Chapter 21



~~~~A few days earlier, in a cave…


“The one who walks this realm as William has the soul he gained. You cannot share that or have another.”


If his fists weren’t already a bloody mess, Spike would have used them on the walls of the cave to let out even a little of the frustration he felt suffocating him. He could be of no use to Buffy—to either Buffy—unless he was whole again.


Or maybe…


“Seein’ as you failed to divulge that little bit of information when you promised anythin’ I desired, mate, I’d say you owe me one.”


The demon looked at him unblinkingly. “What do you want, vampire?”


“I want somethin’ taken out, and somethin’ put in,” Spike said pointing at the back of his head. “Can you do that?”


The enormous beast growled, smashing a meaty fist against one of the cave walls and making the rocks around them tremble. “I can do anything.”


“Hardly,” Spike snorted. Weird how the taste of his own blood down his throat did nothing for his hunger. “You couldn’t do what I wanted in the first place, remember?”


The demon squinted. “It was you who couldn’t have the soul—” His voice held a warning. “Not I who couldn’t give it to you.”


Clearly he wasn’t going to win that argument. “You’re right,” he said flippantly. “Now, about our business.” Blood coated his teeth, but his smile was still brilliant. “I’ve got a silly little plastic thing in my head, and would like to have that replaced with a certain gem.”


Eyes widening, the demon returned his smile as sincerely as his inhuman face allowed. “You want the gem of Amara. But that was destroyed.”


Spike shrugged, his shoulders feeling like they locked in place. “Does it belong to someone else?”


“No.”


“In that case, you must be able to get it for me,” he replied smugly, more falling than sitting back down. “I’ll just take a nap. Wake me up when you’re done.” With that, he passed into oblivion. When he woke up, his body was completely healed. And he was outside the cave. Underneath the hot, African sun. With not even a tan to show for it. Springing upright, he let out a chuckle. “Well, ain’t that neat?”


~~~~~*~~~~~


They were all in the kitchen when Anya appeared.


Buffy was in William’s lap, and he was feeding her French toast and reading the morning paper over her shoulder. Giles was having his tea, a Sudoku puzzle balanced on his knee taking up all of his concentration. Willow was flipping pancakes, while trying hard not to let Xander stick his finger in the Nutella jar, and Dawn was… being Dawn. She was buzzing around, talking about how Andrew had called to say Faith still looked lethal even with her belly, and that he’d stay in Cleveland until she gave birth, only to end up being jealous he’d missed the whole thing the previous night.


The smoke plume growing out of nowhere in the middle of the room had them all snapping their heads toward it, but none of them went into fighting position. They had just gone through too much to bother.


Buffy rolled her eyes. “Don’t inhale until I kill this.” She’d regained her Slayer constitution and had no doubt she could slay the invader, whoever, or whatever, it was.


But maybe she wouldn’t want to.


The smoke cleared out, and there stood Anya, vengeance-demony pendant around her neck. Xander made to rush to her, eyes alight with joy, but Dawn grabbed his shirt.


“It’s The First,” sputtered Giles, furiously brushing hot tea off his shirt.


“No, I’m not.” Anya sounded indignant.


“No, she’s not.” Spike’s voice was steady. “It’s really Demon Girl.” Buffy turned questioning eyes to him, and he tapped his nose in reply.


Only then did Dawn let go of Xander’s shirt, allowing her crush to run to his former lover and envelop her in a bear hug. Her eyes didn’t leave the two for a second, not even after Xander pulled back and asked, “How?”


“I blackmailed D’Hoffryn,” she answered, obviously proud of herself. “He gave me my powers back for a day, or I’d tell his wife about something he didn’t want her to find out. I tell you, his wife is like ten vengeance dem—”


Xander couldn’t help cutting in. “No, how… You didn’t—You’re alive.”


“Oh, that,” she offered nonchalantly. “I’ll explain.”


Buffy, Spike, Giles and Willow were slowly making their way towards the kitchen door, wanting to allow Anya and Xander some time alone before the questions started raining on her. “Wait,” she called out. “Much though I appreciate you giving us some privacy, there will be no sexual interaction between us.” Seeing that they just stared at her, she went on. “I did not die in my Universe, people. Spike warned us and we listened.” Smiling at Dawn, she added, “I’m completely satisfied with one Xander, so you may keep this one.” The girl blushed to the roots of her hair, while the man between them looked from one to the other bewildered. Before he could ask anything, they were swarmed by the rest of the group who wanted to embrace their long-lost friend.


Anya, shocked at first by the warm welcome, let herself enjoy it only briefly. Pulling away, she produced a mini disk out of thin air. Literally. “I’m here for a reason.”


Giles grunted. “If it is another Apocalypse, I swear to God I’ll retire.”


She shook her head no. “Our Buffy—” Her eyes turned to the blond Slayer. “God, this must have really been confusing when you were there… Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask. How was it when you were with two of him?” She pointed at Spike, completely forgetting why she was there, but didn’t wait for a reply. “I have asked our Spike, too, if you took turns, or—”


“Anya, point. Make one.” Willow was back at the stove, flipping a pancake that smelt just a bit overdone.


“Right. Buffy wanted me to give this to you.” She handed the disk to the blonde, who took hold of it without lowering her eyes from Anya’s face.


Worrying her lower lip, she asked, “Is Spike—”


She didn’t get to finish her question. “He’s fine. He said to say thank you and kiss you, but Xander—my Xander—wouldn’t let me.”


“And are he and Buffy—”


Anya just pointed at the disk. “I am not supposed to—” Her brow furrowed in concentration then her whole face lit up as she remembered the phrase. “Give you any spoilers.” Looking at the ceiling, as far as everyone else was concerned, she finished with, “Got to go. Take care,” and poofed out of there the exact same way she’d poofed in.


