by melWinter
Chapter 5
Four Years Later
Kensington, England
Blue eyes looked around the quiet neighborhood, taking it all in. He could hear his sister nimbly jumping from branch to branch below him but he was quite content to just stay on top of the old Oak and survey his territory. It was a very quiet neighborhood, the small street lined on both sides by older, Victorian houses and lush yards. The trees were at least fifty years old and cast their branches over the street, creating a green canopy for all those driving or walking through. But the owners of the houses were for the most part older couples without children, so there really wasn’t anyone here to play with. There was an imperious sigh from below him on the right, “Billy, gawd you’re so boring.”
Being the very picture of maturity, the scrawny seven year old stuck out his tongue. Rolling his eyes, pushing his glasses back up his nose, “At least I’m not a bossy bint.”
Up shot a little seven year old girl, her face screwed up in a scowl, “Don’t you call me a bint!”
Smirking and flicking her slightly upturned nose, his voice singsong, “Bossy-bint. Bossy-bint.”
“Billy, I will not tell you again now get down from there!”
The pair of them glanced at one another and rolled their eyes, argument forgotten. Their mother had a talent, there was no denying it. With a specific tone and a few well placed words, you just couldn’t help but want to obey. Billy sighed in exasperation but dutifully climbed down from the tree, sticking out his tongue at his twin sister who followed him down, “How come you don’t get yelled at, Joy?” That was the way it always worked. Their mum loved both of them but she was more protective of Billy so naturally anything he did that she didn’t consider safe was immediately frowned upon.
Shrugging, flicking her golden ponytail out of the way and leaping to the ground, “Talent, I suppose.”
“Joycie I saw you and don’t you think I bloody well didn’t.”
Joyce rolled her eyes with a sigh and helped her brother down the rest of the way. She was taller than him but only by a little and she was every bit the tom girl. Her brother was the book worm, smart and responsible so it was a great challenge to get him to play with her. He would much prefer to spend the day writing instead of playing in their yard, “In. Both of you. Right now.”
The twins sighed at one another, “Bloody hell.”
They both trudged inside, stopping to stomp on the mat before their mum could yell at them for that, too. She was in a real tizzy today but she always got that way this time of year. Every year. Dawn came into the hall from the kitchen, rolling her eyes at her niece and nephew. She felt her breath catch every time she looked at Billy. He looked so much like Spike it broke her heart every time and she knew it was a true miracle that Buffy even let him leave the house. And Joyce was turning into every bit her namesake but with Spike’s beautiful blue eyes, “You two go wash up.” They grumbled to themselves, allowing their aunt to kiss them on the cheek with minimum fuss. Giving them a wicked grin, “Oh, I left something for you in your room now scoot.”
The two grinned and raced up the stairs, stopping to wash up in the loo before racing one another for their bedroom door. Billy won by just a hair and skidded to a stop. On his bed lay a small present, tied up with a ribbon and he plopped down on his bunk to examine it. Their aunt usually got them the coolest stuff and they couldn’t wait to see. For Christmas she’d given them a ride in her police issued squad car. It was a tight fit but with sirens blaring they’d both had a blast. Joyce sprung for the top bunk, managing to make the landing to discover her own present also tied in an identical ribbon.
In perfect sync they each tore the ribbon off excitedly and traced the outline of the figure with their index finger. Billy looked up slowly, swallowing hard to see Dawn leaning in the doorway, “Is...is that-...”
He couldn’t get the word out. He never had. His first word had been mum. His first swear had been bloody hell. He watched reruns of Passions as religiously as his father had watched the original but as much similarities as there were between him and Spike, he’d never been able to say dad. It was like he was saving the word up.
Joyce looked up with tears in her eyes, easily able to ask what her brother couldn’t, “Da?” Her first word had been da, and it was quite obvious were she to have a father, she would be demanding for his attention first. Since she hadn’t had Spike growing up she tended to butt heads constantly with her mother and remain fiercely protective of Billy. The grammar school bullies had learned that fact really quick. No one picked on Billy Summers without facing Joyce.
