“So let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Xander began, his agitation evident in his voice. “According to Fangface here – who we’re trusting for some unknown reason that I can’t figure out – Willow’s spell released the ancient demon that was used to create the first Slayer, and now it’s taking over Buffy anytime it feels like it and committing random acts of violence using her body – randomly. And we can’t kill it, because if we do, Buffy will die too, and there won’t be any more Slayers – according to Spike.”
There was a moment’s silence as everyone took in what he had said, processing the situation.
“That’s pretty much it,” Buffy stated grimly, closing her eyes for a moment and leaning her head back, a slight frown crossing her pretty features, evidence of the severe struggle that was still taking place inside her. “Thank you, Xander, oh Great Stater of Obvious and Already Stated Facts.”
Xander’s silence was evidence that her words had wounded him, and she looked up again wearily with an apologetic little smile.
“Sorry, Xander. It’s just – we know all this already,” she explained, a note of irritation to her tired voice. “Instead of looking for a way to blame Spike for this, you *should* be…
“I’m not,” Xander interrupted, his voice quieter, subdued. “It’s just – if we can’t kill it – how can we beat it?”
Buffy was surprised by the genuine, serious concern in his voice – and relieved that on some level, he did seem to be accepting and dealing with the situation.
“Can’t we just – reverse the spell?” Anya suggested, looking expectantly from Giles to Willow and back again. “I mean – if Willow’s spell set this thing free – can’t she just undo it and – and lock it back up again?”
“Yes, because simple spell reversals always go *so* well around here,” Giles muttered sarcastically, his dark tone an indication of his worry. Still, he gave Willow a questioning look. “Was there a reversal spell in the book, specific to the spell that you used, Willow?” he asked her, a bit reluctantly, but acknowledging that it was a possible option.
“N-no,” Willow answered immediately, still not quite meeting anyone’s eyes. “I mean – I don’t *think* there was. I mean – it wasn’t like the ancient Romans would *want* a spell to put injuries and curses and stuff back *on* their own soldiers. The spell was designed to free them – to make them better fighters, unhindered. I don’t think they ever considered needing to reverse it.”
“So maybe – a binding spell? Totally separate from the original spell? To – shut this thing up in a – psychic cage or something…metaphysically…speaking…” Xander’s hesitant voice trailed off, as he realized how absolutely obvious it was becoming that he knew absolutely nothing about the subject he was talking about.
“That’s where it could get difficult,” Giles replied, shaking his head, as he went on in a thoughtful tone, “because according to Spike’s story, if we bind the demon – we may be in effect binding the Slayer as well. We need to find a way to bind it that would not in any way hurt Buffy or her powers as the Slayer.”
“Yeah,” Spike muttered resentfully, a sense of protective anger for his mate going through him. “ ‘cause heaven forbid you lose your bloody fighting machine -- *that’d* be a bleedin’ tragedy!”
In close contact as he was with his mate, sitting beside her with her arm around him, he could feel the powerful emotions she was feeling, knew her uncertainty, her fear, the weight of her worry for her loved ones, for the whole world, at the thought of the Slayer’s ceasing to exist. But buried beneath these feelings, he had also felt a trace of something he had not expected.
Hope.
He knew that in some moments, the Slayer still wished that she had never been called – that she could just be a normal girl.
“What would be tragic,” Giles snapped at the vampire, drawing his attention back to the conversation, “would be for the world to lose its greatest champion! For the Slayer, its protector, to cease to exist! I’m sure for you, the state the world would fall into in a few years’ time would be a bloody paradise! But for human beings, it could possibly become hell on earth, without the Slayer to fight the forces of evil!”
“Look – let’s not do this, okay?” Buffy said in a terse, tired voice that revealed how very *not* up to refereeing she was feeling at the moment. “That’s not going to happen. We’re going to find a way to stop this thing without destroying the Slayer line. Now let’s just calm down, and try to think about this rationally. What do we *know* so far?”
Spike was impressed by her calm, in spite of the struggle she was still waging, and felt a sense of admiration for her strength and courage.
“Well,” Dawn offered quietly, her eyes dark and troubled, “the demon seems to freak out every time Spike resists you.”
Buffy cringed inwardly at the haunted look in her little sister’s eyes, speaking of the trauma she had been put through over the past couple of days.
“Do you think that’s because of the claim?” Joyce guessed. “How does the claim factor into all this?”
