The Covenant
by jamies_lady
Summary:
After the fight with the senior partners the scoobies gather in
rome
for a well earned break but an unexpected meeting leads to adventure
Chapter 20
Robin looked at his mother, he still couldn’t believe she
was there.
‘It is you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes baby boy its me. You’ve grown so big and good looking, you look
like your father; he was some man as well.’
Faith watched as mother and son walked over to a small couch and
started talking. She felt like a spare wheel. She turned to see the
vampire she had been introduced to bringing another Orb into the room
and handing it to Willow.
Willow, who was still sitting inside the circle, said something in
Latin, called a name and another girl appeared in a puff of smoke.
Looked like some cheap Hollywood effect. But the girl was definitely
there. Faith watched as the figure seemed to get more and more solid
over a couple of seconds, Willow quietly murmuring something to the
girl who answered just as quietly. Then Willow pointed at the shining
doorway. The girl made her way towards the light as the vampire went
back into the room with the Orbs, calling out a name as he went.
Willow stretched her back like a cat and reached for a bottle of water.
‘Hi Faith, long time no see,’ she said.
‘You got a moment to talk, Red? Robin’s having an open heart with his
mom and its getting a bit sickly sweet for me.’
‘Yes, no problem, but just a couple of minutes though, they’ll be
bringing me another Orb soon. We’re getting through about 50 an hour,
but it’s taking too long. We need a way to speed up if we can: Travers
will be out in about an hours time even with the progress we’re making.’
‘Progress?’
‘Yep, the Slayers all know the name of the slayer before them, so we
can free them all but it’s taking too long. And all that time Travers
is pulling energy from them like a battery, and with that he can just
break free and then he says he’s going to kill us all.’
‘But you’re all still here?’
‘No, Marcus has taken the women and children somewhere safe. He’s one
of the Covenant that first alerted us to the problem. These vampires
have kids so you can see why Buffy wants to help them, and as an added
bonus they were after Travers.’ Willow added with a grin, then headed
back into position as Charles came back into the room with another Orb.
Willow continued her work, and Charles left again shortly with another
name. Giles had wandered in at some point and took over from Andrew,
sitting in the corner asking questions of the spectres before they left
through the doorway.
‘Can I ask you something? If you can’t stop Travers pulling energy off
of the slayers in the Orbs, couldn’t you isolate the Orbs so they don’t
leak energy, Giles?’ Faith asked.
Giles opened his mouth to talk, then closed it again, then opened it
again. He continued to do an impression of a goldfish for a couple of
minutes. Xander, bringing in the next Orb, laughed.
‘You’ve broken Giles! Why have you broken Giles?’ he asked Faith.
‘Oh dear Lord,’ said Giles, cleaning his glasses frantically. ‘Faith
has just pointed out an obvious answer to our time problem. If we
isolate all the Orbs inside a circle, and prevent them from leaking
energy, Travers won’t be able to get them. Giving us all the time we
need to free the slayers from their imprisonment and finish the job we
came to do,’ Giles explained. ‘And she’s managed to make me feel a
complete idiot in the process.’
‘Well I do live with a high school principal, it was bound to rub off
eventually.’
‘I like it. Who’s going to do the magic though? Willow is dropping,
although she’s trying to hide it, and I don’t know anyone else that can
do her job. We only have about an hour.’ Xander reminded them.
‘Tell Willow to hold on and I’ll ring the coven in Devon, I’m sure they
can send someone. Actually, we’ll have Dawn open the Doorway and
whoever it is can walk straight here.’
With that he hurried off to use the phone leaving Faith and Xander
alone.
Faith was called out of her daze by the sound of her name. Robin must
have called two or three times from the look on his face. He signalled
over to the two of them on the couch.
‘Mom, this is Faith and you’re going to be a gran,’ Robin said, with
obvious pride, gently rubbing Faith’s stomach.
Nikki smiled at the dark haired beauty looking at her son with love in
her eyes.
‘I’m glad that Robin has found someone to share his life with, and
congratulations on the new arrival. I hope you’ll both be very happy in
your life together. Now I need to tell you something. It’s about Spike.
I know he’s here in the building.’
Robin tensed immediately. He didn’t want to have to kill Spike; neither
did he want to have to explain to his mother why her murderer went
unpunished. But he’d made peace with Spike after Sunnydale. Robin
honestly felt that saving the world did sort of pay off a debt.
Nikki looked at her son. It was nice to know she could still read him,
even if he was a man now.
‘No, not killing the vampire, that’s not what I want. I know he killed
me but it wasn’t like you thought, Robin. I let him.’
Robin looked towards Faith, devastated. It was one thing that he’d lost
his mother so young but to think that she’d abandoned him broke his
heart all over again. He went to walk away but Faith stopped him.
‘Lets just hear what she has to say, shall we?’ The slayer suggested.
‘Thank you, Faith. I didn’t just choose to abandon you, baby boy;
Travers had put a price on both our heads. We had been running for a
couple of years. I don’t suppose you remember us all moving from place
to place, but we did. Seedy motels and cheap apartments. My watcher
found out that Travers was after you as well: slayers’ children have
powerful magic in their blood, and he was getting closer and closer,
seems he didn’t like slayers that had any hold on life either. He was
going to have you killed, and not quickly. He had gotten so close, so
very close and I couldn’t let you die: you were my world, my reason for
being. The only light in my dark life, so I found a master vampire who
could take me out, without it looking like a set-up. I pulled the
fight. It wasn’t just him, he was a really good fighter. He killed me,
yes, but it was quick and then I was trapped in the Orb. Didn’t know
about that bit, didn’t plan on that bit, but most important thing to me
was that you were safe.
‘You wait until that little one is born then you’ll understand you will
do ANYTHING to keep them protected, anything at all.
‘And it wasn’t so high a price to pay. You lived. You lived,’ she
repeated softly. Stroking his cheek. ‘You see, baby boy, you were and
still are the most important thing in my world.’
Robin looked at her through new eyes. This woman was amazing in so many
ways. To give up her very life to keep him safe. He knew then in his
heart she had truly loved him and always would. Robin felt the tears on
his face long before he realised that he was crying. His mom loved him
more than anything else in the world.
‘Still have problems with the bleached wonder but I’m glad you don’t
want him dead. He saved the world, killed himself, wiped out tourak kan
and closed a hell mouth; really don’t think I’ll be forgiven if I try
to put a stake through him now.’
‘Well I’m glad. I’m glad you’re not full of hate, it just eats you up
from the inside. That’s what happened to Travers. He was just full of
hate and jealousy. While we were in the Orbs we could hear what was
going on but couldn’t influence it. One of the girls found a way for us
to talk to one another when he wasn’t around, you see he was jealous of
the strength of the slayers and jealous of the love his slayer had. It
was, and is, her reward from heaven for doing her job; each of us was
supposed to have a love like that. We’re supposed to meet someone who
becomes our sun and moon and he was jealous. So he set about destroying
the line. Did a good job of the destruction. He used to rant at us,
blaming us for the ills in the world, the fact that demons were
winning. He weakened the line and he blames us for not being strong
enough. You my darling boy are a slayers’ reward - as is Spike.
‘Now I must go, but I’ll be back when that little one is born; you’ll
feel me around.’
Nikki placed a ghostly kiss on Robin’s cheek and brushed Faith’s head
and walked into the light.