“Buffy? Dear are you alright?” Joe said reaching out for his wife.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Damn, what was that about?
“Are you sure, you seemed rather startled. Would like me to get you some warm milk?
“No, don’t worry about it, lets just go back to sleep. Something about blood…thick and red.
It was times like these, when she could pretend that it was Spike who held her at night. She knew that it was wrong. Pining away for a man that in no way wanted her while she had one that truly did love her. But even late at night when there was a strong pair of arms around her, she could tell that they were not the arms that she wanted, or belonged in. Sometimes she wondered how she’d gotten here, in this life.
“Buffy, I’d like to introduce you to Joe Reed; he’s a solicitor who’s been helping me with my business” said Giles. Business, yeah right. You mean putting the Council of Want all their Slayers dead back in business
“It’s nice to meet you Mr. Reed” Buffy stated with a false sincerity. Just let me go back to sleep, I can pretend that Spike loves me there
“Please, call me Joe. I feel as though I already know you. Mr. Giles has told me so much.”
“Ok, Joe. Hey, you’re not British, what’s up with that. I thought Giles only knew British people?”
“Oh, no Ms. Summers” he said with a laugh and a smile “I’m from America, Connecticut actually.
“Oh”
“I’ve been studying law here as a way for me to have a better understanding of the European dynamic. I was hoping to try international law.” My God, could he be anymore annoying?
“Buffy, I was hoping that you would be able to take Mr. Reed around the premises to let him get a feel for the land” Giles interrupted kindly. He wouldn’t!
“Giles may I speak with you for a moment in private?” Buffy led Giles to another room and closed the door with a loud thump.
“You are not setting me up with him! God can’t you just let me…”
“Spike didn’t want you Buffy. It’s obvious that whatever advantage he had in Sunnydale by pretending to love you is no longer relevant.”
“Giles!”
“Now, Buffy I realize that you believe that you had some other feelings for Spike, but really, is it necessary to carry on like this? You’re acting like a child. Please, show Mr. Reed around and…and if you happen to like the man then…”
“Don’t finish that sentence.” Buffy stormed out of the room, grabbed Joe by the arm and ‘showed’ him around the new council grounds.
She didn’t know why she’d agreed to go to dinner with him. She wasn’t even sure if she liked him, but there was something kind in his eyes, when she told him of Spike’s rejection. He didn’t seem like he wanted to rush anything, or even have anything at all. So they went out on a date and another and another. Buffy eventually grew to like his opinion, like how they could sit in silence. Spike and she could never do that – they were always fighting in some form or another.
With prompting from Dawn and the others, maybe it was even temporary insanity on her part; she let their relationship turn serious. Joe never seemed to mind that he could only have half of her heart, if that. He seemed completely enamored. After that debacle with Spike in L.A., she needed someone to see her that way. Perhaps his attraction was the only thing that kept her from dying after Spike’s betrayal.
Joe didn’t remind her of Spike in any single way. Which was good. Although when he asked her to marry him she had to say yes. Not because she wanted to, but because she couldn’t be left by another man. Spike’s personality was a very distinctive one, covering half the spectrum of characteristics and Joe was the complete opposite. If he left her, it meant that no man of any kind would want her. So she said yes.
Her reasoning made her lean towards the decision of marrying Joe, but it was Willow, Xander, and Giles that really made her accept. They kept telling her that since she wasn’t the only slayer, she could finally have that normal life that she wanted long ago along with the normal husband that every girl dreamed of. Not this girl.
There was a part of her that always believed she’d failed each and every one of them. She’s wasn’t the perfect slayer/daughter that Giles wanted and she let Jenny die, she let Willow go ballistic with magic, and she lost Xander’s eye. Buffy thought that maybe if she married him, she’d make some of that up. Giles and Xander would be happy she stopped sleeping with the dead and Willow…well Willow must have hated it as well. She never trusted Spike anyway.
So, it was time for Buffy to grow up, be cookies, and have someone else’s wedding dream.
Bzzzzzzzzzzt, Bzzzzzzzzzzt Great another day of work. I hate that alarm, but Joe freaks out when I break them
Sometimes he wondered why he’d done it - said those things to her. It was cruel and just wasn’t the way that a man should speak to a woman, but he was trying to save her life and she had just gotten in the way. Stupid bint, see if I help her the next time I see her pimp beating the living daylights out of her. Angel and Spike had gone out on patrol last night and only really ended up chasing away stupid humans doing stupid human things.
