Never Already Not Yet 03/?
Xander and Angel sat side by side on the couch watching the clock. The numbers on the bright green face slipped by much faster than Xander would have liked-faster than Angel would have liked, too, he suspected, as the vampire grew progressively more still and tense as time passed.
Xander fidgeted nervously when the clock switched to five-forty. “Heh. Five minutes left.” He stood and pulled his new blue sweatshirt on over his head. “I have a great idea. Why don’t we skip the show and tell at the library tonight? We could, um, go out for pizza. Or something. I really don’t think this is the greatest idea.”
Angel let his muscles relax just enough to shrug slightly. “We have to tell them about your dreams,” he pointed out. “You could know something useful.”
“Yeah, but-” He risked a peek at the clock again. Damn. Four minutes to sunset. “The freaky dream thing isn’t what has me all bugged. I don’t want any more of my friends to go up in a cloud of dust, okay? If we tell them about me, something’s bound to slip out about you.”
“Don’t worry,” Angel said. He stood as well, and Xander silently handed him his coat. “I’ve been around for two hundred and forty-some years, kid. I can lie with the best of them-and I can protect myself if things do get out of hand.”
“Not reassured, Deadboy,” Xander muttered, following his new friend to the door of the apartment. “In a perfect world, my friends don’t have to worry about lying or killing each other.”
Angel grimaced at the nickname and opened the door. “Yeah, well, it’s not exactly a perfect world.” He waited until Xander reluctantly joined him in the hall outside the apartment before turning back and locking it. “It’s the Hellmouth. Your worries are pretty minor compared to some.”
“Right,” Xander said dryly. “Still not feeling the reassurance. And, you know what? If you see a stake coming at you, do me a favor and duck. Please.”
Something in his voice must have caught Angel’s attention, because the vampire stopped and met his eyes squarely. “I won’t get dusted. You aren’t going to lose another friend that way. Not tonight.”
Xander shifted uncomfortably and started walking toward the elevator, Angel matching his quick strides step for step. The look in Angel’s eyes was something he didn’t want to analyze too closely. It came too close to what he’d always hoped he’d have from his dad-pride, warmth…protection.
“Yeah, well,” he muttered. “I can’t lose my roommate. You’re paying the rent, after all.”
Angel’s small, knowing smile told him his words meant nothing to a guy who could read between the lines.
They rode the elevator down in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Xander was surprised at how comfortable he was with the lack of words-but then, he had never known anyone who was as content without talking as Angel.
He enjoyed the quiet for a while, all the way out of the elevator and through the doors of the apartment complex. The fading light of dusk lit the buildings and sidewalks, and Angel looked up into the sky and smiled.
“This is my favorite time of day,” he said. He and Xander turned the corner and began the long walk to the high school, their long legs eating up the pavement beneath their feet. “The light is so beautiful at this hour out in the countryside, and at the beach. Everything’s red and purple, right before the night takes over.”
Xander nodded in understanding. “My favorite is that half hour or so right before the sun rises,” he offered. “I’m usually way too lazy to see it, but, uh, there’s a couple times a year that I’m awake for it.” It makes a nice Christmas present, he thought.
“Not many vampires get a chance to appreciate it either,” Angel said. “We’re all too busy watching for that gray-blue light to warn us to head indoors to sit and admire its beauty.” He smiled slightly at Xander’s questioning look. “I’m not just a big scary vampire,” he said jokingly, but his face was serious. “Most of us have more balls than brains, I’ll admit, but I was a Childe of a proper order. Even if my Sire and I left the order, we were still more than demons. There’s always been a superiority complex in our clan.”
“Lots of book smarts, huh?” Xander said.
“Lots of book smarts,” Angel confirmed. “My Childe turned a poet, once.” He chuckled. “Not that he was any good, mind you, but he was Oxford educated. If you met him now, you’d hardly know it.”
“So, you have this whole family out there, I guess,” Xander said wistfully. “Do you miss them? Do you ever see them?”
Angel’s sharp eyes were entirely too perceptive once again. “When you’ve lived for over a century or two, you learn to trust your judgment,” he said instead of answering. “We make our own families-we pick our siblings and children in the space of minutes. It’s instinct.”
Xander turned the words over in his mind. He couldn’t-no. But. He wouldn’t tell me unless-
He stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk and cursed his awkwardly long arms and legs. He really meant it. And that means-
“Think I’ll get to meet the rest of the family?” he said brightly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Angel reached out to ruffle his hair. “There are a couple worth meeting,” he said. “Just eat garlic beforehand and you’ll be fine.”
Xander laughed happily. “Cool.”
They lapsed back into silence. For the rest of the long walk, Xander snuck peeks at Angel surreptitiously, a goofy smile pasted across his face. Family, huh? Cool. Way cool.
