Endings and Beginnings 13/? (TEAOW&S)
TITLE: "Endings and Beginnings" 13/?
SERIES: TEAOW&S
AUTHOR:Laure Alexander
EMAIL: lara@sunflower.com
RATING: NC17overall
SPOILERS: Set eighteen then twenty years in the future of the series. If you've never read any of TEAOW&S, you'll be confused.
SUMMARY: For twenty years, the five way bond between the vampires and humans has been strong, the Family has grown close and loving, everything has been right in a world with the Hellmouth closed...until something happens to threaten everything they've built together.
CONTENT:sex, violence overall; a bit of language, angst, a tiny bit of sex, probable blasphemy in this chapter
DISCLAIMER:I don't own Buffy and friends or Buffy the Vampire Slayer; they're owned by Joss Whedon and Fox, I assume. No copyright infringement intended so please don't sue.
A/N: Starts directly after the last chapter because skipping ahead just wasn't working and was making me feel like I was typing through mud.
Not waiting for an answer to his knock, Nicholas slipped into Drusilla's room. The vampiress was awake but still in bed, the palm with the emerald held to her ear. She didn't look his way but addressed him. "It's whispering such things to me, Nick."
"About what?"
"The baby. The shift. The heart. The coming storm."
As thunder crashed outside he took the latter to be literal. "Dru, I had a dream." He didn't want to address it, wanted to shove it aside as some demented fantasy, but it continued to linger.
"Yes, about your childe."
"I don't have visions or get prophetic dreams."
"The Watcher in you lingers," she murmured, turning on her side as he sat next to her on the bed.
"It's not true, Dru. It doesn't make any sense."
"It will."
"No," he shook his head. "I refuse to believe it and it won't come true if I don't let it."
Drusilla frowned. "Everything must happen if we are going to fix things. For the heart to be born. For the world to be safe." As he watched, her eyes went vague. "For the bond to be reforged. All things must pass, must shift down the lines. None of us are forever." Drusilla held up the emerald and Nicholas saw it pulse with energy amongst the swirling black. "The broken heart must be mended. This is a test we mustn't fail. Twenty years of peace will be ended. If we don't accept the nails." Eyes blinking rapidly, she sat up and stared, open mouthed at Nicholas. "Nails."
"What?"
"I finally heard the last phrase." She pressed her fists to her temples and moaned. "The words have been echoing in my head for days now but the last, always elusive."
Frustrated, he kept himself from grabbing her. "What nails, Drusilla?"
"Sacrifice. We have had one. We face four more. " Slowly she dropped her hands and moaned, "We must suffer to save the world."
It hit him then and his eyes widened. "Nails, as in Christ on the cross?"
The slap shocked him. "Don't blaspheme."
Nicholas stared at her, then laughed harshly. "You're completely insane."
"Well, of course I am." Scowling, she pushed him aside and rose from the bed. "Get out. Go do more useless research. Rose is calling."
A phone rang in the distance.
*****
"What does this mean?"
Brushing the sweaty hair off of Willow's forehead, Buffy shook her head. "I have no clue. Rose is calling home to get the research started."
Willow looked down at the baby in her arms and felt a wave of tenderness, love, heartbreak and confusion go through her. "None of our research on any of this is giving us any answers."
"I know. I don't have hopes but we have to try."
"Drusilla's visions are the key."
Buffy refrained from rolling her eyes. She and Willow would never see eye to eye on anything about Drusilla. "You can't rely on those either."
Willow held back her frown, then smiled as little Cat gurgled. "You should go home, take Rose with you. We'll be fine here tonight. I've told the doctor I'm out of here in the morning, unless there are any complications, so I'll call you then."
"Okay, Will. You get some rest." Rising, Buffy leaned down and kissed Willow, then the baby. "You did good."
*****
Buffy found Angel on his throne, brooding. His shirt hung open, revealing the red pentacle over his heart. "Ours all changed, too."
"The instant the baby was born, so Rose said, and also that the infant has one as well. What's fucked up now?"
"No clue." With a sigh she curled onto his lap and rested her tired head on his shoulder. "Giles is on it. He's actually reaching out to the Watcher's Council, not that I expect they'll help since we're all traitorous hellbound sinners here."
"Drusilla's visions are the answer."
She did roll her eyes at him. "You know I don't rely on those damn things."
"She solved the first one."
"We were all in the emerald together, the words were on the wall, it wasn't hard to figure out."
Angel smirked down at her. "I seem to remember you and Willow jumping to the conclusion we needed to have an orgy."
