Fic: “Every Now and Then (3/3)” by Quinara.

Title: Every Now and Then
Author: Quinara
Rating: PG-13/R
Word Count: 13,935
Summary: When Spike goes missing Buffy is forced to remember things she’d rather have left forgotten.
Author’s Notes: Part 1 is here!

Warnings: None (I would say)

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Buffy opened her eyes, blinking into the sunlight as she woke. She could feel tears, but had no urge to cry. Her heart was beating heavily from panic; her senses were reaching out to try and find Spike and Illyria. Without them she was nothing if not exposed.

It was as though she’d just fallen from the portal, only this time she’d accepted that stupid suggestion of rehabilitation-by-separation. She felt wretched.

Despite that though, she rose from her bed with more fluid in her limbs than in a long time. The shower washed last night’s blood from her body and when dressed she walked downstairs Illyria was there once again.

Blue took one look at her and nodded. She nodded in return, and they headed out to the car.

Valerie, her neighbour, was standing in next door’s driveway as they left. She called out something, but Buffy didn’t stop to listen.

---

“Buffy.” Giles looked like he hadn’t slept; his hair was a mess and his eyes were more rheumy than usual. It endeared him to her.

“I apologise for yesterday, Giles. I was out of line.”

“Don’t be silly, dear.” He pulled away from the door, bemused as though he’d already forgotten the night before. She and Blue filed past him. “I think I’ve got everything ready now,” he continued as they took in the collection of ingredients on the coffee table, replacing the books of yesterday.

“We leave at sunset,” Illyria added, standing by the arm of the settee.

“Are you quite all right, Buffy?” Giles asked. She wasn’t sure how to answer him.

“She has been remembering how we were.”

“Ah. When you were…” Giles glanced at Illyria, then shakily back to Buffy herself. “Oh dear.”

She didn’t reply, so with final worried glance he shuffled off into the kitchen.

Giles had been there when Willow had pulled them back. She remembered that, and she had an odd feeling she might have attacked him. She wondered if she was going that way again. Something was definitely missing from her.

She sat down on the sofa and calmly surveyed the items in front of her, clustered together at one side of the table. They were bulky, but Giles could handle them while she and Blue were transported. He could still be safe.

Suddenly she flinched, hearing whispers in the kitchen, rising beneath the hiss of a boiling kettle. She sat in perfect stillness, sensing the words on the air and deciphering their meaning.

“…never like this – before. There were some times when, dare I say it, she enjoyed herself.”

“She uncovered something deep inside her nature when we resided on that world. On climbing out of its pit she knew it would be easier to fall back.”

“And that’s why. Why she hasn’t fought since… Forgive me, I had assumed there was some longing for normality there.”

“We miss what is lost to us, not what we have never had.”

“Very true.”

Crockery clacked on the countertop, too loud and discordant for Buffy’s ears, but she didn’t move.

“… fear this creature, but now it causes sadness within me.”

“Spike. It should improve once he returns, yes? Then there will be no need…”

“Her love and fear made this necessary, but I fear she knows no such emotions now. She is as unblemished and as pure as the perfect king. I admire her. I had not thought such beings could exist in this time – certainly I was tainted the moment I awoke.”

The kettle boiled and water was poured before they returned to sit opposite her again, teapot held daintily in Illyria’s hands as Giles slid three china cups and a fussy little jug of milk onto the table. He shifted coasters and a placemat, inefficiently, and finally signalled for Blue to place down the pot. They let on nothing of their conversation.

Giles poured the tea and handed cup to her, following it with one to Illyria. She appeared grateful, and Buffy observed, “You cannot drink.”

“Don’t you think she should have some anyway?” Giles asked, taking a sip of his own tea. “There is no reason not to include her.”

“I enjoy partaking of the host-guest ritual.”

Buffy didn’t reply, knowing as she swallowed the tasteless heat that she was doing nothing more than that herself.

---

At sunset they appeared in a cage, large enough to hold a car, but currently housing just one vampire, who smelt like magic. Blue stood back to let her approach, so she did, tugging him to standing and brushing all the sparkling dust from his face and from his chest. She hoped that it could be that simple.

