Krissy placed a candle on the shelf. “So this is all you do all day; take inventory and wait for sales?”
“I also count and organize the money.” Anya answered.
“Oh.” Krissy blinked.
The bell attached to the door rang and both females looked up at the entrance to see Dawn and Buffy enter with Giles.
“Giles!” Anya exclaimed, coming from behind the counter. She paused. “You don’t want the shop back, do you?”
“No,” Giles replied, welcoming the hug Anya then rushed to give. “I came for my ‘the-world-is-ending’ visit.”
“Oh. Well, as long as you don’t want the shop.” Anya said, letting go. “This is Krissy. I live with her.”
When Giles frowned, confusion marring his face, Krissy got the feeling that Dawn and Buffy didn’t finish explaining everything. Buffy didn’t attempt to pretend she had.
“Um, yeah…” Buffy started nervously. “We were just getting there.”
“Where’s Xander and Willow?” Krissy asked after Anya disappeared into the basement.
“Willow offered to be on Spike duty. Xander’s…who knows?” Dawn shrugged.
“I’ll go…help her then.” Krissy said with a slight smile at the thought of the redhead. “Tell Anya that I’ll be back in an hour.” The bell dinged to signal her exit.
Buffy sighed and sat down. “Long, painful version, or short, easy one?”
“I think I might be better off with the long version. Far as I know, Spike’s in some kind of trouble, Xander and Anya have split ways, you’ve met someone new who already knows of the hell mouth, and I’m concerned that no one’s mentioned Tara.” Giles replied, sitting at the reading table.
Dawn took a seat next to Buffy, directly across from Giles as the slayer flinched at the obvious lack of communication.
“So, um, you left. And things got kinda bad. I mean, Dawn was a klepto-“
“And I totally paid everyone back.” Dawn interrupted.
Buffy gave Dawn a short look and turned back to Giles. “Drusilla came back, with this vamp named Kita, and did a total memory swipe on Spike-worse than Willow’s. He was missing for two months, until Drusilla undid it-she and Kita are dust in the wind, by the way. Xander and Anya got married, and Willow and Tara got back together.”
“I’m going to assume that’s when everything fell apart.” Giles said.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Dawn murmured, once again thinking about Tara.
“First, the pains in my asses of the year-Warren, Jonathan and the other one-sent a demon after Spike and me while we were searching for their ‘lair’. They sent some Gargle-or-something demon and Spike pulled the short end of the stick. It poisoned him. Made him delusional.”
“He eventually thought that he was really back in 1882 London, married to someone named Cecily, and suffering from hallucinations.” Dawn added.
“Spike, don’t do this,” Dawn pleaded, backing away, her gaze riveted to the stake in his hand.
“Why not, Bit?” He hopped over the chair and she screamed, running upstairs and locking herself in the bathroom. He kicked the door and it cracked.
“It isn’t real, Spike! It’s not real!”
“Isn’t real?” Spike echoed. Dawn screamed when the door splintered. “What’s more real, Dawn?”
Dawn looked around, searching for a way out. There was only the window.
“What’s more real, Dawn?! That I’m a successful writer married to Cecily Addams in London, suffering from hallucinations and scaring my wife?”
Dawn shrieked as Spike’s foot went through the door.
“Or that I’m a one hundred twenty two year old vampire that lives on a Hellmouth and fell in love with a vampire slayer whose best friend is a witch and whose sister is an inter-dimensional key?”
“I can imagine how well that turned out.” Giles commented dryly.
“He tried to burn down the house, with everyone inside.” Buffy deadpanned.
“Well.” Giles cleared his throat. “Xander and Anya.”
“All we know is from Anya. And that’s that Xander left after telling her that he didn’t want to be the one that hurt her.” Dawn said, uncomfortable (what with Anya being right downstairs).
“And then there’s Tara.” Buffy said. “She di…she’s dead.”
“Dead?” Giles echoed. He left for a year and everything fell apart. If he could, he’d certainly go back in time and rethink his decision to leave. “What happened?”
“The First Evil. I-I knew I recognized the robed figures, but now I realize exactly. They attacked us at the shop and killed Tara.” Buffy said as the pieces, including her dream, came together perfectly in her head.
“The First Evil. Buffy, what makes you think it’s the First Evil? And if so, why is it back?”
“I had a dream. A prophetic dream. The First was telling me what Drusilla did. And then…there were various things, showing me. The reason the First is here, is because of what Drusilla did in the first place.”
