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Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry about the delay, RL got in the way.

Betaed by Flight Of Fancy.
A sad smile quirked the corner of Whistler’s mouth, but he refused to answer Xander’s question. “Sorry kiddos, but I can’t answer that until Miss Summers is here.”

Xander threw his hands up in the air. “We’re not going to get very far then, since that’s our whole problem. We can’t find Buffy anywhere. We’ve tried spells and satellites, and even walking around town, calling out her name. She’s just vanished.”

“Now, that doesn’t sound like the Slayer I know. What’s been going on here?” Whistler asked, slouching down in an easychair.

“I...It...” Giles removed his glasses again, and began to polish the lenses while hiding his face from the representative of the Powers.

When he opened his mouth to speak again, Whistler held up a hand and stopped him. “Wait.” The rumpled demon sat there, eyes closed and hand raised for almost a minute, before lowering his hand and shaking his head. When he opened his eyes again, he looked around the room, taking care to make eye contact with everyone. It was clear that his friendly attitude had disappeared. “I’ve never seen such incredible stupidity before.” He sadly shook his head again as he got up from his chair. “To toss out the most experienced Slayer, and from her own home even. I tell ya, you guys have some brass balls. It should have been you that left, if you didn’t like how she was getting the job done. And you guys call yourselves her friends...ouch!” As Whistler spoke, he moved to the front door.

“Where are you going?” Faith moved as if to block Whistler’s departure from the house.

“I’m off to have a chat with the Slayer.”

Glasses forgotten, Giles quickly approached Whistler. “You know where Buffy is? Is she unharmed?”

“Yeah, I know where to find her. She’s fine. Now, I’ve got to get. It’s been interesting guys.”

“Wait. I want to come with you.” Dawn grabbed her jacket from the coat rack.

“Yeah, I want to go too.” All of the Scoobies and several potentials spoke up.

Whistler held his hands up, stopping their movement toward the door. “You guys can’t seriously think she wants to see you now? You fired her and then kicked her out of her own home! She’s busted her ass for you for all these years, and you told her that she wasn’t good enough and got rid of her for a flashier model.” He shot a disgusted look at the Scoobies and gestured to Faith.

Everyone stopped in their tracks, frozen for a moment as they realized exactly what they had done. People who had picked up their coats put them down again, and those who were scrabbling for boots backed away from the pile of footwear near the door and once again took their seats in the livingroom.

“Could you...I mean...would you...would you please tell her that I’m sorry? And tell her that I love her, and want her to come home?” Dawn asked Whistler.

The grubby little fashion-disaster demon nodded once at the teen, and then he was gone.

Once Whistler understood why Buffy wasn’t in her own home, it really didn’t take him long to track her down. He knocked softly on the crypt door, waiting for a response from inside. He knew from earlier experience that the Slayer didn’t really like him very much. Unfortunately, there was no response to his polite tapping on the door, and when he placed an ear to the smooth surface, he wasn’t able to hear any sounds at all from inside. Whistler sighed. Clearly, the Slayer wasn’t going to make this easy.

Whistler knew that Buffy had a tendency to blame him for whatever message he had to pass along, but he was really hoping that this time she’d be happy to hear what he had to say, instead of having her usual homicidal reaction. He tried to push the crypt door open, but it was stuck. A good shove with his shoulder eventually got him access to the interior, and a careful look for the Slayer left him with a clear set of footprints that went from the crypt door to a hatch in the floor, partially hidden behind a sarcophagus. Taking a candle from a window ledge, Whistler lit the slim column and then held it over the hole in the floor, listening intently for signs of life.

Deciding that he really didn’t have any other option, the smelly demon carefully climbed down the ladder to the lower level. The cobwebs and roots hanging from the ceiling became a challenge when they swung into his face and caused him to start sneezing, but it was worth it. There, in the middle of the big bed on the lower level of the crypt, was Buffy. It didn’t take long for the PTB rep to realize something was wrong, though. He moved closer to the bed, but the Slayer still wasn’t reacting to his presence. “Miss Summers? Slayer?” No response at all. Frowning, Whistler looked closely at the tiny blonde on the bed. He felt her pulse...strong and steady. He tried sniffing for wounds or poisons...nothing was evident. Her eyes were open but, clearly, nobody was home. Whistler was truly puzzled, until the Powers chose to explain what was going on.

Now Whistler understood. The Slayer had retreated into herself, waiting for her soulmate to return to her. It would be Whistler’s job to stand guard and protect her until the Powers could arrange for her to be reunited with her one true love.

Looking around the room, Whistler spotted an old armchair in a corner. He brushed it free of cobwebs and dust, before pulling it over to a position by the bed. Despite his best efforts, a cloud of dust flew up from the chair when he finally sat down.

Whistler coughed. With the hand that wasn’t covering his mouth, he tried to fan the dust away from his eyes. When he could see again, he discovered that Buffy had closed her eyes. “Miss Summers, I know that you’re back.”

