hobgoblinn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hobgoblinn) wrote2006-12-09 01:15 pm
hobgoblinn) wrote2006-12-09 01:15 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: Summer 8/9 - Gods and Ghosts
Previous Parts here:
Summer 1 - Where Do We Go from Here?
Summer 2 - Preparations and Farewells
Summer 3- Muddling Through
Summer 4 - The Business of Living
Summer 5 - Growing Up
Summer 6 - Making Sense
Summer 7 - Poetic License
Summer
Part 8/9 - Gods and Ghosts
DISCLAIMER: See full disclaimer on Part 1 - Short version is, I own Nothing in the Buffyverse. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I mean no harm and intend no copyright infringement. Still want to sue me? Knock yourself out.
***
“This is not working. Why is this not working?” Willow muttered to herself, her brow furrowed in concentration. She was sitting at a worktable set up in the basement of the Summers residence, her laptop plugged in to a robot which, from all indications she could see, should be moving and functioning as normally as it ever had. Except for the fact that it wasn’t.
She had gotten the head reattached, and all the blown circuits and fused wires repaired, and even hacked in to the truly disturbing yet brilliant command code Warren had written. It had given her all new depths of meaning for the word “depravity,” and she wasn’t sure she was looking forward to interacting with this–thing. But the summer was already half over, and vampiric activity was starting to pick up again. They couldn’t afford to wait much longer before the “Slayer” made an appearance. And a well-tested, glitch free appearance, at that.
It looked like a sleeping young woman, lying there on the cot beside her table, plugged in to the power unit they’d confiscated from Spike’s crypt. Willow could get individual components to work manually–the eyes could blink, the arm raise and lower itself on command, the head could nod. But speech, not to mention independent activity or consciousness, had so far eluded her.
Willow’s time these days was divided between the robot, research into dimensional portals and resurrection spells, and taking over the leadership duties of the Scooby gang once shared by Buffy, who was in no position now to perform them, and Giles, who was distancing himself more with each passing day from the role. Willow saw what needed to be done, and as always, she jumped right in. But in the wake of the new powers stirring within her, she also felt uniquely qualified, as if she alone could see clearly, could grasp the intricate currents of events and information and act on them to keep her friends, her family, safe.
She was also testing the extent of her new powers, though she had to be careful not to do so when Tara was around. She had noticed an increasing uneasiness in her beloved, a sort of wariness, even jealousy, that she wasn’t sure Tara was even aware of on a conscious level. Something about how much she had stretched herself, that night she had battled Glory, had opened up whole new levels of insight and ability, and though she had a headache much of the time these days, she was amazed at the rapid progress she seemed to be making. Part of her regretted not being able to share it with Tara, but another part was reveling in the way she felt special, in control, no longer helpless before the terrors of the night.
She sighed and began to check the ‘Bot over again from the beginning, searching for the smallest indication of damaged wires, loose connections, faulty chips. She had replaced many components already, and the evidence of her prowess was the fact that the ‘Bot now appeared to be asleep, its chest rising and falling in simulation of breathing, its muscles able to move if she triggered them manually with a few keystrokes.
A strange image suddenly came to her–Michelangelo’s depiction of God and Adam painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. She remembered thinking when she first saw it, that it made sense, from an evolutionary point of view. Though she had long since ceased to believe the creation myth of Genesis, she remembered as a child she had reconciled her faith with her scientific knowledge by supposing that the man formed from clay had been a living animal, and that it was the spirit and wisdom and self awareness God breathed into it that had made it a man in His own image. It irked her feminist sensibilities to no end, but she always remembered this naïve reasoning when she saw a photograph of the Sistine chapel ceiling, where Adam was weakly extending his hand as God reached out to confer the gift, not of life, for Adam was already breathing, but anima, spirit.
“Maybe that’s what’s missing here,” she mused. She didn’t seriously think that Warren had any kind of godlike abilities, but whatever he’d used to spark the ‘Bot initially, she might be able to supply now with magic, if she could only figure out how. She sat for several minutes staring off into the ether as her mind sorted through the hundreds of pages of spells and arcane lore her restless, ever seeking mind had processed and stored in her brain. A healing spell, maybe, one that could bind all the parts of a body into a coherent whole….
She glanced at the chronometer on the computer’s desktop. Tara was usually asleep by now, and her nightmares not due to begin for another few hours. She couldn’t ask for a better time, and the best of it was, the spell she was considering didn’t require any outside elements–it was not dissimilar to the one she’d used on Giles in the hospital. All it required was disciplined concentration and focus.
She placed her hands on the robot’s temples, brushing back the golden locks gently. The sadness and loss welled up in her, but Willow shoved them down again mercilessly. She did not have time for grief, and so she refused to acknowledge it, as if by denying the feeling, she could make its cause not be, as well. Buffy was not dead, and she would not Be dead, if Willow could just be strong a little longer. They were close to gathering the ingredients for the spell that would bring the real Buffy back to them, and Willow was certain, the more she studied, that the spell would work. Just as she was certain now, that this one would. She cleared her mind and began to chant quietly.
She didn’t notice the way the lights in the basement flickered, or the way the exposed circuits of the robot’s abdomen shot sparks at her as she called on the power within her. It would not have mattered if she had noticed–the power caressed and consumed her, as it always did, a high like no other. She dimly registered the hum and whirr of her laptop, processing information and data and, part of her mind hoped, capturing it for later study. She found herself reaching out with her mind, like God towards languid Adam, willing him to Be…. Quite unbidden, another echo of Genesis filled her mind…. “Fiat lux….” There was a bright flash of light behind her eyelids, and then all was stillness….
Willow blinked groggily as she stared up at a florescent light in the ceiling above her. She didn’t remember taking a nap, and wondered why she had chosen the basement floor for it…. Then memory began filtering back, and she struggled to her feet, ignoring a pain in her head so great she thought she might throw up, a pain which was forgotten as soon as she began to scan the diagnostics on her laptop. There….
