Chapter 40: Delays
An unusual silence had fallen on the Magic Box with the sunset. The Scoobies were all there, including their newest members, Andrea and Manon, and the two LA delegates, Angel and his son. Earlier, there had been discussions, in which Giles had not really taken part. He had heard them, but it had all seemed so irrelevant that he couldn’t make himself care even when he knew he should have said something. All he knew, right now, was that they were about to lose Buffy one last time. And that was more than he wanted to know.
*****
“I want you to go patrol with Chloe, tonight,” Andrea told Manon. “I’m sure you two will do wonders by working together.”
“No.”
Andrea’s surprise at the quiet refusal of her Slayer was almost comical. Just almost.
“What do you mean, no? This is not a choice I’m giving you. It’s an order.”
“And who said I had to listen to you? All you’ve done since I’ve known you is put me in situations that get me hurt. I’m tired of getting hurt. I want to go back home.”
That was where Giles would have intervened, if he had been able to make himself feel concerned. Andrea had come back from England late the previous night, more touched than she would admit by what had happened there. He had tried to make her talk about it, but he hadn’t gotten more than a repeat of what she had said on the phone. The Watchers, her included, had been to her father’s home in Seaford. They had found the globe that held Buffy’s soul. They had also found Quentin Travers. Lying, fully clothed, on his bed. Dead, from nothing more than exhaustion, the first reports said. Dead for several days. Apparently, the spell had taken more of his forces than he could afford to give.
“You’re not going home,” Andrea replied quietly, her contained anger too obvious in the twitching of a muscle in her jaw. “You have responsibilities. We all do, but yours are even more important that most. You’re the Slayer and you were…”
“Non,” Manon interrupted blankly. “I’m not the Slayer. I am a Slayer. I’ve done my part, helped saved the world, even died. Chloe is more than willing to take over here. I want to go back home. There are vamps to kill in France, too.”
For a moment, Andrea scrutinized Manon’s face, as if searching for what the teen wasn’t saying.
“I know a lot has happened in just a few weeks,” she said at last, more calmly than before. “But you can’t give up so easily. I can’t let you give up. The world needs you and…”
“And I need to be away from Sunnyhell”, Manon pleaded, and by the tone of her voice the tears weren’t very far. “I’ll fight whatever you want me to fight. But not here. Anywhere but here.”
It was a bit strange to hear Spike’s pet name for the town from the girl’s mouth, and Giles stopped paying attention to the discussion. Neither woman was yielding, and it wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Manon wasn’t his Slayer and it wasn’t his fight.
*****
True to her words, Manon had refused to leave with Chloe and her Watcher for patrol. She was now sitting on the mezzanine, forehead pressed to one of the banisters, legs dangling over the edge. Waiting, like the rest of them. As Giles glanced at her, he noticed, not for the first time, how miserable she looked, and he couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong. Maybe they had been too fast in sending her to the frontlines again. He remembered how Buffy had reacted, the months after her first death, and promised himself he’d talk to Andrea. Surely, they didn’t need two Slayers standing guard over the Hellmouth just after an averted apocalypse. It wasn’t his decision to make, but he didn’t see anything wrong in sending the kid to dust French vamps if that was what she wanted.
Once more, Giles’ gaze returned to his watch. It was completely useless, of course, since he had no idea at what time the vamps were going to arrive. Spike had only said they would come by that evening, just for a moment, before heading off to an unknown destination. And that was what they were all waiting for. To see for one last time a young lady – no, a vampire – who had made it clear she would happily eat them all if the occasion was given to her, and a vampire – no, a man – who wouldn’t let anything happen to any of them, but who had given up keeping other humans safe from her. Would Spike start feeding again now, since it was clear he would allow her to? Not that long ago, his soul had been torturing him with guilt over the thousands of people he had killed, and he had been intent on making up for his past. Could he really have forgotten all that, already? Giles could only guess how hard it was for Spike to have to control Buffy when he knew firsthand what it was like not to be able to feed properly. And yet, he couldn’t help this slight feeling of disappointment that Spike was renouncing his redemption. Slightly disappointed, also, that Buffy apparently had no desire to control herself. He had had high hopes, when she had talked to him, when she had made the bargain with the Council. Spike didn’t have a soul, he could hurt people, but he chose not too, so why couldn’t she do the same? He understood, now, that it was her worry over Spike that had restrained her, nothing else. They all understood that.
*****
“It’s weird.”
Xander’s soft murmur gathered no reply for a moment, almost as if no one had heard. He was sitting at the research table, Anya seemingly asleep as she rested against his chest. Willow on his left, Tara next to her, Dawn and Steven on his right, Giles opposite him with Andrea at his side. No place at the table for Angel, who was silently brooding where he sat on the counter.
