Future Imperfect   by  Lilachigh

 

Chapter 25.   Big Difference

 

 

Shanny Summers Green wearily made her way down to the basement of her mom’s house.  It was two in the morning but she couldn’t sleep.  Oh, she well understood - she’d been told enough times! - that her parents, Willow, Giles and even Angel felt that sleeping made you stronger, more able to deal with the problems that the next day might bring.  But while her children were missing, she couldn’t just shut her eyes and drift off.  She might dream that everything was all right and then wake to - well, this was a living nightmare; she needed no sleep to bring it on.

 

So she’d cleaned the kitchen, washed dishes, sorted the shelves - her mom and dad had no idea of putting spices and tins in sensible order.  She’d even squeezed some oranges for breakfast the next morning.  But then when the kitchen floor was so clean you could actually see your face in the tiles, she’d brought brushes and cloths downstairs to tackle the mess that had been left on the basement floor when Kendra had been called.

 

Shanny sighed as she picked up the bowl that held the rest of the uneaten magic stewy-soup. Blackened and congealed, she might as well throw it straight out into the trash. And there was candle wax everywhere!  She’d often noticed when she was a small child that after magic happened there was a mess left behind. She used to watch her Uncle Andrew tackle it, muttering under his breath because he hated disorder. And when she was big enough, she’d helped him, never realising that most little girls of six or seven were not at that moment scraping demon entrails from the floor of some cave and tidying them into the garbage.   She missed Uncle Andrew.  

 

Suddenly, as she pushed some paper aside, Shanny hesitated.  Lying there was a small metal key.  It looked old and of one thing she was very certain - it hadn’t been there when they all left the basement earlier.

 

Picking it up, she felt a sudden surge of feeling rush through her body - longing, despair, hatred, love, all mixed together in a maelstorm of passion.  She screamed, felt herself swaying and tried to drop the key, but somehow her fingers closed even tighter around it and then, just as she was falling, falling, an arm was flung around her shoulders and Angel was there, pulling her out of the magic circle Willow had created, holding her until the world stop revolving and she could feel the floor beneath her feet once more.

 

“Thank you,” she gasped.

 

“What happened?”

 

Shanny forced her fingers to open and showed him the key laying on her palm.  “I found it in the circle, picked it up and then - it’s magic, isn’t it?”

 

Angel tried to take it but it clung to Shanny’s skin and he was afraid to force it away.   “Are we sure Willow or Giles didn’t drop it earlier?”

 

Shanny shook her head.  “I was the last out of the basement. It wasn’t here then, I’d swear.”

 

“So someone, something’s sent it.”  He gazed at Buffy’s daughter, his dark eyes brooding. “Joyce? Billy?”

 

Shanny shook her head.  “It doesn’t feel like the twins.  Someone different, someone - oh, in a lot of pain. Angel, it’s horrible.  If this thing has the twins,  is this some sort of message?  What does it want us to do with the key?”

 

“If there’s a key, then somewhere there’s a lock!”   Spike was coming down the stairs, bare-chested, bare foot, his jeans slung precariously round his hips.  Buffy was only seconds behind him, her short robe pulled tight around her waist.

 

“We couldn’t sleep,” Buffy said, making a statement that was so unnecessary that Shanny almost laughed out loud.  She was quite certain that sleeping had definitely not been happening in her parents’ bedroom.

 

But she would have been wrong.  Buffy had found their bedroom empty when she came out of the shower. The drapes were pulled back to let the moonlight flood in and as she went to draw them together, she glanced out and realised Spike was lying on his back in the yard, his hair silvered by the moonlight.

 

She didn’t stop to think - all she could feel was worry and fear.  Ever since they’d been together, he’d tried so hard to adapt to living life as she did, awake during the day and sleeping at night.  But she knew he still found it hard. He was a creature of the dark and often when he’d been worried or angry she’d found him out in the yard, staring up at the stars, asking them a silent question.  She fled down stairs and out into the night. Dropping on her knees next to him, reaching out to touch his bare chest, she whispered, “You all OK and everything?”

 

“Worried, pet?”  There was a rasp of sarcasm in his tone that grated on her nerves.