**
“We need to get a car or something, D-Angel,” Xander said, pushing open the door to the library. “I’m thinking this whole walking a mile to school thing isn’t really my thing.”
“I’m not buying a car just so you can be lazy,” Angel replied calmly. “Deal with it.”
Buffy, Willow, and Giles looked up from their discussion at a table in the back.
“Angel?” Buffy said, startled. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to help Xander,” Angel said. He turned to Giles. “Watcher. You didn’t tell them what I told you over the phone?”
Buffy and Willow looked to Giles, who shook his head. “It’s Xander’s place to tell us the news,” he said. “Xander?”
Four pairs of eyes trained themselves on Xander-three inquisitive, one supportive. He walked over to the table and took a seat, grateful of Angel’s quiet presence at his side.
“So,” he said nervously. He grinned at Willow and Buffy. “Long or short version?”
“Long,” his friends chorused eagerly.
“Hoo boy.” Xander rubbed his left eye absentmindedly. “Um. After that thing with the vamps at the Bronze, I went to Angel’s place last night to sleep it all off.” His eye prickled sharply, and he blinked-was he seeing things?
“Go on,” Giles said impatiently.
“Right, Angel’s place,” Xander said. He stared at the bookshelves behind Willow’s head. There hadn’t been a girl standing there when they’d arrived. The brunette tipped him a sly wink and shush-ed him playfully. “He said I could stay with him, so I camped out on his couch, and I had freaky dreams, and he told me we needed to tell you about them.”
He stopped talking to watch the girl walk over and sit next to Willow at the table. She turned big dark eyes toward him, and his breath caught in his chest. Somehow-somehow he knew her.
“Hello, kitten,” she said clearly. Nobody looked her way but Xander.
“Is that it?” Buffy asked. “That’s the long version?”
“Um,” Xander said. He tore his gaze away from the strange, dark girl no one else could see and looked at Buffy. “I’m moving in with Angel. Because of the dreams. He says he’s going to talk my parents into it.”
Willow smiled in satisfaction. “Good,” she said. “So, what now? This is going to come in handy, I guess, but what did you see?”
The dark haired girl spoke again. “Welcome to the family, little one,” she said with a laugh. “You have such a pretty eye. Daddy’s new son can see like his Dru can hear. Isn’t it exciting?”
Xander knew Angel was looking at him-that they were all looking at him, waiting for him to answer Willow’s question. Dru looked at him, too, and clapped her hands in excitement.
“Our poor dark kitten is hiding his sight!” she exclaimed. “Tell them, brother. The stars will scream at your Dru until you stop hiding.”
“I took a note of what he saw,” Angel said when it became apparent Xander wasn’t going to respond. “What I don’t know is what we’re going to try to stop, and what’s going to happen anyway.” He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Giles.
“This is quite a comprehensive list,” Giles said, “although I do wish it came with names and dates.”
“He’s a seer,” Angel said impatiently. “Have you ever met one before? They don’t get visions that you can notarize and cross-reference. It’s all…flashes and sounds. Previews for the big thing.”
Dru giggled. “I was Angel’s first seer,” she confided to Xander in a stage whisper. “He knows all about stars and voices and flashes and sounds. I told him. Now, though….” She frowned. “Now he has a bright spark in him and it makes him sad.”
“What do you mean?” Xander asked impulsively. Dru gasped and clapped her hands in glee.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Angel said.
“Dru?” Xander persisted.
Angel froze. “Is Dru here?” he asked quietly.
Xander nodded to him absently.
“Who’s Dru?” Buffy asked. “And what’s up with the weird staring thing? Is someone supposed to be sitting there?”
“Make his nasty spark stop hurting him,” Dru said seriously. “He’ll lose his spark someday. You saw it. I heard it. It will happen. When it goes away, you will matter most.”
“How?” Xander asked. “I don’t get it.”
“That’s two of us,” Willow said. She looked at the seat next to her uneasily.
Giles coughed to get everyone’s attention. “What I know of seers is that they are highly coveted by many demons,” he said. “We’ll need to protect him.”
Angel shook his head. “He needs to be taught how to protect himself. We can’t teach him to rely on everyone to defend him.”
“And I suppose you’ll train him?” Giles said with some asperity. “He’s a teenage boy, Mr. ‘Angel’. You don’t give sixteen-year-olds extra weapons to go along with their hormones.”
“Pot, kettle,” Angel said. He inclined his head at Buffy. She frowned, thinking she was being insulted, but he gave her one of his small smiles and she relaxed. “Buffy has been Chosen to fight evil on one of the worst places a human being could live. Xander has, for some reason, also been chosen-not as a warrior, but to receive visions. If we want him to stay alive on the Hellmouth, we have to teach him-and Willow here-how to fight.”
