(no subject)
For: dramionelurver as part of btvs_santa Christmas ficathon
Title: A Clean Slate
Word count: 7393
Characters: all the Scooby gang, plus Spike
Setting: just after Tabula Rasa, season 6
Pairings: Buffy/Spike, Willow/Tara, Anya/Giles
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: mild language and sexual references
Disclaimers: erm, I have been out of the fanfic game for AGES. Seriously. So I feel a bit rusty. I'm hoping, however, that this offers a reasonably satisfactory re-entry into the game. And, gasp, it's less angsty than a lot of my Spuffy is! I hope that my recipient and other people enjoy reading this, because it was quite a bit of fun to write. Merry Christmas!
Teaser:
“What do you think makes it our work?” said Buffy crossly. “I’m the Slayer, not you.”
“You saw how those vampires acted,” said Spike. “They see us as a team. I’m a traitor to my kind, ostracised because I serve the greater good.”
Buffy rolled her eyes.
“Oh, please. A vampire serving good? What are you, Blade?”
Tara lay down on the bed, pressing her fingers against her aching eyes. She was so tired, but her heart was pounding and she didn’t know if she could ever get to sleep. There was a knot of panic in her stomach. With a soft whimper she turned onto her side, drawing her knees up to her chest. She imagined that tonight had been the strangest of her life. Of course, she couldn’t actually prove that, given that she couldn’t remember anything before this evening, but she thought it was a reasonably safe assumption.
Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Not the assuming part, the not remembering part. She did remember things. She knew how to count. She remembered the plot of Little Women and she unfortunately recollected who the president was. It wasn’t like she was completely a blank slate. But of her own life she knew nothing. When she thought about that for too long it felt as if she were going to slide into a dark pit. Her fingers flexed and clenched, trying to grab on to something to stop her fall. All she really knew was that she was called Tara Maclay, and that she was a student at UC Sunnydale.
For most of the evening, she, Willow, Dawn and Alexander had been concerned with getting to the hospital. When they had finally arrived there, after a terrifying journey through the sewers, the doctors had first laughed and then got angry with them, refusing to believe that they could have collective amnesia. It was a prank that was wasting their time. So they had gone back to the shop, which approaching from street level they found was called The Magic Box, and discovered Anya and Mr Giles in a rather compromising position. That was very embarrassing. Still, Tara reflected, it was nice to see people being happy in love, even if they weren’t sure who they were.
She wasn’t sure she was so lucky. In the sewers, despite all the fear and mayhem, she had looked at Willow and felt something. A kind of electricity. She was sure Willow felt it too, but maybe that was wishful thinking. Besides, Willow was Alex’s girlfriend, or so it seemed. Alex had his address in his wallet and they headed over there. There were girls’ clothes in his bedroom, so Willow presumably lived there. Knowing this made a tight feeling rise in Tara’s chest, which was stupid, because even if she did have feelings for Willow, it wasn’t like she could really remember them.
Returning to the magic shop, they found that Randy and Joan had returned. They had killed off the vampires and scared away a frightening shark-headed creature, they said. Then Randy made a startling announcement. He was a vampire too, but a good one with a soul, or something like that. Then Mr Giles became quite emotional, in a British way, and it was all quite confusing. Meanwhile Anya had found some paperwork with Rupert’s address on it, and so, since it seemed their memory loss was not going to be solved tonight, she and Randy and Mr Giles resolved to go there. That left Dawn, Joan and Tara. Tara found that in her bag there was a letter from her college with an address on it. Ravello Drive.
She told Joan and Dawn that they might as well come with her, as it was getting very late. It took a while to find the house, and it wasn’t what Tara expected. It was a nice family house in a suburb, not an apartment or a student house. Did she still live with her parents? She hoped they wouldn’t mind her bringing friends home.
Entering the house, though, she was met with a shock. There was a photo of Dawn and Joan on a table in the living room. She glanced at Joan and wondered. Was she dating her? Tara didn’t get a very lesbian vibe from Joan, but then, they had all lost their memories.
Upstairs, however, they found evidence that Joan and Tara slept in different rooms. One bedroom was filled with posters and a few stuffed toys, so they assumed it was Dawn’s. In another room there was a stake lying on the desk. The third room had candles and things that looked vaguely occult. Tara wondered if she dabbled in witchcraft at all. But it was all so strange. Why was she living with these people? Were they her sisters? That made the most sense, probably. But where were their parents?
Tara couldn’t think about it anymore, and so lay down on the bed. She hugged a pillow to her chest and pressed her face into it, trying to make her panic subside. Taking a deep breath, she inhaled a soft, heavy smell. Something like beeswax and sandalwood. She was certain that she had smelled a similar scent tonight as she had brushed past Willow. Had Willow slept in this bed? Had Willow slept here with her?
Strangely comforted by this thought, Tara slept.
*
“Move over!” Spike nudged Anya hard in the ribs.
“Ouch! Randy, stop it. And give me back some of the blanket,” she said grumpily, grabbing at the sheets and pulling them over her. Giles sighed.
“Will you two stop bickering? I’m trying to sleep.”
“Yeah, well, tell your girlfriend to stop hogging the bed.”
“No, tell your son to stop stealing the blankets. My feet are cold.”
Giles rubbed a hand across his forehead.
“Son, I told you to sleep on the sofa.”
Spike snorted.
“What, and let you two have sex? I saw the looks you were giving each other on the drive over. Disgusting, it is. She’s young enough to be my little sister! If I was lying on that sofa I’d be able to hear everything. No, I’m staying put, ‘least until we can find out where I live normally. We’re all family, right?” Spike smirked and put his hands behind his head, elbowing Anya in the face in the process. Giles sighed and rolled onto his side, away from his bickering fiancee and son. He didn’t imagine that he would be getting much rest tonight.
*
At the Harris house, Xander was already asleep, his face pressed into the pillow. Willow sat in a chair on the other side of the room, watching him. Was this really her life? Was she living with this guy? It didn’t feel right. The clothes in the wardrobe looked about the right size, but the bras she found in a chest of drawers looked a little big. Willow had taken a peek at her own chest and didn’t think she was raising much more than an A cup. And the clothes, whilst about the right size for someone of her slim frame, just didn’t seem like her style. That was stupid. She didn’t know what her style was, and the black shirt and jeans she was currently wearing weren’t much of a giveaway. She just thought she might dress more like… She sighed. She supposed she thought she might dress more like Tara.
Why was it every time she thought about Tara, her heart gave a little thump? Did they have a history? And if so, why was she here, with this guy Alexander? In an unguarded moment she’d said to Dawn that she thought she was “kinda gay”. It would be funny if she’d been in the closet for years and hadn’t wanted anyone to know. Maybe Alex was a, what was the term, a beard? Was that right? She didn’t know. That was the crux of the problem - she didn’t know anything about these people. But she did still know words like “crux” and “antidisestablishmentarianism” and “polymorphonuclear”, which at least suggested her college education wasn’t going completely to waste.
Willow got up and opened a drawer. There were night things in there. Lots of slinky little nighties and silk vests. At the bottom of the drawer she found a pair of pink pyjamas, which were silk but not particularly sexy. She stepped into the bathroom to put them on, afraid that Alex might wake up. If they really were dating, this was probably a stupid thing to be worried about, but never mind. She headed back into the bedroom, looked at Xander, and shook her head. She just couldn’t get into bed with him. Instead she walked through into the living room. This apartment was a nice place. Whatever Alex was doing, she mused, it was obviously paying quite well. Then she lay down on the sofa and eventually, as the sun rose, managed to sleep.
*
Buffy sat cross-legged on her bed. The house was completely quiet. Moonlight streamed through a gap in the curtains, bathing her in a pale light. She held her hand up; in the moonlight it looked white. Like the skin of the vampires she’d slain. Like Randy’s.
Her skin prickled slightly as she thought about him. She didn’t know why. Okay, he was good looking, even if his hair was dated. But he was a vampire, so she certainly couldn’t be attracted to him, could she? That would be wrong for a vampire hunter. Killer. Slayer. Slayer. She liked that word. Vampire slayer. Yeah, that sounded like a pretty neat title.
“Joan the Vampire Slayer,” she said under her breath, testing it out. That seemed to work. But that momentary distraction wasn’t enough to rid her of this strangely restless feeling. It wasn’t just Randy - and what kind of lame name was that? - but everything. She didn’t know how Tara and Dawn seemed to have gone to sleep so easily. Buffy felt wired. Like she could run a marathon. Maybe she could. It seemed like she was wicked strong, after all. There was no point trying to sleep. She needed to do something.
With sudden determination, Buffy stood up and slipped out of her pyjamas and back into her clothes. She opened the window and climbed out, shimmying down the tree so easily that it seemed that maybe, just maybe, she had done this before.
