Disclaimer: La, la, la, can’t hear you ! *sigh* I don’t own them.

Author’s note: Thanks to Bloodytearsoflife for the great slayer dream idea and for the great betaing.
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Chapter 54: Churches and Graveyards

The train station was all glass and concrete, very different from the one she remembered from her youth. Stepping off the train, the terrain looked familiar, but not. The sounds, the smells, and the sights were not what she anticipated. It’s not that she expected this sleepy old village in the middle of the Kentish countryside would stay the same over the century, but she’d not seen it change. She’d teleported and avoided it since Annette’s death. No, this was not what she expected.

The locals looked at her curiously as she refused all offers of a taxi. There were no tourist attractions around, no reason for an out of towner to visit. It was comforting to know that the busy body nature of the villagers hadn’t changed much.

There was a light mist that seemed suspended in the air, greeting her as she turned down the long drive to her house. The outside of the manor was well kept, and Buffy noted that Wolfram and Hart were doing a much better job with this house than the ones in London.

She bypassed the house completely, intent on her target: the graveyard in the back left corner of the lawn. As she approached she counted the familiar slabs of stone that represented her departed family. There were two extra tombstones.

Buffy broke out into a run, terrified as to who the new residents of the Underwood family plot were. She stood panting, heart in her throat, at the foot of the two new graves only to realise that no one was buried there.

Henry Christopher Fairchilde-Summers
Buried in Los Angeles, California
1912-1982

Elliot Henry Summers
Buried in Los Angeles, California
1938-1997

An involuntary tear crept down Buffy’s cheek as she realised that Spike and Dawn must have done this, to keep them all together.

Just missing Isabella now, she thought.

Buffy’s eyes glanced over the stones of the other members of her family, and noticed another change to the scene. This one was entirely unwelcome though.

Sitting next to Annette’s stone was a delicate porcelain doll, the kind Drusilla kept around.

Instantly Buffy was angry, and she had to clench her fists and count to ten to keep herself from damaging her property. Instead she scooped up the doll and crushed its stupidly smiling head between her fingers. She was about to rip the fabric torso of the doll into little bitty pieces when it suddenly occurred to her that the infuriating doll was a clue. Her hands turned tender as she sought out something on the doll that would give her a clue as to Spike’s whereabouts.

Made in London, read the tag affixed to the underside of the doll.

Bloody hell.
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Buffy barged into Noël’s London house angry as all Arashamahar. She was no closer to find out where Spike was and yet, if she believed her newest clue, he and Dawn were in the city. Somewhere significant to Drusilla too.

It enraged her. That he would be anywhere that reminded him of her. The woman that had kept him from her. There was some small hope though, she knew, if he had really wanted to be back with Dru he would have made his way to LA.

Maybe he was just reliving the memory.

But what did she know about Drusilla?

Buffy had spent most of her life trying to forget the fact of her, avoided thinking about her. She was the other woman, not worthy of thought or reflection, and now, she had to honestly try and recall something that would be useful.

Buffy sat down at the desk in the study and pulled out a yellowed piece of paper from the drawer, Noël’s stationary, not touched since her death, and a pencil. With a tentative hand, Buffy started to brainstorm.

Drusilla, Childe of Angelus

Sired, around 1860, in Prague, novice nun, Sister Mary Bridget
Obviously Catholic
London connection?
Was Dru born in London? Where?

Buffy set down the pen with a thump. She had to find out where Drusilla was born. Wherever that was, that would be where the next clue was located. Buffy let her head sink to the wooden top of the desk and sighed.

Spike, why are you so hard to find? she asked herself.

Somewhere across the city, the bleach blond vampire looked up from his poetry book and shook his head.

Buffy is gone you git, he berated himself. Stop thinking you can hear her.
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Buffy stared at the phone. She didn’t want to do it, but then she no other way to find out the information she wanted. It was doubtful the former vampire or Angelus would tell her what she wanted to know. Drusilla was mad, mad at her, and there was no way Drusilla would tell the demon that made her human where she grew up as a girl.

Buffy had run out of places and demons to turn to for information. No one knew what she wanted, or was willing to tell. It was really annoying.

It had been a week since she’d visited her house in Kent and found Drusilla’s doll at Annette’s grave. She’d been to every demon bar in the city it seemed, along with a few of their coffee houses.

Correction, it was really frustrating.

Anya hadn’t been any help either, other than making her more upset by asking her to come back to the Watcher’s Council and train the little slayers, because it would make Xander happy. Anya couldn’t find out where the pendant was because it wasn’t being worn by a vengeance demon.

Really frustrating.

Buffy kicked the phone off the edge of her bed and threw herself back on to the pillows and sighed, trying to expel her frustrations. She didn’t want to go through another century of trying to meet up with her one true love. She had his marks on her neck, surely they would lead her to him.

