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Strip Snap by Lilachigh
 
Chp 28 Betrayal
 
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Strip Snap 30


Chp 30 Betrayal



Willow looked long and hard at Xander and Anya. Her best friend refused to meet her gaze, but the demon girl just raised her eyebrows and nodded slightly.

“So, we all agree,” Willow said softly. “Xander?”

There was a long pause. “She’ll hate us,” he said at last, worrying at a thumb nail.

Willow sighed but squared her shoulders. She was prepared for the hate, but knew what she had decided was the right course of action. “Only until it’s all over and done with. Then, as the weeks go by, she’ll see we were right. Buffy isn’t silly. This Spike thing is just – ”

“A thing?” Anya put in helpfully.

“Exactly!”

“Who’s going to tell her?” Xander still wouldn’t look at the redhead and she bit her lip. She needed all three of them to make a stand; she couldn’t have Xander wavering like this.

“I will, but I’d like you two to be there as well.”

“But Will, they’re sort of – inside her! What happens to Buffy if they don’t got back into one body?”

“I rang Giles. He’s furious, but he says that he thinks Spike and William and the Demon can only exist for a short while outside a human frame. They’ll just – vanish – and Buffy will be our Buffy again. I think she’ll be glad – eventually.”

“That Demon thing – ” Xander shuddered. “How can she touch it?”

Anya opened her mouth to say that she couldn’t see what was so very horrible about Demon, then shut it again. Xander and Willow were in very odd moods and she wasn’t at all sure she completely understood why they were reacting like this. She would have thought they’d have been delighted that The Master was gone, but all they could think about was Buffy and Spike.

OK, she knew only too well that Xander still had these silly juvenile feelings for the Slayer, but Willow? That was weird and Anya didn’t do weird in this world. She had left weird behind and was not going to embrace it again.

It was as if Willow had suddenly decided that she was the leader of the Scoobies, that she was more powerful than Buffy, had better ideas, knew exactly which was the right way to go. Anya found she was quite scared of this Willow and kept silent.

Buffy was still sitting where they had left her – on the floor of the cage Xander had built, with the three bodies collapsed around her. She had pulled Spike so he lay half across her lap, William’s head was pillowed against one leg and Demon against the other.

She looked up as her three friends walked slowly down the stairs. “Jeez, Willow, paint dries faster than you walk. What have you worked out? Is it another spell? How long will it take? I’ve got to get them back inside their bodies – fast.”

Willow walked gingerly to the edge of the cage and peered inside. She shuddered at the sight of the Demon lying closest to her. Even unconscious, his face was twisted and snarling with rage. William looked peaceful, as if just asleep. She couldn’t see Spike’s face - his head was buried in the softness of Buffy’s body – but his hair was a riot of tiny curls, pulled into tangles by Buffy’s compulsively stroking fingers.

“Buffy, listen. I’ve just been speaking to Giles – ”

“Good idea. He’s sure to have some plan.”

“Giles thinks – and we all agree – that you should just – just – well, let them go.” Her voice trailed away as Buffy’s hand stopped stroking Spike’s head and curled protectively over it instead.

“Let them go?” The Slayer’s voice was no more than a whisper and deep inside her, three voices were anxiously querying why she was upset, what was wrong, who could they kill for her?

“Buffy, even if we could find a way of getting their – I don’t know what to call them – their spirits, perhaps – out of you and back into their bodies, should we do that? They claimed you, Buffy. You don’t know what might mean if we restore Spike to his old self again.”

Buffy looked from Willow to Xander, then Anya, her eyes darkening to deep emerald. “Xander? Are you in on this?”

Xander pushed his fingers through his dark hair and gazed desperately around. “Buffy, don’t look at me like that! I know it sounds hard and isn’t probably what you want at the moment – ”

“But everyone thinks you’ll be pleased in a few weeks time,” Anya interrupted eagerly.

“You want Spike and William to die!” Buffy could hardly get the words out.

“And the demon,” Anya added.

Buffy ignored her. She stared at Willow and Xander as if she didn’t recognise them and in some way she didn’t. These were her two oldest friends. They’d fought together, been through every conceivable trial and battle. They’d both brought her back from the dead at different times but did they think that gave them the right to tell her how to lead her life, to decide that the man she loved should die?