She looked down at the robot to find it looking up at her. It seemed to be experimenting with facial expressions, trying to find one that suited its level of puzzlement. “Where am I?” it asked.
Willow swallowed hard. “Um… you’re safe,” she replied, pulling her chair upright and sinking into it to study the readouts on her screen more closely.
The Bot lifted a hand and looked at it curiously. It stretched forth its hand and touched Willow with its index finger. “Light,” it said.
***
Giles’ lips compressed into a thin line as he replaced the phone in its cradle on his cluttered desk. In answer to Anya’s questioning look, he cleared his throat and glanced away. “Um, Willow’s gotten the robot operational. She’s bringing it over now.” He ran trembling fingers through his hair. It made him look like nothing so much as a small, lost little boy, his hair tousled and sticking up at all angles. He paced the floor aimlessly for a few moments, then wandered back towards the training room.
Anya watched him go with sad, worried eyes. She wished she could do something to help him not feel like this–for that matter, to help Her not feel like this. She felt guilty for a moment–the only thing standing in the way of bringing the real Buffy back at this point was her inability to locate an Urn of Osiris, if one even resided on this plane of existence anymore.
Then she felt an unreasonable but much more satisfying anger towards Willow, not only for making Giles sad just now, but for scores of little actions and attitudes and… everything. She’d been little miss control freak all summer, and while at first it had been a relief to them all to have someone who seemed to know what she was doing giving the orders, the novelty was wearing a little thin now. Especially for a former vengeance demon with a millenium’s worth more experience in taking care of herself and dealing with the supernatural world.
And Willow’s new personality was creeping her out, too. She was less interested in the feelings and thoughts of others than she’d ever been before, and a lot more evasive when questioned, about anything. Anya was sure, for instance, that Willow was not sharing everything about the spell for Buffy, or dimensional portal mechanics. Not that the details interested her, as they were unlikely to lead to financial gain. But she could not shake a sense of uneasiness around the witch.
Anya might have been less inclined to go along with the crazy scheme they had concocted, if not for two things. One was that Xander believed Willow with all his heart, and he so much needed to do something to save their departed friend. It would kill him if they didn’t try to help Buffy, and Anya was all for courses of action that did not involve hurting Xander. The other was that Tara was agreeing to the scheme as well. She had been quite vocal about her beliefs that magic should not be used for selfish reasons, or to change the natural order of the universe. So if Tara believed this plan was justified in light of the information they had about Buffy’s situation, Anya was willing to put aside her misgivings and the huge red flashing lights and sirens that sounded in her mind every time Willow spoke about the plan.
Giles returned to the storefront several minutes later dressed in the jeans and a t shirt he had kept on hand for training with his Slayer. He paced the store restlessly, unable to settle long enough to concentrate on the newspaper on the counter, much less the financial records scattered across his desk. It was with a sense of painful relief that he looked up as the bell above the shop door announced the arrival of two — he couldn’t call them both persons, could he? He saw Willow, and behind her….
It wasn’t Buffy, of course, and he was ashamed of how his heart skipped a beat anyway to see her likeness. It would be so easy to seek respite from the pain of her absence and his own grief, by pretending. Though it would dishonor her memory for him to do it, he had fewer and fewer illusions anymore, about what sort of man he was. He knew the temptation was there, and that it always would be. Denial–the Sunnydale way of life. He tore his eyes away from the thing wearing his Slayer’s face and turned to the young witch.
“Hello Willow,” he said quietly.
Willow’s eyes met his, and what he saw there caused him to forgive her every hurt she had ever caused him. She Knew. Somehow it helped, that she could see what this was going to do to him, and how much it pained her, that this should be so. She crossed the shop and buried her face in his chest as he hugged her back with all his strength. “I’m sorry, Giles,” she whispered, through her tears.
He pulled himself together and pulled back to look into her eyes. “It has to be done,” he said firmly, but gently. “You’ve done well. I-- I knew you would.”
The praise did not even register with Willow. Giles took it for grief, but in reality it just seemed superfluous to her, in the aftermath of the powers she had wielded the night before to get the robot working. She just sniffed and said, “I thought maybe you could test her reflexes, see what I need to adjust in her programming….” Other than the icky Spike fixation and the truly prodigious amount of memory devoted to sexual subroutines. She should probably warn him about that before….
“Where is Spike?” the robot asked, looking around with wide, curious eyes.
“He’s uh… not here right now.” Willow traded a significant glance with Giles, then went on, “Giles needs to train with you first. Do you know where you are?”
“Of course,” the machine responded brightly. “I am at the Magic Box. Guyles, I mean Giles, bought it because he needed something to do when Passions wasn’t on.”
Giles found himself startled out of his grief by that. “I’ll kill him,” he growled. Willow and Anya were relieved to see the mood shift. An angry Giles was easier to take than a broken one, especially when the anger wasn’t directed at either of them.
The ‘Bot continued, obliviously, “I feel as if I have been away from him for a long time. Has it been a long time? Do you think he has forgotten me?”
Willow sighed. She was about to answer, when Giles stepped forward. “I’m sure he hasn’t,” he said quietly. “Do you know who I am?”
The robot approached and examined him closely. “Yes. You are Giles. My Watcher. Every Slayer needs her Watcher,” she concluded, in a sing song, childish voice.
Giles cleared his throat and, in as stern a voice as he could manage through his suddenly tight throat, replied, “Yes. And the Slayer must do as the Watcher says.”
The robot giggled. “That’s not what Spike says.” Giles looked helplessly at Willow, who took the machine by the hand and led it to a chair at the research table.
“Sit here for a minute,” she ordered, pulling her laptop out of the case slung over her shoulder and pulling up the robot’s thin tank top to expose the access panel concealed by a layer of false muscle and skin. She plugged a cable into the port and glanced up apologetically. “I’ll try to get some of the junk out of the programming. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve already cleared out–I was just afraid to get rid of too much at once, in case there were, you know, dependencies….”
