TITLE: Mexico 5/9
AUTHOR: Rari Coss
E-MAIL ADDRESS: RariCoss1956@yahoo.com
DISCLAIMER: It all belongs to Joss, the WB, UPN, Fox, Mutant Enemy and anybody else who feels they own it. Oh, and I have no idea who owns Scarecrow and Mrs. King but I’m sure they have much more money than I do and I’m only playing.
FEEDBACK: Absolutely.

Lee and Buffy looked at each other, similar expressions of disgruntlement on both of their faces. Lee gave her a mocking grin. “I think we’ve been dismissed.”

Buffy snorted. Then she got a little defiant. “Fine, so come on.” She sent Lee a challenging look.

Not sure what he was being challenged about, but recognizing the challenge nonetheless, Lee got stubborn back. “Fine. Let’s go.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” He gestured toward the door.

Holding her head high, Buffy sailed out the door.

Lee followed her, closing the door behind them.

Once they got out, Buffy had no idea what to do with him. She couldn’t really patrol. She didn’t really want to socialize with him, although he was pretty cute. “Where do you want to go?”

Lee gave her a look. “How about showing me where Jonathan is?”

Buffy gave him the look back. “How about telling me why?”

“I told you, he’s a friend of the family.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Oh, right. I forgot. Which is why you’re at my house, because I’m family too?”

“Look. I know you know something. I know you’re involved in this. I know you know what happened to him. It’s written all over your face. You’re involved in this up to your armpits and you might as well just come clean.”

“Or what? You and the family gonna say mean things to me?” She took a step toward him. “Are you a cop?”

Lee shook his head. “No.”

Buffy gave him a disgusted look and just started walking. Let him follow. Maybe if she got really lucky a vampire would attack and get rid of the problem for her.

Lee had to almost run to keep up with her. He couldn’t believe how fast she could move for someone so small. He also knew he’d annoyed her. He was usually better than this when he was dealing with women. Thinking of women made him think of Amanda, back having a cup of tea with Giles. His lips tightened. Then he looked and realized that Buffy had put some considerable distance between the two of them. He broke into a run to catch up. He put a hand on her arm to stop her. “Buffy.”

She looked at him, her face and body screaming resistance. “What?”

“I’m sorry. Let’s start over.”

Buffy stopped, giving him a suspicious stare. “How do you mean?”

Lee took a deep breath, giving himself some time to come up with a charming strategy. Then he realized where he was. “Why are we in a cemetery?”

Buffy looked around. She hadn’t been paying attention and her feet had just brought her here. Mindful of the risk she started walking back toward the street. She couldn’t stop needling him, though. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Lee gave her another astounded and somewhat annoyed look. “I’m not scared of a cemetery. I was just surprised we were in one.” He gave Buffy his most charming smile. “It’s just not where I usually take walks with beautiful young women.”

Buffy could feel herself respond to that smile. He really did seem nice. He really didn’t feel like an enemy. Confused as to what to do she didn’t even see them coming until they were surrounded them. Four vampires. Big ones. Cursing herself for her inattentiveness and sorry she’d even thought about having a vampire snack on Lee, Buffy pulled a stake out of her pocket and moved closer to him. “Stay close.”

Lee looked at the feral faces surrounding them, at the fangs, and yellowed eyes, at the clear menace emanating from them. He thought of Francine and the holes in her neck and her talk of vampires. “Shit.” He reached for his gun and pulled it out.

Buffy stared at it with some surprise, and then at him, never losing track of the vampires. She wasn’t sure why they hadn’t attacked yet. “I thought you said you weren’t a cop.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh, you just carry a gun for the fun of it? Isn’t that against the law?”

Lee didn’t say anything. He just aimed the gun at the one creature that had started to move.

Buffy shook her head. “Guns won’t kill them.”

Lee risked a look at the stake in her hand. “Don’t tell me. Stake through the heart?” He couldn’t believe the old vampire clichés were true.

