~*~

Chapter 16

~*~


Xander laid his hard hat on the table and gaped at Buffy as they dug into the sandwiches she’d brought to the construction site. He had listened to her version of the previous night’s excitement and Buffy’s thinly disguised outrage and concern over what had been done to Spike. Ever since Willow’s spell, Xander had noticed little things between his superfriend and the bane of his existence with fear and dread. He normally was able to slip back in the River Nile, but the look on Buffy’s face wouldn’t let it go this time.

“So that’s about it. I’m really not sure what to think, Xan. I figured, out of all my friends and family, you were still sane. So here I am all tuna delivery girl. looking for a reality check.”

“Vampires are of the bad, Buff. Right there with you, no question. Also a case of preaching to the choir where the bleached menace is concerned. You know I’ve said the best solution to his problem, and all our problems with him, is a pointy piece of wood where his heart used to be.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far. He has helped a little. Ever since he found out he can wail on demons, he’s helped keep the local craziness to a minimum.” Buffy thought back to her last few patrols and the diminished number of demons and vamps she had encountered. She had actually managed to study for her Music Appreciation class without dozing off listening to Bach.

“Buffster, he’s not doing it to help. He’s doing it because it’s the only way he can still be at least a little scary.” Xander took a large bite of the tuna sandwich, making further commentary from him impossible.

In the silence, Buffy thought about Spike and their long history.

“Well, he also helped me be able to defeat Angel when he went all grrr. I really couldn’t have done that if Spike hadn’t changed sides. The world would have ended if he hadn’t….”

Xander’s unintelligible reply with the mouth full of food needed no interpreter.

“Yes, I know…he did THAT to save his nut case girlfriend. Still, not typical Big Bad behavior. Buffy let out a sigh. “That’s the real problem--I can’t seem to put Spike in a box and label him, you know? All the things I know are true about demons are things he makes me question. It hurts my head.”

Xander swallowed. “Yet another reason to be rid of the pest. A confused Slayer is a dead Slayer, and if I have to pick between an ambiguous vampire and my bestest friend, I pick you.”

“That’s not a good enough reason to get rid of him. If I slay everything that confuses me, it’ll get really messy.” Buffy closed her eyes in contemplation, seeing carnage in the staff rooms at the university as a real consequence of that plan of action.

“Look, Buff, I’m totally on board that something needs to be done with the jocksters that beat the undead to a pulp. Like you said, they couldn’t have known he was of the non-breathing community. Besides, I think I remember a few of them from high school, and having them whipped gives me a happy. Still not sure what to do though.”

“Mom seems to think Spike is her friend.” Buffy watched her bomb drop. Xander’s reaction was as expected.

“She DOES know he’s a bloodsucker, right?” he asked incredulously.

“Yup. Seems she knows more about Spike than we do. He’s been visiting since last summer.”

“HOW?” Xander was horrified. “I mean, your mom does know not to invite pale creepy guys in, doesn’t she?”

“She didn’t have to invite him,” Buffy blurted out to an astonished Xander. “I never revoked his invitation from when we planned our strategy to stop Acathla.”

“That makes sense of the not-at-all variety,” Xander blinked. “You letting him walk was one thing--although I still don’t think that was the best idea you ever had, but….” His mind whirled at the possibilities. “Buffy, after you left town he could have slipped back and killed your mom. Killed all of us, really. What were you thinking?” He continued before she could reply, “Even after he came back into town and kidnapped me and Will? Damn, Buffy…. You even caught him there in your mom’s kitchen. I remember how wigged you were at the time!”

“He didn’t seem like a threat. I don’t know why, but I just never thought he’d really hurt my mom and he could have killed you when he kidnapped you and didn’t, so I guess I thought you guys were safe too.” She let the words out in a rush. In truth, she had never thought about the whys, or even the issue at all. It was odd to realize the truth of what she said. She hadn’t seen unchipped evil undead Spike as a threat to her nearest and dearest or she would have revoked his invitation. “Looks like I was right, because he’s been visiting mom even before the chip.”

