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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 12


When Spike awoke, the first thing he registered was the quiet. The next was the headache threatening to split his skull open. The third and most alarming of the three was the fact that he appeared to be chained by both arms to a bed.

Straining his eyes he could make out the dark shapes of what he realized must be furniture. That, along with the bed, told him he was in someone’s bedroom. The strong smell of charred wood, damp plaster, and strangely enough, explosives also told him that no one had lived here for quite a while.

The bed was wrought iron and wood, and Spike knew that given enough time he could probably work his way loose by breaking the headboard that the chains were cuffed to.

Unfortunately, his vampire hearing soon let him know that he wasn’t going to get that time. As his headache subsided so did the pounding that had masked the slow heartbeat of the rooms other occupant.

He froze as seconds later he caught the familiar scent of his slayer.


Buffy had run as though the hounds of hell were chasing her, the slayer part of her intent on putting as much distance between the witch and herself as possible.

The predator inside the girl knew that the vampire would not be unconscious for much longer, that she had to find somewhere to secure him before he awoke. Buffy’s past experience also told her to find somewhere that the others wouldn’t think of looking. Somewhere that she could keep him until she convinced him that he was not Faith’s but hers.

Operating on a level that was barely human, the slayer rifled through Buffy’s memories of LA, discarding several possibilities before finding one that suited.

Entering the burnt out shell of a derelict building twenty minutes later, Buffy surfaced just long enough to recognize the former offices of Angel investigations, before her conscious awareness was, once again, subjugated by the slayers need.

Intent on finding an entrance to the basement below, her slayer side took control.

Carefully making her way through the fire-blackened ground floor her eyes scanned the damaged interior until she found what she was searching for, the remains of the old elevator shaft.


The slayer inside Buffy knew that it couldn’t hide the former lovers forever. It also realized Willow would eventually find them no matter where they hid. The demon also knew that if it did not manage to reunite the two lovers before that happened, then a lot more than Buffy and Spike’s hearts would stay broken.

The demon essence inside the slayer had lived for millions of years. Within it was carried the knowledge of every host, from the first slayer Sineya, to Buffy Summers and every potential that would ever be called.

Though no longer sentient in the strictest sense, the demon that gave each slayer her strength and abilities did have a sort of sense memory that allowed it to span time and dimensions. It was this ability that the slayer now put to good use.

Unbeknownst to the council, the men that had implanted the first slayer had no real knowledge of the demon that they had used, no conception that the thing they had captured was much more than it seemed.

Giles, after taking charge of the damaged slayer, would be the only one to come close to suspecting the truth. However, even his mind could not begin to understand the scope of a slayer’s true essence.


The real truth was that the slayer demon existed beyond the laws of physics and nature, it was, is and would be in every girl that had ever harbored the potential to carry it. It existed both inside and outside of linear time and crossed the borders of every known dimension.


When Spike killed his first slayer in China her slayer demon knew him as the vampire that killed Nikki Wood and the one that would stand by Buffy Summers’ side. It knew him through Kendra’s eyes and Faith’s, and through every slayer that had ever, or would ever know him in any way.

In the many times Buffy could have killed him it was the slayer within that stayed her hand.

Though unable to understand or express concepts in human terms, the force that powered Buffy recognized Spike as necessary to its host’s survival, thus ensuring that the blond vamp survived their many fights.


The slayer essence existed only to serve the purpose of the girls it inhabited. Time, space, or body did not matter; it served only the needs of the current host.
From the moment the first slayer became that host it was connected to every slayer that would ever live.

Unfortunately the connection it shared was not infallible. The Slayer demon only knew what could be, what might be. It in its limited way it could sense the path of its host and even glean certain details of the lives of the others that were part of the slayer line, but the future was a varied and tricky thing and much like prophesy it was subject to interpretation.

Without true sentience to guide it the essence of the slayer relied on instinct and the decision making skills of its host.

In reality it was only able to control what the host could perceive, anything beyond that was beyond its control. It had the knowledge but only limited means of imparting it.
Though symbiotic in form the relationship it shared with the body it inhabited was limited, the girl herself had no knowledge of what the animating force of the slayer really was and the demon had no direct control over her actions.


Before Buffy’s first death, it had always been able to draw on her knowledge and influence her decisions to varying degrees. It had of course known that she would die briefly but with its limited awareness it was unable to comprehend what her death would mean for the slayer line.

When a second slayer was called it suddenly found that it was unable to access Kendra’s memories in the same way it had always done with the others. It could still sense her but had no influence over her actions, and since its knowledge of the future had always depended on its host the fact it could not connect with Kendra in the same way as it had with Buffy meant that its knowledge of future events was now flawed. And paradoxically… had always had been flawed.

Though driven totally by instinct, the primal force of the slayer, (up until Buffy’s death) had always been able to sense and augment the needs of its current host. However, after Kendra was called it found itself severely limited, as the slayer line split in a way that was unforeseen by the slayer demon and should have been impossible.


The conscious part of the slayer demon, its ID or soul, had been anchored deep within Buffy and was as it had always been, the last part of the slayer essence to be released. Upon her death at the hands of the master, the slayer demon did what it had always done, it sent it self out and forged a connection with the next girl. Once the connection was made, it poured its power into the girl and altered her physiology to accommodate the demon essence. However, before it could complete the transference …Buffy was brought back.

