Summary: Set post-Chosen. After the Slayers are activated, the balance between good and evil is disturbed, and the Scoobies are flung to the far corners of the world to respond to the crisis. In the midst of all of this, will they be able to keep their relationships strong? Or will they be divided by circumstances and torn apart by fate? Follows my short story Yesterday.
Author's Notes: Remember how things went after Chosen? Well, forget about all of that, and ignore the comics. This is my version. This series is comprised of Latter Days, Faithfully Dangerous, and Now and Always, and the entire series will be known by the third title. You’ll see why. (And although some of the locations mentioned in this fic exist, this is my world, which means that I’m twisting reality to my own ends.)
“What a beautiful piece of heartache/This has all turned out to be/Lord knows we've learned the hard way/All about healthy apathy…There is a me you would not recognize, dear/Call it the shadow of myself/And if the music starts before I get there/Dance without me, you dance so gracefully/I really think I'll be okay/They've taken a toll, these latter days/Nothing like sleeping on a bed of nails/Nothing much here but our broken dream/Oh, but baby, if all else fails/Nothing is ever quite what it seems…” ~Over the Rhine, “Latter Days”
Rating: PG-13
1 :: 2 :: 3 :: 4 :: 5 :: 6 :: 7 :: 8 :: 9 :: 10 :: 11 :: 12 :: 13 :: 14 :: 15 :: 16 :: 17 :: 18 :: 19 :: 20 :: 21 :: 22 :: 23 :: 24 :: 25 :: 26 :: 27 :: 28 :: 29 :: 30 :: 31 :: 32 :: 33 :: 34 :: 35 ::
“…With the ring that the coven gave me, it wasn’t a tough choice, considering what Xander’s facing. Plus, Miriam told Giles that it was probably a good idea for me to go. This is supposed to go down pretty soon, though, so I’ll likely make it back to Bath before you do…” ~Excerpt from an email from Spike to Buffy Summers
“Have you decided who’s goin’ with me?” Spike asked.
Giles shook his head. “Vi and Audra, certainly. Both are experienced and capable, and I think that you’ll need that. Would you recommend anyone else?”
Spike had hoped that the head Watcher would make the decision; if he made a choice, and the girl got hurt—well, it would be his fault, wouldn’t it?
Never mind that Buffy would tell him that it wasn’t, and that as Slayers, that was simply part of the job. It was his duty to keep them alive, and throwing them at an apocalypse was a poor way to go about it.
Closing his eyes, he pictured the girls, making a mental list of strengths and weaknesses for each. If he could choose a good team, one that would work together seamlessly, he wouldn’t have to take as many.
“Jess, Hailey, Kayla,” Spike said. “An’ maybe one more, but I’m not sure who.”
“Take a Watcher,” Giles suggested. “Several of the younger ones could use the field experience before being stationed in a particular location.”
Spike’s eyes narrowed. “Dunno. I’d say that the best person for the job would be Dawn, but I know that Buffy’d have my hide.”
A smile touched his lips. “I would say that you are correct. Unfortunately, I don’t think that I—or we—can do without her here just yet. She is too valuable to risk.”
Spike knew what he was talking about. In spite of Dawn’s lack of traditional Watcher training, her time on the Hellmouth made her worth three of the younger ones who had gone through the Academy. The new Council would take an enormous hit if it lost her, and not just on a personal level.
“Besides, Nora seems to have taken to her.” Spike sighed. “Which is another thing. She an’ Harry aren’t gonna be happy about this.”
“Miriam is here,” Giles reminded him. “Harry’s quite attached to her, and Nora will be fine. Besides, she seems quite attached to both Talia and Dawn, and they are staying.”
Spike nodded, but he still wasn’t happy, feeling a little bit as though he was abandoning the girl and her brother. Nora generally shadowed him, a determined expression on her face, as though trying to learn everything she could about how to kill the monsters.
“Rose’ll help,” Spike finally said. “They’re of an age, an’ she knows a bit of what Nora’s gone through.”
Giles flipped through a notebook. “Very well. You’ll take Vi and Audra, and the three others. I also think you should take Rory. I don’t think that I’ve managed to convince him that not all demons are evil, and working closely with a group might help dislodge some of those prejudices.”
Spike raised an eyebrow. “An’ what about the fact that the boy doesn’t trust me?”
The head Watcher smiled, the expression an aged echo of the young man he’d once been. “You’ll be in charge, and he will ‘get over it,’ as Dawn might say.”
