Buffy and Spike were nearing the covered porch. The lights on the first floor glowed jack-o-lantern gold and Spike could see Tara in the kitchen. His sister was wearing her nubby, green bathrobe and her silver hair was in two plaits. By the scent of it she’d just taken a shower and was heating up a cup of Earl Gray Tea in the microwave. There was something else on the air as well. Spike looked down at Buffy with a grin.
“Tara baked chocolate chip cookies,” he said.
Buffy opened her mouth, but Spike never heard what she was about to say.
Spike felt a jolt and his body shook like he’d just touched a live power line. He didn’t have time to break his fall; Spike’s arms were at his sides as his face hit the earth. Spike was senseless before he could register the report of the gun, but from where she stood by the kitchen sink, Tara did. Wesley had counted on that, on Tara’s panic sending her outside before she could think.
Buffy watched Spike land and moved to be beside him, but Wesley grabbed her from behind and stuck the needle into her neck before she could reach the vampire. The drug caused near instantaneous paralysis after Buffy got in a few mulish kicks. They would have shattered his knees if they’d connected, Wesley thought proudly. Buffy could still hear and see, but there was fuck all she could do about it as her former Watcher set her carefully on the ground beside her prone lover. Wesley wanted her awake for all this. He needed her awake.
Tara hopped down the steps two a go, her robe fluttering open like a cape, exposing the white tank top and shorts she had on underneath. They stood out like moonstone in the night as did her pale skin. It was such a shame about Tara, Wesley thought, she was so beautiful. She knelt beside her brother and Buffy. Wesley positioned himself directly behind Tara and then dropped the invisibility spell.
“Don’t move or speak, Miss McClay. I’ve got a gun at the back of your head. Keep in mind you can’t help your brother if you’re dead,” Wesley said.
Tara’s pale hands trembled above Buffy’s face.
“Nod if you understand me, Tara.”
Tara nodded.
“Now stand up slowly. You’re going to drag your brother inside the house,” Wesley said.
Tara complied. She gingerly flipped Spike over and then wrapped her arms around his chest, tucking her elbows beneath his armpits. Tara looked almost like a lifeguard bringing a swimmer to shore. The cicadas kept up their din in the hot night as Tara carried the dead weight the best she could. Wesley had the gun trained on her the whole time, not even helping her heft the one hundred fifty pound vampire up the steps. Spike’s boots thumped against the seams in the wooden porch as she eased Spike across. Wesley stopped her before Tara could open the screen door.
“Disarm the wards. If you try anything I’ll kill Buffy,” Wesley said.
Tara mumbled a few words and there was a brief flash around the doorframe, signifying she’d removed any magical spells that were protecting the home.
“Good girl.”
Tara shifted Spike’s clumsy weight.
“What’s wrong with Billy?” Tara asked.
“Shut up,” Wesley said.
Chastened, the young woman lowered her head and continued stooping over her burden as she dragged him into the living room.
“Set him down.”
Tara did as she was told, laying her brother down as softly as she could, being mindful to place his head gently on the powder blue carpet.
Wesley took a black harness with a red ball attached to it out of the inside pocket of his black, leather jacket.
“Put the gag in your mouth, Tara,” Wesley said.
She looked at it with confusion before she realized how the straps and snaps should go. When she finally got it on, she was quite a picture, Wesley thought. It made him want to laugh, but he was unwilling to show her that face, the human part.
He took two clear, plastic zip ties out of the pocket of his black jeans.
“Sit beside your brother. Put a tie on your ankles, then wrists,” Wesley said.
Tara sank to the floor and bound herself per his instructions. She rolled on her side toward Spike as though they were having a cuddle. Wesley felt an ache in his chest to see them looking less like a monster and a witch than the two children they once had been. Like always, he pushed the ache aside.
Confident the girl had been incapacitated, Wesley holstered his weapon in the black case he had belted to his chest, turned his back and went to gather Buffy. His charge was exactly where he’d left her, curled like a startled potato bug on the grass. Wesley scooped Buffy up and held her to his heart. He marveled that a person so strong could feel so light. As he reentered the flat, Wesley glanced at the McClays; they looked utterly helpless. Still, there was one more thing to do. Wesley set Buffy on the couch and went over to the vampire. He took a pair of metal cuffs off of his belt loop and affixed Spike’s hands. They were enchanted; the more strength a creature used against them, the stronger in turn the handcuffs became. After he’d accomplished that, Wesley whipped the gun out of its holster and shot Spike four more times in the chest. Tara’s whole body winced with each impact.
They were horse tranquilizers, enough to flatten an elephant, hopefully enough to keep a vampire down until he was done with Buffy, Wes thought.
In three hours time a team dispatched by the Council would descend upon the place, carrying away the McClays for study in England. The vampire would be an invaluable resource for training slayers, as Wesley had thought before, and Tara. Tara could be used to control the beast, but she was also very special in her own right. Wesley had been unwilling to risk injecting Tara with the drugs he’d mixed for Buffy being that she wasn’t a slayer. To a regular person, they could do a fair amount of damage and the tranquilizers would’ve probably just killed Tara outright. The council needed Miss McClay to be in her prime. The battery of tests would definitely tax her limits and they wanted to start with a fresh subject.
