Chapter Text
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Prelude
~*~
~ May 22, 2001; L.A. Hyperion hotel ~
Angel looked pole-axed when he hung up from the call.
“What’s up in Sunnyhell Angel? It’s the annual apocalypse season. Bad news? Anything we need to jump on here?” Cordy sighed and looked mildly concerned. She really hated the few interactions with anyone from her old home town. The calls and visits were more rare than a boy band made up of Fyral demons but when they did happen it was rarely good news. Even worse was that she had to work double-time to get Angel out of whatever blue funk those contacts left behind.
“I need to leave right away.” For all of the urgency in Angels words he didn’t look ready to jump up from his chair in any hurry.
“Do they require assistance?” Wes had been looking forward to a bit of downtime. They had just returned from a rather dicey foray to a dimension called Pylea and he had been hoping to have a chance to get better acquainted with the fetching young woman they had rescued while there.
“Too late for that. Buffy’s dead.” Angel’s normal dour facial expression didn’t give any hint to how he was taking that news.
“What?” Cordy had never been particularly close to the Slayer who had been unexpectedly important to her during her last few years in her hometown but that didn’t mean she wished her ill.
“Willow didn’t give too many details. Hellgod and something about a tower and dimensional portals. Buffy didn’t make it.”
“Do they need us there?” Wes knew that Giles had to be devastated. His love for his Slayer was more familial than professional and losing a Slayer was always hard even when that was not the case.
“It’s too late,” Angel glowered at him. “Look I have to deal with this. I wasn’t expecting …”
“Well Slayers don’t usually live as long as Buffy so,” Cordy began. One look at the death glare from her boss stopped that train of thought before it left the station.
“Buffy was meant for more. This is not what I was promised.” Angel closed his eyes and let the rage roll over him.
“Promised?” Wes was confused. He knew the troubled history between his employer and his former Slayer charge. As far as he knew their star-crossed relationship had ended when Angel left Sunnydale for LA and his quest for redemption.
“Never mind,” Angel waved a hand in dismissal. “I need to get my head on straight, figure out what this all means.”
“Yeah just what does this all mean Angel? If it’s too late to help Buffy then does that mean we have a hellgod to fight? Are we all headed for Sunydale?” Cordy wasn’t looking forward to anything of the kind but she had thrown her lot in with those helping the helpless and didn’t really fancy the world ending just because the Slayer lost the apocalypse.
“Just me and not to Sunnydale.” Angel headed toward the office safe and began to pull out a sizeable amount of cash. “They killed the hellgod. Apocalypse is over but Buffy died saving the world.”
“So where are you going and why?”
“Like I said,” he looked at Wes with derision, “I need to re-think some things. There’s a monastery in Si Lanka. I was at their temple in Tibet turn of the last century getting my head together after the soul. I’ll be back once I sort through what all this means.”
The rest of his crew looked on in startled silence as Angel grabbed up the cash and headed upstairs evidently to pack.
Cordy sighed, “Too bad Gru didn’t stick around. We could have used the muscle while Angel’s off finding himself or whatever.”
Wes patted her hand in sympathy, “We’ll be fine Cordelia. We managed nicely when Angel went off the reservation before. I’m certain we can keep Angel Investigations up and running while he sorts himself out. Buffy was a major part of his life you know. This has to be quite the shock.”
“Major part of his past you mean. I think they’ve only talked a handful of times since he moved out here when they broke up...you know that thing that happens that makes a person part of your past.” Cordy was highly bored with the whole Buffy and Angel show. No one could sustain that amount of angst forever. It was like dealing with adolescents whenever their drama intruded into her life. It had been that way since High School. As far as Cordy was concerned High School was over and so should the melodrama of this mismatched pair be.
~ May 26, 2001; Sunnydale, Ca. ~
The huddled mourners turned from the bleak hole in the ground that now contained the resting place of the late Slayer Buffy Summers who, according to the stone on order, had saved the world a lot.
Giles leveled a gimlet stare at the vampire and young girl who were the last to leave the graveside. Dawn was emotionally vulnerable having been left completely alone in the world now that her sister had gone to her reward. Giles would be damned himself if he let Spike swoop in and take advantage of that vulnerability.