She felt drowsy as it touched her fingers. She brushed them off and smiled. It was.

Methodically she blew across his face, his neck and his collar bone, pulling him away from the place where he sat. She shook loose his t-shirt, weighing the advantage of removing it entirely as she then blew down its neck.

She was rewarded with a moan, a smile in her hair and the way he breathed life back into himself on waking.

“You know, love, that kind of tickles.”

She stepped back and looked him in the eye. He grew serious at once, glancing around the cage and saluting Blue behind her.

“Bugger,” he spoke again. “I’m being rescued, aren’t I? Thought those dreams were a bit odd.”

She stalked to the cage’s bars, the other two falling in step behind her. With a moment’s assessment she leaned on their weakest point and watched, satisfied, as they bent beneath her hands. They marched out into what seemed to be a basement, and for a moment Buffy wished she weren’t wearing shoes.

She could feel the heartbeat of another somewhere near them, running a little high with what had to be anticipation, and it called to her like nothing else.

The corridors wound, letting pipes run in ways that were almost familiar. She passed doors with signs on them, but didn’t stop to read, even as Spike called something from behind. They were too close now.

One more twist, one more turn and they reached another open space, incongruous to the corridors. A figure in robes knelt before an altar, growling at an effigy. She took three more strides and kicked the stone plinth to the ground, scattering cones of incense. The figure couldn’t even stand before she’d seized it by its throat.

“Buffy?” The man croaked, his legs billowing the robe beneath him. His face was fat and moustached.

“Principal Gainsborough?” It was Spike who spoke, incredulous five feet behind her shoulder. She gripped more tightly.

“Leggo!” He clawed at her hand. “Leggo – still want – job – Monday.”

She didn’t let go. The Principal seemed to gather his wits, because in a moment he stopped kicking and growled again, his voice thick with intent. Immediately his neck began to burn in her hand. Weak, human survival instinct made her drop him and he scurried backwards, growling more and waving his arms until a great, hulking mammoth of a demon stood summoned between them.

Its jaw opened wide, a roar exploding from its throat. Strings of saliva dripped from teeth to tusks, slow enough for her to watch them, before it charged. Buffy rolled to the side, using the energy to drive her to her feet again after she took hold of the broken remains of the stone altar. She swung it in the demon’s face like an Olympic hammer, and then Spike and Blue closed in from her flanks. She threw Spike the axe from her back then pulled twin daggers from her boots, waiting for the demon to be stalled and confused enough for her to leap at its neck, past its tusks, to pierce its spine

The hairy corpse soon lay at their feet. The Principal was swallowing, panicking as sweat beaded on his forehead and shone bright under the fluorescent lights. He threw a shield up around himself, translucent and iridescent as she approached, but she moved through it, pushing in at single point of pressure until it yielded. She had him again, up against a wall this time and her left hand still held a dagger.

“The SATs –” He was sobbing now, weeping all over her wrist. “I only – wanted –” She pushed harder until he couldn’t talk.

But then a hand was on her shoulder, thumb softening her upper arm without her consent. Somewhat far away, she could hear a conversation.

“Watchers’ Council, West Coast Division. My name’s Tina, how can I help you?”

“Yeah, hello love, I’ve got a non-Slayable needs dealing with. Kidnap, summoning of lethal demons, attempted murder, all that jazz.”

“OK, sir, if you can give me your address we’ll have a team with you shortly.”

“Can’t say as I know the address, Tina, but if I’m not mistaken, I’m in the basement of Blackstone High School, Los Angeles. It should be on the ‘net.”

The Principal whimpered beneath her hand, no longer choking but unable to move if he tried.

“There’s a team approximately five minutes from your location, sir, and they’re on their way.”

“Thank you.” The hand on her shoulder squeezed a little more and it was far too welcome. “Buffy, love,” the voice continued. “Now’s the time for standing down. Some of Willow’s gang are coming; they can handle it from here. You can let the man go. He knows the game’s up.”

