Latter Days by Enigmaticblue

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Chapter 7: Osmotherley, England

“…I still haven’t seen him, but I think he’s going to arrive today. The waiting has been tough, but we’ve been busy trying to find whatever artifact it is. The girls have been good sports, and everyone has been getting along for once. I wish all the Slayers were this good about the job…” ~Excerpt from an email from Buffy Summers to Xander Harris

“You know, if this place had more stuff to do, this would almost be a vacation,” Vi observed.

Audra raised her eyebrows, clearly unconvinced. “If you were dead, maybe.”

“Spike would be bored out of his mind,” Buffy observed. “So it wouldn’t be all that much fun for the dead, either.” She saw the girls exchange a look. “Have I been talking about Spike too much?”

“Only every five minutes,” Audra replied. “So, when are we going to meet this guy?”

“As soon as he gets here.” Buffy rose and went to the window. “We’re not going to be able to wait much longer. We need to find that bowl.”

“Before anyone else does,” Vi added, clearly having heard it all before. “We’ll get it, Buffy.”

“Giles said that Spike had specialized information,” Buffy said. “Maybe he’ll be able to speed up the process.”

Vi spread herself out over the couch. “What are you guys going to do after this?”

“What do you mean?”

“You and Spike. You gonna work together? Maybe partner up?”

Buffy swallowed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen after this.”

“One day at a time, right?” Audra said. “That’s all you can do.”

Audra had lost her Watcher as a result of the Bringers’ rampage, and Buffy knew that she was speaking from experience. “Yeah, I guess so.”

There was a frantic pounding on the front door. Audra was closest, and she leapt up to answer, a stake in hand. Buffy recognized who it was and the problem at the same moment. “Come in, Spike,” she called.

The smoking vampire dashed inside and patted out the embers of his smoldering jacket. “Thanks,” he said, sounding a little distracted. Spike’s blond hair was mussed, and he looked anywhere but at Buffy. “That was a bit close.”

“I noticed that we needed milk,” Vi announced out of the blue. “I’m going to run and get that.”

“I’ll go with you,” Audra said.

Vi smiled at him as she left. “Good to see you again, Spike.”

“Nice to meet you,” the other Slayer echoed. Then the door was shut, and it was just the two of them.

“Guess they weren’t all that thrilled about me being here,” Spike mumbled.

“They wanted to give us some time alone,” Buffy corrected him gently. “Do you have anything else?”

“It’s out in the car. Your Watcher hired a driver for the trip.”

“I’ll go grab it.” She wasn’t sure why this was so hard. It hadn’t been this way when she’d come back from the dead—but then again, it had been Spike who had known what to do. Buffy found it easier to grab his bag from the trunk; she’d always been better at taking action.

When she came back inside, she found Spike seated on the couch, elbows on knees, hands dangling. “Do you want me here, Buffy?”

“What?”

“Do you want me here?” he repeated. “According to your Watcher, there are a lot of other places in the world where I could help out. If you don’t want me here—”

Buffy felt a sudden burst of rage. “You stupid vampire! I told you I loved you.”

“Yeah, I know, but—”

“Shut up.” Buffy dropped his bag on the floor, not caring whether there might be anything fragile or breakable in it. Her hands found his shoulders, and she shoved him back into the couch cushions. “I don’t know what the hell I have to do to convince you.”

“Buffy, maybe—”

She had no idea what he was going to say, and at the moment she didn’t care. Buffy brought her lips to his with the same desperation that she’d felt the first time around. Straddling his hips, she knelt on the cushions. Moving from his mouth to his cheekbones to the pale skin of his neck, Buffy whispered, “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” he gasped as her right hand slipped under his shirt. “What—are you sure?”

She nipped him gently. “Does this feel like I’m not sure?”

“No, guess it doesn’t.” He gently pushed her away. “Thought we had a job to do.”

Buffy leaned back, pouting. “We can’t do our job until the girls get back.”

Spike’s eyebrow went up. “They’ll likely be back any minute.”

“I’ve got a bedroom,” Buffy said, hoping to tempt him.

A smile played around his lips. “An’ what lesson will that teach them?”

“To take some time for yourself when you can.” She rose from the couch, pulling him after her. “Come on.”

“The bowl—”

“We’ve got time for a quickie.” She tugged on him harder. “Maybe two, if they don’t hurry.”

