Author's Note: Thanks to Kar for the beta job and some good suggestions. Thank you to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. It has been a while so...


Previously: Buffy jumped off the tower to save the world about thirty years ago. Twenty years later Dawn was killed in a car accident and left her daughter Anne in Spike's care. While Anne was dying in a hospital with Spike at her side, slayer Lieuko was being slaughtered by Drusilla. This caused a rift in the Scoobies when Jesse Harris blamed Spike for her death. Buffy's return has gone a long way to reuniting Xander with the few remaining members of the group, but the slayer is struggling to find a place in a much-changed world where her friends are old and grey, Angel is human, Spike has a soul, and Willow might want to kill her.

In our ninth installment Buffy spends some time with the new Watcher and Spike takes her out for dinner.


Chapter Nine


Buffy woke from a disjointed dream of cool arms, blood, screams of terror, and Willow's face. Her first impulse was to call Giles. She hoisted herself out of bed and brushed away a few tears. She was going to have to get used to the new world, which did not contain Giles any longer.

Buffy felt strange about the whole thing, but she just didn't know where else to take a question about cryptic demon messages except to a Watcher. Connie didn't seem upset though, more curious than anything actually. She let Buffy in, offered her some iced tea, and ushered her into a living room stuffed floor to ceiling with books.

"So 'then there were three'? That's all you got?" she asked with a wry smile.

Buffy smiled back. Connie didn’t seem like a Watcher. No tweed. Jeans and a sloppy ponytail and a mangled accent. "Yeah, I hear you," Buffy apologized. "Vague much. But she's a vengeance demon, if that helps."

Connie shook her head. “I know the story. That sucks. I'm not really an expert, but I can make some calls. There's folks on the Council that specialize."

Buffy sipped the sweet tea and stared at the shelves. The book collection, she realized, didn't really contain that many demony-sounding titles. Some classics, a bunch of titles she didn’t recognized that seemed political, a small section of paperback science fiction.

"If you see anything you'd like to borrow, go for it," the young Watcher offered.

Buffy scanned the titles some more. Maybe she would join a book club. She desperately needed to meet some people. Not that she didn't love Xander and Tara, but they were at such a different place in their lives. And getting to chummy with Jess and his pals just seemed like a bad idea. Which left Spike, who was himself something of a Watcher now.

She looked at Connie, really looked at her. “How did you become a Watcher, if you don’t mind me asking. You don’t seem… you’re really different from the Watchers I knew before.”

Connie nodded and rattled her ice cubes. “I was a potential,” she replied as though that explained something. She must have noticed the slayer’s confusion, because she pulled a slim volume down from the shelf. “Potentials are girls they think might get called. They found me when I was ten and took me from my parents, which was a blessing. They put me in a school over ‘cross the pond.”

Buffy couldn’t really imagine what that was like. It still seemed like she should be able to waltz in the front door of the place on Revello and ask Mom to make her some enchiladas. She fingered the little book. Education of Potential Slayers. On the plate inside was a pair of photos, her junior year yearbook shot and Faith’s mug shot.

Connie huffed a little laugh. “Yeah, they figured out dragging gals out of school wasn’t the brightest idea for, um, long range success.”

“Faith did live a lot longer than me,” Buffy pointed out archly.

“Well, there is that,” Connie drawled. “Just the same I’m glad they kept up my education. When I hit seventeen without getting called I decided it was time to start spending less time whacking punching bags and more time with the books.”

"Can I ask you something?” Buffy started quietly. “Were you upset that you didn't get Chosen?"

The other woman turned away and sighed at her knees. "Yes and no. I spent all those years training and studying and watching other girls get woken and die. I think it actually prepared me better for being a Watcher than a slayer. But sometimes when I watch you or Tashi move, yeah, I'm jealous."

She turned to look at Buffy. "You know, there are three slayers now, with you back. You and Tashi and the young one over in London."

"Ugh. I really don't want this to be about me." There was little she hated so much as being prophecy girl.

“She did come looking for you though. Could be coincidence, or she could have meant some other trio, but we better look into it.” Connie shook her head. "You know, one nice thing about not being the special one? Sometimes it's really not so bad getting overlooked."


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She sat there quietly eating her salad, and Spike still had no idea what was going through her head. Buffy had been distant the entire night and lazy in her fighting. Either she was drinking too much of Tara's tea or she was too much inside her own head. Why was she even sitting there with him in the first place? He wished he knew what had inspired her little invitation.

