Mirrors on the Ceiling:




The hotel room that the man named Henley opened for Buffy could only be described as complete elegance. A sort of old-fashioned elegance. Everything was hearts, and flowers, and ruffles. The carpet was a rosy hue, matching the fresh bouquets that were in vases covering nearly every surface. The bed was an oak, four-posted affair, covered in a flowered spread and a sea of small, crocheted pillows. An oak wardrobe stood open in the corner waiting to be filled with the clothes from Buffy's mystery luggage. Henley was placing the bags on the floor at the foot of the bed, and he hefted the trunk off of the cart, leaving it in front of the wardrobe. “Will there be anything else?” he asked, when finished.




“No, I suppose not,” Buffy said, still marveling at the opulent room she'd been given. Maybe she should have inquired about the rates before signing the deskman's ledger. How on earth was she going to be able to afford this place?




Henley bowed slightly and turned to leave the room. “Oh, wait,” Buffy stopped him before he made it to the hallway. Halting instantly, he turned to face her with an almost military precision. Buffy shrugged, maybe he'd been in the army or maybe this hotel was some sort of front for the Initiative, or maybe she was being just a bit too jumpy for no good reason. “What time is checkout?” she asked, smiling at her own Slayer paranoia.




The doorman's head jerked to the side, suddenly and frighteningly. “We are programmed to receive,” he said, his voice taking on a vaguely mechanical tone. Buffy's eyes widened. Not possible. His head jerked again and his expression … flickered? Dropping his gaze to Buffy, Henley produced a smile as he seemed to focus on her for the first time, having no apparent memory of his previous comment. “You can check out any time you like,” he said, his grin widening. “Enjoy the gala, Miss Summers.”




Buffy's lips parted, and she exhaled the breath she'd been holding inside. Brow furrowed, she stood staring into the hallway. Not possible. Acting on a hunch, she rushed to the doorway and poked her head out, expecting this strange Mr. Henley to have disappeared. However, he was only a few yards down the corridor, walking, in a slow but quite normal manner, back to his post in the lobby. Not knowing if she should be relieved or disappointed, Buffy closed the door to her room.




Perching on the edge of the flowered, one-armed couch, Buffy held her head in her hands. She recalled seeing a couch like this one in one of the many catalogs her mother used to get in the mail. It was called a “fainting sofa.” Buffy laughed under her breath, fainting sounded pretty damn good to her right about now. Figures that on the very night she decided she needed a little space, just a little room to breathe, she had run smack into the only hotel in California that was quite possibly owned and operated by robots. Darn Murphy and his darned law.




Buffy took a deep, steadying breath. Now was not the time to lose her cool and descend into a self-pitying pout-fest. She just needed to think. She was the Chosen One, a Vampire Slayer. She had dealt with every kind of big bad beasty imaginable. Hell, she'd dealt with robots before. This was nothing new. Definitely weird, but not new.




Buffy ignored the lump forming in her throat as she began to wish Giles were here. No. Giles had left. She didn't need Giles. She just needed to think like Giles. “Alright,” she said aloud. “What do we know?” Something was not right here. That was painfully evident. But, on the other hand, she did not appear to be prisoner. No one had tried to hurt her. Just the opposite. She'd picked this hotel on a whim and since she'd arrived, things had only improved. She'd been treated almost as royalty, given a lavish suite and been invited to some sort of fancy, dancing party. She'd also been blessed with luggage, that had appeared out of the clear blue sky and been given to her. Fixing her eyes on the trunk across the room, Buffy stood up. It was high time she discovered what, exactly she had been given. Maybe ghosts and goblins would rise up from the bags and attack and she'd be able to face whatever evil was lurking in this strange inn where the desert meets the sky.




A knock at the door stopped her progress, however, before she could so much as unzip one of the bags. “Miss Summers?” a female voice inquired from without. “Mr. Walsh told me you'd arrived and sent me to help you dress for the gala.”




“Mr. Walsh?” Buffy asked, making her way back towards the door.




“The man at the desk. The owner.” the woman clarified as Buffy opened the door a crack.




Buffy stopped, dead in her tracks as she stared into the familiar face of the last person she expected to see. She was wearing a servant's uniform and her long hair was tucked into a bun at the base of her neck, but there was no mistaking. “Cordelia?”




She curtsied slightly. “Cordelia Chase, that's right, Miss Summers.” Buffy opened the door all the way, inviting this polite, seemingly kind-hearted bizarro Cordelia into her suite. “May I assist you?”




Buffy just nodded dumbfounded as Cordelia popped open the trunk and began pulling out beautiful, brightly colored gowns and hanging them in the wardrobe. She could not imagine why Cordy was acting so strangely. They'd known each other all through high school. Granted, they'd been rivals more than friends, but even Cordelia Chase was not enough of an airhead to forget someone she'd known for almost four years. “Cordelia,” Buffy said, stopping the woman from her work. “Don't you recognize me?”




Cordelia stopped and faced Buffy, blushing slightly. “Of course, Miss Summers, we all do.”




Buffy arched an eyebrow. “You all do?”




“I was actually wondering if you'd sign an autograph for me?”




“A what?”




