by Nancy Holder
Nobody spoke. Faith got ready to rumble, if rumbling was going to be necessary; everyone was else was jittery, and hey, no surprise there . . .
“What, she finally ran off and joined the circus?” he asked jovially. “Always though she’d be genius at the old knife-throw . . .”
Then, sensing that no one else was moving with him to the land of whimsy, Spike demanded, “Where is she?”
Willow looked like she was going to throw down, so Faith kept her mouth shut.
Sure enough, the Wicca waded right in.
“While you were gone, we all got together and talked out the disagreements we’ve been having. And eventually, after some discussion . . . Buffy decided that it would be best for all of us if she took a little time off. A little breather,” she finished lamely.
Faith ticked her glance to Spike, who said evenly, “I see. Uh-huh.” He gave her a hard look, and Willow looked away. “Been practicing that li’l speech long, have you?” He regarded the group at large.
“So. Buffy took some time off, right in the middle of an apocalypse. And it was her decision?” he pressed, gazing at them all.
Heads were hung in shame.
“Well, we all decided,” Xander said, likewise stepping up.
“Yeah, you all decided,” Spike echoed.
He paced, smiling strangely, then faced them all, “You sad, sad, ungrateful traitors. Who do you think you are?”
Looking stricken, Willow murmured, “We’re her friends. We only want—”
“That’s ballsy of you,” Spike interrupted. “You’re her friend and you betray her like this?”
Giles moved forward. “You don’t understand.”
“You know, think I do,” Spike shot back. He sneered at Giles and said, “Rupert. You used to be the big man, didn’t you? The teacher all full of wisdom. And now she’s surpassed you, and you can’t handle it.”
Spike’s seething gaze took them all in.
“She’s saved your lives again and again. She’s died for you. And this is how you thank her? This is how—”
Okay, my ups, Faith thought. She stepped in front of him, cutting him off and said, “Hey, why don’t you take it down a notch or two? The time for giving speeches is over, Bat-boy.”
He took a step closer to her, pissed, threatening. “Is that right?”
“Yeah,” she said, unafraid. “That’s right. Save you lack of breath.”
“All right,” he drawled, and hauled off and punched her in the jaw. It caught her off-guard, even though it shouldn’t have; she fell against the counter and the others backed away—if this had been a Western, the piano player and the saloon girls would be cowering behind the bar. . . .
As Faith touched her jaw, a smile spread over her face.
“You’re pretty sweet on her, aren’t you?”
Using the kitchen counter as her leverage point, Faith kicked up both legs, cracking Spike in the face.
“Well, I think it’s cute.”
He hit her back, hard, and she returned the favor with equal forced.
“The way she’s got you whipped,” Faith continued, with a tremendous kick that sent him flying onto his back. She jumped on him, hitting him in the face, again and again, brutally; but he threw her off him and threw her to the wall, got right in her face; he was shaking with fury.
“Finally got what you always wanted, didn’t you?” Silently she stared at him and he knocked her head back, hard. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Faith replied.
She wrenched out his grasp and kicked him in the gut, readying for his returning blow.
But he threw up his hands in disgust and turned away from her. Headed out toward the kitchen doorway.
No one could look at him.
And he left the building.
In more ways than one.
* * *
There’s nothing to be done for it now, Willow reminded herself, as she prepared to start the Turkish spell for the dying. But it unnerved her to realize that Spike was gone, and Spike was angry. Like the others, she couldn’t trust him, and she had no idea what he was off doing. It unsettled her. There was already so much to worry about . . .
In the basement, the Bringer was sitting awkwardly on the floor, his arms above his head, wrists manacled in Spike’s old chains. Candles illuminated the room. Kennedy, Giles, Andrew, and Xander stood watch slightly behind her. Turkish incense thickened the tension, and Kennedy looked like she was about ready to pop.
Willow said in Turkish, “You are getting very sleepy. Very, very sleepy. I do not have a pocket watch but then again, you do not have eyes. Speak to us.”
