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Present Childe by Ariel Dawn
 
Karma
 
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Disclaimer: All Hail Joss.

Author’s note: Many thanks to BTL once again. *huggles*
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Chapter 30: Karma

Buffy walked home on the verge of hysterical crying. She managed to keep it together long enough to get out of sight of Willow’s house though. Now that she was walking through Restfield Cemetery, the tears were flowing freely down her face. She’d lost Willow. And Willow would tell Giles, and Xander. She’d lose Giles and Xander too. Anya would still be her friend, that was some consolation.

The quiet of Restfield Cemetery, punctuated by Buffy’s spastic sobs, was suddenly filled with the sounds of a moaning male. Buffy’s ears perked up. Instinctively she sniffed the air, and listened. There was no heartbeat or the smell of a human being nearby, so the moaning individual had to be demon.

Buffy walked towards the sounds, her hand already posed to draw out the stake that she kept in her waistband. She turned a corner towards an old mausoleum, when she spotted the person that was making the noises.

Buffy burst out laughing.

It probably wasn’t fair of her. Certainly wasn’t nice at all. The victim of such a prank no doubt had endured enough torture to last a century. Buffy wasn’t taking bets on the next century though, should he live that long.

Before her, Riley was strung up in the air, shackled, gagged and naked. His hair was dyed fluorescent yellow, and he had a lime green ribbon tied around his flaccid cock. He was suspended above a cross shaped tomb stone.

It was more than Buffy had ever wanted to see of her Psych TA.

Spike had done this. He’d probably gotten tired of beating the crap out of the former commando. Riley’s body was marred by the varying degrees of purple, blue, and black of the wounds that had been inflicted on him in the basement of Buffy’s house.

Riley was being left for the sun, or the commandos, which ever found him first. He was no longer going to be a problem.

The TA’s eyes met with hers and Buffy swallowed uncomfortably. She’d done this to him. She’d turned him, she’d forced him into their clan, set him at the bottom of the totem pole. She’d given him over to Spike for his revenge. She’d done all this. She was responsible.

Buffy’s hand hovered over the stake at her waistband. She wanted to make this right and she could only think of one way that she could stop Riley’s suffering. She drew the stake out of her waistband and started towards the hanging vamp.

She only got a few feet closer when she heard a pitiful wail from another direction, and it was getting closer.

Buffy ducked back into the shadows, not wanting anyone, her minions, Spike, the Scoobies, or Commandos to find her with Riley’s naked undead body.

The source of the wail, was a running Harmony. Buffy rolled her eyes as Harmony cried at the unfairness of it all, and how Riley was supposed to be hers. The blond bimbo was trying to understand how Riley was suspended above the ground and how to get him down, when another sound invaded the quiet.

Tires squealed to a halt just on the other side of the fence.

Commandos, thought Buffy at the noise.

Sure enough, five men in black hopped the fence and stood around Harmony and the naked Riley with tazer rifles aimed at the two vamps.

“Riley?” asked Graham’s voice, sadly.

Buffy decided that it was time to leave. She was just glad that her ring rendered her invisible to the military gadgets the commandos used.

“No!” shouted Harmony at Graham. “You can’t have him! He’s mine!”

Harmony waved her arms around, trying to distract and confuse. It really wasn’t working and Buffy was glad when one of the soldiers finally tazered her.

Harmony crumpled to the ground in a very undignified way, landing in a mud puddle. The voices of the commandos started to protest bringing her back to base like that. No one apparently wanted to carry a muddy vampire. The commandos turned their attention to Riley again.

“We can’t just leave him like that,” said one.

“We shouldn’t bring him back to base though,” said another. “You and I know he doesn’t deserve to be treated like the other vermin we bring in.”

“Cut him down,” came the voice of Graham, clearly the commander.

It took a few seconds for the soldiers to find out how to get Riley down, and that they were going to need a welding torch or some very powerful lock cutters to get him down.

Spike did a good job making sure that Riley wouldn’t get far.

“I don’t think we can,” noted one of the commandos. “Maybe we should just stake him. I’d feel wrong experimenting on him anyway.”

