Fic:"Who...?" Part XXXIV...
reg...@aol.com
Disclaimer: Not mine but thine...O, Joss!
Archived at the Cicelyverse page of the Buffy Rebecca verse,
http://www.geocities.com/buffyrebecca/Cicelypg.html or direct to story
at http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/buffyrebecca/who.html...
General audience level...
Summary: Events after the great Sunnydale battle have left Buffy
seeking her past and present...With help from an Immortal source.
Part XXXIV...
“Welcome to my…” Harmony tried sounding the gracious note…
Buffy shoving her in…Willow, a bit apologetic… “Nice place…” she noted…
Following…
Hmmn…Perhaps an invite wasn’t the right way to go…Harmony thought as
Buffy continued to urge her along into the living room…
Buffy sure seems the demonically possessed type right now…
“Have a seat…” she feebly waved at the designer sofa… “Oh, wait, let
me get the slip cov…”
Buffy pulling her back… “Enough, miss…Stay right here…”
“…Kendall…Though for my family’s sake I use Kendall-Jones now…”
Harmony, helpfully…
“I’ll be fine with a chair…” Willow, moving to a leather armchair…Hmmn…
Nice…
“…And I’ll stand here with you…” Buffy, tersely, holding Harmony’s
arm… “Now…”
“Would anyone like a drink?...I’m not a big wine person but I think I
have some mer…”
“Miss…Kendall…” Buffy, grimly… “I asked you where my husband was…Now
do you know or have a reasonable idea or no?...”
Willow a bit uncomfortable…Kid’s trying to be nice, Buf…
And we haven’t exactly fretted over her sad fate these past few…
“Uh…Not really, Buffy…” Harmony, a bit haplessly… “Angel said
something about them all going to do something before they took on the
Black Thorns tonight…Live a little or whatever, you know?...” she
paused… “Spike?...Really?...” she looked at Buffy…
“Really…” Buffy, dryly…Cool stare…
“I might’ve known…” Harmony sighed… “He was always going on about you…
And Angel, for that stuff about you and him…”
“The way love goes sometimes…” Buffy, coolly… “Glad he realized we’d
no future…”
“Yeah, he’s pretty keen on Nina now…” Harmony nodded…
“Oh?...Another vampiress?...” Buffy asked… “Anyone I’ve failed to kill
in the last ten years?...”
I don’t know if I like the way this is going…Willow thought…
“Oh, no…Werewolf and pretty recent…Nice girl, if you like that sorta
thing…No murders that I know of…” Harm shrugged…
“That’s fine…Now…” Buffy, pulling Harmony closer… “Where do you think
William got himself off to and where are your friends the Partners…?”
“Oh, they’re not my friends…Didn’t Angel tell you I’m part of his
team?...” Harm, eagerly…
Go Angel…Willow conjured up image of Harmony with pom-poms…Hmmn…
Uh…Sorry Tara, Ken…Really didn’t mean for that to get sexual…
“Please, miss…” Buffy smiled coolly… “Whatever you may rightly think
of Miss Summers, don’t insult my intelligence…You’re a spy for the
Partners appointed to monitor Mr. Angel and his activities…”
Whoa…Brit Buffy is good…Harm thought, admiringly…
What’s that crack about Buffy all about?...Willow, frowning…God,
Cicely…Buf been berry, berry good to Cicely…Sparing your hubs,
providing a bod to run around in…Whether she’s half you or another
complete reincarnated self, enough with this jealous need to run her
down at every opp…
“…And however much the shining gleam of his extensive ego may blind
him, even Mr. Angel must be quite aware of your activities against
him…” Buffy continued… “So, for your own sake…”
Angel, on to me?...No way…Harm, annoyed…
I mean I’ve thoroughly professional in attending to my secretarial
things even while betraying him…Hmmn, hee…That reminds me…She giggled
a little, startling Buffy and Willow…
Insanity catching in vampiresses?...Buffy eyed Willow…
“It’s…Spike said the funniest thing talking to Angel about their plan
the other night…” Harm began…
Ummn…Probably best not to explain that I was eavesdropping for Marcus…
“…Angel said ‘One of you is going to betray me’ and Spike says…” Arggh…
She gasped as Buffy gripped her by the throat…Lifting her up to
Willow’s stunned surprise…
“If you ever…Call my husband by that name again…” Buffy said, rather
calmly… “I’ll put you through the nearest wooden wall or roof…Do you
understand, Miss Kendall?...”
