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 23

“it is at moments after i have dreamed/of the rare entertainment of your eyes,/when(being fool to fancy)i have deemed/with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;/at moments when the glassy darkness holds/the genuine apparition of your smile/(it was through tears always)and silence moulds/such strangeness as was mine a little while;/moments when my once more illustrious arms/are filled with fascination, when my breast/wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:/one pierced moment whiter than the rest/—turning from the tremendous lie of sleep/i watch the roses of the day grow deep.” ~e. e. cummings, “It Is At Moments After I Have Dreamed”

“So, do you feel any different?”

Joyce smiled, pulling a sleeping Thomas away from her bare breast and adjusting her nightgown. The ceremony had been simple, and as different from her first marriage as was possible. The justice of the peace had performed the ceremony, Buffy and Spike had served as witnesses, and there had been a simple reception at a local restaurant afterwards.

No white dress, no invitations, and no flowers other than what Spike had brought for her. It had been perfect.

Now, she sat rocking and nursing her infant son, and her new husband stood in the doorway, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt. It was strangely romantic.

“I feel the same as I did yesterday, or this morning.” Joyce rose, trying not to jar her sleeping son. She put him down in his crib, and he stirred once then was still. “We’re still the same people we were, living in the same place, and with the same lives.”

Giles framed her face, and she saw the glint of gold on his left hand. “I suppose that’s true.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

He sounded puzzled, and she kissed him, her touch urgent. They wouldn’t get a honeymoon; she didn’t want to be away from Thomas for more than a few hours at a time. Tonight, this moment, was all that they had.

Perhaps it was all they would ever have: this was the lesson she had learned from her daughter. Life was short, and her only choice was to seize the moment as it presented itself.

They stumbled down the hallway, trying to be quiet so as not to wake Dawn or Thomas. Joyce knew that her body had not quite recovered from childbirth; she was not as young as she’d been when she’d had Buffy.

Giles didn’t seem to mind, however. He undressed her with reverence, paying special attention to her breasts, her stomach, his hands strong and sure.

Joyce had wondered whether they would someday fall out of love, just as she had with Hank, but in the end, she refused to worry about it. She loved him; he loved her.