“You know how,” Dru said. She smiled and stood up from her seat. “You’re already doing it, kitten. It’s a pretty color near him, now. It doesn’t jangle my head nearly as much.” She leaned across the table and kissed his forehead lightly. “Spike and I will see you soon. Don’t worry, pretty, you don’t have to eat garlic before we come to play.”
Xander watched her fade back into the stacks of books with a sense of relief. His left eye immediately stopped prickling.
“Dru’s gone,” he said. “She says she and Spike are going to come visit us, Angel.”
Angel broke off his argument with Giles and turned back to Xander, worry and concern written across his face. “Did-did she say anything else?”
“Yeah,” he said. He elbowed the vampire in the ribs discreetly. “It’s not stuff I can really talk about…here…you know?”
“Oh,” Angel said. He nodded. “Okay.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Subtlety, thy name is not Xander.” She paused. “Or Angel, for that matter.”
Xander grinned. “Yeah, but where would you be without us?”
“Someplace very boring,” she said.
“If you don’t mind focusing for just a moment,” Giles interrupted. “What do you propose we do with this list?”
Xander took the sheet of paper and scanned the neatly written points. “This first one, I don’t know what it’s about, but it has to happen,” he said decisively. “I have a feeling about it.”
“It sounds like animal possession,” Giles said. He looked sternly at Xander from over his glasses. “Are you certain that this must come to pass?”
“Yeah,” Xander said. “Just, ah, stock up on tranquilizer darts or something. When it happens-don’t banish it. You’ll know what to do.” He realized with a strange jolt that he sounded like Dru. He shook his head and attempted to clarify things. “There’ll be more than just me with this happening, if that makes sense to you. Banish theirs quickly.”
Buffy shrugged. “Tranquilizers, banish some, don’t banish others. Got it. Next?”
Giles huffed at her impatience, but Xander grinned. “I’m on it. Next-vampires. Angel?”
“The ‘blonde woman’ is one of the older members of the Order of Aurelius,” Angel said flatly. “Her name is Darla. She was sired by the Master himself. She’s very dangerous. Buffy, do not go after her by yourself.”
“Any reason why?” she asked flippantly.
Angel stared her down. “She is the immediate head of a branch of the Order that broke off in seventeen fifty-six,” he said. “The youngest Childe in that line has killed two Slayers already, and he’s over two hundred years younger than she is.”
“Okay, I can see teaming up for this one,” she said. She nodded firmly. “Yeah. Teamwork is a good thing.”
“What about the other vampires?” Willow asked. Her face was set in stubborn, mulish lines.
Xander sighed. “You’re my absolute best friend, and I mean it when I say there’s nobody in our school who’s smarter, but Willow-you have to stop with the whole ‘I hate vampires’ thing. They aren’t all the same.”
“They took J-they took him from us,” she said angrily. “You can’t tell me you’re going to defend them? They’re killers.”
“I’m going to play the patently unfair seer card and tell you that I know for a fact that not all vampires are evil,” Xander said softly.
Willow crossed her arms stubbornly.
“Focus, please,” Giles pleaded. “The other vampires, Angel?”
“They aren’t going to be a problem,” Xander said quickly. He forced himself not to back down when all the attention was turned back to him. “No, really. They’re, um. They’re okay…well, not entirely okay, because they’re vampires, but they’re not going to go all ‘grr’ and try to kill everyone.”
“Do they have an agenda?” Giles asked.
Xander shrugged. “They aren’t here now, but they’re probably just going to come and visit family.”
Angel added under his breath so that only Xander could hear, “And get drunk, and pick fights, and turn animals, and cheat at cards, and brew tea with holy water, and read my books in the bathtub.”
“Visit family?” Buffy said blankly.
“Vampires have families?” Willow added. She looked skeptical.
Angel shook his head at their ignorance, and Giles spoke up uneasily.
“Yes, Willow, vampires have families. Older vampires in particular can be very clannish, and keep track of the whereabouts of their Childer and their Sires out of familial affection.”
“So…these other two are just on a family reunion road trip?” Buffy said. She looked at Angel and Xander. “That’s pretty weird.”
Xander unconsciously echoed Angel’s words from earlier in the evening. “It’s the Hellmouth, Buff. Compared to some stuff, that’s kind of minor.”
“True. Hey, we doing school tomorrow? I’m going to need some help with history, if anyone’s up for a good study session later tonight.”
Giles closed his eyes wearily. “Are we going to finish discussing this list tonight?”
“Nope,” Buffy said cheerfully. “Sorry, Giles. My library tolerance period just ran out. Willow? My place?”
“Sure,” she said quickly. She stood and shot an unreadable look at Xander. “Let’s go.”
Xander watched the girls walk out the door before turning back to Giles and Angel. “Sorry, man, but we have to walk back to his place.” He yawned. “And like Buffy said, I have to ‘do school’ tomorrow. Do you mind if I stop by during lunch or something to finish talking with you?”