“Well,” Giles began, thinking aloud as he spoke. “I would imagine that the – the territorial nature of the demon that was released into Buffy when Willow did her spell, combined with the fact that Buffy was already beginning to engage in battle to dominate Spike anyway, somehow caused it to come about.”
“So it’s just because of the possession,” Xander concluded, an unmistakable note of relief in his voice. “She only claimed him because she wasn’t herself.”
Spike flinched at that thought, swallowing back a sense of panic that rose up as a sick feeling in the back of his throat, at the thought that Buffy had never really wanted him, that she had only claimed him as her mate because of the influence of the vile thing within her. And if that was the case – who had really claimed him? Buffy? Or the demon?
Was there a difference at all?
“But – why a mating claim, then?” Joyce asked, concern and interest mingled on her face. She genuinely seemed to want to really understand. “Why did she claim Spike as her *mate*, instead of just doing the dominance ritual?”
“Um…” Buffy began hesitantly, raising the hand that was not wrapped around Spike’s waist and clasped in Dawn’s hand, with a little grimace of embarrassed apology. “…that was just me screwing up. I did the ritual wrong. I – I thought I’d already won, when I hadn’t yet…and I started to…to complete the ritual before it was time. Then, when Spike…”
“That’s odd.”
Buffy turned uncertain eyes to the face of her mate, who had been sitting there beside her, unusually quiet, for the past few minute as they had discussed the ramifications of the mating claim. Now, his brow was creased in a pensive frown, his eyes troubled and confused – but slightly hopeful.
“What’s odd?” she asked. “That I screwed up? Not so much with the odd.”
“No,” Spike shook his head, not reacting at all to her weak little joke. “If the demon was already in control by – by that point, then it should have known that the dominance ritual wasn’t finished – that you – it – hadn’t won…”
Buffy frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, that kind of thing’s instinctive, love…it would have known for sure whether I was under its power or not.”
Buffy considered for a moment, nodding thoughtfully. “And if it knew…being all…possessive and territorial and all, like Giles said – then it wouldn’t have gone on with things until the dominance ritual was done…if it was in control.”
She looked up at Giles, her eyes narrowing as she began to piece the situation together. “I told you before – I didn’t think the demon was in control by the time I claimed Spike. It might have started whenever Will’s spell took effect, and Spike’s chip went down – but I think it took it a little while to get strong enough to actually show itself.”
“But – if you weren’t being controlled by anything – than why would you mate with Spike?” Xander asked, an anxious note to his voice, and Buffy winced at his crude, inaccurate wording.
In that moment – she made a decision.
“Why wouldn’t I?” she shot back defiantly, glaring at her friend. “You can like it or not – but the claim – that wasn’t the demon. That was me.” She paused, before stating clearly and with certainty, “I claimed Spike because in that moment, even if I didn’t understand it – I knew what I wanted. And I wanted him.”
She turned her eyes toward her mate, who was staring at her, wide-eyed and scarcely daring to believe, his lips parted slightly in shock.
She squeezed his waist gently and gave him a reassuring smile as she added in a voice that was just over a whisper, “I still do.”
Spike swallowed hard, nearly overcome with powerful emotion, as he gazed into her eyes. After a few moments – it was too much for him, and he looked down, opening his mouth to speak, but hesitating.
“What?” Buffy gently pressed him.
“So…” he began in a soft, hushed tone, carefully considering his words as he spoke them. “so…*you* claimed me. Not – not the demon. I’m *yours* -- but not – not – the demon’s…”
In an instant, Buffy felt a violent rush of fury go through her, as the creature inside her screamed its rage and struggled to surface, furious at his words. Spike immediately felt the change in her, and drew back automatically with alarm, against her arm around him. Immediately, her arm tightened around his waist, holding him in place – and he froze. He was still sore from her earlier abuse, and knew that if her grip became any tighter, he would soon be in very serious pain.
“Buffy…” he whispered, his voice trembling and fearful. “Buffy…please…”
“Buffy!” Dawn’s voice was high and shrill, her eyes wide with terror as she held on tight to her sister’s hand, fighting with everything in her to keep her with them. Despite the fact that she had never stopped touching Buffy, the impact of Spike’s denial of the demon’s claim over him was strong enough to give them quite a fight. “Buffy – hold on!”
Spike watched the Slayer’s face intently through wide, terrified eyes – knew that she was fighting for control, wanting desperately to keep from hurting him – but gradually losing the fight.