Buffy snorted. "We would have figured it out eventually. How's Conor?" she asked, changing the subject.
"He's okay, I think. We talked for a couple of hours. I took him out of school. There's just too much shit going on."
"Is he still here?"
"Yeah." Their eyes met and gently she stroked his cheek. "I don't know if he'll stay, Buffy."
"Did you forgive him?"
"How could I not? He didn't know the danger Spike has always been in since the first shooting. We kept it quiet for over two decades so he didn't face endless challenges." He looked away, towards the bowl on the mantle. "If there's anyone to blame, it's me. I should never have made him my second with all it entailed."
"How can you say that?"
"The idiot jumped in front of a bullet meant for me," Angel growled harshly as his grief returned with a vengeance. "He did what was expected and what was totally unnecessary."
"And you think even if he'd only been your lover, he wouldn't have done the same thing? Hell, Angel, I was halfway there myself! It was instinctive." She took a deep breath. "No one is to blame. It was a tragic accident."
"Conor blames himself."
"He was desperate. He shouldn't have had a gun, and, believe me, he's in big trouble for that one and I will find out where he got the damn thing, but we've lost Spike. We're losing Willow. We can't lose Conor, too. The Family has to stay strong and united."
"I think he knows that," Angel murmured distantly. "He submitted to me."
Buffy startled, sitting up and staring down at her lover. "What?"
"Knelt, bared his neck for discipline, everything."
"Jesus!"
His eyes found hers, both so full of pain. "It nearly broke me, Buffy. I never want to see him like that again. The demon, it wanted to take him, punish him, but I was so shocked by it all, I was able to take complete control."
"I hope you told him never to do that again."
"I told him he wasn't my childe. He was my son."
Smiling, Buffy cupped his cheeks and leaned down to kiss him. "Let's go to bed."
"I just got up."
"I didn't say 'let's go to sleep'."
He grinned back and swung her into his arms.
*****
"Hi."
Conor looked up from the magazine he was flipping through and pushed himself off his stomach to his feet. "Um, hi."
While they'd spoken on the phone several times since their break up, slipping into his room felt awkward for the first time, but Rose knew they couldn't hide from each other. The house wasn't that big. "I'm glad you came home."
"Are you?"
"For your sake and for the Family. We need to be together."
He frowned sourly. "I'm not sure I'm staying."
"What?"
"Dad and I talked," he shrugged, "But even I can see he's losing it and I'm not sure it's safe for me to be here when that happens."
"If that happens, it's not safe for any of us, but I know enough to know that we all need to be here for him. He's in control, Conor." Her mind flashed back to that moment in the library and knew it was true. Even before Nicholas' interruption, Angel had gotten himself back under control. She wasn't stupid enough to mention that to Conor, though.
Shrugging, Conor changed the subject. "How's your mom and the baby?"
"They're fine, except...Did you hear about her having the mark?"
"Yeah. Weird. And they all went back to normal. Nick's locked himself in the library with his books already and I saw Dru earlier talking to the emerald."
"She's worse than normal," Rose murmured. "I guess, hopefully, we'll have some answers tomorrow night."
"What if the answers are ones we can't live with?"
"What choice do we have?"
*****
Drusilla hunted, Penn at her back, as Angel had mandated she was never to leave the mansion alone. He watched her like a hawk as she drifted between tombstones in Restfield Cemetary, listening to her murmur to the emerald in her hand.
"Can you see him, Christian?"
He looked in the direction she was pointing and saw only graves and weeds, but he kept his mouth shut, letting her babble.
"He's there, waiting for me to solve the riddle and free him." She frowned and leaned against a half-broken sword-bearing stone Angel. "But is it to his final release or something else? We're running out of time. What are the answers?"
As her voice rose in agitation, Penn stepped towards her. "Dru."
"Don't placate me," she snarled, spinning on him for a minute and baring her fangs, then turning back to whatever she was seeing. "He needs me."
"He's dead, Dru. We don't come back from that."
"We're not supposed to love either, remember? We're Aurelians. The rules are different for us."
"He has no body to come back to," he explained patiently.
"It's there somewhere...waiting," was her airy reply as she started down the path. "I'm hungry." And her focus was on the mundane again.
With a sigh of relief, Penn followed her.
*****
Willow dreamed as she hadn't in years. Images flitted through her sleeping mind, at first, memories.
She saw herself in Spike's bed, that first night, her fear and tears giving way to mind-blowing pleasure at his oddly gentle hands.
She felt that first bite, the eroticism of her blood being pulled from her veins, her orgasm overwhelming her, surprising them both.