Giles flapped a hand at them, resigned. “Go on. I’ll keep looking at your list.”
Angel and Xander stood up from the table and walked silently to the door.
“I told you it would be okay,” Angel said as soon as they were outside the library.
“Yeah, yeah, says you right now,” Xander retorted. “Wait until Giles does enough digging on Darla and her line.”
Angel seemed to draw into himself at Xander’s words. “Where’d you hear that?”
“It wasn’t hard to put together,” Xander said. “For someone who tries to be cryptic, you aren’t very good at it. Giles is going to figure it out, and we’re going to be in trouble.”
“You worry too much,” Angel said. He reached out to mess up Xander’s hair again, and Xander ducked, grinning.
“I worry enough, thanks.”
They walked along quietly for a while, listening to their footfalls and the noises of the streets around them.
“What did Dru have to say?” Angel said finally.
Xander perked up. “Lots,” he said. “It was so cool. I couldn’t believe I could see her. I mean, she was just sitting there talking to me. Weird or what? So, yeah, she had a lot to tell me.”
And he spun out the story over the long city blocks to his fascinated audience of one.
Welcome to the family. That’s what she said. He smiled, and then grinned when Angel smiled back. Maybe things are looking up.
**
In an abandoned barn a mile outside of Děčín, a lazy midnight conversation began once again. Shadows streaked the walls, bleaching wood and painting hay bales white in the moonlight. The beautiful, bloody couple lay on blankets in the darkest shadow and promised one another the world.
A giggle rang out through the rafters.
“I’m serious, love. When we get to Prague, I’ll take you wherever you like.” The man stretched on his makeshift bed and pulled the woman tightly to his side. “Midnight concerts, posh hotels, museums…anywhere that strikes your fancy.”
The woman looked up at her companion with dark, hazy eyes. “Will you take me to the doll shops, Spike? They make such pretty dolls.”
Spike laughed quietly. “Yeah, Dru. I’ll take you to the doll shops, too.”
Dru stared out across the barn. A frown creased her pale forehead. “Everyone is deaf. Nobody hears what the stars say.”
“Nobody but you,” Spike responded. “You hear them just fine, don’t you, love? You have special ears.”
“The stars and moon and wind and blood all taste like the same thing,” she said. She turned back to Spike and smiled at him. “They taste different than before. Something happened.”
Spike sat up. “What’s that then? What happened?”
She shook her head and giggled again. “It happened yesterday, Spike, and it happened-years after tomorrow. Poor boy. What a pretty kitten he is, so bright and sharp and happy, with all the darkness in his eye.”
“We going to meet this kitten of yours?” Spike asked. He looked at her with jealousy and hunger.
“Mm, my sweet Spike. He is my kitten,” she purred and scratched at his shoulder playfully. “Grr! A lovely boy, all in that lovely eye. But he is mine for the dreams. We can taste starlight together and see something special.”
“Where’s your boy going to be when we find him?”
Dru pulled him down onto the blankets beside her. “He will know us. We won’t need to search at all. Everything is pulling, pushing, sending us where we must go-and we must go, Spike. It must happen.”
He kissed her, hard and angry, tasting the blood still lingering on her tongue from the hour previous. “Must happen, huh? Lead on, princess. You know I’ll follow you anywhere.”
She ran a hand through his cropped hair, staring at the bright glow of near white in the dark of the shadows. “He came back for you, dear Spike. My dark kitten dreams of pain and blood and campfires in ancient places, but he doesn’t know.”
“Yeah? Tell me,” he said. His anger toward the mysterious ‘dark kitten’ receded at her words. “Let’s have a story, Dru.”
“Once upon a time, in a kingdom that sits on Hell’s lips, a brave, smart, dark boy was born. His mummy and daddy didn’t love him enough. They forgot their boy, and he became braver and smarter on his own.”
Spike stared up at the rafters, lost in her words.
“He had two lovely friends. Like little kittens, all of them, bouncing and playing and snuggling and fighting. One was a pretty ginger kitten, with more spark than anyone knew. The other was feisty and brown and so loyal.” She poked Spike’s side. “You must remember these kittens, Spike. They will be important later.”
“Yes, Dru,” he said obediently.
Teeth flashed in the dark as she yawned. “Remind me to tell you more tomorrow. I have to dream tonight. I have to be with him.”
“Whatever you say, love,” Spike murmured.
Before she slipped off to sleep, she whispered in his ear, “Don’t be jealous. He came back for you.”
Rusted out shells of ancient Soviet farm equipment bore witness to Spike’s sleepless night. They guarded the door of the abandoned barn, threshing teeth and jagged wheels looking strangely…demonic, almost, in the moonlight.