“Uh…Yeah…Yeah…Sorry…” Harmony, twisting in Buffy’s grip…
“Buffy…” Willow was on her feet… “We don’t torment…”
“No…” she lowered Harmony… “But that was hardly what I call torment…I
hope you get my meaning, Miss Kendall?...”
“Sure…Sorry…” Harmony choked out… “Could I have a glass of water…?”
“Willow, would you?...” Buffy asked…
“The bottled in the fridge, not the tap…” Harmony called…
“So what did William say…?” Startling Willow in the kitchenette by
the said fridge with the sudden eagerness of the question…
“Uh…”
“Yes?...Please…” Buffy waved a hand… “Sit down if you like…”
“…Thanks…” Harmony took a seat on the sofa… “Well…” she relaxed a
little…Thanks…She beamed to Willow as Willow brought her a glass of
water…
“…He said… ‘Can I deny you three times?’...” giggle…
“Oh my…” Buffy grinned… “Now that is my William…” smile to Willow…
Followed by…
“Buffy?...” Harmony, genuinely shocked by the sudden explosion of
sobbing…
“Buffy…” Willow anxiously, carefully glance at Harmony…Part sympathy,
part…Deadly killer vamp to mind, no time to lose focus, please…
“Sorry…” Buffy calmed almost immediately… “Foolish of me…But it was so
like him…” she beamed through tears…
“So he was always like that, eh?...” Willow smiled…
***
Office of the Chairman of the Council of Antiquarians and Library
Scientists, London…
Magda at her desk frowning at the vocal intensity issuing from the
inner sanctum…
“What do you mean, you’ve ‘lost track’ of Dawn, Andrew?!...” a pacing
Giles fumed at his phone… “I specifically asked that you keep informed
of her whereabouts for the next few days!!…Damn, you boy!!!...”
Roger Wyndham-Price, sitting on Giles’ desk, eyeing Olive Knowles
standing near who glanced at him…Uncertain look to his smile…
“I’d guess Ms. Summers-Walthrop allowed her Walthropian side to
dominate…” he noted quietly…
“You don’t think she’s gone to LA?...” Olive asked…
“I’d say it was a certainty…And Xander Harris is gone from Nairobi,
via flight to Rome…”
“They’ve both gone…?”
“It’s to be expected…” Roger nodded… “They’re both integral players in
this…”
Olive stared at him… “Did you…?”
He put up a hand as Giles resumed… “You do know that Xander Harris
arrived in Rome just the other day?...Good…Well?!...”
“But why Mr. Harris?...” Olive asked Roger… “I mean, I understand why
he’d accompany Miss Summers… But…”
“Henry Alexander Foxcroft would never refrain from helping the two
people he loved most, apart from his own wife…” Roger, calmly…
“But…” Olive blinked… “He’s…Never…”
“Mr. Harris may not remember his soul’s past as Ms. Summers now does…
But he is Henry Foxcroft’s soul…” Roger noted… “Besides, he wants to
be in at the kill…”
“What?...”
“He almost succeeded in 1886 but there was no way for him block
Farris’ black soul from escaping…Naturally, resolute fellow that he
was always said to be, he wants to help end this…Forever…And free his
friends…”
Olive shook her head…He offered a seat beside the desk with a wave of
hand…She remaining standing…
“But what about the Partners’ army?...” she leaned forward as Giles
continued to interrogate Andrew in increasingly angry tones… “They’re
in terrible danger…” she paused, eyeing Roger…
“You deliberately let them go…” she frowned, glancing over to Giles…
“You knew she would go and he too…”
“All the players in position…” Roger nodded…Quick glance at angry
Giles on the phone…
“Wells must be commended after this…Even if he knows Rupert is merely
feigning…I’ve been on the receiving end of the Ripper’s wrath once or
twice…”
“Giles is…”
“We couldn’t take the chance the Partners or others are monitoring our
communications, Ms. Knowles…And naturally we want them to know
everyone is somewhere about, on the playing board…It will only
encourage them to risk maximum force…”
“But…If anything happens to Miss Summers…Or Mr. Harris?...And Cicely
learns you let them come…”
“Cicely will quite probably kill us…Perhaps with her husband’s assist
should William survive as well…”
“But Dawn?...And Mr. Harris…Not meaning to denigrate them but their
only value is to Cicely and William…How is risking them?...”