She tasted the fear and bitterness in her mouth as she listened to Giles, trying to make sense of the bond that now tied her to a monster, her heart broken.
She heard Spike's fury as he threatened her, demanding her body when all she wanted was to be free of him.
She smelled the gunpowder and the blood and her own terror as he collapsed at her feet, dying and taking her life with him.
And she saw him strong, smiling at her, taking her hand, kissing her, and crushing the glass beneath his heel as their friends and family celebrated their marriage with them.
Love infused her and, in her sleep, she smiled.
"Have faith, luv. Just have faith. It'll be hard, damn hard, but you're strong."
"I miss you." As she spoke the words, he formed before her eyes, black duster over black jeans and t-shirt--a look he rarely had worn since his first year in Sunnydale. His smile was the same, though--sensual and slightly twisted, but oh so real. She sank into his arms.
And leather turned to velvet and beneath her cheek a heart beat.
*****
Sensing his bed was empty, Angel struggled awake and blinked into the gloom of his bedroom. The clock on the night stand showed him that it was barely past nine in the morning. As a vampire he didn't tend to go to sleep until after dawn and his usual time to awaken was around two in the afternoon. Over the years Buffy had fallen into the same pattern, sleeping while Conor was in school, keeping to the pattern even on the weekends.
So, where was she?
As he grumbled, Buffy came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. "Sorry, did I wake you?"
"What are you doing up?"
"Willow, remember? She said she'd call this morning for me to come get her. I couldn't sleep anyway.".
Sitting up, Angel acknowledge that with a grunt. After making love the night before they'd patrolled until nearly five and then returned home where he'd fallen asleep first while she'd been restless. "Being up at this hour is obscene."
"Go back to sleep." As she made the suggestion, a knock came on the door and she sighed and went to open it. Drusilla stood there, looking as pale as her white cotton nightgown.
"Daddy? I can't sleep. He keeps talking to me and he won't let me sleep." Ignoring Buffy she held out her hand to her sire. "Help me."
Stepping aside, Buffy let the female vampire into the bedroom before moving to her dresser to take out clean clothes. She'd stopped being bothered by Angel's relationship with Drusilla years ago. Before she headed back into the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of Drusilla squirming onto Angel's lap and heard him murmur, "Go on back to your room, Dru. I'll be there in a minute."
A minute later, Angel poked his head into the bathroom and gave her a chagrined look. "Sorry."
Buffy smiled slightly because he really was, and shrugged her acceptance. "It's okay. She's lost her anchor to the world. She needs you."
He denied her unspoken words. "She won't suicide."
"Not if you stop her and the way to stop her is to love her." Walking over to him she rose on her toes and kissed him. "I really am okay with it, Angel."
"I know you are. I'm just not sure I'm up to the task. Spike had a hell of a lot more patience than I do, which is why I gave her to him to begin with."
*****
She'd awakened in tears from the confusing and heart wrenching dream, but also feeling full of Spike's love. Now Willow sat on her hospital bed cradling her baby. The infant was looking up at her with unfocused blue eyes and Willow wondered what color those eyes would turn and if the tuft of light brown hair would remain the same.
She'd never know.
The sorrow was there--it was always there--but she was trying not to dwell on it. She knew her baby, all her children, would be loved and cared for. This little one would know all about her parents, know that they loved her beyond death. There would be stories and pictures.
It would have to be enough.
Settling the baby on her lap, she reached for the phone. It was time to call Buffy to come get her. She had a lot to do on this last day.
Sometime during the coming night the thirtieth day would begin and her sanity would begin to slip.
*****
"I give up." Sighing heavily, Nicholas pushed aside a pile of books and thumped his head down on the table. He'd been up all night trying to figure out what was going on with the marks. After Rose's phone call with the confusing news, he had shoved aside his disturbing dream and dived into research, but there was nothing on multiple marks in the same line.
Along with the marks returning to their normal color, something had changed.
For an hour in the early morning light he'd again sat with Drusilla trying to interpret the disjointed visions that were coming to her in confusing spurts. She still had no details about the sacrifices, and they'd avoided the mention of Christ-like martyrdom. The man in him who had been a Christian found that disturbing.
But what other explanation for 'nails' could there be?
By the time the sun had risen, all he had gleaned was that something had changed.
No. Shifted. That was the word she used and it had other connotations than simple change.
But...what?
"Get some sleep, Nick," Buffy said softly from the door. "We're not going to figure this out."
"We have to." Lifting his head, he ran his fingers through his hair.
