…Willow, what did you do?…
Amy - somehow, still recognizably Amy despite the male body – shrugged. “I had to do something. You took out my power source when you killed Rack. Besides,” she took a step closer. “You’ve always been a major example to me. There’s no way I’d have thought about Proserpexa’s temple if you hadn’t gotten there first.”
A mixture of horror, guilt, and panic overwhelmed Willow. This was her fault. Oh, God, the dead baby was her fault. What she’d done would never be over. She’d pay and pay forever, until she was dead and then…
“This should be good,” Warren remarked and Rack nodded agreement.
Panic won out as Willow saw the ghosts of her victims. Warren still red, raw, and naked, his oozing flesh leaving stains on the bricks he leaned against; Rack, sly eyes smiling.
Every instinct screamed to run, but suddenly Buffy was there, stepping between Willow and Amy, chin up and eyes set just as if the plan, what there’d been of a plan, hadn’t gone straight to hell.
“I don’t care why you did it or how you got the idea,” the Slayer said coldly. “You killed that baby and you’re going down.”
“Yeah, sure,” Amy laughed. “Sure I…aargh!”
Spike’s sudden lunge knocked the witch flat. “Help me!” he shouted, drawing back for a punch that would knock the other unconscious. “Before she…”
Buffy leaped forward and even Clem stumbled to his friend’s aid, but Willow could only tremble in fear and self-loathing, wondering if the baby’s ghost would show up to haunt her too.
Before either Buffy or Clem could reach him, Amy snarled and Spike flew backward as if shot out of a cannon to land flat on his back on the sidewalk, head cracking against the cement. Amy’s hand came up, outlined in black fire. It would have been a killing strike, except that Buffy wrenched the witch’s arm up, sending the flare harmlessly into the sky.
Spike was already on his feet and headed back for another attack, but a quick gesture from Amy locked him in place. Another held Buffy still, and Clem froze in sheer panic. Amy rested her hand around Buffy’s throat before smiling at Willow.
“How about you?” she asked. “You gonna fight me too? See if you can get a spell off before I crush her windpipe?”
“Crush it!” Warren urged, eyes gleaming in the ruin of his face. “Come on. Shut the bitch up for once.”
“I can’t fight you,” Willow protested. “I don’t have any magic. Let them go. Please? You’ve won.”
She hated the whimpering sound of her voice but couldn’t help it. There was nothing she could do. She was nothing without her magic. Everyone knew that.
“What do you mean you don’t have any magic?” With an interested look, Amy moved away from Buffy and stared at Willow for a moment. “Yeah, you do. I can feel it.”
Clem nodded helpfully. “Me too. You’ve still got magic.” With a nervous look at Amy, he subsided.
“They’re right, Strawberry,” Rack crooned. “The coven didn’t finish taking it from you.”
“You know what?” Amy said with another step forward. “Who cares if you killed Rack? We should team up. We really would be unstoppable. And think of how much fun we’d have. Just like at the Bronze that night.”
Magic? She still had magic?
Fear and guilt receded before the knowledge. As if only waiting for permission, Willow could feel the magic, singing beneath her skin, dancing along her nerves. She could stop Amy with a thought. Hell, she could kill Amy with a thought.
Tara’s face rose up before her, grave and disappointed as Amy described the ‘fun’ they’d had at the Bronze.
Before she could control her expression, Amy saw her face change and sighed in disappointment. “Oh, well. Too bad.” She looked back at Buffy.
“No!” Willow tried. “I think it’d be totally fun to destroy the world! Let’s go somewhere and…and discuss our evil plan!”
“Destroy the world?” Amy snorted. “Who wants that? I just want power. And things. Things are good. Speaking of, I’m getting tired of being in touch with my inner guy.” Immediately, she was back in her own body, a body that looked much healthier than when her Dad had inhabited it. “Sorry, Willow, You’re a lousy liar.” Her eyes turned back to Buffy. “You kicked me out of your house for taking some spices,” she said conversationally. Her hand tightened and Buffy’s face began to turn blue. “That wasn’t nice. I was in need and you turned me away. Now, I think I’ll kill you. It’ll hurt. Too bad I won’t get to hear you cry like the baby did.”