“Yup.” That was all she had time for as the vampires moved in for the kill. Buffy moved faster.

Lee’s mouth dropped as he watched Buffy move so fast she was just a blur as she thrust the stake in the closest vampire’s heart. He exploded in a cyclone of dust. Then she started to fight, looking for an opening to stake the others. Lee felt his arm grabbed and hot, fetid breath was blowing in his face. Dropping the gun he let loose with a right upper cut and spun the vampire around, following up with a spin kick. Then Buffy was there and the vampire was settling to the ground in miniscule pieces.

She gave him an approving look. “Nice moves.”

He grinned, high on the danger, high on the disbelief. “Thanks.” A couple more vampires had joined the party. “Got another one of those?”

Buffy handed him her stake, as she let the one up her sleeve drop down into her hand. “I never leave home without a spare.” She grinned too. Then she spun into action again, one eye on Lee, one eye on the vampires.

Lee moved too, and within seconds was engaged with another vampire, doing his best to avoid slashing fingernails, and sharp teeth. Then he found an opening and as hard as he could he slammed the stake home. He watched in amazement as he felt the implosion, felt the solid body disintegrate into dust.

Buffy dispatched her third vampire and then the remaining ones finally got the message that these two weren’t the easy pickings they had expected them to be. They ran. Buffy wanted to run after them but she didn’t want to leave Lee alone. Despite the fact that he was pretty capable of taking care of himself, he wouldn’t be able to handle a group of vampires. She looked around carefully and then hid the stake up her sleeve again. Giving Lee a look she followed it up with an impish grin. “So, now what do you want to do?”

Lee barked out a laugh. He looked down at the stake in his hand, and at the piles of dust on the ground. Lee bent down and retrieved his gun, replacing it in his holster. “There’s an encore for that?”

She shook her head. “Just more of the same.” She gestured around her. “Welcome to Sunnydale.”

Lee suddenly needed to sit down. So he did. Right there on the ground, between the piles of dust. He put his head between his knees.

Buffy crouched down. “Breathe, just breathe. You’ll be all right.”

While he was trying to breathe he saw something move behind Buffy. All he was capable of doing was pointing.

It was enough. Buffy stood, spun, and staked. Then she crouched back down. “You all right?”

Lee nodded. “You’re good at that.”

“It’s what I do.” She didn’t see the point in pretending anymore.

He couldn’t believe the words were coming out of his mouth. “You kill vampires?”

“Yup. And other demons.”

“Other demons?”

Buffy nodded and then stood, holding out her hand to him. “Come on, I need to check on some new graves.”

Lee let her help him up, feeling some of her strength as she did so. “You’re strong.”

“Very. It comes with the job.”

“And what job is that, exactly?”

“I’m the Slayer.”

“And you slay vampires?”

She nodded again.

Lee brushed himself off. He was impressed with how calm he was. “Are there many of you?”

“Nope, just two. There’s only supposed to be one, but I died for a minute, and so now there’s two of us.”

“And Giles?”

“He’s my Watcher.”

“Which is?”

“He’s the brains of the operation. I do the fighting, he does the thinking.” She thought about the gun, and his fighting skills. “So, what are you exactly?”

Lee decided that was a fair question given what she had just told him. And he supposed, in a way, his answer would be just as unbelievable as hers. “I’m a spy.”

She grinned delightedly. “For real? Like a real spy?”

He nodded. “For real.”

“And Amanda? Is she a spy too?”

“She’s sort of a spy in training.”

“Cool.” She grinned again. “That is so cool.” She sat on a tombstone that was next to a new grave. “So are you like James Bond?”

Lee leaned against a tombstone across from her. “Yeah, except we don’t get all those cool gadgets.”

She frowned, disappointed. “No cool gadgets?”

“Well, some. But not like what the M5 gives James Bond.”

“So, are you with the FBI, or the CIA?”

