Chapter 5







Whatever it was that Dawn was supposed to be looking for was stubbornly avoiding her. She kept telling herself she’d outgrown the stomping of feet and whining, but a part of her wanted to just close the book, go put makeup on and hit the night scene with all the force her age dictated. She wasn’t a Slayer, not even a potential. So she was a key, but one with a hot body that needed to dance once in a while.


And she didn’t want to research reasons why her sister being happy was wrong.


Xander seemed to be thinking the same, because every couple of pages he’d remember something completely unimportant that he just had to share with her right then, and the two would procrastinate as much as possible without feeling guilty that they weren’t doing as Giles had told them.


Not that they had much to feel guilty for. Even without the procrastination it wasn’t possible to find helpful information in the middle of the night when they didn’t even know what they were looking for. And most of the stupid books didn’t even have an index. Who could spot the words “temporal distortion” or “alternate universe generation” among hundreds of pages without a clue about where to start from?


Xander let his head drop and hit the open book in front of him. “This won’t work.”


“Nope.” Dawn barely contained her glee at not being the first to concede defeat.


“And I’m betting Giles knew that.”


The thought hadn’t crossed her mind. “What do you mean? Why would he have us do it, then?”


“I’m guessing things were about to get ugly and you were deemed too young to be there for it.” The brunet stuck out his tongue at her.


“Well, if that’s the case, so were you.” She shrugged and gave him a saccharine smile.


“Nah-uh, I was just appointed as your babysitter.” He almost winked before he considered the uselessness of that, when he only had one eye to close, and settled for tickling her side.


She brushed him off and stood to look through their vast library for another book. “Well, as long as we’re here, we might as well do something with our time.” An engine starting made her go to the window in time to see Buffy slam her car door shut and the two Vampires run to get in. “And I’m guessing your guessing was right.”


He joined her and saw the car back out of the driveway, then disappear in breakneck speed. “I just hope things didn’t go FUBAR.”


“Xander Harris, you know what military talk does to me,” Dawn purred, batting her eyelashes.


He took her mock flirt light heartedly as he always did, and replied with an exaggerated sigh, “If only your sister couldn’t kick my ass so hard.”


They went back to the table and their reading, both praying things could be fixed this time, and stay fixed for a change.



~~~~~*~~~~~



In her meditation room, Willow was having a hard time maintaining the balance necessary to communicate with the Coven, and her disappointment in herself for that only led to a vicious circle, since it threw her concentration even further off. She tried to invoke the feelings she had the first time she channelled the Goddess through her, something she always used to help her focus, but it was like her anchor was wavering. Feeling Kennedy’s hand tighten around hers, she knew her lover sensed it too. She had been her kite-string, but things weren’t like they used to be, and they owed each other some explanations and one last effort to either salvage their relationship or bow out of it gracefully.


Finally giving up on her attempts to reach the Coven that way, she opened her eyes and exhaled noisily.


“So we finally get to use the new cell phone?” Kennedy grinned and Willow couldn’t resist grinning back. Maybe there was some hope yet.


“Yup. It’s time for that big step.” She let out a giggle that was supposed to be carefree but sounded forced. “Only I don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to ask them. And—and Giles still isn’t here. Are Buffy and the… guys still in the living room?”


All it took for Kennedy to go from being her lover to being that person she’d been drifting apart from lately was her best friend’s name. “No. Heard that piece of junk back out of the driveway a while ago.” Her face was cold.


Once more, Willow chose the easy way of not asking questions and vowed to herself that next time they’d talk about things, they’d figure it all out.


She’d been choosing that particular course of inaction for a while now, ever since their first big fight when they arrived in Rome, all the time trying hard to suppress the bleak feeling that all the postponed talks would come back to haunt her. Soon.


They were in bed, wrapped around each other, celebrating their first night together in the new house. The sex had been amazing, and all Willow wanted to do was snuggle up in her lover’s arms and drift off.


Kennedy obviously had other plans. “Why do you pull back every time I try to kiss you in front of the others? They know we’re together.”


“It’s not… it’s not that, it’s Buffy.”


“What about her?” The Slayer tensed.


“She has lost–she’s alone.”


“She’s been alone for a while, she’ll deal.” Kennedy tried to kiss her and she pulled back again, trying to explain.


“It’s not the same, baby. Look at her! She seems so… so lost. I think she needs-”


“I don’t care what she needs.” Kennedy threw the covers off her and sat up. “You don’t wanna kiss me? Fine! Don’t kiss me. You don’t even have to sleep with me.” She pulled her arm away violently when the redhead reached out to touch her. “I mean the vampire she was fucking is dust, and she sleeps alone.” Kennedy slammed the door behind her as she left the room.


Kennedy had returned to the bedroom they shared after Willow begged her, but seemed to constantly be on edge for the week it took Buffy to find a place of her own and move there with Dawn. She’d been increasingly aggressive every time the older Slayer’s name was mentioned since then and openly challenging every time she saw Buffy, but the witch pretended not to notice the tension between her lover and best friend. She didn’t want to have to choose, and the feeling that she would have to someday, made her all the more understanding of what Buffy had gone through when she was seeing Spike.


And now, Spike was back. Two versions of him to be precise and Buffy was happy again. Giles’ words came back to her and chilled her to the bone. What if whatever happened on that other helix of their Universe created by Spike’s plucking from it was so unbelievably horrible, Buffy couldn’t live with it? What if she decided she had to let go of Spike? Willow shuddered as she tried to put herself in her best friend’s place. If Tara had come back and she had to be taken away again…


Blushing, she pushed the thought away. She shouldn’t be thinking how much losing Tara again would hurt. If she wanted to parallel her feelings to Buffy’s she should contemplate the hurt losing Kennedy would cause her. She didn’t know why she didn’t. Rather, she didn’t want to know.


She sighed in relief when Giles finally showed up, even though he seemed really distraught. She didn’t notice Kennedy’s knowing look.



