“His slut didn’t eat him up,” Willow cut in. “And besides, I thought you were all angry at him.”
“My feelings are changeable but intense,” Anya replied.
“I understand your fear, Anya,” Andrew commiserated. “I know fear myself, because, you know, I, um, enraged that primal force.”
Then Giles walked in with a glass of milk, looked around, and said, “They’re not back yet?”
Chao-Ahn came down the stairs and said in Cantonese, “Why is everyone up? Are the flashcard monsters attacking?”
“She says she can’t sleep,” Giles told the others. “I made myself some warm milk,” he told her in a nice, loud, slow voice. “You can have it.”
“You’re trying to kill me!” she cried in Chinese.
“She’s shy,” Giles interpreted.
Then the daters arrived. Xander was bandaged up but he seemed physically all right.
“What happened? Willow asked.
“What do you think happened?” Xander asked, walking toward her. “Another demon woman was attracted to me.” As Anya looked disgusted, Xander said, “I’m going gay. I’ve decided I’m turning gay.” He gestured to the Wicca. “Willow, gay me up. Come on. Let’s gay.”
“What?” Willow asked, startled.
“You heard me. Just tell me what to do. I’m mentally undressing Scott Bakula right now. That’s a start, isn’t it?”
Andrew closed his eyes and said dreamily, “Captain Archer.” He nodded.
“Come on, let’s get this gay show on the gay road. Help me out here,” Xander told Willow.
Amused, Buffy said, “What if you just start attracting male demons?”
Dawn giggled. “Clem always liked you.”
“Children, enough,” Giles ordered.
“I’d need some stylish new clothes,” Xander continued.
“Enough!” Giles bellowed. “Have you learned nothing from tonight’s assorted chaos? There’s no time for fun and games and . . . and quipping about orientation.”
He picked up his flashcards. “These aren’t a joke. This . . . happens. Girls are going to die. We may die. It’s time to get serious.”
With that, he stalked out of the room.
* * *
Once all the assorted chaos had gone to bed, Spike joined Buffy in the living room. She was quiet, and he was subdued.
“Anyone tell you about what happened ’round here tonight?” he began. “The First talked to the little boy. Said it’s not time for me yet.” He paused, and then he said it, “I should move out. Leave town. Before it is time for me.”
Buffy looked up at him. “No,” she said. “You have to stay.”
He shrugged. “You’ve got another demon fighter now.”
“That’s not why I need you here,” she said.
“Is that right? Why’s that then?”
Gazing at him steadily, Buffy answered, “ ’Cause I’m not ready for you to not be here.”
* * *
Robin was brushing his teeth, washing his face, wishing that Buffy Summers did not have some kind of thing going on with a vampire, when a voice behind him said, “You look good.”
He stayed calm and very still as the ghost of his mother regarded him with a big smile on her face.
“You’re not my mother,” he said icily.
She raised her brows. “I give you a compliment and you don’t say thank you? Did I raise you that way?”
“You didn’t raise me at all,” he shot back.
“Well, I was dead.”
He walked right through her, and she reappeared, facing him again.
“So, you’re The First,” he said. “Why are you here? Why now?”
“ ’Cause you’ve been coming up in the world, taking the demons out.” She gave her head a toss. “It makes a mother proud.”
“Yeah?” He took an aggressive step toward her. “Well, think how pleased she’ll be when I help take you out. Until it’s time for that, I’ve got no use for you.”
He turned to walk away.
“Would you like to know who killed me?” his mother asked. “I know you went looking for him. You can check it out after I tell you. Check the timing, rereading what the witnesses said, and the people in the subway station.”
His heart was pounding. “Who is it?”
“You met him,” she said, savoring the revelation. “You know him. You fight at his side.”
And then he knew. Deep in his soul, he had already known. He was nonplused by the revelation..
“Spike,” he said.
She smiled. “Now . . . what do you say?” she chided him.
He looked down and softly said, “Thank you.”
