v. Thanksgiving

Lilith drags the dead man's body down to the woods.

      It's the middle of the night. She snuck out of her dorm to have her kind of midnight snack, it may or may not have been her British history professor. Thankfully there are woods surrounding campus which makes getting rid of the body much easier.

      Look, she did swear to not kill any more humans but she's never been one for abstinence, even if it involves sabotaging her relationship with one slayer. She'll just lie to her about it.

      It had been too long since she ripped into flesh and killing that Deathwok demon had only reawakened her appetite. She needed to have her fix before she did something worse, like start thinking of Buffy's friends as her next meal.

      She halts in her tracks and drops the man's ankles when she hears rustling in the trees. Someone's here. She really doesn't want to kill anyone else—that just means more bodies to bury and more lying to do.

      She's glad to see it's just Spike, lets out a breath of relief even.

      He seems more focused on the dead body she's dragging, makes a show of reminding her who she is. "Well, well...I knew I couldn't buy the goody-goody act from you for long."

      "It's one slip, it doesn't count." It's what she keeps telling herself.

      She's never seen him so...sickly. He looks decrepit, really. From his ashen skin to his sunken eyes and the way he limps. "Who let you crawl out of the grave?"

      It's been days since he last fed, it's starting to take a toll on his body. He's been unable to bite anyone ever since he took a trip to that lab. His vampire abilities got messed with and he's been neutered since.

      The sound is desperate and pitiful as he asks, "Is it still alive?"

      Lilith wants to relieve herself of the task. "You want it?" She nudges the body with her foot and doesn't wait for Spike to say yes. "Your job burying the body now."

☀︎

      Her shirt is matted with blood beneath the hoodie she uses to cover it up, she's gonna have to throw it out or burn it or something because of evidence and all. But right now she's just trying to get to her dorm, make as little noise as possible, and hope no one sees the face of the killer etched on her.

      While her roommate, Tara, doesn't know how she'll keep hiding the fact that she's a practicing witch and has afternoon séances in their dorm that Willow is a part of.

      It looks like both got their secrets to keep.

☀︎

      It's Thanksgiving day and campus is nearly desolate because everyone's gone to their families to celebrate. Lilith stays though, it's not like she has any family that would want to see her or celebrates that sort of holiday.

      She supposes she likes the ritual sacrifice aspect of Thanksgiving, it's something she and Anya share.

      Anya—or Anyanka—is another person she didn't think she would find in the Hellmouth. They have some shared history, did some mayhem together, especially when it came to those vengeance demon wishes. Lilith enjoyed the best of Anya's demon abilities on her worst ex-boyfriends. But Anya's human now and Lilith cannot think of a worse fate for herself.

      It's not that she has anything against humans, she finds them endearing most of the time. But the thought of being that weak again makes her sick.

      She wonders how Anya does it, Lilith recognizes it as strength and resilience.

      Anya, much like Lilith, has found herself entwined with the scoobies. Although, unlike Lilith, she seems to genuinely be a part of the group by dating Xander, Lilith has to keep crashing their hangouts.

      The first time Lilith showed up at Giles' house, where all the Scoobies were, she wasn't let in. The second time, she had valuable assets for the monster they were fighting that day, so she was let in.

      This time, they are hosting Thanksgiving dinner at Giles' and Lilith is adamant to crash it. She might not have found out if it wasn't for Willow, who after being asked to hang out by Lilith, had declined and reluctantly explained why.

      Lilith shows up at Giles' doorstep, cradles a wine bottle and a bag of bread rolls in one hand, and uses the other to knock on the door.

      Buffy answers it. There's a confused look on her face, she wasn't expecting her, and Lilith doesn't know how to feel about it so she waves her party favors as a white flag.

      "Do I wanna know how you're here?"

      "Well, I got a car."

      "Just please don't tell me you're stalking me now."

      "I wouldn't call it—"

      Willow pops her head in. "I might've told her," she says, sheepish.

      Buffy turns to Willow and mutters something that looks like traitor.

      "I got merlot and bread rolls."

      Buffy looks back at Lilith. "I'll take that," she gestures at the bag of rolls, then points at the bottle of wine. "You can keep that."

      Buffy opens the door wider as if she's actually considering letting Lilith into her Friendsgiving because she brought buttery rolls. She looks at the bag again and sees they're the kind her mom buys, Lilith really makes this hard.