"I think the powers that be are simply fucking with us. I hate being a puppet but there doesn't seem to be anything for us to do but let this play out."
"Dru says that the answers are coming."
"Dru also says that there are fairies in the garden and I've checked, there aren't."
Nicholas snorted and pushed himself to his feet. "Are you going to bring Willow and the baby home?"
"Yeah. Her doctor wanted her to stay until this evening but she refused. I think...she wants one last day with her family."
*****
"It's not helping, daddy."
With a groan, Angel stilled and looked down into Drusilla's vacant expression and lost eyes, then moved off of her to his back and tried to will away his erection.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice small as she drew her legs together and tugged down her nightgown. "I keep seeing him, but I can't reach him, and I can't focus on anything else and I thought if you loved me it would help but it isn't and..."
"He's gone, Dru," Angel said more harshly than he should, sitting up and reaching for his pants.
"But I keep seeing him," she wailed, rolling over and burying her tears in her pillow. "Why won't he leave me alone? I can't understand what he wants from me. I try and try and the visions don't make any sense!"
"Willow's coming home soon. She doesn't need to hear you going on and on about Spike." He zipped up his pants and grabbed his shirt.
Rolling back over, Drusilla glared at her sire, then rose to flounce into the bathroom.
Angel growled after her in frustration.
*****
After eating, Nicholas headed to bed and was surprised to find Angel waiting for him in his room. "Sire?"
Angel stopped pacing. "You've been researching again. " But it wasn't an accusation. "Anything?"
"No." Tired, the younger male slumped down on the bed and ran his hands over his face. "This shouldn't have happened. Rose is Willow's successor. The baby is an anomaly."
"Drusilla's visions have her in their grip almost all the time now but none of them make sense."
"She's hinting that they will sometime today."
"Which lends to the theory that they're tied to Willow and her bond with Spike." Angel joined Nicholas on the bed. "Life used to be so simple. Get up, go out, rape a few maidens, slaughter a village."
"Who was it that said we live in interesting times?"
Angel turned to give his second an appraising look. "You should have been asleep hours ago. Tired?"
"Yes, but..." Needing the distraction as much as he could sense his elder did, Nicholas leaned over and kissed Angel.
*****
Buffy peered down at the sleeping baby and brushed the back of her hand over the soft cheek. "Not quite as Winston Churchill looking this morning."
Willow snorted, then settled with Cat into the wheelchair as Buffy picked up her bag. "She's absolutely beautiful."
"Of course she is."
With an orderly pushing the chair, they left the room and Buffy moved up beside Willow and Catherine. "How do you feel this morning?"
"Tired, but okay. I didn't sleep much last night."
"No one did. Nick was up all night um working and was still at it when I left. Angel and Dru are awake, too. Conor and Rose were both still asleep but I think they were up half the night. At least it's Saturday. Your parents took Derek and Thea home with them after school yesterday."
"It's amazing how good of grandparents they are. I talked to both of the kids on the phone this morning and they're coming home this afternoon but I think I'll have them spend the next couple of nights with my parents."
Reaching the car, Buffy took the baby and expertly placed her in her carseat, then waited for Willow to get in the car before joining her and staring the engine. "Do they understand what's going to happen?"
"As much as any of us, I think, but mom has said they, and Rose, too can move in with them whenever I want. I...I don't want them to see me suffering, Buffy."
"Of course not."
"But I also want to be selfish and spend as much time with them as I can."
"That's not selfish, sweetie."
"Speaking of kids, did Conor come home?"
"Yeah, he and Angel talked. I think it went well. According to Angel, they worked through a lot of things."
"Angel does love him." Despite her own differences with the vampire, Willow knew that to be as true as his love for Buffy.
"Yeah, I just wish Conor could see that."
"He's a teenager."
"Are...are you okay with him being home?" Buffy asked hesitantly.
Willow blanked for a moment. "Oh, of course. It's his home. He...I don't blame him, Buffy. He didn't know and he was just so scared and confused. We've all done incredibly stupid things in our lives."
"We didn't kill anybody."
"Do you think I don't know the guilt you still feel over every life Angel takes? I feel the same over every person Dru kills because I've never been able to convince her to stop completely. And, yet, we love them and we make excuses and we get on with our lives. Yeah, Conor was directly responsible, but death is death. He'll learn to live with it and hopefully he'll learn from it. Blaming him, being angry at him, is only going to push him away and into darkness. We know that darkness, Buffy. We don't want our kids there."
Slowly Buffy nodded.
End Chapter 13
Okay, I lied, no answers yet...
