Chapter Text
Prologue
The Watcher’s Council archives didn’t need a spring cleaning. They needed a spring burning.
The musty basement archives looked like they could hold the belongings of every Watcher who ever lived and their dog. If every Watcher also happened to be a massive hoarder. The concrete dungeon with its low ceiling and exposed electrical system had been used as a bomb shelter during World War II, though its original purpose was to be a sort of “panic room” in case of mass demon attack. It was also the only part of the building that had survived Caleb’s explosion.
While Buffy was glad they hadn’t lost all the knowledge gained by the old Council, absolutely nothing was organized. Whatever filing system had been in place was lost – if there ever was one to begin with – and so the basement was more like a case of antiquing gone wrong. Mystical antiquing. Where half the contents probably wanted to unleash evil upon the unsuspecting archivists.
Really, it shouldn’t have been Buffy’s job to try to catalog and organize the apocalypse waiting to happen; but after a near drowning incident in the Thames that landed her with a fractured ankle, she’d been relegated to office work until she was back to full form. It had only been a week and she was already anxious to get back to more natural things. Things that didn’t involve inhaling mold spores and squinting to make out a long-dead Watcher’s messy cursive.
Buffy glanced over at Andrew and Dawn, her slightly more enthusiastic assistants. They were both rummaging curiously through the latest boxes they had set out on one of the heavy wood tables that had to be at least sixty years old – old enough to still have bored-out holes for inkwells, anyway. Most of Dawn and Andrew’s “organizing” was really just messing around with the weird, random stuff the Watchers had accumulated over the years. Everything had to be touched, rotated, and pondered upon before being noted down in a thick ledger and moved to an appropriate section. Buffy was shocked no one had died yet from accidentally activating a cursed object.
Maybe they should be wearing gloves or something.
Dawn held up a glass crystal encasing a cloud of grey smoke that swirled around in ever-shifting vortices. Fog in the palm of your hand. “What do you think this does?”
Andrew examined the glass sphere with interest. “It looks like you’d have to break it to find out.”
Buffy’s head instantly snapped up. “No! No breaking the weird orb thing. Or anything. I so don’t want to deal with any murderous mummy hands or shadow dogs or those creepy grasshopper things. Just mark it down and put it with the other orbs.”
“Fine.” Dawn rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like I was actually going to break it, you know.”
“Oh, what about this?!” Andrew excitedly held up an old-fashioned, polaroid camera and Dawn’s attention was diverted once more.
At this rate, they’d finish the inventory in, say, three or four decades.
“Stupid ankle,” Buffy grumbled under her breath. She couldn’t wait until it healed up and she could get back on duty. Of course, after all the Potentials had been activated, there were more than enough Slayers to pick up her slack; no one would be rushing her recovery. But she had learned pretty quickly after the defeat of The First that she needed slaying to stay sane. Without it, she got antsy and then Dawn got annoyed and that mostly just resulted in lots of sisterly fights. And the gym was just no substitute for a good patrol.
A jarring flash lit up the space, bright enough to be nearly blinding in the dim basement. Buffy blinked rapidly to clear her vision and caught Andrew holding the old camera and sporting a guilty expression. She eyed the camera a moment longer before looking at the thick book on the table and locating the line she needed.
“Andrew,” Buffy said calmly, “that’s the dog camera.”
“The what?” Andrew’s forehead creased.
Buffy sighed. Why couldn’t Giles be doing this? Or at least helping. Cataloging was, like, his whole thing! “You need to go up and find Willow. Tell her to uncurse you or something. Unless you want to be dog chow sometime in the next month.”
Andrew’s eyes went wide and he hurried towards the stairs, cursed polaroid camera in hand.
Dawn waved the developing polaroid Andrew had left behind and turned it to Buffy. “Yep, found the demon dog.” Sure enough, standing menacingly in the far background behind polaroid Buffy was a large black dog that almost looked more like a shadow than an animal. The red eyes gave it away.
Buffy shook her head. “This is why you guys shouldn’t be playing with the junk.”
“Yeah, but that’s boring.”
Ah, right, better cursed than boring.
“Besides,” Dawn added with a shrug, “I have Andrew to spring all the bad stuff first.”
