Dark are the Shadows 02/05/2020

Dark are the Shadows
Ms Hunter Ash

BTVS/Dark Shadows crossover

rating: PG-13

Pairings: Buffy/Quentin, Barnabas/Roxanne?, Xander/Anya, Willow/Tara, Giles/Angelique

# # # #

Dawn looked at the box of chocolates in her hand as Spike knelt at the door of the Magic Box at the lock.

“Do you know how to do that or not?” she demanded.

“Give me a sec,” he mumbled. “I usually just crash through doors.”

After another minute of trying the door opened.

“That’s right!” Spike said as he stood up. “Who’s bad now?”

Dawn turned on a flashlight as she closed the door.

“Girl with a mission, eh?” Spike asked. “What’s the caper? Jewels? Ancient artifacts? Or just plain hard cash liberated from the till?”

“A book.”

“All this for a book?” Spike demanded.

Dawn walked behind the counter and put the chocolates down. “I don’t want the book, just what’s inside. Knowing Giles it’s his notes. He told Travers the book and notes were locked behind the counter. He made a book disappear when he was on the phone with Buffy earlier.”

She began feeling under the counter as Spike slipped something off the counter and made it disappear into his pocket.

The teenager smiled when there was an audible click and a drawer popped open. “I don’t think we’ll ever know all the hiding places around here.”

Dawn pulled out a book and placed it on the counter.

# # # #

Giles sighed as he, Joyce and Buffy watched Travers pulling away from the curb two hours after he had arrived.

“Are you going back to the mansion?” Joyce asked them both.

Giles shook his head. “Angelique suggested I stay here tonight. She knows I don’t trust the Council and suspect they may just keep an eye on us.”

“Will is probably going to sleep for 12 hours,” Buffy added. “Barnabas isn’t going anywhere. It’s a definite down-time night for everyone. Even for Dawnie, her door is locked and she’s sulking.”

# # #

“Where did he learn to write so bloody small, from a fruit fly?” Spike complained as he and Dawnsat on the floor and were reading by candle-light.

“Here’s something,” Dawn said. “Tarnis, 12^th century, one of the founders of the order of Dagon, a monk’s order. Their sole purpose appears to have been as protectors of the key.”

“Brown robe types are always protecting something,” Spike scoffed. “It’s the only way they can justify giving up girls. Hey, troll hammer? Is that what Anya was talking about? Some troll went and left his hammer here after breaking the place up?”

Spike tried to pick up the hammer but ended up dropping it with a loud clang. He was relieved when Dawn didn’t even seem to notice.

“The key is not directly described in any known literature, but all research indicates an energy matrix vibrating at a dimensional frequency beyond normal human perception. Only those outside reality can see the key’s true nature,” she read aloud. “Outside of reality, what’s that mean?”

“Second-sight blokes, mostly,” Spike said. “Or even just your run-of-the-mill lunatics. What else does it say about this key? Is it made of gold? Maybe we can hock it, split the take.”

“The key is also susceptible to necromanced animal detection, particularly those of canine or serpent construct,” Dawn continued.

“Lunatics. Like the guy with mental issues at the hospital when we were visiting Mom? There was this guy they brought in. He looked at me and said there was no one there and he knew what I was,” Dawn whispered.

Spike took the notes from her.

"The monks possessed the ability to transform energy, bend reality. Blah, blah, blah,” Spike muttered. “Good lord, Giles writes as dull as he talks, doesn't he?”

Spike continued reading. “They started work. But the Council ... has suggested ... to us that they were interrupted. Presumably by ... Glory."

Dawn continues into the flame of a candle as he read.

"They obviously did manage to accomplish the taste..." Spike frowned and held the paper closer to his eyes. "accomplish the task. They had to be certain the Slayer would protect it with her life. So they sent the key to her ... in human form. In the form of a sister.”

The vampire looked up. “Sister. I guess that’s you, Nibblet.”

# # # #

Buffy smiled when she opened the door to find Quentin, Xander and Anya.

“We thought we’d come see the birthday girl,” Xander announced. “Angelique volunteered to watch the mansion.”

“I’ll take over at sunrise,” Quentin added.

Buffy moved aside to let her friends enter the house.

# # #

Willow sat up in bed with a strangled cry and Tara quickly wrapped her arms around her lover.

“Easy, it’s okay, it’s a nightmare.”

“No,” Willow whispered. “Tom is calling me. I won’t go. Only you and Barnabas can call me. Only you and Barnabas.”

“What do you mean, Will?” Tara asked.

“The night you were taken, Nicholas Blair tried to grab me,” Willow began explaining. “Barnabas, Julia and Thomas stopped him. To counter his mental mojo… Barnabas bit me. Twice and, I, uh, drank some of his blood.”

