Becoming, Part Three
By: PhoenixJustice
Disclaimer: BTVS is owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and others who are not me. I only own this story and make no profit from this.
Warning: Rated M for graphic sexual content, language, violence, etc.
Pairing: Spike/Buffy Summers, etc.
Setting: In the middle of Becoming, Part Two; possible spoilers for the entire series (including comics.)
Summary: Well. They never said it'd be an easy Reward.
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"Oh, my pardon Miss Summers. So you've heard of me already?" Wesley inquires politely.
"Well...what kind of Slayer would I be, if I didn't brush up on the more famous of the Watcher's Families?" She replies in return, her smile wide and entirely fake, but she did her best to make it look genuine. She was genuinely happy to see him, after all, but his appearance here threw her for a loop.
She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised, given the Watcher's Council propensity for control. Did that mean that they had discovered Faith? She sees Wesley look at Spike and Faith with a curiousness he cannot quite hide (this was still the fresh faced Wesley after all, still enmeshed quite thoroughly in the Watcher Council's grip) but he doesn't have a look of recognition upon him at Faith.
She thinks very quickly, then: "Sorry, Giles. I didn't realize you were busy. We'll come back once you've settled Mr. Wyndam-Pryce."
"You don't have to do that, Miss Summers." Wesley says. "You can take care of whatever Slayer and Watcher business you might have; I am only an observer."
Right now. She thinks. But that was good. He was here very early, compared to the first time around, but he wasn't here to replace Giles. What was he here for? She gives Giles a quick look and he gives her the slightest head tilt, which gave her relief. Good, he understood. He didn't want the Council to know about Faith (or Spike?) any more than she did apparently. At least until they all knew why Wesley was here.
"It's okay!" She says, putting that perky smile back on, glancing at Spike and Faith who had blessedly remained quiet through this exchange. At the name Wesley, they both understood as well, which helped immensely. Both had been given extensive knowledge by her about Wesley (and many other things besides.) Until she knew what the Council was doing, she wanted to give them as little as possible. "It wasn't anything important. It can wait. I'll see you later...Giles?"
"Of course, my dear." Giles replies.
She nods at him and at Wesley both.
"Well," Wesley says, a bit awkwardly now. "It was nice to meet you, Miss Summers. And your friends both."
She can't see behind her what Faith or Spike do but she assumes it was a nod all the same.
"You too. We'll see each other again soon enough I'm sure."
And she turns back the way she came, wondering for a moment how they'd finagle Spike back into the car without a hint of smoke or sizzle to give anything away (why hadn't Wesley asked about the umbrella? Maybe it was too forward for him. He had yet to shed that shell yet, after all) when she glances back to see Giles ushering Wesley back inside, giving her another look and nod.
She nods in relief and they all get back into the car without any issue.
The car is silent for a few minutes as they make their way out before, without any planning on any of their parts, all three of them simultaneously speak the same four words.
"Son of a bitch."
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"So what do we do now?" Faith asks, leaning her head back against the seat. "He obviously didn't know I'm the other Slayer, but…"
"I…" Buffy starts, rubbing at her face. "I didn't expect this. He didn't come this early before. I know they were keen on finding the new Slayer, but why bring him here? If they don't know where you are, then why bring him to Sunnydale? And why him? Wesley wasn't, well early Wesley wasn't, that great at lying, so it's not like he could keep much secret. And he's obviously not here to try and take Giles' place as Watcher again (which never worked, by the way.)"
"Maybe we should have stayed longer to get some more information out of him." Spike says, not in an accusatory way, but merely a thinking out loud kinda way.
"Maybe. But questions would have come up about you two, even if it was just like," Here she affects her best kind of posh English accent. "'Oh, pardon me, but I do believe we've never been properly introduced. I'm Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, etc etc and you are…?' And I'm not really trying to lie per se; not yet. And only if we need to."
"As needed kind of basis, huh?" Faith says wryly.
"Pretty much."