      Then, Giles is at Buffy's side and he's looking at the bottle of wine, somewhat smiling politely at Lilith. "Is it Bordeaux?" he asks.

      Lilith nods, eager that she might be able to stay. "Yeah." She looks at the bottle again, just to check. "Yes, it is."

      Lilith gives Giles the wine, he says thank you.

      Buffy is already setting the rolls on the kitchen counter.

      No one is telling Lilith to come in, but no one's telling her to leave either, so she lets herself inside and soundlessly shuts the door as if that might keep them from getting ideas of kicking her out.

      Willow is standing close to her as if she's been waiting to tell her something. She fumbles with her hands as she speaks, "I, I know I told you about this thing with my friends, but it's kinda just, I mean, it's not that didn't want you to come..."

      Willow drifts off mid-rant, and Lilith is already making herself comfortable in one of the stools. Great, Willow will have to put up with her.

      Lilith taps her foot and looks around the house, there's this homely quality she loves about it, she suspects it's for the people that meet here and not the actual house.

      There's Xander, looking like he might as well be on his deathbed, and there's Anya kneeling beside him. He's contracted a bad case of syphilis, and malaria, and smallpox, all given to him by a ghost warrior. Luckily it's all mystical, so it can also mystically go away.

      There's also Spike in one corner of the room. He's tied to a chair and looks as bad as he did last night, pallid and gaunt. It seems like he couldn't feed on the cadaver Lilith left him.

      Lilith is glad that isn't her situation. If this were another one of their competitions, she thinks the tally to be: Lilith-1, Spike-0.

      "Hey! How does she get to walk around freely while I'm tied to a chair?"

☀︎

      The ghosts of Chumash Indians, they are the monsters of the week.

      Willow, Xander, and Anya left a little while ago to try and stop them—without resorting to violence because for this occasion violence is not the answer. Their plan consisted of going to the next possible victim, unknowing that the next target was Buffy who was stuck keeping watch at Giles' house. They targeted warriors and leaders, Buffy fell into both of those categories.

      Other than Buffy, Giles, Lilith, and Spike had also stayed behind.

      Spike because he was unable to move—not that he would ever think of helping Buffy. In fact, he made it clear that he had come to the Slayer in seething hatred.

      On the other hand, Giles and Lilith had stayed to help Buffy, Giles through research and Lilith through, well, she's not sure either. All that she knows is that she'll kill anyone for Buffy—maybe not anyone because she's supposed to have a moral code now, so just any soulless monster that comes after Buffy.

      Lilith really hopes Buffy doesn't find out about her slip from last night, and it's terrible enough for her that Spike keeps giving her that look like he might just tell on her.

      Of course he wouldn't think she's got what it takes to side with the Slayer, she doesn't think she does either. Playing at being hero is a lot harder than Buffy and her friends make it seem.

He tries to say something along the lines of late-night adventures, it makes Lilith motion her hand across her throat, telling him to cut it. Buffy hears him, looks in between them and this secretive communication they have going on, so she gets different ideas of what these late-night adventures could be.

      Giles and Buffy are setting up the table for dinner while Lilith is sitting on the table. Buffy has to clear her throat for her to move, and Lilith does so with a huff. Buffy thinks of telling her that if she wants to stay for dinner, then she should help, but Spike keeps whining about when he's getting fed that it pushes the thought out of her mind.

      "You know what happens to vampires who don't get to feed?" Spike persists.

      "I always wondered that actually," says Giles.

      "Living skeletons, mate. Like famine pictures from those dusty countries, only not half as funny."

      Giles looks appalled and Lilith laughs.

      Buffy tells him, "You can have gravy. That has blood in it, right?"

      "You know what else has blood in it?" says Spike. "Blood."

      Buffy snaps and slams the fork she was about to set on the table. "Do I have to gag you? Because I am not gonna listen to you whine all the way through my dinner. It's gonna be a nice, quiet, civilized—"

      Buffy speaks too soon because all of a sudden an arrow zooms past the window and impales itself on the dinner table.

      Lilith sighs. "You had to jinx it."

      They look up to where the arrow came from, the leader of the ghost warriors has poised himself by Giles second floor's window. He's ready to nock another arrow, the slayer protests.