*
Spike had given up on sleep when Anya started snoring. Silly bint; he didn’t know how his dad stood it. He glanced over at Giles, who was asleep with his mouth open. He smiled sourly. The little tart had probably tired his old man out earlier. Now that was an unpleasant thought. Still, he thought, at least he hadn’t had to listen to any of that going on tonight. No wonder he felt this vague sense of annoyance whenever he looked at Giles; he must be aggrieved about his dad hanging out with this girl who seemed about twenty. No doubt, Spike mused, he’d had a string of them throughout his son’s childhood. Maybe that would explain his complete lapse in taste when naming him. Randy. What kind of sodding joke of a name was that? The boys at school must have ribbed him something rotten. Maybe that was why he’d got himself turned into a vampire. Wanted to show the old man up. But he’d found his heart wasn’t in the killing and so had sought out redemption.
Nah, thought Spike, quietly slipping out from between the two sleepers. That had a cheesy ring to it. Being a vampire-turned-vigilante sounded quite cool, though. He could live with that. Not that he was, well, alive. That would take some getting used to. When they’d got back to the house, he’d stood for a full ten minutes in the bathroom, staring at his lack of reflection. Bloody weird, it was. Had no idea what he looked like, for one thing. Anya assured him that there was a “rugged resemblance” between him and his old man, but that wasn’t much to go on. Dawn had said earlier that she thought his hair was “kinda cool”, whatever that meant. Spike put a hand to his hair gingerly. It was slicked back, that much he could tell. With a quick tug he pulled a strand loose. Wincing, he stared at it. White. No. Peroxide blond. Well. That was quite something.
He was distracted from musing on this, however, by a more pressing concern. His stomach gurgled hard. He was hungry. And he reckoned he’d better do something about it.
*
Buffy walked along Sunnydale’s main street, kicking an empty cola can. It had been an interesting night, but she’d been hoping to find some more action. So far, however, the streets were quiet and there didn’t seem to be any evil afoot. She felt kind of bad for wishing there was some going on, but she figured that if she was the Slayer (that really was a cool name) it was in her blood.
Speaking of which… Buffy noticed spots of blood on the sidewalk in front of her. She became aware of her pulse quickening and her senses heightening. She took a moment to recognise how awesome that was, and then let her Slayer instincts take over. The drops of blood led from the doorway of a butcher shop, which was ajar. She pushed it open quietly and looked around, but the place was deserted. She returned to the street. The blood drops continued for several metres, before disappearing into an alleyway.
Buffy’s hand reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a stake. Slowly, silently, she advanced into the darkness. Her pulse beat faster, and she became aware that someone was watching her. She stopped, raising her weapon, and someone rushed at her, knocking her to the ground. Before she could react, the figure gave a loud shout of pain and rolled off her. Buffy pinned her assailant to the ground and raised her stake.
“Joan?”
Buffy’s eyes, slowly adjusting to the darkness, peered down.
“Randy?” she said. “What the hell are you doing?” She looked down and noticed a dark stain that was spreading. “Oh my God, did I hurt you?” she gasped, jumping up immediately. Spike looked down at his shirt.
“Oh. No.” He held up an empty plastic bag with a slightly shamefaced expression. “Er. Blood. I…borrowed it from the butcher’s.”
“Blood? Why did you… Oh. Gross.” Buffy felt her pulse returning to normal, and silently chastised herself for being so concerned about Randy’s welfare. He was a vampire, after all. Maybe he fought for good, but that should just earn him her toleration, not her concern.
“Hey,” said Spike defensively. “Fellow’s got to eat, an’ it’s not like anyone was offering up their neck. Not that I would’ve taken it, anyway,” he added hastily, noticing Buffy’s expression.
“So why did you shout like that when you landed on me? Which, by the way, ow,” said Buffy, folding her arms.
“Dunno,” said Spike, standing up and rubbing his head with a puzzled expression. “It just…hurt. When I hurt you. In here.” He tapped his temple. “What d’you reckon it means?”
“I have no idea,” said Buffy. “And I should be going home,” she added, stepping out of the alleyway.
“Hey, hold up a minute,” said Spike, following her hastily, buttoning his jacket over his stained shirt. He looked down at the brown suit and shook his head. He really had to find better clothes. Maybe the old Randy wore this, but he didn’t reckon he liked his sense of style. “What’s your rush, love?”
“I’m not your love,” said Buffy primly, “and I’m not rushing. It’s just late.” She didn’t want to say that being in Spike’s company was making her feel strangely on edge, like the wind had been knocked out of her.
“It was late before you came out for a midnight stroll, I reckon,” observed Spike, “an’ I’m wondering why you left your nice cosy bed anyway.” For some reason the word bed made him swallow as he said it. Buffy felt his gaze moving across her and she zipped up her coat defensively, as if that could hide her from him.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said shortly. Spike nodded.
“Me neither. Reckon we’re a pair of night owls, you an’ me, pet. Probably when we do most of our work.”
“What do you think makes it our work?” said Buffy crossly. “I’m the Slayer, not you.”
“You saw how those vampires acted,” said Spike. “They see us as a team. I’m a traitor to my kind, ostracised because I serve the greater good.”
Buffy rolled her eyes.
“Oh, please. A vampire serving good? What are you, Blade?”
“Reckon so, pet. Otherwise why do we spend so much time together? Unless…” Spike cocked his head to one side and looked her up and down. Buffy swallowed hard.
“Unless what?”
“Unless your interest in me is less professional and more personal.” He grinned, a wide, mischievous smile, and Buffy felt her stomach tighten.
“Yeah, right,” she said, and turned to go. As she walked away, she shot a final comment over her shoulder. “Like I would ever date a guy called Randy.”
Spike watched her walk down the street, grinning to himself.
“Reckon that might be a challenge, pet,” he said softly, and started to walk home, feeling suddenly, inexplicably, a whole lot more cheerful.
*
The next morning, after a couple of hours of sleep, Buffy started her day with an argument with her little sister. It felt weirdly familiar. Dawn was refusing point blank to go to school.
“I don’t remember anything. Don’t you think people will realise? They’ll think I’m a complete freak!!” she said, her voice rising dangerously close to a shriek.
“Fine,” said Buffy, pressing a hand to her eyes. “You can stay home. But only today. Education is important,” she added, feeling she should say something parental. Why was she in charge? Where were their parents? And shouldn’t she be at college or work or something herself? She’d looked in her closet and found a bunch of textbooks, but they were boxed up. Surely she wasn’t old enough to have graduated? Or maybe she’d dropped out. God, that would be embarrassing.
“Um, Tara?” she said, wondering if the quiet blonde was really her sister. “Did you say you noticed a number for Dawn’s school on the noticeboard?”
“Y-yes, Joan, it’s right here,” Tara said, putting down her cereal spoon.
“Oh, great. Can you call them and say Dawn can’t come in today?”
“B-but what will I, um, say?”
“Oh, you can make something up. I have to go out. I think I’ll go to The Magic Box, see what’s going on there,” said Buffy. She smiled at Tara and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Thanks, uh, sis.” Grabbing a piece of toast from the breakfast bar, she left the house.
“Um, o-ok,” said Tara, feeling a bit lost. She rang Dawn’s school and stammered something about Dawn having a cold. Dawn had settled herself in front of the TV and was happily watching cartoons. Tara sighed and went upstairs to get dressed, confused to find her wardrobe had clothes in two different sizes. Was she a yo-yo dieter, maybe?
Downstairs in the dining room she had noticed a laptop. Switching it on, a login page came up. The username was Willow. Tara felt her heart flutter. Why was Willow’s computer here? Did they hang out a lot? Looking around the house, she saw something strange on the fireplace. The burnt remains of what looked like some herbs. She sniffed them carefully. They smelled acrid and strange. Tara had a horrible feeling that these weren’t regular herbs. Someone had tried to do a spell, and maybe it had gone wrong. Maybe she had tried to do a spell. Wasn’t her room full of candles and engraved pebbles and books with strange names? Maybe she was to blame for all this.
Just as she was wondering what to do, there was a knock at the door. Willow was standing on the doorstep. She was wearing a light grey dress that she looked a little uncomfortable in.
“Hey, um, hi,” she said, smiling at Tara nervously. “I was hoping you’d be home.”
“You, you were?” said Tara, equally nervously.
“Yep. I… Well, I don’t know what I’m meant to be doing, and Alex went to work. He found a payslip with the address on. Some construction site, I think, and he figured he might as well head over there. So I’ve just been… Sitting. And thinking. About you. I mean,” she added hastily, “thinking about the situation. In general. I bought muffins, did I mention that?”
“Ooh, muffins,” said Dawn, appearing next to Tara and taking the bag from Willow’s hands. “I don’t remember which is my favourite, so I should try a few,” she added mischievously, and took the bag away to the kitchen.
“Um, come in,” said Tara. “I, ah, found something of yours.” She led Willow into the dining room and showed her the laptop. “And there’s something else…” She told Willow about the herbs she had found, and guiltily confessed that she thought she had maybe caused their memory loss. Willow didn’t get angry, though. Instead she said:
“Wow, so you’re a witch! That’s amazing.” Tara blushed.
“Clearly not th-that great a witch if I m-make a lot of mistakes like this.”