 

“No. Yes. No, of course not. If you prefer sleeping out here on the ground by yourself rather than in bed next to me, then fine. I’ll leave you to it.”  She started to get up, then a slim hand grasped her wrist and pulled her down to lay beside him.  For a second she struggled, then gave in, wriggling away a little so they didn’t touch.

 

Buffy gazed up at the stars, so many light years away.  It was late and she was tired, but sleep seemed a long way off.  Another night nearly gone and the twins still missing and Shanny holding onto her sanity by a thread. Willow and Giles exhausted, Angel looming around and Spike - still not talking to her: still furious that she’d tried to get herself killed to become a dead Slayer, an invisible wall of hurt feelings between them.

 

“Spike, please stop with the angry vampire routine!  We can’t be divided at the moment. We need all our strengths to get the twins back and you and me working together will always be the most powerful weapon we can muster.” 

 

There was no reply, then,  “I think it’s an angry husband routine, rather than angry vampire. I believed that husband and wife came before Slayer and vampire, but now I know that’s just how I think.  You see things differently.”

 

“Do you think it was easy for me?” The words broke from her like shattered glass. “To leave you without even saying a proper goodbye?  I thought you, of all people, would have understood.  It seemed like my only chance of getting the twins back.”

 

“Ah, you see, pet, there’s that little word - ‘my’ only chance.  Not ‘our’ only chance. Big difference.”

 

Buffy could feel the temper that for the past few days had simmered just beneath the surface, bubble up. She hoisted herself onto one elbow and glared down at the face she had loved for so long.  “This is stupid!  Jeez, Spike, we’ve been married for years. We’ve had a child, fought in countless battles. You know you mean the world to me.  I refuse to believe all this moodiness is just because I didn’t tell you about the Charks!  So tell me what the heck’s got into you because we need to have both our minds sharp tomorrow if we’re going to get the twins back. And...and...and if you don’t, I’m going to punch you somewhere it will really hurt!”

 

Spike felt his lips twitch against his will.  Typical Buffy, thinking she could solve every problem by punching it into submission.  He sighed silently:  he knew very well what lay at the heart of his despair - Angel.  Not perhaps the vampire himself - although Spike admitted he wouldn’t be the first to acknowledge the power of his attraction! - no, it was what he represented. Life in the sunlight - money, fancy clothes, big car, holidays abroad, yachts and planes and all the toys rich people played with.  Angel or someone similar could offer Buffy all of these things.  Instead she had a small, run-down house, little money and a vampire husband who could give her nothing except love.  In his darkest moments he wondered if that was enough - indeed, should it be enough?  Was it all his fault that she was trapped in this marriage?  If he’d had the strength years ago to walk away, would she have finally found happiness elsewhere?  If he really loved her as much as he believed he did, surely he would let her go, wouldn’t he?

 

“So?  Are you going to tell me?”

 

Spike rolled over on his elbow to face his wife, then froze: his vampire hearing had heard raised voices that no human could.  “Later, pet.  Shanny needs us.”

 

........

 

Billy Summers-Green was aware that he was awake, that he was holding his twin’s hand and that it was very cold.  And dark.  The sort of dark that made him wonder if he’d gone blind because there was no light, nothing, just blackness in front of his eyes.

 

He reached out inside his head and poked at Joyce, who was, he was annoyed to realise, fast asleep. Or maybe she was unconscious. He prodded her again and felt a wave of relief pour through him when her normal grumpy waking up feelings happened.

 

“I can’t see!” she said.

 

“It’s OK,  we’re not blind, or at least, I don’t think we are. It’s just dark. Where are we?  I thought you were sending us back.”

 

“I was!  I did!  I sent that little key home and when I realised how to do it, I willed us back to Granny’s house.  Hey, maybe we’re in the basement.  Maybe the power’s off.  Let’s shout and someone will come.”

 

Billy hushed her inside his head.  He had a bad feeling that calling out wasn’t the smartest thing they could do.  And he was sure this wasn’t Granny’s basement.  That smelt of oil and laundry stuff; this place had a totally different smell and at first he couldn’t think what it was, then he remembered some of the very old books that Joyce had found in Auntie Willow’s house. When you opened them, this smell seeped up from the old, crinkled, stained pages.  And for no good reason, Billy shuddered.

