An
Unaccomplished Fate
Author: enigmaticblue
Rating: PG-15
Disclaimer: I don’t own most of these characters, and I’m not making any money off of the ones that are mine.
Summary: The sequel to Avocation and Under the Sun. Spike and Buffy’s relationship is on solid ground at last, but a new prophecy threatens everything they hold dear. The bonds of family and friendship will be tested, lives will be threatened, and the entire world will hang on the choice of one vampire.
A/N: Any resemblance to canon is pretty
much
accidental.
Chapter 22
“All lovely things will have
an
ending,/All lovely things will fade and die,/And youth, that’s now so
bravely
spending,/Will beg a penny by and by./Fine ladies soon are all
forgotten,/ And
goldenrod is dust when dead,/The sweetest flesh and flowers are
rotten/And
cobwebs tent the brightest head./Come back, true love! Sweet youth,
return!—/But time goes on, and will unheeding,/Though hands will reach,
and eyes will yearn,/And the wild days set true hearts bleeding…”
~Conrad
Aiken, “All Lovely Things”
Spike
finished loading the last unconscious body in Joyce’s SUV. He’d made a
quick
run to the Summers’ house to pick it up, knowing that it was the only
vehicle
that would allow them to transport the knights somewhere else.
“What
are we going to do with them?” Quinn asked once he’d shut the back door.
“You’re
going to head back to my place and stay with Buffy and Willow,” Spike
replied.
“Wes and I will take care of these gits. I’d rather not place you at
anymore
risk than you already are.”
“Are
you sure?”
“Yeah,
go on,” Spike said with a jerk of his head.
As
Quinn jogged off, Wesley gave Spike a sharp look. “You don’t think they
already
know?”
Spike
shook his head. “I don’t think they’re going to find out.”
Wesley
stiffened. “What exactly are we going to do with them, Spike?”
Spike
leaned against the vehicle. “You remember Buffy’s dream, right?”
As
Spike had expected, Wesley’s expression hardened. “These are the
knights.”
“It’s
why Buffy was so spooked,” Spike confirmed. “So, I figure we make sure
they
don’t come back anytime soon.”
“I’m
your man.” Wesley slid into the passenger seat, resting his forearm on
the door
out the open window. “Where are we taking them?”
“The
desert. Figure we’ll leave them in the middle of nowhere, no armor, and
with a
couple of bottles of water. They might live, they might not. I don’t
think I
care.”
Wesley
winced. “That should be effective.”
“We
can’t risk the Council finding out about Quinn, and we can’t risk them
finding
the Key. You know what they’d do.”
“I think
that ‘severing the Link’ speaks for itself.”
“I
have a proposition for you, Wes.”
“I’m
not going to like it, am I?”
“No,
you’re really not.”
“Let’s
hear it.”
“Can
you get back in the Council?”
“You
want me to infiltrate the Council?
After how I left things with my father? There’s no way.”
Spike
cleared his throat. “I was thinking something a little sneakier than
that.”
“Let’s
hear it.”
“I
need you to find a weak spot, someone on the Council you think you can
get
information out of. I want to know what they want with Dawn, and
there’s only
one way we’re going to get that information.”
Wesley
shook his head. “There’s no one on the Council that would trust me
enough to
give me that sort of information, even if I managed to talk my way back
in. I’d
still be viewed as tainted, and probably sent off to Bath as a
researcher.” He
paused and looked over at Spike. “But you just want to get me in the
door.”
“Yeah.
You’re a dab hand with a truth spell, Wes, and if they’re willing to
put a geas
on me, I have no problem giving them a taste of their own medicine.”
Wesley
leaned back in the seat, his eyes narrowed in thought. “I know of
someone who
might know. There’s just one problem. Whomever we truth spell is going
to
know.”
“Not
if they don’t remember it afterward, and Willow has Christmas break
coming up.”
“You’re
talking about a very complicated operation, Spike,” Wesley observed. “A
trip to
England, preferably without the Council knowing that we’re gone,
kidnapping
someone for long enough to do the truth spell, and then wiping their
memory of
the event.”
“That’s
exactly what I’m talking about. Who is it going to be?”
Spike
felt Wesley’s hesitation before he said, “My father. He’s neck deep in
this.”
“You
sure?”
“I’m
positive.” There was a grim pleasure in his voice that Spike understood
well.
~~~~~
“What
did you do with them?” Buffy asked, pulling her hair back into a
ponytail. “And
we have to leave shortly.”
“I’m
aware.” Spike’s voice was muffled by the long sleeved t-shirt he was
pulling
over his head. “And I left them in the middle of the desert.”
Buffy
stopped to stare at him. “What?”
“I
left a couple of bottles of water with them. They won’t die. Probably.”
“Probably.”
“Knights,
vision, Willow. If they’re dead, or out of the way, they can’t kill
her.”
“That’s
true enough.” Buffy sighed and applied lip gloss. “I hate this, Spike.”
“What
about it do you hate?”
“Everything.