Chapter Fifteen: “Get It Done”
Patrol. In her own house.
Buffy kept watch over the Potentials. There were so many now, and from all over the world. In an effort to communicate, Giles had purchased stacks of foreign language books. In the living room, Buffy picked up one that was entitled “Greek” and placed it with the others.
She went upstairs, doing a sweep. Kennedy was in bed with Willow; other girls lay in sleeping bags wedged everywhere.
Then she heard crying and followed its path; a young girl was huddled on the floor at the end of the hall, her face hidden.
“Chloe? It is Chloe, right?” she asked.
Wearing an expression of utter despair, Chloe looked up at her. But before she could speak, a flash of motion smashed violently into Buffy. She and her assailant crashed down the stairs with a bone-rattling slam onto the foyer floor.
Buffy was pinned, strong hands holding her shoulders tight.
In her war makeup and her Rasta braids, the Primitive sat atop her chest like a nightmare and rasped at Buffy, “It’s not enough.”
Then Buffy bolted away.
Dream, she wondered, or vision?
* * *
Nightmare, Anya thought. As Buffy and Anya walked down an alley, she grumbled, “I’m a bright girl, good education, quick on the uptake. So tell me, why in the name of almighty Grothnar would I let myself become human?”
Spike favored her with a faint smile and said, “You’re really talking to the wrong fella.”
“I mean, sure, the vengeance demon gig has some downsides . . .”
“All jobs do,” he pointed out.
“But being human? You’re always icky on the inside, disgusting on the outside.”
Spike gave her an appreciative once-over. “Your outside’s not so bad.”
She was pleased. “You know, the only thing worse than being human is being trapped inside a house full of humans.”
“Preaching to the choir, love.”
“I mean, it’s like we live in Slayer central. I swear, if Buffy rooms or boards one more of the Potential girls, I’m gonna call a health inspector.”
“I like my plan better,” Spike mused. “Get up, get out, get drunk. Repeat as needed. It’s just more elegant.”
Then she nattered on, talking about drinking and sex . . . and more sex, until Spike looked heavenward for patience and said, “Would you let it go? You’re like a dog with a bone!”
“So what?” she asked heatedly.
“It’s my bone. Just drop it.”
“Okay, okay. I wasn’t proposing,” she said. “Time goes by, girl gets hungry. You should know.”
“Oh, thank God,” he said, looking past her.
“What?”
“Demon,” he told her.
And suddenly, a D’Korr demon rushed Anya, throwing her to the ground as he announced, “D’Hoffryn says you die!”
“Of course, he does,” Spike said calmly, and kicked him in the . . . bone.
He doubled over, and Spike seized the moment to seize Anya and drag her the hell out of there.
* * *
There was fighting in the school as well, more violence, more vandalism, as the bad vibes escalated.
“It’s started, hasn’t it?” Robin asked Buffy, as they conferred in her
office.
She nodded. “The Hellmouth has begun its semi-annual percolation,” she informed him. “Usually, it blows around May. We’re a little ahead of schedule.”
He took that in. “I can’t say I’m too surprised. I knew I signed on for something, but Buffy, I’m just a guy. Granted, a cool and sexy vampire-fighting guy, but still . . .”
She smiled at him. “Don’t forget ‘snappy dresser.’ ”
“Mmm.” He liked that. “Thank you. But this is going to get bigger than me.” He closed the blinds. “That’s why I decided to give you this.”
He reached down under her desk and placed a worn old leather satchel on her desk.
“It’s an emergency kit,” he told her. “This bag belonged to my mother.”
“Wow.” Buffy stared at it. “A Slayer keepsake. I couldn’t.”
“You have to,” he insisted. “Technically, it should have been handed down through the years, directly to you, but after my mother died, I guess I just couldn’t part with it. “I don’t know what’s inside, exactly, but I now it has something to do with her power. Well, your power now.”
“I—I don’t know what to say,” she murmured, staring at the bag.