“And that counters Tom calling you even though he bit you too?”

“He didn’t force me to drink his blood,” Willow said. “I pretended I was under his control. I can still hear him, though.”

“We’ll stop them soon,” Tara said softly. “You’re so pale.”

“I know,” Willow responded. “It’ll take a few days to recover Angelique said.”

“We have to figure out how to stop Blair and Glory,” Tara said thoughtfully. “Why did Nicholas Blair want Dawn. If she’s the key the monks sent to Buffy, how could she be part Leviathan?”

“I don’t know,” Willow said and frowned. “We’ll have to ask Giles.”

# # #

Buffy shook her head as Xander described one of their adventures to Quentin and her mother. The Slayer did notice that he glossed over just how dangerous it had been to take on The Gentlemen. He stuck mainly to descriptions of the Scooby gang trying to communicate with pantomime and dry erase boards.

“Oh God.”

Buffy glanced quickly at a stunned Giles and followed his gaze to the kitchen where Dawn was standing in the doorway with a knife in her hand and she had blood dripping from a wound on her forearm.

“Is this blood?” the girl asked. “This is blood, it can’t be me, right? I can’t be a key. Am I anything?”

Joyce and Buffy rushed to the teenager.

“Xander, the first aid kit in the closet over there,” Giles said as he jumped up. “Xander, move!”

“Yeah, right.”

Joyce hugged Dawn as Buffy examined the wound.

“It’s not real deep,” Buffy said in a soft voice.

“Perhaps we should go…” Giles suggested.

“You’re family, Giles,” Buffy said firmly. “You all are.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dawn asked the faces surrounding her.

“We thought it best not to,” Joyce said. “It doesn’t matter to us, Dawnie. We were hoping it wouldn’t be necessary until you were older.”

“How old am I?” Dawn asked.

“Fourteen, you know that,” Joyce said.

“No, the monks,” Dawn said. “When did… when did they…”

“Six months ago,” Buffy said softly.

Tears filled the teenager’s eyes.

“I’m going to take Xander and Anya back to the mansion,” Quentin told Buffy softly and the Slayer nodded. “See you tomorrow.”

“I’ve only been alive for six months?” Dawn said softly.

“Honey, you’ve been alive a lot longer than that to us,” Joyce said firmly.

“You don’t know that!” Dawn yelled as Quentin closed the door behind him. “You don’t know anything. I’m just a key, right? Everything about me is made up.”

“Dawn,” Buffy said softly. “Mom and I know what we feel. I know I care about you. I know that I worry about you…”

“You worry about me because you have to,” Dawn accused Buffy. “I’m your job. Protect the key, right?”

“I worry because my sister is cutting herself!” Buffy snapped.

“Yeah? How do you know?” Dawn demanded. “Maybe this is just another fake memory from my fake family!”

“Sweetheart,” Joyce began but Dawn jumped to her feet and ran for the stairs.

“Leave me alone!”

“Damn,” Buffy muttered.

# # # #

Nicholas was frowning when Tom Jennings entered their new rental home.

“You don’t have a witch with you,” Nicholas noted.

“She wouldn’t or couldn’t come out,” Tom said. “There were crosses in the windows.”

“All right, we’ll have to switch our focus onto the brat and the insane tin-goddess that’s after her,” Nicholas said. “Oh, don’t look sullen. I have a new target for you, one that will lead right back to Barnabas.”

“Good.”

# # # #

Buffy frowned as she looked around the Magic Box. “We need to find out everything we can about the key. What it’s for, who created it, etc.”

“And why Glory has a big girl-god Jones for it,” Xander added it.

“This isn’t about her, it’s about Dawn,” Buffy said. “She deserves to know where she came from. She needs to know or it’s just going to eat away at her.”

Giles glanced over his notebook and papers on the counter. “How did she find these? They were locked away in the hidden drawer. And how did she get in?”

“Ew! Who’s been using the urn of Ishtar as an ashtray?” Anya demanded and showed everyone a cigarette butt.

Buffy’s eyes narrowed.

# # ##

Quentin knocked gently on one of the bedroom doors and smiled when Willow opened the door a moment later. “I thought I would play the hovering worried uncle and encourage you to have some breakfast with me and then you can go back to sleep.”

“I’m not really hungry but I know I should,” Willow said. “Let me get some slippers on.”

The immortal looked up and stopped chopping veggies when she entered the kitchen. “Good morning. I figured if you’re going back to school next semester, you’ll probably have to do a split schedule and grab sleep when you can if you’re going to be up all night with Tara. And you need to eat to heal after being preyed on. I’m surprised Jennings didn’t call you last night.”