She could feel him, he was alive, but clearly he really didn’t believe she was alive, otherwise, he’d come running. Right?

Eventually she drifted off to sleep, a fitful dream taking the place of her frustrations.

A light dusting of snow covered the ground outside an unfamiliar catholic church. Her heels clicked on the cobblestones as she walked towards the entrance. She hadn’t much use for churches after all her experience with other dimensions, gods and goddesses, especially Catholic ones; she was raised Anglican after all.

She knew that this was a dream. It was the only explanation as to why she was human and going into a church. Suddenly there was a scream, Dawn’s scream, halting Buffy’s extraneous ponderings. Buffy bolted into the church, only to see Dawn in the arms of an older man, dressed in the garb of a priest.

One of his hands was poised around the pendant Dawn wore around her neck, the other held a dagger at her stomach.

This was so not good.

Momentarily distracted by the red pendant around Dawn’s neck, Buffy found herself pushed aside onto the hard marble tile of the church’s floor by a blur of black. She looked up to see Spike and the priest staring each other down, daring the other to make the first move.

With Dawn’s life in the balance, Buffy wondered just what this man wanted with Dawn.

Or more to the point, her pendant.

There was a crash, the sound of glass breaking drawing Spike’s attention away from the girl for a moment, a moment too long. The dagger slid easily into Dawn’s belly while the priest ripped the pendant from her neck.

A terrible scream sounded through the church.

Buffy woke with a start. She knew a slayer dream when she had one; though it had been years since she’d last had one. She needed to find this church. That was where she’d find Spike and Dawn.

She just hoped it wasn’t too late.
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Churches abounded in London. Depression set in as the days passed by and Buffy had yet to find the church that had featured in her dream.

Buffy stood in front of yet another prospect, prepared to go in and be disappointed when Anya poofed next to her.

“What are you doing?” the mistress of Arashamahar asked. “Are there priests abusing little boys in there?”

Buffy looked over at her friend and shook her head sadly. “I don’t have my pendant Anya. I can’t hear calls for vengeance!”

The frustration was more than a little evident in Buffy’s voice.

At least Anya had the good sense to look sheepish. “Okay then, explain.”

“I had a dream...” started Buffy.

“Oh, did yours involve a can of whipped cream, a feather duster, and one of those shiny kid pinwheels?” asked Anya.

“No,” snapped the slayer. “It was a slayer dream, people died, in a church, I need to find the church before it happens.”

“Oh, that’s much more boring than I thought it would be.”

Buffy rolled her eyes at her friend, opening the door of the church and looking around the foyer.

“You certain you can’t do a demon thingy to find out where my pendant is?” Buffy asked again, looking behind her at her friend.

Anya shook her head. “Nope, no can do. It’s not being worn by a demon. It has no power when it’s not on a demon. It’s as if it was lying on the ground. I’m getting nothing.”

“You are whole bunches of helpfulness,” noted Buffy stepping towards the sanctuary.

“Yep, and you’re shopping for churches like you’re picking one out for your wedding. Is there something you want to tell me?” asked Anya.

“No! I’m already married, and my mate thinks I’m dead. Anya! This is already beyond frustrating, I can’t find him and every time I try to use our link, he comes back and says ‘she’s dead,’” explained the slayer.

“That sucks.”

“No kidding.”

“But Liz knows that you are alive, Willow told her last night. All you have to do is wait for Dawn to phone Liz and everything will be ok,” offered Anya trying to be helpful.

“Except in that slayer dream, it’s Dawn that dies,” responded Buffy shooting her friend down.

“Again with the sucking.”

“Again with the whole bunches of helpfulness,” countered Buffy, not looking at her friend, but at the church. “I think that this is it.”

“Huh?”

“The church, where I saw Dawn killed. I think this is it. I remember that statue, and the tile on the floor. This is definitely it,” explained the slayer.

“Do we have to wait around for Dawn to find the church too? How do you know this slayer dream of yours happens soon? What if it’s like 3 years down the road?”

Buffy turned to her friend and frowned. “Positive thoughts Anya! I don’t want to spend 3 years looking for Spike and Dawn.”

“Okay. I hope Dawn is assaulted in this church so that you can find your mate and prove to him that you are in fact alive,” said Anya happily.

“Thanks Anya,” responded Buffy sarcastically.

As if on cue, the door Buffy had just entered through slammed open. Buffy grabbed Anya’s hand and led her away from the door and into the shadows.

Dawn and a boy ran into the church, panting, like they were being chased.

Buffy took a step towards the two, ready to step in when Anya put a steadying hand on her arm.

“I don’t sense vengeance, nothing’s happened yet,” the vengeance demon noted.

Buffy’s eyes turned back to Dawn and noticed something else that she wanted to talk to Dawn about. Around the teen’s neck was her pendant.
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tbc...