Spike hesitated. “I’m interested, luv, but this thing—Rupert seemed to think it was pretty important.”

Buffy looked him right in the eyes. “Spike, if we’d been together when I died, and I came down the stairs, what would you have done?”

He smiled. “Shagged you silly.”

“And if there had been an apocalypse coming?”

“I’d have made it quick.” He pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “Point made, Buffy.”

She pulled him closer. “God, I missed this. I missed you.”

“Never would have guessed,” he teased, pushing her backwards into her bedroom and kicking the door shut behind him. “But I have to say, if you’re goin’ to greet me this enthusiastically, maybe I should die more often.”

“Don’t even say that,” she ordered. “Because if you die again, I’m going to resurrect you, and then kick your ass. That’s a promise.”

“You can kick my ass any time you want.”

She turned them, pushing him down on the bed. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then you won’t.”

And then they were both lost in each other.

~~~~~

“Do you think we should knock?” Audra asked.

Vi shot her a look. “Are you crazy? If I were Buffy, I’d kill anybody who interrupted my reunion, especially if that guy was as hot as Spike.”

“You know, I’d heard the stories, but I thought that they were exaggerated.”

“What? About him being hot?”

“Yeah.” Audra smiled. “Sex on two legs, or something.”

“Definitely not a lie.”

Buffy emerged from her bedroom. “You know he can hear you, right?”

Vi flushed. “Yeah. I always forget about that.”

“Did you two have a nice reunion?” Audra asked.

Buffy smirked. “We definitely reconnected.”

Vi coughed, clearly caught between embarrassment and amusement at her double entendre. “So, um, what next?”

“We find this bowl thingy, and go home,” Buffy replied. “Spike said he thought he had an idea of how to find it.”

“How is that?” Audra asked.

“I’ve been here before.” Spike exited the room, looking rather smug. “It was a long time ago, an’ I don’t know if it’s even in the same place, but there’s a chance anyway.”

“When were you here?” Vi knew it had to be from before his Sunnydale days. She knew enough of his history to guess at that much.

He looked at Buffy when he replied. “Before Angel got his soul. He heard about a seeing bowl, an’ decided that between that an’ Dru’s visions, he’d be able to rule the world. Lucky for all of us, he didn’t succeed.”

“Why not?” Audra asked.

Spike smiled a little sheepishly. “Because I didn’t know how to keep a low profile. I never got close to the bloody bowl, but I remember Dru goin’ on about it. Should help narrow our search.”

Buffy nodded, suddenly all business. “Do you have the map, Vi?”

She grabbed the map, which laid out the entire village of Osmotherley, small as it was. Vi knew that her father would have loved visiting, as it was packed with history. She’d always been more interested in the present, but now that she was a Slayer, she was finding out just how influential the past could be.

Once it was spread out over the kitchen table, they all leaned over it. “Right,” Spike began. “From what I remember, there aren’t many places it could be. Angelus seemed to think that the Church had confiscated it sometime before we arrived, which would have been in the 1880’s. Couldn’t tell you the exact year right now.”

“There aren’t that many locations that date back before that time period,” Audra observed. “So, he might have been right. Most of the buildings went up early on in the 19th century.”

Vi nodded. “That helps a lot actually. We’ve been wandering around, trying to ask questions about any mysterious religious artifacts, but that hasn’t gotten us anywhere. If you’re right, there are only two places it could be: Lady Chapel and the Mount Grace Priory.”

“Which is in the best condition?” Spike asked.

“Both are in decent shape, although the Priory also has ruins and a museum.” Vi saw the looks everyone was giving her. “What? You asked me to gather information. This place isn’t that big.”

Spike sat down in one of the chairs, his head tilted back, clearly trying to remember. “If I’m rememberin’ this right, Angelus grabbed one of the monks, who didn’t know anything. Angelus thought the monk was lyin’, but Dru said that he was telling the truth.”

“That puts us right back at square one,” Buffy observed.

“Not necessarily,” Spike said. “Just because he didn’t know anything about it, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t in the Priory, or hidden somewhere else.”

There was a long pause, then Buffy spoke. “We could ask Angel.”

Spike just looked at her. Vi caught the expression on his face and thought that she’d never seen anyone look quite so disgusted with an idea. “Would he even remember?” she asked. “That was a long time ago.”

“Maybe we can use that as a last resort?” Audra suggested tentatively.

Spike rubbed his eyes. “Dunno. Might make things go faster.”

“He probably won’t know any more than you do,” Buffy finally said. “It was a long time ago.”

His eyes narrowed. “I think I have an idea.”

Vi smiled. She had a feeling that this was going to get interesting.