We have this prophecy, but we don’t know what’s coming next. Glory is
running
around, doing who knows what, and the Council—Quinn thinks the Knights
were working with them somehow.”
She
sensed Spike’s hesitation. “What is it?”
“I’m
sending Wesley to England, to get info out of the Council with a truth
spell.”
“Isn’t
that a little dangerous?”
“More
than a little, but he’ll be taking Willow with him, maybe one other.”
Spike
sighed. “Wesley agreed to it, Buffy. I wouldn’t ask anyone to do it
unless they
volunteered.”
“I
know.” Buffy did know, but this was part of what she hated. It was one
thing to
go out night after night to kill vampires and demons. It was something
else to
send her friends halfway around the world to spy on an organization
that was
supposed to be supporting her.
Still,
Buffy was aware that they might have to do a lot more that they found
distasteful before it was all over. “Let’s go,” she finally said. “We
can talk
about this later as a group.”
They
were silent during the short drive to her mother’s house, and as Buffy
stared
out the window, it suddenly hit her—how normal this all was. “Did you
ever think you’d be doing something like this?”
“Do
you mean trying to beat the Council at their own game while trying to
hold off
a bunch of Renaissance Fair rejects and figuring out how not to end the
world?
Or do you mean driving the Slayer to visit her mom, who is planning on
marrying
her Watcher tomorrow?”
Buffy
smirked. “This. Being normal.”
“We’re
far from normal, luv,” Spike replied. “But no, I didn’t. What time are
we
supposed to be there tomorrow, anyway?”
“Noon.
Mom said that they’d arranged an appointment with the Justice of the
Peace.”
She snorted. “And if you had told me a few years ago that my mom and my
Watcher…” Buffy trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence,
remembering
the thoughts she’d overheard from her mother’s mind when she’d been
infected
with the demon blood.
“Would
you ever want that?”
“Want
what?” Buffy asked, honestly puzzled.
Spike
shrugged, looking straight ahead through the windshield down the
street. He’d
just pulled up in front of 1630 Revello, but neither of them had made a
move to
get out. “Marriage. I know the other isn’t possible, but—”
“I
don’t know. Do you?”
“Wes
has talked about asking Willow,” Spike said in a low voice. “I wouldn’t
want
you to think that I’m asking just because everybody around us seems to
be
getting married.”
Buffy
had no idea how to answer that question. There was something about
dating a
vampire—and living with one—that had put her focus on the now. She
might be going to college, but she hadn’t given much thought to what
she would
do when she finished. She was with Spike, but she hadn’t thought about
marriage.
It had
been different with Angel. Then, everything had been about how they
would be
together forever, but now she knew how unlikely forever was, and so it
was just
easier not to think about it. How could she think past the next
apocalypse,
when there was no guarantee that either of them would make it through?
“Ask
me again when this is over,” she finally said. “I’m not saying that it
isn’t
something I would want, but with Glory and everything else, there’s
just too
much to think about.”
“Fair
enough.” He leaned over to press a hard kiss to her lips. “Let’s go.
Your mum
is probably wondering why we’re sitting out here.”
~~~~~
Dawn
lay in bed, hearing Joyce hum a lullaby as Thomas fussed in the next
room. She
had wound up with Buffy’s old room, which was mostly filled with her
sister’s
old stuff. Dawn had thought about asking Buffy and Spike if she could
stay with
them for a while because of the new baby, but she thought that might
look like
ingratitude.
And
she wasn’t—ungrateful, that was. She knew that Giles and Joyce didn’t
have to provide a place for her to stay, and Spike was rich enough that
he
could have sent her off to boarding school somewhere, far away from
Glory and
her reach.
Even
though she knew that she probably shouldn’t have, Dawn had eavesdropped
on the
after-dinner meeting. She had lied about having homework to do, knowing
that
the others wouldn’t hold back quite so much if they thought she was
upstairs in
her room.
So,
she’d huddled on the stairs, just out of sight, listening to Spike
describe the
knights, and she had shuddered at what they had said. The words still
echoed in
her head: “The Key is the link. The Link must be severed. Such is the
will of
God.”
Dawn
wondered glumly if it might not be better that way, easier for
everybody. She
wondered if she would go back to being a big ball of energy, or if she
would
simply cease to be. Luka might have known, but he was dead; Glory had
killed
him because she wanted Dawn.
Moving
as silently as possible, Dawn went to the window and slid up the sash,
letting
the cool air hit her face. She glanced out at the roof, gauging how
hard it
would be to get to the ground. She was suddenly certain that Buffy had
done
this, that she had snuck out after dark via this very route.
Then
again, Buffy was the Slayer.
With a
sigh, Dawn slid the window shut again, deciding that her restlessness
wasn’t
going to be assuaged by sneaking out. With her luck, she’d break a leg.
Dawn
stuffed her feet in the fuzzy blue slippers and shuffled out into the
hallway,
nearly running into Joyce who was bouncing Thomas in her arms. “Sorry,”
she
whispered.
“What
are you doing up, sweetheart? Couldn’t you sleep?”
“No,
not really.”
