Title:
Don't Fear the Reaper 3/?
Author: Ajay
Rating: PG ish for language.
Disclaimer: All characters in the BtVS
and AtS verse
belong to Josh Whedon and others who are
not me. I
just take them out for a walk sometimes.
Okay, so I
forget to Spike back on occasion but who
wouldn't
forgive me that?
Warning: Ummm, don't wanna do this but,
character
'death' and a little Buffy bashing.
Description: Post 'Fade Away' a wish is
made, a wish
is granted and everyone will pay.
Many thanks to my amazing beta: Ghosts
Forge who is so
good for my ego
Sorry it's taken awhile but a few days in
hospital for
pneumonia caught me. I had also intended
to go
further w/this chapter, bringing it up to
an NC-17
rating but that will have to wait for the
next part.
Hope you enjoy. Please review.
*****************************************************
"So, do you live in LA or just
visiting? No, wait,
you've came to be an actress."
She could tell from the look on his face
he was only
joking about the last part.
"Actually, I've lived all
over including Sunnydale. Right now I'm
in
I'm just here on business. Well, that and
to visit
some friends I haven't seen in a
while."
She watched his face as she mentioned the
site of the
former Hellmouth. He didn't seem to
recognize it.
"Sunnydale? That's the place that
caved in a couple
of years ago, isn't it?" The man who
sat next to
Jaime had brown eyes and shoulder length
hair. He
actually reminded her of Xander a little.
He replaced
Jaime's empty glass with a fresh one.
"Oh, yeah. We were still at USC. Did
they ever
figure out what caused it?" He
looked at Faith. "I
know they sent seismologists,
vulcanologists and a
couple other -ologists up there to study
it but they
never came up with an answer as far as I
know."
Faith shook her head. "I don't know.
I haven't heard
anything about it since it
happened." She took a gulp
of her beer. She knew exactly what had
caused the
cave-in and if this were really Spike
he'd know, too.
She was coming to the conclusion that it
wasn't him.
She was trying to dampen her
disappointment when she
looked up and straight into... "How
did you get that
scar on your eyebrow?"
He looked embarrassed. "Ummm, well,
when we were kids
Allen here pushed me out of an oak tree.
A branch
caught me on the way down. I'm lucky it
didn't put my
eye out."
"I got punished for the entire
summer." He pushed at
Jaime's shoulder.
"Good old Aunt Pam. I've always
liked her."
"Yeah? Wait 'til she hears you
called her old."
Jaime laughed.
Faith shook her head. "Aunt! You two
are cousins?"
"I'm sorry. Faith McDaniels, my
cousin Allen Ross."
She shook hands with the new man.
He gave her a smirk. "I got the
looks in the family."
Faith raised an eyebrow.
"Really?" Her voice was full
of sarcasm.
She couldn't figure out the timeline.
Spike died in
Sunnydale nearly three years ago.
According to
months ago. The man sitting across from
her was a
carbon copy of him but he had memories
from childhood,
even family. It couldn't be him.
"So, Faith, what do you do?"
Allen asked.
The question startled her. It was the
first time any
one had bothered to ask. Odd but true.
"I'm a recruiter for a private
girls' school in
Two pairs of eyebrows rose at that.
"You live in
"In
only real father figure I've ever had in
my life. I
do all the interviews in the States and
are others like me who work in other
countries."
"Like you?"
She smiled sadly. "Our little gang.
Lonely
childhoods, worse teen years. We got into
trouble,
tussled with demons," she rushed on
maybe they
wouldn't pick up on it, "our demons.
Giles was there
for the lot of us. Of course, some of us,
especially
me, gave him hell but he was right there
whenever we
needed him."
"I can relate to that." Jaime's
voice had the same
wistful quality as Faith's.
She tilted her head in question.
"My parents and older sister were
killed by a drunk
driver when I was 12. Allen's parents
took me in."
He smiled sadly. His eyes caught the
watch on his
right arm. "Damn! Is that the time?
I have to get
up early for work tomorrow."
"And, what is it that you do?"
She asked.