Perhaps, this time, it was all they would need.

~~~~~

Quinn hadn’t realized how badly she’d needed the break until arriving in Cleveland. She had accompanied her sister on patrol, happy to relate stories of Buffy and William the Bloody, hoping that those stories would provide inspiration. She had spoken with her parents of inconsequential things and helped her mom bake various traditional goodies.

Her mother was currently checking on the Christmas cake, and she looked up, declaring herself satisfied. “Well, that’s nearly ready.” Claire smiled. “Are you planning on coming to Christmas Eve service with us tonight, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, sure.” Church wasn’t Quinn’s cup of tea, but she knew how much her mother appreciated the chance to have the entire family together again, and she’d be heading back to Sunnydale the day after Boxing Day. Quinn didn’t want to miss anything.

Claire O’Mara gave her a sharp look. “Tell me about this Tara girl,” she invited, thus making it clear that Oscar’s decision to go patrolling with Brynn had an ulterior motive. Her mother pumped her for information, and Claire filled Oscar in later.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Quinn said automatically, then winced. Her parents, understandably enough, had been the first people she told about her attraction to the same sex. She had been twelve, and while others her age were squealing over boys, she had been distracted by the sight of a particularly lovely teacher.

It felt unnatural to lie to her parents, or to hide things from them, but that was what this assignment had done to her. Her first response was to hide, or to lie.

“I’m sorry, Mum.”

“Don’t be.” Claire pulled her into a tight embrace. “I know that this assignment has been difficult for you.”

Quinn met Claire’s clear blue eyes. “I don’t think I’ll be able to stay with the Council after this, Mum. What I’ve learned—”

“Your father and I were planning to leave,” Claire said conversationally, as though that piece of information didn’t require a fundamental shift in her worldview. “The Council that our parents were a part of, that they served and loved, no longer exists. Politics and power, that’s all anyone cares about these days.”

“You were going to leave?” Quinn asked, still stuck on that tidbit.

Claire nodded. “We were, and then we had you, and you were identified as a Potential. We knew that the only possible way to keep you close was to stay with the Council, although we distanced ourselves as much as possible.”

Quinn stared down at the kitchen table—brand new for the first time in her memory. Watchers tended to travel lightly unless they knew they would be staying in one spot. With Brynn assigned to the Cleveland Hellmouth, it was unlikely that they would move again.

Not until something happened to her sister, and Quinn knew that the new furniture, and all the other signs that they were settling in, were indications that they were hoping for the best.

“Tara works with Buffy,” she finally said. “She’s—she’s the first person I’ve wanted to be with in a long time.”

Claire smiled. “And if Travers found out, nothing good would come of it.”

“Hell, I’m fairly certain that if Travers found out I’m a dyke, he wouldn’t care for it,” Quinn said bitterly, remembering some of the comments from the students in her class. She had never come right out and said anything, but there had been rumors.

And no one had had anything kind to say.

“You know you have our support,” Claire said quietly. “Your father and I have talked about it, and we trust you.”

Quinn almost wished that they didn’t trust her quite so much; it was a weighty burden. “There’s a prophecy about a souled vampire, Mum,” she said. “Travers wants the power for the Council; he wants control.”

“He wants it for himself, is more like it.” Her mother spoke with a bitterness that Quinn had not often heard. “This is William the Bloody, yes?”

She nodded. “Why?”

“Because there’s something I want you to see.”

Claire left the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with a thick, leather-bound book. “There aren’t many copies like this,” she began. “Of course, every Watcher grows up with stories of William the Bloody, but no one believed that he was real until the last few years.” She patted the book with fondness. “This is one of the few places where all of the stories that have been collected can be found.”

“Why didn’t you show me this before?” Quinn demanded. She had heard of William the Bloody at the Academy, and later when he’d shown up in Sunnydale, but she hadn’t heard half the legends that her classmates had.

Claire sighed. “For the same reason that all Slayers are told that vampires are irredeemably evil, my dear. To believe otherwise might cause you to hesitate at a crucial moment. There are times when it is better to see in black and white.”

“And now?”

“Now, you are a Watcher, and you must be aware of the shades of gray in order to make an informed decision.” Claire reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Quinn, there is nothing your father or I can do to make this easier for you. We have spent two decades working for an organization we no longer trust in order to protect those most precious to us.”

Quinn sat staring at the book long after her mother had risen and left the kitchen. She looked up, out the darkened window that was closed to the wintry night. Just as it was warmer in Sunnydale than she’d been used to, it was colder in Cleveland.

She ran her hand over the plain cover of the book, understanding what her mother hadn’t put into words: she was an adult now, and capable of reading the shades of gray. She was a Watcher, and making difficult decisions was her job.

Quinn thought of Tara and her calm blue eyes.

Without thinking about it, she reached for the phone. There was someone she could call for information, someone she could trust. And even if she ended up burning a few bridges, she thought it might be worth it in the end.

~~~~~

Tara hitched her bag more securely over her shoulder and cast an anxious look at her watch. Their flight was leaving shortly, but she wasn’t worried about missing it. The trip itself worried her, since they were walking into the lion’s den.

Given their mission, she was most concerned about Wesley, who appeared unruffled on the surface, but she knew better.

She was changing. Tara knew that, but she wondered if anyone else had noticed it, or sensed it. Willow would always be more powerful, but Tara suspected that she felt more, sensed more. She had always thought that it was a product of her mother’s teaching, but these days she wondered if it didn’t have more to do with her heritage.

“You’ll be alright?”

Tara was startled to find Spike looking at her with the same expression he’d worn when he’d suggested she meet Robert. “I’ll be fine, Spike.” When he continued to watch her, Tara smiled. “Really.”

“You’re the sensible one.” His voice was low. “But if they find out what you are, they might try…”

He trailed off, and Tara nodded. “I understand. No one seems to notice.”

Spike smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “There are those of us who notice, pet. We just don’t need to shout it from the rooftops.”

“What do you know that I don’t, Spike?” Tara asked, suddenly feeling as though he had a secret that he wasn’t telling her.

He leaned in close. Out of the corner of her eye, Tara could see Willow and Buffy embracing tightly, and Wesley was grabbing their carry-on bags. “There are stories I could tell you,” he murmured. “I always thought they were just stories folks told themselves to feel better.”