Spike draped an arm around Dawn’s quivering shoulder and urged her to leave this place of death. Funny that, the dead leading the child away from death’s real estate and tugging her back to the land of the living. Spike would have found that amusing at one time but any humor was lost on him now. How could there be laughter, hope or joy in a world without her? He wished he had let his baser instincts take over and had fortified himself with a bottle or two of something 90 proof or better.
Spike shook himself mentally and reminded himself that he had made a promise. What had to matter now was Dawn’s well being. That sweet girl had insisted that the graveside service be delayed until just after sundown so that Spike could safely attend. She needed him to be strong for her, to help her to live in the world Buffy died to save. There would be time enough to meet the sun once Dawn had been successfully helped to a full and happy life.
“A word,” Giles latched on to Spike’s free arm as he passed him on the way out of the cemetery. The Watcher motioned to Spike indicating that word was intended for Spike’s ears only and that it was likely a word Spike wouldn’t enjoy one bit.
Once Dawn had been transferred to the tender care of Tara, Spike crossed his arms in front of himself and prepared for the hostility he could sense was headed his way. Well the old man couldn’t say anything worse than Spike had been saying to himself ever since Buffy died thanks to his missteps on the tower.
“I want to be completely clear with you Spike,” Giles spat his name as if it were something noxious in his mouth. “I arranged the service to be held at this time as a courtesy to Dawn. She insisted that she needed you there with her for this and the child has more than enough on her plate at the moment so I gave in to her request. However so not mistake this as an indication that you are in any respect a part of them.” Giles pointed to the group of Buffy’s friends who were gathered near the parked cars waiting for Giles to join them.
Spike narrowed his eyes and bit back on his anger. Not like he was feeling the love before this little speech of the Watcher after all.
“You were of some use when we took on Glory, or so Buffy seemed to believe. That need for … extra muscle … is at an end. You are no longer needed or wanted.”
So these were his walking papers. Well Giles had no authority over him! “I failed Buffy, I’ll be the first to admit it. I made a promise and failed to keep it or we wouldn’t be where we are today. I should have made certain that lizard tailed demon, Doc, was dead good and proper and then he wouldn’t have been there to cut the Bit. Shoulda taken him off the tower with me.” Spike had a far-away look on his face as if reliving all of the recent events over again. “Shoulda done a hundred other things different to keep Dawn safe but I failed, made the wrong calls.” His jaw clenched and his eyes took on the piercing steel of determination as he looked Giles in the eye. “I won’t fail again. The Bit’s alive no thanks to yours truly. I mean to keep the promise I made to Buffy, to keep Dawn safe till the end of the world. Not you or any army of narrow minded gits are going to stop me. Buffy trusted me…”
Giles’ look could have frozen the Sahara. “You have no soul Spike. There is no way you can be trusted. Buffy might have had some kind of misplaced trust in you out of some strange gratitude after you didn’t reveal Dawn’s Keyness to Glory. It might have come from a bit of desperation as well. But not me! I know better than to place any trust in a soulless killer like you.”
Spike counted to ten slowly. The last thing Dawn needed was to see the two adult males in her life going at it next to her big sister’s grave. Once more he narrowed his eyes and gave a look that had loosened more than a few bowels in his day. “You know full well that I haven’t killed a human in nearly two years.”
Giles glared right back, “Chip.”
“No! Not the bloody chip!” Spike rolled his eyes in exasperation and sighed heavily. “I loved … love … Buffy. I made a promise to her and I will be keeping it.”
“You should stop this nonsense. No one is left for you to try to fool. Your obsession is at an end, buried there with that beautiful girl. You have no soul. You cannot love.”
“Right. No soul. So just where was the Great Souled Wonder when we laid the supposed love of his life to rest? Oh right … not here. If that soul made it possible for him to love Buffy he’d have been at the funeral not off broodin’ and letting out an occasional heavy sigh. If that soul could make the bugger love proper he’d be here takin’ care of hers even if she’s not here to make Bambi eyes at him. Souls don’t make someone love and lack of a soul doesn’t keep someone from lovin’.”