She closed the book, waited; nothing happened.
In a stage whisper, Andrew said, “Maybe you should let me rough him up a little.”
“Andrew!” Xander and Kennedy admonished him. “Quiet.”
Willow was perplexed. “I don’t know, you guys,” she said. “That should have worked.”
Giles thought, and then he suggested, “Perhaps you should try again. Sometimes your conjugations are a little unusual . . .”
Then Andrew murmured, “I am a drone in the mind that is evil. . . .”
Annoyed, Xander snapped, “Could you just shut up?”
Andrew ignored him. “I say, I am a part of the Great Darkness . . .”
“Somebody needs a reality check,” Kennedy said, equally annoyed.
“And a muzzle,” Xander volleyed.
Then Giles began to connect the dots.
“Wait,” he said. He looked at the Bringer, then at Andrew.
The picture popped into perspective: Andrew was serving as a conduit for the Bringer.
Andrew droned on, “I am only a fragment of The We. We work as one to serve The First.”
Willow faced Andrew and then the Bringer. “Okay, well,” she said, taking a breath, “what are you, The We, doing for The First?”
Everyone listened carefully as Andrew/The We replied, “We work to prepare for the inevitable battle.”
Then Kennedy shot forward, getting right in the Bringer’s face. She pulled the Bringer’s knife from her belt and pressed it to the Bringer’s neck. Willow was not happy with the aggression, but said nothing.
“How? Tell me exactly what the Bringers are doing,” Kennedy insisted.
“Kennedy, he can’t see the knife,” Giles said, objecting.
Andrew/The We said calmly, “We can feel the knife.”
“Kennedy” Giles requested, holding out his hand. She reluctantly yielded the weapon.
Andrew continued, “We attend to the needs of infinite Evil. We exterminate girls and destroy the legacy of Slayer. We build an arsenal beneath the dirt. We obey the commands of our teacher Caleb. We protect . . .”
“Wait,” Xander said, his ears at fully 50% capacity above, well, nothing, but wishing that extra-credit on the senses beyond eyesight would kick in. “Go back to that dirt thing.”
“We build weapons for the coming war,” Andrew said.
“Can you do better specificity-wise than ‘under the dirt?’ ” Anya asked.
“At the farthest edge of town,” Andrew said conversationally. Then he was back in evil minion mode. “We are everywhere. We are like the ocean’s waves. We watch your efforts and are not scared. We will laugh at you as you die.”
Then without warning, Giles slashed the Bringer’s knife across its throat. The Bringer gasped, sucking air through its wound for a moment, and died.
“What the bananas!” Andrew cried, fully Andrew again. He glared at Giles as he clutched his throat. “Okay, it is so lucky for you that you didn’t just magically decapitate me,” he said.
“We got something here,” Giles said briskly. “Let’s get Faith in on this.”
They trooped up the stairs, Andrew last.
“Xander, if you’ll grab some maps, we can start narrowing this down. We need subterranean space with an area larger enough for an armory.”
Andrew groaned importantl
y, “Ooh, I feel used and violated and I need a lozenge.”
* * *
Buffy was lying on the stranger’s bed, not in it; moonlight streamed in from the window and the shotgun was at her side.
Someone knocked on the front door. Buffy didn’t even react. The knocked was persistent, and the door opened, and she didn’t have the wherewithal to do anything more than nothing.
Footsteps, coming her way.
Then his voice.
“There you are,” Spike said, striding in. He was filled with energy; just looking at him exhausted her.
And yet . . .
“Do you realize I could just walk in here, no invite needed? This town really is theirs now, isn’t it?”
She looked at him and he nodded sharply, saying, “I heard. I was over there. That bitch.”
Buffy shook her head.
“She’s all smiles and reformation when you’re on your feet. Minute you’re down? She’s all about the kicking, isn’t that right?” Spike spat. “Makes me want to—”
Beyond tired, Buffy said, “It wasn’t just Faith. It was all of them and it’s not like they were wrong. Now, please.” So very tired. “Leave.”