“And what did Drusilla do?”
“There’s only one thing that would interest the First,” Anya said and the other three turned to look at the once-again demon (not that they knew that), wondering how long she’d been standing there.
She walked behind the counter and bent down to a drawer. Three was a rustling of keys, jangling as Anya searched for the right one.
She unlocked the drawer and pulled out a heavy tome. She hefted it into her arms and carried it over to the reading table, then dropping it in front of Giles.
“What’s that?” Dawn asked.
“It’s the only book that can list every possible ritual there is…well except those in that belong to Wolfram and Hart, but they get anything so-“
“Where did you get this?” Giles cut her off, looking through the book with more than mild interest.
Anya looked more than put off at being interrupted. “Krissy got it. Probably off the black market. She told me to keep it safe here.” She answered in a disgruntled (at being cut off) voice. “What Drusilla did is probably the Latin one that generally means the Gift.” The other three stared at her. “I was bored and read the book last night. It’s not like Krissy and I have lesbian sex.”
There was no reply on the last point.
“Ut Tribuo Donum. To be literal, it means ‘to give the gift’. It’s defined as when a sire commits…well, suicide, but with a short-and very difficult-ritual, they can strip the vampire they sired of all weaknesses and ensure immortality beyond that of a normal vampire. Invincibility is more like it.”
“And Drusilla actually gave all that to Spike?” Buffy asked.
“Yes.”
Xander wouldn’t come to the meeting, nervous that Anya would be there. Anya wouldn’t come, not wanting to take the chance that Xander would decide to show up. In short, both Xander and Anya had opted out. Not that anyone was so sure that it was a good thing that they were both absent, Xander having returned to the apartment across the hall from Krissy and Anya.
Willow spent the time with Krissy, who had offered to help her with “Spike duty” again, and both were therefore not at the meeting (which meant it was only a trio of Buffy, Giles and Dawn). The two just talked, about everything and anything-sometimes nothing. All they really had to do was make sure that he did not at any point start talking to people who weren’t there, or attack anyone. It made it a pretty boring night if one didn’t have company.
“How old are you?” Willow asked curiously as Krissy looked through the kitchen and helped her make a shopping list. Yes, they had become that bored throughout the day; after the first day, they’d virtually run out of things to talk about. Willow almost knew Krissy as well as she knew Buffy or Xander.
“Um…I’d be considered eighteen in this dimension.” She said. “Oh, hey-no sugar.”
“In this dimension?” Willow echoed, writing “sugar” on the list. So maybe she didn’t know Krissy all that well. “You’re not human?”
“No, I’m not. Where I’m from, in my home dimension, I’m one hundred forty-four years old. Already a widow, actually.”
“Widow as in married and your husband died?” Willow asked, feeling kind of disappointed, and then guilty. Tara had only died a few short weeks ago and she already had this feeling of attraction towards Krissy, who as obviously very interested in guys, being a widow and everything.
Krissy smiled a bit, thinking about the one she lost five decades ago. “Yes, but I’m not partial, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Willow choked on her sip of water. “What could I have been wondering?”
“You tell me. My people aren’t strict about orientation.” Krissy said. “It also helps that my brother’s in a place of power…”
“Oh. Is he…?” Willow made this gesture with her hand, her mind filled with wonderment. She had no ideas that Krissy’s dimension was perfect, but it was close enough. And if any of the girls were like Krissy…she stopped at the thought.
“Oh. Oh no. He’s completely hetero.” Krissy said, smiling. “When I was a century and he was plus sixteen, we went out to a party and I received more advances than him. I still tease him about it, and you can too-that is, unless his wife’s around. She’s very jealous and over-protective.”
“You’d take me there?” Willow asked, better enough to take another sip of her water. She was surrendering to her curiosity to see this place in person. See if it was real.
Krissy looked at Willow, a smile gracing her face; Willow returned it. Something fluttered in her stomach as grey eyes met green. She wondered how her family would take Willow. “I think I can manage that.”
He’d decided to stay in one place, to sit and not say anything, not do anything, and maybe, they’d all go away. All the voices, all the…noise. He wouldn’t make a sound, promise. He’d say not one word; he’d be a good boy, obedient. A good boy, just like his mum taught him. And, maybe, they’d all go away, and it’d be okay. He’d just sit, and be quiet, and not