Giles motioned for her to continue and eyed the clean glasses visible on the lower shelf of the tea table wistfully. Anya came over and patted his shoulder in what she thought was a comforting way. “Want me to pour you a drink?” she asked. He grimaced in response.
“No, thank you.” He’d pour one himself, as soon as this thing was gone. Anya looked distinctly disappointed.
“Darn. I wanted one, too.”
Giles managed a faint grin. “Help yourself. Though if you break anything, or make any mistakes with the money while under the influence, I’ll have to take it out of your pay.” Anya frowned and went off to dust a corner of the store as far from them as possible.
Giles sat down across the table from Willow and the robot. “Why don’t we start with some basic questions and answers, see what we have to work with?” he suggested.
Willow held up one finger as she studied the monitor with a frown. “Give me a sec,” she said, as she began typing rapidly. A few moments later she glanced up at him. “Okay. I should be able to see some of the code being called as you talk now–it should help me sort out what needs to be changed. I think she’s got a pretty sophisticated learning module, though–we may be able to teach her what we need her to know, without having to resort to programming her manually.”
“Um, yes. Right,” said Giles, not having the faintest idea what she was talking about, and not much caring. For the next two hours he quizzed the robot on Slayer lore, types of monsters and how to kill them, and Buffy’s own history as a Slayer. There were predictable gaps–she knew about all her encounters with Spike quite well, if not strictly accurately. She knew basic facts about her friends and family, that Angel was in LA and had lame hair, and that Willy’s was a great place for beating information out of the proprietor, or a game of something called “kitten poker.” At last Giles sighed and rose to his feet.
“I think you should get her home now, Willow.” He went to a shelf behind the counter and began pulling out books, flipping open the covers and reading a few sentences of each, sorting them into stacks. “Can you read?” he asked, looking up at the robot.
It smiled vacuously. “Of course. Spike has these really cool magazines….” She began to giggle, and Giles fought down a wave of nausea.
“I’m sure he does,” he muttered, once again furious with the vampire. He gathered a few volumes together and brought them over to the table, where Willow was packing away her computer and the robot was examining her fingernails in an admiring sort of way. “Here,” he said, thrusting the books at the machine. “Read these tonight. I’ll expect you to know the contents by….” He glanced over at Willow, who shrugged. “Tomorrow,” he finished.
The robot smiled cheerfully. “I read very fast,” she confided. “You can probably give me a few more, if you like.” Giles gave a thin, tight smile.
“No need to, ah, rush things. We’ll get these mastered, and then move on to other things.” He motioned Willow to join him near the door to the training room with an expressive widening of the eyes and tilt of the head.
“Can she hear us here?” Giles whispered, and the robot sang out, “Yes, I can hear very well. Thank you for asking!” Giles groaned and opened the door to the training room, leaning heavily against it as he closed it behind the two of them.
Willow was torn between giddy excitement that the machine was working as well as it was, and horror that it was so…. “It’s a nightmare,” she moaned, sensing the latter feeling was more likely to be shared by her companion. “Giles, I am so, so sorry….”
Giles waved off her apology gently. “No, it’s all right. But we can’t have her seen by anyone who knows her, except us, of course, until we’ve had more time to… work on her,” he finished lamely. “Certainly we can’t have her out patrolling yet.”
Willow looked thoughtful. “I’ll bet the fighting skills are in much better shape. Xander and Anya said that part of her, um, behavior, was pretty good, when they first saw her that night with Spike….” She trailed off.
Giles grimaced. “Yes, well, when you see * Spike * tonight,” he said, placing a savage emphasis on the name, “please do me the courtesy of staking him for me.”
Willow looked like she was seriously considering it. “I’d love to.” She shuddered, remembering the programming she had purged before bringing the robot over, then continued, “But, I think it might unbalance the ‘Bot even more, if we hurt him just now. Besides, we do still need him to cover patrols until we get her up to speed.”
Giles removed his glasses to rub tired eyes. “Yes, quite right,” he sighed. He replaced his glasses and looked around the room without really seeing any of it. After a moment, he roused himself and said, “I’ll be counting on you lot to help with that–getting her speaking patterns and behavior more, well, normal.” A worried frown crossed his face. “Do the others know yet? Dawn?”
Willow nodded. “They saw her this morning, when they came down to call me to breakfast. It was… pretty rough.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Giles sighed. “Well, you take her on now, and bring her back tomorrow afternoon. I’ll think of some training exercises to assess her fighting skills.” Willow nodded and he started to pull open the door. As he did so, he said, with his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, “And Willow. You really have done very well.” She took his hand and squeezed it, then released it and moved past him to collect the robot. Anya came to stand by him at the cash register as Willow and the robot went through the shop door.
Anya risked a sidelong glance at her boss. He was staring vacantly at the door. She cleared her throat, unable to think of anything to say, and then began nervously counting the money in the till. Giles glanced down and smiled sadly as he watched her.
“I called Xander, while you were in the back,” she volunteered suddenly. “He said Dawn had already told him about it. I didn’t want him to be ….” She didn’t know how to continue that thought, but she knew Giles understood. He roused himself, moving to the table and sinking wearily into a chair. After a moment, he glanced at his watch.
“You can close up early today if you like, Anya. We haven’t had anyone in all afternoon.” They had, but Anya was not shocked Giles hadn’t noticed. For once, though, she was not opposed to closing early, even if it meant a potential loss of income.
“That’s a good idea, Giles,” she said brightly. “Anyone coming out this late for spell ingredients, is probably up to no good anyway.” She briskly finished counting the money and filling out the deposit slip, placing both in the zippered bag they used for depositing receipts at the bank down the street. “I’ll drop by the bank on my way out. You’ll be over for supper later, won’t you?”