"He'll still find out eventually, pet." Spike says, one hand on the steering wheel, the other waving around a bit. They had stopped and parked a few minutes ago, so there was no danger of Spike not paying attention where he drived. "He may not have noticed I'm a vamp or Faith is the other Slayer, but he still probably noticed all the paint on the windshield, if not the windows."
The black paint covered all the windows as well as the windshield and back window, to keep any potential sunlight coming in, with only a small gap unpainted so Spike could see where he was driving.
"I know." She sighs. "I just was caught so off guard and I hate that. If we had some time to plan, I think we could figure out something. I like to think we're like Batman and his extended Bat Family: give us time to plan and we're unbeatable...or something like that anyway."
It's quiet for a moment. And then:
"We could just tell him the truth." Faith finally says.
Buffy turns to her in shock.
"Maybe not the whole truth, but at least who I am. And Spike, if you want. Wesley may not like it but we might get idea of what's going on. Maybe he'd tell his boss or something. Travers, right? The dickhead?"
That manages to get a chuckle out of Buffy, despite the situation.
"Right now we're in the dark about things." Faith continues. "I mean, Wesley is as well about me. And Spike too. But we're even more in the dark, because we don't know what they're planning or have already planned."
Faith learned fast. Having Spike and Buffy as her teachers, even just this far in, was already paying dividends, in terms of Faith and her self-esteem.
"He tells his boss and we could play it from there, figure out what their planning. They'd be...I don't know...more likely to show their hand?"
"Or act so shady as to be a kind of bullseye itself," Spike says, nodding approvingly. He looks at Buffy. His eyes grow soft for a moment as he touches her face briefly. "What do you think, pet?"
She closes her eyes for a moment against his touch before it leaves, opening her eyes.
"I think...you're right," She says, slowly. "Both of you. You're right. I just panicked. It's been a long time since I've dealt with the Council's bullshit. We'll be honest. It's not like we have anything to hide. And," Here she touches Spike's face in return, cupping his face gently. "I have nothing I want to hide. I'm proud of who I am. And who I love."
He smiles at her then, that soft, boyish smile that she had only been able to see rarely once upon a time. And it never failed to make her heart skip a beat.
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They had taken up a routine after that, funnily enough. But not immediately. Once Angel had gotten over the horror of drinking a human's blood again, despite Christopher's assurances, he had tried to take off, despite the weakness in his body and spirit. He had stopped him from leaving immediately, putting to use some more of his held magic to be able to physically hold him back. It didn't take much; the fight had gone out of Angel almost immediately.
"So what now?" Angel asks, miserably. "If you want to kill me, well, there are those who'd surely like to be first in line but I won't stop you now."
Christopher eyes him for a moment, then:
"I'm going to get you some clothes, then I'm going to set Mariposa settled down for the night."
"Mariposa…?"
As if her name was a trigger, the sweet face of the golden retriever comes into the room, tail wagging. She jumps onto the bed before either can respond, her tail wagging further at Angel. He looks surprised.
"Dogs usually…" He looks up at Christopher for a moment then down at Mariposa. "Usually animals flee from me."
Mariposa continues to wag her tail, panting happily. After a slight moment, Angel moves his hand cautiously to her head, petting her. Christopher watches this for a moment then heads over to a dresser, pulling out some clothes, moving to hand them to Angel. The vampire looks at them blankly for a moment.
"Get dressed. I'll be right back." Christopher says. "Come on, Mariposa."
The dog gets up, tail still wagging. The door closes.
Angel stares at the clothes for a long moment, before his hands move forward, remembering their use and starts to dress.
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"Sorry if the fit isn't great. I can get you something more tomorrow." Christopher says, once he returns.
Angel shakes his head. "It's...fine."
"And you?" Christopher asks, standing near the door.
Angel shrugs a bit. "I'm fine."
"Yes, I'm sure." Christopher says wryly. "Because getting spat out of a portal, having gone through who knows what, is the usual, hmm?"