***
Buffy returned home later that night to an empty apartment. She set her crutches up against the wall next to the door as she entered, toeing off her shoes on the rug. Her ankle was healed enough now that she could limp around her small apartment easily enough. It was a nice place, courtesy of the salary now offered to any active duty Slayer, and had a great view of downtown London. The lights of the city twinkled distantly in her window, brightening with the rapidly falling twilight. Buffy might have appreciated it more if she spent any substantial amount of time at the apartment. As it stood, the majority of her time was spent either on assignment or at the office. Although sometimes Dawn would come over for some sisterly bonding.
Buffy had moved to London with Dawn after Sunnydale and the Hellmouth were destroyed. The transition to a new country – hell, a new continent – had been a bit rough at first, but they both got into the swing of things, focusing their energy on building up the new and improved Watcher’s Council to help all the newly activated Slayers. The first couple years had been tumultuous, at best. Most of the girls they’d found had been young and confused by their newfound strength. Just finding them was a herculean effort in and of itself, for which they had developed multiple magic aids. For every success, there was another tragedy.
Dawn had finished school and gone on to university, which was when Buffy started renting her current, Dawnless apartment. After Dawn finished her degree, she’d gotten her own place and started working full-time with the Council, much to Giles’s relief. They needed all the help they could get. Finding people to work for the new Council was far more difficult than Buffy would’ve expected. Which may have had something to do with the last Council being blown sky high.
Buffy tossed her mail and keys on the counter before checking her voicemail. There were only two messages: one from Faith giving an update on the Cleveland hellmouth, and one from Giles asking how the inventory was going and if they might meet tomorrow. Buffy knew what he was doing. He just didn’t want to come down to the dank basement to see the cranky, injured Slayer, so he sent voicemails instead. Chicken.
Throwing one of those ready-made meals in the microwave, Buffy flipped on the TV, letting the news run in the background. The microwave beeped and she retrieved the too-hot plastic from the machine along with an ice pack from the freezer. She had just settled in on the couch with her food and an iced ankle when there was a knock at the door.
Equal parts annoyed and curious at the intruder, she set aside the plastic tray on the coffee table and pulled herself a bit awkwardly back to her feet. Upon opening the door, she was surprised to see Xander on her doorstep.
“Hey Buff,” Xander said brightly. His characteristic lopsided grin was in place and the crow’s feet near his uncovered eye were clearly visible.
“Oh my god, Xander, you didn’t say you were going to be in town!” Buffy quickly enveloped her old friend in a hug before pulling away to examine him. He looked well, and she was a bit jealous of his tan. Apparently his latest travels hadn’t been detrimental. For the last few years, Xander rarely stayed in any one place for more than a few months at a time, flitting around the globe on various Council assignments. His visits to London were infrequent, but highly anticipated.
“It was kind of late notice on my part,” he explained. “I’ll only be in town a few days. Then I’m off to… I think Giles said Iceland?”
Buffy ushered him into the apartment and they settled back on her couch together.
“So, I heard you got into a fight with a river,” Xander commented with a grin.
Buffy eyes drifted to her traitorous ankle, covered once again by the ice pack. “Got shoved off a bridge. Not my finest moment, I admit.”
“I’m sure you’ll be back on your feet in no time, like a Slayer bouncy ball!”
Buffy chuckled wryly. “I really hope so. Giles has me on inventory duty.”
“Oh god, don’t tell me he sent you down into the bomb shelter.” Xander’s eyes were wide with horror.
“Oh he did.”
He shuddered. “That place gives me the creeps.”
“Me too.” Buffy had to agree with him there. Possibly evil objects aside, the duct system was ancient and made these groaning sounds that had to have come straight out of a horror movie. Everything seemed just a bit darker down between the crowded maze of shelves and the feeling of being watched never actually went away, you just learned to ignore it. “And Andrew already managed to curse himself. We’ll be lucky to survive,” Buffy stated chipperly. “Oh, have you seen Willow yet?”
Xander shook his head. “You were my first stop, but I’ll be staying over at Willow’s place tonight.”
He was quiet for a moment, seemingly lost in thought, staring at nothing in particular.
“What’s up, Xan?” Buffy asked, sensing the shift in demeanor.
He looked up at her and flashed a small smile. “Oh it’s nothing, really. I was just… reminiscing. I was, uh, in Sunnydale last week.”