"I'm an assistant editor at an
independent publishing
firm."
"What kind of books do you
publish?"
"The company publishes just about
anything you can
think of: fiction, biographies, academic
tomes." He
raised a finger at Allen.
"Everything except porn,
you pervert. We're not going to discuss
THAT again."
Faith laughed then she yawned. "I
have to meet my
girls and their parents at
my hotel."
"Are you leaving after your
meeting?"
"No. I'm going to look up those
friends I told you
about. I think I'm going to take a few
days to visit
with them." She looked at Jaime
speculatively.
He blushed, causing Allen to laugh.
"Would it be okay
if I gave you my card? Get in touch with
me
if you and your friends feel like going
out?"
He gave her a card with his home and
office numbers on
it. "Oh, here's my cell and e-mail.
Not that I'm
desperate or anything." His blush
deepened. She'd
never seen Spike blush. Of course, she
could tell
that Jaime was human. Still...
****************************************************
Faith had made some inquiries and had
found that Angel
had returned to the Hyperion. At least
she was
familiar enough with LA to get there
without a
problem.
Slightly after
old hotel. No one was in the lobby and
she was just
about to call out when Gunn walked out
from the
kitchen. His jaw fell open when he saw
her.
"Damn, girl! You're a sight for sore
eyes." He
swooped her up into a deep hug.
"Whatcha doin' here?"
She laughed. "
had happened and since I was here to talk
to some
Potentials; I decided to drop in and see
my old
friends." Her return hug made the
big guy grunt. In
her excitement she had forgotten to reign
in her
Slayer strength. She loosened her grip
and looked up
to see everyone else standing there.
Well, almost
everyone. Angel was still no where to be
seen.
She smiled tremulously and felt tears
come to her
eyes. These people had been dead. Not
vampire dead
but truly lost to this world and they had
been brought
back through Spike's sacrifice. She
didn't know how
they felt about that. Could she tell them
her
suspicions about Jaime? Should she?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Buffy had spent months thinking about
Spike and what
he had done for everyone. Both times.
But, lately
all she could think of was his statement
about her
being happy even if it meant that she
would be
together with Angel.
She didn't think that was what she even
wanted
anymore. She was able to look back on her
time with
the dark vampire and remember both the
sweetness of
first love and the problems that their
disparate lots
in life had caused them. She didn't want
to be alone
for the rest of her life. If she had
known that Spike
was in LA she would have come for him.
She had realized, on that last day in
Sunnydale, that
what she felt for him was no longer
nebulous. When
she told him she loved him, she had
really meant it.
Of course, she couldn't get him to
believe her.
Couldn't get him to come with her;
either. But, she
knew in her heart that she did love him
and maybe she
should take his advice. She would go to
LA to see
Angel.
=====================================================
"So, where's Angel?" Faith had
made the rounds and
hugged everyone, even Cordelia. But,
Angel had still
not made an appearance and they had made
enough noise
that he would have heard them any where
in the hotel.
The others all looked at each other
seemingly choosing
Wes as spokesman for the group. He
cleared his
throat. "Angel hasn't been himself
these last few
months. He works harder than ever,
putting himself in
harms way repeatedly, then he comes back
and locks
himself away in his room. When we do get
him to spend
a little time talking to us it's easy to
see that he
is still in mourning."
"Mourning?" She shook her head
in question. Why
would he be mourning? He had gotten his
whole crew
back from the hands of Death.
Cordelia spoke up. "He still hasn't
gotten over
Spike's death."
Faith's eyes narrowed. "Did he see
it when Spike...?"
Four heads nodded.
"Shit!"
###################################################
Angel was below the city in the sewers
looking for
something. He no longer knew what, he
just wanted to
find something to fight that would take
some of his
anger away.
The last few months had been both heaven
and hell. He
was more grateful than he could ever
express that
Cordy, Wes, Fred and Gunn were back with
him. He knew
that he didn't show that very well, but
he just
couldn't get passed the point of how
their return was
accomplished.
