Disclaimer: Joss owns all, all hail his genius.

Author’s note: Some dialogue taken from ‘Lessons’ Also as usual Bloodytearsoflife rocks my socks and is a fab beta goddess!
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Chapter 34:The Written Word

Four months later a happy Buffy was having coffee with Anya back in Sunnydale coming to the realisation that she had been away from her friend and from Dawn for far too long. It didn’t help that D’Hoffryn had told her to give Anya a heads up about her mediocre wish quality of late. And there was also that thing where everyone from vengeance demons to vampires could feel that something bad was about to rise up.

She could have done without the mediocre entertainment at the coffee place though. The folk singers were making her cringe with every note they slaughtered.

“God, they’re depressing,” noted Anya sipping her coffee.

“Oh, who are they kidding with that happy shiny crap?” exclaimed Buffy wanting to be far away from the pair of singers ASAP.

“Six weeks tops and she’s calling on me for vengeance,” Anya observed, nodding her head at the folk singers and bringing business back into the conversation.

Buffy couldn’t help herself but laugh. “Oh, he better run for cover.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Anya offended, her friend‘s slightly mocking tone not going unnoticed.

“Oh, sweetie, you know exactly what it means,” Buffy soothed her friend. She didn’t want this to be confrontational at all.

“Excuse me?”

“Everyone is talking about it. They’re calling you Miss Softserve. Tell me you don’t know this...”

“But... Who?”

“Listen, Anya. I’ve always looked up to you. You were my mentor when I first got into this thing. You helped me out when I thought I’d made the wrong decision. You were the single most hard-core vengeance demon on the roster and everybody knew it. Do I have to mention Mrs. Cholgosh?”

Anya smiled in remembrance. “Hmm. Good times.”

“And then you lost your powers. It happens. And you fell for this Xander guy, you‘ve always had this thing for men with large upper arms, Angelus, Morgan...”

“It was a glitch. A summer thing. I am so back in the vengeance fold,” Anya insisted with a nod.

Buffy shook her head sadly. “No deaths, no eviscerations. You’re not goading women into anything inventive and you’re not delivering when it is.”

“I don’t even know...”

Buffy cut her off. “Waitress downtown. Wished her husband was a frog. You made him French!”

“He’s smelly!” began Anya defensively. “And with a little moustache, he...”

“Listen, Anya, if it was just me...”

“What do you mean if it was just you?” Anya interrupted, her eyes wide with panic.

“D’Hoffryn, the Lower Beings... they’re all feeling the heat. Something’s rising... something older than the Old Ones- and everybody’s tail is twitching. This is a bad time to be a good guy...”

“What is this, an intervention? Shouldn’t all my demon friends be here?”

“Sweetie...they are,” noted Buffy sadly, patting her friend’s hand.
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Sunnydale had a new high school, which made Buffy roll her eyes at her bad luck. It was so much of a bother to get well placed at a new school just to see Dawn. She didn’t know how she’d be received at the girls’ house though. Yes, she had helped out Liz and Dawn by keeping Dawn safe during the whole Willow: ‘mad witch,’ thing, but had that changed anything?

Buffy wasn’t going to hold her breath.

Standing outside this edifice, she couldn’t help but yearn to pop in there and start granting wishes left, right and centre. The sun shone brightly as Buffy’s eyes darted from side to side trying to resist temptation. Out the main door of the school, the one person that could make her resist this temptation of teenage angst and self loathing, Liz, exited the school and glared at Buffy.

I guess things don’t change after all Buffy thought.

Liz stopped her trek towards a tan coloured car, openly staring at Buffy for few moments. The hatred in her eyes was clear as day. With what looked like effort to tear herself away, Liz moved into the car.

Buffy nodded sadly. Yes, she had hoped that Liz had gotten over the hatred aspect, but still, Buffy had seen her share of disappointment in life and it wasn’t going to suddenly stop because she had at last found and claimed her mate. Turning her eyes away from Liz’s direction and resisting the urge to get emotional, Buffy disappeared in a puff of smoke and appeared in Sunnydale High, the halls instantly inundated with students on their way to their next class. Stealthily, Buffy stalked her granddaughter as she moved through the crowd. As Dawn turned a corner, leading her into a less crowded hallway, Buffy took the opportunity to catch her attention.

“Dawn?” Buffy whispered, trying to not startle the girl much.

Despite that she wasn’t trying to startle her, Dawn jumped.

“Don’t do that!” she laughed, clutching her heart. “Erixel!” Dawn’s surprise turned to joy as she saw her demon grandmother.

“I don’t have time,” noted Buffy, gathering Dawn into a hug. “Come to Spike’s crypt after school? Okay?”

Dawn nodded, her face eager and excited. They hugged once more before the bell rang, sending Dawn running down the hallway to her next class.

Buffy returned to the crypt to find that Spike had decided that he needed to have all of his old poker buddies over for the afternoon.

Secretly Buffy loved the idea, but being jovial and that she wanted to get herself out of the funk caused by seeing Liz, she decided to give him a hard time.

She appeared in the crypt, demon face in place and spread her arms wide.

“I have been summoned and vengeance shall I wreak,” she began formally, as if she had been called to do vengeance.

The demons around the foraged table looked up startled, a few with fear in their faces.

“I thought you said that we would be safe from her while we were here?” asked one.

Spike slapped his cards down on the table and frowned up at his mate.

“Oh I’m just kidding. It’s too funny not to,” she added sweetly, shaking off her demon face and setting herself down on Spike’s lap.

She tilted her neck and bite marks towards him, inviting him to nuzzle. He did, quickly, he still had a sort of reputation to keep. He didn’t need his own slayer of slayers rep anymore to keep wanna be’s off of his back: that was accomplished by stating that he was mated to Erixel. To the outside world it seemed that she controlled him, but it was still really the other way around. Just as it had always been. No one knew that except her of course, and Dawn.