“No. We’re with somebody else, and I can’t tell you that.”

“Or you’ll have to kill me?”

“Something like that.”

She grinned again. “That is so cool.”

Lee found it amusing that she was so taken with his job when hers was to stake mythical beasts. He let out a cry as the earth trembled beneath his feet.

Buffy stood and shooed him away. “Don’t worry. It’s just a newbie.” As the face and upper torso of the vampire appeared she quickly staked him. “Come on, there’s a couple more I want to check out.”

Lee stared at the ground for a moment, at the disturbed earth, and shook his head. Then he followed Buffy. “You do this every night?”

“Just about. Like I said, it’s my job to kill the bad guys.”

Lee considered her. “I guess we’re not that different. I kill the bad guys too.”

Buffy gave him a startled look. “What bad guys do you kill?”

“Bad guys who want to topple over governments, usurp power for their own selfish purposes, guys who plan to assassinate world leaders and key scientists. The world is filled with plenty of human bad guys who thrive on chaos.”

“So you almost get killed a lot?”

“I’ve been shot at, and stabbed so many times I’ve lost count.”

Buffy was filled with a sudden sense of camaraderie. “Me too. Except the being shot at. Demons don’t use guns very often.”

Lee grinned. “Does trouble just seem to follow you everywhere you go?”

She nodded. “As if I was a trouble magnet.”

Lee sighed. “I can’t even remember the last time I had an uninterrupted vacation.”

“Tell me about it.” Buffy glanced at him as she perched on another tombstone. “Do you hate it sometimes?”

This time, Lee sat a little further away from the new grave. “Sometimes I hate it with a passion. Sometimes I resent that I don’t have a normal life. I worry that the people I care about are in danger because of me.”

“Do you want to run away sometimes?”

Lee let out a soft laugh. “Yes. I’ve come close. I’ve gotten pretty burned out.”

“What keeps you going?”

“I believe in what I do. I believe it makes a difference, that I make a difference.” He smiled. “And then there’s Amanda.” Lee smiled at Buffy. “In some ways, she’s like your Giles. She just has a way of looking at whatever we're working on that gets to the heart of things. And she…”

“She what?”

Lee tried to decide what he was trying to say. “She makes me feel better. She makes me feel important. She keeps me from losing hope, and makes me feel like someone cares about me.” He looked up at Buffy, a little embarrassed. He shrugged. “It makes a difference.”

Buffy thought of Giles. She thought of how it had been when he’d been here, and then how it had been after he left. “I know. It makes a big difference.”

Lee decided he wanted to talk about the thoughts that had been on his mind so strongly. “I was pretty resistant to the idea of working with Amanda for a long time.”

“Why?”

“It was easier to not care when she wasn’t around. I could just go and get the job done and not worry about the consequences of what I was doing, or who might get hurt. Then she came along and she made me feel stuff. She made me see the big picture in a whole new way, and I didn’t like it. It made things messy.”

“But now you don’t mind it so much?”

“No, now I don’t mind so much. I’m a better person because of her. Sometimes I think about what I’d be like now if she hadn’t come into my life, and it’s not a pretty picture.”

“Does she know that?”

Lee nodded and then he shook his head. “Maybe. I mean, I’ve told her some of this, but I’m not really good at saying this sort of thing.”

“Sounds like you’re saying it just fine to me.”

“Yeah, but you’re not her.” He gestured towards the grave. “How long do you have to wait?”

“Not much longer. They usually rise pretty fast once it gets dark.” She glanced at the grave. “And sometimes they’re just really dead.”

Lee considered the newly replaced sod. “So does Giles do the same for you?”

Buffy thought about it. She thought about what she’d become without him. “Yes, he does.”

“Does he know?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Maybe you should tell him.”

“I’m not good at that stuff either.”

Lee grinned. “Practice on me. What would you tell him if you could?”