“Dawn is also the Glorificus energy key, Ms. Knowles…” Roger shrugged…
“That alone would make her of substantial interest to the Partners…But
as we both know, there’s someone else who would be very interested in
having the daughter of his enemies and the soul of the man who killed
him present for the final act…”
“Dr. Farris…?” Olive blinked… “You believe he’s in LA…?”
“No…” Giles had hung up the phone and come over… “But he will be there…
He’ll want to see the outcome, even if he leaves the fighting to his
allies…”
“I see…” Olive sighed…Glancing at the two…A wry smile finally coming
up…
“And here I was hoping this mysterious summons to your office meant
you’d forgiven me, Rupert…”
“It was clever of you to hide in a relation of Spike’s, Doctor…The
chance to follow him unsuspected all through these last years of
climax…” Giles nodded… “But you gave yourself away in reviving Cicely
and subduing our Slayer…At the very least, surely a Walthrop with that
level of magics ability could have been of greater assistance to
William…”
“Don’t try to leave…I shouldn’t wish to injure your host…She is, after
all, quite innocent…” Roger kept the small pistol he’d pulled from a
drawer on Ms. Knowles…Who smiled warmly… “And you should know you
would never get past Ms. Magda and her barrier…”
“Ah, dear Magda…Nice to know her skills haven’t diminished with time…
Gentlemen…” she frowned at Roger’s gun… “Hardly necessary…You both
know nothing would keep me from being at Cicely’s side at such a
moment…And you knew…All this time…?”
“Not absolutely…Not until you left your calling card for Cicely in
Rome…” Giles sighed… “Though it was Henri who confirmed it…He being
the only one of us to have ever met you besides Mr. Harris…And
Foxcroft’s memories of you failed to surface…That was what Henri was
observing that night in the villa…He’d watched to see if his friend
would surface and identify you…But he was sure…Your gestures…Your
mannerisms…And the fact he was in the garden that afternoon and saw
that no one else could have fired that dart at Buffy and Dawn…”
“Pity…I thought I’d played the damsel quite well…” Olive shook her
head… “But the Immortal has the advantage of skills of patience and
observation acquired over centuries and some habits are deuced hard to
break…I hope this doesn’t disturb you too much, Rupert…” coy smile…
“I assure you I largely left Ms. Knowles to handle things on her own
with you, since it benefited me, once I’d directed her your way…”
“We’ve a trip to make, Doctor…” Giles replied, coldly… “I trust you’ll
make no trouble until we reach LA…”
“You mean, it’s not too late?...” she smiled… “Wonderful news…I take
it we will teleport?...And that you have an army of Slayers and those
delightful cyborgs ready to counterattack?...”
“No, as to the army…” Giles replied… “Nothing more than we already
sent…You and your friends will not have a chance to destroy our
Slayers en masse…”
“Foolish…Not use your advance intelligence to mass a proper force?...”
Olive frowned…
“If you’d allow us opportunity to mass such a force, you’ve a
defense…” Roger smiled… “Besides…Cicely and her husband, let alone
Angel and my boy…Have defeated worse on their own…And we’ll be there
to assist them…”
“And if I should put up resistance and force you to kill the poor
shell…?” Olive, brightly…
“You won’t be cut off from Earth now…” Giles eyed her… “Possibly in LA
we may have to deal with you…But you want to get to LA as badly as we
do…Clever as it was for you not to insist on accompanying Cicely and
Willow…”
“That would have been foolish…Still, I was rather afraid I’d have to
do it on my own and loot the archives for an energy orb…” she grinned…
“But after your call I rather suspected you might have finally put the
pieces together…Well, colleagues…” she eyed them… “Shall we go watch
my Slayer destroy the combined forces of Demonity?...” brightly warm
smile…She turned for the door…
“I am sorry, Olive…” Giles replied…
***