Even if the memories had been put in her head by the monks, Buffy still had them. The surprisingly strong grip of Dawn’s tiny fingers, the innocent eyes, the way her first word had been, “Uffy.”
Now, Amy was smiling over the memory of making another baby cry through fear or pain, and it was pissing Buffy off. A lot.
Ice and fire flooded up through her veins, blocking out fear, worry over the fact that Willow still had magic, annoyance that Spike had thought punching Amy was going to work, and acknowledgment that if she lived through this, Giles was going to kill her. She could hear the pulse pounding in her ears, throbbing to the beat of a drum.
She was going to die, and he wasn’t going to be able to save her because he was nothing but an idiot with delusions of heroism. He was going to have to stand there and watch her die a second time, and it was pissing Spike off. A lot.
Ice and fire flooded up through his veins, blocking out fear, worry over the fact that Willow still had magic, annoyance that Buffy thought talking was going to work, and acknowledgment that if he lived through this, Giles was going to kill him. He could hear the pulse pounding in his ears, throbbing to the beat of a drum.
She could feel her own magic, feel Amy’s, and then suddenly, she could feel two other sources of power building, one coming from Buffy, the other from Spike, growing stronger and stronger until Amy’s binding spell shattered around both of them, and the Slayers closed to battle.
In her most honest moments, no matter how much it irritated her, Buffy couldn't deny that Spike was the best physical partner she’d ever had. Whether in fighting or sex (which could be hard to tell apart sometimes), they had always been matched, always able to anticipate each other’s motions and respond to either counter or support.
But this dwarfed all the previous times. It wasn’t that she knew what Spike was going to do: it was more like she’d grown an extra Spike-shaped body. She didn’t have to anticipate or even think about what he was going to do. She knew.
He’d never known a dance like this before, not with Buffy at their closest, not even with Drusilla. He and Buffy moved as two halves of one intoxicating, exhilarating whole. Their earlier fights, even their sex, had been pale reflections of this seamless ballet.
They smoothly bracketed the witch before she could get another spell off. Buffy swung, and Amy staggered back where he was ready to catch her by her hair and spin her around, his fist connecting with her chin. Buffy came up to pin her, so that he could knock her out – they’d argue about killing her later – but Amy gasped out a phrase and vanished from between their hands.
She reappeared 10 feet away, obviously winded and staggering, but before they could give chase, she gestured a car driving down the street, the driver with eyes fixed firmly ahead in that “If I don’t see it, perhaps it won’t kill me” Sunnydale way, the children in the back gaping out of the window. The ground erupted ahead of it, and the car skidded halfway into the crater to the accompaniment of startled screams.
“Damn,” Buffy swore, running for the car. He would have preferred to chase the witch and fight some more, but now that strange euphoria was wearing off, and he supposed he should be concerned about the people in the car although he wasn’t really.
“I can’t believe you were that stupid,” Giles said in the clipped voice that meant he was really angry.
“Oh, come on Giles,” Buffy sighed. “We’ve been that stupid before.”
“And we’ll probably be that stupid again,” Xander added.
Her Watcher’s glare made it plain that he didn’t appreciate their attempts to lighten the mood, so Buffy and Xander shut up. Buffy didn’t feel all that jolly anyway. It wasn’t Amy so much that bothered her – Big Bads came and went, and you dealt with them the best way you could – but the other things that had happened during the fight.
