1880 - Chapter 7

Buffy woke to a knock on the door. She peeled her face off the page of the book she’d fallen asleep on and stood slowly, stretching as she yawned.

Walking over to the door, she unlocked it and opened it. She peered around it and smiled at the man who had brought her breakfast.

“Thank you.” Buffy took the tray from him and carried it sleepily over to the table.

Stifling another yawn, she sat down and began to eat while sifting through the book. She hadn’t made it far. Barely a few pages in she’d succumbed to sleep.

She never had been good at research.

Working her way through both the book and her breakfast, she frowned as she realised that she was wasting her time with this one. She pushed it to one side and pulled the tome that William had found towards her.

Another knock at the door signalled her tea had arrived and she moved immediately to answer it.

Taking the tray the man offered her, she placed it down on the table and moved the near empty breakfast tray to the side table. She was going to have to do some serious patrolling to burn off all the calories she was eating here, but the food was so delicious that she found it irresistible. Popping the final piece of bacon into her mouth, she wiped her fingers on the napkin and walked back to the table.

She poured herself a cup of tea and sat back in her armchair, placing the large book on her lap. She slowly began to work through the pages and had made it halfway through the letter ‘a’ when there was another knock at the door. Placing the book back on the table, she answered the door and smiled broadly when she found William on the other side of it.

He looked different today. Instead of a brown suit, he was wearing a dark charcoal one, and it only made her think even more of Spike when she looked at him. She ushered him into the room and then closed the door behind him.

As he sat down, she stopped in front of the tea set.

“Would you like a cup? It’s still hot.” Buffy held the pot up for him to see and he nodded.

“That would be lovely.” He watched her as she poured him a cup of tea and topped up her one.

“Milk, sugar? I thought you wouldn’t be over for ages yet.”

He smiled at the way she spoke, all her thoughts jumbled into one sentence as though she couldn’t wait for him to answer her question before saying the next thing.

“Milk, no sugar, thank you.”

Buffy carried the cup over to him and smiled as she handed it to him and then settled back in her chair again, placing the tome back on her lap as she curled up.

“I couldn’t sleep after last night. I’ve never done anything so dangerous, never been so thrilled. You seemed to take it all in your stride.”

She shrugged. “Guess it’s a pretty standard night for me, except the whole breaking and entering thing. I don’t usually do things like that.”

He sipped his tea, looking at her with wide excited eyes.

“I see. A first for both of us.”

“Well…” Buffy looked awkward. “I wouldn’t say it was a first. I mean, there was this time that Faith broke into this store and stole a bunch of stuff. I was with her. It was this whole ‘want, take’ thing of hers.”

William just sipped his tea, not knowing how to respond to her admission.

Picking up one of the books, he read the title on the spine and then opened it on his lap. He flicked through the pages idly, looking for something that might help her in her quest to get home and trying to stifle all the questions that he wanted to ask about the man he would become. He knew she wouldn’t answer any more of them, and he couldn’t blame her. The more she told him, the more she was jeopardising the future and she couldn’t allow that.

Buffy smiled over her tea at him as he placed the little glasses on his nose and began to read. There was something about the way he approached a book that reminded her of Giles more than Spike. He was holding it so carefully, turning the pages painfully slowly as though they would crumble to dust if he did it any faster.

There was something almost reverent in his manner, something that made her feel as though any second now he was going to start spouting off things like ‘books should be respected’ and other such Giles statements.

She quickly flicked a page and gave him an innocent look as he frowned. Noisily flicking another one, she giggled as he arched a brow at her.

She stopped as she looked at it. He hadn’t got his scar yet. She remembered him telling her that he got it in China, during the boxer rebellion in the early 1900s.

“May I see the amulet again, Buffy?” William asked as he watched her staring at him.

“Mmm? Um, sure.” She dug her hand into her pocket and placed the amulet down on the table in front of him.

He seemed to stare at it hard, as though he was trying to memorise every detail of it and then he stood, taking the book with him as he began to pace.

She smiled.

Pacing.

That was something very Spike like.

She watched him for a couple of minutes as he slowly paced back and forth, gently flicking the pages as he searched for the amulet. Turning her attention back to her book, she looked carefully at each diagram of an amulet and then flicked the page and did the same again.


Halfway through her book, Buffy had managed to go from A to K with no success. The clock on the mantelpiece was chiming three in the afternoon, and even William was beginning to look bored.

“Shall I order us some refreshments?” He asked as he sat down opposite her and placed another book down on the pile of ones he’d looked through.

Buffy nodded enthusiastically. She was parched and starved. She needed something to wake her up or William was going to see her specialty of falling asleep on books, and for some reason around him she didn’t want to look like she couldn’t handle a book.

Her friends joked enough about her lack of reading. She didn’t want William to think she was like that. She wanted to make a good first impression on him, and on Spike.

She waited in silence as he left the room and she found herself staring at the fire as she passed the time. When he returned, she looked up at him with a smile but couldn’t stop herself from sighing.

“Something wrong?” William asked as he sat himself down opposite her again and looked at her.

“Just losing hope of finding this damn amulet in this book.” She held the book up, showing him that she was over half way through now and there was no sign of it.

“Rest a while. You’ve been working hard all day. You need some time to rest.” He took the book from her and placed it down on the table, leaving it open on the page she’d been on. “Tea will arrive soon. When we’re refreshed we can begin again.”