Giles glanced up, then shook his head. “Not tonight. I’m not feeling all that hungry,” he said apologetically. His eyes wandered back to the door, curiously unfocused.
Anya felt again the helplessness, watching her friend’s pain and unable to do anything about it. She stirred, about to try anyway, when she heard Giles say quietly, “Anya. Don’t. I’m all right. I just need a little… time.” She nodded, blinking back tears, and came to give him a quick pat on the shoulder, before heading for the door. The bell clanged as she pulled it shut and locked it behind her.
After a time, Giles rose and moved to the front window to turn the “Yes, We’re Open!” sign to the other side, which read, “Sorry, We’re Closed. Please Come Again.” It wasn’t like Anya to forget that, but Giles reflected today had not been anything like a normal day. He moved back through the shop, picked up his brown jacket and automatically checked for stakes in the pockets, along with his wallet and keys. Then he made his way to the back door of the shop and out into the alley, which was growing dim in the late afternoon sunlight.
Instead of heading for his car, though, he just wandered through the streets. He was not surprised when his feet took him to a particular one of Sunnydale’s many cemeteries. Instead of passing inside through the front gate, he walked the perimeter to the point where the wrought iron fence abutted a pleasant grove of trees, and the grass grew taller against the iron bars. A few yards further on, there was a break in the fence, where the bars appeared to have been pulled aside by some huge beast, which, Giles reflected, was probably not so far from the truth. He ducked his way through them and found himself in an older section of the cemetery, under large, leafy trees, the graves carpeted by thick green grass.
He came to a place where the grass was less thick, but still surprisingly well grown, considering. He made a mental note to talk to Willow about that as he sat down at the foot of the grave. There was as yet no headstone, but that was probably just as well. They had argued for days about it, but they had finally agreed Buffy deserved to be buried under her own name. He had been the one to give in at last, and he had to admit that Willow had done an excellent job of placing the grave in an area as far from crypts and newer graves as possible–it was unlikely any creatures of the night would even notice the stone when it was erected. He sat and pulled his knees up to his chest, listening to the birds, the insect noises, watching the grass blaze with sunlight, then darken as the sun slipped lower and lower in the sky. Finally it was nightfall, and Giles still had yet to move, or speak.
He felt rather than heard someone behind him. He reached into his pocket halfheartedly for a stake, but made no move to rise. A numbing cold filled his veins, and he wondered if he cared that he soon might never move again.
“Thought I might find you here,” Spike said, coming into his line of sight and looking around at the shadows above them, peppered here and there by stars from the night sky peeking through the canopy of trees. He tapped a cigarette from his nearly empty pack, then raised a questioning eyebrow at the man still seated on the ground, who was removing his hand from his jacket pocket. Giles nodded, and Spike pitched the whole pack to him in a neat underhanded toss. He lit his own fag, then flicked the lighter again as his companion rose to join him. Taking a deep draw on his own after lighting Giles’, Spike added, “Willow said you wanted to see me.”
Giles looked at him incredulously. “Perhaps the filth in which you live has clogged your ears,” Giles replied acidly. “I believe the word I used was ‘stake’.” The vampire nodded ruefully, without any hint of a smile.
“After five minutes with them and the robot, I was kinda hopin’ somebody would,” Spike sighed. His eyes scanned the shadows surrounding them, carefully avoiding his companion’s gaze. “Bloody hell,” he breathed out, the smoke curling from his lips as from a devil’s.
Giles thought for a moment to oblige him on the staking, before training, duty, and no small measure of sadistic cruelty won the day. “Not letting you off that easily, pillock,” he said finally, flatly. Spike shrugged and continued to draw smoke into his otherwise non functioning lungs.
“I loved her, you know,” he said at last. Before Giles could do more than growl, Spike held up a restraining hand and looked the taller man directly in the eye with painful intensity. “I couldn’t have her, couldn’t even be someone she could love back–you think I don’t know that? But see, the thing is, I couldn’t leave her. Like a moth to a flame or some such rot. And then, this guy gives me a way to, I don’t know, pretend. And I was weak, like I’ve always been, and I took it. It was, what did she say to me that day? Yeah. ‘Obscene.’ And she was right, as usual.” He continued to hold Giles’ horrified eyes with his own, now overflowing with slow tears tracking down his pale cheeks, as he concluded, very quietly, “And now I’ll have to look at her, see that *obscene * mockery of everything she was, of everything I felt, that thing I created, every single sodding day. Don’t think I’m getting off easy. You’re right. Staking’s too good for me.”
They continued smoking in silence, Giles enveloped once again in that numb coldness he had been feeling, or rather, not feeling, since he had come here hours ago. Giles finally tossed his cigarette on the ground some distance away, and walked slowly over to crush it out under his booted heel. Without turning, he said, “I thought about it, you know. Bringing her back. Despite everything I know and believe in….” He took a shuddering breath. “But seeing that thing today….”
Spike came over to stand beside the man, staring off up the hillside at the endless rows of gravestones. “Yeah,” he said, finally. Didn’t seem to be anything more to say, really. He thought for a long moment, then, appropos of nothing, “Do you remember that little pub we went to, that night you were a Fyarl demon?”
Giles froze, then turned to fix incredulous eyes on the vampire. “What?”
Spike shrugged, “Well, they do know how to draw a proper pint, which is more than you can say for anywhere else in this godforsaken burg. C’mon,” he added. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
Giles continued to stare at him. Finding his voice, he rasped, “We are not friends, Spike.”
“No,” the vampire agreed evenly, maybe a touch regretfully. “But that’s the thing about being a demon innit? I can drink with enemies, ‘cause I ain’t got nothin’ else.” Spike crushed his own spent fag out under his boot, then looked up. Slowly, Giles nodded and they began walking together towards the front gate of the cemetery.
”I shall never forgive you for making that… thing,” Giles said as they trudged up the hill. Spike paused and eyed him impassively. Giles stopped and looked back at him.