~~~~~

Buffy knew that she’d taken a chance by suggesting that she call Angel for help; Spike was sensitive about her relationship with the other vampire, and rightly so. He had seen them kissing the last time they’d been together.

Spike’s idea had merit, though. The elderly generally had long memories, and his suggestion that they find the oldest (and loneliest) person in the village was likely to net some results. Of course, finding someone who had stories of the old days, and getting them to talk, were two different things, and it was that last that Buffy wasn’t so sure about.

That was where Spike’s plan came in.

“You got it?” Buffy asked Vi and Audra as they slipped inside.

“Everything you’ll need,” Audra promised. “Birth records, death records—all of it. You could probably convince anybody that Spike is from the area.”

“That my family was,” he corrected her, coming out of the bedroom Buffy had been using. It was definitely their bedroom now, something that pleased her to no end. “No one would believe that I was from around here. I look too young.”

Buffy noticed that his accent was different, a little more polished. “Are you—”

“It’s all part of the disguise, luv,” he said with a smile. “Young men move away from these sorts of places all the time to make their fortune. We just need to be sure that the story is plausible, and that there are no living relatives.”

Vi grinned. “That’s what we’ve got. Mr. Arnold Mead moved out of Osmotherley in 1923 to make his fortune in London. Whatever family he had in the area has either died or moved away, so you should be safe.”

“And who are we?” Buffy asked, looking Spike up and down. If she hadn’t known better, she might have said that he was a young professional on vacation, with his blue jeans, gray t-shirt, and leather jacket. The bleached hair might call his identity into question, but she thought he pulled it off nicely anyway.

Audra flashed her a quick grin. “You are Mr. and Mrs. William Mead in from London, trying to trace your illustrious ancestry.”

“A bit less than illustrious,” Spike commented. “An’ Buffy had better be my American wife. She can’t do a British accent to save her life.”

“I can so!” When all three of them looked at her, she shrugged. “But it’s probably safer not to try. There’s just one problem with that. No rings.” She wiggled her left ring finger for emphasis.

Audra reached up behind her neck to remove the chain she wore around her neck. Buffy had noticed that she wore it, but not what was on it. The younger Slayer slid off two rings and held them out. “See if those will fit.”

There was a pause as Buffy took them, knowing who they had likely belonged to in the past. “Your parents?” she asked softly.

She shook her head. “My Watcher and his wife.” Shrugging, she added, “It was the same thing, really.”

Buffy slid the woman’s ring on and found it to be a little too big. “I think I saw some tape,” Vi said.

The man’s ring slid onto Spike’s ring finger without any trouble, and he glanced over at Audra. “Ta, luv. I’m honored.”

The simple statement was obviously what Audra had needed to hear, because she smiled and nodded. “It completes the disguise, right? He’d approve.”

Vi returned from the kitchen with a roll of tape and set about carefully wrapping a piece around the back of the band. “That should take care of it.”

Buffy slid it on and decided that it would do. “Do we know who we’re seeing?”

“An old neighbor of the Meads, or her daughter. She’s pretty ancient,” Vi said. “She should be willing to talk to you. From what we could gather, Mrs. Burns doesn’t have any relatives in the area.”

“Hence, old and lonely,” Buffy observed.

Audra raised her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t mention that to her.”