Wesley looked down at the siblings for one moment more before he returned to Buffy. He swept her up into his arms, the gun still dangling from one hand. All the times he’d pictured this moment, it had never been like this. For one thing, she was capable of basic speech and movement. For another, in his dreams she loved him with equal ardor and there was no terror frozen in her eyes.
Life is strange, Wesley thought.
**
They were lying on the bed she shared with Spike; the red sheets smelled of stale passion and men’s cologne. Wesley stared into Buffy’s face, trying to remember every curve, every line, every shade of green that colored her iris. Wesley had his hands folded under his cheek, his legs bent at a right angle. Buffy was posed in the same position. He liked to imagine they were having a bit of pillow talk.
“Rupert told me destiny is like water, it always finds a way so there’s no point in trying to stop prophecy. It will or it won’t, he said. But I can’t let you destroy the Council, darling. Do you know how many people will die? If I allow you to, you will end the slayer line, my darling. I fought your fate for as long as I could, but everything I did made it worse.
‘There have been so many things I did to you, Buffy, in the name of the greater good. With a little Scotch, well, a lot of Scotch, I could bear them. I could sleep at night. But there’s one. I think it’s only fair I tell you now. Spike’s…condition… is my fault. I got jealous watching the two of you, but I couldn’t stop. The last straw was when you put that fucking wrapping paper up on the wall next to Dawn’s picture. I never made it to the wall of fame. I know it's petty, but it hurt me that you didn't want to include me among the other people you loved,” Wesley said.
Though her face was immobile, Wesley read reproach in her lucid eyes. It might have been a projection of conscience, but that didn’t stop him from reaching out and cupping her jaw.
“God, darling, don’t look at me like that. I’m sorry now, so sorry. I passed the information to Angel. I thought he’d just kill him, I swear to you, not that it makes it any better. Then that cunt, Lacy, got involved. She came to me, you know. She made a deal with me to bring down Angel if I’d promise to bring her and Willow back from the dead. The Council would never do such a thing, but she knew I had connections that could. So I lied to her, thought it would fix everything, but in the end it only pushed you further away. And then water found its way.
‘If I don’t kill you tonight, everyone we loved will have died in vain. All those machinations, all those sins against the world will be meaningless if I let you draw another breath. Do you understand that? They were martyrs, Buffy, just like you,” Wesley said.
Wesley closed the space between himself and his slayer. He pressed a kiss onto her rigid lips, remembering the times he’d kissed her before. That first time had been so frightening; he’d hardly known what he was doing, only that he had wanted to for so long. She’d always kissed back, even when she was shoving him away with firm gestures and soft words.
Not like this. It felt like she was already dead. When Wesley ended the kiss, he opened his eyes. Tears were coursing down Buffy’s cheeks.
**
More than anything, Buffy wanted to scream. Her body had always been the only thing she could rely on since her calling. It was resilient, capable and could carry her through when her mind felt on the verge of breaking. Now it betrayed her; she could only watch unable to stop him as Wesley slowly undressed her.
He wasn’t moved by her tears. Wesley positioned her like a doll, running his hands on her skin in a way that made Buffy want to break every single one of his fingers. This was the person who had taken everything from her and now with his feigned remorse he seemed to enjoy taking even more.
His ass is so going to be kicked…just as soon as the incapacitating anti-slayey drugs wear off, Buffy thought. Despite her bravado, Buffy couldn’t suppress the panic that was overtaking her. She struggled to move, but nothing happened.
Wesley was stroking her hair the way Spike always did, but not; when Spike did it she felt loved. Wesley made her feel like he was testing merchandise for quality and texture. Buffy thought of the first time she'd ever met Wesley. She'd been in the hospital, bandages over her wrists and Wesley had come into the room. He'd knelt in front of her, taken her hands in his and said, “I was very good friends with Rupert Giles.”
Buffy wondered if that had been a lie, too.
Wesley glanced at the digital clock by the bed.
“Not much time left,” he said.
Then Wesley stood and took his jacket off, setting it without ceremony on the ground. The rest of his garments followed in the same way, cast away without value.
No. No. No. No.
Wesley was completely naked and he was...ready...Buffy thought. For the millionth time she wished she could scream or fight. When he left the room she wondered what was going to happen next. Buffy heard the water running. A few minutes later he returned. Wesley picked her up again and carried her into the white, tiled room. The tub was filled and Buffy noticed that there was a small, silver hand gun resting on the chipped, white radiator next to the bath.
So this was how he’d do it, kill her, take a bath to get rid of any blood. Wesley would be gone and so would she, Buffy thought.
Wesley stepped over the edge into the tub with Buffy in his arms. He held her against him, allowing her to face out so she didn’t have to watch his eyes while he did whatever it was he’d planned. Then she realized that like so many other things Wesley had done that night, this was a grotesque parody of a moment she and Spike had shared.
“I just want you to remember one thing, Buffy. When I was alive, I never let you go,” Wesley said.
The gun shot popped her ear drum, leaving only a buzzing drone. Red was splashing against the white tile walls, and Wesley’s body slumped against her.
As the water filled with blood, Buffy started sliding under.
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