Buffy picked at her cuticles, avoiding talking about anything, but Spike was the first to speak.
“She hasn’t said anything to you has she?”
“No,” Buffy said gently.
“Me neither.”
“Said anything about what?” Dawn wondered, tossing her paper plate in the trash and wiping her sugary hands on the sides of her jeans. In some ways, she was still the kid sister that Buffy had fought with so many years ago.
Spike and Buffy shared a glance before Buffy looked at her sister.
“We think Bella might be…a Slayer.”
“No way!” Dawn exclaimed. “She’s only five, Buffy.”
“Early this morning, she said something was wrong. She said she lost her powers. She didn’t even know what she meant by that, but she said she’d always felt different, and then it was gone.” Buffy looked at Spike. “Right after that was when we got Willow’s call.” Dawn looked toward the stairs.
“What about Bex?”
“They’re both fast learners. They’re both fast, period,” Spike pointed out. “But they’re human. They have to be.”
“They are,” Buffy nodded. “I’m human. I just have a little extra…I don’t know.” She sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “I don’t want her to go through what I did. But I can’t stop it from happening either.”
“We’ll just have to be extra careful with her, luv. Keep her close.”
“Um, earth to Spike,” Dawn said, “you do realize that she’s going to be majorly pissed off when she’s a teenager and she can’t go out and do regular teenage things.”
“I didn’t do regular teenaged things,” Buffy remarked. Dawn rolled her eyes.
“Oh yeah? Then why were you at the Bronze every Thursday and Friday? Why did you have a date like…every other week?” Buffy frowned at her sister’s good memory.
“Yeah, well, that’s different. When I was a teenager…”
“That was like seven years ago!” Dawn laughed. “Things haven’t changed that much.” Buffy shook her head anyway.
“We’re going to need your help, Dawn. I know you have to study, and you’re going to, but you have to help us protect them.”
“I promise,” Dawn said rather sadly. “I’ll do better than…I’ll do better than before.”
“You know we don’t blame you for that, Nibblet,” Spike said softly. “You’re lucky the Initiative didn’t do worse to you. They could have taken you too, or they could have…”
“But they didn’t. And they won’t. Nobody will. Nobody’s getting hurt, alright?” Buffy asked, looking from her husband to her sister. Even Buffy knew her words weren’t a guarantee that everything would be coming up roses, but it was a nice thought anyway.
***
Faith cracked her knuckles and tried to relax, as she walked down the once familiar street. Despite having stayed in London, she’d managed to avoid Robin almost completely for the past year. The last four years had been a rollercoaster of nasty breakups and even nastier, hot make up sex. Faith wasn’t sure what had happened exactly, but one night, the make up sex never came, and when she walked out the door, she never looked back.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Giles asked, as he walked beside the slayer. A small group of girls walked behind them. Two familiar faces were not there, however. Vi and Rona, had reportedly been lost in the battle, and the few girls that had made it out were all banged up and bruised, but they were alive. They could heal. They’d get stronger, and somehow, Willow’s spell would be re-instated, and they could be reactivated as slayers. That was the hope, anyway.
“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You do seem a bit tense. You are the only active Slayer in London right now, so I do hope you’ll stay on top of things.”
“Never been better, G. Don’t worry,” Faith said with a shrug, as Giles cringed at her nickname for him.
“And about seeing Robin?”
“What about seeing him? We’re cool?”
“You’re certain? The two of you, to my knowledge, haven’t seen each other in…what’s it been? A year?”
“So? We’re both adults. This is something much bigger than sex, Giles.” Giles again cringed at Faith’s words.
“Yes, well…good.”
“I’m surprised though. I mean, he stopped helping out. He just disappeared. Why does he want to help all of the sudden?”
“He just said that his schedule’s free. With students going home and what not, he figured now was as good a time as any. That’s all he told me over the phone.” Robin had taken a job as the headmaster of a school in downtown London. According to rumor, he was a favorite amongst the female students. Faith had heard through the grapevine that Robin was dating a colleague, but she hadn’t let herself pay much attention to it. They were the past. There was no reason they couldn’t try to be friends was there?
But as they rounded the corner, Faith and Giles both slowed, and the girls behind them slowed too, but not for the same reason. They were simply following their leaders. But up ahead, Faith saw something she never expected she would see. Robin was holding a pink bundle in his arms, handing it over to a petite woman with almond skin and dark, curly hair. He was smiling. He was leaning in. He was kissing her. And he was waving goodbye. It was only when she’d put the pink bundle in a car seat and then pulled off and headed down the road that he had turned and noticed that his visitors had arrived. From the look on his face, it was obvious he was hoping to avoid this awkwardness all together.
But, he took a deep breath and despite the pained look in his eyes at seeing his ex, he walked over and smiled politely.
“It’s good to see you again.”
“Yeah,” Faith said a little flatly, trying to sound cool about the whole thing.
“Giles? How are you?” He winced. “Sorry, I guess that’s a dumb question.” Clearing his throat, he looked at the remaining girls. They were a sorry looking bunch, that was for sure. “This is the rest of them?”
“And the ones Andrew’s traveling with from Italy,” Faith broke in. “He said they’re pretty broken up too.”
“They’ll be safe here until Buffy gets here. Then we’ll move to a more secure location.”
“Where might that be, exactly?” Giles asked. Robin looked around and shook his head.
“Still working on that one,” he admitted.