Buffy took another dainty bite and gave him a shy little smile. She was eating the salad morsel by morsel. A bit of lettuce, a bit of tomato, a sliver of chicken. Finally she pushed it away in disgust.

"I used to be so good at this," she muttered.

Spike knitted his brows. "At what, pet, eating?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, I mean... never mind." Her lower lip jutted out and she stared at her plate dejectedly.

"Think you're doing just fine," he assured her.

"I haven't said two words to you this whole time," she countered.

He looked at her sad little entree. "You still hungry, love?"

She nodded miserably. He punched a few codes in the Waitronic and smiled at her. "Well, that's easily fixed."

"Did you just order me another meal?"

"Too presumptuous?" he asked archly. "Dinner's on me, so if you don't like it, order up someone more to your fancy."

"You don't have to pay for dinner. I have money now, you know."

"Hardly the point."

"Uh huh." She licked her lips. "I guess this time we're not just working together, we're actually, technically coworkers, since the Council is paying us both. How did that happen anyway? I can't really picture the hiring process there."

It was oddly nice, hearing that old sardonic tone in her voice, hearing her sound like the girl he remembered. "After the mess with Kennedy, a local girl got called, old friend of Bit's actually. She was off the Council radar." He itched for a smoke, just thinking about it. "Came to me because of the dreams."

"Dreams?"

He wished futility for the food to arrive, for some sort of distraction. "They dream you now, you know, the slayers. Anyway, Amanda dreamed about me." He took a long sip of his beer. "She dreamed about you trusting me to take care of your sister."

"I remember," she said softly.

Poor little twig of a thing had needed help, and with Harris crawled into a bottle and Tara wisely fled to pharmacy school, there was none else to give it. "They sent a Watcher, but he was dead before he stepped off the bus. First vamp she dusted. After that, Travers called and made the offer."

Her food blessedly arrived, momentarily stopping any questions she might have. The waiter spent a bit too long asking the slayer if she needed anything else. Buffy studied the food carefully. "There are avocados on this burger, Spike. That's, like, four thousand grams of fat."

"Every last one of which you need," he pointed out.

She glared at him, but she took a bite and made a delicious satisfied noise that would be replaying in a constant loop in his head for many, many nights, he was sure. "It's good." She swallowed another bite. "So they dream me, huh?"

He swirled the dregs of his beer in the glass. "Was especially hard on Faith, the dreaming you."

She visibly struggled with whether to voice what she was thinking. "You and Faith were close?"

He shrugged. "Not in the way you're implying. Too hung up on Himself in LA, even after he sent her away."

"Were they... were Faith and Angel..."

"No." He decided to spare her, it was so obvious the mere idea was rattling her. Of course, Angel's actual romantic history might shock her more than anything she had imagined. "Was involved with someone else when she got out of the clink, and when death parted them, he told Faith she'd be better off away from him."

"How-- never mind." Buffy shook her head and slurped her milkshake ravenously. "Poor Faith." Her face suddenly went ten kinds of gob-smacked. "Wait a minute, Tara said Angel sent Faith away after Wesley got killed."

He desperately wanted a cigarette. "Right."

"Oh." Her mouth screwed up. “Oh.” She blinked rapidly and sucked up the last of her shake, then stared at her plate for a few minutes. "Can we go for a walk or something?"

He paid the tab and led her out into the night air, immensely relieved that she wasn’t keen to discuss Angel’s love life. She patted her stomach. "I feel huge. That was pretty good, thanks."

"My pleasure," he told her honestly. To his surprise, she took his arm when he offered it. They didn't say much on the stroll back to the Harris house. She seemed deep in her own thoughts, but she'd occasionally give him a little smile or squeeze his arm.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I hope you know I had a good time. I usually do, you know, with you."

"Same here, love."

She bumped her hip against his. "I wasn't really expecting that, but it's nice."

They ambled along together in silence, and he watched her looking up at the stars. Spike still wasn't entirely sure why she was spending so much time around him, and he was finding it harder and harder to care. Maybe he was just her new souled vampire pet, or just the only man-shaped person she knew that wasn't Xander. Was that so bad, really? In time she'd get to know him, see him for himself, for better or worse. Buffy gave him another little grin and he didn't quite recognize the suddenly shy creature next to him. Maybe he could stand to know her a little better too.


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