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Summary: In an attempt to get over her grief for Spike, Buffy has cut herself off from her past life, and anything that reminds her of the vampire that's still in her heart.  But when a news story brings her attention to the battle in LA, the Slayer finds herself once again facing old betrayals and old faces.  Returning to LA she finds even newer betrayals and the possible death of her most secret hope.


Faded Hope

by bitchee

Chapter 1

Florida:

Light from the sinking sun flared brightly, throwing the long shadow of the chosen one behind her as she stood gazing out across the ocean.

Standing at the edge of the water watching the day die in a blaze of glory, Buffy’s tranquil features reflected those of a woman who was at peace with herself, and the world around her. Nobody would have guessed from her expression that her mind was far from the beauty playing out in front of her.

Her memories and thoughts both focused inward, back to over a year ago and more than three thousand miles away. Back to a town and a man who no longer existed.

It was the light from the setting sun that had done it, had made her think of that last day in Sunnydale. The brightness and clarity of the light from the sunset as it first kissed the waters edge, flashing her back to the light shed by the dying vampire in the Hellmouth.
Of course, if it hadn’t been the sunset it would have been something else.

Yesterday at the local market that she and Dawn frequented, it had been a British voice, the week before that it had been a song on the radio, the time before that a Man U jersey worn by some tourist, and so on and so on. Every place she’d been, every new sight her eyes had taken in over the last year, had been coloured by thoughts of him.

There wasn’t a place she could go that didn’t hold some reminder of Spike.


England had been the worst, the constant stream of Spike speak driving her back to the states after barely a month. Her guilt over leaving Giles to cope with all the new slayers had barely registered, she just knew that she couldn’t take one more heart wrenching moment of the hope she felt, each time she heard some random British curse. A simple Bloody Hell in the right tone had her head whipping up, pulse racing, expecting to see him, even as she knew that logically it was impossible. It had been sheer torture that not even her slaying could distract her from.


So she and Dawn had come home, well not home exactly. She couldn’t face California, and the thought of seeing Angel had turned her stomach, so she’d told Dawn to pick a place, and that’s how they had ended up in Key Largo.

Dawn thought the irony of the Key living in the keys was hilarious, and the easy access to Disney World hadn’t hurt either. Buffy herself had figured that Florida was the one place she wouldn’t be reminded of Spike, and after ascertaining that the area was actually pretty low on the demon activity front, she’d conceded to Dawn’s choice.


Eight months on, and she’d come to realise that no place in the world would be safe from the memory of the man she’d loved too little too late.

She missed him more than she thought it was possible, more than Angel when she was seventeen, more than her mother that first year… more than heaven.

Sometimes she wondered if he hadn’t taken a part of her soul when they’d joined hands that last day. It sure as hell felt like something inside her was missing.



She sighed heavily as she reached down to pick up her shoes and the novel she’d barely touched. Turning to make her way back to the street, she was distracted from her thoughts by the sight of her sister running towards her, franticly calling her name.

“Buffy, Oh God Buffy, oh My God you have to see this. C’mon your not gonna believe it!”

Buffy didn’t even have time to get a word out before Dawn was babbling excitably and dragging her towards the street and their small apartment.

“I promise I was so going to study for that test on Wednesday like you said, but then I remembered there was gonna be a rerun of the Dawson’s final, and since I missed it the first time cos of …” She gulped heavily, before looking distinctly shifty. “Uh never mind it doesn’t matter.” she blurted, before continuing with her babble fest. “So I was watching Dawson’s, and God” she huffed rolling her eyes “talk about lame, I don’t know what the hell Joey’s damage is but she so didn’t deserve…”


Buffy rolled her own eyes, she was sure her sisters’ ability to get off topic was the direct result of too much Willow exposure; she snapped her fingers under her sisters’ nose to get her attention. “Focus Dawnie, focus, back to the splainy, critique Joey’s love life later.”

Dawn glared at the amused look on her sisters’ face, but remembering the reason for her rush to get to the beach, she launched back into her story with barely a pause for breath.