The others murmured in agreement.

“Besides,” continued another. “We have this one.” He indicated Harmony still lying face first in the mud puddle.

There was silence again.

“So, uh, how do we do it?” one of them asked.

“The guy looks like he’s been through hell. The least painful way, I guess,” noted Graham.

They all nodded in agreement and Graham took a stake out of his boot. The commando stepped closer to his former comrade and mounted the tombstone that was the perfect stepping stone. With a determined jab, Graham staked what was once his best friend.

Riley’s dust floated to the ground just in time for Harmony to wake up from her tazer induced slumber. Her high pitched scream sounded throughout the cemetery once she realised what was going on.

“Oh for the love of God,” murmured Graham, walking over to the wailing vampire and staking her too. He looked over at his troops and shrugged. “She was getting on my nerves. Come on, we have to bag and tag two more vamps for our quota tonight.”

Buffy counted herself lucky that not only were Riley and Harmony taken care of, but that Graham hadn’t detected her. Once the commandos were out of sight, and hearing, Buffy extricated herself from the bush she was hiding in and headed home. The fact that she no longer had Willow’s friendship making a renewed appearance in her thoughts.
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The minions were looking pretty ragged and bruised when Buffy returned home to the mansion. Clearly, Spike had been taking his frustrations out on the minions. A couple of them looked at her with pleading eyes, that maybe she could make the master stop beating up on them. Buffy knew that it was futile. Spike had to work this out on his own. He’d been feeding off of humans for over a hundred years, that wasn’t a habit you could just go cold turkey on and like it.

Buffy knew from experience that human blood tasted better than what she was usually drank. It was only her residual slayerness and Willow that kept her from drinking from happy meals on legs.

‘Course now she didn’t have Willow.

The truth was, that though Buffy had gone over to the dark side, in that she’d killed, she didn’t want to do it again. She didn’t have a soul but she felt regret. Not guilt, just regret. Regret that it had changed her in Willow’s eyes. Regret that now none of her friends were going to trust her. She’d made a bad choice in the heat of the moment. She regretted it.

She was glad that Riley was dead though.
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Three days later, Buffy still hadn’t seen hide or hair of Willow, Xander, Amy, or Giles. She’d been going to classes same as ever, hoping to catch a glimpse of her witch friend.

It was clear that Willow was avoiding her. Even Willow wouldn’t blow off classes for an insignificant reason.

Buffy came out of her psychology class more than usually dazed, the professor filling in for a slightly dead Professor Walsh didn’t have that certain something that had made Professor Walsh’s class interesting. She had heard the rumours of course, that some beastie of the military’s creation had killed the professor and escaped into the sewers.

As long as the Frankenstein didn’t meet up with her, Buffy was fine with it. It did explain why the Scoobies were a busy, too busy for casual bumping into’s.

Buffy stood outside of the Psychology building and let the sun warm her tepid skin a moment before she turned to head home. She had to make a stop at Willy’s for more blood packets on her way.

“Buffy?” came Willow’s voice from the steps of the building, surprising the vampire.

Buffy turned to see her former friend rushing down the steps towards her.

“Hey,” responded Buffy, shuffling her feet a bit, nervous as to what Willow had to say.

“It freaked me out,” started Willow with no preamble. “A lot.”

Buffy nodded, that was reasonable.

“I’ve been thinking though. We’ve all done weird stuff. It’s the Hellmouth. And you’re a vampire. It must be really hard to go against your demon nature. I’ve seen me as a vampire. I know I wouldn’t be able to do what you’ve done. Even Giles is responsible for the death of someone. Xander ate that pig! And, he’s unapologetically dating a vengeance demon who is granting wishes left right and centre.”

“What are you saying, Willow?” asked Buffy slightly lost as where it was all leading.

“If you give me time, I’d like to be your friend again,” said Willow in a small voice.

“Really?” Buffy asked, her voice hopeful.

“Yeah, Amy’s really boring sometimes,” noted Willow with a smile.
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Buffy walked home, restocked with blood packets from Willy’s with a smile on her face. She hadn’t felt this good since before the business with the commandos started. She knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy battle, with the military or with the Scoobies to earn their trust back, but with Willow’s wish to be friends again it wouldn’t be long before she could.