"He came back for you." Spike wished that sometimes Dru were just a tiny bit saner, because he didn't understand what she was saying in the slightest.
Xander fidgeted nervously when the clock switched to five-forty. “Heh. Five minutes left.” He stood and pulled his new blue sweatshirt on over his head. “I have a great idea. Why don’t we skip the show and tell at the library tonight? We could, um, go out for pizza. Or something. I really don’t think this is the greatest idea.”
Angel let his muscles relax just enough to shrug slightly. “We have to tell them about your dreams,” he pointed out. “You could know something useful.”
“Yeah, but-” He risked a peek at the clock again. Damn. Four minutes to sunset. “The freaky dream thing isn’t what has me all bugged. I don’t want any more of my friends to go up in a cloud of dust, okay? If we tell them about me, something’s bound to slip out about you.”
“Don’t worry,” Angel said. He stood as well, and Xander silently handed him his coat. “I’ve been around for two hundred and forty-some years, kid. I can lie with the best of them-and I can protect myself if things do get out of hand.”
“Not reassured, Deadboy,” Xander muttered, following his new friend to the door of the apartment. “In a perfect world, my friends don’t have to worry about lying or killing each other.”
Angel grimaced at the nickname and opened the door. “Yeah, well, it’s not exactly a perfect world.” He waited until Xander reluctantly joined him in the hall outside the apartment before turning back and locking it. “It’s the Hellmouth. Your worries are pretty minor compared to some.”
“Right,” Xander said dryly. “Still not feeling the reassurance. And, you know what? If you see a stake coming at you, do me a favor and duck. Please.”
Something in his voice must have caught Angel’s attention, because the vampire stopped and met his eyes squarely. “I won’t get dusted. You aren’t going to lose another friend that way. Not tonight.”
Xander shifted uncomfortably and started walking toward the elevator, Angel matching his quick strides step for step. The look in Angel’s eyes was something he didn’t want to analyze too closely. It came too close to what he’d always hoped he’d have from his dad-pride, warmth…protection.
“Yeah, well,” he muttered. “I can’t lose my roommate. You’re paying the rent, after all.”
Angel’s small, knowing smile told him his words meant nothing to a guy who could read between the lines.
They rode the elevator down in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. Xander was surprised at how comfortable he was with the lack of words-but then, he had never known anyone who was as content without talking as Angel.
He enjoyed the quiet for a while, all the way out of the elevator and through the doors of the apartment complex. The fading light of dusk lit the buildings and sidewalks, and Angel looked up into the sky and smiled.
“This is my favorite time of day,” he said. He and Xander turned the corner and began the long walk to the high school, their long legs eating up the pavement beneath their feet. “The light is so beautiful at this hour out in the countryside, and at the beach. Everything’s red and purple, right before the night takes over.”
Xander nodded in understanding. “My favorite is that half hour or so right before the sun rises,” he offered. “I’m usually way too lazy to see it, but, uh, there’s a couple times a year that I’m awake for it.” It makes a nice Christmas present, he thought.
“Not many vampires get a chance to appreciate it either,” Angel said. “We’re all too busy watching for that gray-blue light to warn us to head indoors to sit and admire its beauty.” He smiled slightly at Xander’s questioning look. “I’m not just a big scary vampire,” he said jokingly, but his face was serious. “Most of us have more balls than brains, I’ll admit, but I was a Childe of a proper order. Even if my Sire and I left the order, we were still more than demons. There’s always been a superiority complex in our clan.”
“Lots of book smarts, huh?” Xander said.
“Lots of book smarts,” Angel confirmed. “My Childe turned a poet, once.” He chuckled. “Not that he was any good, mind you, but he was Oxford educated. If you met him now, you’d hardly know it.”
“So, you have this whole family out there, I guess,” Xander said wistfully. “Do you miss them? Do you ever see them?”
Angel’s sharp eyes were entirely too perceptive once again. “When you’ve lived for over a century or two, you learn to trust your judgment,” he said instead of answering. “We make our own families-we pick our siblings and children in the space of minutes. It’s instinct.”
Xander turned the words over in his mind. He couldn’t-no. But. He wouldn’t tell me unless-
He stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk and cursed his awkwardly long arms and legs. He really meant it. And that means-
“Think I’ll get to meet the rest of the family?” he said brightly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Angel reached out to ruffle his hair. “There are a couple worth meeting,” he said. “Just eat garlic beforehand and you’ll be fine.”
Xander laughed happily. “Cool.”
They lapsed back into silence. For the rest of the long walk, Xander snuck peeks at Angel surreptitiously, a goofy smile pasted across his face. Family, huh? Cool. Way cool.
**
“We need to get a car or something, D-Angel,” Xander said, pushing open the door to the library. “I’m thinking this whole walking a mile to school thing isn’t really my thing.”
