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Hidden Agendas by angelic_amy
 
Regret.
 
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Banner made by the lovely Kristina!



Chapter 2: Regret.


Sunrise came and went yet the Summers house remained silent. The postman delivered the mail, a concerned
neighbour dropped by with a care package, and the phone rang three times. But no one stirred.

When Dawn finally awoke, it was after ten and she was very late for school. She rushed into Buffy’s room and shook her sister, trying to wake her. Buffy stirred and rolled over, burying her face in her pillows. Frustrated, the younger Summers walked over to the window and opened the blinds. That gained a reaction.

“Dawn, go back to bed, it’s too early,” Buffy mumbled through the pillow blocking the sunlight from her eyes.

“Buffy, it’s after ten,” Dawn replied.

That got Buffy’s attention. She sat bolt upright in her bed and reached for her alarm clock. Dawn was right. They had both slept through their alarms, or in Buffy’s case, forgotten to set it in the first place.

“Oh my god, Dawn, you’re late for school,” she gasped as she pulled herself from bed and walked over to her closet to fish out some clothing, just something to wear whilst she drove Dawn to school. Normally she wouldn’t resort to such drastic action, everyone who knew her knew just how badly she drove, but Dawn was more than just a little bit late.

“I know,” came the slow response. “So… maybe I could just stay home for the day, you know, spend some time with just the two of us.”

Buffy stopped the frantic foraging she was doing in her closet and turned to look at her younger sister. Hope filled her eyes, accompanied by a little uncertainty. Ever since… since… God, Buffy couldn’t even finish the thought. Ever since IT happened, they hadn’t had many opportunities to spend time together, just the two of them. People were always coming over to check up on them.

“Well, I suppose you are really late…” Buffy started.

Dawn lunged forward and dragged her sister into a tight embrace, hugging her around the neck. “This is going to be soooo cool!” she exclaimed excitedly. “We can go to the Magic Box, and hang with the gang!”

Returning the hug, Buffy eventually had to peel Dawn’s arms away from her neck. “Sounds good, but if we’re going anywhere then we both need to shower first.”

“Yeah, you really stink,” Dawn commented.

Buffy’s jaw dropped. Sure, she hadn’t had the chance to shower when she got home from patrol last night, but she didn’t think she smelled that bad! Dawn saw the look of shock on Buffy’s face and laughed.

“You smell like grass stains and dirt, nothing major in terms of whiff factor,” she clarified.

Pushing Dawn out of her room, Buffy smiled. Dawn was cracking jokes; this was a good thing. The house hadn’t been the same since… since Mom. But if Dawn was cracking jokes, then she must be okay-ish. Grabbing her dressing gown she darted for the bathroom door.

“Beat you to the shower!” Buffy cried as she slammed the door quickly.

Dawn pouted and returned to her room to pick out an outfit for the day.

~*~*~


“Giles, it really shook me up,” Buffy said fidgeting in the chair she was sitting on. “It was so real.”

Giles removed his glasses and wiped them with his handkerchief before returning them to the bridge of his nose. To say he was intrigued was an understatement. Buffy was known to have dreams of a prophetic nature, but he wasn’t certain this was one of them. With everything that had happened of late, it might just be her mind panicking about the possibility of more loss. But telling her not to worry was not going to satisfy his slayer.

“Buffy, it was a horrible nightmare, yes, but I’m not altogether certain it is one of your prophetic dreams. Do you think possibly it could just be your fears for Dawn’s safety have filtered into your dreams? Glory is still out there and she hasn’t shown any sign of letting up on her search for the key.”

Buffy shrugged her shoulders, standing up. She began pacing the room as she considered Giles’ suggestion. It wasn’t a far stretch, and she had been a little high strung of late considering all that had happened over the last month… and she certainly didn’t need to take a trip down memory lane right now.

“Maybe you’re right,” she agreed with a sigh. “I guess I have been a little on edge lately --.”

“With due reason,” Giles interrupted.

Buffy nodded slowly as she stopped pacing and turned to look at her watcher. “Giles, if anything was to happen to Dawn, I don’t know what --.”

Nothing is going to happen to Dawn,” he interrupted again, his tone firm yet at the same time comforting. “We’ll look after her,” he promised, a gentle smile crossing his face.

The bell attached to entrance door of the shop tinkled, signalling someone had entered, and Buffy was immediately on the defensive. Moments later she relaxed. It was just a young woman. A young woman who was not Glory. Deciding she needed to burn off some of her pent up energy, she headed towards the training room.