“I know. Makes two of us, Mate,” the vampire replied finally, looking away. They continued on up the hill in silence.
Summer 9 - Night Visitors
Summer 1 - Where Do We Go from Here?
Summer 2 - Preparations and Farewells
Summer 3- Muddling Through
Summer 4 - The Business of Living
Summer 5 - Growing Up
Summer 6 - Making Sense
Summer 7 - Poetic License
Summer
Part 8/9 - Gods and Ghosts
DISCLAIMER: See full disclaimer on Part 1 - Short version is, I own Nothing in the Buffyverse. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I mean no harm and intend no copyright infringement. Still want to sue me? Knock yourself out.
***
“This is not working. Why is this not working?” Willow muttered to herself, her brow furrowed in concentration. She was sitting at a worktable set up in the basement of the Summers residence, her laptop plugged in to a robot which, from all indications she could see, should be moving and functioning as normally as it ever had. Except for the fact that it wasn’t.
She had gotten the head reattached, and all the blown circuits and fused wires repaired, and even hacked in to the truly disturbing yet brilliant command code Warren had written. It had given her all new depths of meaning for the word “depravity,” and she wasn’t sure she was looking forward to interacting with this–thing. But the summer was already half over, and vampiric activity was starting to pick up again. They couldn’t afford to wait much longer before the “Slayer” made an appearance. And a well-tested, glitch free appearance, at that.
It looked like a sleeping young woman, lying there on the cot beside her table, plugged in to the power unit they’d confiscated from Spike’s crypt. Willow could get individual components to work manually–the eyes could blink, the arm raise and lower itself on command, the head could nod. But speech, not to mention independent activity or consciousness, had so far eluded her.
Willow’s time these days was divided between the robot, research into dimensional portals and resurrection spells, and taking over the leadership duties of the Scooby gang once shared by Buffy, who was in no position now to perform them, and Giles, who was distancing himself more with each passing day from the role. Willow saw what needed to be done, and as always, she jumped right in. But in the wake of the new powers stirring within her, she also felt uniquely qualified, as if she alone could see clearly, could grasp the intricate currents of events and information and act on them to keep her friends, her family, safe.
She was also testing the extent of her new powers, though she had to be careful not to do so when Tara was around. She had noticed an increasing uneasiness in her beloved, a sort of wariness, even jealousy, that she wasn’t sure Tara was even aware of on a conscious level. Something about how much she had stretched herself, that night she had battled Glory, had opened up whole new levels of insight and ability, and though she had a headache much of the time these days, she was amazed at the rapid progress she seemed to be making. Part of her regretted not being able to share it with Tara, but another part was reveling in the way she felt special, in control, no longer helpless before the terrors of the night.
She sighed and began to check the ‘Bot over again from the beginning, searching for the smallest indication of damaged wires, loose connections, faulty chips. She had replaced many components already, and the evidence of her prowess was the fact that the ‘Bot now appeared to be asleep, its chest rising and falling in simulation of breathing, its muscles able to move if she triggered them manually with a few keystrokes.
A strange image suddenly came to her–Michelangelo’s depiction of God and Adam painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. She remembered thinking when she first saw it, that it made sense, from an evolutionary point of view. Though she had long since ceased to believe the creation myth of Genesis, she remembered as a child she had reconciled her faith with her scientific knowledge by supposing that the man formed from clay had been a living animal, and that it was the spirit and wisdom and self awareness God breathed into it that had made it a man in His own image. It irked her feminist sensibilities to no end, but she always remembered this naïve reasoning when she saw a photograph of the Sistine chapel ceiling, where Adam was weakly extending his hand as God reached out to confer the gift, not of life, for Adam was already breathing, but anima, spirit.
“Maybe that’s what’s missing here,” she mused. She didn’t seriously think that Warren had any kind of godlike abilities, but whatever he’d used to spark the ‘Bot initially, she might be able to supply now with magic, if she could only figure out how. She sat for several minutes staring off into the ether as her mind sorted through the hundreds of pages of spells and arcane lore her restless, ever seeking mind had processed and stored in her brain. A healing spell, maybe, one that could bind all the parts of a body into a coherent whole….
She glanced at the chronometer on the computer’s desktop. Tara was usually asleep by now, and her nightmares not due to begin for another few hours. She couldn’t ask for a better time, and the best of it was, the spell she was considering didn’t require any outside elements–it was not dissimilar to the one she’d used on Giles in the hospital. All it required was disciplined concentration and focus.
She placed her hands on the robot’s temples, brushing back the golden locks gently. The sadness and loss welled up in her, but Willow shoved them down again mercilessly. She did not have time for grief, and so she refused to acknowledge it, as if by denying the feeling, she could make its cause not be, as well. Buffy was not dead, and she would not Be dead, if Willow could just be strong a little longer. They were close to gathering the ingredients for the spell that would bring the real Buffy back to them, and Willow was certain, the more she studied, that the spell would work. Just as she was certain now, that this one would. She cleared her mind and began to chant quietly.
She didn’t notice the way the lights in the basement flickered, or the way the exposed circuits of the robot’s abdomen shot sparks at her as she called on the power within her. It would not have mattered if she had noticed–the power caressed and consumed her, as it always did, a high like no other. She dimly registered the hum and whirr of her laptop, processing information and data and, part of her mind hoped, capturing it for later study. She found herself reaching out with her mind, like God towards languid Adam, willing him to Be…. Quite unbidden, another echo of Genesis filled her mind…. “Fiat lux….” There was a bright flash of light behind her eyelids, and then all was stillness….
Willow blinked groggily as she stared up at a florescent light in the ceiling above her. She didn’t remember taking a nap, and wondered why she had chosen the basement floor for it…. Then memory began filtering back, and she struggled to her feet, ignoring a pain in her head so great she thought she might throw up, a pain which was forgotten as soon as she began to scan the diagnostics on her laptop. There….