After the way things went down with the Senior Partners, seeing as Spike and Angel were the only ones to survive, the two of them had relocated to San Francisco and resurrected Angel Investigations. Although it was now called WCW Investigations (Wesley, Charles, and Fred) to remember the ones that they’d lost in the fight.
Surprisingly, Angel and Spike had reconciled their relationship and the only barbs that passed between them were in good jest. It had been healing for Angel to have the love of his childe again and for Spike to finally know the love of his grandsire. If asked, both of them would say that it was the battle with the Black Thorn that did the trick, or rather the recovery. Angel had lost his left arm, fighting that dragon, and had depended on Spike until he’d healed and learned how to adjust to life with just one arm.
The fact that they were the only ones left and they’d survived gave them the push they needed to finally let things rest. Both were tired of their animosity and were a family for the first time in forever.
“Spike!”
“What is it now Peaches?”
“Just get in here.”
“Jeez pops, no need to get you knickers in a… Who the bloody hell is that?”
“Name’s Whistler kid.”
“Wait just a sodden minute; I’m not a bloody kid.”
“Whatever, look I’m here for a reason.”
“And what reason might that be? Every time you’re around, something invariable bad happens.” Angel said in disgust. How he hated that demon.
“Something big is going down. Enough for the powers to pull me out of retirement. I was happily enjoying the beaches of Tahiti, the babes over there. Damn!” Whistler used his hands to make a very curvaceous woman in the air.
“Whistler!” Angel said impatiently.
“What, oh. Sorry man, got lost in thoughts of that brunette. Anyway, ever heard of the Scrolls of Siyamak?”
“No, should I have?” Angel replied. You know it would almost be worth it to go all evil, just so the powers wouldn’t send this idiot to me
“You haven’t, well look it up and fast. Others…”
“Let me guess, a bleeding apocalypse.”
“No pal. Worst than that. The apocalypse. The one that’s gonna end it all. Well, I got a girl calling my name, toodles. Oh, I almost forgot. Once you figure out what’s going on, you’ll need the name Reed. Bye.” And Whistler disappeared.
“Thank God that blighter left, he was getting on my nerves. So what do we do now?”
“Find the scrolls.”
Well that had been easier said than done. Angel had to call in some favors and it had taken a few weeks, but they finally got them. They were written in Persian and were a bitch to translate. They were finally translated in a much slower pace than Giles or Wesley would have done, too bad they were both dead. Giles having been too old to still accompany new slayers out on patrols.
“So what does it say?” Spike asked impatiently.
“Nothing good…
though many may be named in spite
and one of two who should not fight
called both a childe of night
but eagerly side with the path of the right
brought together for true love’s right
to battle the original at night
and finally end the fight
for it reemerged in spite
of the barrier born of dark and light
“How’s that” Spike questioned. “I get the part about something bad coming, but what the rest of that mumbo jumbo?”
“Buffy.”
“What? How do you get that? I didn’t get that.” He said nervously. That name hadn’t been spoken between them in 20 years. Not since that day in Wolfram & Hart…
“You shouldn’t have said those things to her Spike.” Fred said in a voice that was much sterner than her normal timid voice.
“I know, I know, but I had to let her go. She told me once it was killing her to be with me. So I figure its best if it’s me dying not being with her than have her suffer being with me.”
“Earth to Spike. Are you with me here?” Can’t hurt the girl.
“What? Yeah, Buffy…need Buffy.” Always
“What are we going to do, just hop on a private jet that we no longer have and show up at her door? Cuz ya’ know that’ll go over well. We don’t even know where she’s at.”
“I do.”
“WHAT? How?”
“When Giles died. In his will he left an envelop addressed to me, it was just a listing of his contacts in case we needed them. That’s how I found the scrolls. Anyway, Buffy’s in Maine.”
“Maine, huh, never thought that chit would leave Rome.” Or that wanker the Immortal.
“Wait though, what about what’s his name saying we need to know the name Reed?” Spike had a bad feeling about this. Even though Angel and Spike hadn’t talked about Buffy in two decades, didn’t mean he didn’t have nightmares about that day he told her to leave. What if she really moved on? Of course she would, she didn’t love him. “You don’t think she got hitched do you?”
“Why not, we both made it clear to her that she wasn’t going to have happily ever after with us.”
Angel went over to the computer and searched for a Buffy Reed on the telephone directory.
Buffy and Joe were just about to turn in when the phone rang. Joe picked it up and frowned when an unfamiliar male voice asked for his wife. He handed the phone over.
“It’s for you dear.”
“Hello?”
“Hello Buffy.”
“Angel?” and the phone slipped from her grasp.
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