Author’s Notes: A big thank you to my beta Kar and to my reviewers. Special thanks to zanthinegirl and zoegrace, whose discussions with me helped me sort some of this out for myself. This one took awhile to get through and I appreciate your patience. Big things are on the horizon and I needed to set the stage properly. Please keep the feedback coming.

In our sixteenth installment Dawn struggles to understand Spike, Buffy makes a statement, and Willow gets some insight from an unlikely source.


Chapter Sixteen: Potential for Normal

Dawn sighed and moved quickly out of the way so Spike could rush in before getting any more singed than he already was. If he would just get a phone like a reasonable person, he wouldn’t have to run around looking for Buffy during daylight hours. Couldn’t he get one of those pre-paid ones or whatever like drug dealers used? Or maybe he was too cool for a cell phone, like having one would be an acknowledgement that he was really at her sister’s beck and call.

Dawn spritzed the kitchen with some Glade to cover the smell. "I thought you were the pizza guy," she moped.

"Nice to see you too, Bit. How your mum?"

Right, like Mom was his big concern. "Mom's fine. She's out with Brian again. Hence the ordering of pizza. Buffy's not here. She took another double shift."

"Again?" He tossed the blanket on the counter. "She's working too hard," he muttered.

Dawn rolled her eyes. "You're just mad because it means she doesn't have time for your daily sex romps."

"Came to see you, Bit," he protested lamely.

"Whatever. She's avoiding you. If you wanted to see me, it was just to pump me for info on my big sister." Spike gave her a little shrug that confirmed her suspicions. Like, thanks for the big protest that he indeed cared she existed anymore.

How much to tell him? She'd overheard what Buffy had said to Tara. I think I'm falling for him, like really falling for him, but I need some time to figure this out. Buffy was finally leaving the state of denial, which was totally good, but Spike was going to blow the whole thing if he didn't give her some room to fret and spazz and froth and then calm herself back down.

"She's figured out that she's in love with you, dumbass, and she needs some time to wig and get over it. So just chill for awhile and you'll be fine."

Spike's face contorted through about five hundred emotions. He landed on pissed off. "Right. Know when I love someone I want to avoid seeing 'em for a week."

"Well, the last time you fell in love with someone it probably didn't result in a bunch of people getting killed in really nasty ways." Off his look, she amended. "Actually I guess maybe it did, you just didn't care."

"Vampire, Bit," he reminded her.

There it was, the reason Buffy was freaked about being in love with Spike. Because he didn't care. Answering the door for the actual pizza guy gave her a chance to formulate a response, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know more.

He bit into a slice while she grabbed herself a soda and handed him one of the beers Buffy was keeping in the fridge now, despite Mom's sour faces about it. “Thanks, pet. Sauce makes my mouth a bit fizzy.”

“Right, the garlic.” Dawn tilted her head at him and watched him eat for a moment. “It doesn’t make you all hissy and quavery?” She imitated the typical ‘backing away from the cross’ maneuver she’d seen more than a few vampires perform.

His smirk was profound. “Loses its potency in the cooking or something. Feels a bit lively is all, like those Pop Rocks powers you kept buying this summer.”

Dawn picked at a piece of pepperoni. "You still don't really care, do you?" She just couldn’t help herself. “Like, you care that Buffy doesn’t like it, but you’re not personally bothered by it.”

Spike studied her for a minute. "You particularly care that your pizza topping used to be alive?"

She wrinkled her nose. "So not the same thing! People are not pigs, Spike, and pigs aren't people. And I don't get my kicks maiming and torturing pigs."

"Angel was the one who fancied torture, Bit. I was just looking for dinner." He quirked a brow. "And, maybe a spot of fun."

Dawn swallowed. "So Buffy and I are just like special little Wilburs to you? Pigs who can do a neat trick and that gets us out of the line to the slaughterhouse?"

He frowned intensely. "Not killing anyone these days, my girl, in case you haven't noticed." He sighed wistfully. "Don't even dream about it anymore."

Well, that was something, she guessed. Maybe that was the most they could expect from him, really, to stop looking at people as potential entrees.

He tipped back the rest of his beer. "Completely fucking tamed," he muttered.

"Is she worth it?"

Spike smiled that genuine smile she had only seen a few times. "Whatever it takes to be hers, pet." He wiped his saucy fingers and pitched his bottle in the recycling bin. "Tell your sister I stopped by, yeah?"

Dawn nodded and watched him tuck the now unneeded blanket under his arm and slink off into the night. She pushed the pizza box away. She'd lost her appetite.

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We believe there may be a way to unlock the potentials. A way for you, Buffy, to make Slayers of all of them.