“I’m sure Angel had things that he needed to do that prevented his being here.” Giles hated feeling like he had to defend the only vampire he hated more than the one right in front of him but he’d never budge when it came to the importance of a soul.
“What he needed to do was care about more than his precious destiny and the rising cost of hair gel. He needed to keep an eye on Dawn. Needed to be that ‘extra muscle’ helpin’ to keep this hell hole safe for all the pulsers Buffy died to protect.” Spike promptly turned his back on the gape mouthed Watcher and stalked off towards the girl who was currently sobbing in Tara’s arms.
~ July 2, 2001; LA, Ca. ~
“Any word from the other side of the world?” Wes inquired.
“Just that he’s still dealing with his loss and that he called the bank to authorize transfer of enough money to cover his part for the flowers we sent to the funeral.” Cordy looked up from the ledger where she was trying to balance the books. If Angel didn’t get back before long they were going to be bleeding money worse than any of his former victims ever bled blood. It was called Angel Investigations for a reason and without the big guy plenty of potential customers looked elsewhere.
“Nothing about when we might expect him to return though?” Wes was annoyed. He had just had a fairly easy and lucrative case walk out the door once they realized the investigators available were human and not the heroic vampire that they had been told could handle their Grivlar infestation.
“Nope. I tried to ask but he shut me down pretty fast. You know Angel. Why talk about things when you can just sit and brood instead.”
“Has Fred come out of her room at all since he’s been gone?”
“Another nada,” Cordy shook her head. “You’d think Angel was the only one who helped save her from Pylea! Really, Wes, what are we...chopped liver?”
Wes chuckled. “I doubt she thinks of us in that way. The poor girl is traumatized and has Angel on a bit of a pedestal is all.”
“She should just take a number. I get it, I do. You know I love the big guy but I still keep a nice sharp stake in my desk drawer. The problem with putting someone on a pedestal is that they always seem to topple off eventually.”
“Indeed.”
~ August, 18, 2001; Sunnydale, Ca.~
“So do you think that’s the last nest of those beasties we’ll need to take out?” Xander heaved a weary sigh and once more thought about how they had always taken Buffy’s nightly patrols for granted.
“Think we got the last of ‘em,” Spike didn’t look at the boy as he answered. “Last I shook down Wilie he didn’t have any other locations to offer.” He smirked at the look of relief on the young man’s face and proceeded to erase it with a bit of glee. “Course he did say there was a pack of Kentup demons looking to set up shop. Nasty buggers. Need to watch the slime, takes weeks to get off and causes your willie to shrink.” He bit back a chuckle at the appalled look on Xander’s face. Really it was far too easy to yank the lad’s chain.
“Well that’s unacceptable!” huffed Anya in alarm. “Spike I think you should get rid of them yourself. You don’t use your penis and Xander most certainly does!”
Spike glared at the former demon. She wasn’t wrong. Spike had no desire to move on from his devotion to the memory of Buffy. Frankly it had been ages since his cock had a go at anything other than his left hand and since Buffy’s death not even that.
In the excruciatingly long three months since they had buried Buffy Summers the small group had banded together in a fairly efficient substitute at least where nightly patrols were concerned.
Willow had groused initially that she had expected Angel to come to Sunnydale to help keep the hellmouth safe. Other than his shocked words of sorrow at Buffy’s passing there had been no communication from him at all. He hadn’t even attended the funeral even though WIllow had left the information with Cordy so he could be there.
None of them had been up for much of anything immediately after they laid their friend to rest. Luckily the post-apocalypse phenomenon of calm held true. Anya had some minor injuries but Spike had been in fairly bad shape. Between the knife wound to the kidney and the multiple broken bones it had taken all his strength to stand at the graveside when they buried Buffy.
Spike had just showed up a few days after that sad event and without a word gone with them to take out a group of scaly demons that had heard the rumor that the Slayer was dead. He’d been there every night since.
“Any word on the effectiveness in using the robot to dispel the belief that the hellmouth has no Slayer?” Giles cleaned his sword and glanced at Spike. Spike had also taken it upon himself to be their eyes and ears in the demon community. Giles refused to admit that he might have been wrong, or at least hasty in his dismissal of Spike and his potential contributions to the group and a somewhat tense truce existed between them.
