thedeadlyhook | Fic - The Reflecting Pool, Epilogue

So much for the 'short' epilogue I thought it was going to be! But thankfully, it's at least shorter than the original story. And hopefully, I've managed to address the problem from The Reflecting Pool, of being, as

herself_nyc put it, "a Spuffy story with no Spuffy in it!" : )

Coda to the story written for

seasonal_spuffy, Fall '06, here and continued here. Post-series, Buffy revisits the Slayer guide figure from "Intervention," and in the aftermath faces some home truths. Includes some speculation about possible effects Slayer spell, and, you know, that ol' Spike/Buffy.

Notes: I do very much like the original story's melancholy tone, so I'm keeping this part separate for now. But if you want to go a little further...

[epilogue]

__________

"What's this?" Dawn eyes the big bottle of champagne as Buffy pops the cork, pours. "Are we celebrating? What are we celebrating?"

"Just a toast." Buffy lifts her glass.

It's the five-year anniversary of the Sunnydale Hellmouth's collapse. To the day.

She's pretty sure she's the only person who still remembers when it was.

"To absent friends," she says. And drinks it down while Dawn is still working on the shape of her frown.

__________

She heard about L.A. only after it had happened. From the local Slayers who'd managed to keep what went down... local. Angel hadn't been heard from since.

She tries pretty hard not to think about that.

Except when she does. Lets herself think about it, the way she'd once told him that she let herself think about her future.

As a cookie. God.

And then she surprises herself by getting angry. At Angel. Angry the way she never used to get, because... Angel.

He'd been gone from her life so long. So long that even if he really was dusted, the only change would be the unlikely hope that he'd come waltzing back into her life someday. Like the ending to a fairy tale.

And it's only now--now that she has to think about that hope just not being there anymore--that she realizes how long she'd been holding onto it. To him. And then that just leads to her thinking about Spike, and how she'd given him that amulet because she'd known, somewhere down deep, what might happen. And maybe she'd thought she'd been ready.

For him to not be there.

She wonders now if she still would've had the courage to do that, if Angel hadn't shown up. On the edge of an apocalypse, as if to remind her, at the last second, that she still had some dreams.

She would've lost Angel either way if he'd stayed. His last appearance in Sunnydale had been a dance. Like the prom he'd shown up to, just to make her happy for one night. Even though he was already one foot out the door.

She remembers Angel most in the mornings. Drinking coffee, watching the dust motes lazily spin in the air. Sunshine and light.

It's what he'd always wanted for her. Always.

__________

"Do you have any champagne flutes?"

She's in Spike's crypt, and she's preparing a dinner party. Rushing around in an apron, trying to make everything perfect. Arranging place settings on his sarcophogus, velvet-draped for the occasion. "The guests are due any minute--and aren't you going to put any clothes on?"

"No, and I'm gonna miss the ending if you keep yammering." He's lounging naked in front of his TV. Leaning forward, totally absorbed in a program. He thumbs the remote as if to drown her out; orchestral music fills the room. "Plus, 's not like anyone's really coming," he shouts over the swelling chorus.

"They are too coming," she insists. She's reaching up now, fetching dishes from cabinets that, technically, belong in her mother's house. "I'm using the good china."

"Oh, right, that'll fix it," he mutters, and flips channels.

She arranges the plates and the glasses. The cutlery, though, slows her down--she can't remember exactly how to place the service. It needs a polish, too. Her hand hovers.

"Forks go on the left." Spike's arms close around her from behind.

Buffy leans into the hug. She isn't naked, like he is--her apron is starchy. Embroideried with lilies. And roses.

"Looks like your guests are here," he whispers into her ear, and she looks up.

And they're not in his crypt anymore.

They're on an open plain. Sand and rocks and brush scrub that she's seen before in dreams. Miles and miles of empty space.

Only... not empty.

Thousands of Slayers are there. Circled all around them, silent. She can sense the hostility rolling off them in waves.

Her apron flutters in the wind.

"Can't have a party without invitations," Spike says, and nuzzles his face into her neck.

As if on cue, the girls launch themselves forward, their hands curled into claws.

Buffy wakes with a gasp.

__________

"They attacked you?"

It's winter in London. Giles's office is bathed in gray light. Rain spatters the window. "Yep," she says, and presses her fingertips into the glass. It's easier to look at the Thames than at him. For this kind of talk. "It was like those movies where you're surrounded by zombies. Except I woke up right before the flesh-ripping part."

"Good Lord. And... you believe this was a Slayer dream? A premonition?"