Next chapter, definitely.
And they're big 'uns!
SERIES: TEAOW&S
AUTHOR:Laure Alexander
EMAIL: lara@sunflower.com
RATING: NC17overall
SPOILERS: Set eighteen then twenty years in the future of the series. If you've never read any of TEAOW&S, you'll be confused.
SUMMARY: For twenty years, the five way bond between the vampires and humans has been strong, the Family has grown close and loving, everything has been right in a world with the Hellmouth closed...until something happens to threaten everything they've built together.
CONTENT:sex, violence overall; a bit of language, angst, a tiny bit of sex, probable blasphemy in this chapter
DISCLAIMER:I don't own Buffy and friends or Buffy the Vampire Slayer; they're owned by Joss Whedon and Fox, I assume. No copyright infringement intended so please don't sue.
A/N: Starts directly after the last chapter because skipping ahead just wasn't working and was making me feel like I was typing through mud.
Not waiting for an answer to his knock, Nicholas slipped into Drusilla's room. The vampiress was awake but still in bed, the palm with the emerald held to her ear. She didn't look his way but addressed him. "It's whispering such things to me, Nick."
"About what?"
"The baby. The shift. The heart. The coming storm."
As thunder crashed outside he took the latter to be literal. "Dru, I had a dream." He didn't want to address it, wanted to shove it aside as some demented fantasy, but it continued to linger.
"Yes, about your childe."
"I don't have visions or get prophetic dreams."
"The Watcher in you lingers," she murmured, turning on her side as he sat next to her on the bed.
"It's not true, Dru. It doesn't make any sense."
"It will."
"No," he shook his head. "I refuse to believe it and it won't come true if I don't let it."
Drusilla frowned. "Everything must happen if we are going to fix things. For the heart to be born. For the world to be safe." As he watched, her eyes went vague. "For the bond to be reforged. All things must pass, must shift down the lines. None of us are forever." Drusilla held up the emerald and Nicholas saw it pulse with energy amongst the swirling black. "The broken heart must be mended. This is a test we mustn't fail. Twenty years of peace will be ended. If we don't accept the nails." Eyes blinking rapidly, she sat up and stared, open mouthed at Nicholas. "Nails."
"What?"
"I finally heard the last phrase." She pressed her fists to her temples and moaned. "The words have been echoing in my head for days now but the last, always elusive."
Frustrated, he kept himself from grabbing her. "What nails, Drusilla?"
"Sacrifice. We have had one. We face four more. " Slowly she dropped her hands and moaned, "We must suffer to save the world."
It hit him then and his eyes widened. "Nails, as in Christ on the cross?"
The slap shocked him. "Don't blaspheme."
Nicholas stared at her, then laughed harshly. "You're completely insane."
"Well, of course I am." Scowling, she pushed him aside and rose from the bed. "Get out. Go do more useless research. Rose is calling."
A phone rang in the distance.
*****
"What does this mean?"
Brushing the sweaty hair off of Willow's forehead, Buffy shook her head. "I have no clue. Rose is calling home to get the research started."
Willow looked down at the baby in her arms and felt a wave of tenderness, love, heartbreak and confusion go through her. "None of our research on any of this is giving us any answers."
"I know. I don't have hopes but we have to try."
"Drusilla's visions are the key."
Buffy refrained from rolling her eyes. She and Willow would never see eye to eye on anything about Drusilla. "You can't rely on those either."
Willow held back her frown, then smiled as little Cat gurgled. "You should go home, take Rose with you. We'll be fine here tonight. I've told the doctor I'm out of here in the morning, unless there are any complications, so I'll call you then."
"Okay, Will. You get some rest." Rising, Buffy leaned down and kissed Willow, then the baby. "You did good."
*****
Buffy found Angel on his throne, brooding. His shirt hung open, revealing the red pentacle over his heart. "Ours all changed, too."
"The instant the baby was born, so Rose said, and also that the infant has one as well. What's fucked up now?"
"No clue." With a sigh she curled onto his lap and rested her tired head on his shoulder. "Giles is on it. He's actually reaching out to the Watcher's Council, not that I expect they'll help since we're all traitorous hellbound sinners here."
"Drusilla's visions are the answer."
She did roll her eyes at him. "You know I don't rely on those damn things."
"She solved the first one."
"We were all in the emerald together, the words were on the wall, it wasn't hard to figure out."
Angel smirked down at her. "I seem to remember you and Willow jumping to the conclusion we needed to have an orgy."
Buffy snorted. "We would have figured it out eventually. How's Conor?" she asked, changing the subject.