She turned her head into the hand, closing her eyes and breathing in the smell of home. In her right ear, however, more guttural sounds broke the silence and she felt movement near her stomach. She snapped back on the alert, quelled her employer’s summoning with a look, then smashed his head back into the wall so that he dropped cold to the floor.

The room was filled with growls and snarl, and as Spike span away from her something leapt on her back. She bent at the hips and at the knees, twisting to one side to hurl the demon into the wall. Its claws took some of her back’s flesh with it, but that didn’t matter as she brought both daggers back to bear, one in the heart and one in the throat.

It seemed to want to fight on, even as she withdrew the blades and blood gushed from its arteries. She drove in again, cutting its head from its body until it lay dead in two parts, blood running now like river water.

She turned at last to the mêlée, taking in Spike and Blue both engaged, then striding to the centre of the room. She crouched there, drawing the dark-red wolves to her by her warmth and bringing them down, one by one.

It was as though she saw nothing but blood until it was all over, which it was, eventually. A pack of girls in black jumpsuits swarmed around them, late to the fight and too clean for it anyway. They spirited the Principal away, saw her face and whispered amongst themselves. She didn’t care.

In the end, there was no one but the three of them.

“I expected more violence.”

“You always expect more violence, Blue.” Spike’s voice was ragged, shuddering. “Unnecessary’s what it is.”

“It is never unnecessary.”

“Yes, it bloody well is. Buffy…”

Spike approached behind her, easing his arms next to hers and plucking the daggers gently from her fists. He continued to talk. “Gotta get you cleaned up, love. What will the neighbours say if you come home in this state, eh?”

She looked down at herself, at the blood that covered her. “Screw ‘em.”

She was spun around until she was looking at his much less bloody chest. “Oi. What’s it you tell me?” He tucked a finger under her chin. His eyes were so bright. “This is the world we live in. The world we chose. We’ve gotta live by its rules, don’t we?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“Oh, hell, Buffy.” He kissed her quickly on the lips then pulled her into a hug, squeezing her close to him as he spoke somewhere near her ear. “Look like little girl lost you do, all scruffy hair and misery.”

The smallest of bubbles burst inside her chest putting quiet words in her mouth. “It’s what you do to me when you go away.” She was shaking, holding him more tightly, because she realised now that it was true.

“Shh…” His arm moved once, down and up her back, but that was all it took. Suddenly she found herself crying, shivering with suppressed fear and worry that now gushed through her like hot, thick magma. Her legs were too weak to support her, and she knew that should make her feel vulnerable, but it didn’t matter with him holding her up.

She’d been so terrified that she would lose him, that she would lose herself in trying to find him. Because that was what it took, wasn’t it? To get the power, the skill to find him, it took giving up what she was.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she sobbed, trying to explain. Words still didn’t feel right coming out of her throat. “I’ve gotten all rusty.”

“Can’t have gotten too rusty… Got me rescued, didn’t you?”

“I thought…” What had she thought? She’d thought she’d have to become how she was when they were away, when they’d all needed her to be as much the Slayer as she could.

She shuddered, the tears slowing in her eyes. She wondered, had this just been her? Older, wiser, but still not good with fear?

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

---

They drove to the Hyperion afterwards, since Spike told them what he fancied was a drink. Giles declined his invitation.

Spike and Blue were in the front, back in their usual seats while Buffy sat behind them. The leg room was small enough that she wasn’t far away and she was happy to lean her head between the two of theirs, just as she was to play with Spike’s hand on the back of the seat.

She’d thought she’d feel left out, or at least like she was tagging along; all three of them hadn’t been in Illyria’s car in such a long time. As it was the silence that lulled over them was more than comfortable.

Lorne met them at the hotel gates, clapping Spike on the shoulder as he climbed out of the car. “Boy, am I glad to see you!” A glass of something dark materialised from nowhere and Lorne pushed it into Spike’s hands. “That’s just a little something to get you back on your feet.” Whatever it was, Spike seemed to enjoy it, closing his eyes as he knocked it back. “You had us all out of our minds…”

“Cheers, Lorne,” Spike replied, handing the glass back. His right hand sought hers, helping her out of the car, and she was sure she could actually feel the vitality that had returned to him. She wondered if she felt the same.