Spike didn’t budge. Spike had news.
News he had not shared with the treacherous bunch living in Buffy’s house while she camped out like a mongrel.
“This’ll change your tune,” he said excitedly. “I came here ’cause I got something to tell you. You’re right. You’ve been right since the beginning.”
He looked at her triumphantly, but she was still drawing a blank.
“Caleb is protecting something from you,” he announced expansively. “And I think you were spot on all the way. I think it’s at the vineyard.”
He looked at her with great expectations.
“So?” he asked leadingly. He kept waiting. “You were right.” Another beat. “Buffy.”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel very right,” she confessed. “They blame me for stuff, and honestly? I can’t say they’re wrong.”
Spike gazed at her; he crouched by the bed and said, “You’re not fooling me. You’re not a quitter.”
But she was utterly defeated. “Watch me.”
“Buffy, no,” he said, as if he could somehow transmit his strength to her. “You were their leader and you still are. This isn’t something that you gave up. It’s something that they took.”
“And the difference is?” she asked dully.
He grinned his feral Spike grin.
“We can take it back.”
“No,” Buffy said, sitting on the bed.
He was taken aback. “No?”
“No.”
“You mean no, as in, eventually?”
She smiled thinly. “You really have trouble with that word, don’t you?”
He frowned, regarded her, gave his head a shake. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand you one bit.”
“I’ve actually been aware of that for some time,” she said drolly.
“You can get them back,” Spike enunciated with care, as if she were a bit thick.
“Can, maybe.” She looked at him with questions in her eyes. “Should? I don’t know. I’m so tired . . .”
“They need you!” Spike insisted.
It was what she wanted to hear, but she wouldn’t admit it. “Well, I—”
“It’s bloody chaos over there without you!”
“It is?” Despite herself, her voice rose.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s, uh . . . there’s junk, food cartons, sleeping bags not rolled up. Everyone’s very scared and uh, unkempt . . .” He trailed off.
“Sounds dire,” she said ironically.
“Look, I didn’t see a lot,” he grumbled. “I came, hit Faith a bunch of times, and left.”
She perked up a bit. “Really?” Then she caught herself and said, “I mean, I’m not glad of that . . .”
“Say the word and she’s a footnote in history,” he promised her loyally. “I’ll make it look like a painful accident . . .”
“That’s my problem,” Buffy told him, growing anxious. “I say the word, some girl dies. Every time.”
“There’s always casualties in a war,” Spike remarked.
“Casualties,” she echoed. “It sounds so casual. These are girls. That I got killed.” As she looked at him, she continued, “I’ve been thinking a lot . . .”
“Okay, first mistake,” he drawled.
“And I can’t fault them for kicking me out,” she admitted, searching herself, finding herself wanting. “I’ve just cut myself off from them, all of them. ’Cause I knew I was going to lose some of them, and I didn’t want to . . .”
Distressed, she rose.
“You know what?” she said to him. “I’m still making excuses. I’ve always cut myself off, I’ve always . . . being the Slayer made me different, but it’s my fault I stayed that way. People try to connect to me but I just . . . I slip away.”
She paused, looking to him for confirmation. When he remained silent, she pressed, “You should know.”
“I seem to recall a certain amount of connecting,” he told her.
“Please, Spike,” she said. “We never got close. That’s why you wanted me. ’Cause I was unattainable.”
He stood, really looking at her, and said, “You think that’s all it was?”
She hesitated. “I don’t want to go over the . . .”
“No,” he interrupted. “Hold on here. I’ve hummed along to your pity ditty; I think I should have the mic for a bit.”
She dropped down onto the bed, looking wearily up at him.
“Fine,” she said. “The stage is yours. Cheer me up.”
“You’re insufferable.” He shook his head.
“Thank you,” she said. “That helped.”
“I’m not trying to cheer you up!”
“Well, what are you trying to say?” she demanded.
