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Love Awakened by slaymesoftly
 
Two
 
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Chapter Two

Two cups of hot chocolate and another sandwich later, Buffy was exhausted from talking and her mother was equally exhausted from the sheer effort it took to believe what she was hearing. Gradually, as Buffy reminded her of things she had deliberately pushed to the back of her mind – things like the distorted faces of the “high on PCP” gang members that had attacked the school, as well as the face of the blond man Joyce had hit with an axe when he appeared to be threatening her daughter – the older woman resigned herself to the fact that, as uncomprehensible as it may seem, Buffy was telling the truth.

While the slayer slumped in her chair, eyes shut as the lack of sleep and stress of the past two nights took their toll, Joyce studied her with growing understanding and horror.

Oh my god. We didn’t believe her. We had her committed! All she was trying to do is to save lives and we punished her. All this time, we blamed her for being a bad daughter and she was trying to keep us safe from monsters.

Joyce allowed her own head to fall back against the couch in despair as she contemplated how unfair she had been to the battered and emotionally torn girl in front of her. Perhaps almost more painful than hearing about Buffy’s nightly battles against vampires and demons, was hearing her admit hesitantly that she had been in love with one of the creatures. One that had turned on her – Joyce was not clear how that happened, and Buffy said wearily that Giles would explain – and that had, in addition to administering most of the wounds covering her rapidly-healing body, brutally raped her. Only Buffy’s assurance that she had “staked” both Angelus and his childe, Drusilla, kept Joyce from leaving the house to find them herself and make them pay for what they had done to her child.

With a shudder, she accepted that her sixteen-year-old daughter, as much as Joyce might want to protect her, was more than capable of defending herself and had appeared to deal with the situation already. A glance at the clock told her it was pointless to think about going to bed, and she moved wearily into the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot, leaving Buffy sleeping heavily in the easy chair. She paused to put an afghan over the sleeping girl, and to run a hand lightly over her head before going into the kitchen.

When Joyce was ready to leave for work, she gently woke her sleeping daughter to suggest that she go to her bedroom and finish catching up on her sleep there. To her amazement, Buffy stretched and announced that she’d had enough sleep for now and needed to go to school – both to keep the principal off her back and to find out what Giles had done with Ethan.

“That’s his friend?” her mother asked dubiously. “The one who helped the vampires capture you?”

Buffy almost smiled. “They didn’t look all that friendly the last time I saw them,” she said wryly. “If I got what was going on, Ethan was just using me to get Giles to walk into a trap. He needed Angelus and Drusilla to help him bait the trap. He knew Giles would try to rescue me before they could kill me or…worse.”

“What could possibly be worse?” her horrified mother asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer, but unable to stop herself.

“They could have turned me,” Buffy answered flatly. “They could have made me one of them and Giles would have had to stake me. Or try to,” she added in a whisper, wondering briefly how anyone but another slayer could be expected to stand a chance against one that had been vamped.

“Oh my god.” Joyce’s voice was pitched so low Buffy almost couldn’t hear her.

“Hey, Mom, it’s all good!” Buffy put on her perkiest cheerleader voice in an effort to wipe the devastated expression from her mother’s face. “It didn’t happen. Angelus and Drusilla are dust - so go me - and Giles was beating the stuffing out of Ethan the last time I saw them.” Her voice softened at the blatant fear on her mother’s face and the horror in her eyes. “Mom, you’ll get used to it. Not every night is like that – most of time I just go out for a couple of hours, stake a bunch of dumb fledglings, and I’m in bed by midnight.”

When Joyce’s expression didn’t change, Buffy reached up and took her hand, squeezing it gently. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way, Mom. And I’m sorry that you’re going to be worrying from now on; but in a way, it’s better, you know? I mean now I don’t have to lie about where I’m going or what I’m doing, and I don’t have hide my clothes when I can’t get the blood out, and…I’m not making this any better, am I?” she realized aloud.

Joyce shook her head dumbly, leaning down to clutch Buffy in a long hug before shaking herself and turning to go to work. She paused at the doorway and said firmly, “I want to speak to Mr. Giles as soon as possible. You tell him I said that when you find him.”

