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dragonyphoenix) wrote2015-02-08 10:34 pm
Fic: Shanshu 17 - A Nice, Little Chat
Fandom: BtVS
Prompt: 447 - Rhetorical Question
Rating: PG
Summary: Part 17 of Shanshu
Word Count: 1921
“And if you will just step into my office,” Andrew said, “we can talk in private.”
The walls had been replaced with bookcases that ranged from the floor up to the ceiling, or maybe the bookcases had always been there, but Willow rather guessed not. It wasn't that the bookcases looked added-on because they didn't. It was more that most books were stored in actual libraries. “Um, do you really need to store all these books in your office? Because I think we could afford storage space.”
“The knowledge in these dread tomes is not for the uninitiated, my dear girl.” Willow watched as Andrew startled back in response to her glare of death, which, good, meant she was getting better at the death-glare. “Um, I mean woman, or, er, witch.”
Dread tomes? If they were really that bad, they should be under lock and key. Surely Andrew's office wouldn't be secure enough. She scanned the shelves and stifled a laugh. “Andrew, you have Magic for Dummies in here.”
“Nay, dear lady, surely not.”
Willow pulled the book from the shelf and showed him the title, An Introduction to Magical Systems. Okay, so it wasn't actually called Magic for Dummies, but still.
“That one, uh, must have been misfiled.”
As she reshelved the book, Willow gazed down at the floor. The parquetry pattern laid out in light and dark looked familiar, like something she'd seen thousands of times, something from a place more familiar than home. Oh. “Is that the pattern from the floor of our high-school library?”
At the far end of the room, a couple of feet out from another wall of books, Xander flopped down onto the leather couch, leaving the rest of the couch or the three chairs, also leather, for her and Andrew. “When I told him that his office couldn't reproduce the Magic Box, he went for the school library instead.”
“As long as there's no Hellmouth underneath,” Willow muttered.
“I assure you …”
“Never mind,” Willow interrupted. “If there were, I'd know.”
“Huh?”
“The big mojo?” Xander asked.
“That and growing up on one,” Willow said as she took the other end of the couch.
“And on that note,” Xander said, “with big Hellmouthy goodness looking over our shoulder, maybe we should get started.”
Andrew remained standing. Willow could see him thinking the extra height gave him more authority. “The presumably shanshued Vampyre, Spike, has been seen by one Watcher.” He gestured toward Xander. “Said valiant defender noticed the presence of a reflection. Further research has remained inconclusive largely because said possibly shanshued Vampyre has not been available for, uh, research purposes.”
“Xander saw Spike's reflection and then lost Spike. Yeah, got that.”
“Hey,” Xander complained. He glanced between the two of them and shrugged. “Well, okay, yeah.”
“The Vampyre, uh, sorry, presumably shanshued Vampyre …”
“Andrew!” Xander raised his right hand in a stop position. “We tried tracking Spike through security cameras,” Xander continued, “but they'd been disabled.”
“That sounds bad. Is that bad?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Unusual at least,” Xander said. “A couple of our best witches tried to track Spike from the hotel, but came up with nothing.”
“Well, that makes sense. He'd register as a human so unless we had something that had belonged to him, he'd be impossible to find.”
“That is exactly what Mr. Giles confirmed after we'd made the experiment.” Andrew said the name, Mr. Giles, as if he'd thought Giles had hung the moon. No wonder Andrew had been assigned here, at the far end of the country, while Giles worked out of Council HQ in London.
“After I'd seen the reflection, I'd tried chasing Spike, running out of the hotel but it was no go. He was nowhere to be seen.”
“At least the police officers didn't detain you again,” Andrew said.
“Police?” Willow asked.
“Yes, thank you Andrew, I was getting to that. It seems a group of skaters – with skateboards, not ice skates – had taken over the hotel lobby around the same time Spike had come up to see me. We're not sure it's related but seemed like a good bet so we've got – what, three girls? – making nice with the skaters. Of course the girls have to build some trust before they're gonna get anything.”
“Four girls,” Andrew said. “Tatiana doesn't speak English that well but she's kick-ass with her board. Remember that scene where Legolas slid down the Oliphant?”
“Andrew,” Xander interrupted. “You promised. No digressions.”
“I was just gonna say,” Andrew said quietly, “that Tatiana could totally kick Legolas' butt on a board.”
“No she couldn't.”
Uh oh, that was Xander's you are not winning this argument voice. Willow jumped in before they could start bickering. “Okay, so Spike's missing and we don't have any real leads, at least for the moment, but it's Spike. Even if he's human, he can take care of himself, right?”
As the silence continued, Willow glanced between the two of them. Okay, if it had shut Andrew up, it must be bad. “What?”
“Spike, well …”
“Spike, well, what?”
Xander's words came out in a rush. “I'm not sure he knew who he was.”
“You're not sure … You mean he has amnesia?”
“I, uh, think so?” Xander had his I really don't want to tell you tone of voice going.
“What did he say?” Willow asked.
“It wasn't so much what he said as … well …”
“Xander.”
“He didn't remember the rape.”
“The rape? With Buffy?”
“Do you remember any other rape?”
“I thought you only saw him for a few minutes,” Willow said. “And you brought up the rape?”