“Buffy,” he whispered, placing his hand on her shoulder and drawing in nearer to her, against all of his instincts screaming for flight. He lowered his head slowly to rest on her shoulder in a gesture that was both affectionate and submissive. “I’m yours, Buffy – I’m yours…” he assured her softly, his voice trembling with uncertainty and fear.
Amazingly, the effect on Buffy was immediate and powerful. All eyes in the room were focused on her, and the only sound in the room was her harsh, ragged breathing, as she gradually regained control. Between the steadying touch of her sister, and Spike’s gentle, simple submission to her, Buffy was finally able to push back the Slayer-demon that was trying so hard to overcome her.
Slowly she raised her eyes to meet Spike’s again, a slightly bewildered, very frightened look mingled with the relief on her face.
“Buffy…” Spike’s eyes welled with unshed tears, and his voice shook in a delayed reaction of fear. “Buffy…”
He lowered his head to her shoulder again, breathing hard, as her hand slid protectively to rest at the back of his head – a vain, ironic attempt to shield him from the danger that was within herself.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay, Spike. It’s all right…”
“Well. I guess that answers *that* question.” Xander’s flat statement only partially drew Buffy’s attention away from her traumatized mate.
“What question?” she frowned, puzzled and distracted.
“Whether the demon claimed him – or just you,” Xander clarified. “Seeing how demon-Buffy just tried to go all psycho when he said he didn’t belong to it.”
Spike froze completely, not moving at all, not lifting his head, as he took in the surprisingly meaningful words the Whelp had just spoken. If he was the claimed mate not only of Buffy, but of her demon as well – what would that mean for him when they managed to separate the two? How was it even possible?
The thought was terribly confusing – and terrifying.
“No,” Buffy objected softly, her hand moving slowly, soothingly, through Spike’s hair, as she sensed his fear and confusion, and wanted to do something to calm him. “No – she didn’t claim him. He’s not hers.” She paused before adding, “She just *wants* him to be.”
“Wants him to be?” Giles echoed, confused. “What do you mean, Buffy?”
“*She*?” Joyce echoed, her voice troubled, one eyebrow raised.
Buffy nodded, looking at her mother and addressing her question first. “I think I’m starting to – to be able to feel her emotions, hear her thoughts – more clearly than I could at first – and we are most definitely dealing with a ‘she’.”
“Makes sense,” Anya shrugged. “That’s why Slayers are always girls.”
Spike raised his head to look at Buffy questioningly, drawn out of his emotions by the importance of the topic she was raising. “What is it, love?” he asked her softly. “What’s happening to you?”
“I – I’m not sure…but…I think I’m starting to understand…what’s motivating it. Why it flies into a rage at certain times, and not others. I think that – the wall between us, I guess, if you want to call it that – is starting to come down. It’s like – like I said before – how it feels like it’s me – but it’s not?” Buffy tried to explain, though she knew it did not make sense.
Spike frowned. “She said that,” he told her. “Back at the Magic Box. She said the two of you were one and the same. Must be why – why it calms her down when I say that I’m yours…because – she feels like you’re the same person…”
“Because – the demon’s essence is a part of Buffy?” Willow guessed.
“Yes, but – but it feels like more than that,” Buffy tried again, shaking her head, at a loss.
“Good Lord.”
The words were not unusual coming from the Watcher, but his soft, horrified tone drew the attention of the younger people in the room, turning their eyes to him and waiting for him to go on.
“The demon’s essence *is* a part of Buffy,” he began slowly, thinking it out as he went along. “But – it’s also, obviously – a part of the *demon*. If Buffy says that it feels like – the wall separating her from the entity possessing her is coming down – then – perhaps – the demon is beginning to rejoin with its essence, entirely. It’s the natural order of things, being in the same body, for the demon to – reconnect, so to speak, with its essence – which is a part of Buffy, as well. So – in effect – it sounds as if…”
When he stopped, Buffy drew in a sharp breath, suddenly understanding what he was saying with a sense of horror.
“Oh, my God,” Joyce gasped, realizing at the exact same moment, her eyes widening as she looked to the Watcher. “Are you saying that – because they share the same essence – that – Buffy is – is *becoming*…” Her voice trailed off; she could not make herself say it.
But Giles knew what she could not bring herself to say, and nodded grimly.
“Yes. Slowly but surely, it is happening. Unless we can separate Buffy from the demon, and very soon – the demon’s pull on its essence will pull Buffy in as well – and she and the demon will become so thoroughly joined and intermingled – that they will essentially be one and the same.”
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