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Chapter 5 - California Dreamin'
Saturday, May 4th, 2002
"Buffy, come back. Buffy?"
Dawn tried to shake her sister back into awareness. When
that didn't work she started working out her options. She couldn't leave
her unattended. It was still daylight, but only just, and it was Sunnydale.
Taking the coffee from her hands and placing it on the ground, she pulled
her sister to her feet. Relief flowed through her. It worked. At least
Buffy wasn't frozen to the spot and, once she pulled her halfway, it was
as if she did the rest of it and stayed upright on her own.
So far, so good. She pulled Buffy's bag from her shoulder
and checked her purse. There were thirty dollars in it. She replaced the
purse in her bag and put the bag over her own shoulder. She took Buffy's
hand and walked a few paces. Buffy's body shuffled along behind her. When
she stopped, it stopped. If she wasn't pulling on its arm, it just stood
motionless except for an occasional blink. It was all creeping Dawn out
in a major way. If there was anyone else here to take charge she would
just freak out and let them get on with it, but she was on her own, for
now.
She pulled Buffy's body toward the nearest phone box.
The first number she tried rang several times and then a machine kicked
in.
"Xander, if you're there, pick up," she begged. "It's Dawn." She waited
for a while but there was no response and she replaced the receiver. Willow
might or might not be back from class, but there wasn't anything Willow could do about
getting the pair of them home. Why was it out of all the people who knew
about the weird stuff only two of them could drive and one of them was
solarly challenged and didn't have a phone? Dawn dialled a number she
found on one of the stickers that festooned the booth, summoning a taxi.
Buffy was dreaming. It was a very strange dream. She
was dreaming about the night that Riley came back to town, but it was
as if she were watching herself. She viewed her own entrance to Spike's crypt,
feeling a tingle of excitement, a sudden happiness that she was at a loss
to explain. She hadn't been happy that night and that 'low down tingle',
as Faith had once so eloquently put it? Well, it was there, but it sure
wasn't right.
She tried to look down at her body, but it seemed as
if she had no control. Okay, this was too weird. Time to wake up... Now...
please? Try as she might, she couldn't force herself to wake up. Words
were coming out of her mouth, but they weren't her words. They were Spike's
words. She knew exactly what Spike had been going to say when she asked
him to tell her that he wanted her and she could feel it as well. Oh my God! She
was hitchhiking in Spike's body. The desire, the hope and, God help her,
the love she was feeling, they were his. It was the way he
had felt.
She relived the earlier part of that night, from her
arrival at the crypt until Spike finally drifted off to sleep, holding
her in his arms. She was aware for the first time that he had been awake
long after she had succumbed to her fatigue, blissfully happy just to
watch her, to be allowed that close to her post coitus.
Then the dream changed, or she rode piggy back as he
dreamt another dream within his dream. Spike and Xander were talking to
some old man. The old guy was asking about a spell Dawn did. He said she
changed her mind, and Buffy felt the wave of grief at the memory before
she realised what he was talking about. Spike had taken Dawn there. He
had helped her when she tried to resurrect her mother. Spike had grieved
for her mother? He had grieved not just for himself but for her pain and Dawn's.
The old guy warned her to stay away from hell-gods and
she knew how much she wanted to take that advice except that choice was
no choice at all because she loved Dawn more than her own life. Suddenly,
the old man leaped diagonally across the room in a way that suggested
he wasn't an old man at all and then the demon was behind her and, when she turned,
it was holding a sword to her throat. She managed to swat the blade out
of the monster's hand but the manoeuvre forced her to fall over backward,
scattering a pile of books.
Xander tried to take advantage of it being disarmed, but
the beast's tongue came out like a lizard's, knocking him into the wall.
From her semi-prone position on the ground she watched the sole of its
foot come toward her face. It picked up a wooden box and threw it into
the fire, returning to grab her by her T-shirt, threatening her, before Xander
recovered enough to tackle it.
She knew that the box was her only hope to find out what
she needed to know to save Dawn, and that made her brave the flames that
she knew could burn her to ash in just seconds. By the time she pulled the box from the
fire, Xander had recovered the dropped sword and driven it through the
chest of the demon. Its blood seeped from the wound like blue dishwashing detergent.
She was going to leave... and part of her knew that in real
life she had done, but some intuition forced her not to. Passing the box
to Xander, she pulled the blade from the wound and used it to sever the
demon's head from its body, throwing it into the fireplace. The eyes stared back at her,
no longer human-looking but irises black and enlarged, and the mouth opened
in a silent scream. She watched until the head shrivelled and blackened
and then she picked up the sword once more and hacked the remains to pieces.
The scene changed and she crouched with Xander and Anya
at the base of the tower. Glory's underlings defended the bottom of
the stairs but time was working in the slayer's favour. As long as Dream
Buffy could keep Glory busy there was no one to perform the sacrifice.
There would have been... but there wasn't. She watched as Glory turned back
into Ben and Dream Buffy rushed to the top of the tower, untying her sister
and bringing her down.
Glory's minions had scattered once she was defeated and
Buffy knew that Spike wanted to rush to meet his women, as he thought of
them. Instead, he slipped away into the shadows, knowing he wouldn't be
wanted now he had played his part. She watched from a distance as Dream
Buffy brought her sister unharmed to the ground and her heart filled with
pride and love before she walked away.
A door appeared in front of her and she opened it, walking
through into either a costume party or a party from Spike's youth. Her
eyes scanned the room, drawn to a couple who shared a sofa. She moved toward
them but for some reason she was reluctant to do so. She knew that watching
this was going to dig up some old remembered pain, but she didn't see
how. The man was mousy, timid and he sat with his shoulders rounded in
as if he was trying to make himself look smaller, like he preferred to
be ignored. The woman for some reason looked vaguely familiar, but Buffy
couldn't quite place her.
She moved closer, close enough to hear what the pair
were saying. She realised as she heard him speak, even though the tone
was more refined than she was used to, that this was Spike, or rather
William.
"I know... it's sudden and... please, if they're no good,
they're only words but... the feeling behind them. I love you, Buffy."
The sound of her own name threw her and she realised
that the woman in the crinoline was in fact now her. She had been busy
concentrating on Spike and the world had changed around her.
The girl
with her face responded adversely to William's pleas. "Please stop!"
"I know I'm a bad poet but I'm a good man... and all I
ask is that you try to see me—"
"I do see you... That's the problem. You're nothing to
me, William. You're beneath me."
Bank notes fluttered around her as she sat in the alley
by the Bronze, tears running down her face, as she watched the slayer's
retreating back.
"But you don't see me...," she protested. "I've tried to make it clear to
you, but you won't see it." She rose from the ground before carrying on
with what she had to say to Dream Buffy, who had halted when she heard
Spike's voice. "Something happened to me. The way I feel... about you...
it's different. And no matter how hard you try to convince yourself it
isn't, it's real."
She watched Dream Buffy's feet as she turned to face
her. "I think it is." Her eyes rose to look at the other Buffy's face,
her heart filled with hope. "For you."
A pain so deep it was almost physical lanced through
her. She drew a deep breath that she didn't need as her eyes flew wide.
She realised that her cheeks were wet and wiped at them with her hand,
but it made little difference as more tears kept falling.
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