 

“Can you magic us a flashlight?”

 

“Oh - ”  There was a long pause and then, “No.  But - hey - look, I can do sparkles!”

 

The air around them was filled with tiny gold and silver lights, blinking on and off, and in their faint light, Billy could at least see Joyce’s grubby face.  “OK, better than nothing. Can you wish us out of here?”

 

Joyce shook her head; she’d already tried. “Perhaps I’m not going to be a witch any more,” she said suddenly. “I can’t do any of the things I used to do.”

 

Billy’s thoughts slid silently into her head and realised that although her words had sounded as if she didn’t care, his twin was really scared, and that scared him more than the dark.  Now was not a good time for Joyce to stop believing in her powers.

 

“Well, maybe you grow out of it, like your jeans and shoes. But hey, let’s get home first, OK.”

 

“But how if I can’t magic us back?”

 

Billy took a deep breath. He had no idea what to say to her and knew if he barricaded his thoughts to her, she’d know something was awfully wrong.  Then....“Billy.....”  it was the faintest whisper inside his brain, a tingling, scratching sound that made his skin crawl. “Billy!”  There is was again. Someone, something, was calling his name.

 

 

....

 

Spike stared down at the little key still sitting in Shanny’s hand.  “Demon sent?”  He raised an eyebrow at Angel who shrugged.

 

“Could be. Shanny says she can sense pain and despair. Could be any of a thousand demons we know.”

 

A clatter of feet on the basement steps heralded Willow: Buffy had raced upstairs to fetch her.  She still looked exhausted; there were dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept for a week.  Cautiously she reached out and touched the key.  “That’s so weird. It seems to be stuck to your skin, Shanny. Does it hurt?”

 

The younger woman shook her head.  “No but what does it mean?  Could it be from the twins?”

 

“It could be from anything,” Buffy said, zipping up the jeans she’d grabbed on the way past her bedroom. Fighting demons dressed only in a short robe was not a good plan.  “And you found it there, inside the circle we made for Kendra?”

 

Shanny nodded.

 

“OK, then if it came from another reality, it should  have left traces of the pathway it used.”

 

“ And we can track it backwards.  It has to have something to do with Billy and Joyce. I don’t believe two demon entities are at work in the same basement.”  Spike was pulling on the black T-shirt Buffy had brought downstairs.  He glanced across at Angel; they both knew that this might be their final chance of ever finding the twins alive.

 

Willow sat cross-legged on the floor.  “If this works, I’ve no idea where it will lead,” she said  and throwing back her head, began to chant.  Minutes passed and Shanny’s hand crept into her mom’s.  Surely this time they would be successful.

 

Suddenly the light inside the basement began to flicker, as if the power was being cut. Then, without warning, a dark purple circle appeared on the floor, whirling with energy, sending off little flashes of pure silver that crackled and hissed.

 

“Is that it?” Shanny gasped.

 

“We need to step through it.”  Buffy was busy pushing stakes into her belt. “Shanny, you stay here with Willow and - ”

 

“No!  I’m coming with you.” Her daughter’s voice was hard and flat.  

 

“But - ”

 

“I don’t think we have a choice, pet,” Spike said swiftly. “I reckon we’ll need the key and there’s no way we can get it away from Shanny.  Liam - “  he cast an anguished glance at the other vampire - “We’ll need to double up on protecting her.”

 

Angel nodded.

 

Buffy stared at her husband. He was asking her to put their daughter into danger, the one thing they had spent their whole life trying to avoid. They had lost her once because they’d sent her to live in America while they fought in Europe.  But from the expression on his face, she knew her doubts would have to be put aside.

 

“OK, let’s go.  Willow, stay here and guard this side of the door with your life. We’ll find the twins and get back as soon as we can.”

 

“But Buffy, what if - ”

 

“Saddest words in the English language, Red.  Buffy and I never use them.” And with a grin, Spike leapt towards the purple doorway and vanished.

 

tbc