Love In Vein: Book Three - Chapter 14

Walking into the lounge, Buffy immediately went to the tea set that was sitting next to Giles on the large polished wood table and poured herself a cup. She drank it down as swiftly as possible before pouring herself another and loading it with sugar.

“Hey,” she breathed as Giles gave her a quizzical look. “Just had to see him…you understand, right?”

He nodded. He understood Buffy’s need to be with Spike. He knew what it felt like to be in love, and he knew what it was like to have the object of your affection hurting. You wanted to spend as much time as possible with them and there are times when you need to seem them so badly that you’d drive five hundred miles just to catch a glimpse of them.

Rousing himself from his thoughts, he cleared his throat and looked at her.

Buffy got the feeling that an explanation was necessary.

She was about to start telling Giles about the angel and Spike’s soul when she realised that Spike might not want everyone to know. After the fuss he’d made about being prophesised to have a soul at some point, it was possible that he wouldn’t want Giles and the gang to be told about it until he was ready. Besides, he hadn’t even told her, she’d had to find out about it from an angel.

She wondered if he would have told her, if he would have recovered to the point that he confessed about getting his soul back if she hadn’t learnt all about it.

She shook her head. She shouldn’t even be questioning him. She should trust implicitly that he would have told her everything when he was ready to.

Sipping her tea, she slid into a chair and leaned her elbows against the table as she looked at Giles.

“I met another angel.” Buffy hated that she was finding herself calculating every word so she didn’t let anything slip about Spike’s soul.

“Another one? Did it try to hurt you?”

“No…but it gave me something. It gave me this.” She showed him the bracelet that was encircling her wrist and he peered closely at it. “Now that it’s completed I think there’s writing or glyphs or something on it. Whatever it is, Spike didn’t know about what it did or the fact that it was only half a bracelet. He just thought it was beautiful.”

Giles gave her a reassuring smile and sat down in the chair next to her, pouring himself another cup of tea and pulling it toward him as he waited for her to continue. She was staring at the bracelet with a brightness in her eyes that he’d not seen in a long time and he didn’t want to chase away her happy thoughts.

“The angel told me that I needed it in order to hear it, or something like that. It couldn’t speak to me. Either that or I couldn’t hear it. It showed me how to bring Spike back and I think it’s working. He’s seems a lot better tonight. He’s talking to me and he recognises me…and he…” She dropped her eyes to the bracelet again and sighed. “He told me he loves me.”

Not knowing exactly what to say, Giles settled for sipping his tea and smiling. He had never been comfortable when Buffy spoke about her feelings for Spike or Angel, and he surmised that it was probably the fatherly instinct in him wanting to protect her from the possible danger that they represented.

“Was I really gone so long?” Buffy met his eyes and raised her brows as he nodded. Giles had said she’d been gone for a day, a whole day. She’d missed saying goodbye to Willow and Tara, and had caused a lot of panic within the Council. The scowls she was getting from the Watchers and other members had grown worse since she’d left last night, giving her clear indication that they weren’t pleased that she’d caused such mayhem and had then swanned back in and gone straight to Spike.

“Almost a day to the hour. We really were worried about you. Tara and Willow tried to locate you with a spell but you weren’t registering anywhere. Where were you, Buffy?”

“I was…the angel had a vision to show me, a vision of Spike. I must have popped off the radar, I guess. I’m sorry for making you worry…just, when a big old angel comes down and tells you that it’s brought with it divine assistance you don’t really question it.” She noticed the way Giles’ eyes grew slightly wider when she’d said ‘divine assistance’ and wondered if he was going to ask the same question she had.

He just looked at her for a moment and then sipped his tea again.

“I thought it would at least return me to the moment I left from, but clearly that kind of stuff only happens in movies.” Buffy shrugged and then stifled a yawn. She longed for bed but she knew that it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Giles was going to have a mountain of research for her to do on angels now and she wasn’t going to get off easily.

She needed caffeine, caffeine was of the good.

“Coffee.” Buffy said flatly.

Giles looked confused.

“That’s a research face, and if you want help then you’re going to have to get me coffee…I’ve been awake for two days.”

“We’ll stop by the kitchen on the way.”

It was Buffy’s turn to look confused. “On the way to where?”

He looked as though he hadn’t heard her as he stared at the far door. Buffy heard it open and turned to see Lydia walking in, her face drawn with tiredness.