What the hell had gone on between her and Spike? She’d fought beside other Slayers and never felt that level of connection, that sense that the other was part of her or that they were both part of something else. Of course, she hadn’t had much in common with them. Kendra had been serious and by-the-book, almost more Watcher than Slayer. As for Faith, obviously she didn’t have anything in common with Faith. Fighting made Faith horny, for God’s sake, and…ok, so she did have something in common with Faith and never mind about that anyway. The point was that something new had happened when she and Spike fought Amy.
She darted a look at him from under her eyelashes. He was once again sitting at the table with Travers, who was tut-tutting over the bruise on the side of Spike’s face, the result of Amy thowing him into the sidewalk. The view called up memories of other bruises that she’d given him, which made Buffy feel guilty until she thought about the bruises he’d given her, including the ones she’d gotten that very bad night, and then she got mad and confused all over again.
As if feeling her gaze, Spike looked up from where he’d been staring at the table top and their eyes met. He looked slightly freaked too, and even worried, which was strange. Worrying was her job. Although maybe it was part of the Slayer package she’d described to Riley once, and she really didn’t want to be thinking about Riley right now…
“If I might continue?” Giles said stiffly, and Buffy guiltily returned her attention to him.
They’d all (except for Clem who escaped with relief) regrouped in Giles’ apartment, waking him and Travers with the news of their encounter with Amy. Travers was in a suit, reinforcing Buffy’s conviction that he wore one to bed, and Giles was in sweats and not looking too happy over the fact that Spike was wearing some of his clothes.
A quick call to Xander at the site had brought him over with the excuse of a family emergency, and another call to Anya had summoned her from the shop where she was overseeing the final repairs. Buffy wasn’t sure what had motivated her call Anya, except that she thought of her as part of the gang, now, and the call had been automatic.
“As I mentioned, this isn’t some sort of game,” Giles went on. “One person has already died. This sort of one-upmanship is intolerable.”
“Quite,” Travers nodded. “Withholding vital information because of some childish grudge is ridiculous.”
Saying, ‘Spike did it too’ probably comes under the whole childish thing.
Before she could say it anyway, Xander asked angrily, “You want to know what’s ridiculous? Ridiculous is trusting somebody who…”
“No one’s thinks it’s a game,” Buffy interrupted. “Willow wasn’t sure it was Amy, so we checked it out. Now, we know it’s her, and that she doesn’t want to rule the world or anything. That’s important.”
“True.” Giles looked thoughtful, his anger calming as it always did when his mind engaged.
“We know something else too,” Spike said, nodding toward Willow who sat pale and silent on the couch. “Red here still has magic.”
Giles swallowed. “Willow…you did a spell?”
“No!” she protested. “I didn’t do anything! Buffy, tell them.”
“She didn’t,” Buffy agreed but added reluctantly. “But Amy and Clem said they could still sense magic in her.”
Anya’s voice was hard as she asked, “I thought the coven was supposed to remove any way you could do magic. Why did they let you come back before they were finished with you? It looks to me like you’re a bigger danger than Amy.”
“I’m not,” Willow said shakily. “I’m really not, and I haven’t done magic, I swear. I got a v…vision that Proserpexa’s t…t….temple was reactivated, and I wanted to help. I know what’s happening is my f…f…fault.”
Buffy winced at the stuttering, a painful reminder of Tara. Xander sat beside Willow and put an arm around her trembling shoulders.
“I can’t believe you’re jumping on Will!” he snapped. “Have you forgotten how long she’s been your friend? How much we’ve been through?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Anya said coldly. “Including the way she tried to kill us all.”
Xander’s jaw set. “And how many people have you killed over the last 1100 years? We pretty much all managed to set that aside.” He jerked his head toward Spike. “Not to mention everybody’s new best buddy over there. I think I’m the only one who remembers what he was…is! Which isn’t any kind of Slayer. After what he tried to do to Buf…”
“Xander. Shut. Up.”
Buffy couldn’t even care about the hurt that crossed his face. She’d had enough. It was done. Let it be over and in the past, just like the beating she gave Spike in the alley.