Unlocking the potentials... it sounded like an energy drink ad. It really didn't sound like a great idea. So far it was just a theory, a theory that fit her recurrent dreams and some prophecies and visions. But still a theory. They didn't know how to do it yet, so she had some time to decide whether they should even be thinking about it.

Although she wondered if the Council would really leave it up to her. And was it really her choice to make anyway? Shouldn't the girls get some say in it? It would be the end of a lot of girls' hopes and dreams and genetic lines. They didn't even know how many there were.

Giles said there were fifty-three girls in training, but she hadn't shown up on the Council radar until after she got all Chosen. So how many more like her were out there, going about their normal girl lives? Was it fair to take that away from them and thrust some destiny upon them, all without warning?

Was it fair not to? Every night she was slaying in Sunnydale was a night she wasn't patrolling Dallas or thwarting demon gangs in Tokyo. If there were more Slayers, they could protect more people, fight more evil, right? Wasn't that their duty, their purpose? Maybe it was wrong to even offer a choice.

Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe if there were enough of them, some could even opt out. Or just take a few years off to finish school or whatever. Take a rest.

Maybe she could take a rest. Get her degree. See Paris. Just a short break.

Or was that just time that she was putting some less-seasoned girl at risk so she could live it up a little?

Her head hurt. She knew how to fix that.

But she still had a long walk to Restfield, and she was dragging her feet. She’d stopped avoiding him, but she still wasn’t sure whether to tell him or what to tell him. And, it was like he knew, but then that hopeful look in his eyes every time he said it was nothing sudden. It had been there from the first morning she’d woken up in his bed, even when she was reminding him that she didn’t, couldn’t. But now it turned out that she could, and did. It was just… once she told him, she couldn’t untell him.

So there was that, plus the fact that they still couldn’t find the Trio of Lameness. They must have realized she was gunning for them and had figured out somewhere other than their parents’ houses to hide out. Oh, and then there was the Council’s plan to get Faith out of the slammer, which while she didn’t want Faith getting knifed by the faceless freakos, didn’t strike her as the smartest idea.

Spike wasn’t even in when she got there. Typical. She didn’t always ask him where he went. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Sometimes she found she didn’t really care. Buffy realized that for the most part she trusted him to behave himself. Which was probably what had allowed her heart to overwhelm her head finally.

She grabbed one of his ratty old books and thumbed through it on the bed. It would make him happy to find her there, and that’s what you were supposed to do for people you loved, right? Make them happy? Because she really sucked at that. Or else she made them too happy and complete badness ensued. Which was really the wrong thing to be thinking about in Spike’s bed.

So when he was halfway down the ladder, she tackled him such that they spun into the ancient dresser in the corner. Luckily it could take her weight because with Spike on his knees and her legs wrapped around his head, she really didn’t want to go anywhere. For a good long time. So she sucked at the whole making others happy thing, but at least maybe she’d found one that could make her happy this time.

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“Feel better then, pet?”

“Yeah-huh.”

“Want to tell me what had you so twisted up?”

“Nuh-uh.”

He brushed her hair off her face. “Slay-er,” he tried coaxingly.

“Slayer sleep now,” she grumped.

Spike huffed. Apparently she was determined to keep him out of whatever it was. Again. Seeing as how she was all naked and pliant and he’d come thrice, he decided he could wait to pester her about it. He settled in comfortably. “Right then. We’ll talk about it when you wake up.”

“Sounds good,” she mumbled. “Love you, Spike.”

He gaped for a moment while his brain struggled to catch up with his ears. It wasn’t possible that he’d heard her correctly. “Buffy? Do you just say--”

“Yes,” she huffed. “Said I love you, you dope. Now, lemme sleep or I’m taking it back.”

Right. She could sleep after that little revelation, but his entire being was awake and humming. Tempting as it was to plot an inventive way to rouse her and prompt her to repeat that little declaration, Spike decided to quit while he was ahead for once. He settled for a slow sweet kiss and left her to doze while he prowled the upstairs.

Buffy loved him. The Slayer loved him. He’d hoped for it, prayed for it – for all the good prayer did a demon, but he wasn’t quite prepared for it. Suddenly his crypt seemed shabby and stark. Oughtn’t he find a place he and his beloved could share? An apartment above ground with heavy drapes and a place for her to take a nice hot shower after patrol. A desk in the corner where she could do her studies. He could help with her French conjugations and she could persuade him to raise her grade.

All a pipe dream, of course. He and the slayer were never going to keep house together. Completely ludicrous. And his sad Victorian git bits could just shut up about it and enjoy having her in his bed despite how much more delicious the idea of their bed might be.

Buffy’s screams shook him out of his reverie. He grabbed a cool bottle of water from the alcove where he kept them and hopped down to the lower level. She was already awake and leaning forward, clutching her knees. She leaned against him and took the water with a grateful look.