“Willow – don’t do this, please,” she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling, silently hushing the anguished voices inside her who didn’t understand what was going on but could feel her pain.

The redhead took a step backwards. “Buffy – I know it’s hard for you to understand, but trust me, this is the right thing to do. They claimed you! You claimed them! What will that make you if they all go back into one body? Buffy, you could be some sort of demon too!”

Buffy pulled the bodies closer to her. Betrayal! It was worse than any feeling she’d ever known. It left a taste in her mouth of ash and salt. Because she knew that whatever happened, nothing would ever, could ever be the same again. Her best friends were betraying her, killing the man she loved, killing William and dear Demon as well and all because they thought they knew best.

She looked into Willow’s face and shuddered at what she saw there. Power, pride and a complete resolute belief that what she was doing was right. Buffy knew nothing she could say would change her mind and in that moment knew her friend was lost to her forever.

She turned to Xander and Anya. “Xander, I’m begging you – don’t do this. Help me set them free. Anya, please – ”

Xander felt bile flood his mouth and wanted to throw up. Buffy Summers was begging for a vampire’s life! It made him sick to his stomach. She was sitting there, holding those three creatures to her body as if the warmth of her flesh was going to warm their cold limbs.

“Buffy, you’re not yourself. You wouldn’t want this freak show to go on if you were. OK, I’m sorry about William. He seemed an OK sort of guy. But Spike and that – that – thing there on the floor! They’re inside you. It’s disgusting! But if you just let them fade away, then everything can get back to normal.”

Buffy heard herself laugh. “Normal? What, you reckon tomorrow we’ll all be heading off to eat pizza and see a movie? What world are you all living in? Xander, you’re helping kill the man I love.”

“Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!” The shout echoed round the basement, full of pain and anger and bitterness and spinning round, desperate to get away from her stare, he ran up the basement steps.

Willow edged away, too. “I know you’re upset now, Buff, but it won’t be for long. Giles reckons they’ll fade away quite quickly and then you’ll see, you’ll be free. You’ll feel so much better. You’ll be our old Buffy again.”

Buffy watched her go. The witch didn’t even glance once at the bodies. She didn’t glance back once at the person who used to be her best friend.

“Slayer! Miss Buffy! I want to kill!” Three voices mingling inside her. She bowed her head over their bodies and the tears that she’d held back for so long began to fall, dampening Spike’s curls into dark wheat.

“It’s OK,” she whispered out loud. “Don’t worry. I’m OK. I’ll look after you.” She didn’t want them to know, to be afraid. Perhaps Willow was right. They would just fade away, not know anything – just vanish. And then what would become of her? Because Buffy knew the claiming was a deeper link than Willow and Xander realised. And if Spike, William and Demon went, then perhaps she would die as well.

And at the moment, she would welcome death if it meant she could go into the darkness with her family.

A sound brought her head up; Anya was standing at the cage door.
“You still here,” Buffy said wearily. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“They’re scared,” the ex-demon said, her usual sharp tones softened. “Scared of what you will become. And Xander really doesn’t like Spike. In fact, Xander doesn’t like demons at all.”

“That’s going to make your life together very complicated.”

Anya nodded. “Yes. But I love him, so hopefully we’ll work it out. I must go before Willow forces him to think about not marrying me.”

She turned, then retraced her footsteps. “I liked Spike and William,” she said bluntly. “And although I think Demon should have far more concern for his personal hygiene than he does at present, none of us are perfect.” She came even closer and Buffy looked up sharply.

“Willow is being incredibly bossy. I have hundreds of years of experience behind me and she treats me as if I am a complete amateur. She leaves this lying around for anyone to find. Here!” She thrust something at Buffy who reached out automatically to take it. “This isn’t because I like you and I’ve no idea if you can make it work on yourself and if you can, I’d be grateful if you didn’t tell Xander who gave it to you because he simply wouldn’t understand.”

Then with a clatter of high heels, she was gone and Buffy was left staring at the Ferula-Gemina dividing rod she had used to get Spike and Demon out of William’s body.

To be continued












 
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