“What’ all this about?” Giles asked irritably. “There’s been something everyone carefully hasn’t talked about since Spike was Called. I know Buffy and Spike slept together. It happens. For God’s sake, let it go.”
“Buffy and Spike WHAT?” Travers yelped.
So much for Spike being Travers’ favorite. Ex-vampire, no problem. Slept with me? Forget it.
“NO!” Buffy said forcefully. She couldn’t have looked at Spike if the fate of the world counted on it. “It’s my…our…business, nobody else’s. Just drop it.”
“I tried to rape her.”
A thick silence descended on the room. It didn’t sound like anyone was breathing. Buffy closed her eyes and wished very hard to be anyplace else.
“I went into her house. I held her down and tried to make her have sex with me even though she told me no, even though she cried and begged me to stop. If she hadn’t kicked me off, I would have done it.”
She knew he was looking at her, but she continued to examine the insides of her eyelids. What he was saying was what had happened, but it didn’t cover the way he’d asked if she was hurt when he first got there, how he’d said she should have let Xander kill him, the madness and desperation in his eyes, the remorse that had followed. The things that she hadn’t been able to think about at the time and had refused to think about later. Finally, she got her eyes open and stared into Giles’ white face.
“Buffy…?” her Watcher asked gently, but she shook her head, unable to speak, and the silence was unbroken until the front door closed after Spike.
He moved blindly with no decision about where to go. When Spike focused again on his surroundings, he was standing beside the crypt that had been his home. His motorcycle was parked there although he remembered leaving it in the woods near the airport where he’d stowed away on the first of the planes that got him to Africa. He didn’t question: he climbed aboard and fled.
Along the cliffs overlooking the ocean where he tried to believe that it mattered that he could watch the sun dance over the waves. Through the emptiness of the desert, where the wind sounded like voices whispering to him in a language he couldn’t understand. Through it all, Spike refused to think and tried very hard not to feel. There was only the wind whipping at his face, the scenery flying by, and the numb pain that lay in his heart.
At last, the sky darkened, and he realized that he was hungry, that the bike was almost out of gas, and that he had no money. Not that anything prevented him stealing it. The farce that he was some sort of superhero was at an end.
Even if he stole the gas, where would he go? He had only the bike and the clothes on his back. No money and no skills that would serve him in this century, at least none that would keep him from a life of crime. He brought the bike to a halt alongside the road that led back to Sunnydale, as it seemed all roads did for him. He shivered as the evening wind picked up. The cold affected him now, a reminder that he hadn’t brought any sort of jacket.
If I’m running away, I’m making a piss-poor job of it.
He could still go, of course, he’d manage somehow, but if he left, he’d be pursued by the same demons as before. A fight between Buffy and Amy seemed inevitable, and if she survived that, eventually there would be another fight and another, until the one came that she lost. He couldn’t bear not being there, not helping in some way. And he didn’t know what else to do. Wearily, Spike pointed the bike towards Sunnydale and nursed it as far as the cemetery, wheeling it to its semi-concealed spot when it gave up at the gates. Inside his former home, he hunted about until he found a pack of cigarettes, and half a bottle of whiskey and settled himself against the wall to dull his pain in familiar ways.
At the familiar banging of his crypt door, Spike closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall with a groan. Footsteps that he could have identified in his sleep sounded across the floor and came to a halt in front of him.
“You know, your liver and lungs work these days,” Buffy remarked. “If you’re not careful, Dawn will lecture you on clean living. She has visual aids.”
“What are you doing here, Slayer?” he mumbled without opening his eyes. “Leading a torch-bearing mob?”
“I thought maybe you were cold.”
Something landed on his lap and Spike blinked down at his duster in disbelief.
“Don't get excited,” she said dryly. I didn't sleep with it under my pillow or anything.”
That possibility would never have occurred to him. In his wildest dreams, Spike could never have imagined her even keeping it. If he’d given the matter any thought, he would have imagined she threw the thing in a dumpster or possibly given it a ritual burning.