“That is just worlds of wrong, Buffy, and you know it,” Xander proclaimed.

“And again with the ambiguity,” she agreed.

“Well, I had hoped to unconfuse myself with a good Xander talking to, but I’m still as confused as before,” Buffy sighed. “Not your fault. I just wish Spike would act like….” Her voice trailed off as she wondered just why Spike WASN’T like Angelus. She backed off that thought immediately because it opened old wounds best left to scab over.

“Sorry I couldn’t help much. Thank your mom for the tuna; it beats the stuff on the Roach Wagon I was doomed to partake of.” Xander shuddered at the thought of another lunch from the canteen van.

“I’ll probably see her at Giles’ place. She was going to go check on Spike.”

“Oh, Anya was going to drop off some stuff there. Giles is going to help get her some legal paperwork besides her high school diploma, so she can get a decent job. Guess they don’t give Social Security cards to demons. Who’d’ve thought?” Xander grinned at his own lame jest. “Tell her I have to work a couple of hours over tonight, will you?”

“Sure thing. Thanks, Xander.”

“For what? I didn’t help and Spike is still undusty in the near future, it seems,” he grumbled.

~~~

“So you can imagine the surprise when Buffy came face to face with her TA in full military gear,” Giles continued his story to Joyce’s rapt interest. “Seems a decent enough fellow for all that I question this operation and what little we know of it. They appear to be more in the way than actually helping Buffy with her duty.”

“I’m just glad you are finding out something about these butchers!” Joyce looked sympathetically at Spike. “I don’t believe in research on sentient beings. I don’t care if they are demons or human, wrong is wrong.”

Giles looked like he might actually agree with her in principle, but he stayed silent. It was one thing to kill the evil creatures and quite another to make lab experiments of them.

After a brief silence where Spike gazed adoringly at his only human friend, Giles moved the conversation back to Riley Finn. “I doubt the lad feels he is doing harm. He seems rather a straight arrow, if a bit too gung ho for my tastes. I cannot be a hypocrite either; this group is not doing anything the Council hasn’t in the past, even if they are doing it on a much larger scale.”

“You lot rammed computer chips into vamps, Watcher? Think I’d have heard of that,” Spike said with raised eyebrows.

“No, most of our research was done long before modern technology,” Giles admitted.

Joyce shivered in horror. “It’s still wrong. If you have to protect someone by killing a vampire or demon, that’s one thing, but full out genocide seems wrong too. Are ALL demons evil, and can you be sure?”

“Yes, well, the lack of a soul would indicate a predilection towards evil,” Giles began, continuing over Spike’s loud snort of disgust. “There are a few species that are more neutral, I suppose, but as a whole it is best to simply remove the threat.”

“Even if they aren’t a threat?” Joyce played devil’s advocate. “You are an intelligent and sensitive man, Rupert, how can you agree with that philosophy?”

“How can you believe all that rot is my question,” Spike muttered.

“Spike, please don’t be rude to Mrs. Summers,” Giles admonished.

“Not her, you git! You!”

“And just what rot are you suggesting?”

“The whole black and white nonsense about ‘good/evil, soul/no soul, demon/human’ rot. Look, I get why the Council puts that shite in their books and teaches it--keeps your little girls alive and all--but thought you Watcher types knew the score at least.” Spike rolled his eyes.

Giles sighed and prepared for more nonsense from his unwelcome housemate.

No one noticed Anya had slipped in through the unlocked front door until she spoke. “Oh, I thought it was obvious that watchers were as close-minded as the Slayers, Spike. I mean, Giles is the most open-minded watcher I’ve ever encountered and even he still doesn’t ask the right questions, or listen to information or advice from well meaning ex-demons who know more than the Council ever will.” The subject was one that obviously rankled Anya.

“Is that so?” Giles said in a huff. “And just what information and advice have you offered, other than what one could discover by a quick glance at the Kama Sutra?”