~~~~~
Dawn somehow wasn’t terribly surprised when she learned that she wouldn’t be going to Africa, although she appreciated Spike coming to tell her himself. “Which Watcher did Giles choose?” she asked with a sigh of resignation.
“Rory. Said it would do him good to work with a vampire an’ a bunch of demons.” Spike sprawled in the chair, while Dawn sat cross-legged on the bed across from him. His left hand was tapping out a rhythm on his leg, and she knew that he wanted to be on his way.
He had been surprisingly content here in Bath, training young Slayers, but Dawn knew that Spike was never happier than when in the midst of a good fight, and Xander’s request for extra firepower certainly promised one.
“I requested you,” Spike said abruptly into the silence, interrupting her thoughts. “Giles said you’re pretty much the least expendable one we’ve got.”
“He just said that because I’m the one who answers his emails and sends his texts.”
“He said it because it’s true, pet.” Spike’s voice was gentle. “Rupert is right. We can’t do without you. You’ve seen too much, an’ you know too much.”
Dawn stared at him in wonder. “I’m just Buffy’s kid sister.”
“No, luv, you’re essential. There’s nothin’ ‘just’ about you.” Spike rose from his seat. “I know I’ve screwed up in the past, pet, but I know that much.”
She swallowed hard. “Why are you telling me this? You’re talking like you’re not coming back.”
“You never know, do you?” The question was rhetorical, and Dawn understood what he meant. “Thought I’d say it now, that’s all.”
That wasn’t all. Spike had died at the last apocalypse, and she’d been there for Miriam’s prophecy. “I’ll look in on Nora,” Dawn promised. “I think she likes me.”
“Don’t know anybody who doesn’t.”
With that sort of goodbye, Dawn wasn’t willing to let him go without a proper sendoff. Her hug took him by surprise for a moment, but then his arms came around her. “See you soon,” she promised.
“Yeah. See you, pet.”
Spike left, and Dawn sighed, feeling bereft. Buffy was in Brazil, Spike was going to Africa, and so were Vi and Audra.
“Dawn?” Oliver leaned on his crutches in the doorway, watching her with a sympathetic expression on his face. “Are you alright?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can I come in?” She nodded, and he swung himself inside, nudging the door closed with one of the crutches. “Do you wish you were going?”
Dawn could say to Oliver what she hadn’t been able to say to Spike, in a desire to appear mature and able to handle disappointment. “Rory is an ass, and he’s going to be insufferable for getting chosen.”
“Spike will beat it out of him.” Oliver had a smile on his face, showing that he wasn’t entirely serious. “Truly, Dawn, you would be the better choice, but I can’t be sorry that you’re not going.”
She smiled. “I can’t say I wouldn’t miss you if I went.”
“You’re—” Oliver stopped. “Never mind. Are you hungry? I heard a rumor about an ice cream parlor nearby.”
“It’s not a rumor.” She glanced at the clock. It was growing late, but not too late for the shop to be open. “Let’s go. I could use something sweet.”
~~~~~
Giles had no idea if he’d made the right decision. He was fairly certain that when Buffy found out he’d sent Spike to Africa, she wouldn’t be terribly happy with him. Of course, there was every chance that the vampire would return before she did, as this battle was likely to occur soon, and it didn’t appear that Buffy would be able to return for at least another couple of weeks.
Zoë and Arnold were both too badly injured for her to leave soon. There was still some question as to whether or not Zoë was going to survive, although the doctors had hope. And Giles felt as though hope was in dangerously short supply these days.
“Rupert? Are you hungry?”
He looked up to see Miriam standing in the doorway, Harry hanging onto her hand. “I’m sorry?”
“Are you hungry? Harry says that he’d like fish and chips.”
Giles’ eyebrows went up. Miriam had told him earlier that Harry was having trouble eating, and that at this point she would let him choose anything he wanted—within reason. Apparently, that meant fish and chips tonight.
“I’m not—”
“You haven’t eaten yet.” There was steel in Miriam’s voice, which told Giles that she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Giles smiled. “Now that you mention it, I am feeling a little peckish.”
“Good. Perhaps your sister would like to go as well,” Miriam suggested to Harry. “Why don’t you see if you can find her?”
The boy ran off, and Giles looked at Miriam. “Not terribly subtle.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.” She sat down across from him, looking over his desk. “You can’t blame yourself, Rupert.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Buffy had to go to Brazil, and Spike had to go to Africa. There was no other choice.”