“Ah,” Giles said with a weak smile. He moved out of the way, while Robin showed the young temporarily ex-slayers the way up to his loft apartment. It was sure to turn into the same scene as the Summers household had turned into years ago, before the First and his minions went tumbling down into Hell where they belonged.
Giles followed the girls into the building, leaving Faith to take up the rear. She shifted a little uncomfortably at being left alone with Robin, but she decided to remedy that. She headed into the building just as Robin turned to potentially strike up a conversation with her. But, he froze when he saw that she was already walking away.
Faith closed her eyes momentarily. She could feel his eyes on her, and she didn’t want to turn around and meet his gaze. Not now. Not yet. No, she thought, this isn’t going to be uncomfortable at all…
***
Toys had been tossed and stuffed into suit cases, clothes had been pulled off the hanger and stuffed as tightly as possible until the suitcases looked like they would bust at the seams.
Bex and Bella, despite their excitement about the trip, had fallen asleep still wearing their play clothes and their shoes. Buffy and Spike hadn’t had the heart to wake them up, because they knew that sleeping was a luxury that none of them might have here in a few days. They deserved to have all the rest they could get.
Buffy carried Bella into her room, while Spike carried Bex to this, and within a few minutes of carefully maneuvering feet out of shoes and slowly and carefully replacing play clothes with pajamas, they regrouped in the hallway, both exhausted but too anxious to go to sleep.
Buffy poked her head in Dawn’s room to find her highlighting something in a text book. Silently, she padded down the hall with Spike right behind her, and they headed downstairs to sit in the kitchen.
Buffy silently went to work at making them both something cool to drink. Despite the fact that the air conditioner was working, it was still muggy in the house.
She handed Spike a beer, and she sat down with a glass of lemonade. She took a sip, and she swore her teeth nearly fell out. It was sugary sweet. She thought back to who made this batch. Duh. Dawn.
She placed the glass aside, watching the beads roll down the side and make a wet ring on the table. Spike took a swig of his beer, watching her as she rhythmically clicked her nails on the table top.
“We could do a spell,” Buffy suggested. “Have Willow do a spell or something. We could send them somewhere…”
“To where? Your Dad’s place?” Spike asked. Buffy grimaced.
“I don’t even know where he is.” The truth was that she hadn’t heard from him since about a year after her mother’s death. She hadn’t been sure when he’d gone from a doting dad to a deadbeat, but it had happened at some point, and it was a shame, because when she was just a little girl, she’d had him wrapped around her little finger, much like Bella’s relationship with her own daddy. “I wish Mom was here. She’d know what to do. She always knew what to do. I wish I was like her, sometimes. She was…she was like Supermom.” Spike smiled at this fond memories of Joyce Summers.
“You’re a lot more like her than you give yourself credit for, pet.”
“Sometimes I still can’t believe all of this.”
“I know what you mean.” But he could see Buffy had jumped onto a train of thought. She slowly traced her finger around the patterns of the table cloth.
“When I first got to Sunnydale, I thought I’d put it all behind me. I thought, great, I dusted a few vampires, burned down my high school gymnasium in the process, and managed to disappoint my parents, which I never wanted to do. I thought that Sunnydale was going to be a fresh start for me.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“In some ways,” Buffy admitted. “But the first day…the first day, Spike, I knew I was never going to escape it. I tried. I fought Giles on it until I knew I had to do something or else the people I cared about were gonna get hurt.” Sighing, she took another sip of the ultra-sweet lemonade. “It was like I couldn’t catch a break. Even with Angel. I fell in love with him, and I just…went with it. And that came back to bite me…almost literally.” She shook her head, and she looked up to gauge Spike’s reaction to her talking about Angel. Despite the fact that they both felt secure in their relationship now, talking about past lovers was almost always subject to awkward squirms.
“Then you came along,” she laughed, “and that made things…well, pretty much a nightmare.”
“Sorry about that, pet.”
“Oh, don’t apologize. Sometimes…only sometimes, it was fun kicking your ass.” She grinned at her husband. “Come on. You have to admit, you thought you had me when I was under Ethan’s spell that Halloween. You should have seen the look on your face when the spell broke.”
“Yeah, well, you should have seen you in that dress. You have no idea how much I wanted you then. My instinct wasn’t exactly to kill you at that minute, pet. It was either kiss you or kill you, and…well…”
“You picked kill.”
“I wavered for a long while though,” he protested.
“Oh what, two seconds?”
“Hey, you can’t blame me, pet. I was evil.”
“Uh huh,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Maybe I’m just giving you too much of a break with this whole ‘the past is the past’ thing.” He knew she was teasing, and it made him happy to know that they could be that way with each other. They were a couple. Something he’d yearned for long before she did. She would never know just how precious it was to him that she had let him in.
Buffy looked up at the clock, noticing the time. “It’s getting late. We should probably go up and try to get some sleep.”
“Right,” Spike said with a nod, sucking down the last bit of his beer. Buffy took the bottle from him and tossed it in the garbage before emptying the remains of the ultra-sweet lemonade. It was so sweet she wondered if she would even be able to sleep until next Thursday.
When she turned at the sink, he was right beside her, smiling. She smiled back and leaned in to give him a soft kiss. When she sighed quietly against his lips, he pulled back and started toward the stairs. She was right behind him, curling her fingers around his belt loops as she followed him up the stairs.
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