“We can fix it,” said Willow confidently. “We just need to do some research.” She sat down at the laptop and clicked on her username. When the computer loaded, she found that her bookmarks folder was filled with links to libraries, databases and encyclopedias. “And it seems like I’m pretty experienced at research,” she added, showing the long list of links to Tara. She smiled at her. “Maybe you do the magic and I do the research.”
“S-so we’re like a, a team?” said Tara, feeling herself blush for no good reason. Willow touched her hand lightly and nodded, and for the first time since all this had happened, Tara didn’t feel worried or scared at all.
*
Buffy had headed to The Magic Box. She found Mr Giles and Anya tidying up the store, which had got pretty torn up the previous evening. Not knowing what else to do with herself, Buffy said she would help, and Anya put her to work carrying all the heavy objects in the shop.
“You’re like a mule,” she said admiringly, as she put yet another heavy object on top of the pile in Buffy’s tireless arms.
“Um, thanks,” said Buffy, and as she walked away from Anya rolled her eyes. Anya said the strangest things. She wondered what Mr Giles made of it. She walked into the back of the shop to see where she should store things, and gasped as she found herself in a training room. There was a rack of weapons, some gymnastic equipment, and on a bench there was a pile of freshly whittled stakes. This must be where she trained! This was so exciting.
Buffy abandoned the Polynesian fertility god statues she was carrying and hefted one of the throwing axes, looking at the target on the far wall with an appraising eye. She should really test these out, she thought, and was soon lost in playing with her weapons, which is how Spike managed to surprise her a couple of hours later.
“Oh!” said Buffy, after she almost took off Spike’s head with a broadsword. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Careful, love,” said Spike wryly. “That’s the second time in twelve hours you’ve almost killed me.”
“Well,” said Buffy defensively, “you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that. These things are dangerous,” she added, waving the sword perilously close to Spike’s face.
“I believe you,” he said, taking a step back. Buffy noticed that he’d changed out of the ridiculous brown suit. He was wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. He looked better. Good. Great, even. She hadn’t realised how flat his stomach was, and she could see the ripple of muscle beneath the shirt. Buffy looked away. Spike smirked slightly.
“Got myself some new togs,” he said. “Reckon I was only wearing that suit to please Daddy. Maybe the old stuffed shirt bought it for me. Looks like it was his taste.”
“How did you manage to get new clothes?” she asked, narrowing her eyes as she looked back at him. “The stores were all shut last night, and you can’t go outside in the daytime.”
“Say, isn’t that a throwing axe?” said Spike brightly, stepping around her and neatly changing the subject. He lifted it up and twirled it experimentally. “Fits my hand nicely. P’raps I train here too.”
“Give it back,” said Buffy, holding out her hand.
“Reckon you can handle my weapon?” said Spike, grinning salaciously. Buffy rolled her eyes at him.
“Don’t be gross.” She snatched the axe from Spike and threw it behind her without looking. A satisfying thunk told her that she had hit the target and she smiled at Spike smugly. Spike decided to change tack.
“Think you could teach me how to do that?” he said, taking another axe from the rack and deliberately throwing it slightly awkwardly so that it bounced off the edge of the target and falling to the floor.
“Fine,” said Buffy. “But only for a little while. I should go home soon.”
“Half an hour, that’s all I ask,” said Spike.
Two hours later, they were still training. Giles had put his head around the door to say that he and Anya were closing up the shop for the day.
“So you can shag, you mean,” said Spike. Giles stammered a denial, and Anya said brightly:
“Yes, it’s been fifteen hours since we copulated, and I think we should do it at home this time instead of on the table here.”
“Anya!” said Giles, taking off his glasses and polishing them furiously. “How could you say that in front of my son?” Anya took him by the elbow and led him out of the shop, the sound of their bickering getting fainter as they moved away. Spike and Buffy shared an amused glance, and then went back to training.
Buffy was amazed. She and Spike seemed perfectly attuned. Sparring with him felt incredible. They seemed to anticipate each other’s every step. Her whole body tingled with anticipation as she waited for his next move. Strangely, she felt completely happy, as if she were, at last, exactly where she was supposed to be. Here she didn’t need to know anything about who she was or what her responsibilities were. Her body knew what to do, and she let it do its job.
After a couple more hours, they took a breather. Buffy sipped water and they sat in companionable silence on a bench. Buffy felt very aware of Spike’s body next to hers, his thigh only inches away from her own.
“You alright, pet?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I feel… I feel great. I -” She paused.
“What is it?” Spike prompted.
“It’s stupid, but… I feel like this weight has been lifted, but I don’t know what the weight was,” she said. “Like I’m free, somehow.” She shrugged one shoulder and glanced at the floor. “It’s probably nothing.”
“It’s probably something,” Spike said. “Looks to me like you’ve got a lot of responsibilities. Lil sis, no parents so far as you can see, bein’ the Slayer, whatever that means. Maybe it’s nice to not remember any of that. Maybe you should jus’ go with how you feel for a change. Might lead you someplace good.”
Buffy met his eyes.
“Randy, I…”
He cupped her jaw with his hand. His eyes were electric blue, and Buffy took a shuddering breath as he stroked her cheek with his thumb.
“How do you feel, pet?” he asked, and Buffy swallowed, feeling her stomach tighten and her breath catch in her throat, and then she leaned in and kissed him.
*
Tara and Willow had had a busy day of research. Soon the dining table was covered in books from Tara’s bedroom and printouts from Willow’s computer. At about three o’clock a girl called Janice had called round to see how Dawn was feeling. Dawn, clearly not recognising Janice, threw Tara a desperate glance.
“S-sure, you can see Dawn. B-but, um, she has a really sore throat, so she can’t talk,” Tara said, struck by inspiration. “You’ll have to fill her in on everything instead.” Dawn smiled at her gratefully, and she and Janice disappeared to Dawn’s bedroom, from whence Tara soon heard the faint sound of one-sided chatter.
“Very devious,” said Willow admiringly. Tara smiled and ducked her head with embarrassment. In truth, she was glad that Dawn was out of the way. Not that Dawn wasn’t a sweetheart, because she was, but Tara was finding more and more how much she liked Willow’s company. They talked together so easily, and Willow was so sweet. And then there was the magic. She and Willow had tried to do a couple of spells together. They hadn’t managed to reverse the memory spell yet, but Tara felt a rush of something amazing when she and Willow had touched hands and murmured words together, a strange sense of something powerful and golden and warm rising from between the two of them, and looking at Willow she knew that she felt it too.
I think I’m in love with her, thought Tara. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. I love her. Her heart sang at the thought of this, but then her mood darkened. But Willow is with Alex, and she probably has no idea of how I feel. Or, worse, she knows and she feels sorry for me. Blood rushed into Tara’s cheeks and she quickly lowered her face over a book so Willow wouldn’t see.
Later that day they were trying another spell. It needed candles, and Tara lit a couple, but she managed to knock one and spilled hot wax on her hand.
“Ow!” she said, more in surprise than real pain.
“Did you hurt yourself?” said Willow, rushing round from the other side of the table.
“It’s nothing.”
“Let me see,” said Willow, taking Tara’s hand. She looked at the palm carefully, stroking it with her thumb. “No burns.” But she didn’t let go of Tara’s hand. Tara felt her heart thumping hard.
“Willow -”
“Tara, I think I have feelings for you,” said Willow in a rush. “No, I don’t think, I know, and I understand if you don’t feel the same, but I feel this connection between us, and it’s been getting stronger all day, and I told Dawn last night that I think I’m kind of gay. And I’m probably talking way too much, but I thought I should say, and it’s okay if you don’t say anything, but -”
Willow’s babble was suddenly cut off as Tara leaned in and very gently kissed her on the lips.
“Wh-what are you doing?” said Willow, looking shocked. Tara, feeling somehow very brave, smiled nervously at Willow.
“Not s-saying anything,” she said, and kissed Willow again.
*
“Willow?” called Xander, stepping in through his front door. There was no answer, and Xander felt strangely relieved. He should want his girlfriend to be here, surely, but he couldn’t say he felt that much chemistry with Willow. He walked into the apartment. It had been a stressful day, and he wanted to relax. He’d found the work easy enough. It seemed that he could remember what his job required, and it turned out he was pretty good at it. What was stressful was not remembering the names of anyone on his crew, and having to peer at the name labels on their jackets without them noticing. Still, it had gone okay, and he had managed not to panic too much about not having his memory back yet.
Xander headed for the fridge, deciding he definitely deserved a beer, and didn’t notice the small dark crystal that had fallen out of Willow’s pocket and tumbled to the floor in the kitchen area, and so he stepped on it heavily, the crystal breaking with a small crack.
*
Spike’s lips were cool against Buffy’s, but his tongue was warm, stroking hers insistently, his strong hands running through her hair and back. She strained against him, and soon she was sitting in his lap, gasping and throwing back her head as his lips touched her throat and one hand slipping up the back of her shirt.
“Oh, Randy,” she murmured, not able to think about anything except the feel of his mouth and hands on her, and then suddenly she felt a great rush as a lifetime’s worth of memories flooded back into her head with the impact of a freight train hitting a level crossing. Spike blinked, momentarily loosening his grasp on Buffy, and she scrambled off his lap.