Ignoring his startled expression, Buffy leaned back against the wall and slid down until she rested on her heels next to him. “I spent the day with the torch-bearing mob,” she went on. “Next time, I get to leave and you get to calm them all down.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Spike said, trying to figure out what her game was. He thought she’d be ready to kill him, but she didn’t even sound upset. And what about the duster?
“Why not? Is everybody’s taking a vow of silence? Because that would be cool.”
“Because I’ll be staying away from you lot from now on,” he muttered, standing abruptly and crossing the crypt, needing to get away from her. “That should make you happy if anything can.”
“Glad to see you’ve got the ‘running-away’ part of Slayerhood down. Misery addiction is only one short step away.”
“I’m not a Slayer!” he shouted, throwing the duster to the floor in rage and frustration. “This is all some kind of stupid mistake.” He smiled bitterly. “You said it best. I’m not a vampire or a human. Where the hell do I fit in?”
“Being a pain in my ass isn’t enough for you anymore? My feelings are hurt.” Her face grew serious. “Spike, whether you, me, or anybody likes it or not, you’re a Slayer. Giles and I have the visions to prove it. Plus, there’s the whole issue of you not burning up in daylight.”
He shook his head. “I'm not. Or at least, something didn’t take or went wrong.” At her questioning look, he went on, fumbling for words. “You saw what happened today. I went to check on the Patterson bint by myself. Everyone almost got killed.”
“And I didn’t make Willow and Xander share the information with the rest of you. Did you miss the part where Giles yelled at all of us? We screwed up. It happens.”
“That’s not all of it. I don’t…don’t feel right. Not as a Slayer should. I didn’t care about the baby or the people in the car. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He recoiled as Buffy burst into laughter. “Very funny,” he said bitterly. “It’s a big joke to you, and your First Slayer I’ve no doubt. Did you cook it up between you to pay me back for what I did?”
“No, you idiot,” she gasped. “I’m laughing because you followed me around for five years, and you still think Slayers have some vague idea what they’re doing.”
He goggled at her for a moment, then, unbelievably, he felt his own mouth twitch. “Obviously, I’d expected to make a better job of it than you have,” he said loftily before emitting a snort of laughter.
Buffy laughed even harder, finally wiping her eyes before she smiled at him, a huge genuine smile such as he’d only seen a few treasured times. “I knew I could get a grin,” she teased.
He remembered his triumph at coaxing a smile from her in the early days of her return, when sitting by her had been the closest he could get to heaven. Her eyes widened, and Spike knew she remembered too.
How did we get so far from there?
“Slayers are just people,” she said hastily, looking away, her smile gone. “We’ve got super-strength and speed and healing, but still, people. Sometimes, we get wrong feelings, and we do wrong things.”
“Like sleeping with vampires,” Spike said quietly.
She looked at him again very directly. “Or like using people who care about us.”
It was his turn to look away. He wanted to ask, again, if she’d ever loved him, if she ever could love him, but instead what came out was, “Why are you here, trying to cheer me up? I thought you’d be furious.”
She sighed. “I guess I should be. I was. But like I said, I spent all day convincing everyone what happened between us was between us. And that with Warren’s shootout, Tara dying, and Willow going nuts, it just wasn’t that huge. Somewhere in the middle I started believing it.” She gave him a look. “Although if you do it again, I’ll rip your parts off and let Anya sell them in the Magic Box.”
He ignored her threat. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t here for all that happened. Even if you didn’t want to see me.”
“I looked for you,” Buffy admitted in a small voice.
“Buffy, God, I…about that night, I’m so very…”
“Spike, don’t. I know.”
His voice roughened. “You don’t. I hated you for making me feel things I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to be in love with you. I sure as hell didn’t want to feel regret. When I left that night, it was to get the chip out.”
“Why didn’t you?” she whispered.