She looked down at the robot to find it looking up at her. It seemed to be experimenting with facial expressions, trying to find one that suited its level of puzzlement. “Where am I?” it asked.
Willow swallowed hard. “Um… you’re safe,” she replied, pulling her chair upright and sinking into it to study the readouts on her screen more closely.
The Bot lifted a hand and looked at it curiously. It stretched forth its hand and touched Willow with its index finger. “Light,” it said.
***
Giles’ lips compressed into a thin line as he replaced the phone in its cradle on his cluttered desk. In answer to Anya’s questioning look, he cleared his throat and glanced away. “Um, Willow’s gotten the robot operational. She’s bringing it over now.” He ran trembling fingers through his hair. It made him look like nothing so much as a small, lost little boy, his hair tousled and sticking up at all angles. He paced the floor aimlessly for a few moments, then wandered back towards the training room.
Anya watched him go with sad, worried eyes. She wished she could do something to help him not feel like this–for that matter, to help Her not feel like this. She felt guilty for a moment–the only thing standing in the way of bringing the real Buffy back at this point was her inability to locate an Urn of Osiris, if one even resided on this plane of existence anymore.
Then she felt an unreasonable but much more satisfying anger towards Willow, not only for making Giles sad just now, but for scores of little actions and attitudes and… everything. She’d been little miss control freak all summer, and while at first it had been a relief to them all to have someone who seemed to know what she was doing giving the orders, the novelty was wearing a little thin now. Especially for a former vengeance demon with a millenium’s worth more experience in taking care of herself and dealing with the supernatural world.
And Willow’s new personality was creeping her out, too. She was less interested in the feelings and thoughts of others than she’d ever been before, and a lot more evasive when questioned, about anything. Anya was sure, for instance, that Willow was not sharing everything about the spell for Buffy, or dimensional portal mechanics. Not that the details interested her, as they were unlikely to lead to financial gain. But she could not shake a sense of uneasiness around the witch.
Anya might have been less inclined to go along with the crazy scheme they had concocted, if not for two things. One was that Xander believed Willow with all his heart, and he so much needed to do something to save their departed friend. It would kill him if they didn’t try to help Buffy, and Anya was all for courses of action that did not involve hurting Xander. The other was that Tara was agreeing to the scheme as well. She had been quite vocal about her beliefs that magic should not be used for selfish reasons, or to change the natural order of the universe. So if Tara believed this plan was justified in light of the information they had about Buffy’s situation, Anya was willing to put aside her misgivings and the huge red flashing lights and sirens that sounded in her mind every time Willow spoke about the plan.
Giles returned to the storefront several minutes later dressed in the jeans and a t shirt he had kept on hand for training with his Slayer. He paced the store restlessly, unable to settle long enough to concentrate on the newspaper on the counter, much less the financial records scattered across his desk. It was with a sense of painful relief that he looked up as the bell above the shop door announced the arrival of two — he couldn’t call them both persons, could he? He saw Willow, and behind her….
It wasn’t Buffy, of course, and he was ashamed of how his heart skipped a beat anyway to see her likeness. It would be so easy to seek respite from the pain of her absence and his own grief, by pretending. Though it would dishonor her memory for him to do it, he had fewer and fewer illusions anymore, about what sort of man he was. He knew the temptation was there, and that it always would be. Denial–the Sunnydale way of life. He tore his eyes away from the thing wearing his Slayer’s face and turned to the young witch.
“Hello Willow,” he said quietly.
Willow’s eyes met his, and what he saw there caused him to forgive her every hurt she had ever caused him. She Knew. Somehow it helped, that she could see what this was going to do to him, and how much it pained her, that this should be so. She crossed the shop and buried her face in his chest as he hugged her back with all his strength. “I’m sorry, Giles,” she whispered, through her tears.
He pulled himself together and pulled back to look into her eyes. “It has to be done,” he said firmly, but gently. “You’ve done well. I-- I knew you would.”
The praise did not even register with Willow. Giles took it for grief, but in reality it just seemed superfluous to her, in the aftermath of the powers she had wielded the night before to get the robot working. She just sniffed and said, “I thought maybe you could test her reflexes, see what I need to adjust in her programming….” Other than the icky Spike fixation and the truly prodigious amount of memory devoted to sexual subroutines. She should probably warn him about that before….
“Where is Spike?” the robot asked, looking around with wide, curious eyes.
“He’s uh… not here right now.” Willow traded a significant glance with Giles, then went on, “Giles needs to train with you first. Do you know where you are?”
“Of course,” the machine responded brightly. “I am at the Magic Box. Guyles, I mean Giles, bought it because he needed something to do when Passions wasn’t on.”
Giles found himself startled out of his grief by that. “I’ll kill him,” he growled. Willow and Anya were relieved to see the mood shift. An angry Giles was easier to take than a broken one, especially when the anger wasn’t directed at either of them.
The ‘Bot continued, obliviously, “I feel as if I have been away from him for a long time. Has it been a long time? Do you think he has forgotten me?”
Willow sighed. She was about to answer, when Giles stepped forward. “I’m sure he hasn’t,” he said quietly. “Do you know who I am?”
The robot approached and examined him closely. “Yes. You are Giles. My Watcher. Every Slayer needs her Watcher,” she concluded, in a sing song, childish voice.
Giles cleared his throat and, in as stern a voice as he could manage through his suddenly tight throat, replied, “Yes. And the Slayer must do as the Watcher says.”
The robot giggled. “That’s not what Spike says.” Giles looked helplessly at Willow, who took the machine by the hand and led it to a chair at the research table.
“Sit here for a minute,” she ordered, pulling her laptop out of the case slung over her shoulder and pulling up the robot’s thin tank top to expose the access panel concealed by a layer of false muscle and skin. She plugged a cable into the port and glanced up apologetically. “I’ll try to get some of the junk out of the programming. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve already cleared out–I was just afraid to get rid of too much at once, in case there were, you know, dependencies….”