“Oh my God,” she said, wiping her mouth in disgust. “Oh my God.”
“Buffy,” Spike began, starting to get to his feet.
“Stay away from me!” Buffy screamed, and, flinging open the back door, ran away from him at full speed. Spike sat back down on the bench, putting one hand to his swollen lips and one to his head.
“Bloody hell,” he said at last.
*
As soon as Xander got his memory back, he remembered that Anya thought she was engaged to Giles. And then he remembered Anya’s sexual appetite.
“Shit,” he said, and ran three red lights on his way to Giles’ apartment. He was surprised to find, however, that Anya and Giles weren’t at it like bunnies. Xander had his suspicions that they had been, but there were signs of more domestic behaviour, too. A half-played game of Scrabble sat on the table next to a wedding magazine, and they had apparently been making soup together. Giles, of course, was terribly embarrassed now he had his memory back, and he and Anya could barely look at each other, but Xander didn’t think he was imagining the slightly regretful look in Giles’ eyes as they left, or the slightly too cheerful note in Anya’s voice as she forced herself to chatter on the way home.
*
“Baby, please. Please can we talk about this?” said Willow tearfully as Tara began to put her things into a box.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” said Tara, swallowing hard to push away the tears that were rising to her eyes. “You said you’d go a week without magic. You couldn’t even go a day. Not one day for me. For us. We weren’t worth that to you, Will.”
“Baby - ”
“I-I won’t listen to any more excuses, Willow. I can’t. I’m going to stay at Catherine’s tonight.” Catherine was one of the nicer girls from the Wicca Society on campus. “I can’t think about anything else today. I just need to be somewhere else.” Outside a car horn beeped. “That will be my cab.” Tara picked up her box. “I’ll be back for everything else later.” Without looking at Willow, she left the room. Willow sank onto the bed and started to sob.
*
One week later, Xander watched Anya listlessly eating cereal. It had been like this all week. Things were horrible. On the surface, everything was fine with him and Anya. They’d had sex every day as usual, but Anya’s heart hadn’t seemed to be in it. Things were terrible at The Magic Box, too. The air was strained between Giles and Anya, and Giles just seemed - well, as miserable as Anya did. Xander felt sick. He was half jealous and half just unhappy.
“Ahn,” said Xander, making his mind up. She looked up at him as if she didn’t know who he was for a moment, and then she gave him a big fake smile. His guts twisted painfully, but he felt even more certain that he was doing the right thing. “You should go to him.”
“What?”
“Go see Giles,” he said, forcing the words out painfully. “He misses you, I can tell.” Xander wondered how he could tell her what he had seen, but he groped for the right words. How seeing the evidence of how Anya and Giles had been when they thought they were getting married had made his heart twist, because they seemed so comfortable together even when they didn’t know who each other were. How Giles had seemed so sad since he realised he didn’t have a son or a fiancee any more. No family. How Anya had seemed less desperate for approval with Giles than she was with him. But he couldn’t figure out how to say all this, because he’d never been good with words. He just saw stuff, that was all.
“But Xander, don’t you love me?” said Anya, tears rising to her eyes as a hundred conflicting feelings surged within her. Xander leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek, feeling terribly sad, but terribly right.
“Yeah, of course I do, Ahn. But I think Giles can love you more.” He put a hand on her shoulder and then, picking up his site jacket and hard hat, quietly left the apartment.
*
One week later, Tara heard a knock at the door of her UC Sunnydale dorm room. She was lucky; the high disappearance rate at the college meant that there were often rooms free mid-semester. Opening the door, she saw Willow standing outside.
“Willow, I told you on the phone I didn’t want -”
“Please,” said Willow. “Please, just let me talk. Just for a minute, and then if you don’t care about what I say, I promise I’ll stay away.”
“Okay,” said Tara guardedly. “But you can only stay for a minute.” She stepped aside and let Willow come into the room.
Willow paced up and down. Tara noticed she looked terrible, her skin paper-pale save for a hectic red flush in her cheeks. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed all week, and her fingernails were bitten to the quick.
“At first, when you left, I was angry. I thought what you said wasn’t fair. I thought you were jealous of my magic, because I’m better than you now.” Tara opened her mouth to speak, and Willow waved a hand at her. “Please. Let me speak. I realise I have to be honest with you now, because I haven’t been in so long. I didn’t just think I was better at magic than you. I thought I was better, period. I felt like the strong one in our relationship. All this magic I’d been doing, it made me arrogant. But then I thought about those two days we didn’t have our memories. How wonderful it felt to be with you, without the magic. And then trying to do spells with you as if it was the first time. How amazing it felt for us to work together. We haven’t done that in a long time. And I’m sorry.” She finally stopped pacing and looked at Tara. “I haven’t done a spell all week. If you don’t believe me, look at my hands.” She held them out to Tara, who gasped. The fingernails weren’t just bitten down, they were bitten so short that she could see the nail bed. Willow’s hands were trembling. “It’s been so hard. And it shouldn’t be. I should never have let myself get like this so that I needed the magic so much. That I needed it more than you. I need you, baby. You’re the strong one.”
Tara shook her head and took hold of Willow’s trembling hands with her own.
“I’m not strong,” she said. “You saved me from myself, remember? We are strong. Not you, or me, but we.”
“We,” said Willow, nodding, the flames in her cheeks beginning to die down into a more healthy pink. “I won’t forget again. I promise.”
*
One week later, Buffy was patrolling in a part of Sunnydale she didn’t usually visit, on account of it having very little demon activity. She just couldn’t risk bumping into Spike. Just thinking of his name made her heart race, and she knew he’d be able to tell. So, she was Miss Avoidy, and that was working out well. Great, even. Yep, great.
She felt even worse these days. Everything had come crashing back down after Willow’s spell got reversed. All her worries, all the pain, it all seemed worse now she’d had a couple of days away from it. She had been more like her old self when she couldn’t remember who she was, and that hurt. But she didn’t know how to fix it, and these weird feelings for Spike didn’t exactly make her feel better.
“You can’t avoid me forever, pet,” said a voice at her shoulder. She sighed and turned round. She expected to see Spike in his familiar duster, but instead he was wearing that ridiculous brown suit.
“Spike, what the hell are you doing?” she asked. “You look stupid.”
“Didn’t stop you likin’ me before,” he said. Buffy rolled her eyes at him and turned to go. Spike caught at her arm.
“Take your hand off me,” she said in a low voice.
“Just look at me for a minute, pet. Just one.” Buffy set her jaw, but she turned round, folding her arms.
“Well?”
“I…” Spike looked momentarily lost for words. “Look. I thought the suit would remind you of Randy.”
“You’re Randy, Spike. And please don’t turn that into a dirty joke,” she added.
“Yeah, I know. But he was also someone else. Someone you - or Joan - liked. Liked enough to kiss, and not to kiss because it was part of a song, or because you were miserable and wanted to feel something for a change. Just because you liked me.”
“Yeah, well, Joan thought Randy had a soul,” said Buffy, then wondered if it was weird to be referring to herself as if she were someone else.
“And Randy -” Spike decided he definitely didn’t want to talk about himself in the third person. “I thought I had a soul, but it didn’t make that much difference, did it? Look, Buffy. I’m different. I’ve always been different. Most human vampire around, I reckon. And no, before you say something, it’s not the chip. I’ve always been like that. Though I have changed lately, I reckon. Cos of you. I’m not sayin’ I’m a moral man, cos I’m not. But - you make me want to be better. For you.”
Buffy swallowed. Spike had told her a hundred times that he loved her, and she’d always dismissed it. But this made her feel different.
“I… make you want to be better?”
Spike nodded.
“Yeah. ‘Cept I don’t know where to start. Haven’t got much of a moral compass of my own. Think you’ll have to be the star to guide me on this one, pet. If you’ll let me.”
Buffy stared at Spike for a long moment. He wasn’t asking for her love, or for sex, or apparently anything except guidance. And for some reason, that made tears start to her eyes.
“I don’t know how great a guide I could be, Spike. I mean, I used to be all shiny and white but nowadays -”
“I know things have got a bit grubbier, pet. Bit murkier. But you’ll find your way. You always do.”
Buffy blinked back tears.
“Why do you have all this faith in me, Spike? And why do you care if I’m good or not? I thought you’d want me all… grubby. Um.” She blushed, but Spike didn’t seem to notice.
“I care cos you do, pet,” he said earnestly. “Seein’ you happy - or least, happier - for those two days made me remember how much I miss it. Seeing you like that. I don’t want anything from you. Alright, that’s a lie. I do. But I’m willin’ to wait. See if I can live up to your expectations first.”
“My expectations?” Buffy said at last, feeling her heart tighten. “That’s… that’s all you want?”
“For now, pet,” he said. “Shake on it?” Buffy slowly extended her hand, and Spike took it. It felt hugely comforting to have his hand around hers, and he was the first to let their hands drop, not her. They began to walk on in companionable silence, satisfied that this was enough for now.
