Spike also looked at the appearance of Darla with a good deal of surprise, though the surprise for both vampires grew when they were the only ones who responded at all.
“What’s going on here Buffy?” Angel asked clearly wondering why Buffy hadn’t attacked her on sight.
“Oh right,” Buffy said disinterested, and furthermore annoyed, “Darla sort of works with me.”
“I guide her” Darla jumped in to clarify.
“You guide her?” Angel was incredulous.
It was Spike’s turn to speak again, but this time there was pride in his voice. “Buffy? You have a guide? I can’t believe this.”
Buffy couldn’t think of a way to respond. She couldn’t formulate words in his direction, good or bad, no matter how hard she tried. Thankfully Angel still didn’t know what the hell was going on, asking, “What’s a guide?”
Buffy could still respond to Angel, even if he did have his own explaining to do. “Yeah, it’s sort of like a watcher, but mystical, and it’s a little complicated.”
Spike with his continued pride, clarified further. “When a slayer gets to a certain point, she is appointed a guide. It takes the form of a vampire who has died, but that the slayer would be familiar with. The guide goes beyond what a watcher would teach. It’s more than just fighting strategy and tactics. It’s more…spiritual if you will. They help with what’s going on with the slayer at the time. Both the threats and how to deal with them.”
Darla jumped in with “Often emotionally.”
“I see…” Angel was starting to get it.
“Only two slayers have reached the point of obtaining a guide.” Spike told them.
“That’s the rumour.” Buffy said to the room, still unable to direct anything at Spike, though she was thankful that this time she didn’t have to go through the explanation. “What I don’t understand Darla,” She continued on a new tangent “is how you expect to use your job to help us find out what this ominous issue is.”
“You know exactly how Buffy, we take a little trip.”
“What are you talking about? That doesn’t tell us the future or even the present, how is that going to help us? Also no.” Working with Darla was hard at first but they had been able to figure a couple things out. One thing they always fought about however was these little ‘trips’ as it were.
“No it doesn’t, but what we see is dictated by what is going on in the present which means that a few things may come up that point in the right direction.”
“That is crazy,” Buffy was annoyed and sick of standing in the foyer. Instead of walking into the room that Angel and Spike were in she turned around and walked into the large dining hall and took a seat at the table. “It would never work.” She finished simply.
All of them followed. Buffy had seated herself at the chair beside the head. Willow sat beside her at the head of the table, Angel then sat next to her and Spike next to him. Darla didn’t sit. She leaned against the frame of the door sighing.
“What?” Buffy asked her, extremely irritated.
“Oh you know, it’s just like you to do this little dance. You keep forgetting that this is my job. I know how to do my job, you eventually see my point anyway so why can’t you just listen to me from the get go?”
“Those little ‘trips’ aren’t meant to be used to find out the present, not to mention you know how I hate non-solo trips”
“I know, but this is how it has to be. Not to mention finding out the present is exactly what they’re for. Granted not usually for finding out cryptic messages but I think it could work.”
“Okay stop.” Angel interrupted their little spat with confused face. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole ‘Darla is your guide’ thing, but now you guys keep talking about a trip? What trip? How is a trip going to help us anyway? I really need to be filled in here.”
“That would be nice.” Spike added agreeing with Angel about the ‘trip’ part.
Buffy couldn’t help it this time. Instead of an inability to say something, she had an inability not to. “Would it now? I guess a small piece of information goes a long way doesn’t it?” she spat this at him with one hell of a fierce look in her eyes.
“I…uh…” Spike couldn’t think of anything else to say.
An awkward silence settled in the room and once again Willow tried to break it. “It can all be explained. We need to go over everything first before we decide anyway right Buffy? Darla? Can you agree?”
“Of course.” Darla chimed, gloat in her voice.
“Whatever.” Buffy agreed.
So they all explained. Angel went over the specifics of how Cordelia died, casually leaving out the part with Conner. He explained the details of the past year since he’d last seen her. Spike piped in on a couple of tidbits but on the whole he was quiet since Buffy’s little outburst.
Buffy explained to them that there were different squads of slayers in different places, working together. They were in Scotland with Buffy running a squad with Faith who was currently out with some of the slayers. Xander was currently in New York, but he was on his way back as he had gotten his squad under control and were now running themselves under the watch of a slayer named Heather. Buffy explained that Dawn had taken a semester off from Berkley because she had been turned into a giant and missed too much school to make it through the semester. Spike perked his head up at this, which despite everything else did make Buffy a little happy to hear. She also explained how Darla had shown up about 10 months ago after Buffy had averted yet another apocalypse. She was corporeal, not a vampire, but not human either. Her existence was vague, but it was even to her.
“Okay,” Angel said sombrely after going over all the details of their individual fights for the past couple of years. “So what were you guys talking about with a ‘trip’?”
“It’s a little play on words there champ.” Darla told him launching herself away from leaning on the wall to walk around the table. “We’re talking about taking a trip down memory lane.”
“Its crap,” Buffy cut her off, “She takes us into memories of our past. We just sort of watch our memories in 3-D, and even though we were there apparently we learn something new from it.”
“You know it’s not crap Buffy. You see things you didn’t see before, and not all memories that you see were you there for. Look,” she continued now directed at the two lost vampires, “it’s normally used to figure the psychology of what’s going on, as I am supposed to be for spiritual guiding, but because of this, what memories are shown having something to do with what’s going on at the time. Albeit mainly psychologically but if someone has come along, especially someone that’s already been encountered, they’ll probably come up.”
“And, if it’s a new someone, we’ll have found out nothing but extremely pissed me off in the process.”
“If nothing else I’m guessing you need some spiritual guidance at this point.” Darla pointed out staring in direction of the two vampires.
“Whatever, if we’re going to do it, let’s do it.” Buffy knew that Darla had a point and she was sick of fighting. She figured she had put up enough of a fight for today.
[Reviews - 45]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 2593 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
I've used this concept in another story I scrapped, but I liked it so I'm using it again. Any answers of where people are will be answered as the story goes. If you're wondering you can ask, but I won't tell if there's a reason you don't know.
Chapter End Notes:
I'm trying to keep this as realistic as possible, hence why I haven't jumped right into the spuffy lovin' on the floor. I'm just as anxious as you are so it can't be far off. Plus the memories will help us get a little fix.