Summary: A slayer barters with a demon to rescue her lover, and finds herself unwittingly projected nearly three hundred years into the future with no memory of the life she left behind.
They were staring at her as though she’d announced she was pregnant with Abraham Lincoln’s lovechild. This was not altogether unexpected, but she couldn’t deny the rush of disappointment which flooded her insides. A part of her had hoped those to whom she was closest would rally around her with support, regardless of whether or not they understood.
“Ummm…Buffy…”
She looked up, not realizing her eyes had followed her mind’s lead and wandered. “Don’t.”
“I’m not.” Buffy glanced doggedly at Angel, who had yet to react at all. “For once…I’m not.”
“It’s insane,” Cordelia offered, though she displayed little interest one way or another. “You’re insane.”
A wan smile tugged on Buffy’s lips. “Thank you for that.”
Xander rubbed his eyes, heaving a hard sigh. “You’re saying you were a slayer in the seventeenth century—”
“Eighteenth,” she corrected, then paused thoughtfully. “Well, I guess I was actually Called in the seventeenth century. I was…” She trailed off, blinking. The blank stares had returned, blanker than ever. “I’ve just lost you, haven’t I?”
“It’s not anywhere in the history books,” Angel supplied softly, the soft timber of his voice surprising her. The thrill which used to accompany his presence was gone now—completely gone. Strange how the simplest events could turn everything she’d known on its head.
Then again, there was nothing simple about learning she had lived three centuries before. There was nothing simple about learning the life she led now was a consequence of a spell she’d done after losing her lover. A spell to summon a demon. A demon with whom she’d bartered her destiny.
Nothing simple about that at all.
“What’s not?” Buffy asked belatedly. “In the history books, that is?”
“Anything about a slayer called Elizabeth Travers, or record of William the Bloody prior to his siring in 1880.”
Her heart leapt in her throat. “Well…it has to be…a part of the…Paimon told me he had to reconfigure a lot of things. Major things. He had to make sure Will…Spike and I were reborn. I mean, my mother has always been Joyce Summers.”
Willow worried a lip between her teeth. “Buffy…”
“It was just…Kenneth raised me. My mom and dad were killed and Kenneth raised me as his own. He trained me. He—”
Angel held up a hand. “Enough.”
“But—”
“No, Buffy. Enough.” His eyes narrowed speculatively. “Don’t you understand how ludicrous this is? How it sounds?”
“Well, now that you mention it, duh.”
Xander quirked a smile which Cordelia quickly elbowed off his lips.
“Of course I know how it sounds,” Buffy continued. “What do you think; I was born in a barn?”
“Were you?” Cordelia asked. “’Cause if you were born in the 1600s or whatever, you might’ve been born in a barn.”
Buffy glared at her. “Okay, who gave you permission to speak?”
“They had midwives then,” Willow said slowly, as though explaining a complicated math problem. “I-if Buffy…if this was something…she was probably born in a house with a midwife present.”
“She wasn’t,” Angel said with finality. “She was born in Los Angeles, January 19th, 1981 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.”
Buffy blinked. “Okay. Creepy.”
“Do I wanna know how you know that?” Xander asked, his tone indicating a preexisting point. Probably something she missed while she was upstairs.
“No.”
“Okay then.”
Angel turned back to Buffy. “The point is, she was born in this century. You’re human. There’s no way you could—”
“Do I really have to go over the ‘summoning a Hell King’ thing again?”
“No.”
She shivered and nodded. “Good. Because I tell you, Paimon gives me the wiggins.”
“You wouldn’t summon a Hell King. Not for a vampire.”
The calm certainty in his tone was infuriating. “Look, Angel—”
He held up a hand. “I’ve been watching you a long time now—”
“Yeah,” Xander interjected dryly, rolling his eyes. “We’re getting that.”
“—and you’re…you’re too pure to do whatever it is you think you did.” He frowned and shook his head. “I’m not saying you’re not capable. Lord knows we’ve all seen what you’re capable of accomplishing. But Hell Demons, Buffy?”
Resolution hardened within her. “You didn’t know me then.”
“I didn’t—”
“We’re talking well before you were born, mister. I was different then. I didn’t have you popping up every time some big ugly apocalypse was going to kill me. O-or Xander and Willow there as my…” She paused and cast her friends grateful smiles. “As my backup. I didn’t have Giles, either. I had Kenneth…who never treated me like a daughter. And I had Will. For a little while, I had Will. And then…”
“That’s so sad,” Willow whimpered.
“That’s bogus,” Cordelia countered.
“Buffy,” Angel said, his voice tempered, his tone indicating a strain for control. “I’ve been alive a long time. I’ve gone through every manuscript there is on slayers and…well—”
“You, I’m guessing,” Xander offered. “He seems to be a walking encyclopedia of all things Buffy Summers.”