Title: A Clean Slate
Word count: 7393
Characters: all the Scooby gang, plus Spike
Setting: just after Tabula Rasa, season 6
Pairings: Buffy/Spike, Willow/Tara, Anya/Giles
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: mild language and sexual references
Disclaimers: erm, I have been out of the fanfic game for AGES. Seriously. So I feel a bit rusty. I'm hoping, however, that this offers a reasonably satisfactory re-entry into the game. And, gasp, it's less angsty than a lot of my Spuffy is! I hope that my recipient and other people enjoy reading this, because it was quite a bit of fun to write. Merry Christmas!
Teaser:
“What do you think makes it our work?” said Buffy crossly. “I’m the Slayer, not you.”
“You saw how those vampires acted,” said Spike. “They see us as a team. I’m a traitor to my kind, ostracised because I serve the greater good.”
Buffy rolled her eyes.
“Oh, please. A vampire serving good? What are you, Blade?”
Tara lay down on the bed, pressing her fingers against her aching eyes. She was so tired, but her heart was pounding and she didn’t know if she could ever get to sleep. There was a knot of panic in her stomach. With a soft whimper she turned onto her side, drawing her knees up to her chest. She imagined that tonight had been the strangest of her life. Of course, she couldn’t actually prove that, given that she couldn’t remember anything before this evening, but she thought it was a reasonably safe assumption.
Actually, that wasn’t quite true. Not the assuming part, the not remembering part. She did remember things. She knew how to count. She remembered the plot of Little Women and she unfortunately recollected who the president was. It wasn’t like she was completely a blank slate. But of her own life she knew nothing. When she thought about that for too long it felt as if she were going to slide into a dark pit. Her fingers flexed and clenched, trying to grab on to something to stop her fall. All she really knew was that she was called Tara Maclay, and that she was a student at UC Sunnydale.
For most of the evening, she, Willow, Dawn and Alexander had been concerned with getting to the hospital. When they had finally arrived there, after a terrifying journey through the sewers, the doctors had first laughed and then got angry with them, refusing to believe that they could have collective amnesia. It was a prank that was wasting their time. So they had gone back to the shop, which approaching from street level they found was called The Magic Box, and discovered Anya and Mr Giles in a rather compromising position. That was very embarrassing. Still, Tara reflected, it was nice to see people being happy in love, even if they weren’t sure who they were.
She wasn’t sure she was so lucky. In the sewers, despite all the fear and mayhem, she had looked at Willow and felt something. A kind of electricity. She was sure Willow felt it too, but maybe that was wishful thinking. Besides, Willow was Alex’s girlfriend, or so it seemed. Alex had his address in his wallet and they headed over there. There were girls’ clothes in his bedroom, so Willow presumably lived there. Knowing this made a tight feeling rise in Tara’s chest, which was stupid, because even if she did have feelings for Willow, it wasn’t like she could really remember them.
Returning to the magic shop, they found that Randy and Joan had returned. They had killed off the vampires and scared away a frightening shark-headed creature, they said. Then Randy made a startling announcement. He was a vampire too, but a good one with a soul, or something like that. Then Mr Giles became quite emotional, in a British way, and it was all quite confusing. Meanwhile Anya had found some paperwork with Rupert’s address on it, and so, since it seemed their memory loss was not going to be solved tonight, she and Randy and Mr Giles resolved to go there. That left Dawn, Joan and Tara. Tara found that in her bag there was a letter from her college with an address on it. Ravello Drive.
She told Joan and Dawn that they might as well come with her, as it was getting very late. It took a while to find the house, and it wasn’t what Tara expected. It was a nice family house in a suburb, not an apartment or a student house. Did she still live with her parents? She hoped they wouldn’t mind her bringing friends home.
Entering the house, though, she was met with a shock. There was a photo of Dawn and Joan on a table in the living room. She glanced at Joan and wondered. Was she dating her? Tara didn’t get a very lesbian vibe from Joan, but then, they had all lost their memories.
Upstairs, however, they found evidence that Joan and Tara slept in different rooms. One bedroom was filled with posters and a few stuffed toys, so they assumed it was Dawn’s. In another room there was a stake lying on the desk. The third room had candles and things that looked vaguely occult. Tara wondered if she dabbled in witchcraft at all. But it was all so strange. Why was she living with these people? Were they her sisters? That made the most sense, probably. But where were their parents?
Tara couldn’t think about it anymore, and so lay down on the bed. She hugged a pillow to her chest and pressed her face into it, trying to make her panic subside. Taking a deep breath, she inhaled a soft, heavy smell. Something like beeswax and sandalwood. She was certain that she had smelled a similar scent tonight as she had brushed past Willow. Had Willow slept in this bed? Had Willow slept here with her?
Strangely comforted by this thought, Tara slept.
*
“Move over!” Spike nudged Anya hard in the ribs.
“Ouch! Randy, stop it. And give me back some of the blanket,” she said grumpily, grabbing at the sheets and pulling them over her. Giles sighed.
“Will you two stop bickering? I’m trying to sleep.”
“Yeah, well, tell your girlfriend to stop hogging the bed.”
“No, tell your son to stop stealing the blankets. My feet are cold.”
Giles rubbed a hand across his forehead.
“Son, I told you to sleep on the sofa.”
Spike snorted.
“What, and let you two have sex? I saw the looks you were giving each other on the drive over. Disgusting, it is. She’s young enough to be my little sister! If I was lying on that sofa I’d be able to hear everything. No, I’m staying put, ‘least until we can find out where I live normally. We’re all family, right?” Spike smirked and put his hands behind his head, elbowing Anya in the face in the process. Giles sighed and rolled onto his side, away from his bickering fiancee and son. He didn’t imagine that he would be getting much rest tonight.
*
At the Harris house, Xander was already asleep, his face pressed into the pillow. Willow sat in a chair on the other side of the room, watching him. Was this really her life? Was she living with this guy? It didn’t feel right. The clothes in the wardrobe looked about the right size, but the bras she found in a chest of drawers looked a little big. Willow had taken a peek at her own chest and didn’t think she was raising much more than an A cup. And the clothes, whilst about the right size for someone of her slim frame, just didn’t seem like her style. That was stupid. She didn’t know what her style was, and the black shirt and jeans she was currently wearing weren’t much of a giveaway. She just thought she might dress more like… She sighed. She supposed she thought she might dress more like Tara.
Why was it every time she thought about Tara, her heart gave a little thump? Did they have a history? And if so, why was she here, with this guy Alexander? In an unguarded moment she’d said to Dawn that she thought she was “kinda gay”. It would be funny if she’d been in the closet for years and hadn’t wanted anyone to know. Maybe Alex was a, what was the term, a beard? Was that right? She didn’t know. That was the crux of the problem - she didn’t know anything about these people. But she did still know words like “crux” and “antidisestablishmentarianism” and “polymorphonuclear”, which at least suggested her college education wasn’t going completely to waste.
Willow got up and opened a drawer. There were night things in there. Lots of slinky little nighties and silk vests. At the bottom of the drawer she found a pair of pink pyjamas, which were silk but not particularly sexy. She stepped into the bathroom to put them on, afraid that Alex might wake up. If they really were dating, this was probably a stupid thing to be worried about, but never mind. She headed back into the bedroom, looked at Xander, and shook her head. She just couldn’t get into bed with him. Instead she walked through into the living room. This apartment was a nice place. Whatever Alex was doing, she mused, it was obviously paying quite well. Then she lay down on the sofa and eventually, as the sun rose, managed to sleep.
*
Buffy sat cross-legged on her bed. The house was completely quiet. Moonlight streamed through a gap in the curtains, bathing her in a pale light. She held her hand up; in the moonlight it looked white. Like the skin of the vampires she’d slain. Like Randy’s.
Her skin prickled slightly as she thought about him. She didn’t know why. Okay, he was good looking, even if his hair was dated. But he was a vampire, so she certainly couldn’t be attracted to him, could she? That would be wrong for a vampire hunter. Killer. Slayer. Slayer. She liked that word. Vampire slayer. Yeah, that sounded like a pretty neat title.
“Joan the Vampire Slayer,” she said under her breath, testing it out. That seemed to work. But that momentary distraction wasn’t enough to rid her of this strangely restless feeling. It wasn’t just Randy - and what kind of lame name was that? - but everything. She didn’t know how Tara and Dawn seemed to have gone to sleep so easily. Buffy felt wired. Like she could run a marathon. Maybe she could. It seemed like she was wicked strong, after all. There was no point trying to sleep. She needed to do something.
With sudden determination, Buffy stood up and slipped out of her pyjamas and back into her clothes. She opened the window and climbed out, shimmying down the tree so easily that it seemed that maybe, just maybe, she had done this before.
