Closed-- Chapter Two
Not happy with this. Everyone's totally unlikeable. But at least they showed up. :)
Chapter Two
The Spell
November 2005
Buffy gripped her sister's hand and stared down at the Sunnydale Crater. Only it wasn't a crater anymore. It was a lake, a placid, deep lake, stretching from craggy stone bank to a sand beach in the darkness on the far side. The crescent of moon reflected in the very center.
"Mom's down there," Dawn said. "And Anya. And the slayerettes."
Faith came up behind them. "We shoulda brought some flowers or something."
Willow was busy gathering stones for the circle, but looked up. "I think Xander comes back sometimes. He probably brings flowers."
"But Spike's not here anymore." Buffy let go of Dawn and moved a little closer to the edge. A breeze stirred the water's surface, and a second later, her hair. "To hear Angel tell it, he never was. I guess he went right into the amulet as he burned up." She turned and looked hard at Willow. "You really never knew."
"Completely clueless." Willow was patient, or distracted anyway, as she was on her knees making the circle and coming up one stone short. She rose, brushed off her suede pants, and said, "I would have told you. You know that."
Buffy did know that, as much as she knew anything. It's just she didn't know much these days. No certainty in her at all. "Faith?"
Faith shook her head. "I know. I ought to have known. Head US slayer and all that. But- but I guess I didn't get back here till he was already gone. Second time gone."
And Dawn said, "Does it really matter?"
Buffy caught her breath. "You knew. You knew and didn't tell me."
Dawn backed away, hands up. "I didn't know. But when you told me last year what Angel had said, I figured out that I should have known. That's all. But I'm saying- it doesn't matter who knew. You've known now for more than a year anyway, and what difference did it make? It's not like you did anything about it. And what could you do? He was gone. You thought he was gone, and for awhile you were wrong, but then you were right. He's gone. End of story."
The anger started up in Buffy. That was good. That was something. She hadn't really felt anger for a long time. Not since, oh, probably the Immortal's exit. Or rather the Immortal shoving her out the exit. That made her mad. But that was last Christmas, and she wasn't mad at him anymore. Now she was mad at Dawn. Improvement. Dawn at least would stay around and let her be mad. Wouldn't cast off at the first sign of a storm.
"If it's the end of the story," Buffy said, and she was glad to hear that low dangerous note in her voice, "why are you here?"
Dawn shook her head. Her hair was short now, too short to swing with the movement. "I don't know. I guess because this is like a real advance for you. You might throw yourself in the lake, but at least tonight you're not throwing yourself at every man in every skanky pub in London."
Ooh. Good one, Dawn. That made Buffy even madder. And it must show, because Faith moved closer, kind of between them, only off to the side, just in case she had to intervene in a sister-fight.
Now Faith had to be here, no doubt about it. Not that she really knew Spike. But she was in charge of the US division, so if there was going to be spells cast in her jurisdiction, it was only courtesy to ask her to come along. And anyway, it was like that last day. No Xander and Giles, but the same set of women looking out over the crater and thinking about their dead.
Buffy spun away from the water. "Ready, Willow?"
In the light cast by the rental car headlights, Willow looked pale and worn, her freckles standing out like splotches on her face. "Yeah. Okay. Put the GPS unit in the middle of the circle."
Buffy stuck her hand in her jacket pocket and withdrew the device- a small black square of plastic and chrome, with a little display window. "Should I turn it on?"
"Sure," Willow said.
"This is like so lame," Dawn put in. She was back in an obnoxious phase. Her obnoxious nun phase- refusing to date or drink or have any fun at all. She was usually in the obnoxious phase.(Maybe it wasn't just a phase.) But the nun-act was something new. "It's been more than a year since you heard, and you haven't even thought about him the whole time, and now suddenly you get this wild hair and decide you have to - what? Lay a wreath on his lasting resting place? Spike? Resting? He was a vampire. Nothing but dust in the wind now, and he'd be the first to tell you how worthless that is."
"Shut up," Buffy replied automatically, setting the GPS down in the exact center of the stones. The display blinked red- 34̊ 65' N, 120̊31 W. This was a high-tech sort of locator spell, but then, Willow was always pushing the envelope.
"It's not a wild hair. And I have thought about him. Just - " Just did my best not to, she thought, but didn't say it out loud.
Willow was regarding her with that sweet Willow look. The best best friend in the world. Left her boyfriend (she was back into boys) and her coven and her Devon cottage to spend all day on an airplane just because Buffy asked her. Now she said loyally, "It doesn't matter why."
"Sure, it does," Dawn drawled.