“Don’t know how the lack brains can’t tell the difference,” Spike grumbled under his breath. He hated every time the Bot had been included even if he could see the logic in using it as a decoy. “Yeah, seems most of ‘em think Buf … the Slayer’s still around even if she seems to be actin’ a bit daft.”
“Well there is that at least,” Giles closed his eyes and thanked the Powers that the majority of demons were less than great thinkers.
“Yup, got it to even be all quippy,” Willow crowed happily. She had enjoyed tinkering with the robot’s programming concentrating on the task at hand and not the resemblance to her late friend. The whole project had been nearly as challenging as altering spells or creating her own.
Xander cringed. “Yeah about that Will… Not sure you capture the true essence…”
“Oh for fuck’s sake! No one can capture even a glimmer of the effulgence of Buffy. No point in even trying.” Spike stalked out of the room angrily.
Everyone glanced nervously at one another. Spike’s emotions were always right on the surface, maybe they always had been but they hadn’t noticed until after they had buried their friend.
“I’ll check on him,” offered Tara. She headed toward the kitchen and the fuming, grieving, vampire. More than any of the rest, save Dawn, Tara recognized that the vampire was heartbroken and riddled with guilt. As was his habit he lashed out with pseudo-anger when his more tender feelings threatened to show themselves.
“Need some help?” Tara watched from the doorway as Spike rifled through the pantry.
“I know there’s some Chicken 'n' Stars in here somewhere. Bit needs to eat more than soup but at least that seems to offer a little comfort to the poor lamb.”
“Bottom shelf.” Tara took out a saucepan and can opener. “Maybe we could tempt her with a grilled cheese along with it?”
“Worth a shot I suppose,” Spike had calmed down. Keeping busy usually worked in taking his mind out of the endless loop of recriminations and regret. “Been watchin’ some of those cookin’ shows when I can’t sleep. Figure I can try some of ‘em on the Niblet, fatten her up.”
Tara smiled. It was so very clear how much Spike loved Buffy’s little sister. She never fully understood why the others had even a question about Spike’s ability to love when it was so obvious to her that he was every bit as complex as any other person they knew.
“She’ll probably want to experiment a bit herself.” Tara shuddered. “I caught her fixing something that I couldn’t even begin to recognize the other day. I think even the trash tried to spit it out when she threw it away.”
Spike smiled fondly, “Game one is our girl. Buffy’d be proud.”
Tara looked at the vampire slyly, “Yes she would indeed.”
~ September 24, 2001; L.A. Hyperion hotel ~
Wesley sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling. He didn’t need x-ray vision to know that the sweet, damaged, girl upstairs was still lost in her own world. Fred was a genius but all those years exiled to Pylea had taken their toll on her emotionally. The slight progress to her adjustment had come to a grinding halt when Angel had scampered off to Tibet to deal with Buffy’s tragic death.
Wes suspected the retreat involved far more than simple grief over the death of a lost love. Angel never really spoke of it, or much of anything personal actually, but the former Watcher suspected that Angel had tied Buffy up with his own redemption. That was not even getting into the potential reward of the Shanshu the prophecy that Wes himself had uncovered only the previous year. For someone who rarely displayed anything like human emotions it had been obvious that Angel had high hopes for a second chance at perfect happiness without consequences.
Cordy caught the worried look on Wes’ face as he gazed in the direction that housed the fragile Winifred Berkle. It was obvious the man was smitten.
“When Angel comes back,” Wes sighed once again.
“Yeah and when is he coming back anyway?” Gunn was beginning to wonder why he was still hanging with this leaderless crew when there were nasties to turn into ash. It seemed that most of Angel Investigations had come to a grinding halt while the nominal head was off gazing at his naval. Charles was a man of action and lately there had been precious little of that to be had.
“As soon as he works through his grief a little.” Cordy tried to reassure all of them including herself. In truth they had heard nothing much from Angel since he left. As the conversation continued Cordy tried desperately to steer it away from any mention of her old classmate. Really she was heartily sick of the whole world revolving around the blonde Slayer who couldn’t even be bothered to keep in touch with old friends. “Don’t say the “B” word!”