“It was Spike, okay?” Xander was all but shouting. “Evil undead. Vampire. Did you expect me to invite him in for tea and crumpets?”
Oh, yeah. Xander with the whole wigging because vamps had killed newbie Slayers before Xander could save them, leaving the corpses for Xander to find. Shit. He so wasn't the best person for Spike to have gone to. They should have brought Xander in from the field a whole hell of a lot sooner. “Okay, okay. So, we hope that the skaters know something. Anything else?”
Andrew had sort of faded against the bookshelves, but when Xander didn't speak up, he did. “We're sort of, um, hoping that you could pick up Spike's trail at the hotel. You know, because you're a real powerful Wicca and you, um, knew him.”
“Oh.” Yeah, they could give that a try. It probably wouldn't work but now wasn't the time to bring that up.
Andrew took a step closer. “And when Buffy gets here, maybe she'll have some ideas.”
“Buffy? When Buffy gets here? As in Buffy's flying in?”
“Well, um, yeah?” Andrew asked. “I mean, we have a potential apocalypse and also a vampire who may or may not have shanshued.”
“Andrew, I'm fairly sure her question was rhetorical.”
Willow bit her tongue. What, someone thought we couldn't handle one little apocalypse without Buffy?
“Will,” Xander said. “Spike's back. She'd want to know.”
“Their love was a pure love, a noble love, a love that surpassed even life, or, well, undeath, itself. Why, after Spike sacrificed himself …”
“After Spike sacrificed himself, Buffy was pounding on my door after only one night looking for a spell to anchor Angel's soul.”
Andrew had plastered himself against the bookshelf again. At least he'd learned when to duck. Goddess but she could use a drink. Willow stood and snapped the question out at Andrew. “Where do you keep your liquor?”
He pointed behind his desk. “I, er, panel.”
Willow pulled the panel aside. Not more books, as she'd first thought, but drinks. Rum. Cans of coke. Pomegranate vodka. And Scotch. Royal Lochnagar. Only twelve years old, but still, not something Andrew would have picked up for himself. Probably a going-away gift from Giles. Willow poured herself a glass and turned back to the room. “Buffy used Spike and once he was gone she threw herself at the first warm body that came along.”
Andrew's voice came quietly from the edge of the room. “But, um, wouldn't Angel's body be cold? I mean, vampire and all.”
“Let it go, Andrew,” Xander replied. “I'm pretty sure we're not talking Buffy and Angel or even Buffy and Spike here.”
Willow took a swig, not even tasting the Scotch. “Sure we are. She killed him, well, not killed-killed so much as let him use the amulet which she knew would kill him. Just as soon as Angel came back, poof, Spike was gone. That doesn't seem a bit too convenient?”
“And this has nothing to do with you cheating on Kennedy with demony snake-goddess woman because you felt guilty?”
“Hey, I don't have dead ex-lovers coming back and messing up my relationships.”
Willow drained the glass and poured herself another grateful that Xander and Andrew both had the courtesy to not bring up Tara's name. She hadn't felt guilty. She hadn't done anything to feel guilty about. Just because Buffy killed one lover and bounced into bed with the next … Shit.
She finished off the Scotch in her glass, closed the panel, and put the glass down on Andrew's desk pad. The blotter paper had an image of Darth Vader. Of course it did. “You want me to check for Spike's trail at the hotel.”
Andrew looked visibly relieved. Xander did too, but you had to know him well to see it. “Yeah,” Xander said. “We could head over now.”
Good, and then maybe, after she couldn't find Spike, she could retreat to her room.
“I can't come with you,” Andrew blurted out. “I'm taking some Slayers out tonight, and I'm busy, and I can't come.”
“That's okay.” Goddess, did she sound as tired as she felt? “I'm sorry for the, the stuff.”
“Oh, that's alright. I'm used to explosions in my office. You try living with hundreds of teenage girls. Why yours was nothing compared to, well, they usually don't drink my Scotch but I don't really like it that much anyway.”
Ah, good, normal, or at least pretending to be normal. “Taking Slayers out? I thought they went out Slaying on their own.”
“Sometimes Xander or I go along to offer support or critique, but you want to be careful when critiquing Ella because she doesn't take constructive criticism all that well and anyway Xander can't go because there was that witness and he got picked up by the police but luckily it had been a vamp so there was no body.”
Xander had risen to his feet during Andrew's babble, but stopped after taking one step, stared off at nothing, and then smacked himself on the head. “Oh, God, I'm such an idiot.”
“Xander, what is it?”
“Spike. The hotel wasn't my first Spike spotting. When I was being arrested, he'd been leaving, uh, some kind of cafe or something.”
“Another lead.” Oh, good, because that magic trail Xander had been hoping for, so not going to work.
“Another lead,” Xander agreed.
“Another lead,” Andrew repeated. “I will send my stealthiest team …”
“Willow and I will check it out.”
“Ah, well then I will move Buffy's hotel room so she's not on the same floor …”
“Andrew,” Willow interrupted. “It's okay. I'm just …” projecting my own guilt “… tired. Leave Buffy's room. It'll be fine.”
“If you're sure,” he asked doubtfully.
One little tiff and now she had Andrew walking on eggshells. Great. At least he wasn't trying to fix anything.
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I can't wait to see what Willow does next!
Gabrielle
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