“I don’t know.” He huffed in just the way he did; paced a little, looked frustrated and confused. “I’ll know when I’m doing saying it. Something pissed me off and I just . . . Unattainable! That’s it?”
Shrugging, she said, “Okay, I’m attainable. I’m an attanathon. Can I sleep now?”
“You listen to me,” he said quietly. “I’ve been alive a lot longer than you, and dead a lot longer than that. I’ve seen things you couldn’t imagine, and one things I’d prefer you didn’t. I don’t exactly have a reputation for being a thinker; I follow my blood, which does not always rush in the direction of my head. So I’ve made a lot of mistakes. A lot of wrong bloody calls.”
He squatted before her as she sat on the bed. “A hundred plus years, only one thing I’ve ever been sure of: you.”
He moved to touched her face; she misunderstood and began to turn away, but he put his hand to her cheek, and urged her to listen, to see, what was in his heart.
In his soul.
“Look at me. I’m not asking you for anything. When I tell you that I love you, it’s not because I want you, or ’cause I can have you. It has nothing to do with me.”
His voice astonished her, moved her, as she listened.
“I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I’ve seen your strength, and your kindness. I’ve seen the best and the worst of you, and I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are.
“You’re one hell of a woman.”
Buffy was silently crying; he could only smile at her kindly, containing his own emotions.
“You’re the one, Buffy.”
Softly, she said, “I don’t . . . I don’t want to be the one.”
“I don’t want to be this good-looking and athletic,” he riposted. “We all have our crosses to bear.”
She smiled a little.
“No you get some rest,” he ordered her, rising. “I’ll check in before first light You can decide how you want—”
“Spike?” Her voice was barely above a whisper; he turned.
“Could you .
. . stay here?” she asked.
They regarded one another silently.
“Sure,” he said, taking off his coat and moving to an armchair. He started moving the former occupants’ clothes off it. “That diabolical torture device, the Comfy Chair, do me fine—”.
“No. I mean . . . here.” Her voice cracked. She looked down uncertainly. “Would you just . . . hold me?”
No more words.
A look, a moment, a soft inhalation, and a wish . . .
He came to her then, and wrapped her in his arms. She put her head down on his chest.
No more words.
* * *
Faith was tired of the leader gig. Hadn’t wanted it, wasn’t dealing all that well with it. All she wanted to do was sleep.
She and Giles were standing in the doorway to Buffy’s old bedroom. Giles was showing her a section of a map as they planned some forays to search for the armory and no doubt kick some Bringer butt.
“Sewer tunnel on the north side’s closest, so guess we’ll start there.”
“That sounds fine. What time should I tell everyone?” he asked.
She didn’t know. “How about around seven?” Then, catching herself, she said, “Seven sharp. So tomorrow, we fight.”
“Tomorrow,” he concurred. “Good night, Faith.” He turned, turned back. “And Faith?”
“Yeah?” she asked dully.
He smiled gently. “You’re doing just fine.”
She smiled a small, grateful smile.
Then she turned into the bedroom.
And The First was there, with a little surprise: he was appearing to her as Mayor Wilkins, the man/semi-demon who had taken her in . . . and had her kill her first human being, the vulcanologist who might have blown the mayor’s big plans for becoming a full-blown demon on Ascension Day.
“I’d say better than ‘fine,’ ” he drawled. “I’d say you’re doing a bang-up job.”
She was totally rattled, but she tried not to show it.
“Get out,” she said harshly.
He was his old amiable, evil self as he chuckled and said, “Well, gosh, I think a ‘hello’ or ‘nice to see you’ might be a little more welcome. It’s the end of humanity, Faith, not the end of courtesy.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Faith informed him. “I know who you are. What you are.”
He gazed at her. “Nobody’s explained to you how this works, have they?” He paced a little, as if searching how to put it. “You see, I am part of The First, as you kids call it, but I’m also Richard Wilkins the Third. Late mayor . . . and founder . . . of Sunnydale.”