~~~~~*~~~~~



Modern technology was a miracle. What would have taken him half an hour of meditation just took the pushing of a few buttons, and Giles was talking to Miss Harkness. Her mellow, cultured voice, always soothing to his ears in the past, echoed with concern once he explained the reason he was calling, and especially after he mentioned Willow wasn’t able to reach her on the astral level. Miss Harkness showing concern was far from ordinary, and the Head Watcher felt something akin to panic wash over him for a moment, before managing to stifle it for the sake of resolving the matter.


“From the past, you say? Intriguing. There has been no known incident of a person occupying the same space as themselves in a different point in time.”


“Quite. Which leads me to consider the possibility of a dichotomy in the timeline.”


“A split in time? Such an occurrence, though not common, is much more possible. The resulting universe, however, would be in grave peril.”


“Because of how it was created?”


Miss Harkness let out a delicate and very ladylike snort that had the amazing effect of making one Rupert Giles, fifty six years of age, and Head of the Council of Watchers across the Atlantic from her, feel like a child being chastised for not having done his homework. “Of course not, my dear. Because that naughty vampire you currently have a surplus of won’t be around to save the world the two times he did in our timeline.”


Giles ran his hand over his face, uncharacteristically forgetting his glasses and dislodging them in the process. He absentmindedly took them off, handed them to Willow – who looked at him like he’d sprouted a second head – and asked, “What would be the backlash, if any, to our own Universe?”


This time her voice was low, speculative, when she replied, “I would expect you to know that, Rupert. All things are connected. There will be an effect to our Universe, although I cannot foresee its magnitude.”


He’d guessed she might say that even before he made the call, however much he wished she wouldn’t. “But maybe without Spike there someone else can step up and save the world.” He was hoping she would agree, give him some hope.


“Possibly. And possibly die in Sunnydale, therefore not be around for the Los Angeles battle. Even if they don’t, the outcome is unpredictable.”


He didn’t know if she was talking about Buffy or Angel. Either of them could have fit the bill, and he felt bad at how he would sacrifice either in that other Universe to safeguard the happiness of his one time charge. A thought flashed in his mind and he switched the phone to his other hand, grasping Willow’s shoulder. “What if we could somehow contact them? Let them know what to expect?”