Buffy was taken aback by his statement. There was no Sunnydale anymore, just a giant crater that the government chalked up to some “dissolving meteor.” It had been a long time since anyone had even mentioned the place. It was something of a bittersweet topic for all of them. Not that they avoided talking about Sunnydale, it simply didn’t come up in casual conversation. There was no reason for it to. Sunnydale was just a piece of their history, it was no longer their life.
“Well, what was left of it, anyway,” Xander continued. “It’s actually why I’m here. Just dropping a box of some stuff we excavated off with Giles.”
“Huh, well, how was it?” she asked, mildly curious what had become of the giant sinkhole they’d left. Did someone try to fill it in? Or did they just fence it off and put up a bunch of “No Trespassing” signs? She wondered if it got tourists.
Xander shrugged. “It was weird, being back. I guess I’d forgotten just how decimated decimated is, you know?”
“Yeah.” She supposed they all had. None of them had ever visited until now. Buffy paused. “So why were you excavating in Sunnydale?”
Xander shifted a bit in his seat. “Well, I just… I mean, we never…”
“Anya,” Buffy answered. Xander had felt guilty about Anya for years. He’d talked to Buffy about it a few times, but she didn’t think it had helped the guilt that emerged from time to time whenever something reminded him strongly of his ex-fiance. She suspected he was looking for a closure he’d never be able to find.
Xander slumped. “Yeah. I didn’t… find her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
***
The next morning, Buffy met with Willow, Xander, Dawn, and Giles for a less-businessy catch-up breakfast. They talked about Xander’s trip to Sunnydale and his future move to Iceland. Willow confirmed she was able to un-curse Andrew, which was great because Buffy didn’t really feel like fighting a shadow dog at the moment. They were able to laugh about it, once they knew he wouldn’t be eaten.
“I don’t know how many times I have to tell him not to play with the artifacts,” Giles grumbled. “They aren’t toys!”
Buffy raised an eyebrow at Dawn, who was studiously avoiding her gaze.
“Hey, you were the one who put him on inventory duty,” Dawn pointed out.
Giles sighed. “Something I’m sure I will live to regret.”
They finished breakfast with an update on the archiving progress. Giles was a bit disappointed at how slowly things seemed to be going, not that he put it in those exact words, but Buffy could tell. She had become very good at reading his facial expressions, and the quick sideways frown gave him away. Giles was no longer her Watcher, or even her boss, however she tended to allow him to “suggest” ways she could spend her time. Their relationship had mended significantly since Sunnydale, though it was unlikely it would ever be quite the way it was.
They returned to the newly built Council chambers where Xander reluctantly agreed to carry the box of Sunnydale artifacts down to the basement for archiving. Willow and Giles accompanied them down as well, curious to see what Xander might have unearthed in their old home.
Andrew was already there, ready to get himself cursed again, no doubt. He grinned sheepishly at their arrival before eyeing the new box with open excitement. Xander set the heavy box down on one of the less crowded tables, then glanced around the basement with a grimace.
“I’ll leave you guys to it,” he said, beating a hasty retreat. He really hated the basement. Buffy suspected it had something to do with getting locked down there for a night a couple years back. He refused to talk about what happened, but they were all pretty sure he’d seen some things.
Dawn wasted no time in digging into the box, sticking her head inside for a better view. The first item she fished out was a single metal ‘S’ that had once made up the sign for ‘Sunnydale High’. It was a bit scorched, but more or less intact. There were a few bits and bobs that were all but unrecognizable, though they might once have been jewelry or some sort of ornament. Then came a sword hilt missing its blade, one half of a warped license plate, and a surprisingly intact statue that Giles claimed had been from the Magic Box. He decided to take that last one to his office.
Dawn frowned as she pulled out the next item: a long silver chain, and attached to the end of it, a palm-sized faceted diamond. It was in pristine condition, just the same as Buffy remembered it. The amulet twisted around on the end of the chain as Dawn held it out away from her body, unwilling to touch it or let it get too close.
No one spoke for a moment, waiting for Buffy’s reaction.
Dawn held out the amulet uncertainty. “Um, do you want it, Buffy?”