Buffy smiled at him. Spike was always telling her not to push herself too hard. He was always finding ways to get her away from the taxation of research. Part of her wanted to do that right now. She wanted to go and patrol, anything except spend the rest of the day with her nose stuck in a book.

Standing up, she stretched as she began to walk around the room. She stifled a yawn as she blinked sleepily and tried to wake herself up. She longed for a cappuccino, or espresso, but she got the feeling that if she asked for one the hotel staff would look at her as though she was insane.

William found himself watching her as she paced back and forth along the length of the room. There was a natural grace to her movements, they were light and smooth as she walked and he found himself mesmerised by her again.

She had her head bent, her eyes fixed on the floor as she slowly walked. Her hair was falling down around her face, escaping the confines of her ponytail and hiding part of her profile from his eyes. Her lips were parted slightly, softly, and it made his eyes linger there the longest.

When she looked down at her stomach and pressed her hand to it, there was a flicker of longing in her expression that made him wonder what she was thinking about.

She was thinking about Spike.

She felt crazy for thinking such a thing, and wasn’t sure if it was just the stress and the situation she’d found herself in making her think like that.

No, she’d thought about it before. She’d thought about it with Angel, and now with Spike.

Vampires couldn’t have children.

She couldn’t fool herself into believing that her life would be long enough to bring a child into the world. What kind of life would a child of a Slayer have? There was a high chance their mother would be dead before they could remember them, and then what?

Maybe she was better off not having children. That way she had one less tie to the world, and one less weight on her shoulders.

But being with William, with Spike in human form, was making her think about the opportunity that had been handed to her.

She glanced at him and found him watching her with a curious expression. Letting her hand slip from her stomach, she let go of her fantasy and came back to reality.

William wasn’t Spike. When she looked at him, she saw the vampire, and she didn’t want to be with the human. Maybe through some miracle, some day when the time was right, it would happen.

If it was meant to be, then it would find a way.

But it wasn’t here, and it wasn’t now. This was meant to be the jolt that made her realise she had feelings for Spike. She couldn’t race ahead in their relationship when they didn’t even have one yet. She had to see if things would work out first.

A knock at the door gave her a reason to avoid looking at William and she went to answer it. Taking the tray from the man, she carried it into the room and waited for William to clear a space on the table before putting it down.

She felt her stomach rumble as she looked at the assortment of cakes and sandwiches that sat beside a large pot of tea.

William decided to take the lead, noticing that she still seemed a little distant in thought. He poured her a cup of tea and let her prepare it to her taste, and then poured himself one. He smiled gratefully at her as she offered him a scone and took one.

They ate in silence. Buffy still trying to push away the melancholy thoughts of a Slayer’s life of being alone, and William wondering what she had been thinking when she was pacing. It had made her seem so sad that he wanted to ask her, but he could see that she wouldn’t appreciate him probing into her private thoughts.

Instead, he ate his fill and drank his tea, giving her time to think.

Buffy managed a smile as she looked up at him, placing her cup back on the tray and then gathering the book up again. She was surprised when William took it from her hands.

“Hey!” She groused as he turned it around to face him.

“You’ve done your share of searching this book. Let me take a look while you see what the others we borrowed have to say.”

She noted with a slight smile that he’d said ‘borrowed’ rather than ‘stolen’.

Picking up one of the smaller books, she began to idly pace the room as she looked through the pages, occasionally stopping to look at William. Each time she paused, he looked up at her, smiled and then went back to reading.

It was barely a few minutes into his search and he found what she’d spent all day looking for.

“Aha!” He declared with a wide smile and Buffy frowned.

“Oh no, you did not just do that!” She hurried to his side and looked over his shoulder at the page. Sure enough, there was the amulet. “That’s just so typical of you to do that.”

He continued to grin as he handed her the book and she balanced it on the back of his seat as she looked at it.

“Leixian.” She read the name of the amulet and then picked it up, comparing it closely to the drawing. “An amulet consisting of two halves. When the pieces are fitted together, they create a portal. The bearer must say the name and date of their destination, or the location they were at prior to previous travel, as they step into the portal.”

She frowned and turned the page, looking for more information and finding none. “That’s it?”

“Isn’t that enough?” William looked concerned.

“No… I mean, it’s great. I just figured there’d be more to it.”

“You seem disappointed.” He said as she sat down in her chair and put the book on the table.

“Well, all that researching and all we found out was that we had to stick them together and say ‘Sunnydale’.” Buffy felt weird for feeling so disappointed. She had expected some lengthy incantation to make the amulet work, not just fitting it together and hopping into the portal it had made all by itself. “One thing though, we need that other piece or I’m not getting home.”

William felt sorry for her as she stood again, walking across the room with a dejected air about her.

“I can’t track the man. Spike would be able to, but not me. I’ll never find him in London and for all I know he could have left the country by now.”

“Don’t give in, Buffy, something will happen that will help you find this man and you’ll be home soon.”

She smiled at his attempt to make her feel better and then wrapped her arms around herself as she felt cold inside.

“Let’s face it, it would take nothing short of a miracle for me to find that man now.” Stepping up to the window, Buffy looked down into the street, watching the people moving to and fro. She frowned as someone caught her eye and she instantly recognised him.

Miracles happened after all.

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