“I’m not buying a car just so you can be lazy,” Angel replied calmly. “Deal with it.”
Buffy, Willow, and Giles looked up from their discussion at a table in the back.
“Angel?” Buffy said, startled. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to help Xander,” Angel said. He turned to Giles. “Watcher. You didn’t tell them what I told you over the phone?”
Buffy and Willow looked to Giles, who shook his head. “It’s Xander’s place to tell us the news,” he said. “Xander?”
Four pairs of eyes trained themselves on Xander-three inquisitive, one supportive. He walked over to the table and took a seat, grateful of Angel’s quiet presence at his side.
“So,” he said nervously. He grinned at Willow and Buffy. “Long or short version?”
“Long,” his friends chorused eagerly.
“Hoo boy.” Xander rubbed his left eye absentmindedly. “Um. After that thing with the vamps at the Bronze, I went to Angel’s place last night to sleep it all off.” His eye prickled sharply, and he blinked-was he seeing things?
“Go on,” Giles said impatiently.
“Right, Angel’s place,” Xander said. He stared at the bookshelves behind Willow’s head. There hadn’t been a girl standing there when they’d arrived. The brunette tipped him a sly wink and shush-ed him playfully. “He said I could stay with him, so I camped out on his couch, and I had freaky dreams, and he told me we needed to tell you about them.”
He stopped talking to watch the girl walk over and sit next to Willow at the table. She turned big dark eyes toward him, and his breath caught in his chest. Somehow-somehow he knew her.
“Hello, kitten,” she said clearly. Nobody looked her way but Xander.
“Is that it?” Buffy asked. “That’s the long version?”
“Um,” Xander said. He tore his gaze away from the strange, dark girl no one else could see and looked at Buffy. “I’m moving in with Angel. Because of the dreams. He says he’s going to talk my parents into it.”
Willow smiled in satisfaction. “Good,” she said. “So, what now? This is going to come in handy, I guess, but what did you see?”
The dark haired girl spoke again. “Welcome to the family, little one,” she said with a laugh. “You have such a pretty eye. Daddy’s new son can see like his Dru can hear. Isn’t it exciting?”
Xander knew Angel was looking at him-that they were all looking at him, waiting for him to answer Willow’s question. Dru looked at him, too, and clapped her hands in excitement.
“Our poor dark kitten is hiding his sight!” she exclaimed. “Tell them, brother. The stars will scream at your Dru until you stop hiding.”
“I took a note of what he saw,” Angel said when it became apparent Xander wasn’t going to respond. “What I don’t know is what we’re going to try to stop, and what’s going to happen anyway.” He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Giles.
“This is quite a comprehensive list,” Giles said, “although I do wish it came with names and dates.”
“He’s a seer,” Angel said impatiently. “Have you ever met one before? They don’t get visions that you can notarize and cross-reference. It’s all…flashes and sounds. Previews for the big thing.”
Dru giggled. “I was Angel’s first seer,” she confided to Xander in a stage whisper. “He knows all about stars and voices and flashes and sounds. I told him. Now, though….” She frowned. “Now he has a bright spark in him and it makes him sad.”
“What do you mean?” Xander asked impulsively. Dru gasped and clapped her hands in glee.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Angel said.
“Dru?” Xander persisted.
Angel froze. “Is Dru here?” he asked quietly.
Xander nodded to him absently.
“Who’s Dru?” Buffy asked. “And what’s up with the weird staring thing? Is someone supposed to be sitting there?”
“Make his nasty spark stop hurting him,” Dru said seriously. “He’ll lose his spark someday. You saw it. I heard it. It will happen. When it goes away, you will matter most.”
“How?” Xander asked. “I don’t get it.”
“That’s two of us,” Willow said. She looked at the seat next to her uneasily.
Giles coughed to get everyone’s attention. “What I know of seers is that they are highly coveted by many demons,” he said. “We’ll need to protect him.”
Angel shook his head. “He needs to be taught how to protect himself. We can’t teach him to rely on everyone to defend him.”
“And I suppose you’ll train him?” Giles said with some asperity. “He’s a teenage boy, Mr. ‘Angel’. You don’t give sixteen-year-olds extra weapons to go along with their hormones.”
“Pot, kettle,” Angel said. He inclined his head at Buffy. She frowned, thinking she was being insulted, but he gave her one of his small smiles and she relaxed. “Buffy has been Chosen to fight evil on one of the worst places a human being could live. Xander has, for some reason, also been chosen-not as a warrior, but to receive visions. If we want him to stay alive on the Hellmouth, we have to teach him-and Willow here-how to fight.”
“You know how,” Dru said. She smiled and stood up from her seat. “You’re already doing it, kitten. It’s a pretty color near him, now. It doesn’t jangle my head nearly as much.” She leaned across the table and kissed his forehead lightly. “Spike and I will see you soon. Don’t worry, pretty, you don’t have to eat garlic before we come to play.”