“Got to a place I’d heard of. They said that I could be with Dru, have it like it was. Then I heard what had happened here and that you were going to fight Willow. I couldn’t let you go it alone.” He laughed bitterly. “I’d been such a help in the past, after all. There was another way that might let me come back to you, so I took it. Got myself made a Slayer, and here we all are. Maybe it was for the wrong reasons, maybe that’s why I feel as I do.”
Buffy had stood while he talked and now walked over to him. He could catch her scent, the one he’d know anywhere that spoke of love and anger and desire.
“It’s funny,” she said. “You chose what I never wanted.” At his surprised look, she went on, “Ask Giles how on board I was with my sacred destiny. I whined and bitched and moaned, and you know what? It didn’t matter. I was the Slayer. So what if I was scared or sad or didn’t feel like fighting that day? We’re Called, we fight, we die. Another appears. That’s it. No one cares, how the Slayers feel or what they feel except maybe our Watchers. You said I was lucky to have ties to the world. That’s why I hold on to Willow and Xander and the rest. I need them. The Powers don’t give us any help. The rest of the human world doesn’t believe. Most of the demon world hates us.”
“The other Slayers care,” he said quietly. “I saw them, Buffy, all of them, from Kendra to the First. They care about you.”
“And about you,” she said. “Because you’re one of us.”
A shudder ran through him of equal parts fear and joy with a tiny addition of hope. He wanted badly to touch her, but didn’t dare, and she smiled at last and nodded toward the crypt door. “Let’s get out of here. Giles wants his shirt back.”
He picked up the duster, the weight settling around his shoulders comfortably and followed her out, heart lighter than it had been for a long time. “By the way,” he commented. “If you beat me almost to death in an alley again, I’ll turn you over my knee.”
“What if I beat you almost to death in a different place?”
“Now, see, location wasn’t really the point of that sentence….”
She couldn’t go back to her house, but that was all right. Unlike most villains who seemed incapable of the simplest form of planning, she’d anticipated the possibility and stocked basic supplies at various locations. Smiling to herself, Amy lit the black candles and placed them on what she’d found made a fine portable altar, at least for her purposes.
The rat cage.
“Hear the cry of my angry heart,
Hear the prayer of my wounded soul.
In the name of Vengeance,
In the name of Justice,
Halfrek, I summon thee.”
“I’m here,” Halfrek grumbled, appearing behind her. “Although I don’t know why you bother. You’ve made it very clear that you aren’t going to wish.”
“I’ve told you,” Amy said calmly. “I prefer something more…personal.” Her fingers brushed the top of the plastic case. “But I still like company. I was alone for a lot of years.”
Halfrek clucked sympathetically and patted her shoulder. “They have a lot to answer for.” She held up an admonishing finger. “But not Dawn.”
“Of course not.” Amy kept her eyes lowered, careful not to show her contempt.
“So, what can I do for you tonight?”
“Maybe just shoot the breeze,” Amy said with an eagerness that wasn’t entirely unfeigned. “And I think I’m going to need a little more help on my project. Do you know anyone else you might bring on board, Hallie?”
Halfrek’s eyes sparkled just as Amy had known they would. So easy. They were all so damned easy. How hadn’t anyone taken down Buffy and Willow and the others before?
“I know just the person! You’ll really like her. Anyanka got a little confused for a while, but now she’s back the way she should be.”
“Just like me,” Amy smiled.
“Are you still brooding about that human? For crying out loud, Anyanka! Enough is enough.”
Anya didn’t look up from the crate of incense sticks. “I’m not brooding. I’m unpacking stock.”
“For your human job,” Halfrek sniffed, leaning against the counter. “You’re still neglecting what you really are. D’Hoffryn is wondering about you.”
One hand went protectively to her pendant. “What’s he saying?”
“Just that you don’t seem as involved as you should be, that your interests still lie with the humans.”