“There is always another choice, but there might not be a better one.” Giles sighed. “I dislike second guessing myself.”
“Then don’t,” Miriam replied simply. “You will make the best decision you can with the information available to you.”
Giles managed to smile. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, although I still don’t see why you want me to accompany you.”
“They’re children who have lost both of their parents, and you happen to be the head Watcher, which means it would behoove you to get to know them better.” Miriam fixed him with a stern look. “You are responsible for them.”
He wasn’t precisely convinced. “I’m not good with children.”
“You have no experience with children,” she corrected him. “There’s a difference.”
Giles let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re not letting me off the hook, are you?”
“No,” Miriam said simply.
He shrugged, a gesture that indicated more about his inability to argue with her than his lack of caring. Giles wasn’t sure that there was anything else that he’d be less excited about doing.
“Talia wants to come, too,” Nora announced as she entered the office, the other Slayer and Harry in tow. “Is that alright?”
Giles briefly closed his eyes. It sounded like it just got worse.
~~~~~
Vi tipped her head back against the seat and found it just as uncomfortable a position as tucking her chin to her chest as Spike had done. “Crap.”
“I don’t care if your head winds up on my shoulder.” One blue eye cracked open. “If you really want to sleep.”
She stretched. “Not really, but I can’t sleep on airplanes.”
“And who knows how much time we’ll have to sleep once we get there?” Audra chimed in from Spike’s other side.
The other three Slayers were in a small knot a short distance away, obviously giving Rory a hard time. Vi watched with a clinical eye; they were excited and giddy, happy to have the chance to put their training to use. Rory was puffed up like a little bird, surrounded as he was by the Slayers, convinced that he was the best person for the job.
“He’ll figure it out soon enough,” Spike said darkly, watching the boy. “They all will.” He glanced up at the board that announced flights. Theirs was supposedly leaving in another half an hour, and he rose. “I should call Buffy. She’ll want to know.”
Spike didn’t specify what Buffy would want to know, but Vi had a sneaking suspicion that his desire to call had a lot more to do with wanting to take the opportunity now, before it was lost.
“I wonder how much those two cost the Council in phone calls?” she wondered aloud.
Audra smiled. “Plenty, I’m sure, but less than you’d think.”
Vi moved to the next chair over, eliminating the space between them. “Probably. I have to say, it’s kind of nice to have our suspicions confirmed.”
“What suspicions?”
“Back in Sunnydale, they were dancing around each other. Buffy kept saying that they were just good friends, but I think there was more to it than that.”
“What was it like?”
Vi frowned. “What was what like?”
“The apocalypse.”
Vi realized belatedly that although she and Audra were widely regarded as the two most experienced Slayers in Bath—other than Buffy—and were often given the corresponding authority, Audra hadn’t been in a true end-of-the-world battle. “You weren’t there at the end.”
“No. After my Watcher and his wife were killed, I tried to get to Sunnydale, because that’s where he wanted me to go, but…”
It was something she hadn’t talked about before, at least not to Vi, but her words painted a bleak picture. There was nothing to say, however, and so she tried to answer Audra’s question.
“I guess the waiting was the worst, and that was before Willow did the spell, so it was almost like you were choking on your fear all the time.” Vi remembered the feel of it now, how it sat in her stomach, in her chest, so that you had to fight it every single time you went outside the house after dark. “We were potentials, but that’s nothing like being a Slayer.”
“No, it’s not,” Audra agreed. “You can’t know what it’s like until you are one.”
“The battle was huge. There was so much going on all at once, and people were getting hurt and killed everywhere. We were waiting for Willow to do the spell, and trying to fight.” Vi remembered the early part of the fight down in the Hellmouth as a large blur, scrabbling to stay alive, to prevent the uber-vamps from killing her or the others.
But mostly her. None of them had the capacity to worry about the others, except for Buffy and Faith.
“And then I felt it, and everything changed.” Vi looked over at her. “I don’t think we were down there for much longer than that. Spike started glowing, and the cave started to shake. We beat it out of there, and Buffy just barely made it out in time.”
“I wish I felt ready.” Audra offered a rueful smile. “But I guess you never do.”
“Not after you know what’s really at stake.” Vi looked at the other Slayers and Rory. In a way, they still had their innocence; they had no idea what could—and likely would—happen in the next week. She’d lost friends in the Hellmouth; she and Audra both knew exactly how bad it could get.
Vi wasn’t stupid; it was going to get bad.
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