“Illyria.” Lorne was turned away from them, nodding at Blue as she walked round the front of the car. “Always a pleasure.”

“Pylean,” Illyria replied, just as neutrally. It was funny; Buffy had forgotten how silly Lorne and Illyria were. They were almost as bad as Spike and Xander.

“And my lovely Bufferina,” Lorne continued, finally turning to her. “Loving the look.” He nodded appraisingly at her clothes. “Very Demon Hunter X.”

“Huh?” She looked down herself, only then realising she was still covered in blood and guts. Somewhere along the way she’d forgotten. “Oh, yeah,” she finally managed to say. “There was a thing.” And wasn’t that the understatement of the year. How was she going to explain this one?

Spike squeezed her hand. “You should’ve seen her, mate. Right warrior princess she was, rushing in to rescue her handsome prince locked in the tower.”

“I’ll bet,” Lorne replied, with that odd tone of banter and nervousness he sometimes got around her.

“He is correct,” Illyria chimed in. “Had we waited one more moment and the evil witch would have devoured him.”

Buffy couldn’t help but laugh, even as she could feel the dried blood cracking on her face. It looked like she wouldn’t have to explain after all. It was a relief; though really, she supposed, she should have known it all along.

“It was a team effort,” she reassured Lorne. It didn’t seem to help very much. “Hey,” she said, deciding to steer the conversation away. “What music are you playing tonight? These boots were made for boogie.” They were actually made for butt-kicking, now she thought about it, but she hadn’t acknowledged that when she’d bought them.

Lorne looked like he was about to reply, but Spike got in there first, changing the question. “How about you two go on ahead?” He nodded to the glass in Lorne’s hand. “Knock me up another one of those, put it on the tab. Buffy and I’ll be in in a minute.”

She turned to him, curious, but he only squeezed her hand again.

“Sure,” Lorne replied, unflustered. “Come on, your Royal Blueness.”

“Your sarcasm does not flatter me,” Blue said as they walked away.

Spike eyes seemed to follow them as they walked the path up to the hotel, but Buffy only watched him. “What was that all about?” she asked when he finally turned back to her.

He smiled, then touched a hand to her matted hair. “Lorne might be happier with fairy stories, but I thought I’d check how you really are.” He cast a glance to the hotel. “Can’t have you slapping on a smile for my benefit.”

“I’m…” How was she? Really? “I’m actually OK.” Strangely enough it was pretty much the truth. “Now that you’re back anyway.” She smiled and leaned up slightly for a kiss, bringing her arm behind his neck. He hesitated for a moment, but seemed to trust her enough to go with it. She was all too happy to prove that she was fine.

The first time they’d kissed after the otherworldly debacle had been terrifying. It had been about a week after they’d come back to LA, in a grotty Watchers’ Council apartment, brought on by nothing more than passing each other too closely in the doorway. She’d been starting to remember who she was when the sudden rush of love and gratitude had been too much. She’d fallen into him, practically shattering under the weight of long forgotten emotion and petrified by the idea that he might let her go.

This was nothing like that; they were nothing like they’d been. The love she felt was still bright enough to be blinding, hot enough to make his mouth feel warm, but it had been part of her for years. She hadn’t been scared of it in a long time.

As he pulled away she studied his face, taking in the way it had changed through the years. He was as handsome as ever, but there were new scars there, and thinking back she wasn’t sure where they’d come from. They were memories of fights for which she hadn’t been with him; fights which she’d avoided. It made her a little sad.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I’ve been kinda stupid.” There wasn’t any other way to describe it. She wasn’t scared of loving him, not anymore, but she realised now that she’d been scared of being the one who did. She’d been scared of being the Slayer, whose husband wasn’t human and whose best friend never had been. “I’m gonna fix it.”

He dropped another kiss on her lips. “All right then.”

She smiled and hugged him tighter.

 

Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/295161.html