“He did, I ignored him,” Willow said and watched as he chopped mushrooms.

“How did you manage that?” Quentin asked.

“Before you got here Barnabas bit me twice and gave me some of his blood,” Willow explained. “It was to keep Blair from keeping hypno influence over me. Barnabas reasserted his control when we were in that basement.”

“Fascinating,” Quentin said. “Omelet with mushrooms, bell peppers, tomatoes and onion? I didn’t know if you ate bacon or not.”

“Bacon?”

“I heard Xander teasing you about watching the Christmas Peanuts cartoon even though you’re Jewish,” Quentin explained.

“Thank you, that’s really thoughtful,” Willow said. “I do skip pork, shrimp and stuff like that. I don’t have a problem with cheeseburgers like the Orthodox do. Or magic. Or being gay. Or drinking Barnabas’ blood. All of those are big no-no’s.”

“I haven’t really learned much about Judaism,” Quentin admitted. “Oh damn, that’s my phone in the other room, be right back.”

Quentin stepped back into the kitchen. “Hello, Carolyn.”

He set the phone down and clicked on speaker.

“Hi, I’ve been so worried,” Carolyn replied. “How are Barnabas and Willow?”

“Injured and starved but he’ll recover,” Quentin said. “Willow was a bit drained by, uh well….”

“What is it?” Carolyn asked.

“Nicholas Blair brought Tom Jennings back,” Quentin said.

“Oh my God,” the older woman exclaimed. “We cannot tell Thomas about this!”

“I agree,” Quentin said. “We’re still nowhere with fighting Nicholas or that woman.”

“Damn, I was hoping you two were coming home soon,” Carolyn said. “There’s so many years to catch up on with Barnabas.”

“And try and repair the damage to his relationship?” Quentin ventured.

“That too,” Carolyn said. “Julia and Tom are spending a lot of time in the city. I don’t think it’s just to avoid Maggie and Joe.”

“No, I don’t think so either,” Quentin agreed. “We can’t fix it at this point. Barnabas is physically and emotionally injured and Roxanne surfaced again.”

“Oh great,” Carolyn mumbled. “Okay, I won’t try and fix them. I have a meeting in ten minutes. Be careful out there and tell Barnabas to come home, even if he doesn’t want to see Julia or Thomas right now. Oh, and tell Giles that Elizabeth can’t wait to see him.”

Quentin laughed softly. “I will. Take care, Carolyn. I’ll call you later about business things.”

“Bye!”

Quentin ended the call and poured a glass of orange juice for both himself and Willow. “Now, omelets.”

# # # #

Buffy kicked open the door to Spike’s crypt and found him sitting on top of the coffins painting his fingernails black.

“Morning, Sunshine,” he said cheerfully. “If you’ve come around for eggs or sausage, I’m fresh out.”

Buffy grabbed the lid of the coffin Spike was sitting on, sending him falling into the casket.

“Hey, careful!” he said as he sat up. “These are still wet!”

The Slayer slid the lid back onto the coffin, slamming it into Spike’s chest and pinned him in the coffin.

“How could you let her find out like that? From books and papers?” Buffy demanded. “You hate me that much?”

“I was just along for the ride,” Spike protested. “Not like I knew she was mystical glowy key thing. Nobody keeps me in the bloody loop, do they?”

“You could have stopped her!” Buffy yelled.

“Oh yeah, here it comes,” Spike said with his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Something goes wrong in your life, blame Spike. News flash, blondie, if kid sis wants to grab a midnight stroll, she’ll find a way sooner or later!”

He tossed the lid of the coffin aside.

“I just thought she’d be safer with Big Bad looking over her shoulder,” he said.

“She shouldn’t have found out like that,” Buffy said with a glare.

“You didn’t think you could keep the truth from her forever, did you?” Spike snapped. “Maybe if YOU had been more honest with her in the first place, you wouldn’t be trying to make yourself feel better with a round of ‘Kick the Spike.”

Buffy stormed out of the crypt.

# # # #

Joyce sighed as Dawn lay on her bed with her back to the door, to everyone.

“Baby?”

Dawn didn’t respond and Joyce sat down on the bed.

“I can’t imagine how you feel,” Joyce said softly. “I can only tell you how I feel. I don’t care what some celibate religious types say or did, you are my daughter and you always have been. Holding you in my arms and seeing your eyes for the first time is what is real to me. You are ours and no one is going to take you away from us.”

Joyce waited for several moments.

“I need your help, Dawnie,” Joyce said softly.

Dawn turned over and Joyce gently wiped at the young girl’s tears.

“Buffy just had a birthday yesterday,” Joyce continued. “She’s the oldest Slayer ever. That means she’s beaten the odds but it can’t last. We’re probably going to lose her before you get out of highschool.”