“You know what would be nice?” Angel snapped, shooting her friend an angry glare. “If you would shut up for about five minutes.”
“Okay, no need for that,” Willow said defensively.
Buffy held up a hand. “Look, I don’t care what you know…or what you think you know about me,” she declared, her tone clipped. “I don’t care that my name never appeared in the history books. I don’t care about that. All I know is…I’m here because of something I wished for. Something I set into motion. Something I wouldn’t have remembered had…had whatever happened tonight not happened.” She glanced away, a cold shudder commanding her body. “Paimon never intended for me to know who I was. I was too…I was obsessed with getting Will back when I summoned him. I wasn’t specific. I was rash a-and devastated and I needed…”
“Oh Buffy,” Willow mewled, earning dual glares from Xander and Angel.
“Did Spike—William—whoever…did he have a soul?” Angel asked heatedly. “Is that why—”
A smile graced Buffy’s lips. “No.”
“Then how—”
“We just did, Angel. Get over it.” She remained quietly reflective for a couple minutes before heaving a wistful sigh. “He was just there. For so long, it seemed…just there. In the background. We fought all the time. And then he said…he got to the point where…we fought, but we never killed each other. I came to depend on it. Besides Kenneth, Will was the only person who was always there. Always. Then one night he came to kill me for real, and…”
Buffy broke off and glanced away again, her cheeks reddening. And while the words themselves remained unspoken, there were certain gestures which spoke volumes for everything she couldn’t faithfully express.
“I’ve always heard that death threats are the way to a girl’s heart,” Xander mused. “Whaddya know?”
“Buffy…” Willow held up a hand, smiling awkwardly. “We’re all your friends here—”
“I’m not,” Cordelia said shortly.
“…except for Cordy. Could we just…for a second…allow for the possibility that you’re just a little frazzled about what happened tonight?” She paused and licked her lips. “Y-you spent a lot of the night…thinking you were—”
“I spent the night as myself, Willow. Just…not the me you know.”
“I know it felt real—”
Buffy shook her head and heaved a sigh. “Okay. Sure. This is me. Allowing for the possibility. I’m allowing all over the place. It’s possible that the life I remember is completely bogus. It’s possible that whatever I had with Will—Spike—was dreamt up for my little costume persona. It’s possible.” The words made her insides recoil and sent dark shivers down her spine. “But if it’s…why would Spike have reacted to me like that?”
The group exchanged a series of uncomfortable glances.
“Spike has a thing for slayers,” Angel said, his tone soft and consolatory. “He always has.”
Buffy pursed her lips and nodded, her mind racing back. William had always attested that she’d been his first slayer. The first he’d ever met, and the only one he cared to meet. He’d stumbled across her by accident, but, as he said, he’d quickly found himself fascinated with her. With the strength she possessed. With the way she was a walking contradiction of any other female he’d ever crossed. It was the reason he’d never killed her. The reason he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The reason he lingered as long as he did.
It was how he’d fallen in love with her.
Giles had confirmed that Spike had claimed the lives of two slayers. Perhaps his slayer obsession was residual from his first life. Perhaps he’d subconsciously been searching for her all along.
The thought had her eyes welling with tears.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Willow said quickly, the intrusion of her voice nearly startling Buffy out of her skin. “Spike…and slayers. I’m sure—”
“Why are you doing the reassurance thing?” Xander demanded. “This is Spike we’re talking about.”
The redhead slumped in her seat miserably, motioning to Buffy in defeat. “She just…with the tears. We should be sensitive, at least.”
“Sensitive in her nervous breakdown?” Cordelia demanded, snorting. “Thanks, but no.” She turned back to the Slayer with a look of pure derision. “You’re getting weepy over a vampire!”
Buffy just stared at her. “Cordelia…who invited you in?”
“She keeps threatening to leave,” Xander offered with a half-shrug. “No follow-through.”
“I just don’t see why we have to pretend to be understanding.”
It was probably best to ignore her, if one wanted to keep a level head about anything. And with everything up in the air—with her sanity already under scrutiny—losing her cool and screaming her head off at the tactless cheerleader would likely not do much to earn her any sympathy.
“Okay,” Buffy said, rubbing her palms along her hips. “So I’ve allowed for the possibility that I’m all kinds of crazy and my macking on Spike tonight was a complete wiggy side-effect of whatever spell was put over us.” She paused meaningfully. “Can you guys at least admit that I might not be so crazy after all? We live in a world—”
“Where you make deals with demons?” Angel asked softly.
“I lost the man I loved, Angel. My Watcher had betrayed me.” She paused, her stomach curling again at the thought of Kenneth’s frozen face, his unblinking eyes staring up at her with naked accusation. “I was completely alone.”