“If you people would stop telling me to shut up all the time, you just might know,” Anya raised her head in disdain. “Honestly, you act as if I AM some child just graduated from high school instead of an ex-demon who has seen 1100 years of history in the demon AND human worlds; other dimensions as well. I don’t mean book knowledge either, but firsthand information. Yet do any of you ever ask, ‘Anya, what kind of demon is this?’ or ‘So how do I stop this apocalypse?’ No. All I get is ‘Not now, An.’ or ‘Please keep such thoughts to yourself in the future, Anya.’ Frankly, I just keep my knowledge and opinions to myself now, since none of you seem interested in anything I have to say.”

“Well, I’m interested,” Joyce assured the offended girl. “What about Spike’s opinion that the Council is teaching rot?”

Anya looked pleased at being afforded some respect and grinned widely. “Okay, take that soul thing all of you go on about. Some demon races DO have souls. Vengeance demons, for example, keep their souls. Then again, you wouldn’t recognize what a soul is or does if it bit you on your ass.” She looked pointedly at Giles, affronted.

“The soul is what gives a conscience to a being. It is the moral compass. Without a soul, a being cannot determine right from wrong and is therefore evil in nature,” Giles began spouting Council wisdom from the ages.

Again Spike snorted. “And that explains things like those charming gentlemen I met last night? What about such stellar examples of humanity as Stalin? Pol Pot? Nixon?”

“Nixon doesn’t count; he was a F’tulage demon. I thought you’d recognize that from his paranoia and hunger for power,” Anya supplied. “That’s a dead give-away. Lots of politicians are F’tulage demons. They’ve pretty well cornered the market on politics and organized religion.”

Giles looked stupefied at her comment but continued his argument, “Yes, humans can be evil as well, Spike, but at least they are capable of not choosing evil.”

“And you’re sayin’ I can’t?” Spike asked. “I made choices before this chip got shoved in me that were for your side.”

“Yes, but you did so for your own selfish reasons and gain,” Giles reminded him.

“And you’re sayin’ humans don’t make their choices for the same reasons? Everyone has a reason for what they choose. There’s not much altruism out there. If it isn’t to get somethin’, even a warm fuzzy, for doin’ good, it’s ‘cause they’re afraid of the punishment if they do evil.”

Giles ran that thought through his head but couldn’t come up with a quick response to the logic of Spike’s comment. “Still, that does not change the fact that you are an evil soulless being who would cheerfully rip our throats open were you not handicapped.”

“Soulless, yes. Evil…,” Spike started to defend his Big Bad status but caught a look at Joyce and chose to temper it, “Okay, most of the time….vampire here. Wouldn’t rip out ALL your throats. I like Joyce right fine and demon girl’s startin’ to grow on me.”

“For Pete’s sake,” Anya pointed out, “Are you a bigot against proper evolution?”

“Excuse me?” Giles looked as puzzled as he sounded.

“Vampires eat humans. It’s natural for them. How can they do that if they feel guilty about it? Of course that part of them gets submerged. It’s part of evolving into the hybrid predator that they are. That doesn’t mean they have no guilt for some things or that they don’t know right from wrong in other areas.” Anya looked downright smug as Spike nodded in agreement.

“That old whore Darla told me a vampire is whatever the human was, only exaggerated.” Spike offered. “That’s why Angelus is such a massive wanker with bad grooming choices.”

“Nonsense,” Giles sputtered, “The demon utterly replaces the human save for intelligence and memories”

Joyce giggled. “Let’s see, should I listen to a very wise ex-demon and an actual vampire, or something you’ve been taught by a group that tried to kill my daughter last year?”

“Who tried to kill me?” Buffy asked from the doorway. “’Cause I remember Mayor Snake Boy and his trusty sidekick Faith the Slayer-Ho, but I’m not remembering some group.”

“Well, I’ll never forget that terrifying insane vampire you killed so cleverly,” Joyce reminded her daughter with pride and some leftover fear.

Giles looked incredibly sheepish as he muttered something about tests and tradition. He couldn’t look his Slayer in the eye and shut up rather quickly at the glare being directed at him by Joyce.