Buffy’s resuscitation by Xander meant that part of the slayer essence, instead of moving on completely, stayed with her. Moreover, because it existed beyond the limitations of time or dimension, the paradox of it existing simultaneously in two separate girls didn’t even cause a ripple. As far as the universal balance was concerned, it had always existed in every potential to some degree.

It was unfortunate that the powers governing that balance had no way to measure either the amount or balance of each girl’s slayerness. So of course, it went unnoticed when the latest host failed to receive the most vital part. The soul of the slayer essence, the part that guided the human girl’s calling staying within Buffy.

No less powerful, the essence residing in Buffy found itself cut off first from Kendra’s thoughts and feelings and later Faith’s.

Subsequently each girl received the power, but none of the guiding force that ensured a slayer would stay true to her calling.

This meant that the slayer essence had no way to check Faith’s gradual descent into darkness and no way of tempering the sense of separation that the split had caused.
Though still retaining its knowledge of all the slayers that would exist, along with the potentials, Faith was now locked away from it.


Buffy’s second death was only to make things worse, for without the soul of the slayer demon to guide a slayer, Faith became an aberration… no longer heavens chosen one.

Though no one realized it, the damaged balance that was to cause the release of the First Evil, was in fact not due to Willow’s resurrection of Buffy, but rather the paradox that had occurred with that first death. Her second death and the botched resurrection only ensuring that the part of the slayer essence trapped within Buffy would never be released.

It seemed that Spike had been more right than he had known. Buffy may have not come back wrong… but she had come back as something more than human.

For the first time in millennia the slayer was more than just a host sharing a symbiotic relationship. The spell had melded Buffy and her slayer essence into something close to what it had once been, long before humans had existed.


Unknown to any but the slayer essence itself, once, aeons ago it had walked the earth as a conscious and sentient being. Omnipresent and ageless, it had long since evolved past the concept of good or evil. It had only one drive, one purpose - the desire to change. To become what it was meant to be.

And so, as man rose and the last of the old ones retreated to sleep their deathless sleep in the deeper well, it had, instead of joining them, given in to its destiny and allowed the destruction of its shell.

It became in that moment the essence that the first watchers had unknowingly used to create their warrior, the slayer. And its purpose was fulfilled.


Now the former god found itself once again encased within a shell of flesh and bone, cut off from its purpose, and constrained for the first time in millennia by human limitation.
Because of Willow’s spell there would be no eventual release that would allow the balance to be righted. It would never move on to inhabit the many others it now sensed.

Buffy’s fall through the dimensional portal opened by the key’s blood, had merged the slayer essence and the girl’s soul, so that months later when Buffy crawled out of the grave the slayer trapped within her instantly realised they had been altered on a molecular level, Buffy’s body reformed to house the essence of a God.


When Willow did her spell empowering all the other slayers it was Kendra and Faith all over again. The guiding force, absent in all of them. Now, unbeknownst to any but Buffy’s inner demon, the fate of the world was once again in jeopardy, the balance for the first time teetering on the brink of the unknown.

Its purpose, to guide and balance the slayer line had become stymied by the spell that had unknowingly made its host immortal. Trapped first in Heaven and now in the body of a slayer that would never die, there was no way for the former god to reunite with the part of it that Willow had channelled into all the other girls. And without that vital part of the slayer essence many of those girls would travel the same path as Faith.

Before Buffy and her first death, the girl called {no matter her circumstances} was immediately connected to the demons higher purpose. Their inner strengths augmented by the essence of the slayer and their doubts and shortcomings balanced by the sense of connection that the demon enlivened. When a slayer was chosen her soul was wiped clean of humanities debt. Joined with the essence of a once god the host was imbued with the purity of the former god’s soul.

That wasn’t to say that they were any less human, it just meant that a slayer had tools to fight the darkness that was inherent in even the most noble human. They were still capable (Buffy had proved that) of all the ranged emotions that any human could feel and no less likely to make mistakes. It was only that with the essence inside guiding them, they were less likely to make those mistakes twice.

The life and experience of each girl might differ, but with their link to the slayers purpose, each slayer had a guideline that kept them on the path. Ensuring that even in their darkest moments the chosen ones ultimate duty would prevail.


With that link now broken, the slayers were no more than normal teenage girls. Worse, they were supernaturally powered teenage girls, with no inner purpose to guide them. The Sunnydale battle, unbeknownst to the Council or the Scoobies, was not the victory it had appeared to be, but in fact only the first step in the far reaching goal of the first evil.

Its ultimate goal? To subvert and control the slayer line, and failing that… ensure its total destruction.


This threat was what had driven it to the surface of Buffy’s mind. Ironically it was Willows resurrection that had given it the freedom and the ability to do this. Without that second death it would have been no more than a spectator within the host, but Buffy was now much more than a simple host and it in turn was more than just a guiding force.

The essence of the long dead god now used the memories of a day that had never happened, to hide the slayer and the vampire she loved.

Though still unable to fully grasp the nuances of human thought, the slayer demon followed the instinct that was common in all beings… the instinct to survive.

It was instinct that told it that it had to find a way to reconnect with the rest of the slayer line before the first evil established a foothold within the more vulnerable of the girls. That same instinct told it that Spike and Buffy’s bond was the key to that reconnection.