Fallout

Everyone in the room scowled at Willow, whose face had turned bright red. She stood, brushing herself off absent-mindedly.

“I’m gonna…I’m just gonna go.”

Tara scowled at her as Willow exited the Magic Box, her eyes filling with tears. Anya and Giles made a point of separating themselves, while Xander and Dawn attempted to make themselves scarce, busying themselves by stacking the books on the table. Tara wrapped her arms around herself and desperately tried to avoid making eye contact with the group.

“I…I’m j-j-j-j-just going to t-t-t-t-take a nap on the cot in the b-b-back,” she stammered, before turning and walking into the back training room.

Xander broke the uncomfortable silence with a light laugh. He looked up sheepishly as everyone glared at him.

“Sorry. I just got back the memory of seeing King Ralph.”

Anya nodded and grabbed the list she had scrawled down linking five of the Scooby Gang together.

“Well, I think this is probably an important focal point that we can discuss to take our minds off of the sex that Giles and I would have had later if we hadn’t gotten our memories back.”

Xander sighed.

“Ahn….”

“I’m right, and you know I am, so just sit down and make yourself useful. Giles, since you’re so high and mighty with your Latin, would you care to regale the group with your translation of the spell I cast while under Willow’s influence?”

With a curt nod, Giles stood before the other three people in the room and sighed.

“‘Ostendo meus prosapia nemus’ very roughly translates into ‘show me the family tree,’ though for the life of me, I can’t discover how…oh, oh good Lord,” he said, whipping his glasses off and cleaning them at a quick pace.

Xander blanched at his actions.

“What?! What’s wrong, G-man?”

Giles stared at Anya, and then Dawn. He sat down with a slump on a chair and grabbed the note from Anya’s hands.

“Right before we awoke in the Magic Box without our memories, I recall…I, well, I’m wasn’t sure if it was lucid dreaming or what, but I awoke first in what I believe was the 1800s in Britain? I can’t be entirely sure, but there was…ahem, there was a woman, who…Anya, were you, when you were a Vengeance Demon, do you recall ever living in England as a Lady?”

Anya’s eyes widened.

“Yes…for a very brief period of time…I had a daughter there…I named her Anne…we…her father and I had come to an understanding. He was married, but his wife couldn’t bear children…she had been attacked and her internal organs were damaged, and she couldn’t carry a child to term. She had called for vengeance after the attack, and I fulfilled my part, but she was just so…broken…and her husband was a hell of a looker, so, when they asked me, I took a maternity leave from the Vengeance career so I could give them something they deserved.”

Xander stared at her in disbelief, and Giles continued to clean his glasses.

“But you’re sure that the man you,” Giles said, trailing off, “Ermm...ummm…had relations with wasn’t me?”

“Of course not. His name was Brassel…Ludwig Brassel.”

An understanding clicked in his mind, and Giles’s face paled.

“You said you named your daughter ‘Anne?’”

Anya nodded.

“Yes. We all settled on it as a suitable name.”

“Oh good Lord. That was the name of…I mean…the woman that I…had relations with…was your daughter? No…no it couldn’t be. It must be some coincidence.”

“That spell is ironclad, Giles…despite my marring the language slightly. But usually it only works on linking non-blood related individuals if each generation procreates. Wait…wait,” she said, pulling the note back from Giles’s grasp.

Anya scanned the note and pointed to the link between Giles and “Randy.”

“Spike! The spell says that Spike is your son, Giles!”

As Giles’s limp body hit the floor of the Magic Box, Dawn stood with a smirk.

“I’m going to go find Buffy and Spike. They’re gonna flip!”

--

Buffy crawled to Spike’s side and grabbed his shoulders roughly. The vampire was staring blankly ahead of himself and mumbling incoherently. With a determined glare, Buffy punched him in his nose, but fell back herself when the sharp pain shot through her own nose as well. Spike, for his part, barely flinched, and remained staring forward. Shaking herself free of the pain, Buffy moved back to his side, and put a calming hand over his mouth, stopping his mumbling.

“Spike. Spike! Hey…please…please stop…wake up, or whatever, okay?”

The soft touch was enough to wake Spike from his near-catatonia, and he looked at Buffy with wild eyes.

“Get away from me, Slayer…I’m no good for you.”

Buffy scowled.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I saw your life, Slayer…saw your light…I…I’m a monster…can’t take your light and mar it with my filth…can’t…won’t.”

With a sigh, Buffy sat down next to him, leaning back against a gravestone.

“You aren’t filthy, Spike. I saw everything you are…everything you were. And I can still sit next to you without disgust. You were,” she trailed off as she thought of the violent acts she had seen flow through her mind, “You were killing out of instinct and need. Yes, you enjoyed the fight, but a cat will play with its food before it kills it…it doesn’t make you a monster.”

“They were innocents…and I….”

“Were fighting to survive. I…I never understood that before,” she said, earnestly, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Spike saw the moisture falling from her eyes and moved closer to her, his rough hands lifting to wipe the tears away. He pulled his hands back before he made contact.

“Sorry, pet…I…I don’t mean to be forward…you…you wouldn’t want me to touch you, I know.”

Buffy sighed.

“Spike, you just had a lot more than your hands on me, so wiping a tear away is really not going to sully my virtue,” she said with a light laugh.

Spike stared at her in disbelief.

“How can you be so flippant? Who are you, and what have you done with the Slayer?”

Buffy smiled at him.

“I’m right here, Spike…I’ve just…I’ve realized something. I’ve been too harsh…too harsh on everyone…on everything. I can’t go on like this…it’s going to kill me. As soon as I get close to someone…after Angel left me, I never let my heart open again…I can’t let myself do that anymore. I was pulled out of Heaven to do good…not to be a detriment, and not to live half of a life.”

Spike nodded and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, tentatively.

“I understand, pet. Believe me.”

“How so?”

“Well, for starters, I think our little session got my soul restored.”

“What?”

“We claimed each other, pet…would make sense that I’d inherit some of your qualities…the soul-having first on the menu, which would account for the pain I felt when I got your memories.”

“What does it mean for me?”

“The claim? Can’t rightly say, pet…could mean any number of things…don’t recall it ever being performed between a vampire and a human, let alone a vampire and a Slayer. We’re going to have to talk to the Watcher about it.”

Buffy sighed and began to rise from the soft ground.

“Alright. Back to the Magic Box it is.”

--