“I just thought of something.”
Giles didn’t even bother glancing up from his book. For the past ninety minutes, Angel had done nothing but pace and mutter things anxiously to himself. They had decided the night before to orchestrate a confrontation with Buffy after school—sooner rather than later. Today seemed as good a day as any.
That didn’t mean that Giles was prepared for Angel to arrive as early as he had. It was growing more and more difficult to ignore the urge to dust the prat.
“I can’t tell you how much I don’t care,” the Watcher finally replied, his tone dull and disinterested.
“Spike probably doesn’t know that he claimed Buffy.”
Giles froze and looked up slowly. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t think Spike knows that he claimed Buffy.”
“How exactly does that work?”
Angel sighed and cast a hand through his hair. “He wouldn’t…it’d have to be instinctual. I’ll bet everything that he was drunk. And if he was drunk, it could be that he has no earthly idea that he claimed Buffy.”
“Then how is it that he…what is it, oh yes, claimed Buffy?”
“It would’ve…” He trailed off, his eyes darkening as his jaw clenched. “If Spike claimed Buffy, it would’ve been a purely natural reaction to being…aroused. Or something equally disgusting. It’s possible that his demon felt or sensed something on a level beyond Spike’s understanding, and claimed Buffy based on that sensation.”
“A level beyond Spike’s understanding? That only leaves every level of human reasoning.”
“Spike doesn’t know how to claim.”
“What do you mean, he doesn’t know how to claim?” Giles demanded, his eyes narrowing. “It’s not applied mathematics. It’s one bloody word. You mean he has made it this far as a vampire without knowing how to claim someone? He does know he’s allergic to sunlight, right? And to stay from garlic?”
“Claiming is a very complex ritual!”
Giles scoffed. “Oh yes, very complex. ‘Mine. Yours.’ It’s right up there with ‘you’re it, no tag-backs.’”
“You do a lot of demonic claiming in the Watcher’s Council?”
“I’m glad you feel so comfortable using that tone with me, Angel. Really, I am.”
“I never taught Spike about claiming. He heard about it by accident, and I discouraged him from looking it up.” Angel paused. “Kind of like slayers. It was something that just slipped out when we were on the run from a mob. Darla and I were talking one night and he overheard us mention a mated couple we knew. We explained it to him, and I told him that he could never have Dru. Never. She’d never accept him, and if he tried, he was as good as dust.
“Last year, while I was…evil, Dru told me that Spike had considered claiming her after I left the fold, but she sensed it before he could research it to find out what it was or what he had to do to claim her. Before he knew what it meant. She told him in no uncertain terms that she would never accept him. Never. She thought it was funny…the look on his face when she told him, and I did too, at the time…” Angel sighed, his face a picture of self-loathing. “It’s possible that Spike researched it anyway, but I highly doubt it. If Dru put an end to his thinking that she would ever accept a claim, then he would have let it die. She was the only one he’d ever consider claiming.”
“And yet, you seem to think he claimed my slayer.”
“Well, it’s not like vampires always had research to rely on,” Angel replied. “Claiming is an instinctive thing. Something a vampire is driven to when he’s around someone he feels is…well, a worthy mate. If Spike claimed Buffy on a purely instinctual level, it’s possible that he recognized her strength or her…something and it struck him as compatible with his own strength or…something.”
Giles’s brows perked. “You’re saying that vampires claim each other based random whims?”
“No. Not typically. But Spike’s never been a typical vampire.”
“So my slayer is potentially mated to an atypical vampire. Lovely.”
Whatever Angel was about to say died on his lips. The library doors flew open.
“Giles, I can’t stay long today,” Buffy was saying, her eyes light and vibrant, a slight skip in her step. “I’m gonna hit every cemetery tonight. I am! And then I’m gonna…” Her cheery mood vanished the next second. She stopped cold when she saw Angel. Her light faded to dark, and she stared at him with pure loathing. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Such a good question,” Giles drawled.
“Buffy, I—”
“No.” She dropped her backpack shortly and stormed up to him. “What the hell is this?”
Angel’s hands came up. “You need to calm down. I can explain—”
“Angel seems to think that when you were afraid of being pregnant with his child, you were actually afraid of being pregnant with Spike’s child.” Giles shrugged unapologetically when they shot him identical horrified looks. “Just this once, I would like to get something accomplished rather than dance around the issue for a half hour.”
Buffy turned back to Angel, her eyes flaring dangerously. “Where the hell do you get off talking to my Watcher behind my back? You arrogant, conceited, big-haired jackass!”