Thrusting the blood packets into the hands of a minion as she walked into the mansion, Buffy found herself confronted by a rather overly serious vengeance demon standing in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed.

Buffy cocked an eyebrow at her friend and dropped her backpack on the floor before her.

“I have to thank you,” stated Anya. “I’m feeling unsettled and concerned. I have to thank you.”

“Uh...you are welcome?” responded Buffy, unsure how to answer that.

“No, you don’t get it,” continued Anya. “I need to grant you a wish. I granted Amy’s wish. Cordelia’s a demon. Poof! One thank you done. But you, it was your idea to try again. I would be still stuck as a puny mortal with the body odour and the inconvenient bleeding if it wasn’t for you.”

“So you are going to grant me a wish? A vengeance wish?” asked Buffy. “I don’t want vengeance on anyone.”

Anya looked a little disappointed for a moment then screwed up her face like she was thinking about something. “It doesn’t have to be a vengeance wish really. I mean, a lot of things can be interpreted as vengeance. You just have to word it the right way. Please?” pouted Anya. “I’ll keep having this mortal like feeling if you don’t let me grant you a wish!”

“Okay, okay,” answered Buffy, grabbing her backpack again. “Let me think about it?”

Anya nodded enthusiastically. “Don’t take too long though. I really don’t like this whole wanting to be karmically balanced, it’s throwing off my work.”

Buffy ascended the stairs towards her room, to find Spike sleeping the day away. She dropped her backpack again and crawled into bed alongside her mate. Anya had given her a lot to think about. What would she wish for?

So many things popped into her head.

Spike’s chip. Killing Riley. Biting Faith. Becoming a vampire.

The last one shocked her a little. She had wanted to be with Spike so much at first. She had been willing to give up so much for him and for the most part she didn’t regret it. But that the idea had popped into her head brought up doubts.

Certainly she was not what her mother expected, not what Giles expected, or Willow or Xander. But on the other hand, would she have made friends with Anya if she hadn’t been a vampire?

Buffy wasn’t unhappy with her life. Or unlife. She snuggled closer to her mate, and felt him wrap his arms around her in his sleep. How would her life have changed if she hadn’t let Spike turn her that night?

Did she want Spike’s chip out?

With him chipped and unable to feed, they would finally share something that didn’t involve death. Yeah it might be costly and so not what a vampire was supposed to do, but they would survive. And maybe someday, when he found out how to get the chip out, he would finally understand why she didn’t want to feed off of people.

Did she want Riley alive again?

Big no to that one. She didn’t want the fallout though. Willow might not know that it was Riley that she killed, but the fact that Riley wasn’t around anymore was just begging for someone to put two and two together. Someone would talk to Graham. Someone would tell the Scoobies. And Buffy would have to deal with this whole thing again. It was different when it was a random stranger. When it was someone you knew, only badness could come from that.

Did she want to take back Faith’s mark?

No. Faith needed to be protected. The Slayer was too rash, to headstrong and cocky. Faith needed all the help she could get. It was a little thing, but if it saved Faith’s life even once it was worth the animosity that the slayer felt towards the vampire.

Buffy moved away from Spike and headed out of the room, looking for Anya. She’d made her choice.
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Buffy found the vengeance demon in her room reading a copy of Vanity Fair.

“That was quick,” noted Anya, setting down her magazine and standing up from her bed. “I thought that you’d take like a week or something.”

“Nope. You ready?” asked Buffy impatient to get this over with.

“Oh completely,” answered the vengeance demon. “Wish away.”

“Ok, I wish...”
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fini.

Author’s note: When I started this series with Future Childe the idea was that it would be a trilogy, Future Childe, Present Childe and Past Childe. I’ve left Present Childe with this ending in the hopes that I will be inspired someday to continue this series as I originally hoped, as a trilogy. Thanks everyone for reading and reviewing! And much Huggles to the wonderful Bloodytearsoflife for Betaing this fic (and all my other fics!)






 
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