"Okay," Buffy exclaimed. "I'll tell you. I heard this song. On the radio. It was a song about someone dying. And he was singing, Keep me in your heart for awhile. That's all. I heard that line. That's why." It wasn't all. It wasn't even why. It wasn't even that line. It was another line that got to her. If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less. But she couldn't say that line, because it sounded so pathetic, like she wanted to be loved so bad that she was clinging to the memory of the last man- maybe the only man- who really knew her and loved her anyway.
And anyway, Dawn was sure to say what Angel had said during that phone call. He could have called that year he was back. But he didn't. What's that tell you?
That he still didn't believe me. That was what it told her.
So it had been a year. A bad year. A Faith year. Starting with the big public breakup with the Immortal- it even made the gossip column of Novella 2000, complete with a picture of the imperious Immortal flinging his farewell gift, a sapphire bracelet, on their table at a sidewalk café. Then months in London, months of nights, months of guys. She didn't fall into bed with most of them- she wasn't that much like Faith- but she did fall in and out of love with some of them. Real quick. Adrenaline rush, dizzy brain, giddy laughter. And then, abruptly, apathy. What's your name again?
Well, it wasn't like they loved her any better, or any longer, than she loved them. And that was good, wasn't it?
These days, no one ever died for love.
"Good line. Keep me in your heart for awhile," Dawn recited, scuffing her ugly black boot in the sand. "Hmm. Wouldn't you think- you know- if you wanted to keep him in your heart, you'd have to put him there in the first place?"
Buffy's anger boiled over. She gave her sister a shove. Not a slayer shove. Just a sister shove. So Dawn didn't go sprawling into the dirt. She only slid a few inches. And Buffy yelled, "Don't you see? That's what I'm trying to do! Put him there!"
"A little late, don't you think?" Dawn yelled back.
Willow snapped, "Will you two shut up? I can't concentrate!" And because it was Willow, and she hardly ever got mad, they both shut up, just like she said, and let her set her little fire and speak her lines of Latin.
It didn't work. The GPS remained stubbornly stuck on Sunnydale's longitude and latitude.
"Maybe," Dawn said slowly, "this is where the dragon dropped him. I mean, it would be poetic, you know, if he died here twice."
"No." Willow walked around the circle, staring down at the GPS. "The spell didn't work at all. I could tell. It couldn't focus on Spike. We need something of his to center the spell on his astral essence."
"Like a search dog needs a scent?" Dawn asked.
"Something like that."
Buffy felt the despair creep up from the desert floor, creep right into her. It didn't work. Nothing was going to work. "Everything he owned is down there under that lake."
"How about this?"
It was Faith. She walked up to Willow, her hand extended, something glinting in the palm.
Spike's Zippo. Buffy got there before Willow and grabbed it up, staring at her own reflection in the silver. "Where did you get that?"
"He gave it to me that last evening. We were out on the porch. I couldn't find a match, and so he handed me the lighter. When I tried to hand it back, he told me to keep it- that he wouldn't need it anymore. I figured out what he meant."
"You- you had this all along?"
"Well, yeah." Faith shrugged and stuck her hand back in her jeans pocket. "Look. Sorry. If I'd known you cared, I'd'a given it to you."
"Yeah. Sure."
Now Faith decided she had to share. Confess. "Yeah, well, I feel kind of bad now. See, I thought he was, like, you know, coming on to me. Like it was an invite. So I thought I'd go down later that night-"
Dawn protested, "But you were just with Robin!"
Faith gave her a yeah, and your point is? sort of look, and Dawn said something that sounded like ewwwwww. Buffy wanted to say that too, but not for the same reason. "You always did have the hots for him."
"Yeah, me and every other slayer in that house," Faith said. "Somethin' special about that guy- anyway, I started down those steps. And I heard your voice. So I didn't bother."
"The last night," Buffy whispered.
Faith grinned. "I woulda given him a good send-off. But I guess you had first dibs. And I bet he enjoyed it more from you."
"Right." Buffy's heart just hurt and hurt. She hadn't given him any send-off at all. Hardly spoke to him. Didn't kiss him. Just lay there and expected him to lie there too. Maybe he wanted more- hell, this was Spike, of course he wanted more. But he knew better than to ask. Knew better than to act. All she wanted was company, and silent, still company at that, and that was what he gave her.
She couldn't remember the last time they made love. Oh. Right. Just before she helped Riley destroy his home.
No wonder he didn't believe her. He was right. She must not have loved him.
But he loved her, and she owed him this much. Memory. A place in her heart.
She laid the cigarette lighter on the ground, touching the GPS. "How's that, Willow?"
Willow shrugged. "I'll give it a try."
It was all pretty undramatic. Willow mumbled some words. The flames didn't shoot up. The GPS didn't jump. Spike didn't emerge full-blown from his old zippo.
But when Willow picked up the GPS, she nodded and held it out to Buffy. "Want us to go there with you?"
Buffy stared down at the GPS reading, blinking red in the darkness. The remains of Spike. Right there. "No. I think I have to go alone."