Giles nodded letting her know he would come get her if she was needed.

“Welcome to the Magic Box. Please by lots of things and give me your money,” Anya greeted, a beaming smile stretched across her face.

The potential customer eyed Anya with an expression of distrust before she began wandering about the shop, picking up and touching items. Giles couldn’t hide his amusement, grinning at the look of confusion on Anya’s face.

“I was friendly and polite, and encouraged her to buy things, why does she look at me with such distrust?” Anya asked, mystified by the woman’s reaction.

Giles was about to explain to her that maybe she was a little too eager about telling the customers to part with their money, when the bell on the door tinkled again. The person that entered didn’t look to be the friendliest guy on the planet. To be accurate, he wasn’t actually a person. He was a demon, and he appeared to be carrying not one, but three swords in his four arms, while the other hefted a large bag.

“Buffy, would you care to join us out her for a moment please?” Giles called over his shoulder calmly, not tearing his eyes away from the demon.

The slayer appeared from the back room, stretching her arms as she moved into the room toward her watchers side. The young woman who had been browsing dropped the statuette she had been holding and ran screaming from the shop.

“That’s a one of a kind!” Anya yelled indignantly as she walked over to pick up the pieces. Perhaps Willow could fix it later…

“By the looks of all the swords I’m guessing not the friendly variety,” Buffy quipped with a hint of sarcasm to Giles. She picked up a dagger from the counter beside the register.

“Try not to damage the blade, I have a potential buyer for that expensive knife,” Anya’s voice sang out.

Buffy rolled her eyes then took a few steps towards the demon. His skin was ice blue, almost transparent, and it looked like it would shatter when it was touched. Here’s hoping… she thought idly. He was sort of humanoid in appearance, if you could forgive the two pairs of arms, and the razor sharp teeth that looked like ice picks that hung from his gaping maw of a mouth.

The three arms carrying swords snaked about his body in an almost hypnotic fashion, each blade coming close, but never touching him, or each other. The fourth arm carrying the large bag finally seemed to give up and dropped it to the ground, a loud clanging noise ringing out on impact.

Buffy had seen enough, this guy looked dangerous.

“You had to come indoors for this? Why can’t you demons ever start a fight outside where there is less chance of damaging valuable merchandise?” Anya demanded.

The slayer took two quick steps forward and launched herself feet first at the demon, the force of her kick knocking him in the chest and sending him flying back toward the door that he had entered through. Buffy flipped in the air and landed on her feet a few feet from the demon, switched the blade in her right hand to her left, and balled her right fist. She retracted her arm to swing forward and was about to send the punch when something smashed through the front window of the shop. Something covered in a smoking blanket.

“Spike!?” Buffy cried incredulously. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Spike rolled away from the light that shone in from the shattered window, and threw the blanket off his shoulders. He stood up, straightening his jacket and grinned at Buffy.

“Oh come on slayer, aren’t you the least bit intrigued why I’m smashin’ through windows in broad daylight? I haven’t got a death wish.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Buffy spat back. “Breaking the windows in the Magic Box with Anya inside?”

“Hey!” Anya cried indignantly, before shrugging her shoulders when she realized that Buffy had a point. “I’ll invoice you.”

Spike brushed it off. It wasn’t like he had any money to pay for it anyway. He opened his mouth to speak but Buffy cut him off.

“NO, Spike, I don’t want to hear it.”

She sighed in frustration; she couldn’t believe Spike’s uncanny timing. The demon was beginning to lift itself to its feet, and was trying to gather its swords. Keeping her eyes on Spike, she slammed her right elbow backwards into the demon face, knocking him to the floor once more.

“Can’t you see I’m kinda busy here,” she added with a grimace.

“He’s not evil,” Spike announced in an almost sing-song voice, pointing at the demon sprawled on the ground.

“Pfft,” she responded. “You expect me to believe that he’s not --.”

“Don’t believe me, pet? Take a look at him.”

Buffy looked over her shoulder at the slumped form of the demon. He had reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, and was extending it in her direction.

“Thorak designs,” she read aloud.

“Oh dear lord,” came a voice from behind her. Giles walked up next to her and took the business card from her hands. “My new weapons supplier!”

Buffy looked aghast at Giles. “And you forgot to mention this little detail to me before I started pounding his face?”

Giles shrugged apologetically. “I thought Thorak was a Cheplov demon, not a Vistagree. My apologies for my mistake,” he offered to the demon who had now lifted himself to his feet.