“I know, I was embarrassed to even ask, but I have to admit,” Cordelia said, nodding enthusiastically. “I've seen all of your pictures. I saw Dracula and that musical picture you just did, and the one with the werewolf ...”




Cordelia kept talking, counting off on her fingers as she continued listing off all the films she'd seen. Buffy found she was having a very hard time keeping her mouth closed. Her jaw just kept falling open, completely of its own volition. She was also having a very hard time making any sense of what was happening. This woman thought she was an actress. She was talking about movies, and the movies were all about things that Buffy had actually done. Meeting Dracula, being possessed by a singing, dancing demon and Oz. The only thing that Buffy knew for sure was that this woman was not Cordelia Chase, at least not the same one that Buffy remembered. This woman thought Buffy Summers was a celebrity. This woman did not know her.




“And I saw the one where no one could talk, and, of course, I saw all of the ones you made with Liam Angelus,” Cordelia stopped, winking at Buffy.




“What!” Buffy interrupted. Angelus?




“Oh, sorry Miss Summers,” Cordelia hastily backpedaled. “I ... er ... no one at the hotel will say anything, but we sort of all knew that you staying her and him staying here … well, it's in all of the papers. Not a coincidence, is it?” she said, leaning in close as though Buffy were going to share her deepest darkest secrets. When Buffy only stared back, wide-eyed and clueless, she said, “You knew he was going to be here didn't you?”




“No,” Buffy whispered, falling down on the fainting sofa. “No. I really really did not.”










“I do hope the rooms are to my lord's specifications,” the deskman was saying as he led Spike and Cecily into the suite.




Spike had not said a single word since discovering that the mysterious Lady Pratt was Cecily, the very same Cecily who had been the object of his human affections for years. The same Cecily who had inspired him to write words of love, and the same Cecily who, upon hearing said words of love, had ripped his heart out of his chest and utterly rejected him. The Cecily who stole his will to live and drove him into the arms of a vampire.




“Yes, Mr. Walsh,” that Cecily was saying, her voice cool, and refined, exactly the way he'd remembered it. “The rooms will do nicely.” Her words were clipped, the same tone she'd used to tell a love sick man, who would have given her the world, that he was beneath her.




The deskman bowed, “Lord Pratt, Lady Pratt, if there is anything you require, do not hesitate.”




Spike nodded absently. “Yes, of course,” he said, not noticing change in his own voice, the subtle upper class accent that he hadn't used in decades. He could only stare at her … stare at her and remember.




“William,” she was saying, as she and her personal maid went into the adjacent chamber to dress. “I'll be wearing that lavender gown, with the flowers. Do dress to match, will you?”




Lavender. Her favorite color. She'd worn lavender that night, over one hundred years ago, when she had utterly destroyed him. He remembered perfectly the cool, beautiful hue and the flower details around the neck. He could still see the way the dress set off her milky white skin and dipped just low enough to make him think thoughts that were decidedly unbecoming a gentleman. “Of course, love,” he said.




Without having to be summoned, the valet, Crowley, instantly strode forward holding out a light gray suit. “This one should do nicely, m'lord,” he said. “If you wear the flowered waistcoat, you should match Lady Pratt perfectly.”




Spike's lip curled up involuntarily. Lavender, he could go a good long time without ever wanting to wear lavender. His valet chuckled softly. “Perhaps you could suggest that Lady Pratt wear another gown?”




Inexplicably, Spike's brow felt suddenly warm almost, sweaty. “No. No. This will be fine,” he said, allowing the valet to help him dress. Something, he hadn't required assistance to do in well over a century and, yet, he fell into the age old habit seamlessly.




“William,” Cecily's voice rang into the blessed silence, as Crowley tied Spike's tie.




“Yes, love?” he answered, his reply automatic.




“You are wearing that waistcoat I bought you last Christmas, aren't you?”




“Yes, love,” he said, sharing another here-we-go-again glance with his valet.




In his years as a groveling human, he'd become accustomed to taking orders from the women in his life. His father died when he was barely old enough to be a man, let alone act like one. His mother had ruled the roost until he was of age, and then she told him exactly how he should rule the roost and things continued pretty much as they had been. Between his mother, and the housekeeper, and every other society lady who'd ever come calling, he'd never gotten to be a man in his entire twenty-seven human years. Of course, at the time, William hadn't backbone enough to stand up for himself. It took centuries of wandering the globe as a preternatural master vampire for him to realize that only after his death did his life truly begin.




However, even with over a hundred years at the top of the food chain under his belt, he still so readily bent to her will. She spoke. He listened. He obeyed. Even though she'd never paid him any attention in life, he felt as though she'd been ruling over him, as his wife ... as Lady Pratt, for years. “Well,” he sighed. “How does this get-up look, Crowley?”




“See for yourself, Sir,” the valet said, holding out a mirror.




“Ah, Crowley, I can't ...” his voice trailed off. Staring back at him from within the looking glass was a man, late twenties, with gold rimmed glasses and curly brown hair. The man's light blue eyes were wide with fright, his mouth was hanging open, and his hands were starting to shake. He was staring at a reflection he had not seen in over 120 years ... and that reflection had not changed at all.