The Ultimate
Betrayal
by jamies_lady
Summary:
After the Battle in LA Riley brings news to Buffy which will change
things for ever.
Goes VERY off canon after the Battle of Sunnydale
Chapter 9
They all looked dreadful. They were exhausted. It had
been three days since Buffy had returned from the past and Willow was
only just strong enough to emerge from her room. Kennedy had been
waiting on her hand and foot all that time, barely leaving her side to
go to the bathroom. The other girls had brought food up to them: Willow
could just manage soup and a sandwich before falling back to sleep. The
effort of holding the glamour in place was weakening her considerably.
They needed more help.
Xander had vanished for a couple of hours on the second day. He
had gone to the bus station, at Kennedy’s request. The slayer wouldn’t,
couldn’t leave Willow for long, and she needed a job doing. Xander was
the one trusted to do it.
He’d been met by a nondescript man who had handed him a key for a
locker in the railway terminal. The locker contained two suitcases,
both full of cash. Daddy had come through. Xander returned back to the
hotel with the best part of two hundred thousand dollars in unmarked,
old, untraceable bills.
He dropped the bags off in the foyer for Kennedy to collect later, made
his way back to his room and shut the door against the world again.
Xander couldn’t talk to the girls. He was doing everything on
automatic. He remembered Giles attacking one of the slayers. Raping
her. God he couldn’t even remember the poor girl’s name, but Giles had
raped her then killed her. His arm had a tattoo that glowed red with
the girl’s pain and fear. The memories included a second man holding
him back as the poor girl screamed her last. The next morning he had
really believed that she had been killed by a vampire. And all that
time it had been Giles betraying them from the inside. Giles and a
shadowy figure that he could never quite see.
Then there was Anya, sweet, honest forthright Anya, killed by Andrew
and not the Turok Han, killed for some nefarious purpose. At that
moment Xander would have done anything, given anything to have her back
in his arms.
His heart also broke for poor Buffy, having to hide the love she felt
for Spike. Xander didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself for the
pain he put her through.
And the blood, the blood that Giles took from the slayers. Xander could
remember the vials of blood Giles kept in his office, taken from all of
the slayers. With that available to a warlock like Giles, it gave him
power over all of the slayers should, no when, he chose to use it. It
was a time bomb waiting to explode beneath them.
It was Dawn who finally dragged him out of his room. She’d had enough
of him ‘sulking like a girl’ and threatened to pull his hair out by the
roots if he didn’t come downstairs immediately. Xander was brave enough
to face vampires, demons and even witches but an angry Summers’ female
was more than any man, alive or dead, should have to deal with. He
opened the door and let her into his darkened room.
‘You stink,’ was Dawn’s first comment as she roughly opened the
curtains to let in the light. She pointed in the direction of the
shower. Xander was a little slow on the uptake. So she dragged him into
the bathroom and shoved him in the direction of the cubicle.
‘Eeew! Don’t you ever clean up after yourself?’ She moaned as she
switched the shower on and shoved him under it, clothes and all.
‘It’s cold!’ Xander squealed as the water hit him.
‘Well warm it up.’ Dawn said with exaggerated patience. ‘You turn that
knob there,’ she pointed as though she were talking to a six year old.
‘And my clothes are wet…’
‘Then take them off,’ she demanded.
‘No way, not with you in here.’
‘Fine, I’ll wait outside, but if you’re more than five minutes I’m
coming in to get you.’ Dawn stomped out of the room and waited in the
hall. It was exactly four and a half minutes later that a bedraggled
Xander appeared at the door, his hair still wet.
Dawn looked him up and down and pointed towards the stairs.
‘We all have things that hurt at the moment Xander, it’s cutting us all
to pieces and we all have to face them, but it’s better we do it
together.’ She looked at Xander. ‘We have to stick together,’ she
repeated softly, compassionately.
Xander nodded and followed the younger Summers down to join the rest of
the gang.
‘There’s coffee in the kitchen,’ Buffy pointed in the direction of a
pair of swing doors. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t make it,’ she smiled, ‘Viv
and Rona have taken over in there and are even making breakfast as we
speak.’
‘Breakfast would be of the good.’ Xander tried to raise a smile, but it
didn’t reach his eyes. They were still haunted.
The seven of them looked very lonely around the huge table in the
kitchen: they were the original Scoobies plus a few extras. Buffy
looked around at the only people who meant anything to her anymore.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘we have to be honest now, really honest. Everything
that you remember, no matter how shameful, must be out in the open.’
She looked around the table again. It was hard to look everyone in the
face.
‘I’ll start. I loved Spike with all my heart and he loved me. When we
left Sunnydale I was pregnant with his child; Giles gave me something
to get rid of the baby. Xander, if you’re going to freak or start
saying horrid things, you can leave now. I might not have defended him
before but I will now. He was my life and he will always be my soul.’
Xander opened his mouth a couple of times.
‘I remember him trying to make friends with me: he saved me from a
couple of nasty idiots from college who wanted to beat me up, and
bought me beers when I was under age. But my big secret is, I saw him
Giles i mean, rape and kill one of the slayers, and then there’s Anya,
we were back together and I really loved her, there has been no-one
else. I didn’t hate the fact that she was a vengeance demon, in fact it
sort of made me hot. I think I saw Ethan Rayne during the last days
before the hellmouth collapsed and I think I saw him in London as
well.’
‘So did I!’ echoed around the table.
‘Well now we know where some of the bad vibes were coming from. Ethan
Rayne was always trouble.’
The rest of their conversation was cut short by a small disturbance
outside the service door behind them. There was a loud banging on the
door.
Buffy signalled for the others to wait, and picking up a knife, headed
to see who or what was making all that noise. She was a little
surprised to see Septamus Pratt and Morgana pulled up outside in a
truck.
Buffy quickly opened the door to let them into the building. Septamus
carefully locked the truck before stepping inside the hotel to face a…
gaggle? Murder? Group? …of slayers. None of whom were that fond of
Watchers and what they represented.