She sat up in her bed, glaring into her dark room. The whispering and the muttering stopped. Flopping back, Buffy stared up at the ceiling. Of course it was in the middle of the night. It was too much to ask that she actually sleep through the entire night. Rolling over, she figured maybe she could at least try to go back to sleep again. And on cue, her stomach growled.
Fantastic.
Grumbling to herself, Buffy crawled out of her bed and stumbled across the room in the pitch black dark to find the light. Knocking into something hard, she cursed. “All right, can I have a little help here?” she said aloud and, as if on cue, the lights came on.
Fighting off a shiver, she called to the empty room. “Thank you, you can leave now. I don’t want to see you.”
Now to find the kitchen. “Okay, Buffy, remember…down the hall to the stairs, down the stairs, take a left down the hall, take an immediate right and there you are.”
She kept repeating the mantra from memory, ignoring the feeling that she was being watched, and found the kitchen through the semi-lit hallways with ease. As soon as she entered, the light flicked on.
“Thanks again,” she muttered. “And still don’t want to see you.”
Making her way to the vast fridge, she opened it and perused the contents. She couldn’t settle on anything she wanted, so she started taking things out and placing them on the counter. A buffet, that’s what she’d have.
Munching on some cold chicken, her mind reeled back to a conversation she’d had with Dru a couple years back when she’d started her ‘business’.
“You’re doing what again?” Buffy asked in the phone, shoving her Lean Cuisine in the microwave and setting the timer.
“I’m helping solve murder cases,” Dru told her again.
Buffy shook her head and held out her hand as if the answer would be placed in the palm of it. Her brows were furrowed in complete confusion. “Why?”
“Why not? Some of these people lost their loved ones in horrible ways. They need answers to be able to heal. Why not help them? Especially since their loved ones come to me to help their families move on.”
Buffy sighed heavily. “So you’re what now -- Jonathan Edwards, but with a slightly different slant because now you solve crimes?”
“Buffy,” Dru said on a sigh, “Why do you mock me like this?”
“I don’t understand it.”
“You understand it, Buffy. You have the same—“
“I don’t have it.”
“Yes, you do. Just because you say you don’t, doesn’t mean it’s not there. You know it and I know it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Still, it doesn’t mean that it’s not there. What are you so afraid of?”
“You telling me you enjoy being woken up in the middle of the night by some persistent spirit that has something to say? I don’t particularly enjoy that. I also don’t like it when I spend a half an hour talking to someone on the subway, and then I come to find out that I was talking to thin air the whole time.”
“You aren’t talking to thin air, you’re talking to someone.”
“Tell that to the people on the subway with me!”
“You know how to tell—“
“And I don’t want to be able to tell, Dru. I find they leave you alone when you tell them to go away. Some of them actually have a code of ethics that involves not pissing off the living.”
“I feel good about what I’m doing, Buffy. I like to help these people. I like to see them be able to move on and find relief in knowing what happened to their loved ones. I help them fill a void that perhaps they would have spent years trying to fill and might never have succeeded at.”
The timer on the microwave went off and Buffy reached in to grab it.
“Don’t burn yourself,” Dru said quickly.
Buffy withdrew her hand. “Stop doing that.”
Dru laughed, “I was just teasing. Took a wild guess when I heard the beep. Warming up another meal in the microwave?”
“You suck,” Buffy muttered.
“I try. Come on, if you can’t have fun with your gift, what’s the point in having it?”
“Mainly, I just don’t see the point in having it.”
“Doesn’t it get exhausting trying to fight it?”
“No, what gets exhausting is always having these discussions with you.”
“I will stop then. For now.”
“Yeah, exactly. For now.”
Having suddenly lost her appetite, Buffy gathered the food up, put it back, and headed back to bed. She paid no heed to the lights going on and off around her as she made her way back to her room.
If there was one thing William was not, it was a quitter. He did not give up easily, even when he probably should. In addition, he was a man of his word. He had promised Dru to help Buffy, so help Buffy he would. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint the woman who had brought him so much peace after his precious Winifred had died.
So, it was with determination that William arrived at the mansion to see Buffy once again. Her maid wasn’t so sure she’d see him; honestly, he wasn’t so sure she’d see him. It was to both their great surprise that Buffy decided to meet with him. But it had to be in the garden out back. William smiled. That had also been Drusilla’s favorite spot to meet with people. Large and glorious with a huge fountain that you could actually sit on in the center of it, the garden was more like an intricate courtyard, bursting at the seams with flowers.
Sure enough, sitting ramrod straight at the fountain, Indian style, with her eyes closed was Buffy. Gone were the prim and proper threads she’d worn the day before, in their place were blue yoga pants and a white form fitting t-shirt. Her hair was free and cascading down her shoulders in waves. She looked so peaceful, so much like an angel that all William could do for a moment was stop and stare at her. Something inside him said Yes.
Her eyes popped open and met his. “Hi,” she said simply. “Come back for another round?”
He smiled, “I don’t give up easily.”
“Well, I don’t give in easy, so it would appear you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
He gestured to the spot beside her. “May I?”
She nodded her assent.
“Meditating?” he asked as he sat down, squinting against the sun.
“Sort of. I’m not really good at it. That was more Dru’s thing than mine. She could sit still for long periods of time and concentrate on one task. I can’t. I’m all over the place.”
“I find I’m the say way.”
“She tried to teach me to meditate so many times. I found that if I could at least sit for five minutes without thinking anything at all and just focusing on my breathing, I was all set.”
“Isn’t that meditating?”
“Yeah, but I think you’re supposed to hold it longer than five. Somehow what bill I need to pay next always crops up in my head. What can I do for you today, William?”
“Buffy, I hate that we argued the way we did. That’s not how I wanted our first meeting to go.”
“Well, it’s not like it matters, does it? You were my sister’s friend. Nothing says you have to be mine,” she said on a shrug.
He stared at her, slightly flabbergasted. “Do you purposely try to make things difficult?”
She smirked. “No, I’m just a natural.” She sighed heavily and shook her head. “Look, I’m sorry. I know that you’re just trying to help and do right by Dru. I don’t take well to help. I’m sorta used to doing things on my own.”
“Dru worried about you,” William confessed softly. “She worried that you worked too much and didn’t have a life outside of work.”
“I don’t.”
“Friends?”
“Some.”
“Boyfriend?”
She snorted. “To use a British phrase ‘Not bloody likely’.”
William found it best to ignore the surge of hope he felt at that fact. “Hence the worrying.”
“Yeah, well, Dru tried more than once to psychoanalyze me and never got anywhere, so don’t think you can try.”
He held up his hands. “I won’t try.”
“I have options with this place don’t I? To sign it over to someone, or to keep it, and rent it to someone else, right?”
“Don’t do that, Buffy. This …Dru wanted this to be your home.”
Buffy bounded to her feet. “Here we go again. What Dru wanted. What about what I want? What if I don’t want this place?”
“Because the apartment you have in California is so much better?”
“I know California. I don’t know England.”
“How long are you here for?”
“I don’t…I don’t know. For a month maybe.”
“Then stay. I will keep the bank at bay, I will do everything in my power to allow you to stay for that month and decide what you want. Then when you do decide, whatever you decide, I will help you make plans.”
“Even if it’s to not stay?”
“Even if it’s to not stay.”
“And you won’t give me a problem about it?”
“I swear on the Queen.”
Buffy held out her hand and William took it, wondering if she felt the surge of electricity he felt upon touching her. He rest startled eyes on her, but she was already taking her hand back and walking off. “Sounds like a deal then,” she said and kept going.