“My interests have to lie with the humans,” Anya said dryly as she separated jasmine and patchouli into separate piles. “Humans are the ones who do the wishing.”
Halfrek raised a dark eyebrow. “You know what I mean. When was the last time you were involved in vengeance?”
Anya swallowed, remembering Willow, black-eyed and raging. It would shock Halfrek and D’Hoffryn, but she was beginning to think that there were times when vengeance could go too far. “There hasn’t been a good opportunity.”
“Then your problems are over!” Halfrek beamed. “I’ve got a perfect opportunity! Her cause is righteous and just, and will help you as well.”
She looked up with a frown. “Help me? How? What do you mean?”
“Come with me and find out.” As Anya continued to hesitate, Halfrek sighed. “Anyaannnnka! Please? I promise you’ll like it. And it’ll keep D’Hoffryn happy.”
“All right,” Anya said with a sigh. “It’s almost my lunch break anyway.”
It would be good to have something else to think about other than Xander’s accusation about the people she’d killed, which wasn't fair, really, because she’d mostly just tortured. Forcing a smile, she followed Halfrek though the ether.
She looked around the clifftop, wondering what on earth someone was doing up here, then her jaw dropped as she saw the ruins of Proserpexa’s temple. “Hallie!” she hissed. “What are you doing? Who are you involved with?”
“You must be Anyanka,” the girl said, smiling as she stepped from the shadow of the ruins. “I’m Amy Patterson.”
“I know who you are,” Anya snapped. “And I know what you did!”
“Now, Anyanka,” Halfrek chided. “You can’t say Amy isn’t due vengeance. Those humans you foolishly hang around with kept her in a rat cage for years and didn’t even try to set her free until Willow needed a friend. Then, there was no effort to help her settle back in. You know how selfish they are, only thinking of their own concerns just like they did with poor little Dawn – and with you, for that matter. Helping Amy will help you too. Oh, and Dawn won’t be harmed, don’t worry. I was very firm about that. She’s an innocent.”
“Dawn’s an innocent?! Halfrek, do you know what this woman did to re-energize the temple? She killed a baby.”
“A baby?” Halfrek stepped away from Amy. “You killed a baby?”
“Didn’t you check?” Anya shouted. “Didn’t you try to find out what actually happened?”
“Well, no. I just heard the cry of her heart…”
“Cry of her heart, my ass! My heart cries! All hearts do sometimes! It doesn’t always mean that vengeance is the answer. You know what? People tried to help me. Buffy and Willow and Tara were all really nice even if they wouldn't wish about Xander. People tried to help Dawn too. Even if they messed up, they still tried! You didn’t have the right to imprison us all with a demon!”
“Girls,” Amy interrupted. “This is really interesting, but we’re wasting time. I’ve got vengeance to do.”
“I’m sorry,” Halfrek said stiffly. “But if you killed an innocent, our association is at an end. Count yourself lucky that I don’t exact my own revenge and content myself with leaving.”
She gestured dramatically, then looked startled when she stayed where she was. Anya turned cold as blackness flooded Amy’s eyes, and she realized that she couldn’t move any more than Halfrek.
“I do count myself lucky. Very lucky. You brought me the one I want.” Amy smiled at Anya. “This’ll really mess Buffy up, using the blood of one of her friends to fire up the temple and open the door to Proserpexa’s realm. Too bad you’re a demon. Human blood would have been even more fun, but this will do.”
She lifted a hand and Anya stumbled forward against her will.
Nononono.
The rock sailed out of nowhere and struck Amy on the side of her head, breaking her concentration and Anya realized that she could move. “You want human blood,” Xander said. “Knock yourself out.”
I don’t understand.
The thought had been with him all of yesterday, last night, and this morning until lunchtime. How Spike could be accepted, why it was suddenly all right that he’d attacked them, betrayed them, even after he was chipped, even after he was supposed to be in love with Buffy. As for Buffy, she seemed to be angrier with him for telling about the attempted rape than with Spike for attempting it which didn’t make any sense as far as Xander could see. Dawn had needed to know that her hero-worship of Spike was misplaced. What if he’d used her trust to hurt her?