“I think I can be smoother than that,” Spike said.

~~~~~

Spike was fully prepared to turn on his charm full watt to get them in the door, but the elderly woman opened the door wide to let them in almost immediately. “It’s so wonderful when young people take interest in their ancestry.”

“I’ve always wanted to see where my granddad came from,” Spike replied. “It’s been a dream of mine for years.”

Mrs. Burns smiled. “Well, come in and sit down, you two. Would you like tea?”

“That would be great, Mrs. Burns,” Buffy replied, taking the proffered seat next to Spike.

“Can I help you with that?” he asked.

She waved them off. “No, no. The day I can’t make a pot of tea for visitors is the day they bury me, but I will take your assistance with the tray when it’s ready.”

“My pleasure,” Spike replied, then leaned over to whisper in Buffy’s ear. “Think we may have hit the jackpot, pet.”

“We can hope,” she murmured.

“William? Would you mind giving me a hand?” Mrs. Burns called from the kitchen.

Spike went in to help her and found the kitchen neat as a pin in a cheery blue and yellow. “You have a nice home, Mrs. Burns.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “I’ve had it for quite a while.” When he took the tray, she gave him a sharp look. “I’ve been waiting for the two of you, you know.”

He swallowed his surprise. “What?”

“I’ve been waiting,” she replied. “And I’m quite tired. It will be good to hand my charge over to someone younger.” The woman gave him a sly smile. “Or perhaps I should say someone stronger.”

“You knew?”

“As soon as I saw you, my dear,” she replied. “I’ve been waiting to get rid of this for a long time now, ever since I saw you in the water.”

“The bowl? You have it?”

“Of course, but let’s go talk to that lovely Slayer of yours.” She led the way back into the living room, and Spike set the tray down on the coffee table. “There now. We’ll have a cozy chat.”

Buffy was staring at both of them with wide eyes. “Wait. It can’t be that easy.”

Mrs. Burns sniffed. “Do you honestly think it was easy, keeping that bowl a secret all these years? We’ve had to make sure that no one even suspected that we were the ones who had it.”

“‘We?’” Buffy asked.

“Friends of mine.” Mrs. Burns poured the tea for them. “Sugar or milk?”

“None for me.” Spike picked up his cup, looking askance at the delicate china. He hated drinking out of teacups. He was always afraid of breaking things like this. “Are your friends around?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m afraid that I’m the last of them. As I said, I’m growing weary, and I wouldn’t have been able to hold onto it much longer. I had been making plans to store it somewhere safe.”

“I don’t understand,” Buffy said. “We’ve been looking for this bowl for the last few days, and you had it the entire time?”

Mrs. Burns gave her a soft smile. “I was waiting for the two of you to come to me. I knew you would.”

“The bowl,” Spike said slowly. “They said you could see things in it.”

“You can see everything in it,” Mrs. Burns replied. “Everything you need to see, anyway. It can be a great tool—or a great weapon.”

“And you’ve had it this entire time?” Buffy asked.

“Not me,” Mrs. Burns replied. “There’s a circle of us who have kept it safe. The church doesn’t know about us, of course, but it doesn’t mean we aren’t good Christians. No, indeed. We just believe that there are a number of ways to fight the darkness.” Her smile was reminiscent of one of his smirks. “The church doesn’t know everything.”

Spike chuckled, sensing a kindred spirit in the older woman. She seemed like a rebel, and he could respect that. “Have to thank you for keepin’ it safe then.”

“Nonsense. I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the future of the world.” She rose from her seat. “Wait here, and I’ll get it.”

“That was too easy,” Buffy said as she disappeared into a different area of the house.

He shrugged. “Makes sense, though. Angelus couldn’t find it because they were tryin’ to hide it, and you couldn’t find it until we came to get it together.”

She made a face. “I was expecting to face some big battle to get it.”

“This is easier.”

“No kidding, but I don’t do easy.”

“This time we are doin’ it the easy way. Makes for a nice change in my mind.”

“Nice, but I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Maybe it won’t this time.” Spike didn’t believe that any more than Buffy did. “Even if it does, though, I’ll be happy for one easy job.”

“Good point.”

“Here it is,” Mrs. Burns announced. She held a large, silver bowl in her hands. Spike couldn’t begin to interpret the intricate symbols worked into the metal, but he had no doubt that there was meaning to be read there. She set it down on the table next to the tea tray. “It has been quite useful, I’ll admit, although not nearly as useful as the rumors make it out to be. You can see a lot, but not always what you want.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Spike asked.

The elderly woman smiled. “It shouldn’t.”

“Then what’s the big deal?” Buffy asked. “If you can’t see what you want, what’s the point?”

Mrs. Burns shook her head. “You may not see what you want, but you will see what you need to know, ducks.” She leaned across the table from her seat to pat Buffy’s hand. “I realize that might be frustrating, but it’s worked quite nicely for me to date. After all, you’re here, aren’t you?”

Spike nodded, but he wasn’t sure what that was supposed to prove. They might have found the bowl, but that seemed to be the least of their concerns with what was coming.

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