“See, there’s another bit of rot,” Anya was warming up to the idea of being listened to for once. “That whole ritual was designed to get rid of Slayers who didn’t toe the mark with the Council.” She looked pointedly at Buffy. “You were eighteen, right?”

Buffy nodded, curious to hear Anya mention the ritual that had nearly cost her her life and had deprived Giles of his official position as her Watcher.

“In the past, girls matured earlier and they did it at a younger age.”

Spike tilted his head in interest. “Do tell, luv.”

“Slayers are usually taken from their families and trained to be powerful but disposable weapons. Even you can’t argue the truth of that, Giles.” Anya noticed the poor man shuffle in shame and took pity. “Not you, Giles. We can all see you really care about Buffy. Anyway, when we get older, we start to question things we’ve been taught. That’s why people experiment in college, all those new ideas and opinions! If a Slayer starts to question all that ‘black and white rot’ as Spike calls it, the Council gets nervous. So they do test her, but not the way you thought.”

“It is a test of her resourcefulness,” Giles countered.

“Why? Is a Slayer going to lose her powers without the drugs the Council supplies?” Anya rolled her eyes and shook her head at the concept. “Pulllease! The test is to see if she can still be under their thumb. If she fails, they get a new, malleable Slayer to use and life goes on.”

“What would be the real harm in having a Slayer able to think for herself?” Joyce queried. The latent feminist within her rebelled at the idea that her daughter should be just so much cannon fodder to those who most benefitted from her nightly sacrifices.

Anya looked at all the people in the room before deciding to clue them in on the big picture. She took a deep sigh and dove in. “Slayers were created from demon essence originally.” At Buffy’s horrified gaze, she hastened to clarify, “You’re not a demon, Buffy, but the same power that gives Spike his strength is what gives you yours, just without the demon living in you.”

Buffy sat down hard, trying to digest this bit of information. After staring blankly for a couple moments, she looked to Giles for confirmation.

“I had read that theory, I believe,” Giles agreed. He was interested, in spite of his initial trepidation at the subject matter.

“Vampires and Slayers are sort of related because of that. They are also well-matched in abilities and strength, at least the older vampires.”

“Do go on, Anya. I should have been taking notes!” Giles leapt to get a notepad and pen, his inner researcher rejoicing at the unexpected wealth of information Anya was proving herself to be.

“Well…,” she prepared herself for a negative reaction about the next part. “There’s a natural attraction between older Master Vampires and Slayers old enough to notice them as possible sex partners. Vampires have wonderful stamina, give fabulous orgasms and are one of the only beings who can ever really satisfy a Slayer.

At the appalled looks from all but Spike, she rolled her eyes and continued. “I mean, Buffy, you MUST have already figured out that you’d break a human boy if you ever really let loose!”

Spike was all but laughing out loud at the blushes on Buffy’s face and the ‘must leave immediately’ look on her Watcher. “So all that snoggin’ under Red’s spell was more than mojo, you’re sayin’?”

“Most likely, yes. There was probably already an attraction between the two of you. It would explain why neither of you ever succeeded in killing the other. Buffy is very pretty and you are really quite sexy--even Xander has noticed that.”

Spike nearly choked on that last bit.

The room was silent as a tomb as each grappled with bits of information that caused discomfort. Spike having to contemplate the whelp looking at his bits speculatively made him want to heave. Joyce was mourning her last hopes of Buffy marrying a nice young man in good time and presenting her with 2.5 grandchildren. Giles was horrified at the idea of his beloved charge going through a series of undead love interests. Buffy, however, was torn between relief that she wasn’t a freak and fear that she was doomed to dusting her boyfriends for eating the citizens she was charged to protect.