“Ok so I’m watching the show, when all of a sudden it gets interrupted by this news flash. At first I thought it was some sort of terrorist attack, cos there’s like fire and smoke and people running and lots of jerky shots of downtown LA from a helicopter, so I’m sitting there freaking out and then whoa… the camera zooms in and there’s this shot of an honest to god freakin Dragon….”

Buffy’s eyes widened, but she didn’t get a chance to interrupt, Dawn sucked in another, much needed breath and shocked her sister nearly speechless with her next words.

“So ok the Dragon? It does this great big swoopy thing and I’m thinking Whoa… someone is about to be toast! But then the guy filming it loses it for a moment and I’m sure the next thing I’m gonna see is either the camera guy filming his last moment on earth, or maybe something worse, cos I can hear him yelling Holy Shit and then the camera goes majorly spastic.”

She took an even deeper breath.

“But this is the part your not gonna believe… The picture clears up and it’s the Dragon again and it’s got bloody Angel clinging to its neck and he’s waving a honking big sword, and they’re flying above what looks like an army of demons.”


Her little sisters excited babble, stalled as an awed and frightened look settled on her features.

“God Buffy, I’ve never seen so many demons in the one place… it was… freaky, I mean sure there was the whole Hellmouth and Turok-Han thing last year…but this, it was uber creepy. I mean, I knew from research and stuff that there are lots of different types… but to see them… to see them all together like that.”


Dawn’s eyes met hers, and in them was a look of respect that Buffy found unnerving in her blasé sister. She knew Dawn was experiencing something that up until now Buffy had never been able to put into words, at least not to anyone who wasn’t a slayer. And it more than bothered her that the last of her sisters’ innocence had been lost, seeing something on TV that Buffy had spent years trying to protect her from.

Dawn’s expression tightened at Buffy’s, her eyes falling away at her sisters’ look of sympathy. She shuffled her feet, hesitating over wether to tell her sister the rest of what she’d seen.

Buffy though, had noticed the classic Dawn avoidance gesture, and her gaze sharpened as the younger girl fidgeted before falling silent.

“What is it Dawn? What aren’t you telling me?”

Dawn sighed heavily before meeting her sisters’ eyes. “Ok…so you gotta promise not to overreact and start yelling.”

“Hey! I think I’ve been pretty damn calm so far. You’ve just told me that there’s some big battle going down in LA involving my ex and a Dragon and I’ve been all about the calmness. So spill already, it can’t be that bad…can it?”


At the apprehensive look on her little sisters face Buffy felt a sudden chill scuttle up her spine.

“I think,” Dawn ventured hesitantly. “But I’m not completely sure… that I may have seen Faith and Willow.”

At the blank look on Buffy’s face she looked away before continuing.

“It was only for a second, and the picture was kinda fuzzy but I swear I saw Willow, Faith, and at least a couple of what I think might have been slayers. They were pretty far back from the action but… well, Willow’s magic is pretty memorable… and um... I ah… I sort of... maybe... think I recognised the scythe, in the hand of someone who looked an awful lot like Faith. I…I could be wrong Buff. I mean…”

Raising her eyes back to her sisters’ face, she voiced the question running through both their minds.

“Surely Giles would have contacted you first, or at least let you know that he was sending the others?”

Buffy’s expression was thunderous, her thoughts even more so.

She cursed before grabbing her sisters’ arm and making a beeline for their apartment.

“Buffy slow down, sheesh I like my arm attached!” she whined, as her sister’s grip tightened.

Buffy released the younger girl. Throwing her a curt ‘Sorry bout that’ she increased her pace, anger pulsing like blood through her veins, she stomped up the steps to their new home.


It wasn’t until they were both in the living room, and the TV remote was in her hand that Buffy felt she could finally get words out past the fury that was threatening to choke her.

“That Bastard! He’s done it again! I should have expected it from Angel, he’s always pulled the protect Buffy shit, but I thought after Sunnydale Giles might have actually learned his lesson. Huh!” she finished bitterly. “I should have known, God forbid I might wanna be there to help another vampire.”

Dawn didn’t say a word, she just watched wide eyed as her sister franticly channel surfed looking for the story she had seen earlier.

Within seconds Buffy had found it.


Five minutes and one crushed remote later, Dawn found herself in her room packing for the flight to LA.