He grinned. “Try saying, ‘Thank you, Principal Wood.’ ”
“Thank you, Principal Wood,” she coyly mimicked him.
“Ah, call me Robin,” he said. “Now, I’d like to see where you work.”
“Uh, here, actually.” She touched her desk. “Uh, this is my desk, and uh, these are my pencils . . .” She held up her pencil holder.
“No. Where you do your other work,” he told her.
* * *
So she took him home, debriefing him about the Potentials on the way.
“We thought the Council could protect them,” she told him as they went inside the house. “But unfortunately, no one was protecting the Council, and all their Watchers were killed. Word got out, and they’ve all been coming here since.”
“Well, there’s nothing like the end of the world to bring people together,” he drawled.
Then Andrew stomped into the room, his baker man ensemble complete with a white apron and red-and-white checked oven mitts.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, crossing his arms over his chest. “This funnel cake is kicking my ass.”
“Robin Wood, this is . . . Andrew. Andrew is . . . actually, he’s our hostage,” Buffy finished.
Andrew said, “I like to think of myself more as a”—air quotes—“guestage.”
“Well, he was evil, people got killed, and now he bakes,” Buffy said. “It’s a thing.”
“Oh,” Robin said.
Andrew narrowed his eyes at Buffy. “Could we try to just keep our secret headquarters a little bit more secret? Keep bringing people in, they’re gonna see everything. They’ll see the big board.”
“Andrew,” Buffy said patiently, “we don’t have a big board.”
Oh, yes they did.
Andrew fetched it, saying, “I made it myself.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t have guessed,” Robin said, as he gazed at the dry-erase board labeled SUNNYDALE BIG BOARD with a Sharpie-drawn map and lots of pretty colors.
“This is us,” Andrew said, pointing. “And this represents The First in various incarnations. There’s no pattern to the naked eye yet, but the instant one emerges, yours truly is on it.”
Buffy and Robin drifted away. Andrew called after Buffy, “Where do we put our receipts?”
They walked outside, where Kennedy was putting them through their martial arts paces.
“Punch block combo!” she bellowed.
“Huh!” the Potentials shouted, snapping to.
“Cross block kick!”
“Huh!”
They were doing well, all but one . . . Chloe, from Buffy’s dream. She was not keeping up.
Kennedy noticed, too. She marched up to the girl like a drill sergeant and shouted at her, “What the hell do you call that, Potential? Try that in the field, you are dead. Drop and give me twenty!”
Chloe was confused. “Twenty what?”
“Pushups, maggot!”
Then as Kennedy turned, she spotted Buffy and Robin, and grinned.
“I love this job!” she crowed. “Did you see that? I called that girl ‘maggot’!”
Buffy introduced Robin as an ally, and Kennedy said, “So, what do you think? My girls ready to kick some ass, or what?”
“Well, I’m just not sure The First has an ass that you can actually, you know, kick.”
“Principal Wood, hi!” Amanda called, waving at him. “It’s so weird seeing you outside of school.”
Kennedy shouted at her, “What are you waving at, Potential? Attention!”
“Huh!” they all chorused.
Buffy and Robin turned away, and Buffy said glumly, “You’re right. It’s not enough.”
“That’s not what I said, Buffy,” he argued. “It’s an impressive group of recruits.”
“They’re not recruits,” she said. “Recruits are recruited. These girls were Chosen.”
“You’re doing the best you can with what you’ve got.”
She would not be mollified. “They’re not all going to make it. Some will die, and nothing I can do will stop that.”
Then Willow popped out the back door with her arms brimming with weaponry. She froze, deer in headlights, Willow-style.
“Oh, hi, hey. Well . . . Buffy . . . I see that our preparations for the school pep-dance-cheer-drill contest are coming along.” She gave her head a little shake. “Bring it on!”
“Its okay,” Buffy told her. “I filled him in on everything.”
Willow heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. If I had to explain all these weapons, I had nothing.”
