Out of My
Head
...The
Epilogue
.:Obsessive-Compulsive Journal-Writing
Watchers Galore:.
It could've been rats.
Really, really big rats, the
kind that attacked Wesley in the forest in The Princess Bride.
The kind that wanted to literally chew on you till you bled.
It should have been rats.
Dawn really wished it was rats.
At least then, it would justify all the
pounding -- er, banging -- < No, that isn't much better >
she thought, blushing. Okay, maybe rats would justify all the sounds
that had been emanating from Buffy's bedroom all last night and early on this
morning. < Jeez, don't they ever take a break? > she
thought, using Spike's patent rolling-of-the-eyes.
It was quite conceivable that Spike and Buffy
had not left Buffy's room at all within the last thirty-eight hours. Which kind
of made Dawn's stomach churn. < I mean, how much longer can they keep
on going? > They sort of had a bad habit of getting carried away.
This had been expected of them, though. Giles
had dispatched Xander, Anya, and SuperWiccas Willow and Tara to take over patrol
for Buffy and Spike while they were... indefinitely indisposed. Dawn giggled out
loud at the memory. He'd had the funniest look on his face, kind of like a
migraine had launched a full front attack on his head, while caught between
stepping in something awfully rank and eating a really sour lemon. Poor
Giles. First, he'd had to deal with Buffy and Spike's 'engagement' last year,
and the fact that they had been all over each other, and now he had to deal with
the knowledge that whatever his Slayer and her utterly devoted Vampire were
doing behind closed doors, it was most definitely not Tae Bo.
Anyway, this had been going on for the past
week or two. Every other night since the week after Spike's rescue, Spike chased
Buffy into her room after patrol, both of them flinging the door closed, and
then... howling. Dawn had no idea where the howling came from. She
didn't want to know. It was possible Spike was actually channeling his
inner petting zoo, but the howls had also had a distinct female ring to them.
They were a lot worse than Oz's had been when he went wolfie on the full moon.
And this entire thing was a lot more... um... she wasn't sure there was a word
for it, but it was definitely more than what Riley and Buffy had going
on after patrol. Neither her sister, nor her surrogate big brother were seen by
anyone but each other.
Well, until now at least. The animal noises had
finally ceased, and the Primals sounded like they were finally emerging from
their cave.
She wasn't alone at the moment. Willow and Anya
(who were getting along remarkably well despite anxiety on both parts over
Xander about five weeks back) were sitting up with her in the living room,
watching the aforementioned The Princess Bride -- < Andre
the Giant's hands are huge. More so than Angel's! > Tara was
in the kitchen with Joyce, fixing more popcorn while the Slayer's mother ever so
cheerfully attempted to block out the wild animal mating calls coming from
upstairs in her own home. Xander had gone on a quick patrol with Giles, rounding
up and cuffing any nasties that hadn't gotten the hell out of Sunnydale before
the Hellbitch's rage had struck. He'd been paged for Scooby Movie Night by none
other than Buffy herself, who had taken out a rare fraction in time to inform
him of it. Though how she had known was anybody's guess.
Xander was bringing the food, Giles was
bringing the happy drinks (and lots of soda for Dawn).
Actually, now that Dawn thought back on it,
Spike and Buffy were sort of well-deserving with their inability to remain sated
of each other, since two days prior to now, the shit had almost really and truly
hit the fan. Glory had officially grown sick of waiting, and had taken the fight
to them, nearly blowing the front window out. One of the crazies that had
followed the goddess, noticed the green aura surrounding Dawn, and completely
blew their cover. Glory, ecstatic that she finally knew who the Key was, wanted
Dawn, and wanted to get home, and not even the Scoobies' combined strengths had
been able to keep the the goddess from hauling a terrified, screaming Dawn right
down the street.
Frantic, and as close to hysterical as you
could get without losing your head, Buffy had grabbed Spike, who'd grabbed
Willow, who'd immediately grabbed on to Tara, who, in her surprise, grabbed
Giles, who'd urged Xander and Anya to hurry the hell up and grab Buffy before
she got them all killed.
After a ten minute period in which Buffy
violently lashed out and affectively alienated everyone around her except for
Spike for the span of an hour (though that was a bit exaggerated), Giles managed
to talk her into being slightly rational when she fought Glory, and the
group led her to the Magic Box.
When Giles studied a few manuscripts left by
the monks who had created Dawn, he realized that the girl's kidnapping did
have some significance, after all. It wasn't that Glory was just bored -- well,
that was mostly it, but not just that. It was the fact that the ritual Glory
wanted to perform was scheduled to take place that very night at 9 PM. He
revealed that the scripts basically said that the Key was to be funneled into a
certain place at that certain time, and since the Key had been made human, that
meant that the essence of the Key was in her blood. According to Spike, she
would have to be cut, and according to Giles, the portal that would be created
from her blood wouldn't close until her blood stopped flowing.