Spike stepped back. “When you get back, I’ll tell you.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” It wasn’t a threat, not quite, and Spike just grinned, slinging an arm over Buffy’s shoulders.

“Be careful, Wes.” The vampire was serious again in one of his mercurial shifts in moods. “I don’t want to plan a rescue mission.”

Wesley nodded. “We will.”

And then the voice over the loudspeaker was calling their flight for the last time, and Tara followed closely on Wesley and Willow’s footsteps. It was her first trip to another country, and Tara thought it was a measure of how much her life had changed that their purpose was rather unorthodox.

~~~~~

“Are you certain that you’re amenable to the plan?”

Willow didn’t bother trying to hide her smile. Wesley’s words tended to get a lot bigger when he was nervous or worried, and she couldn’t blame him in this case. After much discussion—and a few serious arguments—they had all agreed that the easiest way for Wesley to arrange a meeting with his father was to introduce her to his fiancée.

Wesley hadn’t liked the plan much, mostly because their engagement was a ruse. “I don’t want to pretend to be engaged!” he’d protested.

“Then make it official,” Spike had shot back.

Wesley hadn’t bothered to reply to that, and the discussion had continued as though he’d never protested. She suspected that his unhappiness stemmed from the fact that he’d planned on proposing sometime in the future, and by faking it, some of his thunder had been stolen.

Now that they were in their hotel room, lying side by side in the darkness, Willow thought he might finally tell her what she’d suspected all along.

“Wesley, if you’re so uncomfortable pretending to be engaged to me, why don’t we make it official?”

There was a long silence. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

Willow giggled. “Only if you want me to.”

“Willow, I—”

“We could just be engaged for a while,” she continued. “It’s not like we’d have to get married right away.”

She felt the bed shift as he raised himself up on an elbow. “You’d want to get married?”

“Someday, yeah.” Willow decided that they needed light for this conversation, and she reached out to turn on the bedside lamp. “Why are you so certain that I wouldn’t want to?”

Wesley cleared his throat, staring at the garish flowers on the bedspread. “I thought—you’re still young, and I wondered if—”

Willow snorted, interrupting him. “You think I’m that fickle?”

“Of course not,” he said quickly. “But you’re not yet 21, Willow. You may decide that you do not want to tie yourself to one person.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And how old do you think I need to be to make a decision that affects the rest of my life?”

Wesley seemed to finally sense the danger he was in. “Uh, no particular age,” he backtracked. “But we haven’t talked about it until now, and it just seems as though it came out of nowhere.”

“It did, but it’s crossed my mind,” Willow admitted. “I want to be with you. We fit together, we’ve worked magic together.” She ran a hand down his bare chest, feeling rough hair and smooth muscles. “I love you.”

Wesley’s smile was sad. “You haven’t met my father yet.”

“How bad was it, Wesley?”

They had never actually talked about his childhood, not in specifics. The subject had been taboo until now, but Willow wanted some idea of what she was walking into, and what the expected fallout might be.

When he maintained his silence, she continued, “You know what my parents are like.”

“I’ve never met your parents.”

“Exactly.” Willow tucked her hair behind her ears. “They were never involved in my life. The only time my mom expressed interest was when that demon got everybody worked up against the occult and then she tried to burn me at the stake.”

Wesley laid back, his eyes on the ceiling. “My father had very high expectations for me, and when I didn’t live up to those expectations, he found a way to let me know.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No, not in that sense. That would have been too uncivilized. He had other methods.”

Willow kept her silence, waiting to see if he would say more.

“There was a cupboard.” When she frowned, he amended, “A closet. A small one.”

“How long?”

“Three days. That was the longest.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “He forgot that I was in there.”

Willow put her head down on his chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart. “I can turn him into a toad if you want. After we get the information we need, of course.”

His laughter was unsteady, but she felt him press a kiss to the top of her head. “Thank you, love.”

Willow noticed that he didn’t exactly turn down her offer, and she resolved to wait until after they’d done the truth spell. She thought she could turn him into something appropriately nasty that would wear off after awhile.

Or maybe she should just leave him like that.