Harmony jumped off the bed when she heard the car pulling up. She dropped the can of red paint on the floor, smiled at the writing on the wall. Picking up her duffel bag, she pulled out a picture frame.
“Soon, William," she murmured "we’ll be together the way it should have been." She kissed the picture, and dropped it in the middle of the floor, wanting it to be in a place where he couldn't possibly miss it..
Harmony hurried out of the apartment and down the back stairs.
*************************************************
William had moved up the ranks at channel 5 rather quickly, leap-frogging from anchor man to producer in less than a year’s time. He'd had to hire a secretary for the first time, so he'd called up a local temp agency to find a suitable candidate for the position.
The second one they'd sent was Harmony Kendall. She'd seemed a little air-headed, but her secretarial skills were impressive, so he'd hired her.
Over the course of time, some of his things began to go missing. Nothing major, but just enough to be annoying; a calculator, a coffee mug with the station's logo, a necktie
he'd left in the staff lounge; a framed photograph of himself and Buffy on a beach in
Northern California. The frame had been sterling silver, but he was much angrier at losing the picture it contained.
William then began getting bouquets of flowers. At first, he'd figured it was Buffy who was sending them, but when he'd questioned her about it, she had denied it. When he'd decided to check with the local florists, they abruptly stopped coming. At that point, Buffy had started getting harassing letters mailed to her at both their home and her store. William had begun to get seriously worried, wondering if he'd been attracting some sort of stalker.
Working late one night to assemble a budget for the coming year, he'd asked Harmony to stay as well. It had been a huge mistake on his part. She apparently had gotten the notion that he was interested in something other than working with her. He'd spent the evening ignoring her flirtatious behavior, trying to convince himself that he was imagining things, but not making the connection.
The next day, she came in bright and chipper. He'd asked her to come into his office.
“Yes, boss, what is it?” she'd asked.
“I wanted to discuss what happened last night."
“What do you mean?” she asked, feigning innocence.
He'd leaned across his desk. “I think you know exactly what I mean. Your behavior last night was entirely unprofessional, and if it continues that way, I'll have no choice but to let you go."
”I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Giles.”
“I think you do, and it had better stop right now. You're an excellent secretary, Harmony,
and I'd hate to lose you over something like this. So, let's try and get past it, and see
that it doesn't happen again, all right?"
"Yes sir."
**********************************************
A FEW WEEKS LATER.....
Harmony rolled over in bed and grabbed her phone. She punched in the numbers for William's home, wanting to hear his voice and perhaps disrupt whatever early morning love making might be going on.
“Hello?” Buffy answered, sounding half asleep.
Harmony rolled her eyes. “Is Mr. Giles there?”
“Harmony, do you have any idea what time it is?”
Do I even care what time it is?
“So…what’s your point?”
“My point is, stop calling so early or I'll..." Harmony heard William take the phone away. “Hey, I was talking to her,” Buffy muttered in the background.
“She’s my secretary. What is it Harmony?”
“William…” Harmony began, but got no further.
“I’ve asked you to call me Mr. Giles.”
“Give me the phone! ” Buffy sounded like she was trying to take the phone away while William held her off.
“Can't you tell her to be quiet?" Harmony finally said, annoyed with Buffy’s attitude.
“I’ll ask you again, why are you calling me?”
“God, William...why are you with her? You should be with me. I can give you so much more.”
“All right, that's enough. Harmony, you're fired. Call here one more time and I'll notify the police."
“William, please!”
“Monday morning, I want you to clean out your desk at the station."
“But…but…” she stuttered. The next thing she heard was the line going dead. “SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!”
She threw the phone and once it hit the wall; it shattered into thousands of little pieces.
“He’s gonna pay now, dearly.”
Harmony jumped out of bed and went into the other room. On the far wall there were three monitors set up, all showing a different view of William's home. One of the cameras was facing directly into their bedroom window. She knew she was safe there, since they had no idea she'd rented the house across the street from them.
She sat down in the chair by the window, where she had a high powered telescope set up. You may have fired me, but this isn't over yet, William...not even close. I'm gonna tear your happy little home to pieces.
***************************************
Xander and Anya pulled up in front of Willow and Tara’s home. It was a two story colonial house, the prettiest on the block. Anya hoped that one day she and Xander could have a house just like it.
“All right, Anya, we’re going to tell them, and we’ll tell Buffy and William later on this evening, okay?"
She smiled as they got out of the car, and walked up the walk way together, hand in hand.
Xander knocked on the door a few times, and Tara answered.
“Xander?” Tara said in surprise. “Anya. So good of you to stop by. Won’t you come in?” She stepped aside for them to enter in the foyer. “Willow" she called, "Xander and Anya are here.”
Willow came down the stairs, excited to see Xander. “Hey Xan.” She hugged him. “How have you two been?”
“Good…real good,” Xander said, wrapping an arm around Anya’s waist.
Anya had begun wearing maternity clothing, but it was the new style that disguised pregnancy well into the late months.
“Why don’t we go into the living room and get comfortable?” Willow suggested.
Xander and Anya sat on the couch, while Willow and Tara sat in a pair of matching armchairs.
“Xander and I are going to have a baby," Anya blurted out, in her usual blunt fashion
“Oh, is THAT what's going on?" Willow asked, relieved they weren’t breaking up. "What a relief."
“Why? What’d you think Wil? That we were breaking up?” Xander asked a little confused.