“Ah, Lydia.” Giles greeted her and then got straight to business. “I wish to know where the archived books are in the basement level.”

“What books?” Lydia did her best to look like she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

Buffy gave her a black look. She still couldn’t forgive her for attempting to sway Spike and she knew that no amount of time would change that. Making a move on her mate was unforgivable, especially after everything she’d done to help her when Quentin had killed most of the Council.

“You know full well what books.” He kept his expression impassive, not letting any emotion show as he fixed his eyes on her. It was obvious that she knew where the books were that he was talking about. She was probably the only person Quentin had trusted with their location.

“Spike’s seen them.” Buffy cut in and scowled as Lydia looked down at her. “He’s been down there remember? We know there are books here so cut the crap and tell us where they are.”

“Buffy, that will do.” Giles chided her and when she turned her black look on him, he knew that he would pay for it later. “Tell us where they are Lydia, and you can go back to bed.”

Lydia looked as though she was thinking hard for a moment. Buffy couldn’t see what her problem was. Giles was the Head of the Council and should therefore be told without question where the books were being stored. If she had been asking herself then she could understand that Lydia would be reluctant to help her, but why would she be reluctant to help Giles. Did she think that she should have had the position of Head of Council? Was she angry that an ex-Watcher had been given it? They had asked her to make a decision and she had, and there was no way she was going to change that now. Giles had dedicated years to the cause and she was the Slayer, meaning that what she said was what happened.

“They’re below the library, there’s a door behind the books in the far left corner when you’re facing the fire.” Lydia said the words quickly and then turned to leave.

“Thank you.” Giles said and she stopped for a second in the door and then closed it.

“What’s eating her?” Buffy frowned at the closed door and then at Giles. “Or is it because what isn’t eating her?”

Giles chuckled slightly. “Yes…we had words after she brought me down to the basement to see Spike and you sleeping. I told her that it was best she was reassigned and taken off the Spike case. Conflict of interests. I then warned her that it would be wise not to be seen anywhere near Spike and that Andrew was to report to me directly if anyone other than myself or you visited him.”

“Andrew? Is that the little guy?” Buffy silently thanked Giles for the reminder. “What’s the deal with him anyway? I mean, he’s a little young for guarding Spike isn’t he?”

“Andrew? Yes, I suppose he is. He was the only one willing to do it.”

“Has he been with the Council long? Judging from the accent I’d say he was from California.”

“Sunnydale, actually.” Giles informed her and then watched her frown.

“Sunnydale?”

“Lydia’s team recruited him during their visit. Apparently they found him attempting to fight off three or four fledgling vampires, and they were suitably impressed. He seems to know a lot about demons.”

“Sunnydale?” Buffy was still stuck on the idea that he had come from her town. She gasped as she realised why he seemed so familiar. “Tucker’s brother!”

“What?”

“He’s Tucker’s brother…remember Prom?”

“How could I forget? He seemed a little familiar when I met him.”

“He seems a little obsessed with Spike too. He almost threw a hissy-fit when I said that I had revoked his right to feed Spike. I’ve caught him watching me when I feed him, the look of longing in his eyes is a little disturbing.” Buffy realised that Andrew’s look of longing probably wasn’t as disturbing as her actually letting Spike feed off her.

She smiled. All things are relative.

Standing up, she stretched and then looked at Giles. “You coming? If I don’t get coffee soon I’m going to be as much use to you as a zombie.”

Giles smiled and followed her lead as she walked toward the kitchen. Buffy wasn’t the only one the late nights were taking a toll on, but whereas she could sleep in until midday at the earliest, he had to be up before eight so he could hand orders out to the Council’s department heads.

He surmised that things were only going to get worse too. Demons didn’t usually do much during the day so if there was an apocalypse coming they were going to be called upon to work increasingly often at night. Holding the door open to the kitchen for Buffy, he came to the decision that he was going to have to split the members working hours as whatever Buffy had foreseen drew near. They were going to need all hands on deck at all hours of the day, and especially during the night. He would speak to the department heads later and discuss this idea with them to see what they thought about it.

Buffy was a different matter. The way she was going right now, she was heading toward becoming completely nocturnal. She rarely went to bed before the sunrise and was often not awake before sunset. It seemed to him that the roles of her and her mate had reversed. Where Spike had tried to fit into her world by changing his sleeping hours, Buffy was now trying to fit into his. She wanted to spend time with him and that meant being awake during the hours that he was.