“So you decided to conjure a demon?”
“The only person who’d ever loved me was dead. What do you think—”
“He’s not a person, Buffy.”
She snickered dryly and rolled her eyes. “I think I know him a little better than you do.”
“No you don’t!” The last word came as a shout as he leapt to his feet, his eyes flaring with a look she knew well. A look of a vampire fighting the face of his demon.
It was one William had given her numerous times when she was being ornery or teasing him about something overly insignificant. He would get in moods where anything and everything bothered him—such moods almost always resulted in a screaming match that would inevitably lead to William begging for forgiveness of whatever thoughtless thing he said. Sometimes she’d thought he instigated the arguments because the make-up sex was so good.
Another wave of tears crashed over her, and she sniffed hard to fight them back. Buffy hated showing weakness. Showing weakness in a room-full of people who thought she’d lost her mind wasn’t exactly her idea of a good time.
“Buffy,” Angel said, snapping her back to the present. “Spike is a killer. Whatever he did tonight…it was to—”
Laughing was probably the worst reaction, but she couldn’t help herself. Angel hadn’t the slightest idea what Spike had done tonight. The war in her vampire’s eyes had ripped her to shreds. He’d looked at her with such confusion—with hatred wrapped in longing. He could have torn her throat out when she threw herself at him. He could have shoved her away when she attacked his mouth with hers. He could have done anything but what he actually did.
Instead, he’d carted her through the nearest doorway. Instead, he’d poured his bewilderment into the union of their lips as his hands pried her thighs apart so he could explore her soft, wet flesh. Instead, he’d become her William.
In action if not in memory.
Angel’s supposition was therein hilarious. If Spike meant to kill her, he would have. There was nothing stopping him then. She’d thrown herself into his arms, not knowing he didn’t remember her, trusting that he loved her as fiercely as he ever had. He could have killed her, but instead he’d provided fuel for her dreams.
She couldn’t stop laughing.
“What?” Angel finally demanded, his eyes blazing with indignation. “What?”
“You,” she replied, covering her mouth, the tremors seizing her small body refusing to let her go. “And how you…you weren’t there, Angel. Not until the end. You weren’t—”
“Buffy—”
“He doesn’t remember. I know he doesn’t remember. But if he’d wanted me dead, he could’ve killed me at any time.” She shook her head; the laughter just kept coming. “I jumped into his arms the second I saw him. He had a whole troupe of demons behind him and I didn’t give a damn. He had every chance to kill me and he didn’t. What part of that falls into his evil plan?”
There was also the case of the words he’d whispered after she returned to herself. He’d known it the second she was back—the second she remembered the life behind Buffy Summers as well as Elizabeth Travers. He’d met her eyes and whispered that she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, and for that much she should allow him leniency.
Then he’d bought her some time to straighten her clothing. He could have left her flushed with her legs spread, but he’d spared her the humiliation and stepped in front of her. He’d put himself between her and her friends.
Perhaps there was a part of him who knew who he was. Who remembered. A part of him that his conscious self didn’t recognize.
“Not to side with the crazies or anything,” Xander said slowly, earning a jolt of shock from everyone in the room. “But…the Buffster kinda has a point.”
“What?” Angel demanded.
“What?” Cordelia echoed.
“Yeah.” He shuffled uncomfortably and shot her a wary grin. “Spike did…and I am in no way condoning the wrongness that is you two together in any way, shape, or form. But he did seem weirdly protective when we stormed in.”
“He was three seconds away from getting lucky,” Cordelia pointed out, rolling her eyes. “Of course he was—”
“Yeah, but why did he stick around?” Xander shot back. “He stayed…long enough so that…” He met Buffy’s eyes, then glanced down self-consciously. “He was outnumbered, too. Why would he care?”
All eyes fell to Angel then, as though he had possession of a magical explanation.
It was no surprise to Buffy, however, when none was forthcoming.
“I’m not saying I buy any of this reincarnation mumbo jumbo,” Xander clarified a second later. “But…something definitely of the wiggy is going on.”
“Of the wiggy and the not-so-easily-explained,” Willow agreed.
Angel looked at Buffy a minute longer before sinking back into his seat, his expression bewildered and lost.
“You should talk to Giles,” the redhead pressed. “Giles can make sense of the…nonsense.”
The Slayer frowned. “It’s not nonsense.”
“So says you,” Cordelia murmured.
“But you’re right,” Buffy continued, pointedly ignoring the cheerleader. “I should…talk to Giles. He might have an answer.”
And he might run Will through with a poisoned arrow.
She shivered and battled the image of Kenneth away. Kenneth was dead. Kenneth was three centuries dead. He wasn’t Giles.
Giles cared. Giles would listen.
And even if he didn’t, she wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.
Not when she’d gambled everything to set the world right.