He and Spike hadn't always gotten along,
but when they
did, nothing could compare. When he had
created the
young man as a companion for Drusilla he
didn't know
that he would become more of a soul mate
for Angelus
than anyone else could be. Then his
abandonment of
them threw an even bigger wedge between
them than he
had managed to do with his poor treatment
of his
Childe.
That final year, after Spike's
resurrection, had gone
from deepest valley when he couldn't
bring himself to
accept the younger vampire, to the
highest peaks when
the two of them worked together to
accomplish things,
then back down to the lowest level of
Hell when he
drove him away and could not bring him
back before he
gave up his existence to return the
others to him. It
had been Spike's choice, his decision to
make the
sacrifice. Cordy and the others had no
active part in
the vampire's actions but Angel found
himself treating
them as if they coerced his Childe into
doing this
deed for them.
He continued to stalk the tunnels trying
to find the
answer to questions he couldn't even
formulate.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
"Hey, is anybody else hungry? Why
don't we go for
lunch and we can talk some more,
huh?" Fred chirped
into the silence that had fallen amongst
the denizens
of the lobby.
"That sounds like a wonderful idea,
sweetheart. Any
ideas on where we should go?" Wes
swept the group
with a questioning glance. Upon noticing
Faith's
confused visage he suggested they wait
until they were
at the restaurant before he explained
anything.
She nodded, slowly.
@@@@@@@@@@@
They finally decided on a Mexican place
just down the
street from the Hyperion. They had each
made a dent
into their respective meals before anyone
spoke. Once
again, it was Wesley who did most of the
talking
telling Faith about what had happened in
the last two
years. He explained about Wolfram &
Hart,
the final battle that had seen everyone
perish except
Angel and Spike.
Then each of them contributed part of
what Angel told
them about the argument with Spike and
the sudden
projection that filled the lobby.
Faith needed a little more information to
put the
pieces of the past few years together.
"What about
Connor?"
Cordy was the one who answered this time.
"He comes
to visit about once a month or so. He's
at school."
The Slayer kept staring at her. Cordelia
took a deep
breath. "You want to know about what
was going on the
last time you were here, right? Well, in
short, I was
taken over by a demon. This demon wanted
to use my
body and Connor to initiate its birth
into this world.
Do you remember Jasmine?"
"That new age televangelist that
preached all of that
peace and love shit a couple of years
ago?"
Cordy nodded. "Jasmine emerged from
my body fully
grown. Her 'birth' put me into a coma.
That's what
eventually led to my death."
"But, what no one knew was that just
before the battle
with the Beast, Angel and I had admitted
to ourselves
that we had fallen in love. I was on my
way to meet
him when Skip stopped me and gave this
line about
becoming a 'higher power'. It was a
set-up so that
Jasmine could have her way."
"When I, supposedly returned, she
used my body. I
couldn't regain control except for short
bursts of
time. When Connor and I first slept
together it
wasn't my decision. The next day Angel
was so angry
and he let me know that he had seen the
two of us in
bed together. I got a brief flash of what
had
happened. It devastated me, I knew that
any love
Angel felt for me wouldn't be enough to
get us
through."
"He, Connor and I sat down about two
months after we
came back and discussed the whole thing.
Connor
understands that it wasn't me who did all
those
things. He knows that I still considered
him Angel's
'baby' and could never had been in love
with him. It
went a lot more smoothly than I thought
it would.
Angel and I talked later and he admitted
that although
he would always love me, he couldn't get
passed that."
She looked down at her plate, not knowing
if she
should voice the rest of this or not. Oh,
well. "He
also admitted that he was so angry about
Spike's death
because, well he explained that they used
to have an
intimate relationship. Not just sex, they
had a real
relationship. He said that even
remembering what he
had with Buffy no longer held a candle to
Angelus and
Will's feelings. It just took him so long
to admit
what was there. They spent so many years
fighting
that the memory was buried deep.
He had argued with Spike a couple of days
before the
whole giving up his life thing. It's all
he thinks
about." She smiled sadly. "I
guess we all consider
the what could have beens. His just seem
to take over
his soul."