He wondered how it was going to affect her. She’d always been a creature of daylight, always sun worshipping. Now she only had the moon for company and there was no way she was getting a tan from that.

Giles watched her as she went about making the coffees for them. She looked pale still, but less so than when she’d first arrived. He was glad that she was eating properly now, even going so far as to looking as though she was trying to make up for lost time some evenings. When she’d first began to eat again, he knew it was purely because he’d told her that Spike wouldn’t be happy if he knew what she was doing to herself. Then she’d started to eat more, and he’d realised that it was because she was feeding Spike, so she was eating to keep her strength up. Now that Spike was showing her signs of recovery, she was eating everything in sight.

Including two of the muffins that the cook had made for tomorrow.

Buffy looked sheepish as she caught Giles watching her, and candidly put the empty muffin case into the bin. She handed him the coffee and gave him a look that was meant to remind him that it had been a day since she’d eaten.

She started toward the door and looked over her shoulder at Giles, showing him all the enthusiasm she could muster.

“Lets go see what the books have to say.”


The room was large, dark, dusty and full of books. It was every bit as boring as she’d pictured it when Spike had been telling her about the time he’d come down here and discovered the truth about her origins.

She still couldn’t forget what it had felt like to have him reveal to her the true nature of the Slayer line. She’d almost felt claustrophobic. The weight on her chest was so much that she hadn’t been able to breath as she absorbed what he was telling her.

Men created the Slayer. They took the heart of a Turok-han and put it into a girl.

Like creating Frankenstein’s monster, or a slave.

She shuddered as coldness crept into her flesh, and frowned. Chafing her arms with her hands, she gave a pretend smile to Giles when he looked at her and hoped that he’d think she was just cold.

This stone walled room was even colder than Spike’s basement cell.

She still couldn’t believe they’d managed to find it. It had taken them half an hour of lifting books of library shelves before they’d both realised that the release for the door wasn’t in a book. Council members loved books and were always in a library—it would have been foolish to hide the most dangerous ones away behind a book.

Someone definitely would have found it by now, and she suspected that it would have been a young Giles.

She giggled to herself, trying to imagine what Giles had been like as a teenager, or even a twenty-something.

Giles gave her another look and she cleared her throat, acting innocent as she began to snoop around the room. When she had weaved her way through the stacks of books and boxes, she found herself stood in front of a large metal door—it was exactly as Spike had described it.

A door heavy enough and strong enough that not even Spike with the ring on could break it.

She started looking around for a tool that would help her prise the padlocks open and then heard the jangling of keys. Turning around she saw Giles systematically going through each of the keys on the large ring he had and trying them in the padlocks.

She pouted when he looked at her. “It’s not as fun.”

“It’s safer than allowing anyone access to these books. This way we can lock them up again afterwards.”

“It’s still not as fun.”

He just continued to check each key in the locks.

After a few minutes of waiting, Buffy found herself reaching out to Spike and latching onto his feelings. She didn’t need to make much effort anymore. His feelings always seemed to be lingering just on the edge of hers. It was almost as if there wasn’t any divide between them anymore, as if they were connected to each other completely.

“Aha!” Giles beamed as he managed to get the second lock to open. Pulling it out, he placed it down on the side and tugged the rusty iron bar across, opening the door.

Buffy smiled as he looked at her, her mind still very much with Spike and how he was feeling. It was nice to feel her mate so calm, so relaxed. She knew he was probably still awake, waiting for her to come back to him like she’d promised.

Following Giles into the metal cage, something at the back of her mind told her that this would be a fruitless endeavour. The books here were about Slayers and vampires. She’d be surprised if they did learn anything about angels and mythical beasts roaming the earth.

But Giles seemed sure.

Did he know something that she didn’t?

Did he have an idea about what was happening in her visions and with the angels?

She stifled her questions and threw herself into looking through the books. There were so many of them surrounding her that she got the impression they were going to be there a long time, long enough that it would probably be nightfall again before they left.

Opening the first of the books, she began to flick through the pages and let her thoughts return to Spike.

He’d been here, in this very room, searching through the books like she was now.

A smile teased her lips.

He was coming back to her.

It was just a matter of time now.

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