“We can help her beat the odds,” Dawn said softly.

“We can do our best but what she does is suicidal because eventually it will kill her,” Joyce said. “And she does that every night because she’s the only one that can.”

“Can’t she get out of it?” Dawn asked and Joyce shook her head.

“Apparently not,” she responded. “I’m going to need your help and you’re going to need mine.”

“Doing what?”

“Helping me get through it when it happens,” Joyce said. “And I’ll help you. You see, we’ll need each other and no one will begin to know how either of us feel except each other. Not totally but we can come close.”

“I don’t want to lose her,” Dawn admitted.

“I know, baby,” Joyce said softly. “And you know what?”

“What?”

“Even if Buffy lives forever, I still need you,” Joyce said with a smile. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mom,” Dawn said. “It’s just…I have all the same memories but… they’re not real.”

“Yes, they are,” Joyce said. “Did you know that our memories aren’t accurate? When I talk with my sister and we remember things from our childhood she doesn’t remember some things that I do. What you remember is real for you and because we share all of those that means the memories are real.”

“If I was real that Glory person wouldn’t want me,” Dawn said after a moment.

“That just means you’re special in a unique way,” Joyce said. “Everyone is and usually in several ways. Buffy is the Slayer, she’s also pretty smart. Willow is highly intelligent and talented with magic. You are special with your art work in addition to being a wonderful daughter.”

Dawn laid her head on Joyce’s shoulder.

# # # #

Nurse Rita Delvecchio frowned when alarms began sounding from one of the monitors. She quickly jumped to her feet and dashed towards the room of the young woman who was connected to that monitor.

Two other nurses were rushing towards the room from the opposite direction.

Delvecchio quickly assessed the young woman and began CPR. “No blood pressure! Code blue!”

“There’s no blood to pump,” one of the other nurses said. “Look at her throat.”

Delvecchio continued the CPR as the other nurse turned the woman’s head and they could see that the patient’s pillow was soaked with blood.

Delvecchio stopped the CPR. “Call the doctor on duty.”

# # #

Dr. Ben frowned as he looked over to a gurney at another insane patient.

The mark on his forehead…

Ben sighed. “Byzantium.”

“Yes, they’ve arrived,” a voice agreed.

Ben glanced over at a dark corner in the room and saw Jinx, one of Glory’s main troll-like creatures. “Unfortunate but not unexpected.”

“How many?”

“Their numbers are few for the moment, but they will grow,” Jinx said. “The Knights of Byzantium are like ants. First you see one, then two, then the picnic's ruined. No matter how many we kill, they'll keep coming ... wave after wave. It's time to set old animosities aside. Your fate is directly linked to her magnificently-scented Glorificus. She's been extremely forgiving of your considerable foibles up until now, but if you persist in your defiance, she'll be forced to…”

“To what? What is she going to do? Send a six-pack of minions to bore me to death? Glory can't lay a finger on me. You know it, I know it, she knows it. So save the threats, or I'll finish the job I started on your head.”

The doctor shoved past the troll.

# # #

Giles blinked as Xander placed a cup of coffee in front of him.

“You’re off work?” the Watcher asked.

“Yeah, permit problems again,” Xander answered. “How are you feeling? You haven’t been sleeping a lot.”

“You’re right,” Giles agreed. “Now that the Council bunch are gone, I’ll try and catch up.”

“Giles, about Angelique…”

“What?” Giles asked with a frown.

“Just… pick a schedule,” Xander said. “Guys that party all the time and get up really early eventually crash and sometimes people get hurt around them on our job sites. Stay up with Angelique and sleep the morning away, let Anya open the shop and you close it or something.”

Giles was quiet for a minute or two and then nodded. “You’re right. With Angelique staying until the crisis is over, I’ll take on a night time schedule.”

“I can’t believe this about Dawnie either,” Xander said as he sat down at the kitchen table.

“I know,” Giles said.

Xander sighed. “There's so many things I remember. Seeing Dawn ... hanging with her ... listening to Buffy complain about her. Mostly that last one. How could it be that all those things never really happened?”

“Well, it takes some getting used to. The idea of a ... bright fourteen-year-old actually being living energy thousands of years old,” Giles commented.

“I'm guessing some kind of super-powerful in her raw form,” Xander ventured.

“People have killed, died for it ... summoned armies to control the key,” Giles responded.

“Are the Summers girls coming back here to stay now that the Council has split?” Xander asked after several moments of silence.

“Yes,” Giles said. “I came over to grab a book I was researching from here before going to the shop.”

“You think Barnabas will get back with Julia?” Xander asked after a couple of moments.

“Not for a long while,” Giles said.

# # #