Buffy opened her eyes to give Whistler a half-hearted glare, before closing them again and rolling to her side, her back to the demon. “Tired.”

“Aren’t you curious about why the Powers have pushed you to return to consciousness, and why I’m here?”

Buffy turned her head and part of her upper body, just enough so she could look directly at the scruffy demon perched on one of Spike’s salvaged chairs. “The Powers told me, but I’ll believe it when I see it,” she muttered, and moved back onto her side, pulling the tattered blanket from the bed over herself. Its ragged length almost hid her completely, leaving only the top of her golden head visible in the dim candlelight.


The sun had travelled its path through the sky, and the moon was about to come out and play with the stars. Angel was standing just inside the front door of the house on Revello Drive, ready to head out with the Scoobies and look for Buffy again. None of Willow’s spells had worked, and now the group was going to gamble on Angel’s sense of smell to find their lost leader.

***************

The only people in the house were Angel and Giles. Everyone else was on the front lawn, eager for Angel to begin casting about in an effort to catch Buffy’s scent. The brooding vampire had attempted to explain to the crowd that trying to follow the Slayer’s scent might not be successful, but nobody wanted to hear what he was saying. For starters, Angel was trying to pick up a scent that was over a week old. Next, the scent was in a high-traffic area, where Buffy herself had made several passes on the day she was last seen. Scent trails didn’t come with signs that said, “Pick me, I’m the most recent trail and I’m heading north,” and Angel expected that he would take at least one wrong turn before the night was over. Finally, there was a significant chance that Buffy was no longer alive but, if she was, she had clearly taken steps to keep her location a secret and wasn’t going to make it easy for her friends to find her.

In the end, after a short discussion with Giles, it was decided that Angel would try to track Whistler, instead of Buffy. The smelly little demon appeared to know where the Slayer was, and the vampire thought that might be their best lead. As twilight faded into night, the Scoobies left Revello Drive in an orderly fashion...looking for all the world like they were playing a demented game of follow the leader. Angel was at the front of the strange parade, neck extended like a dog sniffing for a treat. Though he had tacitly agreed to a truce with the brooding vampire, Xander couldn’t help but think all that was missing was a fuzzy tail that the sun challenged sniffer could wag for them.

When the vampire located Whistler’s scent, he turned back to Giles, to confirm they were on the correct trail. At the Watcher’s nod of encouragement, he continued to follow the trail. The path they were following was fairly direct, and the group hypothesized that Whistler knew exactly where he was going, and had only deviated from his path once, stopping for a moment at the Alibi Room. From there, the trail led directly through the west gate of Restfield Cemetery.

The Scoobies looked at each other as they moved deeper into the graveyard, the location reminding everyone of Spike and his unhealthy obsession with their Slayer. None of them wanted to be there, in a place that held so many memories of the vampire they all viewed as the single most disruptive force in Buffy’s life.

Sure, the Scoobies all had beachfront property on the Nile, but they also recognized the changes in Buffy since Spike was run out of town. She’d pulled back from them, and spent a lot of time alone in her room with the door locked. She’d stopped confiding in them, and even nights at the Bronze were few and far between now.

When the trail stopped outside the crypt that once belonged to Spike, the Scoobies found themselves hesitating. Why would Buffy go to Spike’s crypt? It didn’t make sense, if Buffy had thrown Spike out of town as she had claimed. Maybe she’d been a little creative with her rendition of the facts, as she was known to do upon occasion. Could it be that Spike had left town for other reasons? And why would Buffy come here, of all places? Was she here because of a connection with the bleached menace, or was it as they all secretly feared, and she had simply come to the graveyard to die?

Whatever the reason for their hesitation, hesitate they did. It was clear where Whistler’s trail led, but none of the Scoobies wanted to be the one to disturb Buffy’s rest, eternal or otherwise. It didn’t take long for the suspense to become too much for Kennedy, and the brunette quickly pushed her way to the front of the group and banged loudly on the crypt door.

Angel growled quietly at the Potential’s bold move. He didn’t like the stuck-up rich girl, and this was just another reason why. Still, he couldn’t help a little laugh. He knew he’d been spending too much time with Queen C when he was able to accurately estimate income based on someone’s wardrobe.

Embarrassed by her girlfriend’s behaviour, Willow refused to make eye contact with anyone, staring intently at her shoes instead. She was starting to reconsider her decision to date Kennedy. The attitude that came across as determined and confident in the beginning, appeared crass and pushy when you got to know the brunette Potential. The spoiled woman seemed to believe that her way was the only way, and that she should be catered to just because of who and what she was.

It was only a few minutes later that Kennedy grew tired of waiting for a response to her knock, and tried to open the door. It was closed, and a firm shove didn’t change that. “Well, Mr Super-tracker Vampire, looks like your nose isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Buffy can’t be in there...the door is locked.” A mocking smile was launched at Angel, as Kennedy congratulated herself on a well placed shot at the souled vampire.





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