“You hadn’t told him!” the vampire protested. “You were blaming it on me!”
“He reached that conclusion all on his own!” She paused when Giles cleared his throat pointedly, then continued with an apathetic shrug. “Okay, so I did nothing to dissuade him, but there is a reason this is called my life and not yours. It’s mine. And I don’t care if I think I got knocked up by the Dalai Lama, if I think I’m pregnant, it is in no way your business.”
“You thought you were pregnant with my child!”
“No, I didn’t!”
“No, you didn’t, but that’s what you told people!”
Buffy shook her head furiously. “That’s what people concluded on their own.” Giles cleared his throat again, and she flushed. “Even if I didn’t straighten out their incredibly flawed thinking.” At her Watcher’s indignant huff, she spun on her heel, her hands planted firmly on her hips. “Oh, come on, Giles! Pregnant with Angel’s child? What the hell do you take me for?”
“Someone who wouldn’t sleep with vampires, for one thing. And yet, you’ve managed to prove me wrong.” A beat. “Twice.”
“Hold on,” Angel objected, holding up a hand. “The first time was love.” If he saw the look of disgust that flashed across Buffy’s face, he didn’t comment on it. “We loved each other. We couldn’t have known what would happen. And the second time?” He turned back to her, his brows perked. “I can only assume that he was drunk and got a little too—”
The stricken look that overwhelmed his slayer’s eyes shot a bullet through Giles’s heart.
“A little too what?”
“No.” Buffy had regained her footing, and was shaking her head furiously. “Absolutely not. Whatever you’re thinking, stop. Just stop.”
“It’s not your fault if he—”
“He didn’t. I never said that he did anything.”
Angel’s nostrils flared. “You didn’t deny it! That night in the cemetery, I told you that it would’ve been because he was drunk, and you didn’t deny it!”
“So not acknowledging every lame ass theory of yours automatically verifies every lame ass theory?”
“Buffy, if he forced you—”
“He did not force me.” Buffy’s face went blank, unreadable. Her skin was pale and she was shaking. She was shaking so hard Giles feared she might collapse. “He didn’t force me. He kidnapped me, but he didn’t force me.”
“Wait a second—”
“He kidnapped you?” Giles demanded. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“Because I’m still in one piece and there was no reason to tell you.”
The blank look was melting away slowly; she was slipping into a façade that Giles knew well. All too well. It was the same look she had when she made excuses for not patrolling. The same look she adapted when she’d done something wrong that she didn’t want to confess. The look she’d worn for days after her return from Los Angeles. The look that had sharpened each time he asked her about Angel’s death until she finally told him exactly how her boyfriend had died.
She was lying, and she was doing it to protect herself.
“Spike didn’t do anything to me. He kidnapped me, and got drunk. And when he got back, I-I was afraid. I was tied up and he was very, very drunk. I didn’t know if he was going to kill me or…what.” She drew in a deep breath. “So I seduced him.”
Giles didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that.
“You what?!”
Okay, so perhaps he overreacted over something that he was almost certain was a lie. But it was still rather startling.
Angel just stared at her in horror.
“That’s right,” Buffy continued, nodding. “I-I seduced him. And talked him into letting me go. And yes…” She tossed a pointed look at her ex-boyfriend. “He has been following me around a bit…because he keeps having…flashbacks of what happened. He doesn’t remember it all, see. And he’s confused. But there you have it. I was kidnapped. I seduced him. I escaped. I wigged. Of course I wigged. Why else would I think I was pregnant? He’s a vampire, for crying out loud.”
Giles just swallowed and nodded.
“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Angel demanded. “That he kidnapped you and—”
“Because that’s how much what happened to me isn’t your business.” Buffy kneeled forward and collected her backpack from the floor. “I’m going home.”
She almost made it to the door. Almost.
“Buffy.” Angel inhaled and stepped forward. “Did he bite you?”
She didn’t bother turning around. “What?”
“Spike. Did he bite you?”
There was a long, deafening pause. Buffy pressed her thighs together and shook.
“No,” she replied. “No. He didn’t.”
She was gone without another word.
To be continued…
ETA: Explanation for why Buffy lied at the end of the chapter is coming in the next chapter. But let’s just say, her incredibly skewed logic is at it again.
Oh, and for anyone who might have forgotten, refer to Chapter 4 for a hint as to where Buffy got the idea to use seduction as an explanation.