Part I: The Immortal
The music was pounding through her in an almost sexual way. She could feel the vibrations in her nerve endings as wave after wave of sound washed over her. She went to the clubs most nights, now. The music, the dancing and the sex that frequently followed an evening of clubbing gave her both a physical release and an excuse not to think. Thinking led to remembering, remembering led to guilt and guilt led to . . . a place she no longer wanted to be.
So . . . guilt-free dancing. And guilt-free meaningless sex. Great sex. Wonderfully satisfying loveless sex that asked nothing of her but that she enjoy herself. So why did she feel so empty?
She had the life she always thought she wanted. An ironic smile crossed her lips. She had always wanted a normal life and, yeah, living in the Eternal City, with an immortal lover, her only family a former ball of mystical energy, isn’t exactly what a 7-11 clerk from Oxnard would consider normal, but for Buffy Anne Summers, former Chosen One, this was as normal as it gets. So why did she feel so. . . lost?
Having hundreds of Slayers all over the world protecting humanity was of the good. At 23, she was pretty much retired. “Slayer Emeritus” Giles had called her. She had done her job---she’d saved the world numerous times. Hey, she’d even died for the cause . . . twice. She’d earned the chance to do whatever she wanted with her life. Problem was, she didn’t know what that was, yet.
Okay. Free association time, Buffy. First answer that pops into your head is the “real one”. *If you could be doing anything in the world right now, what would it be?* Patrolling with Spike. *What do you want most out of life?* Love. *Who are you?* The Slayer. I am the Slayer. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s not what I do, it’s who I am. *Then what the hell are you doing frittering away your time dancing in a Roman night club night after night like . . . Nero or whoever it was?* Don’t have a clue. I am . . .clueless. *No wonder you’re depressed!* Hey! That wasn’t a question. *Nope. It wasn’t. Can’t put anything over on perceptive-girl. Okay, question: Talk to yourself often, pet?* What did you call me? *What did I call you? I’m just your subconscious.*
Buffy spun on her heel, pushing through the tightly packed bodies as she made her way to the door. She had to get out of here now. She couldn’t stand this loud, hot, smoky club for one more minute! She needed air. She needed a purpose. She needed. . .
He was beside her in an instant---solicitous, perceptive, caring . . . empty.
“Buffee, my love, is there something wrong?”
“Yeah. Lots of things.”
“And what can I do to help, my heart?”
“For starters, you can call me ‘Buffy’. That’s my name. ‘Buff y’---not ‘Buff ee.’ God, you sound like Andrew! And I can’t believe I just said that! But it’s true. Lately, whenever you call me ‘Buffee’, my mind sort of adds ‘Slayer of the Vampyres’ in Andrew’s voice and that is so distracting . . . I can’t begin to tell you . . .”
“Aaah.”
“What do you mean ‘aaah’? Are you gonna look wise and tap your chin, next?”
“Therein lies the problem, yes?”
“’Splainey?”
“Being Buffee is not enough for you, my goddess. You are not only Buffee Summers, you are also the Slayer. . .”
“Nope. Not me. Not the slayer. A slayer, maybe. One of many.”
“And you feel diminished, yes?”
Buffy thought for a moment.
“Yeah. I guess I do. I thought empowering hundreds, maybe thousands of slayers would make me feel less alone. Instead . . .”
“You are more alone and isolated than ever. You have lost your purpose. Your raison d’etre.”
“My what?”
“Your reason to be . . .”
“Yeah . . .”
“You are conflicted. You enjoy our time together, yes?”
“Yeah, I do. Really. It’s just . . .”
“It is a ‘vacation’ for you Buffee, not a new life. You needed this time to relax, to enjoy yourself, to fall in love, to forget your responsibilities . . .”
“Um. About that ‘falling in love’. . . I haven’t . . . I mean, I’m not . . .”
“Ah, yes. I understand. You and I, we are a delicious interlude, but your heart belongs to the two vampires . . . and theirs to you. I could sense it strongly when they were here last night.”
“They? What they? What do you mean ‘when they were here last night’?”
“Angelus and William the Bloody . . . they were in Rome, searching for you. You did not know this? I naturally assumed you chose to avoid them . . .”
Buffy flung up her hand in a “stop” gesture, then raked her hands through her hair and stared at him with disgust.
“What are you trying to pull, Immortal? What stupid, sick game are you playing? Spike’s dead. He sacrificed himself to save the world. I know this. Are you trying to tell me he didn’t die . . . that he’s still alive and never let me know? That’s bullshit! And Angelus? You’re saying Angelus is back . . .”
“Ah. A thousand pardons! Calm yourself, my sweet, and I will explain all.”
“I’m calm!” Buffy gritted out between clenched teeth. “Now start talking---and this better be good!”
“Come. We will walk a ways . . .” The Immortal took her hand, tucked it into the crook of his arm and patted it.
That condescending pat caused the loss of at least two layers of enamel on her teeth as she heroically refrained from beating him to a bloody pulp.
“Start. Talking. Now.”
“I apologize. I thought you knew all this, of course. I would never have mentioned any of this if I had known it would cause you such distre—”
Her hand tightened on his arm with a vice-like grip. “Stop. Stalling. And. Talk. Right. Now!”
The Immortal sighed and put both hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him.
“Angelus is still souled, if that is your concern. He is attempting to use the resources of the LA Branch of Wolfram and Hart to do good. He has made many positive changes. Of course, the dear boy won’t succeed in the end . . . Wolfram & Hart is too powerful, but one must respect his idealism. Of course, he is very young . . .”