Giles motioned for her to continue and eyed the clean glasses visible on the lower shelf of the tea table wistfully. Anya came over and patted his shoulder in what she thought was a comforting way. “Want me to pour you a drink?” she asked. He grimaced in response.
“No, thank you.” He’d pour one himself, as soon as this thing was gone. Anya looked distinctly disappointed.
“Darn. I wanted one, too.”
Giles managed a faint grin. “Help yourself. Though if you break anything, or make any mistakes with the money while under the influence, I’ll have to take it out of your pay.” Anya frowned and went off to dust a corner of the store as far from them as possible.
Giles sat down across the table from Willow and the robot. “Why don’t we start with some basic questions and answers, see what we have to work with?” he suggested.
Willow held up one finger as she studied the monitor with a frown. “Give me a sec,” she said, as she began typing rapidly. A few moments later she glanced up at him. “Okay. I should be able to see some of the code being called as you talk now–it should help me sort out what needs to be changed. I think she’s got a pretty sophisticated learning module, though–we may be able to teach her what we need her to know, without having to resort to programming her manually.”
“Um, yes. Right,” said Giles, not having the faintest idea what she was talking about, and not much caring. For the next two hours he quizzed the robot on Slayer lore, types of monsters and how to kill them, and Buffy’s own history as a Slayer. There were predictable gaps–she knew about all her encounters with Spike quite well, if not strictly accurately. She knew basic facts about her friends and family, that Angel was in LA and had lame hair, and that Willy’s was a great place for beating information out of the proprietor, or a game of something called “kitten poker.” At last Giles sighed and rose to his feet.
“I think you should get her home now, Willow.” He went to a shelf behind the counter and began pulling out books, flipping open the covers and reading a few sentences of each, sorting them into stacks. “Can you read?” he asked, looking up at the robot.
It smiled vacuously. “Of course. Spike has these really cool magazines….” She began to giggle, and Giles fought down a wave of nausea.
“I’m sure he does,” he muttered, once again furious with the vampire. He gathered a few volumes together and brought them over to the table, where Willow was packing away her computer and the robot was examining her fingernails in an admiring sort of way. “Here,” he said, thrusting the books at the machine. “Read these tonight. I’ll expect you to know the contents by….” He glanced over at Willow, who shrugged. “Tomorrow,” he finished.
The robot smiled cheerfully. “I read very fast,” she confided. “You can probably give me a few more, if you like.” Giles gave a thin, tight smile.
“No need to, ah, rush things. We’ll get these mastered, and then move on to other things.” He motioned Willow to join him near the door to the training room with an expressive widening of the eyes and tilt of the head.
“Can she hear us here?” Giles whispered, and the robot sang out, “Yes, I can hear very well. Thank you for asking!” Giles groaned and opened the door to the training room, leaning heavily against it as he closed it behind the two of them.
Willow was torn between giddy excitement that the machine was working as well as it was, and horror that it was so…. “It’s a nightmare,” she moaned, sensing the latter feeling was more likely to be shared by her companion. “Giles, I am so, so sorry….”
Giles waved off her apology gently. “No, it’s all right. But we can’t have her seen by anyone who knows her, except us, of course, until we’ve had more time to… work on her,” he finished lamely. “Certainly we can’t have her out patrolling yet.”
Willow looked thoughtful. “I’ll bet the fighting skills are in much better shape. Xander and Anya said that part of her, um, behavior, was pretty good, when they first saw her that night with Spike….” She trailed off.
Giles grimaced. “Yes, well, when you see * Spike * tonight,” he said, placing a savage emphasis on the name, “please do me the courtesy of staking him for me.”
Willow looked like she was seriously considering it. “I’d love to.” She shuddered, remembering the programming she had purged before bringing the robot over, then continued, “But, I think it might unbalance the ‘Bot even more, if we hurt him just now. Besides, we do still need him to cover patrols until we get her up to speed.”
Giles removed his glasses to rub tired eyes. “Yes, quite right,” he sighed. He replaced his glasses and looked around the room without really seeing any of it. After a moment, he roused himself and said, “I’ll be counting on you lot to help with that–getting her speaking patterns and behavior more, well, normal.” A worried frown crossed his face. “Do the others know yet? Dawn?”
Willow nodded. “They saw her this morning, when they came down to call me to breakfast. It was… pretty rough.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Giles sighed. “Well, you take her on now, and bring her back tomorrow afternoon. I’ll think of some training exercises to assess her fighting skills.” Willow nodded and he started to pull open the door. As he did so, he said, with his eyes fixed firmly on the floor, “And Willow. You really have done very well.” She took his hand and squeezed it, then released it and moved past him to collect the robot. Anya came to stand by him at the cash register as Willow and the robot went through the shop door.
Anya risked a sidelong glance at her boss. He was staring vacantly at the door. She cleared her throat, unable to think of anything to say, and then began nervously counting the money in the till. Giles glanced down and smiled sadly as he watched her.
“I called Xander, while you were in the back,” she volunteered suddenly. “He said Dawn had already told him about it. I didn’t want him to be ….” She didn’t know how to continue that thought, but she knew Giles understood. He roused himself, moving to the table and sinking wearily into a chair. After a moment, he glanced at his watch.
“You can close up early today if you like, Anya. We haven’t had anyone in all afternoon.” They had, but Anya was not shocked Giles hadn’t noticed. For once, though, she was not opposed to closing early, even if it meant a potential loss of income.
“That’s a good idea, Giles,” she said brightly. “Anyone coming out this late for spell ingredients, is probably up to no good anyway.” She briskly finished counting the money and filling out the deposit slip, placing both in the zippered bag they used for depositing receipts at the bank down the street. “I’ll drop by the bank on my way out. You’ll be over for supper later, won’t you?”
Giles glanced up, then shook his head. “Not tonight. I’m not feeling all that hungry,” he said apologetically. His eyes wandered back to the door, curiously unfocused.