Xander watched her fade back into the stacks of books with a sense of relief. His left eye immediately stopped prickling.
“Dru’s gone,” he said. “She says she and Spike are going to come visit us, Angel.”
Angel broke off his argument with Giles and turned back to Xander, worry and concern written across his face. “Did-did she say anything else?”
“Yeah,” he said. He elbowed the vampire in the ribs discreetly. “It’s not stuff I can really talk about…here…you know?”
“Oh,” Angel said. He nodded. “Okay.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Subtlety, thy name is not Xander.” She paused. “Or Angel, for that matter.”
Xander grinned. “Yeah, but where would you be without us?”
“Someplace very boring,” she said.
“If you don’t mind focusing for just a moment,” Giles interrupted. “What do you propose we do with this list?”
Xander took the sheet of paper and scanned the neatly written points. “This first one, I don’t know what it’s about, but it has to happen,” he said decisively. “I have a feeling about it.”
“It sounds like animal possession,” Giles said. He looked sternly at Xander from over his glasses. “Are you certain that this must come to pass?”
“Yeah,” Xander said. “Just, ah, stock up on tranquilizer darts or something. When it happens-don’t banish it. You’ll know what to do.” He realized with a strange jolt that he sounded like Dru. He shook his head and attempted to clarify things. “There’ll be more than just me with this happening, if that makes sense to you. Banish theirs quickly.”
Buffy shrugged. “Tranquilizers, banish some, don’t banish others. Got it. Next?”
Giles huffed at her impatience, but Xander grinned. “I’m on it. Next-vampires. Angel?”
“The ‘blonde woman’ is one of the older members of the Order of Aurelius,” Angel said flatly. “Her name is Darla. She was sired by the Master himself. She’s very dangerous. Buffy, do not go after her by yourself.”
“Any reason why?” she asked flippantly.
Angel stared her down. “She is the immediate head of a branch of the Order that broke off in seventeen fifty-six,” he said. “The youngest Childe in that line has killed two Slayers already, and he’s over two hundred years younger than she is.”
“Okay, I can see teaming up for this one,” she said. She nodded firmly. “Yeah. Teamwork is a good thing.”
“What about the other vampires?” Willow asked. Her face was set in stubborn, mulish lines.
Xander sighed. “You’re my absolute best friend, and I mean it when I say there’s nobody in our school who’s smarter, but Willow-you have to stop with the whole ‘I hate vampires’ thing. They aren’t all the same.”
“They took J-they took him from us,” she said angrily. “You can’t tell me you’re going to defend them? They’re killers.”
“I’m going to play the patently unfair seer card and tell you that I know for a fact that not all vampires are evil,” Xander said softly.
Willow crossed her arms stubbornly.
“Focus, please,” Giles pleaded. “The other vampires, Angel?”
“They aren’t going to be a problem,” Xander said quickly. He forced himself not to back down when all the attention was turned back to him. “No, really. They’re, um. They’re okay…well, not entirely okay, because they’re vampires, but they’re not going to go all ‘grr’ and try to kill everyone.”
“Do they have an agenda?” Giles asked.
Xander shrugged. “They aren’t here now, but they’re probably just going to come and visit family.”
Angel added under his breath so that only Xander could hear, “And get drunk, and pick fights, and turn animals, and cheat at cards, and brew tea with holy water, and read my books in the bathtub.”
“Visit family?” Buffy said blankly.
“Vampires have families?” Willow added. She looked skeptical.
Angel shook his head at their ignorance, and Giles spoke up uneasily.
“Yes, Willow, vampires have families. Older vampires in particular can be very clannish, and keep track of the whereabouts of their Childer and their Sires out of familial affection.”
“So…these other two are just on a family reunion road trip?” Buffy said. She looked at Angel and Xander. “That’s pretty weird.”
Xander unconsciously echoed Angel’s words from earlier in the evening. “It’s the Hellmouth, Buff. Compared to some stuff, that’s kind of minor.”
“True. Hey, we doing school tomorrow? I’m going to need some help with history, if anyone’s up for a good study session later tonight.”
Giles closed his eyes wearily. “Are we going to finish discussing this list tonight?”
“Nope,” Buffy said cheerfully. “Sorry, Giles. My library tolerance period just ran out. Willow? My place?”
“Sure,” she said quickly. She stood and shot an unreadable look at Xander. “Let’s go.”
Xander watched the girls walk out the door before turning back to Giles and Angel. “Sorry, man, but we have to walk back to his place.” He yawned. “And like Buffy said, I have to ‘do school’ tomorrow. Do you mind if I stop by during lunch or something to finish talking with you?”