“What is weird?” Willow finally inquired, just as quietly.
“This. Us. Waiting for vampires to come by. Does anyone even have a stake?”
Sharp looks were suddenly directed at the young man, who raised a hand in an appeasing gesture.
“My point, exactly,” he said with a sigh. “We know two vamps are on their way here, we know as soon as they’re gone they will be feeding and killing, and yet none of us, me included, wants to stop them. It’s just weird.”
Again, a deep, ominous silence fell on the room. It was eventually broken by Dawn, who said in a trembling voice:
“If it wasn’t for her, for them, none of us would be here today. The world would just be gone.”
“There are more vampires than all of us together could ever dust,” Tara added, a mere whisper. “Does it change anything if we let two of them go?”
No one answered, but the collective reply was clear. No. Two more vampires, or two less, it wouldn’t change much on a large scale. Of course, people would die because they were letting them go. But as Dawn had said, everybody on the planet would have died long ago without Buffy. And…
“I couldn’t kill her. Not after everything we’ve been through together. Even if she attacked us, I would find a way to stop her, but I just couldn’t…”
Willow’s voice, as she explained exactly what Giles felt, trailed off as a stake was suddenly deposited on the table. All eyes converged on Steven, whose hand was still clutching the piece of wood.
“If she attacks,” he declared coldly, “nothing will stop her except for Spike or a stake. And if Spike… if he doesn’t stop her, we won’t have much of a choice.”
There were quiet murmurs but no one openly contradicted the teen. He was right, they knew it, even if they hated that he was, even if he obviously hated having said it.
“Put that away,” Angel growled from his perch on the counter. “The last thing we need is to antagonize her. Spike won’t let her harm any of us, and you know it.”
The teen’s back stiffened, but he didn’t turn around to look at his father as he made the stake disappear up his sleeve.
*****
They hadn’t moved much in the last twenty minutes or so. They hadn’t talked. They just waited for closure to be given to them. And finally, their patience was rewarded. The doorbell chimed, and Giles, like all the others, suddenly sat straighter and turned to watch as two blondes clad in black leather entered the shop, hand in hand.
*****
The ride to the Magic Box was done in silence. They hadn’t talked much since the afternoon, actually. Not since Spike had asked her the question. Did she want to go back to Heaven? What kind of question was that, anyway? Buffy had thought he was finally ready to be a vampire, a real one, with her, he had said they were leaving, had hinted they would do whatever she pleased now, and then that. The question. Just a few words that had clouded everything. That had her wondering if he ever would completely accept her without her soul, or if he was just taking whatever she was now because he couldn’t have what she had been before anymore.
“Am I not enough for you?”
She finally let out the words that had been bugging her for hours just as he was stopping the car in front of the store. He turned to her, his face a study in shadows as the light from behind the blacked out windows was barely enough for her to see his surprise.
“Not enough?” he repeated, incredulous. “You are all I have. All I need. All I want. Why would you ever think you’re not enough?”
His hand rose to cup her face and pull her toward him until their foreheads touched.
“You still want me to get that damn soul back,” she replied in a murmur. “If I was enough for you, you wouldn’t have asked…”
A finger on her lips stopped her.
“Luv… You’re still my Buffy. Whatever or whoever you eat, you still have the same fire in you, the same strength, the same passion I fell in love with.”
His lips brushed against hers, with no more pressure than a shadow.
“Then why?” Buffy sighed against his skin.
“Because you are the same. Because, to the exception of valuing human life, you think the same. And if you do, some part of you must still want Heaven. I don’t want to wonder for all the time we have in front of us whether I could have done something more to give you what you want when it’s all over.”
“We are immortal,” Buffy protested weakly. “So why worry about that?”
He let out a small, dry chuckle.
“You do realize that the thousands of vamps you dusted in the last ten years were all just as immortal as you are now, right luv?”
She couldn’t help pouting at his words, and he captured her bottom lip between his teeth, nibbling softly for a few seconds.
“You don’t have to come in,” he said when he let go at last. “If you don’t want to, just stay here, I’ll be back in a minute.”
“I said I would try and touch it for you, didn’t I?” she replied with a quiet sigh.
“Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself, luv, or not at all.”
She nodded, and leaned in again for a kiss. Just lips at first, soft and caressing, until her tongue requested access to his mouth. Softness became urgency, then, and the caresses turned into hunger as their tongues danced against each other. When he pulled away, she moaned quietly in protest, before catching her breath and following him out of the car. He grabbed her hand just before they entered, and she stepped inside after him, repressing a sigh as she saw the whole gang there, waiting for them. She couldn’t wait to just be done with it and on their way out of town.