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I apologize for this one being a little short, but real life issues have intervened and I just can't do more than this right now. Perhaps by the weekend, I'll be feeling a little better. Enjoy tho, and thanks to everyone that's reviewed so far, your words mean alot to me. Nia

[A/N: The title reminds me of Tara. . . . and is from Victor Hugo, “Thoughts”, postscriptum de ma vie (postcript to my life – in his Intellectual Autobiography). The quotes are as attributed and disclaimers still in full force and effect.]

Previously: Wesley Wyndam-Pryce has arrived from Los Angeles, information and texts in hand. He’s also managed to partially translate the message Dawn got from the Huntsman. Everyone is still where we left them.

39. Grace in her frailty

Good news about someone never gets past the door,
but bad news will travel a thousand leagues away.
Chinese proverb

I well believe it, to unwilling ears;
none love the messenger who brings bad news.
Sophocles, Antigone

O fallen angel,
the companion within me,
whisper something holy
before you pinch me
Into the grave.
Anne Sexton, The Fallen Angels


Tara was really glad Giles had urged her to sit down. Because at this moment, her knees were weak and she wasn’t sure if her breathing . . .

Spike handed her a glass of water, standing over her until she started drinking it.

Buffy looked at Giles, eyebrow raised, waiting for an explanation of everything.

Catching her look, Giles quickly filled them all in, including Wesley, about what had been going on, and more importantly, about Dawn’s encounter with the Huntsman and the pack.

He explained how Dawn had almost memorized what the Huntsman said, and then willingly let Giles record it. “Not recognizing the language readily, I asked Wesly this morning, who recognized it as . . . some form of Gaelic. It’s a sort of mix of some Welsh words, some Irish, some Scots. Which would make sense since the hounds are endemic to all of the Celtic peoples of the British Isles.”

Spike asked, “did you bring the tape?”

“I have it right here.” Giles pulled the small machine out of his pocket, placing it on the counter.

They all listened intently as Dawn’s voice filled the room, the unfamiliar consonants apparently rolling off her tongue easily.

After it finished, Wesley said “I’ve been unable to completely translate the beginning part.”

But Spike’s voice broke in, saying “She who guards the gates of space.” At everyone’s surprised looks he just shrugged. “Its either that or She who guards the walls of eternal evermore.”

Only Tara wasn’t looking at him strangely, having far more on her mind than Spike’s weird ability to speak various forms of Gaelic.

“Wha?” Looking at the other three completely floored faces arrayed before him, Spike tried for the innocent look.

Giles was the fist to recover, knowing not to underestimate the vampire. “Another hidden talent?”

Spike smirked at him, raising his scarred eyebrow. “Jus’ another in a long list, Watcher. What’s your excuse this time?”

“Gaelic wasn’t required reading at Oxford when I attended.”

“Wasn’t when I . . . “ and Spike shut up, abruptly realizing he was going to admit to something about his life before turning.

Giles was about to call him on the near admission, when Buffy interrupted “guys? What are we gonna do?”

She’d been watching the exchange, realizing for once, Giles had someone he could banter with and who could challenge him intellectually. It was nice to see, but a bit on the weird side. Kind of bizarre considering they were a watcher and a vampire, but somehow they’d formed a friendship, or at least the start of one. Both men fell silent, aware their joking argument wasn’t really timely. Tara was siting in her chair, staring down at her hands, which were clasped together on top of the counter. Her shoulders were stiff and she wouldn’t look at anyone else.

“Could . . . could you say that about Willow again?” Her voice was soft and hesitant, clearly upset.

Instead of answering, Wesley grabbed the recorder, hit rewind, then play. Finding the spot on the tape, Wesley raised the volume. Stopping after two words, “‘Earail bhuainn’ literally means ‘warnings from’.”

Hitting the play button again, Wesley repeated “‘mo tigherna’ is ‘my lord’.”

Repeating the procedure, Wesley said “‘ruadh Seileach’ is ‘red Willow’.”

And for the last time, Wesley spoke “‘eil gaueagh’ means ‘is dangerous’.”

Looking up at Spike for confirmation of Wesley’s translation, Tara’s face reflected the conflicted emotions running through her. Reacting to her look, Spike reached out for her, pulling her into his loose embrace.

That was all it took. Tara’s hold on her composure broke and she started crying into Spike’s chest. Buffy got up, running her hand down Tara’s back. Unconsciously linking her hands with Spike’s the two of them held Tara, letting her cry.

Waiting until she’d composed herself, Buffy spoke over the other girl’s head. “Giles I think we need to know everything now.”

Conceding the point, Giles removed his glasses and embarked upon an explanation of what he knew so far.

“Apparently the hounds were unleashed because of actions on the part of Willow during her retrieval spell for Buffy.” Continuing, Rupert looked down at his hands, then back up at everyone else. “The hounds normally retrieve souls destined for a hell dimension.”

“One of the words Dawn repeated translates as heaven.”

Buffy’s fingers tightened around Spike’s but she said nothing. He didn’t move, didn’t look at her, waiting to see if Giles was going to make a connection.

Giles went on to say, “but the Celts didn’t really differentiate between heaven and hell dimensions, the ancient ones anyway, but Christian mythos has invaded most Celtic legends to the point where the lines are very blurred.”

Wesley’s voice broke in, “it also appears, as near as I can figure, the Huntsman’s words refer to himself, as an emissary of those who guard heaven.”