"He's okay, I think. We talked for a couple of hours. I took him out of school. There's just too much shit going on."
"Is he still here?"
"Yeah." Their eyes met and gently she stroked his cheek. "I don't know if he'll stay, Buffy."
"Did you forgive him?"
"How could I not? He didn't know the danger Spike has always been in since the first shooting. We kept it quiet for over two decades so he didn't face endless challenges." He looked away, towards the bowl on the mantle. "If there's anyone to blame, it's me. I should never have made him my second with all it entailed."
"How can you say that?"
"The idiot jumped in front of a bullet meant for me," Angel growled harshly as his grief returned with a vengeance. "He did what was expected and what was totally unnecessary."
"And you think even if he'd only been your lover, he wouldn't have done the same thing? Hell, Angel, I was halfway there myself! It was instinctive." She took a deep breath. "No one is to blame. It was a tragic accident."
"Conor blames himself."
"He was desperate. He shouldn't have had a gun, and, believe me, he's in big trouble for that one and I will find out where he got the damn thing, but we've lost Spike. We're losing Willow. We can't lose Conor, too. The Family has to stay strong and united."
"I think he knows that," Angel murmured distantly. "He submitted to me."
Buffy startled, sitting up and staring down at her lover. "What?"
"Knelt, bared his neck for discipline, everything."
"Jesus!"
His eyes found hers, both so full of pain. "It nearly broke me, Buffy. I never want to see him like that again. The demon, it wanted to take him, punish him, but I was so shocked by it all, I was able to take complete control."
"I hope you told him never to do that again."
"I told him he wasn't my childe. He was my son."
Smiling, Buffy cupped his cheeks and leaned down to kiss him. "Let's go to bed."
"I just got up."
"I didn't say 'let's go to sleep'."
He grinned back and swung her into his arms.
*****
"Hi."
Conor looked up from the magazine he was flipping through and pushed himself off his stomach to his feet. "Um, hi."
While they'd spoken on the phone several times since their break up, slipping into his room felt awkward for the first time, but Rose knew they couldn't hide from each other. The house wasn't that big. "I'm glad you came home."
"Are you?"
"For your sake and for the Family. We need to be together."
He frowned sourly. "I'm not sure I'm staying."
"What?"
"Dad and I talked," he shrugged, "But even I can see he's losing it and I'm not sure it's safe for me to be here when that happens."
"If that happens, it's not safe for any of us, but I know enough to know that we all need to be here for him. He's in control, Conor." Her mind flashed back to that moment in the library and knew it was true. Even before Nicholas' interruption, Angel had gotten himself back under control. She wasn't stupid enough to mention that to Conor, though.
Shrugging, Conor changed the subject. "How's your mom and the baby?"
"They're fine, except...Did you hear about her having the mark?"
"Yeah. Weird. And they all went back to normal. Nick's locked himself in the library with his books already and I saw Dru earlier talking to the emerald."
"She's worse than normal," Rose murmured. "I guess, hopefully, we'll have some answers tomorrow night."
"What if the answers are ones we can't live with?"
"What choice do we have?"
*****
Drusilla hunted, Penn at her back, as Angel had mandated she was never to leave the mansion alone. He watched her like a hawk as she drifted between tombstones in Restfield Cemetary, listening to her murmur to the emerald in her hand.
"Can you see him, Christian?"
He looked in the direction she was pointing and saw only graves and weeds, but he kept his mouth shut, letting her babble.
"He's there, waiting for me to solve the riddle and free him." She frowned and leaned against a half-broken sword-bearing stone Angel. "But is it to his final release or something else? We're running out of time. What are the answers?"
As her voice rose in agitation, Penn stepped towards her. "Dru."
"Don't placate me," she snarled, spinning on him for a minute and baring her fangs, then turning back to whatever she was seeing. "He needs me."
"He's dead, Dru. We don't come back from that."
"We're not supposed to love either, remember? We're Aurelians. The rules are different for us."
"He has no body to come back to," he explained patiently.
"It's there somewhere...waiting," was her airy reply as she started down the path. "I'm hungry." And her focus was on the mundane again.
With a sigh of relief, Penn followed her.
*****
Willow dreamed as she hadn't in years. Images flitted through her sleeping mind, at first, memories.
She saw herself in Spike's bed, that first night, her fear and tears giving way to mind-blowing pleasure at his oddly gentle hands.
She felt that first bite, the eroticism of her blood being pulled from her veins, her orgasm overwhelming her, surprising them both.