“The Council knows this,” Anya continued. “See, if a Slayer lived through the Cruciamentum, she would most likely be terrified of Master vampires. That’s why they choose powerful ones for the tests. In Buffy’s case, they just wanted her dead, so they picked one who was crazy instead of hot and sexy. It works to keep the Slayer from following her instincts…most of the time. Of course, most Slayers die before it is too much of an issue. The few that DO pick a vampire as their partner are usually killed when they are discovered.”

“But why want me dead?” Buffy squeaked out the question for all of them.

“Because it was too late with you,” Anya explained as if to a child. “You had already fallen in love with Angel and even forgiven him for turning evil. When you didn’t just dust Angelus, it proved to them you were completely out of their control and might even find another vampire in time.” Anya looked pointedly at Spike and Buffy. “You already had made one exception to their black and white rules. It wasn’t hard to imagine you could make more as you matured.”

“But that’s so cold-blooded!” Joyce didn’t know whether to be more disgusted or angry at this revelation. “Why not simply counsel these girls, help them choose well. Spike proves that some vampires could be convinced to change.”

Spike coughed in agitation, not willing to completely relinquish his status as Big Bad. “Vampire here, Master Vampire, even if I can’t cut a bloody swath at the moment!”

Joyce smiled indulgently, “Yes, Spike, and we’ve discussed this sort of thing before. Your manliness and power are more than your ability to hunt and kill, you know that! You are more than some mindless eating machine. We’ve talked about lifestyle choices.”

Even as shocked as Buffy was by that information, she couldn’t help but be amused at the looks of horror on both Spike’s face at being caught out and Giles’ at the idea her mother proposed.

Anya, meanwhile, was preening like a peacock in full glory at having proven her knowledge superior to all the measly humans who had been so dismissive of her contributions.

“Flies, Giles, not of the tasty,” Buffy teased her openmouthed mentor. “As interesting as this is--and Anya, I’d love to talk more to you later if you have time--I’m here to talk about what happened last night, not last year.”

“I agree,” Joyce nodded. “Something has to be done to make those bullying bastards pay for what they did to Spike.”

Everyone looked at Joyce with wide eyes at her use of profanity as Buffy gasped out a startled, “Mom!”

“Well, they are! Just look at Spike’s face. And even without an examination I can see that isn’t the only damage they did.” She turned sympathetic eyes on the wounded vampire before shifting her gaze to Giles. “Not that I will ever fully understand or approve, but isn’t that the very sort of evil you always say my daughter is charged with destroying?”

“Were they but demons, yes.” He agreed solemnly. “But as Anya has recently reminded us, not all evil is done by demons.”

~~~

Outside the dorm room door, Judson Keller chucked his principles into the mental rubbish bin and sucked in a determined breath. He had learned a few years before that you couldn’t be a successful coach and a by-the-book person of values at the same time. Most of the apples in his barrel were decent, but those few rotten ones always seemed to be faster, more nimble, more valuable to the team. Therefore, selective blindness was the order of the day. This sort of duty, however, warred with the basically decent man his mamma had raised and made him wonder just how long he could possibly continue walking this tightrope over a chasm of compromise.

His knock was answered before he had a chance to move his hand back to his side. “Can I help you?”

The redhead in the doorway didn’t look like the shy mouse his boys had described. This girl looked quirky in a sweet and pretty way, not backward or frightened. “Tara Maclay?”

From behind the titian cutie came a trembling voice, “That’s me. Do I know you?” The doe-eyed girl moved from behind her spunkier friend. She was softly pretty and built like a real woman instead of the anorexic child most college girls were becoming. He could instantly see the appeal to his randy quarterback. Judging by her obviously nervous demeanor, his mission should prove an easier one than if the girl had backbone. Still, he wasn’t happy carrying it out.

“Miss Maclay, I’d like to speak with you privately about a certain sensitive matter if you wouldn’t mind.”