Xander’s eyes were filled with tears, as he looked at the place she stood a split second earlier. Dawn went to him and wrapped her arms around him. “She’s alive, Xander. And happy.”


He burrowed his face in the crook of her neck, returning her hug briefly before straightening up. “That’s all that matters.”



~~~~~*~~~~~



Dawn brought her laptop to the living room, and they all sat around to see what the disk they’d been sent was about. It only had a video file named after_the_apocalypse.


Willow hooked the laptop up to the television, took a seat on the floor by the computer, and hit play.


Andrew appeared on the screen, in a silken robe Giles immediately recognized as his. “I greet you, fellow warriors from another Universe.” He gave the camera a small, aristocratic wave. “I come bearing news of the Hellmouth Apocalypse, or better, Hellmouth Apocalypse Revisited for you.”


Shaking her head, Willow made to skip forward, but Dawn told her to leave it and the others agreed.


“We won, as you must have understood by now,” Andrew’s voice went on. “But not without casualties.”


Everyone’s face fell at that.


“A few of the Slayerettes died on the spot, while others were gravely injured.” Andrew rubbed discreetly at his eyes. “I almost died—would have, if Kennedy wasn’t standing in front of me.” Leaning closer to the camera, enough to make his nose look huge, he clarified. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but she wasn’t trying to save me. She was yelling about how she should be the one helping Willow, and the sword just… well… it wasn’t pretty.”


Now it was Willow’s turn to tear up. No matter what had happened with Kennedy and how things had ended, back then they’d been in love. She could only imagine how her other self must have been hurting from the loss.


Always the practical one, Buffy said to nobody in particular, “Uh-oh, I hope they didn’t get dark-Wills.”


As if he’d heard her, Andrew resumed. “Willow is still dealing with her grief, but something our resident vampire told her has helped immensely. I’m not privy to the information Spike divulged, but they seem to have gotten closer since he was the one who grounded her during the spell that—” Buffy didn’t hear the rest of his sentence. All she could think of was that it was the second time since Anya visited that Spike had been mentioned and that people had actually listened to him.


“Spike for the win,” muttered Dawn, patting William’s chest. He smirked and winked, trying to hide the fact that he was as worried about his younger self as Buffy was.


“But, to the fight! Spike told me what you already know, so I will not waste your time.”


Buffy thought she heard Giles grumble something about the boy being incapable of doing so, but didn’t linger on that, as Andrew was explaining how other-Buffy had worn the amulet and fought the forces of darkness.


“—not affected by the sunlight the amulet let out, of course, but the walls were caving in around her. Faith had tried to get her to leave, but Buffy wouldn’t. We were all boarding the school bus when a flash of light passed by our vehicle.”


He paused for emphasis, and Buffy let her head drop to the back of the couch. “Get on with it!”


“It was Spike!” In a conspiratorial tone, Andrew said, “You see, when Buffy had brought him to the house the previous night none of us really trusted him, but then she mentioned the soul.”


Buffy and William smiled at each other. Other-Buffy had lied for Spike, had trusted him after all, when it mattered.


“She told us that he’d tried to get it but couldn’t because your Spike already has it, and that he got something else instead. Something that marked him as one of the good guys.”


OK, so she’d lied about something else. Still: A lie. For Spike. That said a lot.


“Back to the white flash… maybe it wasn’t white… anyway, a rather dark flash sped by us, and I barely recognized said vampire, face contorted in agony. Nobody dared try and stop him when he rushed into what was left of the school. When he resurfaced, Buffy was in his arms. Unconscious.” The dramatic look on Andrew’s face would have made them worry, if they didn’t know he practically fed off attention. “We all wondered about Spike in the sun, of course, but Buffy later told us it was part of his new power keg, if you will.”


Giles turned narrowed eyes to Buffy, who looked back at him innocently. Just as he opened his mouth to ask something, other-Buffy appeared at the screen. “Andrew, I let you do this, cuz you promised to be fast. Wrap it up. Angel is having another fit.”


The group in the living room froze, holding a collective breath at the mention of the brooding vampire. Spike and other-Buffy hadn’t gotten their happy ending after all.


“Since some people—” He turned his eyes to the direction Buffy had gone. “Don’t appreciate good story telling, I’m going to make a long story short. Faith and Wood are together, in Cleveland, like they are in your Cosmos. The rest of us, Giles, Buffy, Spike, Xander, Anya, Willow, Dawn and moi, took our meagre belongings and moved to the City of Angels. One of those Angels, the tall dark vampire with a soul, extended us the hand of hospitality, so we invited the Slayerettes too, and turned his hotel into our new headquarters.”


Dawn couldn’t stifle a giggle. Angel, with so many people forced down his throat—in the non-fun way—had to look permanently constipated.


“As you can imagine,” Andrew went on, “Angel had—and is still having, if you ask me—some issues with Spike, even after we told him how he’d rescued his doomed love from a dreary grave.” Looking all conspiratorial again, he concluded, “If you ask me, things got worse about a week ago. At lunch, Buffy was eating a cracker, and it crumbled. Spike, ever present, licked his index finger and placed it on top of one of the crumbs, saying my crumb. She smiled and told him, yes, it is. Do your best with it.” With a nod full of meaning, Andrew bid them goodbye, and wished them all long and happy lives.


Just before the camera was switched off, his voice came from somewhere off-screen. “Oh, and you should see how furious the big guy was when Buffy gave Spike one of her chocolate chip cookies.”




The End