“You’re saying Angel wasn’t corrupted? He’s still trying to do good?”
“But of course. Did he not tell you this?”
“Well . . . we didn’t . . . we thought . . .”
“Ah. I begin to understand. Your organization assumed he had been corrupted, took the fact that he was running W&H at face value and failed to look any deeper.”
“No! Well, yeah. I mean, we . . . he . . .”
“Do you actually know anything about the being you call Angel at all? Do you know what his life has been like in Los Angeles?”
“There was never enough time . . . and things kept coming up . . . and then . . . I don’t want to talk about Angel! What did you mean about Spike?”
“When he sacrificed himself for the world, he became a Champion of Light. The Powers That Be had need of him, so they brought him back to work with Angel. Of course, like you, Angel let himself be distracted by minutiae and also failed to question or to look deeper. He allowed a former W&H attorney of his acquaintance to take credit for Spike’s return, but that is beside the point. Your two vampire lovers are both alive---or, more accurately---un-dead in LA, fighting the good fight, trying to make a difference, trying to change the world and you are . . . vacationing?”
Buffy slapped his face as hard as she could. He only smiled.
“You bastard! You knew all this! From the very beginning---you knew all this and didn’t tell me!”
“But, Buffee . . .you had only to ask.”
With a glare of disdain, Buffy whirled and ran into the night. She had gone less than a block when she stopped, ripped off her frivolous, strappy, high heeled sandals and flung them as far from her as she could. She ran barefoot as hard and as fast as she was able, trying to outrun the rage and guilt she felt.
It felt good to be running. To push her body to its limits and then beyond. When was the last time she had trained? Had done anything more demanding than dancing? Fighting the Ubervamps in the Hellmouth, that was when! What had happened to her? What had she become?
Angel . . . and Spike . . . Spike was alive? Spike who said he’d never leave her, who said he loved her . . . Spike was alive and never contacted her! Angel knew Spike was alive and never told her! He never said he was, what, “undercover” at W&H? He let her think he had been corrupted and never bothered to explain?
Maybe the Immortal was right . . . what did she really know about his life since he moved to LA? If the Immortal was telling the truth, Angel and Spike had been fighting the good fight while she . . . she had spent the past year shopping and dancing and making love.
A feeling of self-loathing washed over her strong enough to stop her in her tracks, gasping for breath. Giles and Willow and Kennedy were in England, training watchers and slayers. Faith was in Cleveland, actually being the slayer and she---she was “on vacation”? For a year?
Buffy wrapped her arms around herself defensively. She had been drifting . . . and no one pulled her back. No one needed her. She was “retired”. Slayer Emeritus. Out to pasture. And she had not only let it happen, she had reveled in it! Some “Champion” she was! Feeling all “holier-than-thou” with Angel and Spike because she was the Chosen One! She was good and pure and innocent and had been chosen to be a Champion.
Angel was trying to atone for his past---he was fighting for good to make up for all the bad he’d done, but she had been Chosen . . . so that meant she was better than him, right? She fought for good because it was the right thing to do, not to atone for any badness.
Except that she hadn’t been doing much “fighting for good” lately. Oh sure, she still staked the occasional vampire when she came across one during her club-crawling, but it’s not like she went out of her way.
And Spike . . . Spike fought at her side, doing good in defiance of his vampire nature and what did she do? Encourage him like the Champion she was supposed to be? Help him, support him in his quest for change? Nope. She called him an “evil, soulless thing” and told him he’d never be good! And did he accept that? Did he believe he’d never be good because she repeatedly told him so? Did he go back to being evil? Nope. He went and got a soul. Oh, yeah, she was a real champion! Far superior to two evil vampires! Right!
And Dawn . . . she had told Dawn she wanted to show her the world; that she wanted to be there for Dawn. And she did try . . . at first. But then the Potentials started arriving, and The First, and the Ubervamp and Caleb . . . and Dawn got pushed aside again. The Potentials needed her---to protect them, to train them, and all her energy got focused on them and Dawn sort of fell by the wayside.
Why hadn’t she continued training Dawn? Why hadn’t she included her in the workouts with the Potentials? They had no more power than Dawn when they were just Potentials . . . and Dawn was actually a better fighter than most of them. So why hadn’t she included Dawn?
Because, no matter how green or incompetent they were, the other girls were “Potential Slayers” and Dawn was her baby sister? Oh, God! Had she really been that patronizing? Yep. She had. How could Dawn even stand to be around her anymore? And when it was all over, when they’d won and she finally “earned” her normal life, then she finally gave Dawn the love and attention she deserved, right?
Yeah. She moved them to Rome where they didn’t know anybody, parked Dawn in school and went out clubbing most nights leaving Dawn alone—again—or with Andrew while she “lived” her normal life, enjoyed her “vacation”. Oh, yeah! She was a shining example of a sister, a Slayer, a Champion. Not!
She had so much to make up for—to Dawn and Angel and Spike and herself. She didn’t even know where to begin.
*****************************************************************
Buffy sat alone in her dark bedroom. She had tried to talk to Dawn, to explain, to promise changes, but it had all sounded . . . old. She’d said all those things before and never followed through. No wonder Dawn was skeptical. Nothing she could do about it now. Talking—reassurances—wasn't going to cut it this time. She’d have to show Dawn she had changed. And she would. But later---right now there was something important she had to do.
She had to go to LA . . . see Angel . . . and Spike. Oh, God, Spike! What could she say to Spike? She had to see them both. Find out where they all stood. She’d dithered enough. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life going around half-baked . . .
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