She tasted the fear and bitterness in her mouth as she listened to Giles, trying to make sense of the bond that now tied her to a monster, her heart broken.
She heard Spike's fury as he threatened her, demanding her body when all she wanted was to be free of him.
She smelled the gunpowder and the blood and her own terror as he collapsed at her feet, dying and taking her life with him.
And she saw him strong, smiling at her, taking her hand, kissing her, and crushing the glass beneath his heel as their friends and family celebrated their marriage with them.
Love infused her and, in her sleep, she smiled.
"Have faith, luv. Just have faith. It'll be hard, damn hard, but you're strong."
"I miss you." As she spoke the words, he formed before her eyes, black duster over black jeans and t-shirt--a look he rarely had worn since his first year in Sunnydale. His smile was the same, though--sensual and slightly twisted, but oh so real. She sank into his arms.
And leather turned to velvet and beneath her cheek a heart beat.
*****
Sensing his bed was empty, Angel struggled awake and blinked into the gloom of his bedroom. The clock on the night stand showed him that it was barely past nine in the morning. As a vampire he didn't tend to go to sleep until after dawn and his usual time to awaken was around two in the afternoon. Over the years Buffy had fallen into the same pattern, sleeping while Conor was in school, keeping to the pattern even on the weekends.
So, where was she?
As he grumbled, Buffy came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. "Sorry, did I wake you?"
"What are you doing up?"
"Willow, remember? She said she'd call this morning for me to come get her. I couldn't sleep anyway.".
Sitting up, Angel acknowledge that with a grunt. After making love the night before they'd patrolled until nearly five and then returned home where he'd fallen asleep first while she'd been restless. "Being up at this hour is obscene."
"Go back to sleep." As she made the suggestion, a knock came on the door and she sighed and went to open it. Drusilla stood there, looking as pale as her white cotton nightgown.
"Daddy? I can't sleep. He keeps talking to me and he won't let me sleep." Ignoring Buffy she held out her hand to her sire. "Help me."
Stepping aside, Buffy let the female vampire into the bedroom before moving to her dresser to take out clean clothes. She'd stopped being bothered by Angel's relationship with Drusilla years ago. Before she headed back into the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of Drusilla squirming onto Angel's lap and heard him murmur, "Go on back to your room, Dru. I'll be there in a minute."
A minute later, Angel poked his head into the bathroom and gave her a chagrined look. "Sorry."
Buffy smiled slightly because he really was, and shrugged her acceptance. "It's okay. She's lost her anchor to the world. She needs you."
He denied her unspoken words. "She won't suicide."
"Not if you stop her and the way to stop her is to love her." Walking over to him she rose on her toes and kissed him. "I really am okay with it, Angel."
"I know you are. I'm just not sure I'm up to the task. Spike had a hell of a lot more patience than I do, which is why I gave her to him to begin with."
*****
She'd awakened in tears from the confusing and heart wrenching dream, but also feeling full of Spike's love. Now Willow sat on her hospital bed cradling her baby. The infant was looking up at her with unfocused blue eyes and Willow wondered what color those eyes would turn and if the tuft of light brown hair would remain the same.
She'd never know.
The sorrow was there--it was always there--but she was trying not to dwell on it. She knew her baby, all her children, would be loved and cared for. This little one would know all about her parents, know that they loved her beyond death. There would be stories and pictures.
It would have to be enough.
Settling the baby on her lap, she reached for the phone. It was time to call Buffy to come get her. She had a lot to do on this last day.
Sometime during the coming night the thirtieth day would begin and her sanity would begin to slip.
*****
"I give up." Sighing heavily, Nicholas pushed aside a pile of books and thumped his head down on the table. He'd been up all night trying to figure out what was going on with the marks. After Rose's phone call with the confusing news, he had shoved aside his disturbing dream and dived into research, but there was nothing on multiple marks in the same line.
Along with the marks returning to their normal color, something had changed.
For an hour in the early morning light he'd again sat with Drusilla trying to interpret the disjointed visions that were coming to her in confusing spurts. She still had no details about the sacrifices, and they'd avoided the mention of Christ-like martyrdom. The man in him who had been a Christian found that disturbing.
But what other explanation for 'nails' could there be?
By the time the sun had risen, all he had gleaned was that something had changed.
No. Shifted. That was the word she used and it had other connotations than simple change.
But...what?
"Get some sleep, Nick," Buffy said softly from the door. "We're not going to figure this out."
"We have to." Lifting his head, he ran his fingers through his hair.
"I think the powers that be are simply fucking with us. I hate being a puppet but there doesn't seem to be anything for us to do but let this play out."