“Dawn’s coming over after school,” stated Buffy, picking up Spike’s cards for him off the table.

“’Bout bloody time we saw the Bit again,” observed Spike.

“Did you see the Slayer?” asked one of the demons.

The door crashed open, practically breaking the hinges. The topic of conversation standing in the doorway.

“I see the slayer now...” whispered Spike’s friend Clem. “Hey! Liz! Remember me? I came to your birthday party?”

A look of recognition passed over Liz’s face.

“Right,” she muttered. “Nice to see you again.” She stared at the demons in the crypt waiting for them to leave before she started whatever it was that she was going to say.

“Uh, right,” said Clem, putting down his cards and pushing his chair back. “I suddenly remembered that I have to pick up my Aunt from the bus depot.”

Suddenly all the other demons around the table found reasons to leave the poker fun night...err...day. As the last demon left the crypt, Spike started to curse.

“Bloody hell, Liz!” he moaned. “Can’t a bloke have a poker game when he comes back into town?”

“Yes, if bloke means blood sucking vampire,” Liz responded. “I wanna know what you and your demon bride are doing in my town again?”

Buffy rolled her eyes from her position on Spike’s lap.

“Thought we’d blow in and wreak some havoc. Relive the glory days, pre-chip and all,” Spike responded, wrapping one free arm around Buffy’s waist.

Buffy’s eyes, glued as they were to Liz’s face, couldn’t help but notice the brief flash of jealousy marr her angry intolerant expression. It was an expression Buffy was very familiar with and for an instant she felt for the vampire slayer. It was only a brief instant though.

Liz stepped towards the couple, drawing a stake out of her jacket.

“You aren’t going to stake him, Liz,” said Buffy authoritatively.

“Why not?” asked Liz cheerfully. “Vampire, stake, dust. Pretty straight forward if you ask me.”

“Because if you do you, will regret it the rest of your life. Short or long. Spike may be a vampire but he’s been your friend and ally for longer than you’d like to admit. And Dawn would never forgive you.”

Spike laughed as Liz pouted. Buffy had hit the one point that Liz couldn’t put aside. Dawn.

“Why can’t you just leave us alone?” Liz, directed to Buffy. “Everything was fine before you showed up!”

Buffy leaned back against her mate and crossed her arms. “So the whole, not experiencing life, ignoring your sister and your friends, that was a whole bunch of fine and dandy?”

“What would you know?” said Liz. “You are a liar and a demon. You aren’t Elizabeth Underwood! You are the one that killed her. I bet you even were the one who led Spike to Drusilla to be turned!”

Buffy turned to Spike and laughed. “I thought that D’Hoffryn was supposed to be the one that killed me?” she questioned.

“History gets rewritten from time to time, love,” offered Spike. “Even the Watcher’s Council.”

“Which is ever so reliable,” countered Buffy.

“Good grief!” shouted Liz. “Do you ever stop? It didn’t happen!”

With a shake of her head, Buffy lifted herself off of Spike’s lap and stepped away from him, opened a portal, stepped in and stepped back out, holding a book. She smiled apologetically at her mate and stepped closer to him to give him a kiss.

She looked longingly at the book in her hands and sighed. She hadn’t wanted to give this precious memento over to Liz, but there needed to be a change.

Buffy held out the leather bound volume to her granddaughter.

“This will tell you all you need to know, and some things that you probably don’t want to know. Or at least there are many people that don’t want you to know it.”

Hesitantly, Liz extended her arm and took the book carefully. It looked old, its pages worn and fragile.

“If you decide to read it, you’re bloody well staying here with it,” added Spike, standing up realising just what Buffy had handed to the Slayer.

Liz looked up, an anxious look on her face. She caressed the journal of Elizabeth Cecily Underwood. Carefully, with Buffy and Spike’s eyes upon her she dropped her stake and headed towards a vacant seat, where once demons had sat playing poker. She opened the journal and exhaled deeply.

“You could have made this all up,” started Liz, trying to find another reason to disbelieve.

“If you know anything about Elizabeth Underwood from the Watcher’s diaries, then you won’t be able to poke holes in the information you’ll learn today,” countered Buffy.

Liz nodded, still not willing to put stock into what she held in her hand, but she turned to the first page and began to read in silence, as the two demons watched her.

Spike fumbled for a cigarette as he knew that soon Liz would know. Know who he was and just how icky it made him feel. That was why he needed a fag.

Mama gave me this dear little diary to record my innermost thoughts. Our dear Queen Victoria keeps a diary as well. What joy that I am participating in a royal tradition. But perhaps I should at this point add to the record my name and particulars. I sense that one day this book will be preserved as a record of my life, be it short or long.

I am of course not vain enough to wish to be famous or keep company of that rank, but perhaps to my family it would be a comfort to have this record. An inspiration to my granddaughters.

On this auspicious date I, Elizabeth Cecily Underwood, am fourteen years of age, resident of Underwood Manor, Kent in the grand British Empire. In the next room I hear my sister Danielle whining that she should be allowed to go horseback riding today even though the horses are needed by father’s coach. She is rather annoying.

Mama, whose given name is Joanne, is painting a screen trying to ignore Danielle’s whining. Papa has of course been able to keep busy in his study while waiting for the coach to be ready to take him to London for business. Papa has business this time with his lawyers, and to arrange my next year of boarding school.

Liz looked up from the journal and at the demon that was whispering quietly with her vampire.

In her mind, Spike was still hers. It was Erixel’s fault that he had withdrawn his affections. She needed to get Erixel away from him somehow.

As much as she wanted to deny what she was reading it did look like she was reading the actual journal of a deceased Slayer.
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tbc...