Anya felt again the helplessness, watching her friend’s pain and unable to do anything about it. She stirred, about to try anyway, when she heard Giles say quietly, “Anya. Don’t. I’m all right. I just need a little… time.” She nodded, blinking back tears, and came to give him a quick pat on the shoulder, before heading for the door. The bell clanged as she pulled it shut and locked it behind her.
After a time, Giles rose and moved to the front window to turn the “Yes, We’re Open!” sign to the other side, which read, “Sorry, We’re Closed. Please Come Again.” It wasn’t like Anya to forget that, but Giles reflected today had not been anything like a normal day. He moved back through the shop, picked up his brown jacket and automatically checked for stakes in the pockets, along with his wallet and keys. Then he made his way to the back door of the shop and out into the alley, which was growing dim in the late afternoon sunlight.
Instead of heading for his car, though, he just wandered through the streets. He was not surprised when his feet took him to a particular one of Sunnydale’s many cemeteries. Instead of passing inside through the front gate, he walked the perimeter to the point where the wrought iron fence abutted a pleasant grove of trees, and the grass grew taller against the iron bars. A few yards further on, there was a break in the fence, where the bars appeared to have been pulled aside by some huge beast, which, Giles reflected, was probably not so far from the truth. He ducked his way through them and found himself in an older section of the cemetery, under large, leafy trees, the graves carpeted by thick green grass.
He came to a place where the grass was less thick, but still surprisingly well grown, considering. He made a mental note to talk to Willow about that as he sat down at the foot of the grave. There was as yet no headstone, but that was probably just as well. They had argued for days about it, but they had finally agreed Buffy deserved to be buried under her own name. He had been the one to give in at last, and he had to admit that Willow had done an excellent job of placing the grave in an area as far from crypts and newer graves as possible–it was unlikely any creatures of the night would even notice the stone when it was erected. He sat and pulled his knees up to his chest, listening to the birds, the insect noises, watching the grass blaze with sunlight, then darken as the sun slipped lower and lower in the sky. Finally it was nightfall, and Giles still had yet to move, or speak.
He felt rather than heard someone behind him. He reached into his pocket halfheartedly for a stake, but made no move to rise. A numbing cold filled his veins, and he wondered if he cared that he soon might never move again.
“Thought I might find you here,” Spike said, coming into his line of sight and looking around at the shadows above them, peppered here and there by stars from the night sky peeking through the canopy of trees. He tapped a cigarette from his nearly empty pack, then raised a questioning eyebrow at the man still seated on the ground, who was removing his hand from his jacket pocket. Giles nodded, and Spike pitched the whole pack to him in a neat underhanded toss. He lit his own fag, then flicked the lighter again as his companion rose to join him. Taking a deep draw on his own after lighting Giles’, Spike added, “Willow said you wanted to see me.”
Giles looked at him incredulously. “Perhaps the filth in which you live has clogged your ears,” Giles replied acidly. “I believe the word I used was ‘stake’.” The vampire nodded ruefully, without any hint of a smile.
“After five minutes with them and the robot, I was kinda hopin’ somebody would,” Spike sighed. His eyes scanned the shadows surrounding them, carefully avoiding his companion’s gaze. “Bloody hell,” he breathed out, the smoke curling from his lips as from a devil’s.
Giles thought for a moment to oblige him on the staking, before training, duty, and no small measure of sadistic cruelty won the day. “Not letting you off that easily, pillock,” he said finally, flatly. Spike shrugged and continued to draw smoke into his otherwise non functioning lungs.
“I loved her, you know,” he said at last. Before Giles could do more than growl, Spike held up a restraining hand and looked the taller man directly in the eye with painful intensity. “I couldn’t have her, couldn’t even be someone she could love back–you think I don’t know that? But see, the thing is, I couldn’t leave her. Like a moth to a flame or some such rot. And then, this guy gives me a way to, I don’t know, pretend. And I was weak, like I’ve always been, and I took it. It was, what did she say to me that day? Yeah. ‘Obscene.’ And she was right, as usual.” He continued to hold Giles’ horrified eyes with his own, now overflowing with slow tears tracking down his pale cheeks, as he concluded, very quietly, “And now I’ll have to look at her, see that *obscene * mockery of everything she was, of everything I felt, that thing I created, every single sodding day. Don’t think I’m getting off easy. You’re right. Staking’s too good for me.”
They continued smoking in silence, Giles enveloped once again in that numb coldness he had been feeling, or rather, not feeling, since he had come here hours ago. Giles finally tossed his cigarette on the ground some distance away, and walked slowly over to crush it out under his booted heel. Without turning, he said, “I thought about it, you know. Bringing her back. Despite everything I know and believe in….” He took a shuddering breath. “But seeing that thing today….”
Spike came over to stand beside the man, staring off up the hillside at the endless rows of gravestones. “Yeah,” he said, finally. Didn’t seem to be anything more to say, really. He thought for a long moment, then, appropos of nothing, “Do you remember that little pub we went to, that night you were a Fyarl demon?”
Giles froze, then turned to fix incredulous eyes on the vampire. “What?”
Spike shrugged, “Well, they do know how to draw a proper pint, which is more than you can say for anywhere else in this godforsaken burg. C’mon,” he added. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
Giles continued to stare at him. Finding his voice, he rasped, “We are not friends, Spike.”
“No,” the vampire agreed evenly, maybe a touch regretfully. “But that’s the thing about being a demon innit? I can drink with enemies, ‘cause I ain’t got nothin’ else.” Spike crushed his own spent fag out under his boot, then looked up. Slowly, Giles nodded and they began walking together towards the front gate of the cemetery.
”I shall never forgive you for making that… thing,” Giles said as they trudged up the hill. Spike paused and eyed him impassively. Giles stopped and looked back at him.
“I know. Makes two of us, Mate,” the vampire replied finally, looking away. They continued on up the hill in silence.
Summer 9 - Night Visitors
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