“To do that you would have to be able to pinpoint the exact Universe created from the split. I’m afraid we can’t help you there. The only way to do that with any certainty would be if we were led to it by the creature that created the time paradox in the first place.”


Giles nodded curtly even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “I was afraid you would say that, but it may be worth a try. Thank you, Miss Harkness.”



“Don’t do anything rash, Rupert. There is too much at stake.”



“Goodbye.” He slid the phone shut and turned to face the girls.



“Giles? What did she say?” Willow’s worry was etched all over her face. Kennedy seemed impassive, but the way her fingers drummed on the wall belied her cool.


“I can’t—I can’t do that, Willow.” His shoulders slumped and he seemed to lose substance, becoming as fragile as he looked when Buffy jumped off the tower. “I can’t tell her to give up her happiness again, no matter the cost.”


Kennedy narrowed her eyes looking from her watcher to her girlfriend who seemed to understand what he meant. “What cost exactly are we talking about?”




~~~~~*~~~~~



When Giles had called him back, Andrew was expecting to be yelled at for being a blabber mouth. Instead he was given an assignment, one of great importance, as the older man had pointed out.


The letter felt heavy in his jacket pocket, and he itched to read what was in there but knew that would be greatly frowned upon, never mind just plain wrong.


Still, he had been an evil mastermind once. And the letter wasn’t sealed.


Maybe the Watcher subconsciously meant for him to read it. Maybe it was something written while in distress and the Slayer and her lovers shouldn’t actually read it…


Convincing himself it was for the greater good, he walked into a café, ordered an espresso, and opened the envelope.


My dearest Buffy,


I know I am the last person you want to talk to right now, but I do hope that in the memory of how close we once were you will give me the chance to apologize for having hurt you so much. Because I really am sorry.


I am sorry for every time I have betrayed your trust in me, because of what I was conditioned to consider a higher cause. Please understand that it was never my purpose to hurt you; I was just trained to think within the box and in terms of black and white.


I am sorry for having allowed the Council to put you through the savagery that was Cruciamentum. You were but a child and I allowed my teaching to make me treat you as a mere weapon at our disposal.


I am sorry for being so judgemental of your relationship with Angel that I forced you to hide its true nature from me, and I am sorry for blaming you for what came of it just because I was too short-sighted to protect you.


I am sorry for forcing upon you choices you should never have to make; for burdening you with the world itself and trying to take away the things that helped make you happy because I saw them as distractions.


I am sorry I chose the least fortunate moment to decide you should make do on your own. Leaving you to your own devices when you had been resurrected and were obviously dealing with more than your fair share of responsibility might have been my duty as a Watcher, but it was not what I should have done as a father, and to me, my dear girl, you were always a daughter.


I am sorry, so very sorry, for allying with Principal Wood to rid ourselves of Spike. I knew what a powerful ally he was to you, how he could support you in ways I couldn’t, and yet I refused to see beyond the fact that he was a suitor I did not approve of. And I did it again when Angel asked for our help. Blinded by my personal feelings I refused to give the matter any thought before turning down his plea for help.


I am but an old fool. I have failed you so many times, assuring myself I knew what was best for you, closing my ears to what you told me you wanted, or choosing to disregard it if what I saw you needed was not what I wished for you, that I do not know how to atone.


I know I am willing to try, though.


You have become a wonderful young woman, strong in ways I could never teach you, and I can only hope you can find it in your heart to give me a chance to regain even a fraction of the relationship we once had.


If you cannot, I beg of you, at least give me a chance to – for once – do right by you, and help you in whichever way you need me to.


All my love,
Rupert


Andrew wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “This man is my Yoda,” he whispered. His mind was filled with scenarios of how Buffy would react to the heartfelt letter, and he could almost see her run to Giles and hug him, telling him all was forgiven. Then Giles would shake Spike’s and William’s hands and welcome them to the big happy family they’d become.


He took a few minutes to swoon, paid for his coffee and headed to Buffy’s.


After ringing a couple of times, he decided nobody was coming to the door – despite the muffled giggles and growls he could hear from inside – so he slipped the letter under the door and went back home. Mission accomplished.






Tbc.