Buffy nodded silently, walking toward the stairs and waving as her mother reluctantly went out the door. She was more worried about Giles than she wanted to admit, and quickly dressed and left the house for school.

~~~~~~~~~~~

There was no sign of Giles when she got to school, and she risked having a conversation with Principal Snyder by dropping by the main office to ask if anyone had heard from the librarian.

“He is irresponsibly tardy,” came the irritated voice from the sharp-featured administrator as he walked up behind Buffy. “As will you be, Miss Summers, if you do not leave the area and get to your first period class immediately. I am sure you do not want me adding ‘consistently tardy to class’ to the rather lengthy list of infractions on your record.”

In spite of his words, the man sounded almost hopeful that Buffy would say or do something to add to his reasons for disliking her. Refusing to give him the satisfaction, Buffy gave him her most dazzling smile and thanked him for reminding her of the time. With a wave of her hand, she left the office and ran to her History class, making it in the door just as the bell began to ring.

After several hours in which she checked the library in between every class, Buffy gave up her attempts to pretend it was going to be a regular school day. Telling Willow she was going to look for Giles, she slipped out of the building and over the fence, avoiding Snyder’s suspicious eyes with practiced skill.

She carried a stake with her, laughing ruefully at herself and wondering what good she thought it would do against a sorcerer, but more than willing to find out if she got the opportunity. While her own innate goodness as well as her Slayer training told her she should not kill a human being, the essence of the Slayer inside her wanted very much to kill Ethan – preferably painfully.

As she headed for Crawford Street and it’s collection of tumbledown mansions, she wondered briefly what had happened to Spike. He’d paid no attention to her when she had left him leaning against the tree while she drove off with Willow and Xander; staring, instead, into the flickering flames that were destroying the remains of his vampire family.

For all I know, he dragged himself back into the fire and is another pile of ashes now. I need to remember to ask Giles about that again – how an evil demon can love someone so much he would die for her. Or, how an evil demon that has killed two slayers could be sympathetic and helpful to one who was at his mercy? Is it just Spike? Or can other vampires love? And if they can, why couldn’t Angelus love me the way Angel did?

As Buffy passed the burned out stone shell of the building that would forever symbolize the loss of her naivety and innocence, she couldn’t repress a shudder; nor could she resist a quick look at the tree under which she had left the grieving vampire. She continued her progress down the street, her steps becoming slower and slower, until she stopped completely and with a sigh, turned around and went back to the tree where she’d last seen Spike.

Dropping to her knees, she searched the ground carefully for any sign that he had remained outside long enough to burn up, but found no telltale ashes. She squatted beside the crushed grass for a moment, studying the trail leading back into the building. Obviously the vampire had dragged himself back into the shelter of the mansion; the question was, had he done it while it was still burning so that he could go up in flames with the love of his life, or had he waited until the fire burned itself out before retreating from the rising sun?

Grumbling at her own stupidity, she nevertheless followed the furrowed trail up to the door where she hesitated momentarily. Steeling herself to face the room in which she’d had such a life-changing experience, she entered the now mostly-roofless house and continued to follow the signs of Spike’s painful progress. She sighed with unexpected relief when the drag marks veered away from the pile of ashes in the center of the room to lead her to a large table next to the wall. The table’s marble top and position next to a stone wall seemed to have protected it from the worst of the fire and she could see immediately why Spike had crawled to it.

In spite of the early afternoon sun beating down through the partially roofless building, the table provided a sheltered and shady area into which the blond vampire had managed to drag himself before falling into an exhausted sleep. Buffy approached cautiously, but there was no sign the immobile vampire had any idea she was there. He truly looked like the corpse he was, as he lie there, curled in upon himself and clutching his body in misery or pain.

Buffy could see the dried tear tracks on his sooty cheeks and felt her own eyes well up in compassion. Oddly enough, she bore no malice toward Drusilla, having heard from Angel’s own lips how he had tormented the young seer and driven her insane before turning her. Her anger was reserved for the mage who had encouraged the vampires to torture and humiliate her, and for the one vampire who had professed to love her and had then treated her so shamefully.

Thoughts of Angelus and Ethan reminded her of her primary reason for being in the area and with a reluctant sigh, she rose to her feet and left the mansion. Smothering memories of the way Spike had taken care of her need for food and water, as well as the way he had apologetically soothed her wounds, she told herself he had only done it to help her get back at Angelus and that she owed him nothing more than the chance to live, which she had already given him. She carefully pushed the knowledge that he would be incapable of feeding himself, and therefore unlikely to heal before he became too weak to survive, into the place in her head marked, “Things I don’t want to think about.”

She worked her way up the street, pausing at each deserted building to look inside and listen for any trace of her watcher or his vengeful former friend. She wondered briefly what the gentle man she knew as her mentor could possibly have done to Ethan to cause him to want to wreak such vengeance. It seemed completely out of proportion to the beating Giles had administered earlier in the year when Ethan’s spell had turned them all into their Halloween costumes. Maybe there is more to their history than Giles has told us about, she mused as she entered yet another building.

The sound of moaning alerted her that she had probably found the right place and she proceeded cautiously as she followed the sounds. Upon entering one of the interior rooms, she found the losing sorcerer tied up, lying upon an old dining room table, his mouth taped firmly shut. She looked around for Giles, but saw no sign of her Watcher, only the frightened-looking man trussed up like a stuffed turkey. With a frisson of surprise and horror, Buffy realized that Giles had left the man there to be found by the roving gangs of vamps that occasionally tried to set up nests in the empty houses.

She cocked her head at Ethan, remembering his oily voice encouraging Angelus and Drusilla to make her scream and bleed, and the way he had traveled around her with his camera, taking care to get close ups of her wounds, as well as her bleeding private parts. His widening eyes told her he was reading her face and understanding that her presence did not in any way represent a rescue.

She was turning to leave, ignoring his high-pitched, but muffled screams when she remembered Spike lying under the table and unable to get out of the building or find food. The smile she turned on the temporarily hopeful mage when she began walking back towards him quashed his hopes before they had begun. Not bothering to try to carry him, she yanked his body off the table and began to drag him out of the house and down the street.

When Ethan realized where she was taking him, he began to struggle feebly, unsure of what awaited him, as he had not seen Drusilla’s demise and knew she would blame him for the loss of her sire. As he took in the ruined building and its missing roof, he frowned, wondering why, if Buffy was going to leave him to vampires as her watcher had done, she was bothering to bring him to a different building. Then he spotted the soot-covered, platinum-blond vampire lying under the table and renewed his struggles. He had no illusions about Spike’s attitude towards him. Angelus and Drusilla may have missed his disgusted glares as they amused themselves with the Slayer, but Ethan had not.
Nor had he missed the fury in the helpless vampire’s eyes as he had filmed him trying to climb back into the wheel chair.

Buffy dragged the man’s battered and now-bleeding body over to the table and shoved him under it so that he would be close enough for Spike to reach when he awoke. She worried her lip for a minute, wondering if she should try to awaken the vampire before she left, then relaxed when his eyelids fluttered open and he fixed his puzzled gaze on her face.

She watched his face shift as the smell of Ethan’s blood reached his nostrils and she smiled her encouragement at his questioning look.

“Bon apetite, Spike” she whispered, turning away and leaving a bit more of her childhood behind in the building. “Enjoy.”



 
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