*
Spike had given up on sleep when Anya started snoring. Silly bint; he didn’t know how his dad stood it. He glanced over at Giles, who was asleep with his mouth open. He smiled sourly. The little tart had probably tired his old man out earlier. Now that was an unpleasant thought. Still, he thought, at least he hadn’t had to listen to any of that going on tonight. No wonder he felt this vague sense of annoyance whenever he looked at Giles; he must be aggrieved about his dad hanging out with this girl who seemed about twenty. No doubt, Spike mused, he’d had a string of them throughout his son’s childhood. Maybe that would explain his complete lapse in taste when naming him. Randy. What kind of sodding joke of a name was that? The boys at school must have ribbed him something rotten. Maybe that was why he’d got himself turned into a vampire. Wanted to show the old man up. But he’d found his heart wasn’t in the killing and so had sought out redemption.
Nah, thought Spike, quietly slipping out from between the two sleepers. That had a cheesy ring to it. Being a vampire-turned-vigilante sounded quite cool, though. He could live with that. Not that he was, well, alive. That would take some getting used to. When they’d got back to the house, he’d stood for a full ten minutes in the bathroom, staring at his lack of reflection. Bloody weird, it was. Had no idea what he looked like, for one thing. Anya assured him that there was a “rugged resemblance” between him and his old man, but that wasn’t much to go on. Dawn had said earlier that she thought his hair was “kinda cool”, whatever that meant. Spike put a hand to his hair gingerly. It was slicked back, that much he could tell. With a quick tug he pulled a strand loose. Wincing, he stared at it. White. No. Peroxide blond. Well. That was quite something.
He was distracted from musing on this, however, by a more pressing concern. His stomach gurgled hard. He was hungry. And he reckoned he’d better do something about it.
*
Buffy walked along Sunnydale’s main street, kicking an empty cola can. It had been an interesting night, but she’d been hoping to find some more action. So far, however, the streets were quiet and there didn’t seem to be any evil afoot. She felt kind of bad for wishing there was some going on, but she figured that if she was the Slayer (that really was a cool name) it was in her blood.
Speaking of which… Buffy noticed spots of blood on the sidewalk in front of her. She became aware of her pulse quickening and her senses heightening. She took a moment to recognise how awesome that was, and then let her Slayer instincts take over. The drops of blood led from the doorway of a butcher shop, which was ajar. She pushed it open quietly and looked around, but the place was deserted. She returned to the street. The blood drops continued for several metres, before disappearing into an alleyway.
Buffy’s hand reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a stake. Slowly, silently, she advanced into the darkness. Her pulse beat faster, and she became aware that someone was watching her. She stopped, raising her weapon, and someone rushed at her, knocking her to the ground. Before she could react, the figure gave a loud shout of pain and rolled off her. Buffy pinned her assailant to the ground and raised her stake.
“Joan?”
Buffy’s eyes, slowly adjusting to the darkness, peered down.
“Randy?” she said. “What the hell are you doing?” She looked down and noticed a dark stain that was spreading. “Oh my God, did I hurt you?” she gasped, jumping up immediately. Spike looked down at his shirt.
“Oh. No.” He held up an empty plastic bag with a slightly shamefaced expression. “Er. Blood. I…borrowed it from the butcher’s.”
“Blood? Why did you… Oh. Gross.” Buffy felt her pulse returning to normal, and silently chastised herself for being so concerned about Randy’s welfare. He was a vampire, after all. Maybe he fought for good, but that should just earn him her toleration, not her concern.
“Hey,” said Spike defensively. “Fellow’s got to eat, an’ it’s not like anyone was offering up their neck. Not that I would’ve taken it, anyway,” he added hastily, noticing Buffy’s expression.
“So why did you shout like that when you landed on me? Which, by the way, ow,” said Buffy, folding her arms.
“Dunno,” said Spike, standing up and rubbing his head with a puzzled expression. “It just…hurt. When I hurt you. In here.” He tapped his temple. “What d’you reckon it means?”
“I have no idea,” said Buffy. “And I should be going home,” she added, stepping out of the alleyway.
“Hey, hold up a minute,” said Spike, following her hastily, buttoning his jacket over his stained shirt. He looked down at the brown suit and shook his head. He really had to find better clothes. Maybe the old Randy wore this, but he didn’t reckon he liked his sense of style. “What’s your rush, love?”
“I’m not your love,” said Buffy primly, “and I’m not rushing. It’s just late.” She didn’t want to say that being in Spike’s company was making her feel strangely on edge, like the wind had been knocked out of her.
“It was late before you came out for a midnight stroll, I reckon,” observed Spike, “an’ I’m wondering why you left your nice cosy bed anyway.” For some reason the word bed made him swallow as he said it. Buffy felt his gaze moving across her and she zipped up her coat defensively, as if that could hide her from him.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said shortly. Spike nodded.
“Me neither. Reckon we’re a pair of night owls, you an’ me, pet. Probably when we do most of our work.”
“What do you think makes it our work?” said Buffy crossly. “I’m the Slayer, not you.”
“You saw how those vampires acted,” said Spike. “They see us as a team. I’m a traitor to my kind, ostracised because I serve the greater good.”
Buffy rolled her eyes.
“Oh, please. A vampire serving good? What are you, Blade?”
“Reckon so, pet. Otherwise why do we spend so much time together? Unless…” Spike cocked his head to one side and looked her up and down. Buffy swallowed hard.
“Unless what?”
“Unless your interest in me is less professional and more personal.” He grinned, a wide, mischievous smile, and Buffy felt her stomach tighten.
“Yeah, right,” she said, and turned to go. As she walked away, she shot a final comment over her shoulder. “Like I would ever date a guy called Randy.”
Spike watched her walk down the street, grinning to himself.
“Reckon that might be a challenge, pet,” he said softly, and started to walk home, feeling suddenly, inexplicably, a whole lot more cheerful.
*
The next morning, after a couple of hours of sleep, Buffy started her day with an argument with her little sister. It felt weirdly familiar. Dawn was refusing point blank to go to school.
“I don’t remember anything. Don’t you think people will realise? They’ll think I’m a complete freak!!” she said, her voice rising dangerously close to a shriek.
“Fine,” said Buffy, pressing a hand to her eyes. “You can stay home. But only today. Education is important,” she added, feeling she should say something parental. Why was she in charge? Where were their parents? And shouldn’t she be at college or work or something herself? She’d looked in her closet and found a bunch of textbooks, but they were boxed up. Surely she wasn’t old enough to have graduated? Or maybe she’d dropped out. God, that would be embarrassing.
“Um, Tara?” she said, wondering if the quiet blonde was really her sister. “Did you say you noticed a number for Dawn’s school on the noticeboard?”
“Y-yes, Joan, it’s right here,” Tara said, putting down her cereal spoon.
“Oh, great. Can you call them and say Dawn can’t come in today?”
“B-but what will I, um, say?”
“Oh, you can make something up. I have to go out. I think I’ll go to The Magic Box, see what’s going on there,” said Buffy. She smiled at Tara and patted her shoulder awkwardly. “Thanks, uh, sis.” Grabbing a piece of toast from the breakfast bar, she left the house.
“Um, o-ok,” said Tara, feeling a bit lost. She rang Dawn’s school and stammered something about Dawn having a cold. Dawn had settled herself in front of the TV and was happily watching cartoons. Tara sighed and went upstairs to get dressed, confused to find her wardrobe had clothes in two different sizes. Was she a yo-yo dieter, maybe?
Downstairs in the dining room she had noticed a laptop. Switching it on, a login page came up. The username was Willow. Tara felt her heart flutter. Why was Willow’s computer here? Did they hang out a lot? Looking around the house, she saw something strange on the fireplace. The burnt remains of what looked like some herbs. She sniffed them carefully. They smelled acrid and strange. Tara had a horrible feeling that these weren’t regular herbs. Someone had tried to do a spell, and maybe it had gone wrong. Maybe she had tried to do a spell. Wasn’t her room full of candles and engraved pebbles and books with strange names? Maybe she was to blame for all this.
Just as she was wondering what to do, there was a knock at the door. Willow was standing on the doorstep. She was wearing a light grey dress that she looked a little uncomfortable in.
“Hey, um, hi,” she said, smiling at Tara nervously. “I was hoping you’d be home.”
“You, you were?” said Tara, equally nervously.
“Yep. I… Well, I don’t know what I’m meant to be doing, and Alex went to work. He found a payslip with the address on. Some construction site, I think, and he figured he might as well head over there. So I’ve just been… Sitting. And thinking. About you. I mean,” she added hastily, “thinking about the situation. In general. I bought muffins, did I mention that?”
“Ooh, muffins,” said Dawn, appearing next to Tara and taking the bag from Willow’s hands. “I don’t remember which is my favourite, so I should try a few,” she added mischievously, and took the bag away to the kitchen.
“Um, come in,” said Tara. “I, ah, found something of yours.” She led Willow into the dining room and showed her the laptop. “And there’s something else…” She told Willow about the herbs she had found, and guiltily confessed that she thought she had maybe caused their memory loss. Willow didn’t get angry, though. Instead she said:
“Wow, so you’re a witch! That’s amazing.” Tara blushed.
“Clearly not th-that great a witch if I m-make a lot of mistakes like this.”