"Not a premonition." She feels a little impatient with him. Touchy-feely stuff was never his favorite thing. "More like... a warning."

"I beg your pardon?"

"From the other Slayers." The window holds her forehead up, its cold seeping into her skin. "We're connected, Giles. All of us. One heart and one mind." With a fingertip, she begins to trace the path of a raindrop through the glass. "And... I think we always have been. Even when it was just Faith and I, we could... talk. Sometimes. Through dreams."

"Buffy, that's...." She can hear rustling, the creak of his chair. He's leaning back now, probably with his hands folded across his chest. Intrigued. "That's extraordinary. You're saying there's a literal connection between Slayers?"

"If by literal you mean 'like one big mystical party line' then, yeah."

"Good Lord," he says again, and she can almost hear him thinking, the excited tone in his voice. "There's... yes. Yes. The dream-portents... and the First Slayer--perhaps there's always been such a connection." She hears him get up, go to the shelves. The sound of books being extracted, pages riffling.

"Connected, right. You know, I just said that."

"Hm? Yes, do go on," he says distractedly, clearly absorbed in a book.

"You're not listening, Giles. That's it. Slayers. Dreams. One heart and one mind."

"Is that a quotation?"

"What?" She fights the urge to turn, but her eyes can't quite stop--she gets a glimpse of his desk. Piled high with papers and old books. And a computer. Sign of the times.

"One heart and one mind. You keep saying it."

"Oh." She shrugs. "It's what the Guide said to me. You know, the Slayer Guide. In the desert. Or... you know. When I did the spell."

"Ah." She doesn't elaborate, and he doesn't ask. There'd been no follow-up between them on her vision quest that one time. She'd come back, said she'd found what she'd been looking for, and that had been that. He'd known better than to press.

"There is one thing, however, that I don't quite understand." A quiet creaking sound. She mentally pictures him leaning against the edge of his desk, arms folded across his chest. "Why would the other Slayers attack you?"

"Because I'm not--" Deep breath. "I wasn't alone. Spike was there."

The silence spins out for what seems like a long time.

"You mean... in your dream?"

"Yes, Giles, in my dream." She's annoyed with him for even asking. Where else? "I guess sharing dreams about blood and guts and death is okay, but other stuff involving vampires? TMI."

"Oh. I see. Well, um, yes."

She briefly considers reassuring him that it wasn't a sex dream. Exactly.

"And... you believe this was a conscious warning of some type?"

"No." She turns, finally, from the window. He's standing exactly as she'd pictured. "Not conscious. You can't control what you dream." She sighs. "Or maybe it's all just me. My subconscious, my feelings... I dunno. All of the above."

"I see." He pauses again, this time only briefly. "What do you intend to do?"

"Do?" It's a businesslike question, and she adapts to it, shrugs. "Nothing, really. If it's all in my head, then it's my problem. If it's the other Slayers... well, they can't kick me out of their psychic collective. I'm a Slayer, they're stuck with me." And you can't choose family, she thinks to herself, and smiles. Even when you do.

"Quite." Another pause. "Buffy... why did you tell me all this?"

Her smile fades a little. Giles catching her off guard didn't happen often. "Well... because I thought you should know." Because like it or not, we're still family, but these new girls... "They're not going to tell you everything, Giles. They've got each other for that now."

"Yes, I know." The look on his face told her that, yeah, he really did. She doesn't ask how.

But she can't resist throwing him off balance a little further. Just as repayment for that question about Spike. "Plus, I'm willing to bet this'll happen again."

"What will?"

She shrugs. "Disagreements among Slayers. Differences of opinon. Crossovers to the wrong side of the demonic tracks--get real, Giles. They're teenage girls. Never underestimate the power of the young and sexually curious." Then she lifts an eyebrow. "Or the ambiguous and sometimes sexy undead."

She had to given him credit; he tries hard to hold back his wince. She rewards him by holding back her laugh.

__________

She's in Spike's crypt. Alone this time.

Alone in the basement. The lower level, with its castoff furnishings. Shabby chic.

She rolls over on the bed, onto her stomach, and surveys a fringed lamp. He's made good use of fabrics and rugs. Everything placed just so.

She's really, really bored.

And what's more, she's sad. Because a part of her mind knows that his crypt doesn't exist anymore, but more than that, knows that Spike is dead. He's never coming home.

Not to here.