He’d just wanted to help keep everyone safe, but he wasn’t having much luck with that, not even with Willow. He knew she was frightened of something, but she wouldn’t tell him what it was. Just stared into the distance, pale and silent.
Last night, he awakened from his usual nightmare involving Warren and his gun and found her huddled on the couch. She wouldn’t talk, but he’d gotten an afghan and wrapped it around her and sat with her, hoping that would help at least a little. She’d finally fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder and that had relaxed him enough to let him catch a few winks as well.
Thinking of Willow reminded him of Anya refusing to forgive her which brought him back to Spike, who everyone seemed willing to forgive, and that made him angry again and confused and miserable. Because in the back of his mind, he knew that Spike regretted what he’d done, at least to Buffy. It had been in his white, set face when he told the rest of them about the attack. That memory brought another of the way Glory had beaten him almost to death to make him tell about the Key. He hadn’t done it, though, and even if it had been to get in good with Buffy, it was still a hell of a beating to go through.
He shook his head. No, he didn’t understand, not anything anymore. He felt as he’d felt so often, left behind as his more clever friends forged ahead.
As he walked through the streets, killing time on his lunch hour, Xander passed a street corner flower-seller and on impulse, bought a bouquet to put on little Cinderella’s grave. The sorrow for the dead child was a clear and simple concept that he could grasp. However, when he arrived at the cemetery, he saw her father standing there, head down and weeping, and not wanting to intrude, Xander slipped away.
Pondering what to do, he decided to lay them on the site where she’d been killed. Maybe it would purify it in some way. The cliff wasn’t that far from town if he hurried.
As he knelt by the kicked-over altar, a shout came to him from the far side of the temple.
“Didn’t you check? Didn’t you try to find out what actually happened?”
Anya?
Startled, he stood and made his way as quietly as possible to the temple and circled around the ruins. The sight of Amy, eyes black and smile wide, made his heart stutter and he really wished he had a cell-phone, especially when Halfrek’s gesture resulted in a great big nothing.
Buffy, dammit, where are you? I need a Slayer.
But there wasn’t a Slayer to be had, and to his horror, Anya stumbled forward at the bidding of Amy’s upraised hand.
Oh, God, baby. No.
Not Anya, not his smart, funny, beautiful girl who he loved more than anything. Who he’d only left because he was afraid that he’d hurt her or that she’d come to hate him.
The rock was in his hand without thought on his part, and he threw it with all his strength. Astoundingly, it smacked Amy on the side of the head and Anya pulled free of the spell.
Before she could cast again, he stepped from his shelter.
“You want human blood,” he gulped. “Knock yourself out.”
“Thanks, Xander,” Amy said. “I believe I will. This is even better.”
“Xander, get out of here!” Anya shouted, more terrified than she’d been under Amy’s spell. He was human, without magic. He wasn’t even a very good fighter. Just a scared little boy.
Who I still love.
Except he didn’t seem scared. Instead of obeying her, he walked forward steadily, face calm. He was carrying another rock, but he dropped it with a cry of disgust when it turned to a wriggling snake in his hand. Amy giggled, “You never could handle magic, not even back when you had me cast a love spell on Cordelia.”
“No, I never could,” he agreed. “Let them go, Amy. Anya didn’t have anything to do with your rathood.”
“Nope. That would be Willow and Buffy,” she said. “And you’re their friend. Sure I’ll let the demons go. They can describe what happens to you in living color.”
Anya leaped as Amy raised a hand again, but bounced off a barrier that sprang into being around Amy and Xander. Then both were gone, and Proserpexa’s temple was glowing with a sickly green light that she couldn’t teleport through or penetrate in any way, no matter how she pounded against it and screamed in anguish and fury.