Dawn slowly nodded with a trembling smile. Billy frowned and adjusted his glasses, “It’s not a fake or anything? Not someone that looks like him but really him?”
Dawn shook her head at Billy, “No Bitty-bad it’s not. It’s really him. Your mom’s friend, Willow, she made it for Buffy a long time ago with her magic.”
Eyebrow raised in a classic Spike maneuver, “Witches are real?”
She silently swore to herself. It was all part of Buffy’s silent mandatory rules and that was a big one:
1. Do not discuss real slaying or what slayers do to vampires
2. Do not bring up Sunnydale, witches, magic, or demons
3. No discussions of watchers or councils or anything tweed
4. Never give Billy or Joy chocolate (apparently as hyper as their father)
5. No more than two stories before bedtime
There were others of course, little things surrounding homework and all the normal stuff but those were the big five Buffy did not want getting broken. Wiggling her fingers with a small grin, “She’s a real wonder on the computer.”
Billy seemed to be almost disappointed at the thought that magic didn’t exist. But then he did that little head tilt of his, “You’re not gonna tell us something like Santa Claus doesn’t exist are you?”
Biting her lower lip just a little and forcing down the chuckles, “Of course not.”
He nodded in satisfaction and went back to study the picture of his father. Silent tears trailed down Joyce’s cheeks, “So how come we’ve never seen it?”
Coming into the room and sitting on the carpet, the two youngsters swarming around her and holding their precious gifts protectively, “Because it makes your mum so sad to see him.”
Billy frowned, “Why? Cause he died?”
Nodding sadly, knowing Buffy had told the twins as much as she dared about Spike. Not all of it. Not half as much since they were so young but enough that they both worshiped the idea of him, “That’s exactly why Billy. And your mom loved him so much she can barely stand it sometimes.”
“He died today, didn’t he?”
“He did.”
Joyce closed her eyes and leaned back against Dawn, staring at the photo and memorizing every detail, “Tell us the story again. The one about the brave Slayers and the white knight that slayed the dragons.”
Joyce rolled her eyes at her brother, “You are so predictable, Billy. I wanna hear about the slayer that fell in love with a dragon.”
Billy stuck out his tongue, “That’s cause that story’s all gushy and crappy.”
“Is not...”
“Is so...”
Dawn looked up silently, even as the twins continued to bicker to see Buffy standing in the doorway, a single tear gliding down her cheek as she held her own photo clutched tightly to her chest. She trembled as she silently mouthed thank you, before walking to her own bedroom and quietly closing the door.
Buffy leaned her forehead lightly against the other side of the door, picture still pressed to her chest and for just a moment she forgot about the reality and prayed that things had gone so differently. She remembered taking his hand down in that pit and telling him the words she had so long denied him. Too long, really. Obviously so if he didn’t really believe her.
He probably had no idea how badly his disbelief had devastated her but it had the effect he no doubt wanted. She’d turned and run, just as she always had from pain and had emerged unscathed on the other side. Tilting onto her side to lean against the door, she spanned her hand over her flat belly. She liked to pretend that he somehow knew she was carrying his children that day and that’s the reason he’d pushed her into living. But it wasn’t and she knew it wasn’t.
He’d done it because he’d loved her so much. He’d wanted her to live and from then to two weeks later she lived in a kind of daze. There weren’t any specific feelings that could enter the little cotton candy world of her present. Just denial and a push to keep moving. Smile because it was expected. Plan because it was her sacred duty. Live because it’s what he’d wanted. The surviving girls, Giles, her sister and her Scoobies made it all the way to New York before she realized she’d skipped her period. And as she’d stared in a daze at the little applicator proudly displaying a pink mark, condemning her not only as the killer of her lover but the selfish bitch who’d abandoned her child’s father...she’d lost it.
***
London, England
Willow locked up her office, walking quietly down the stairs to the lobby and plopping down in one of the overstuffed chairs. She could still hear them from the library but she just settled for silently rolling her eyes. Glamour life this was not but she’d started realizing a lot of this job was about politics and lying. She was no longer a witch or a trusted Scooby...she was a paper pusher, for a bureaucracy of paper pushers and she was sick and tired of pushing.