“Well….yeah…actually we did,” Tara replied. “Sorry. It’s just that Anya has been so quiet and we weren’t sure what was going on, but this news is great! I am so happy for you two.” Tara rose from the chair and hugged Anya and Xander. Willow hugged the couple as well.
“Me, too." Willow added. "When are you due?”
“In 4 months, three weeks, and four days," Anya replied. Everyone laughed at how carefully she'd calculated the exact date.
As Tara, Anya and Xander were talking about the baby, Willow began to think about Buffy. She hadn’t heard from her all afternoon, and was beginning to worry.
Maybe I should give her a call. OR maybe we should all just go over there. I hope she’s not upset with me.
“Honey,” Tara said, jarring Willow out of her thoughts.
“What?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Just worried about Buffy.”
“What’s up with the Buffster?” Xander asked.
“Angel was in town today,” Willow replied. “I called her this morning, and told her, but then the line went dead. I haven’t heard from her all day. I want to call, but I don’t know if I should. I’m just so worried. She may be upset with me. I did sorta, kinda, bring things back for her. I never meant to do that. I hope she’s okay…I just don’t know what I should do.”
“Baby, it’ll be fine. If you want, we can all stop by their place and make sure of it," Tara said, squeezing Willow’s hand.
********************************************
Xander, Anya, Willow and Tara drove over to Buffy and William's apartment an hour later. They had to park the car down the block, because there had been cop cars all over the place.
“Shit, what the hell happened here?” Xander asked, getting out of his car.
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” Willow replied feeling uneasy.
The group walked down the block to William and Buffy’s, but they were stopped by the police.
“Sorry, but this is a crime scene. No one is allowed beyond this tape.”
“Our friends live in there,” Willow replied, worriedly. “Please, officer. Our friends are in the second floor apartment. Did something happen to them?"
“I can’t give out that information, ma’am.”
“Look officer, my friend here is very worried. She’ll start to panic if she doesn’t get any information,” Xander tried reasoning with the police officer. "Believe me, it's not a pretty sight."
“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing that I can do. Please just stay behind the tape. I’ll see if I can get one of the detectives to help you.” The officer took down their names and went inside the building.
“Damn,” Xander said, seriously worried.
A few minutes later, they were admitted. The girls followed Xander up the front stairs.
Once they were in the apartment, they saw Buffy sitting on the floor in front of her couch, which had been destroyed.
“BUFFY!” they all yelled at once, and went to her side.
“What happened?” Xander asked, kneeling in front of her.
“This day has been horrible," she said, running her hands through her hair.
“What happened?” Willow asked, slowly. "Is this because of my phone call? You just hung up without saying anything."
Buffy turned towards Willow.
“I'm sorry about earlier. I just wasn’t expecting all that to come back.”
“So...you’re not mad at me?” Willow asked, hopefully.
“No, I’m not. You did me a favor. William and I went to visit Angel this morning. I finally was able to tell Angel what I thought about the whole situation…and you know what?”
“What?”
“It felt good. I've always wanted to tell him to go to hell.”
“That’s so great, Buffy.” Xander was happy that his friend was finally able to move past everything that had happened.
“It also turns out that William and Angel knew each other.” She briefly explained the situation.
“Oh wow,” Tara said, shocked. “Small world, huh?”
“Yeah. So...we're finally able to close THAT chapter of our lives, and then we come home to this,” Buffy gestured around the room. “Our home was broken into. Just about everything was destroyed.”
“I'm very sorry Buffy,” Anya said, so eagerly waiting to tell Buffy her news, it just spilled out before she realized it. “I’m pregnant.”
“What?” Buffy asked, shaking her head.
“Anya,” Xander gritted through his teeth. “This really isn't a good time."
“No, its okay, Xander. I’m glad for you two,” Buffy said, hugging them both.
“Really? It’s okay?” Xander asked, again.
“I mean it wasn’t the best time, but it’s good news and that's all that counts. Congratulations."
“Now, what happened here?” Tara asked, changing the subject.
“Some sick twisted bitch is after us," Buffy said, frowning.
“Who?”
“We think it was Harmony. She’s had a thing for William for a long time now, and I guess she finally cracked."
“Why didn’t Will just get rid of her?” Xander wondered.
“He thought she would lose interest, but this morning he had to fire her. Then we went to see Angel and when we got home....we found this mess."she replied, going over the days events in her mind. “He proposed to me right before we came home.”
“Oh my god, he did?” Willow asked, surprised. She'd known this day would happen, and she was thrilled for her friend.
“Yep. We were going to go to Vegas and just do it. We came home and found the apartment like this. He told me to stay in the hall, but I wanted to come in...I didn't want to stay out there. So I came in here, waiting for him to return, and I heard something like glass shattering. I ran down the hall and William was...so upset. I’d never seen him that way. I was worried about him. He tried to get me to leave the room but I didn’t. He didn’t want me to see what was on the wall above the bed.” She stopped for a few moments to catch her breath. “I had already noticed it when I walked into the bedroom. I went over to him and he just collapsed into my arms. He was finally able to suggest we call the police. They’ve been here since then…I just wish this was all over now. I want to go back to our normal life.” William had walked into the living room just as she said that. She ran into his arms.
“It’s okay, love, everything will be okay.” he said, holding her tightly.
“We’re never going to get away from her, are we?” Buffy asked, tears springing to her eyes. He kissed the top of her head.
“They’ll find her. We can go on with our lives and get married just as we'd planned."
“I hope so.”
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