He looks up at Christopher, not sure what to say, but the man merely pats him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry about it. Get some sleep. We can talk more in the morning."
"I can't." Angel says. "I need to go. I have to-"
Buffy.
Oh god, the look on her face at the end. All the horrible thing he did once his soul was loosed. Forgiveness would never come and he'd have to make peace with that.
"In the morning." Christopher says, not unkindly. "You're not in any shape to go anywhere right now, even after that blood you had."
Angel tenses but there is no censure in Christopher's face at that.
"Your bed." Angel says. "I can sleep anywhere else."
The other man shakes his head. "Don't worry about it. Just rest. Goodnight, Angel."
"Good...goodnight."
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Morning comes and Angel manages to venture out of the bedroom without any help, though the weakness he feels in his limbs is still strong. But it lets him focus on moving forward through the house and not have to focus on his time in Hell, or whatever Hell like plain he had been sent to.
He finds Christopher setting some plates down onto a small kitchen table that set nestled near a glass door and finds the dog, Mariposa, eating eagerly out of her bowl. At Angel's approach, however, her head moves up and she immediately comes running up to him, tail going a mile a minute.
"Mariposa, down. Let him in."
She backs off at Christopher's command and Angel makes his way in.
"I was just going to get you up. It's early, especially by vampire standards, but I figured you could still use something."
He gestures Angel to take a seat, taking one himself, waiting with a raised eyebrow until he does.
"Go ahead; eat, drink."
"I don't really eat-" That was more of Spike's thing. The younger vampire took pleasure in so many different things that Angelus would scoff at, though, of course, some of them he secretly envied. Secretly envied the vampire who was unafraid of what anyone thought of him.
"I know you don't need that exactly, but it couldn't hurt. You're still weak. Plus it'll go with your drink."
He points at a glass near Angel with a fork, which was filled quite full with a red substance. Instantly Angel can feel his hunger rising. His weakness had kept him from smelling it immediately but even as weak as he was, from here he could smell the blood.
"You didn't have to."
"Well, I was going out anyway and there is a butcher's attached near our Farmer's Market so it wasn't like I had to go far."
"Why are you doing this?" Angel bursts suddenly. "I'm a vampire. You're a Watcher. We are both the enemies of one another."
"If that was the case, then you'd have killed me why I slept." Christopher said, without hesitation. "And I am a former Watcher, Angel. I was the Watcher of the previous Slayer."
That gives Angel pause. He can see the sadness there now in Christopher's eyes, mixed with an almost defiant look. A look of a man that refused to die, no matter the circumstances thrown his way.
"I-I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say.
"When she died...no, even before that, I learned how the world worked. How black and white were lies fed to us Watcher's, just like it is fed to so much of the world at large. I could have become bitter over everything. And I was angry. So angry I would have burned everything that had ever dared hurt her. But I knew I couldn't let it consume me. She would never have forgiven me if I had. She was my Slayer. My lasting legacy would have been just another page in the darkened history books of the Watcher's Council. But that's not what I want, nor what she wanted of me."
"What do you want?" Angel finds himself asking, caught up in the fervor of Christopher's words.
"There's a cancer in the heart of the Watcher's Council."
Christopher pauses for a moment, drawn in thought.
"I want to kill him."
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After that, a pattern was established, where Angel would meet Christopher in the kitchen for breakfast, then they'd both work on physical and magical (the latter in Christopher's case only) skills, have dinner and then Angel would take Mariposa on her walk before bed (Christopher still hadn't asked for his bed back yet.)
It was strange, but not bad. It was a sense of normalcy that Angel found that he desperately needed. After Hell, after Angelus, well, he needed something to keep him going, keep him from breaking again. Even if it was as simple as walking a dog and playing fetch with her.
"You don't have to do this." Angel says, some days into it.
"I know I don't. But I'm glad to. I know what it's like to be drawn into dark places, Angel. It happened to me when India died. Even if you don't feel like you can be forgiven, it doesn't mean you don't deserve to be forgiven. We all stumble and fall. I didn't have anyone there to pick me up, but I can be the kind of man that helps pick another person up."