“The real problem is the same sounding words, or similar sounding words can be interpreted differently depending on the language, and since its already an amalgam of all of them, I’m unsure which meaning is the correct one.”


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

He hadn’t slept well, an unusual occurrence for him. Xander couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep, well, whenever they weren’t working on averting an apocalypse.

Last night, watching Buffy and Spike he’d wanted to get up and leave. But he hadn’t. And he had no clue why he’d stayed.

Xander was trying to think, trying to come to grips with why Buffy was allowing Spike to be part of her life, why Buffy seemed to want Spike around. The guy was annoying, sarcastic, a thief . . . there really wasn’t any redeeming quality to the guy at all. At least Angel had a soul, something Spike didn’t have, and the chip didn’t count. All it did was prevent physical action on his part, but, he thought as he winced at the pain in his cheek, not always.

So why did Buffy want Spike around?

Okay, he was strong. He could more than hold his own against another demon, anything not human. Was that it?

No. Because when it came down to it, Spike was a vampire and vampires were not good.

The only good vampire was a staked vamp.

Another thing that bugged him, that actually made him cringe, was the ick factor. Spike was dead and Xander couldn’t understand why Buffy was drawn to the dead. This made her second vampire. What made her want to be near a dead guy? Cause dead guys, just . . . . he couldn’t see the attraction.

What was wrong with a living guy? There had been nothing wrong with Riley that he could see and yet Riley had left. He still didn’t understand what had happened between them, but he knew that Riley had believed Buffy had never loved him. But he’d seen her after Riley left and Buffy had been all broken up, crying and generally being down. Well, at least until stuff had started happening, the whole Glory thing. But thinking about Glory brought to mind Spike, mainly what he’d done. He’d felt bad for Spike after Glory had kicked his undead ass so hard she’d almost broken him. But thinking about that just brought him round to where he’d started.

How could she let a dead guy near her?

Xander sat in his living room unable to reconcile what he knew about Spike, which was considerable, and about vampires, which was also a lot and understand how Buffy could agree to have a relationship with him – to sleep beside him.

So he decided there and then that he was going to do everything in his power to prove to Buffy that Spike was evil, and that she needed to get rid of him.

Permanently.

Forever.


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

Dawn stumbled down the stairs half asleep, to find the kitchen full of people. Like everyone. Mentally rolling her eyes and making a face at herself she tried not to react to finding the kitchen packed. She wasn’t a happy morning person and waking up to a houseful of people just irked her. Looking around she noticed that Tara was leaning against Spike’s chest, wiping her eyes and Buffy was patting her hair, like she did whenever Buffy was trying to calm her.

So that was weird.

Dawn grumbled a good morning at everyone and opened the refrigerator. Grabbing the milk and reaching for something sugary, Dawn avoided looking at anyone else. She really didn’t want to see what anyone thought of her sleeping attire or her breakfast choice. Not that most of them cared.

Tara wiped her eyes, rested her head against Spike’s solid chest then pushed away. “I’m okay.”

Giles looked up at Spike, saying, “I think its time to tell the girls what you heard.”

Pulling Buffy into his embrace, her back against his chest, Spike wrapped his arms around her. “Yeah.” Dropping his head onto her shoulder, Spike took a deep breath.

“Yeah. Little chit, Kirsten, Niblet’s friend, went all Sibyl-like, gave me a head’s up of sorts.” And without letting go of her, Spike recounted Kirsten’s message, leaving out only the part he’d kept back initially, no need to go into that now – or ever.

Everyone was silent, taking in all that had been said so far.

Tara gave a half-hearted laugh when Spike said he’d always thought ‘Yellow’ meant her, but when Giles said he was coming to believe Spike was right, the poor girl nearly fell over.

During this whole discussion, Dawn had remained quiet, calmly eating her cereal, just letting the adults around her talk. One way to get them to talk openly was to keep silent. But something Spike said had her thinking, and she didn’t realize she’d said anything until she blurted it out. “I’ve never met her parents.”

Buffy looked over at her, “never?” While Tara said, “didn’t you say she had to watch her new baby brother?”

“Yeah. I did.” Dawn shrugged. “He’s like three months old. She’s had him at the park a couple of times. Her parents both work nights.”

“Janice has known her since like kindergarten, I think she’s okay.” Dawn shrugged again, showing that she wasn’t all that concerned. Kirsten was harmless and her brother was just the cutest little baby. With dark blonde curly hair and big blue eyes Will was adorable. Dawn swallowed hard. The baby’s name was Will. . . Nah, nothing weird about that, lots of people were named Will. Hey for all she knew, he could have been named for Will Smith. She’d only freak if his middle name was Rupert or Giles. Realizing she was letting her imagination run wild, Dawn hid a smile and kept chomping on her cereal. There was no way Kirsten and her family could be related to her, despite the sometimes weird feelings she got from looking at the girl. Maybe it’s just the fact I have no idea who my real family is, beside Buffy. Am I wishing so hard to have some connection that I’m finding it everywhere? She looked up at Spike, wondering if she was making up or exaggerating all the similarities between them because she wanted so badly to belong to someone.

“Not sure the chit’s a problem. Problem is all the rest of it. The hounds, the hellmouth and now we gotta worry about Red.” Spike for some reason agreed with Dawn. The little girl wasn’t a problem. To his mind the little one was a . . . maybe because she’d reminded him of Buffy at a time when he thought he’d never get her back, but the little girl wasn’t harmful.

The problem was what to do about Red and how to get rid of the hounds.





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