Stopped flowing as in died.
Buffy had not liked that idea.
Action was effective immediately, and the group
set out after Glory and Dawn, following one of the loonies Glory had made to
Xander's construction site, where a very big tower had been built.
To make an annoyingly long story short, Buffy
had attacked Glory the second she'd seen her with a troll hammer that she'd sort
of stolen from an ex-boyfriend of Anya's (who happened to be the troll; that's
what you got for cheating on someone who dabbles in witchcraft), and the match
was sort of one-sided, because Buffy was whacking the hell out of the goddess
with it. Anyway, she managed to defeat Glory, but not before discovering that
the leech's human host was the doctor that had helped out Dawn when her sister
had discovered her true identity. Ben was still alive, but he wouldn't be for
long -- every impact that the hammer had made on Glory was made on Ben, and the
boy was mortally wounded. He wouldn't survive ten more minutes.
Meanwhile, Spike had spotted Dawn being forced
up the staircase of the tower by a lizard-like man/demon named Doc, that he'd
thought he'd been on good terms with. Giving a silent command to Giles, Anya,
and Xander to back him up, Spike grabbed Willow and Tara, had the witches
combine their powers, and catapulted himself through the throng of crazies as
the witches blew them apart, parting them like some inane Red Sea. He shot up
the steps and tackled Doc, taking himself and the demon right back down two
flights. The little bastard had come equipped with a knife to slash Dawn, and
Spike had received quite a few blows before he'd been able to hack the little
wanker's head off (literally; he'd sort of borrowed Buffy's favored machete).
When he'd gone to check on Dawn, Doc had
remerged with his head. Buffy, from across the construction site, had turned
around to focus on her sister and Spike, and screamed a warning to her lover at
the sight of the really big plank spear in the demon's hand. Spike turned
around, just as Doc shoved the relatively thin, but equally dangerous piece of
wood through Spike's chest, missing his heart by scant inches. That didn't make
it hurt any less, though, and with a roar of pain, Spike had turned disbelieving
eyes to the demon.
It got sort of messy after that.
After they'd managed to separate Doc's pieces
so he couldn't merge together again, and then got the piece of lumber out of
Spike's chest, the vampire voiced his complaint: "When in the bloody hell
am I gonna stop being used as a pin cushion?!"
Buffy had replied with a wicked half grin, and
a suggestive, "Maybe when you start using me for one."
That was pretty much when they'd disappeared.
Apparently, not even a 2 by 2 inch square through his chest could devastate
Spike's sex drive.
Well, whatever. The two were certainly visible
now, grinning and laughing together as they came down the steps. Spike threw his
arms around her lovingly, leaning in and placing a kiss on her forehead, and
Buffy leaned in to his touch, nuzzling her cheek against his chest. At the same
time, Xander and Giles pushed through the front door, and when Buffy and Spike
noticed them, one of Spike's arms fell back to his side, and the four stood
there staring at each other, Buffy and Spike wearing sheepish grins. Xander
gazed at them silently, then smiled, nodding his head. He snorted then, keeping
up the ruse between himself and Spike, and gave them both a thumbs up before
wandering into the den, shouting, "I come bearing gifts of pizza, chips,
and cheezy curls, come and get it!"
Eep. The test. Buffy's smile shrank off her
face and she bit her lower lip as she watched Giles gaze at her proximity to
Spike. She didn't have to turn around to know that Spike's smile had gone
missing as well, and relaxed a little bit when he gently squeezed her shoulder.
Giles took in the movement, then nodded to Spike slowly. "I trust you to
take care of her?" he asked.
Spike moved down until he stood on the steps
next to Buffy, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Until she kills me."
Buffy scowled and jabbed him in the stomach,
but succeeded only in making him smirk. Giles hid his own smile, then cleared
his throat when Buffy glanced at him. "We need to tell you something,
Giles," she said, her teeth gnawing on her lower lip.
The former Watcher tilted his head to the side,
curious. "What is it?"
Spike glanced at Buffy, then spoke. "Uh,
first off... she an' I are mated. Don't go getting all flustered, mate, it's not
a bad thing -- at least to us it isn't." Buffy elbowed him again when she
saw that Giles was gaping at them in disbelief. "But, uh, right. What we
really want you to know, is that, uh... when time came for, er... Buffy to... to
bite me, um... her eyes were glowing."
At that, Giles sat up and took notice,
forgetting all about his shock that Buffy had been mated to a vampire. For the
moment. "Her eyes were glowing, you say?"