“No apology necessary,” came his reply. His voice was kind of haggard, which might be in part due to the wallop that Buffy gave him. “Happens all the time. Well it’s not normally a slayer that’s laying into me, but the getting beaten up is kind of familiar.”

“I tried to tell you about him last night, but you were too busy poundin’ my face to listen,” Spike snorted.

He lifted himself up onto a bench and lit up a cigarette, taking a long, hard drag of it. He continued his smart assed remarks with a raised eyebrow. “Why else do you think I was followin’ you last night?”

Buffy rolled her eyes and turned to face the Visagoo… or something, demon that was Giles’ new supplier. “I am so sorry. If I had known I never would have --.”

The demon raised a hand to shush her. “No apology necessary. I’m just excited to finally meet the Chosen One. Even if it was a fist first introduction.”

Spike rolled his eyes, and Buffy blushed slightly.

“I do apologise for the fright I must have given you all. I am aware of my appearance, but I insist that I am no more dangerous than a fly,” the demon assured.

“What sort of fly?” Anya’s voice piped up.

“Ah… so. New supplier for the Magic Box then, these your wares?” Buffy inquired as she picked up a blade and examined it. “It really is exquisite work.”

The demon bowed his head in acceptance. “Yes, they are mine. Made from four different metals and pounded with the hammer of a troll, and then finally blessed by mute Nepalese Nuns.”

When the look of awe flashed across both Buffy and Giles’ faces simultaneously, he couldn’t help but grin. “Well the nun part isn’t true but the rest of it is. The name’s Thorak,” he introduced, offering and arm to both of them.

“Nice to meet you, Thorak. Rupert Giles, proprietor of the Magic Box. And you’ve met Buffy.”

A voice huh-humphed from the other side of the shop.

“How could I forget,” he said dryly. “This is Anya, my assistant.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Thorak,” Anya beamed. “Your weapons are going to bring in more patrons and thus further increase our profits. We are very grateful.” She shook his hand vigorously.

The bell on the door tinkled and four worried faces walked through the door. Xander walked in first and his eyes went from the swords littered across the floor, to the smashed window to the very large blue demon leaning ominously over his girlfriend.

Willow, Tara and Dawn followed, all of them with jaws gaping and anxious looks plastered across their faces.

“Demon!” Xander yelled as he snatched a blade from the ground and charged towards it. “Get away from my girlfriend,” he threatened.

“Or what, you’ll glare him to death?” Spike quipped, a large grin spreading across his face. “No let me guess, you’ll let him beat you to a pulp then when he’s worn out you’ll kick him in the shins.”

“Shut up Spike!” Xander fumed, stopping to glare at the vampire.

“Oooh...” Spike mocked.

“Xander,” Buffy interrupted. “Met Thorak, our new weapons supplier.”

“Weapons supplier? You mean…” Xander looked from Buffy, then to Giles who had removed his glasses and was nodding slowly. Realizing his mistake he smiled bashfully, his
demeanour returning to his more laid back normalness. “Nice to have you on board,” Xander greeted, dropping the blade and stepping protectively beside Anya, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Willow and Tara moved further into the shop, stepping over the many sharp objects on the floor and headed toward the table in the
centre of the room. They placed their books to one side of the mountain that already covered most of the tabletops surface. Research. All of it on Glory. And they still hadn’t uncovered anything new. Hopefully the new books the two Wiccan’s had tracked down would yield some usable information.

Buffy walked over to the table where her friends sat and pulled up a seat beside them. The both looked exhausted but at the same time content in each others presence. They seemed happy. Which made Buffy happy.

“So what’s the sitch?” she asked with a grin.

Willow returned the smile as she flipped open one of the new texts. “Well, we managed to get a hold of those books we were talking about the other day. Fingers crossed they’re helpful.”

The red haired Wicca crossed her fingers on both hands before unlocking them to flip through the pages. Xander had managed to drag Anya away from Thorak and was busy helping her pick up the pieces from Spike’s ungraceful and extremely damaging entrance. The vampire in question was still sitting on the counter top, watching everyone with a small smirk playing on his lips, as if he saw something or knew something that they all didn’t. With Giles smoothing out everything with his new supplier, Buffy was free. Free to spend some time with her sister, who was currently standing around looking bored.

“How do you feel about getting some lunch Dawnie?” Buffy asked.

The excited smile on her sister’s face was all the response she needed. Returning the expression Buffy grabbed her jacket and bag and moved toward the door.

“I’ll check in later after patrol,” she called over her shoulder to Giles.




TBC...
 
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