Giles flapped a hand at them, resigned. “Go on. I’ll keep looking at your list.”
Angel and Xander stood up from the table and walked silently to the door.
“I told you it would be okay,” Angel said as soon as they were outside the library.
“Yeah, yeah, says you right now,” Xander retorted. “Wait until Giles does enough digging on Darla and her line.”
Angel seemed to draw into himself at Xander’s words. “Where’d you hear that?”
“It wasn’t hard to put together,” Xander said. “For someone who tries to be cryptic, you aren’t very good at it. Giles is going to figure it out, and we’re going to be in trouble.”
“You worry too much,” Angel said. He reached out to mess up Xander’s hair again, and Xander ducked, grinning.
“I worry enough, thanks.”
They walked along quietly for a while, listening to their footfalls and the noises of the streets around them.
“What did Dru have to say?” Angel said finally.
Xander perked up. “Lots,” he said. “It was so cool. I couldn’t believe I could see her. I mean, she was just sitting there talking to me. Weird or what? So, yeah, she had a lot to tell me.”
And he spun out the story over the long city blocks to his fascinated audience of one.
Welcome to the family. That’s what she said. He smiled, and then grinned when Angel smiled back. Maybe things are looking up.
**
In an abandoned barn a mile outside of Děčín, a lazy midnight conversation began once again. Shadows streaked the walls, bleaching wood and painting hay bales white in the moonlight. The beautiful, bloody couple lay on blankets in the darkest shadow and promised one another the world.
A giggle rang out through the rafters.
“I’m serious, love. When we get to Prague, I’ll take you wherever you like.” The man stretched on his makeshift bed and pulled the woman tightly to his side. “Midnight concerts, posh hotels, museums…anywhere that strikes your fancy.”
The woman looked up at her companion with dark, hazy eyes. “Will you take me to the doll shops, Spike? They make such pretty dolls.”
Spike laughed quietly. “Yeah, Dru. I’ll take you to the doll shops, too.”
Dru stared out across the barn. A frown creased her pale forehead. “Everyone is deaf. Nobody hears what the stars say.”
“Nobody but you,” Spike responded. “You hear them just fine, don’t you, love? You have special ears.”
“The stars and moon and wind and blood all taste like the same thing,” she said. She turned back to Spike and smiled at him. “They taste different than before. Something happened.”
Spike sat up. “What’s that then? What happened?”
She shook her head and giggled again. “It happened yesterday, Spike, and it happened-years after tomorrow. Poor boy. What a pretty kitten he is, so bright and sharp and happy, with all the darkness in his eye.”
“We going to meet this kitten of yours?” Spike asked. He looked at her with jealousy and hunger.
“Mm, my sweet Spike. He is my kitten,” she purred and scratched at his shoulder playfully. “Grr! A lovely boy, all in that lovely eye. But he is mine for the dreams. We can taste starlight together and see something special.”
“Where’s your boy going to be when we find him?”
Dru pulled him down onto the blankets beside her. “He will know us. We won’t need to search at all. Everything is pulling, pushing, sending us where we must go-and we must go, Spike. It must happen.”
He kissed her, hard and angry, tasting the blood still lingering on her tongue from the hour previous. “Must happen, huh? Lead on, princess. You know I’ll follow you anywhere.”
She ran a hand through his cropped hair, staring at the bright glow of near white in the dark of the shadows. “He came back for you, dear Spike. My dark kitten dreams of pain and blood and campfires in ancient places, but he doesn’t know.”
“Yeah? Tell me,” he said. His anger toward the mysterious ‘dark kitten’ receded at her words. “Let’s have a story, Dru.”
“Once upon a time, in a kingdom that sits on Hell’s lips, a brave, smart, dark boy was born. His mummy and daddy didn’t love him enough. They forgot their boy, and he became braver and smarter on his own.”
Spike stared up at the rafters, lost in her words.
“He had two lovely friends. Like little kittens, all of them, bouncing and playing and snuggling and fighting. One was a pretty ginger kitten, with more spark than anyone knew. The other was feisty and brown and so loyal.” She poked Spike’s side. “You must remember these kittens, Spike. They will be important later.”
“Yes, Dru,” he said obediently.
Teeth flashed in the dark as she yawned. “Remind me to tell you more tomorrow. I have to dream tonight. I have to be with him.”
“Whatever you say, love,” Spike murmured.
Before she slipped off to sleep, she whispered in his ear, “Don’t be jealous. He came back for you.”
Rusted out shells of ancient Soviet farm equipment bore witness to Spike’s sleepless night. They guarded the door of the abandoned barn, threshing teeth and jagged wheels looking strangely…demonic, almost, in the moonlight.
"He came back for you." Spike wished that sometimes Dru were just a tiny bit saner, because he didn't understand what she was saying in the slightest.