Buffy blew out a long breath, thinking about it. “I’d tell him that I need him.” She shook her head. “No, never mind. I told him that. He still left.”

Lee’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“He left. He moved back to England. He just came back to deal with some bad stuff that was going on.”

“Will he go back?”

Buffy sighed. “Probably.”

“So, you need to make him stay.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Tell him how you feel.”

“I don’t know how I feel. That’s part of the problem.”

“Figure it out. Talk to me. Pretend I’m him and tell me how you feel.”

Buffy gazed at him, chewing her bottom lip, not sure where to start. Then she squared her shoulders and stood up, beginning to pace. “Okay.” She thought for a few seconds. “Okay. This is what I would say.” She thought for another few seconds. “Okay.”

Lee grinned but stayed silent, one eye on the grave.

“Giles. I need you to stay. You are the only part of my life that makes sense. You are the only part of my life that I can depend on.” She sent Lee a nervous glance. “How’s that?”

Lee cocked his head to the side. “Pretty broad. Maybe some specifics would help.”

Buffy screwed her mouth up from side to side. “Okay.” Another pause. “Giles.” Buffy wasn’t sure how to put into words how empty everything was without him, and what she had felt when he had just suddenly been there. How wonderful it had been to have him beside her even for just a short time, how protected she had felt, when she could share the load she was carrying. She didn’t think she could find words for how loved she had felt when he had noticed her hair, and how safe she felt when he held her in his arms. Or how annoyed she’d been when Anya started horning in. She frowned.

Lee snapped his fingers at her, getting her attention. “Maybe you need to say some of that stuff out loud.”

Buffy started at the noise. “Oh. Yeah.” She shrugged. “It’s complicated. We’re so different.”

“Amanda and I are pretty different.”

“Not this different.”

“I’m not sure I buy that. How are you different?”

“I’m so much younger than he is.”

Lee snorted. “When I met Amanda I was a playboy spy and she was a suburban housewife with two young boys. That's about as different as you can get.”

Buffy’s eyes widened. “She’s married?”

“Divorced.” Lee continued. “At least you and Giles fight the same fight. I mean, Amanda and I do now, but back then, she didn’t even know this sort of thing existed. Bad guys on a global scale.”

“Most people don’t, whether they’re your type of bad guy or my type of bad guy.”

“That’s the way it should be. Most people should be able to live their lives, untouched by evil. That’s why there are people like us.”

Buffy felt that solidarity again. She liked it. She liked the fact that even if he wasn’t a Slayer, that he, and others like him, were out there fighting the good fight, just like her. Buffy sat on the tombstone again. “How about you? What would you say to Amanda?”

Lee shook his head. “Let’s stick with you and Giles. Amanda and I, well, it’s complicated.”

Buffy let out an exasperated noise. “That’s what I said. Why can’t Giles and I be complicated if you and Amanda are?”

“Because you’re not in l…” Lee slapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes showing his distress that his own lips had betrayed his deepest secret.

It was too late. Buffy had heard enough. “You’re in love with her?” Then she got defensive. “And who says I’m not in l…” This time she slapped a hand over her mouth. Then her hand dropped away. “Oh, my God.” She sent an astonished look toward Lee. “I can’t be.”

Lee let out a pained half laugh. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

“No, you don’t understand. I can’t be in love with him.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s…because he’s Giles. I’ve known him forever. He’s so much older than me. He’s Giles.”

Lee didn’t think Giles was that much older than him and he took some offense. “Jesus, Buffy. It’s not like he’s an old man. He’s still in the prime of his life.”

At his words Buffy thought back to her impression of Giles when he had appeared in the shop. She had to admit he’d looked good. Better than good. In fact, he’d looked downright yummy. Dangerous, and determined. But still Giles. Still her touchstone, her center. She remembered that hug. She thought about that moment in the kitchen, and when she’d held his hand. She thought about what it would be like to touch him some more and she almost bent over as a thrill of liquid heat raced through her. She let out a moan. “Oh, God.”