“We
didn’t wake you did we?”
Dawn
shook her head. “No. I was still awake.”
Joyce
paused, really looking at Dawn for the first time in what felt like
days. Not
that Dawn could blame her exactly. The dark circles under Joyce’s eyes
spoke of
how tired she was with a new baby in the house. “I’ll make us some
cocoa. Why
don’t you go downstairs, and I’ll be there in a moment?”
Dawn
was sitting at the kitchen island when Joyce appeared a few minutes
later,
without Thomas. “Did you have to wake Giles up?”
“It’s
good for him,” Joyce replied. “I don’t think I’ve shown you my secret
recipe
yet, have I?”
Dawn
was suddenly intrigued, almost in spite of herself. “It’s a secret?
Does Buffy
know?”
“She’s
never really been interested in learning.”
Dawn
stood next to Joyce at the stove, admiring Joyce’s quick, sure
movements as she
poured milk into a saucepan and showed Dawn the best way to chop the
chocolate.
Truth be told, there was more than a little overlap in her mind between
Joyce
and her mother—who wasn’t real and only existed in Dawn’s head.
Maybe
it was because Joyce was real, as was
her low, patient voice, her silky green robe. Even though the moment
felt a
little surreal. “How are you, sweetheart?”
Dawn
didn’t know how to answer that question; she didn’t know if honesty was the best policy under the
circumstances. How could she tell the person who had taken her in that
she
didn’t feel real, and that there were days where she wondered if she
wouldn’t
be better off dead?
“I
guess as well as can be expected.”
“You
know, I could tell you about how when I was your age, I went through
some of
the same kinds of trials, and trying to figure out who I was, but I
have a
feeling that would ring hollow.”
Dawn
couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips. “Yeah, kind of.”
“Well,
hang in there, and remember that I’m here for you, just like Buffy and
Spike,
and I’m sure any of the others.” Joyce held up a bottle of spice so
that Dawn
could see the label. “Cinnamon. My secret ingredient.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Joyce gave Dawn a brief hug. “And now you know my secret recipe.”
Dawn
looked at her hopefully. “Do you have any of those little marshmallows?”
~~~~~
Tara
bounced Thomas expertly to quiet him. Spike and Buffy were standing up
with
Joyce and Giles, and Wesley had Willow had were busy with various
activities.
When they had asked Tara to babysit Thomas, she had agreed eagerly.
Call
her crazy, but Tara loved babies.
The
knock on the door startled her, and Tara looked down at the infant.
“Let’s see
who that is, shall we, Tommy?”
She saw
Quinn on the porch through the windows, and quickly opened the door for
her.
“Hey.”
“Hey.
Come on in.”
“Wesley
told me you were here,” Quinn explained, closing the door behind her.
“I went
by to talk to him about the prophecy, and the Council.”
“It’s
been awhile,” Tara replied. “It’s good to see you.”
“You
too.” Quinn hesitated. “I, uh, wanted to let you know that I’m going to
my
parents’ place for Christmas. So I won’t be around.”
“Of
course. I figured that you would. Travers let you have the time, huh?”
“Who
says I asked for permission?” Quinn gave her a cheeky grin. “With
Travers,
sometimes it’s better to beg pardon than it is to ask permission.”
“I
could see that.”
Quinn
leaned over to see the baby. “So, this is Mr. Giles’ new son, huh?”
“This
is Thomas,” Tara affirmed. “He’s a really good baby.”
Quinn
held out a finger for Thomas to grab onto, which he did, grinning at
her. “Hey,
look at that.”
“You
like babies?”
The
other woman shrugged. “I haven’t had a lot of experience with them, to
be
honest, other than my sister.”
“How
many years are there between you?”
“Eight,
so I guess you could say that I have some experience.” Quinn smiled.
“All my
life, I’ve been focused on protecting her, and now what I’m doing could
end up
killing her.”
“I don’t
think it’s going to come to that, Quinn. We’re going to stop the
Council, and
the apocalypse.” Tara smiled. “We have before.”
They
both sat down on the couch. Thomas had settled now and was sleeping
securely in
Tara’s arms. “You’re so certain,” Quinn said softly.
“You
haven’t watched them—us—in action before.”
“I’ll
bet it’s a sight to behold.”
“It
really is.”
Quinn
stared at her silently for a few moments, and the intensity made her
nervous.
“Quinn?”
“Can I
kiss you?”
Tara
swallowed nervously. “Yes.”
Quinn’s
lips were soft, hesitant, the kiss almost chaste. Tara wanted to frame
Quinn’s
face with her hands, felt her heart begin to beat faster. Quinn was
suddenly
all she wanted, all she could taste.
“It’s
going to be hard not to see you,” Quinn whispered.
“How
long are you going to be gone?”
“A
week.” Quinn put a hand to her cheek. “Too long.”
Tara
smiled. “We’re on the same side now.”
“We
are.”
Thomas
began fussing, and Tara chuckled. “I think he needs to be changed.” She
looked
up shyly. “Do you want to stay?”
“I’d
love to.”