Chapter Two
The Spell
November 2005
Buffy gripped her sister's hand and stared down at the Sunnydale Crater. Only it wasn't a crater anymore. It was a lake, a placid, deep lake, stretching from craggy stone bank to a sand beach in the darkness on the far side. The crescent of moon reflected in the very center.
"Mom's down there," Dawn said. "And Anya. And the slayerettes."
Faith came up behind them. "We shoulda brought some flowers or something."
Willow was busy gathering stones for the circle, but looked up. "I think Xander comes back sometimes. He probably brings flowers."
"But Spike's not here anymore." Buffy let go of Dawn and moved a little closer to the edge. A breeze stirred the water's surface, and a second later, her hair. "To hear Angel tell it, he never was. I guess he went right into the amulet as he burned up." She turned and looked hard at Willow. "You really never knew."
"Completely clueless." Willow was patient, or distracted anyway, as she was on her knees making the circle and coming up one stone short. She rose, brushed off her suede pants, and said, "I would have told you. You know that."
Buffy did know that, as much as she knew anything. It's just she didn't know much these days. No certainty in her at all. "Faith?"
Faith shook her head. "I know. I ought to have known. Head US slayer and all that. But- but I guess I didn't get back here till he was already gone. Second time gone."
And Dawn said, "Does it really matter?"
Buffy caught her breath. "You knew. You knew and didn't tell me."
Dawn backed away, hands up. "I didn't know. But when you told me last year what Angel had said, I figured out that I should have known. That's all. But I'm saying- it doesn't matter who knew. You've known now for more than a year anyway, and what difference did it make? It's not like you did anything about it. And what could you do? He was gone. You thought he was gone, and for awhile you were wrong, but then you were right. He's gone. End of story."
The anger started up in Buffy. That was good. That was something. She hadn't really felt anger for a long time. Not since, oh, probably the Immortal's exit. Or rather the Immortal shoving her out the exit. That made her mad. But that was last Christmas, and she wasn't mad at him anymore. Now she was mad at Dawn. Improvement. Dawn at least would stay around and let her be mad. Wouldn't cast off at the first sign of a storm.
"If it's the end of the story," Buffy said, and she was glad to hear that low dangerous note in her voice, "why are you here?"
Dawn shook her head. Her hair was short now, too short to swing with the movement. "I don't know. I guess because this is like a real advance for you. You might throw yourself in the lake, but at least tonight you're not throwing yourself at every man in every skanky pub in London."
Ooh. Good one, Dawn. That made Buffy even madder. And it must show, because Faith moved closer, kind of between them, only off to the side, just in case she had to intervene in a sister-fight.
Now Faith had to be here, no doubt about it. Not that she really knew Spike. But she was in charge of the US division, so if there was going to be spells cast in her jurisdiction, it was only courtesy to ask her to come along. And anyway, it was like that last day. No Xander and Giles, but the same set of women looking out over the crater and thinking about their dead.
Buffy spun away from the water. "Ready, Willow?"
In the light cast by the rental car headlights, Willow looked pale and worn, her freckles standing out like splotches on her face. "Yeah. Okay. Put the GPS unit in the middle of the circle."
Buffy stuck her hand in her jacket pocket and withdrew the device- a small black square of plastic and chrome, with a little display window. "Should I turn it on?"
"Sure," Willow said.
"This is like so lame," Dawn put in. She was back in an obnoxious phase. Her obnoxious nun phase- refusing to date or drink or have any fun at all. She was usually in the obnoxious phase.(Maybe it wasn't just a phase.) But the nun-act was something new. "It's been more than a year since you heard, and you haven't even thought about him the whole time, and now suddenly you get this wild hair and decide you have to - what? Lay a wreath on his lasting resting place? Spike? Resting? He was a vampire. Nothing but dust in the wind now, and he'd be the first to tell you how worthless that is."
"Shut up," Buffy replied automatically, setting the GPS down in the exact center of the stones. The display blinked red- 34̊ 65' N, 120̊31 W. This was a high-tech sort of locator spell, but then, Willow was always pushing the envelope.
"It's not a wild hair. And I have thought about him. Just - " Just did my best not to, she thought, but didn't say it out loud.
Willow was regarding her with that sweet Willow look. The best best friend in the world. Left her boyfriend (she was back into boys) and her coven and her Devon cottage to spend all day on an airplane just because Buffy asked her. Now she said loyally, "It doesn't matter why."
"Sure, it does," Dawn drawled.
"Okay," Buffy exclaimed. "I'll tell you. I heard this song. On the radio. It was a song about someone dying. And he was singing, Keep me in your heart for awhile. That's all. I heard that line. That's why." It wasn't all. It wasn't even why. It wasn't even that line. It was another line that got to her. If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less. But she couldn't say that line, because it sounded so pathetic, like she wanted to be loved so bad that she was clinging to the memory of the last man- maybe the only man- who really knew her and loved her anyway.