“We can fix it,” said Willow confidently. “We just need to do some research.” She sat down at the laptop and clicked on her username. When the computer loaded, she found that her bookmarks folder was filled with links to libraries, databases and encyclopedias. “And it seems like I’m pretty experienced at research,” she added, showing the long list of links to Tara. She smiled at her. “Maybe you do the magic and I do the research.”
“S-so we’re like a, a team?” said Tara, feeling herself blush for no good reason. Willow touched her hand lightly and nodded, and for the first time since all this had happened, Tara didn’t feel worried or scared at all.
*
Buffy had headed to The Magic Box. She found Mr Giles and Anya tidying up the store, which had got pretty torn up the previous evening. Not knowing what else to do with herself, Buffy said she would help, and Anya put her to work carrying all the heavy objects in the shop.
“You’re like a mule,” she said admiringly, as she put yet another heavy object on top of the pile in Buffy’s tireless arms.
“Um, thanks,” said Buffy, and as she walked away from Anya rolled her eyes. Anya said the strangest things. She wondered what Mr Giles made of it. She walked into the back of the shop to see where she should store things, and gasped as she found herself in a training room. There was a rack of weapons, some gymnastic equipment, and on a bench there was a pile of freshly whittled stakes. This must be where she trained! This was so exciting.
Buffy abandoned the Polynesian fertility god statues she was carrying and hefted one of the throwing axes, looking at the target on the far wall with an appraising eye. She should really test these out, she thought, and was soon lost in playing with her weapons, which is how Spike managed to surprise her a couple of hours later.
“Oh!” said Buffy, after she almost took off Spike’s head with a broadsword. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Careful, love,” said Spike wryly. “That’s the second time in twelve hours you’ve almost killed me.”
“Well,” said Buffy defensively, “you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that. These things are dangerous,” she added, waving the sword perilously close to Spike’s face.
“I believe you,” he said, taking a step back. Buffy noticed that he’d changed out of the ridiculous brown suit. He was wearing a black t-shirt and black jeans. He looked better. Good. Great, even. She hadn’t realised how flat his stomach was, and she could see the ripple of muscle beneath the shirt. Buffy looked away. Spike smirked slightly.
“Got myself some new togs,” he said. “Reckon I was only wearing that suit to please Daddy. Maybe the old stuffed shirt bought it for me. Looks like it was his taste.”
“How did you manage to get new clothes?” she asked, narrowing her eyes as she looked back at him. “The stores were all shut last night, and you can’t go outside in the daytime.”
“Say, isn’t that a throwing axe?” said Spike brightly, stepping around her and neatly changing the subject. He lifted it up and twirled it experimentally. “Fits my hand nicely. P’raps I train here too.”
“Give it back,” said Buffy, holding out her hand.
“Reckon you can handle my weapon?” said Spike, grinning salaciously. Buffy rolled her eyes at him.
“Don’t be gross.” She snatched the axe from Spike and threw it behind her without looking. A satisfying thunk told her that she had hit the target and she smiled at Spike smugly. Spike decided to change tack.
“Think you could teach me how to do that?” he said, taking another axe from the rack and deliberately throwing it slightly awkwardly so that it bounced off the edge of the target and falling to the floor.
“Fine,” said Buffy. “But only for a little while. I should go home soon.”
“Half an hour, that’s all I ask,” said Spike.
Two hours later, they were still training. Giles had put his head around the door to say that he and Anya were closing up the shop for the day.
“So you can shag, you mean,” said Spike. Giles stammered a denial, and Anya said brightly:
“Yes, it’s been fifteen hours since we copulated, and I think we should do it at home this time instead of on the table here.”
“Anya!” said Giles, taking off his glasses and polishing them furiously. “How could you say that in front of my son?” Anya took him by the elbow and led him out of the shop, the sound of their bickering getting fainter as they moved away. Spike and Buffy shared an amused glance, and then went back to training.
Buffy was amazed. She and Spike seemed perfectly attuned. Sparring with him felt incredible. They seemed to anticipate each other’s every step. Her whole body tingled with anticipation as she waited for his next move. Strangely, she felt completely happy, as if she were, at last, exactly where she was supposed to be. Here she didn’t need to know anything about who she was or what her responsibilities were. Her body knew what to do, and she let it do its job.
After a couple more hours, they took a breather. Buffy sipped water and they sat in companionable silence on a bench. Buffy felt very aware of Spike’s body next to hers, his thigh only inches away from her own.
“You alright, pet?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I feel… I feel great. I -” She paused.
“What is it?” Spike prompted.
“It’s stupid, but… I feel like this weight has been lifted, but I don’t know what the weight was,” she said. “Like I’m free, somehow.” She shrugged one shoulder and glanced at the floor. “It’s probably nothing.”
“It’s probably something,” Spike said. “Looks to me like you’ve got a lot of responsibilities. Lil sis, no parents so far as you can see, bein’ the Slayer, whatever that means. Maybe it’s nice to not remember any of that. Maybe you should jus’ go with how you feel for a change. Might lead you someplace good.”
Buffy met his eyes.
“Randy, I…”
He cupped her jaw with his hand. His eyes were electric blue, and Buffy took a shuddering breath as he stroked her cheek with his thumb.
“How do you feel, pet?” he asked, and Buffy swallowed, feeling her stomach tighten and her breath catch in her throat, and then she leaned in and kissed him.
*
Tara and Willow had had a busy day of research. Soon the dining table was covered in books from Tara’s bedroom and printouts from Willow’s computer. At about three o’clock a girl called Janice had called round to see how Dawn was feeling. Dawn, clearly not recognising Janice, threw Tara a desperate glance.
“S-sure, you can see Dawn. B-but, um, she has a really sore throat, so she can’t talk,” Tara said, struck by inspiration. “You’ll have to fill her in on everything instead.” Dawn smiled at her gratefully, and she and Janice disappeared to Dawn’s bedroom, from whence Tara soon heard the faint sound of one-sided chatter.
“Very devious,” said Willow admiringly. Tara smiled and ducked her head with embarrassment. In truth, she was glad that Dawn was out of the way. Not that Dawn wasn’t a sweetheart, because she was, but Tara was finding more and more how much she liked Willow’s company. They talked together so easily, and Willow was so sweet. And then there was the magic. She and Willow had tried to do a couple of spells together. They hadn’t managed to reverse the memory spell yet, but Tara felt a rush of something amazing when she and Willow had touched hands and murmured words together, a strange sense of something powerful and golden and warm rising from between the two of them, and looking at Willow she knew that she felt it too.
I think I’m in love with her, thought Tara. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. I love her. Her heart sang at the thought of this, but then her mood darkened. But Willow is with Alex, and she probably has no idea of how I feel. Or, worse, she knows and she feels sorry for me. Blood rushed into Tara’s cheeks and she quickly lowered her face over a book so Willow wouldn’t see.
Later that day they were trying another spell. It needed candles, and Tara lit a couple, but she managed to knock one and spilled hot wax on her hand.
“Ow!” she said, more in surprise than real pain.
“Did you hurt yourself?” said Willow, rushing round from the other side of the table.
“It’s nothing.”
“Let me see,” said Willow, taking Tara’s hand. She looked at the palm carefully, stroking it with her thumb. “No burns.” But she didn’t let go of Tara’s hand. Tara felt her heart thumping hard.
“Willow -”
“Tara, I think I have feelings for you,” said Willow in a rush. “No, I don’t think, I know, and I understand if you don’t feel the same, but I feel this connection between us, and it’s been getting stronger all day, and I told Dawn last night that I think I’m kind of gay. And I’m probably talking way too much, but I thought I should say, and it’s okay if you don’t say anything, but -”
Willow’s babble was suddenly cut off as Tara leaned in and very gently kissed her on the lips.
“Wh-what are you doing?” said Willow, looking shocked. Tara, feeling somehow very brave, smiled nervously at Willow.
“Not s-saying anything,” she said, and kissed Willow again.
*
“Willow?” called Xander, stepping in through his front door. There was no answer, and Xander felt strangely relieved. He should want his girlfriend to be here, surely, but he couldn’t say he felt that much chemistry with Willow. He walked into the apartment. It had been a stressful day, and he wanted to relax. He’d found the work easy enough. It seemed that he could remember what his job required, and it turned out he was pretty good at it. What was stressful was not remembering the names of anyone on his crew, and having to peer at the name labels on their jackets without them noticing. Still, it had gone okay, and he had managed not to panic too much about not having his memory back yet.
Xander headed for the fridge, deciding he definitely deserved a beer, and didn’t notice the small dark crystal that had fallen out of Willow’s pocket and tumbled to the floor in the kitchen area, and so he stepped on it heavily, the crystal breaking with a small crack.
*
Spike’s lips were cool against Buffy’s, but his tongue was warm, stroking hers insistently, his strong hands running through her hair and back. She strained against him, and soon she was sitting in his lap, gasping and throwing back her head as his lips touched her throat and one hand slipping up the back of her shirt.
“Oh, Randy,” she murmured, not able to think about anything except the feel of his mouth and hands on her, and then suddenly she felt a great rush as a lifetime’s worth of memories flooded back into her head with the impact of a freight train hitting a level crossing. Spike blinked, momentarily loosening his grasp on Buffy, and she scrambled off his lap.