Lee grinned. “Maybe that’s what you need to tell him.”

Buffy shook her head, suddenly terrified of finding this within her. “I can’t. He’ll pat me on the head, and tell me not to be foolish.”

“Maybe he’ll kiss you instead, and stay.”

Another thrill went through her at the thought. “Maybe he’ll just leave.”

“I thought you said he was going to leave anyway, so what do you have to lose?”

She shook her head again and then decided to go on the offensive again. “Why haven’t you told Amanda?” She thought about how Amanda looked at Lee. “I’m pretty sure she feels the same way.”

Lee sent her a hopeful look. “Really? What makes you say that?”

“Just the way she looks at you.” She asked again. “Why haven’t you told her?”

“Scared, I guess. Amanda’s something special. A relationship to her is a big deal. She doesn’t believe in casual flings.”

“And you do?”

“I always have, until I met her. They’re easier. Like I said, you go in, you get out.”

“Giles always says I need to do that more. Plunge and move on, plunge and move on.” Buffy suddenly realized how sexual that sounded given the conversation they were having and she blushed furiously. Grateful it was dark she spoke again. “I mean, with the slaying.” She demonstrated with her stake.

Lee was laughing. “I get it.”

Buffy covered her face with her hands.

Lee laughed a little bit more. Suddenly he remembered why he was here in Sunnydale. “Buffy?”

“What?” She lifted her head.

“Do you know where Jonathan is?”

She shook her head. “He was alive and here in Sunnydale last night. We were all being attacked. He was with another guy named Andrew. Xander said they had been talking about heading to Mexico.”

“Why Mexico?”

Buffy tried to figure out how to explain it, without getting anyone in trouble. “Jonathan and cohorts decided this year would be a good year to play around with stuff that they had no business messing around with. And they pissed somebody off, big time. Somebody who wanted them dead, big time. They were sort of running for their lives.”

“Does that somebody still want them dead?”

Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know.” She thought of Willow. “I don’t think so.”

“What did they do?”

Buffy felt stuck. “Listen. Jonathan’s not a bad guy. He wanted to try and set things right. He’s all right. But these other guys, specifically this one guy, he wasn’t all right. He killed some people. He tried to kill me.”

“This Andrew guy?”

Buffy shook her head. “No, another guy. He’s dead now.”

“Did you kill him?”

Buffy shook her head again. “No.” She gave Lee a hard look. “He was one of the bad guys, and now he’s dead. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.” Buffy didn’t want Willow to go to prison for what she’d done. Not unless Willow felt she had to. And maybe not even then. For some reason Buffy flashed back on how she had threatened to kill Giles if he touched Dawn, back when Glory was hunting them down. Her thoughts shifted gears and she tried to imagine what she’d have felt like if that random bullet had hit Giles instead of Tara. If he had been killed instead of Tara. It made her want to throw up. Buffy was pretty sure that she would have gone after Warren too. In fact, she was damn sure.

Lee was watching her face, watching the emotions flicker, faster than he could keep up.

Buffy looked up and saw him watching her. She needed him to understand. “Lee, things are different here. This town, there’s a lot of evil here. It changes people, makes them different than who they were.”

“Murder is still murder.”

“When you kill one of your bad guys that’s planning on assassinating someone, is that murder?”

“No, but I have the authority of the government behind me. It’s sanctioned.”

“Do you think I murdered those vampires?”

Lee ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “No.”

Buffy moved to stand next to him. “I don’t have any right to ask, but I need you to focus on Jonathan and leave the rest of it alone. Some bad stuff has happened, but all that’s gonna happen if you push it is more bad stuff.”

Lee blew out a long breath and closely scrutinized Buffy. He wasn’t crazy about it but he reached a decision. “Mexico?”

Buffy nodded. “Mexico.”

“Shit.”

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