      "You, listen," Buffy starts, "Maybe I wasn't clear before about how terrible we all feel 'cause we are trying to help."

      The ghost does not care for excuses, he shoots another arrow at Buffy.

      Buffy still tries to make amends, Giles realizes sooner than her that the ghost won't have his mind changed. As arrows keep flying by and new ghosts appear, he yells for all of them to get down.

      Buffy and Giles crouch behind the couch.

      Spike tries to tell them what about him since he's tied to a chair and can't very well get down when an arrow zooms right at him. It pierces his sternum, he doesn't even flinch. "Hey, watch the heart!"

Lilith, uncaring of making peace, skids over to the kitchen, and heads for the kitchen knives just as an arrow zooms past her so she has to duck her head. She secures two stake knives, goes into a crouch again and slides one over to Buffy across the floor.

Buffy grabs it. "Hey, this was gonna be for the turkey."

Lilith rolls her eyes. "I'll clean it, just fight, Slayer."

It seems good enough for Buffy as she stands and sets into fight mode. Lilith alongside her, though she'll let Buffy take care of the inside of the house and she makes run for the outside, that way they'll cover more ground.

She finds Anya and Willow already there, sees them propel a flower vase at one of the ghosts. But they're not the only ones outside, surprisingly Angel is also there. His hands wrap around one of the ghost's neck and he snaps it, makes the kill with ease.

Anya stares, amazed. "What's he like when he is evil?"

Angel is grabbed from behind by the neck and struggles against the same ghost he thought he just killed. "Help the others!"

Angel manages to fight off the ghost warrior, Anya and Willow run upstairs to help.

"So, this is you now?" Lilith asks as she stabs a ghost behind her.

She gets a memory flash of the last time she saw him. They were in this exuberant Romanian castle, it was Dracula's party, and they'd been been drunk on blood and wine. Darla was there too. It'd been the nineteenth century.

"Spike mentioned you," Angel says, recalling Spike's visit to L.A., and fighting off another ghost. "I didn't think you'd be here."

      Lilith grins. "With the good guys now, just like you."

Angel laughs. They fight off the ghosts together.

☀︎

      Buffy slashes the Chumash Indian ghost with his own knife, discovering that can kill him but Hus the ghost also mystically turns into a bear.

      "A bear!" Spike shouts, freaked out. "You made a bear."

      "I didn't mean to," says Buffy, sheepish.

      As the bear locks eyes with Spike and roars, he shouts again, "Undo it! Undo it!"

☀︎

       Buffy defeated those she had to defeat, as she always will.

☀︎

      Thanksgiving dinner comes around. Everyone gets a chair but Angel who left to avoid Buffy seeing him; even Spike is pulled closer in his chair though still tied up.

It all wasn't well explained by Angel on why he couldn't be seen by Buffy, sometimes he just liked being ominous and dramatic. His excuse was a prophecy or vision or something he had gotten of her and him meddling would affect it but it could still very well not come true.

Lilith enjoys this evening for what it is: a nice dinner with friends (though, she's not a friend). This dinner solidified why she wants to ally herself with the Slayer because she gets to have this.

      She gets to have things she's never had before, sees this love and friendship they have for each other and wants a piece of it herself. They all seem more feeling, much happier than her.

      If she was trying to be herself, she'll try to ruin this thing they have because it's not hers and it can't be hers. But she won't ruin it since she wants to get in Buffy's circle, so she'll have to hide parts of herself.

      Such as hiding that she killed an innocent man for the bloodthirsty part of herself.

      It's too easy for her to hide it as she talks and smiles through dinner. There's no guilt, no remorse. She doesn't even stop to think about the night before, now that she's with Buffy and her friends, all moralistic and merciful. That should be reason enough for Lilith to stop wanting this, she's not meant to be with them and they'll never understand each other.

      But she's used to wanting things she shouldn't for the hopes they'll bring her something new and allow her to find what she's been looking for all this time, she's never known what exactly.

      "Well, maybe we started a new tradition this year," Willow says, hopeful too. She's been wanting for the time with her friends be like it was before, lately she's been feeling like they've drifting apart. They all have. "We all worked together. It was like old times."

      "Yeah, especially with Angel being here and everything," Xander says, spilling the secret.

      All eyes turn to Buffy.