She gets up. Rolls out of the bed and climbs the ladder to the surface. Pushes her way across the concrete floor, all littered with broken furniture and debris from old fights--an axe, a tattered old dress, a medical gurney and a rusted wheelchair... too much junk. She has to push her way through it, a forest of gutted appliances and twisted metal, groaning and creaking steel girders trying to collapse in on themselves, bury her alive...

... but she manages to scramble out just in time, over a last pile of splintered two-by-fours. The doorway is farther off than she remembers, far, far across an open floor, but she can still see it, standing open and flanked by those two funery urns.

It's only when she's halfway across the open floor that she recognizes where she really is.

The cave where the First Slayer was made.

She freezes in the middle of the floor, mystical spirals marked out all around her, and her heart jackrabbits in her chest. The Shadow Men are like statues, silent and still.

It's a moment before she realizes that they ARE statues. Carvings like you'd find on the wall of a church. Their faces are almost worn away by time.

Regardless, she edges her way past them, not liking their carved looks. She has to navigate a stone bridge, narrow and treacherous, but then she's out, out and through the doorway. It's much bigger than she remembers, a gaping stone maw. She blinks into the sudden bright light.

"Took you long enough."

Spike is sitting right outside. On a boulder, his back leaning against the cave wall.

"It would've been faster if you hadn't left all your stuff in there," she retorts, and inspects a bloody scratch on her arm. "It's a mess. I can't believe I got out at all."

Behind her, a distant roar. The cave is crashing, collapsing. She doesn't look back.

"Not all of that stuff's mine."

"Well, at least you finally put on some pants."

He's wearing a pair of black jeans. "Seemed like the time," he says, and stretches, his bare chest flexing and curving up toward the sky. "All those hard surfaces were starting to chafe. Can't say the same for you, though."

She looks down at herself. She's naked.

She lifts her head again. A light breeze tugs at her hair, sends caressing fingers over her skin. She thinks about clothes, shoes. "I'm good like this," she finally decides.

"Right, then. Suit yourself." He turns his face toward the open plain stretching out in front of them. Rolling hills of endless, empty desert.

"It's kinda boring," he says, although his eyes don't move from the horizon. "To look at, I mean."

She feels profound all of a sudden. "A soujourn in the wilderness is cleansing for the soul."

He twists around to look at her, light glinting off his bright hair, his arms clapsed loosely around his jean-clad knees. "Everyone needs a drink of water. Eventually."

Her forehead wrinkles. The wind lifts her hair. "I don't... belong here anymore, do I?"

"Only hermits live in the wilderness."

"But I... what about gypsies?"

"Right, gypsies, nomads... with the tents and the wandering, but a crowd means society. Not so much with the soul-cleansing." He stands and stretches, arms out in a cruciform pose. "So are you ready to go?"

"Just a second." She lifts her face into the breeze again, and her heart lifts with it. "Yeah. I think I finally am."

"Me too. Been here a long time." He surveys the landscape. "It's not really me."

"So where, then?"

"You ever wonder what's over that hill?"

She squints at where he's pointing. "You don't think it's too far?"

"Only one way to find out." He extends a hand to her and she takes it. The warmth of his skin suddenly shocks her, the pulsebeat in his palm.

"You--" He's standing in the sunlight. His grin forms slowly, teeth white against a tanned face. She's looking at his hair for the first time, and it's not the chemical platinum that she remembers, but bleached pale by the sun. "Spike... you're alive."

His grin gets even wider. "You only just now figure that out?"

Buffy wakes with a gasp.

__________

She lays in bed for several minutes, frozen still. Eventually gets up, goes to the kitchen. Makes a pot of coffee, watches it brew. Spends the better part of an hour drinking it down, turning over the dream in her mind.

Slayer dreams aren't like other dreams. They linger. Their images are like holograms, shimmering and 3D, so you can examine them on every side.

And the longer she tries to find another interpretation to the dream, something logical that fits the images into wishful thinking or something anyone else might say, the stronger a stubborn voice inside her grows.

You know what this means.

She did know. She knew.

Spike was alive. Somewhere out there, in the world. He was alive.

She puts down her cup. Lets herself smile, and then finally, laugh.

Buffy laughs.

I do it for the joy it brings
Because I'm a joyful girl
Because the world owes me nothing
And we owe each other the world
I do it because it's the least i can do
I do it because i learned it from you
And I do it just because I want to
Because I want to
--Ani DiFranco, "Joyful Girl"

[end]

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From:

fredsmith518.livejournal.com

thoroughly enjoyed reading this
liked the tone and the pictures and the imagery all

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