“Bad one this time?”

She nodded. “Stabby squad again. I couldn’t tell who I was this time.”

The dreams or visions or whatever the hell had been visited on his girl had been going on since her birthday party. Increasingly vivid, and unfortunately at least one of the deaths she’d experienced in her sleep had come to pass.

Buffy passed him the empty bottle. “They didn’t get me this time at least.” She sagged into him. “Thanks for, you know, taking care of me.”

“Like taking care of you,” he replied earnestly. If she’d allow him to take care of her properly, he’d hide her away somewhere comfy and possibly European, steady streams of room service and strands of jewels draped over her breasts. No more coffee counters or going out in the night to skewer monsters. Which would make her someone altogether other than Buffy. So, bad plan. This was better. “I love you.”

It earned him a smile and a squeeze on his knee. “I know." But apparently she wasn't going to return the sentiment at his every prompting. He felt a burst of anger ripple through him. Ridiculous the way he lived for her every crumb of affection. Was he supposed to just be grateful she’d ever said it at all? Or maybe she was even pretending now that it had never been voiced?

"Don't get like that," she chided. So apparently his ire was showing. Her mobile rang before he could object. "It's Giles," she informed him, gone all serious, before flipping the phone open.

Whatever the Watcher was telling her, it was bad. Buffy closed her eyes and held her breath like that could keep her from absorbing her Watcher's words. His anger evaporated in the face of her distress. She trusted him enough to let him see how scared she was. Spike considered this and wondered what he had done to deserve this confidence of hers and whether he could possibly keep from fucking it all up in some fantastic way.

------

"Welcome to The Magic Box, may I -- oh, it's you."

Willow barely acknowledged Halfrek's greeting as she swept past her. She climbed up the ladder to the stack of locked shelves. She didn't know what she was going to find in the Watcher's Chronicles that she hadn't found the last dozen times, but she wasn't sure what else to do. Googling 'slayer origins' was only going to produce a bunch of heavy metal articles and Giles was intentionally not helping her research. Which spoke of much badness.

It was quiet in the shop so close to closing time. After the demon had locked up and was counting up the proceeds for the day, Willow raised her eyes to Halfrek. Halfrek jumped back, clearly spooked. Probably it shouldn't be so satisfying to be able to freak out a demon, but Willow couldn't help it.

"How's business?" she asked. Might as well be chatty. Not like the books were telling her anything she didn’t already know.

Hallie shrugged and petted the cash register. "Okay. I don't have Anyanka's gift for retail. Several customers have indicated that they are deferring their business until she returns tomorrow." She made a little humming noise. "Who knew little miss rah-rah proletariat would become such the happy little shop keep?"

Willow filed that little tidbit away. "Well, I guess you see a few philosophies come and go in a millennia or two."

"Oh my yes. I spent some time in Rome in the late 300s. Working for the Vestals, you see. Live burials! They weren't happy about that."

"Vestals? Vestal Virgins? You did, um, vengeance for the Vestal Virgins?"

"Oh yes. Well anyway that's what they called themselves at the time. Before that it was The Guardians or Watchers of Watchers, Hestia's priestesses… you get the idea."

"Watchers of Watchers?" Willow started making notes. Maybe this was something worth looking into. Why didn’t they ever think about asking demons for info like this?

Oh yeah, because most demons? Not real keen on helping the Slayer.

Halfrek’s story could be total crap too, but she just seemed to be bragging, not laying some sort of convoluted trap. If there was some other group that predated the Watcher's Council or even just observed them, then maybe Willow could find out something about the hows and whys of Slayer activation. Or it could be total coincidence. "Like Slayer-Watcher Watchers?"

Halfrek did her irritating humming thing again. "I'm not the Slayer expert. Perhaps you should ask William. He's the one with the Slayer obsession."

"Uh-huh," Willow agreed. "So, you knew Spike a long time ago?"

"Before he was Spike," Halfrek agreed. "Before he was dead. Such a fop! Sad."

Willow's ears perked up. "Really?"

"Oh yes, I was investigating these orphanages in London, posing as Cicely Addams, country cousin to the Underwoods, who were poor William's neighbors." A nasty look passed over her face, one that reminded Willow that the pleasant looking woman behind the counter was really a powerful creature. "Those orphanages. You really can't imagine."

Willow wanted to ask more about pre-vamp Spike, but her phone rang.

"Meeting, my house, first thing tomorrow." Buffy's voice was hard, cold. It was the Slayer talking to her. "Faith's been attacked."


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There’s so little in canon about the Guardians (from their thirty seconds of screen time), so I decided it was something I could play with. This will start moving quickly from here on out. I will try to update in a timely fashion but the baby’s been sick and my in-laws are coming in for a visit, so no promises. But please review!