Buffy nodded. "Like a vampire's. And
that's not even half of it. When I went to bite him, Spike says that I sprouted
fangs. No bumpies, just fangs. Fangs, Giles! I. Had. Fangs!"
Giles frowned. "I heard you before, Buffy.
However, I cannot even begin to say that I know what's happened. I've told you
before, there are no records of any Master vampires being mated to a
Slayer."
Buffy's eyebrows crinkled. "Well, yeah, I
know, but aren't you even going to take notes? I mean... you're Watcher-Man.
You... scold me on stupid behavior, and... mock my Californian upbringing... and
yell at me when I pull a bad battle technique. And you take notes. It's what you
do, you take notes! You're not gonna take notes?"
Giles shook his head, smiling slightly.
"No, Buffy, I'm not going to take notes. Tonight is a night for relaxation,
after a particularly heinous battle. We will take a break tonight, and research
this further tomorrow." He nodded for emphasis, then turned and took the
drinks he'd brought into the kitchen, passing by Joyce and Tara on their way
inside with the popcorn.
Spike looked down at Buffy, eyebrows raised.
"Watcher's giving us the night off, pet, I say we take it."
Buffy nodded slowly, frowning. "Yeah, I
agree. But still. Giles? Not wanting to do anything book-ish? This is so majorly
of the weird."
Her vampire followed Giles's path with his
eyes. "Yeah... you're right. But what can we do? If he doesn't want to
research, then he's prolly just feeling ill." He shrugged and wrapped his
arm around her shoulders. "Now let's go get pizza before Harris eats it
all."
Buffy smiled as they entered the living room,
and flopped down together on the couch next to Dawn, the teenager promptly
curling up beside them, and grinning giddily at her involvement in Group Hang
Time.
Inside the kitchen, Giles sorted through the
soda bottles, and the scotch he'd brought for himself and Spike. Peering at the
entrance to the kitchen in an almost paranoid manner, he slid his journal out of
his jacket, and took up a pen, quickly scribbling in it.
24 May 2001
My Slayer and Spike have informed me that
they are mated. I suppose it should be a tragedy to me, however, Slayers have
been intimate with vampires in the past. Buffy is not as unique in that
department as she would believe herself to be.
They've also told me that at the height of
their... er, stimuli, Spike's claim on Buffy reached a bit of a crescendo, and
Buffy's eyes began gleaming, her canines extending into fangs. There certainly
is a need for research, here. However, I believe that neither Buffy nor Spike
are in any danger from it.
It has been two days since the battle with
the Hellgoddess, Glory. Buffy continues to amaze me, and it seems that in her
joining with Spike, she has become an even more irreconcilable force with the
damned. She has defeated a god -- my Slayer, with only the limited powers of
the Slayer, took on a deity and won.
Most Slayers' strengths were forged by
impeccable detail in training, and cutting off all contact with the outside
world, remaining in the underground. Buffy shunned the teachings of the Council,
and surrounded herself with people that know of her duty and stand by her
throughout it, helping her in her cause, loving her for, because, and in spite
of it. Her strengths were forged from her emotions, such as the results from the
first three apocolypses she has averted. I take exceptional pride in her and
what she has become.
Surprisingly, I am not as angered by the
news that Buffy has taken another vampire to her bed as I had believed I would
be. Somehow, I realized that this would be the result of her three-year long...
affair, we shall call it, with Spike. As I've said before, Buffy is not the only
Slayer to bed a vampire, but I still hold her in higher regard than the others.
Buffy remains different from the other
Slayers in that, while they had intimacy with vampires, they had never been
claimed, nor mated to them, and those vampires were usually their reason of
death. With Spike, the very idea that he would place a claim on Buffy speaks
volumes. Perhaps he does care for her. I am not in a place to judge that. Buffy
Summers remains the only Slayer to have ever loved two vampires, and remains the
only Slayer in history to be mated to a vampire, a vampire who is notoriously
known in the underground as William the Bloody.
I have told her we will research the nature
of the claim tomorrow. Tonight will be a night of enjoyment, only. She, Spike,
and the others, particularly Dawn, deserve it after what they've gone through.
There will be more tomorrow evening.
Rupert
Giles
Watcher
Closing the book, he turned to get out a glass,
filling it with ice and grabbing the bottle of scotch, nearly dropping it when
he heard two throats being cleared. He turned to see Buffy in the doorway,
leaning against Spike who was behind her with his chin resting on her shoulder,
his arms wrapped around her waist. Both were grinning insanely. Buffy shook her
head at the Watcher's journal on the counter.
"I knew it!"
Giles rolled his eyes.
Fin