Gunn snorted, “The “B” word was the love of his life and he’s … what? 250? That isn’t a short life. That grief work is gonna take more than a vacation in Sri Lanka.”
Wes leveled a serious look at the other two, “It isn’t a vacation. It’s a spiritual retreat at a monastery.”
Charles let out a short burst of laughter, “Angel and a bunch of monks in the middle of nowhere. There’s a party! He should have got hammered and gone to Vegas like I told him.”
“He doesn’t need a lap dance. He needs some peace and quiet to work through this,” Wes reminded them.
Cordy held up rat traps, “Well while we wait we have Micky’s larger, nastier, cousins to trap. Whose turn to set the bait?”
The hotel’s front door swung open and Angel strode in, a slight smile on his face.
“You guys he’s back!” Cordy dropped the traps and went to wrap her arms around him. “Welcome home!”
The crew surrounded Angel greeting him like a returning conquering hero.
“So … hope you had a good retreat all peaceful and meditatey,” Cordy inquired.
“Sure until the monks turned out to be life sucking Shur-Hod demons,” Angel shrugged.
“Vegas,” Gunn raised both brows as he offered his version of an I told you so.
Angel gave a slight laugh, “Yeah.” He began to pass out souvenirs mostly purchased last minute at the duty free stores as he waited for flights that offered the least amount of daylight travel on his way home.
The group caught Angel up on all that he’d missed while across the world. Not too much to report as there had been no large or interesting cases to handle and no one thought he’d be interested in the recent rodent invasion. After updating him on the progress, or rather the lack thereof, made by Fred Angel headed to the girls room to see for himself. “He seems better than when he left,” Wes noted.
~ September 28, 2001; Sunnydale, Ca. ~
“I just don’t get why Willow can’t do the vacuuming for once,” Dawn whined.
“Witch has somthin’ more important needs doin I ‘spect,’” Spike shrugged.“That’s what we’re all tryin’ to do ‘round here Bit.”
“Yeah, yeah. But you’d think Willow would do more around here since she DOES live here. Tara cooks at least,” she pouted reminding Spike for a painful moment of her older sister. “Heck you do more around here than she does and you don’t even live here.”
“Got nothin’ else to do with Mr. sunshine out there makin’ any decent skulking out of the questions. Hard to get up to decent evil when it’s daylight.”
Dawn snorted, “Sure Spike. That’s why you hang around a teenaged girl and do housework.”
“Watch it missy! May live in a crypt but that don’t mean I can’t appreciate a clean house and decent meal.”
“So are you fixing dinner tonight or Tara?”
“Likely be me. Witches both got some kind of research planned at the Magic Box. Tara said they’d just order pizza and we’re on our own.”
Dawn’s eyes glazed over. “Pizza! Yum! Anchovies!”
“Forget it Nibs, didn’t waste hours watchin Emeril just to feed you more junk food than you already eat.”
“So what’s for dinner?”
“Took notes on a curried shrimp thing that looked simple enough and spicy enough I reckon,” Spike checked the spice rack to make certain all the ingredients were there. “You can get to work steamin’ some rice, yeah?”
“I like it when you cook,” Dawn offered. “Tara’s a good cook but mostly mom kinda stuff. You know comfort food and things you’d get at Cracker Barrel. You try neat recipes with lots of hot stuff.”
“Helps kick it up a bit. Not sure how to liven up meatloaf even if Tara makes a good one.”
“Yeah she even fixes it with mac and cheese on the side like mom did.”
Spike raised a brow, “‘F you’d rather have that I suppose I could give it a try. Has to be a cook book ‘round here with somethin’ easy to follow.”
“Nope! I want the curry. Gee Spike I’m eating now you don’t have to try to tempt me any more.”
Spike smiled fondly at the girl. “Know that Bit and glad of it. Don’t mind spoilin’ you a bit from time to time though and if you really have a cravin’ for somethin’ I don’t mind. Not like I started cookin’ already.”
Dawn blinked back unbidden tears. What both of them were craving wasn’t something found in a cookbook. Both of them would have happily given years of life to just have Buffy there alive and bitchy if only for one more day.
Spike noted the damp eyes and drew Dawn into a tight hug. “I know pet, I know.”