"Dru says that the answers are coming."
"Dru also says that there are fairies in the garden and I've checked, there aren't."
Nicholas snorted and pushed himself to his feet. "Are you going to bring Willow and the baby home?"
"Yeah. Her doctor wanted her to stay until this evening but she refused. I think...she wants one last day with her family."
*****
"It's not helping, daddy."
With a groan, Angel stilled and looked down into Drusilla's vacant expression and lost eyes, then moved off of her to his back and tried to will away his erection.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice small as she drew her legs together and tugged down her nightgown. "I keep seeing him, but I can't reach him, and I can't focus on anything else and I thought if you loved me it would help but it isn't and..."
"He's gone, Dru," Angel said more harshly than he should, sitting up and reaching for his pants.
"But I keep seeing him," she wailed, rolling over and burying her tears in her pillow. "Why won't he leave me alone? I can't understand what he wants from me. I try and try and the visions don't make any sense!"
"Willow's coming home soon. She doesn't need to hear you going on and on about Spike." He zipped up his pants and grabbed his shirt.
Rolling back over, Drusilla glared at her sire, then rose to flounce into the bathroom.
Angel growled after her in frustration.
*****
After eating, Nicholas headed to bed and was surprised to find Angel waiting for him in his room. "Sire?"
Angel stopped pacing. "You've been researching again. " But it wasn't an accusation. "Anything?"
"No." Tired, the younger male slumped down on the bed and ran his hands over his face. "This shouldn't have happened. Rose is Willow's successor. The baby is an anomaly."
"Drusilla's visions have her in their grip almost all the time now but none of them make sense."
"She's hinting that they will sometime today."
"Which lends to the theory that they're tied to Willow and her bond with Spike." Angel joined Nicholas on the bed. "Life used to be so simple. Get up, go out, rape a few maidens, slaughter a village."
"Who was it that said we live in interesting times?"
Angel turned to give his second an appraising look. "You should have been asleep hours ago. Tired?"
"Yes, but..." Needing the distraction as much as he could sense his elder did, Nicholas leaned over and kissed Angel.
*****
Buffy peered down at the sleeping baby and brushed the back of her hand over the soft cheek. "Not quite as Winston Churchill looking this morning."
Willow snorted, then settled with Cat into the wheelchair as Buffy picked up her bag. "She's absolutely beautiful."
"Of course she is."
With an orderly pushing the chair, they left the room and Buffy moved up beside Willow and Catherine. "How do you feel this morning?"
"Tired, but okay. I didn't sleep much last night."
"No one did. Nick was up all night um working and was still at it when I left. Angel and Dru are awake, too. Conor and Rose were both still asleep but I think they were up half the night. At least it's Saturday. Your parents took Derek and Thea home with them after school yesterday."
"It's amazing how good of grandparents they are. I talked to both of the kids on the phone this morning and they're coming home this afternoon but I think I'll have them spend the next couple of nights with my parents."
Reaching the car, Buffy took the baby and expertly placed her in her carseat, then waited for Willow to get in the car before joining her and staring the engine. "Do they understand what's going to happen?"
"As much as any of us, I think, but mom has said they, and Rose, too can move in with them whenever I want. I...I don't want them to see me suffering, Buffy."
"Of course not."
"But I also want to be selfish and spend as much time with them as I can."
"That's not selfish, sweetie."
"Speaking of kids, did Conor come home?"
"Yeah, he and Angel talked. I think it went well. According to Angel, they worked through a lot of things."
"Angel does love him." Despite her own differences with the vampire, Willow knew that to be as true as his love for Buffy.
"Yeah, I just wish Conor could see that."
"He's a teenager."
"Are...are you okay with him being home?" Buffy asked hesitantly.
Willow blanked for a moment. "Oh, of course. It's his home. He...I don't blame him, Buffy. He didn't know and he was just so scared and confused. We've all done incredibly stupid things in our lives."
"We didn't kill anybody."
"Do you think I don't know the guilt you still feel over every life Angel takes? I feel the same over every person Dru kills because I've never been able to convince her to stop completely. And, yet, we love them and we make excuses and we get on with our lives. Yeah, Conor was directly responsible, but death is death. He'll learn to live with it and hopefully he'll learn from it. Blaming him, being angry at him, is only going to push him away and into darkness. We know that darkness, Buffy. We don't want our kids there."
Slowly Buffy nodded.
End Chapter 13
Okay, I lied, no answers yet...
Next chapter, definitely.
And they're big 'uns!