Buffy fought down the distinct urge to recoil from the amulet. It was only an object, incapable of doing anything without a host. With a concentrated effort, Buffy pursed her lips and shook her head. “No. Leave it.”
***
Buffy couldn’t sleep.
She didn’t know why; it wasn’t like anything had changed. There was no reason seeing the amulet should have disturbed her sleep. She knew what happened. She’d known for the last seven years.
She rarely thought of him anymore, just like she rarely thought of Sunnydale. However, unlike Sunnydale, it was a topic that she had largely avoided thinking about. All thoughts and memories of him had been shoved so far down, so long ago, she didn’t know if she’d even be able to properly remember them anymore. They’d been corroded, eaten away by time and a refusal to scrape away the building rust.
In the end, it was all quite simple: she had loved Spike, and he had died.
Afterwards, while her friends had tried their best to be sympathetic about it, the topic had mostly been avoided. By them and by her. Eventually, it stopped coming up altogether.
Buffy sighed as she turned over in bed yet again. She had thought she was over the tossing and turning and nightmares, but the amulet had brought them all back out with a vengeance. While she wouldn’t allow herself to pull out the actual memories associated with the item, she couldn’t tamp down the associated feelings that were making her stomach roil.
She knew she’d be fine again in a few days. The amulet had just surprised her, that was all. She would put it away somewhere in the maze of shelves tomorrow, and it would all go back to being a distant memory. Maybe she’d talk to Xander about it before he left. He, at least, would be able to understand how upsetting a reminder like that could be.
Which made her wonder why he hadn’t warned her the amulet had been excavated. Then again, maybe he didn’t even remember what it looked like. Or maybe he simply thought she wouldn’t see it as anything more than a trinket from an old acquaintance.
He had no reason to think Spike’s death might still bother her. She didn’t talk about it, didn’t think about it, him. Not like Xander had talked about Anya.
There had been others, of course. Buffy had had a few flings and one serious relationship in the last seven years since the closing of the Hellmouth. Her and Angel had even given it another shot at one point. Neither relationship had ended up working out, but they’d both parted on good terms and it had had nothing to do with Spike. She wasn’t hung up on the vampire.
None of that meant it didn’t still hurt to think about him.
She closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.
***
Buffy had been side-eyeing the box for the past hour.
“Are you gonna put that stuff away or just stare at it?” Dawn arched an eyebrow at her sister as she spread out a set of frayed tarot cards made of something that clearly wasn’t paper. “Because I can get that one, if you want.”
Andrew had shuffled off to put away more of those smokey orbs over in the northeast section of the archive, and Buffy and Dawn were sitting alone at one of the central viewing tables.
Buffy shook her head. “No, I got it.” She quickly made an entry in the ledger describing the amulet and what they knew about it. She’d put it with the other amulets. They already had five entire shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling dedicated to amulets alone. She assigned it a number and a tag before reaching into the box and pulling out the long chain.
It was heavier than she remembered.
Dawn said nothing as Buffy wrapped a tag gingerly around the chain. Buffy knew she could have kept the amulet, to have something of him. But she didn’t want a reminder of the thing that killed him. It was better down here, where she’d hopefully never go again once the inventory was complete.
Buffy maneuvered her crutches in front of her and clicked away down the rows of shelves that seemed to stretch on infinitely in all directions. They didn’t, but the strange darkness that shrouded everything down there was very convincing.
The shelf she had selected was covered in dust, the same as all the others, and Buffy brushed it away with her sleeve, revealing a dully polished oak grain. Hesitating, she took the amulet in her hand for the first time. The stone seemed almost warm to the touch and the seemingly dull edges of the diamond felt unexpectedly sharp and hard against her palm. Her hand hovered above the shelf, the amulet clutched tightly in her fingers.
She hissed as her grip tightened enough for the knife-like edges of the stone to draw blood and she consciously loosened her fingers. Before she had a chance to set it down and put that chapter of her life behind her for good, there was an impossibly bright flash of light. It burst from the amulet and sent out an accompanying blast of heat like a shockwave. Her hand felt like it was on fire, and the feeling was steadily rising up her arm.
She tried to yell for Dawn, but her jaw was wired shut by muscles she no longer controlled. The burning sensation only intensified, but there were no flames. And just when she thought she could take no more, she passed out.