“Oh my God,” she said, wiping her mouth in disgust. “Oh my God.”
“Buffy,” Spike began, starting to get to his feet.
“Stay away from me!” Buffy screamed, and, flinging open the back door, ran away from him at full speed. Spike sat back down on the bench, putting one hand to his swollen lips and one to his head.
“Bloody hell,” he said at last.
*
As soon as Xander got his memory back, he remembered that Anya thought she was engaged to Giles. And then he remembered Anya’s sexual appetite.
“Shit,” he said, and ran three red lights on his way to Giles’ apartment. He was surprised to find, however, that Anya and Giles weren’t at it like bunnies. Xander had his suspicions that they had been, but there were signs of more domestic behaviour, too. A half-played game of Scrabble sat on the table next to a wedding magazine, and they had apparently been making soup together. Giles, of course, was terribly embarrassed now he had his memory back, and he and Anya could barely look at each other, but Xander didn’t think he was imagining the slightly regretful look in Giles’ eyes as they left, or the slightly too cheerful note in Anya’s voice as she forced herself to chatter on the way home.
*
“Baby, please. Please can we talk about this?” said Willow tearfully as Tara began to put her things into a box.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” said Tara, swallowing hard to push away the tears that were rising to her eyes. “You said you’d go a week without magic. You couldn’t even go a day. Not one day for me. For us. We weren’t worth that to you, Will.”
“Baby - ”
“I-I won’t listen to any more excuses, Willow. I can’t. I’m going to stay at Catherine’s tonight.” Catherine was one of the nicer girls from the Wicca Society on campus. “I can’t think about anything else today. I just need to be somewhere else.” Outside a car horn beeped. “That will be my cab.” Tara picked up her box. “I’ll be back for everything else later.” Without looking at Willow, she left the room. Willow sank onto the bed and started to sob.
*
One week later, Xander watched Anya listlessly eating cereal. It had been like this all week. Things were horrible. On the surface, everything was fine with him and Anya. They’d had sex every day as usual, but Anya’s heart hadn’t seemed to be in it. Things were terrible at The Magic Box, too. The air was strained between Giles and Anya, and Giles just seemed - well, as miserable as Anya did. Xander felt sick. He was half jealous and half just unhappy.
“Ahn,” said Xander, making his mind up. She looked up at him as if she didn’t know who he was for a moment, and then she gave him a big fake smile. His guts twisted painfully, but he felt even more certain that he was doing the right thing. “You should go to him.”
“What?”
“Go see Giles,” he said, forcing the words out painfully. “He misses you, I can tell.” Xander wondered how he could tell her what he had seen, but he groped for the right words. How seeing the evidence of how Anya and Giles had been when they thought they were getting married had made his heart twist, because they seemed so comfortable together even when they didn’t know who each other were. How Giles had seemed so sad since he realised he didn’t have a son or a fiancee any more. No family. How Anya had seemed less desperate for approval with Giles than she was with him. But he couldn’t figure out how to say all this, because he’d never been good with words. He just saw stuff, that was all.
“But Xander, don’t you love me?” said Anya, tears rising to her eyes as a hundred conflicting feelings surged within her. Xander leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek, feeling terribly sad, but terribly right.
“Yeah, of course I do, Ahn. But I think Giles can love you more.” He put a hand on her shoulder and then, picking up his site jacket and hard hat, quietly left the apartment.
*
One week later, Tara heard a knock at the door of her UC Sunnydale dorm room. She was lucky; the high disappearance rate at the college meant that there were often rooms free mid-semester. Opening the door, she saw Willow standing outside.
“Willow, I told you on the phone I didn’t want -”
“Please,” said Willow. “Please, just let me talk. Just for a minute, and then if you don’t care about what I say, I promise I’ll stay away.”
“Okay,” said Tara guardedly. “But you can only stay for a minute.” She stepped aside and let Willow come into the room.
Willow paced up and down. Tara noticed she looked terrible, her skin paper-pale save for a hectic red flush in her cheeks. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed all week, and her fingernails were bitten to the quick.
“At first, when you left, I was angry. I thought what you said wasn’t fair. I thought you were jealous of my magic, because I’m better than you now.” Tara opened her mouth to speak, and Willow waved a hand at her. “Please. Let me speak. I realise I have to be honest with you now, because I haven’t been in so long. I didn’t just think I was better at magic than you. I thought I was better, period. I felt like the strong one in our relationship. All this magic I’d been doing, it made me arrogant. But then I thought about those two days we didn’t have our memories. How wonderful it felt to be with you, without the magic. And then trying to do spells with you as if it was the first time. How amazing it felt for us to work together. We haven’t done that in a long time. And I’m sorry.” She finally stopped pacing and looked at Tara. “I haven’t done a spell all week. If you don’t believe me, look at my hands.” She held them out to Tara, who gasped. The fingernails weren’t just bitten down, they were bitten so short that she could see the nail bed. Willow’s hands were trembling. “It’s been so hard. And it shouldn’t be. I should never have let myself get like this so that I needed the magic so much. That I needed it more than you. I need you, baby. You’re the strong one.”
Tara shook her head and took hold of Willow’s trembling hands with her own.
“I’m not strong,” she said. “You saved me from myself, remember? We are strong. Not you, or me, but we.”
“We,” said Willow, nodding, the flames in her cheeks beginning to die down into a more healthy pink. “I won’t forget again. I promise.”
*
One week later, Buffy was patrolling in a part of Sunnydale she didn’t usually visit, on account of it having very little demon activity. She just couldn’t risk bumping into Spike. Just thinking of his name made her heart race, and she knew he’d be able to tell. So, she was Miss Avoidy, and that was working out well. Great, even. Yep, great.
She felt even worse these days. Everything had come crashing back down after Willow’s spell got reversed. All her worries, all the pain, it all seemed worse now she’d had a couple of days away from it. She had been more like her old self when she couldn’t remember who she was, and that hurt. But she didn’t know how to fix it, and these weird feelings for Spike didn’t exactly make her feel better.
“You can’t avoid me forever, pet,” said a voice at her shoulder. She sighed and turned round. She expected to see Spike in his familiar duster, but instead he was wearing that ridiculous brown suit.
“Spike, what the hell are you doing?” she asked. “You look stupid.”
“Didn’t stop you likin’ me before,” he said. Buffy rolled her eyes at him and turned to go. Spike caught at her arm.
“Take your hand off me,” she said in a low voice.
“Just look at me for a minute, pet. Just one.” Buffy set her jaw, but she turned round, folding her arms.
“Well?”
“I…” Spike looked momentarily lost for words. “Look. I thought the suit would remind you of Randy.”
“You’re Randy, Spike. And please don’t turn that into a dirty joke,” she added.
“Yeah, I know. But he was also someone else. Someone you - or Joan - liked. Liked enough to kiss, and not to kiss because it was part of a song, or because you were miserable and wanted to feel something for a change. Just because you liked me.”
“Yeah, well, Joan thought Randy had a soul,” said Buffy, then wondered if it was weird to be referring to herself as if she were someone else.
“And Randy -” Spike decided he definitely didn’t want to talk about himself in the third person. “I thought I had a soul, but it didn’t make that much difference, did it? Look, Buffy. I’m different. I’ve always been different. Most human vampire around, I reckon. And no, before you say something, it’s not the chip. I’ve always been like that. Though I have changed lately, I reckon. Cos of you. I’m not sayin’ I’m a moral man, cos I’m not. But - you make me want to be better. For you.”
Buffy swallowed. Spike had told her a hundred times that he loved her, and she’d always dismissed it. But this made her feel different.
“I… make you want to be better?”
Spike nodded.
“Yeah. ‘Cept I don’t know where to start. Haven’t got much of a moral compass of my own. Think you’ll have to be the star to guide me on this one, pet. If you’ll let me.”
Buffy stared at Spike for a long moment. He wasn’t asking for her love, or for sex, or apparently anything except guidance. And for some reason, that made tears start to her eyes.
“I don’t know how great a guide I could be, Spike. I mean, I used to be all shiny and white but nowadays -”
“I know things have got a bit grubbier, pet. Bit murkier. But you’ll find your way. You always do.”
Buffy blinked back tears.
“Why do you have all this faith in me, Spike? And why do you care if I’m good or not? I thought you’d want me all… grubby. Um.” She blushed, but Spike didn’t seem to notice.
“I care cos you do, pet,” he said earnestly. “Seein’ you happy - or least, happier - for those two days made me remember how much I miss it. Seeing you like that. I don’t want anything from you. Alright, that’s a lie. I do. But I’m willin’ to wait. See if I can live up to your expectations first.”
“My expectations?” Buffy said at last, feeling her heart tighten. “That’s… that’s all you want?”
“For now, pet,” he said. “Shake on it?” Buffy slowly extended her hand, and Spike took it. It felt hugely comforting to have his hand around hers, and he was the first to let their hands drop, not her. They began to walk on in companionable silence, satisfied that this was enough for now.