And anyway, Dawn was sure to say what Angel had said during that phone call. He could have called that year he was back. But he didn't. What's that tell you?
That he still didn't believe me. That was what it told her.
So it had been a year. A bad year. A Faith year. Starting with the big public breakup with the Immortal- it even made the gossip column of Novella 2000, complete with a picture of the imperious Immortal flinging his farewell gift, a sapphire bracelet, on their table at a sidewalk café. Then months in London, months of nights, months of guys. She didn't fall into bed with most of them- she wasn't that much like Faith- but she did fall in and out of love with some of them. Real quick. Adrenaline rush, dizzy brain, giddy laughter. And then, abruptly, apathy. What's your name again?
Well, it wasn't like they loved her any better, or any longer, than she loved them. And that was good, wasn't it?
These days, no one ever died for love.
"Good line. Keep me in your heart for awhile," Dawn recited, scuffing her ugly black boot in the sand. "Hmm. Wouldn't you think- you know- if you wanted to keep him in your heart, you'd have to put him there in the first place?"
Buffy's anger boiled over. She gave her sister a shove. Not a slayer shove. Just a sister shove. So Dawn didn't go sprawling into the dirt. She only slid a few inches. And Buffy yelled, "Don't you see? That's what I'm trying to do! Put him there!"
"A little late, don't you think?" Dawn yelled back.
Willow snapped, "Will you two shut up? I can't concentrate!" And because it was Willow, and she hardly ever got mad, they both shut up, just like she said, and let her set her little fire and speak her lines of Latin.
It didn't work. The GPS remained stubbornly stuck on Sunnydale's longitude and latitude.
"Maybe," Dawn said slowly, "this is where the dragon dropped him. I mean, it would be poetic, you know, if he died here twice."
"No." Willow walked around the circle, staring down at the GPS. "The spell didn't work at all. I could tell. It couldn't focus on Spike. We need something of his to center the spell on his astral essence."
"Like a search dog needs a scent?" Dawn asked.
"Something like that."
Buffy felt the despair creep up from the desert floor, creep right into her. It didn't work. Nothing was going to work. "Everything he owned is down there under that lake."
"How about this?"
It was Faith. She walked up to Willow, her hand extended, something glinting in the palm.
Spike's Zippo. Buffy got there before Willow and grabbed it up, staring at her own reflection in the silver. "Where did you get that?"
"He gave it to me that last evening. We were out on the porch. I couldn't find a match, and so he handed me the lighter. When I tried to hand it back, he told me to keep it- that he wouldn't need it anymore. I figured out what he meant."
"You- you had this all along?"
"Well, yeah." Faith shrugged and stuck her hand back in her jeans pocket. "Look. Sorry. If I'd known you cared, I'd'a given it to you."
"Yeah. Sure."
Now Faith decided she had to share. Confess. "Yeah, well, I feel kind of bad now. See, I thought he was, like, you know, coming on to me. Like it was an invite. So I thought I'd go down later that night-"
Dawn protested, "But you were just with Robin!"
Faith gave her a yeah, and your point is? sort of look, and Dawn said something that sounded like ewwwwww. Buffy wanted to say that too, but not for the same reason. "You always did have the hots for him."
"Yeah, me and every other slayer in that house," Faith said. "Somethin' special about that guy- anyway, I started down those steps. And I heard your voice. So I didn't bother."
"The last night," Buffy whispered.
Faith grinned. "I woulda given him a good send-off. But I guess you had first dibs. And I bet he enjoyed it more from you."
"Right." Buffy's heart just hurt and hurt. She hadn't given him any send-off at all. Hardly spoke to him. Didn't kiss him. Just lay there and expected him to lie there too. Maybe he wanted more- hell, this was Spike, of course he wanted more. But he knew better than to ask. Knew better than to act. All she wanted was company, and silent, still company at that, and that was what he gave her.
She couldn't remember the last time they made love. Oh. Right. Just before she helped Riley destroy his home.
No wonder he didn't believe her. He was right. She must not have loved him.
But he loved her, and she owed him this much. Memory. A place in her heart.
She laid the cigarette lighter on the ground, touching the GPS. "How's that, Willow?"
Willow shrugged. "I'll give it a try."
It was all pretty undramatic. Willow mumbled some words. The flames didn't shoot up. The GPS didn't jump. Spike didn't emerge full-blown from his old zippo.
But when Willow picked up the GPS, she nodded and held it out to Buffy. "Want us to go there with you?"
Buffy stared down at the GPS reading, blinking red in the darkness. The remains of Spike. Right there. "No. I think I have to go alone."