Speaking of pushing, her thoughts to a sharp turn to her former lover, Kennedy. The girl was the exact opposite of Tara and it had ultimately been what had pushed them apart. Kennedy was possessive and controlling and manipulative and after a point it was more than Willow could bare. In the end they’d had a huge fight, Kennedy slapping her, just before the slayer had been thrown out the front door. Literally. A silent force had hurled her, breaking her arm in the process. The slayer brat had retreated with tail tucked firmly between her legs and Willow had opened herself up to no one since.
She heard Angel’s fake laughing and blew hair out of her face in exasperation. She was sick of that, too. She could remember the exact day in fact, as it was one week after her little one on one with the Powers that Be. In breezes Angel into slayer central, with a full human heart beat and telling all who will listen of how he saved the day and defeated the demon hordes of Los Angeles from running over the earth. Yea, and she could use the other leg pulled as well. Her one satisfaction was that human or not, Buffy had no interest in him and had quickly made herself scarce.
But she’d never breathed a word to anyone about Angel’s deceit. On the one hand, there was no one around to actually believe her. And on the other, what good would the truth do now anyway? Giles seemed to have decided he no longer needed her, what with the surplus of watchers and slayers...Buffy and Dawn had disappeared with the twins and hadn’t checked in for years...Xander had dropped off the face of the earth quite suddenly and Andrew was not worth mentioning. All that was left was little clueless Willow with half a degree and an unimpressive resume. She could always go back to school but that required time and money and around here she had become a secretary. Angel’s secretary as a matter of fact.
“Ah, Willow, always dedicated to your work, I see.”
Willow hid her glare for the condescending tone and looked up blandly at her boss, “Did you need anything else tonight?”
Giles patted Angel’s shoulder, “I shall have the car pulled around.” The old watcher didn’t even look at Willow as he left, no doubt his thoughts distracted with his many duties as head of the Council but it was almost like she didn’t exist to him anymore.
Angel nodded a little, waiting until Giles was outside assigning someone to drive, “We’re actually going to a society function tonight, I left notes that need to be replicated in triplicate for the conference tomorrow. You don’t mind, do you?”
Pasting on a dim-witted smile, “No problem, Angel.” He nodded silently to her without really paying attention and left after Giles. It was rather amusing to her in a perverse way that after seven years, everyone seemed to have forgotten that she was intelligent. Or that she even had powers. Willow sighed and climbed to her feet, sticking out her tongue as she walked into the library, “Clueless. Absolutely clueless.” Rolling her eyes, she noted there were several piles of papers, any one of which could be these mysterious notes Angel was talking about.
Snorting, she pointed a finger, “Find.” Papers immediately flew, separating from the others to rest in a small pile right in front of her. She smirked to herself and picked up her stack, fully prepared to leave though she paused more thoughtfully at the writing on the blackboard behind the conference table. What caught her eyes wasn’t what it said, but what it didn’t. No names or dates but eerily familiar. Looked like a prophecy to her.
She sat down on the table, stack of papers in her lap and looking it over:
The circle is broken
The family is torn asunder
Pieces scatter to the wind
The Chosen One without hope
The mate without other
The new moon shall find them
Bind them
Consume them
The Champion, his mate, his kin
He shall walk between worlds, with two as one
Willow blinked slowly as she puzzled this out, coming up with not a whole lot. Except the word Champion rang through her true. The Powers had said that Spike was the Champion, chosen by the Chosen One. This was about Spike. It had to be. And if anything involved Spike had to do with mates, then it had to be Buffy. But after that she was pretty much lost.
Frown still in place, she discretely slipped a notepad out of her pocket and jotted it down. It might be important, and she’d learned a long time ago to keep her eyes and ears open and her mouth shut. She glanced at her watch to see if she could still email it and ‘eeped’ to herself. She’d have to hurry or she would miss the bus back to her own flat.