As she put the heavy weaponry down, Robin said, “You’re Willow.”
“You’re Wood,” she returned.
“Buffy tells me you’ve been, how shall I put it? Experimenting.”
Willow shot Buffy a look.
“With the magics,” he filled in.
“Oh. Yes,” she said awkwardly. “Nothing too heavy, though. Just the lighter, safer stuff. Uh, if Kennedy asks, her pointy stuff’s right there. See you inside.” She added as she wheeled around, “So much cooler than Snyder.”
Then she went inside. “She really almost destroyed the world?” he asked, intrigued.
“Yep.”
“Remind me not to make her crabbing,” he said flatly.
“It might be better if you did.”
He was confused. “How’s that work?”
She sighed. “It’s just . . . The First is coming, and look at us. The army. We’ve got fighters with nothing to hit, a Wicca who won’t use magic, and the brains of our operation wears oven mitts.”
“Hmm.” He was thoughtful. “Well, you’re redefining the job, Buffy. That takes guts.” A beat, and then, “This isn’t your full arsenal, anyway.” Off her look, he added, “Show me the vampire.”
* * *
Spike and Anya were arguing in the basement about their encounter with D’Hoffryn’s assassin the night before. Anya was pissed.
You fought like such a wimp-ire, with the lifting and the running,” she said. “Why not just kill him?”
“Anya, think,” Spike insisted. “I fight. Demon Boy gets lucky, knocked out, you get killed. True? We both know the safest and sanest way of saving your life was to keep you with me, away from danger.”
Defeated but no less pissed off, Anya walked off.
“No need to thank me,” Spike called after her. “I’m just the one who beat him off.” He gave Buffy a droll looked. “Repelled him would perhaps be the better phrase.”
He checked out Robin and said, “And just what brings our good principal to this neck of the gloom?”
“I’m showing him our operation,” Buffy told him. “Us.”
“Fine by me,” Spike replied, nodding. “Big fight against evil coming up. The more good
guys we got, the longer we’ll all live.”
Robin did not look at him. “Is that what you are? A good guy?”
“I haven’t heard any complaints. Well, I have heard a few complaints over the years, but then I just killed whoever spoke up, and that was pretty much that.”
Robin turned around and looked at him.
“He’s joking,” Buffy cut in quickly.
“No. He’s not,” Robin said.
“No, I’m not,” Spike concurred. “But . . . that’s the old me I’m talking about.”
“Oh, now that you have a soul,” Robin said. “And how’s that working out for you?”
“In progress,” Spike said, lifting his chin.
“Well, you’ve had some time. You’ve been in Sunnydale, what . . . ?”
“Years,” Spike said.
“How many?”
“A few,” Spike replied tersely.
“Before that?”
“Around.” Spike was not loving the third degree.
Buffy felt the tension. She said to Robin, “We’d better get back upstairs.”
* * *
Robin left, and Buffy and Dawn fell to sleeping bag duty in Dawn’s room. It took a long time; there were a lot of Potentials sleeping at their house.
“So, I took a look in inside that emergency bag of Principal Wood’s,” Dawn told Buffy. “Smelled weird. Kind of like Grandma’s closet, but worse.”
Buffy made a face. “I didn’t know that was possible. Anything we could use?”
Dawn shrugged. “Trinkets, weapons, one very large textbook.” She held it up for display and began to flip through it. “Translation’s going to be a bitch. Do you know that ancient Sumerians do not speak English?”
“They’re worse than the French,” Buffy quipped. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” Dawn told her. “A big, fat unopenable box. I’m betting whatever the big deal about this emergency bag is, you’ll find it in the box.”
“Good. Keep on it.” Buffy walked out of the room. “Don’t you have any real homework?”
“Well, I’ve got a system,” Dawn said, trailing after her. “It’s called flunking out. No, just kidding! I’m paying someone to do my work.” She giggled. “I’m kidding! I love to see your eyeballs change color when you think I’m gonna flunk out of—”