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"So a new Watcher in town? Not good, I'm guessing, from your look." Xander says.
Buffy shrugs. "Yes and no. He isn't a bad man himself, but this whole situation...we're all in the dark here and no flashlight in sight to point us through."
She looks down at her coffee cup and sighs.
Currently it was just her and Xander at the Espresso Pump. She didn't want to make the mistake of neglecting her friends. She had taken off initially, but so many factors were at play there (including the fact that she hadn't seen Spike in…) Now that she was back, she wanted to keep them in the loop as much as possible, to help show them, like she and Spike had been showing Faith, that the world was not so easily one side or another. The gradients of gray lingered everywhere.
"You've got a lot on your plate, don't you?" Xander asks.
She looks up.
"I never really got that. I mean, obviously world endage and all that but… even without the Time Travel, you've always taken a lot on your shoulders."
"I have. Sometimes you all haven't made it easy for me." She admits.
"Angel." Xander says.
She nods. "That, and other things. Though that was a big chunk of it for awhile. I know I didn't always make it easy, with mixed messages of 'vampires are all evil! Grr!' and being with Angel, soul or not. But-"
Xander's quiet for a long moment, looking down at his own coffee cup before finally speaking again.
"I was jealous." He admits now.
"I know."
"I don't really think of you in that way anymore." He says. "Not really. But it still hurt to see you so taken by him when I had been by your side all that time helping you."
"I know." She says again. "I'm sorry."
"I am too...I've been kind of a jerk sometimes." He says sheepishly.
"Sometimes." She says, amused. "But again, so have I. Can we just promise from here on out to continue to be even better friends and family? We'll keep each other on the right path."
She holds out her hand. Xander takes it, shaking it.
"Deal." He says. "I'll hold you to that. Especially if I get suckered into a shopping trip by Cordelia."
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"Don't do what you're thinking about doing." Buffy says.
"Do what? Eat my sandwich? Cause the egg salad seemed a bit off, but the turkey and cheese on rye-" Willow says.
"I mean Xander."
After coffee with Xander, she had moved onto lunch with Willow next (while Spike and Faith were holding down the fort at her mom's house and doing some impromptu training.)
Willow looks at her with wide eyes, sandwich in hand.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean...I know, very much know, how teenage hormones can be a rampaging thing of rampagey-ness, but just think about what you're doing. And who would be affected by it."
Willow frowns now. "I-"
"If you want to do it," Buffy shrugs. "I mean, I can't stop you. But if you want to do it, I'd rather it be because both of you are free and no one would get hurt. I've seen how that road goes down, Willow."
"I liked him." Willow says quietly, putting her sandwich down, looking down.
"Isn't that the key?" Buffy says, causing Willow to look up at her. "Liked, not like? Like I said, if you want to explore that, then that's what you'll do. But what about Oz? I don't want to see anyone get hurt, not even Cordelia. So if you want to do it, then let Oz down gently."
Willow's eyes fill with tears. "I love Oz." She stops and her eyes widen. "I love Oz."
"Then that's your answer, I think." Buffy says, with a smile, wiping at Willow's tears. "Now finish your turkey and cheese."
"On rye." Willow hiccups.
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The guitar continues to get played and she sits back and listens to it interested in the notes being played. He was quite a compositionist without even trying.
Minutes pass in complete silence, save for the guitar.
"You are the wolf. The wolf is you." She finally says.
The guitar playing stops. He looks at her curiously for a moment. His eyes look up for a moment, thoughtful, playing a few notes before stopping again.
"I am not the one holding the beast back, but holding myself back from being my complete self. Don't fight who you are but embrace it."
"Yes."
He nods, going back to playing his guitar.
"Nice talk, Oz."
"Same to you, Buffy."
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I hope you enjoyed this!
Let me know what you thought!
-PhoenixJustice