Title:  Broken Record

Fandom:  BtVS, Angel

Author:  Miss Murchison

Rating: PG 

Disclaimer:   All characters are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.  Only the lame plots and dialogue herein are mine.

Warnings:  No pairing; this story was written for a Friendship Ficathon.  It takes place sometime after the end of both series.

Thanks: To Keswindhover for the beta.

"Giles, I don't know why we let you talk us into coming here," grumbled Faith, staring down the length of the Champs Elysée. The wide, tree-lined avenue was even more bustling than usual, but strangely quiet, given the size and variety of the crowd. There was not a seat to be found at any of the sidewalk cafés, but some of the glasses of vin ordinaire sitting in front of the patrons appeared more transparent than they were entitled to be under the normal laws of Physics.

"Yeah," said Buffy. "'Let's take a vacation and see the city of lights,' you said. 'It will be a fun change for you girls,' you said." She dodged to one side as a woman in elaborate medieval garb swept along the sidewalk, only to find herself stepping through a Roman centurion who suddenly appeared from the wall of a nearby building. "It was cool at first, but tonight this place is more like the city of spooks. It's enough to make a girl nostalgic for a hellmouth."

"But you must admit, some of these spooks know how to trip the light fantastic." Lorne waggled his fingers at a beautiful black woman with short hair, emphatic eye makeup, and far less then the bare minimum of clothing. "J'ai deux amours . . ." she crooned as she made her way down the street, waggling her hips with each step.

"Sounding delightful, Josephine!" he called out. He turned to observe her retreating bare bottom. "And looking as ravishing as ever."

". . . mon pays et Paris." The almost-naked specter tossed Lorne a flirtatious look over her shoulder before she rounded a corner.

"Josephine?" A short, dark-haired man in a military uniform who had been striding down the street stopped, staring around him.

"Not yours, Boney," said Giles. "But I think I saw the one you want over in the Tuileries."

The short man ran off, his sword banging against his legs.

Faith glared at Giles suspiciously. "We haven't been near the Tuileries all night. After that poets' graveyard place, there was zero chance I'd go anywhere near the Louvre. All those mummies were creepy enough when you dragged me there in broad daylight and I kinda expected them to stay in their sarcophaguses."

"Sarcophagi." Giles corrected her automatically. "And did you expect a patriotic Englishman to give Bonaparte the right time of day, much less the right direction? Although perhaps I should have sent him to Les Invalides, to look at his own tomb. No, its grandeur would please him too much."

"Can we go look at our own hotel suite?" asked Buffy plaintively. "These ghosts are severely wigging me out. Not least because they're still here. Why are they still here?"

"I don't understand why they didn't disappear as soon as you broke the spell." Faith repeated Buffy's complaint, stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets.

"Yeah, Giles." Buffy reinforced the other slayer's protests. "I'm beginning to have my doubts about your breakage skills."

"Doubt not," Lorne reassured them. "The spell is dissipating quickly. And the rest of the spirits that necromancer called up will dissipate with it. But you know the dead. Never in much of a hurry to get anything done."

"Laggards, the lot of them," Giles agreed. But they're harmless. Just think of them as some broken records that keep skipping over the same moments again and again. Come morning, they'll stop."

"Then let's hole up somewhere until then." Faith's voice was emphatic.

Lorne raised an objection. "Seems a shame to lock ourselves in a room when we have a once in a death-time chance to Danse Macabre the night away. We can-can boogie on down to the Moulin Rouge and see if Toulouse and La Goulue are kicking up their heels one last time."

"No way. The movie was more than enough freakiness for me."

Buffy agreed with Faith. "Narcoleptic Argentinians are bad enough when they're alive, and I've coped with enough monsters already. I don't really need Nicole Kidman tonight."

Their hotel was only a few blocks away, and they managed to avoid any more close encounters of the spectral kind before reaching it, although there was a drunken man in the lobby, who lurched through Lorne. The green demon staggered, and Faith caught his arm. "Okay?" she asked.

"Fine," he assured her. "And if that was Baudelaire, it was an honor, even if his bateau is a bit more ivre than usual."

"Not to mention that I think he was actually Rimbaud," said Giles

"Huh?" Faith glared at him. "That went over my head."

"So did the hunchback who keeps muttering about the bells," pointed out Buffy. "Let it go, Faith."

"We just need to go with the, uh, flow, for a few hours," said Giles, bowing deeply to a woman in elaborate dress, who was carrying her carefully coiffed head in her hands. "La Place de la Concorde is that way," he informed her politely, and she smiled from waist level as her bare shoulders returned his courtesy.

"And I thought Jersey girls had big hair," was all Faith commented, poking the button for the elevator.

"By dawn, Marie Antoinette's hair style will once again be only a memory," Giles reassured her.

The elevator ride was uneventful, but in the hall a woman wearing a harem outfit, or at least an early twentieth-century designer's idea of a harem outfit, was smiling at Giles. He smiled back, but retreated when the white cat she was holding hissed at him. Only momentarily chagrined, her eyes narrowed when she caught sight of Faith, who had been standing behind him. "Bonsoir, ma belle," she cooed. "Moi, je m'appelle Colette. Et toi, cherie?"

Faith edged away and whispered in Giles' ear. "Get the door open already."

Giles' jaw dropped when the woman spoke her name and he stopped with the key card in his hand, turning to stare at her.

Buffy snatched the card from her watcher's hand, got the door open, and shoved her friends inside.

"For the best, I suppose," Giles said. "It was tempting, but I'm afraid I'm allergic to cats under the best of circumstances."

"It wasn't a real cat," Faith pointed out, joining Buffy in a quick reconnaissance of the hotel suite. 'At least, it wasn't alive. Can ghost cats make you sneeze?"

"Good thing we went for the bourgeois, Jacuzzi-enhanced kitsch of this place instead of the quaint, bathroom-down-the-hall charm Giles wanted," said Buffy. "I don't think anyone's died in here yet."

"Yeah," said Lorne. "Looks like no one's managed to fatally overheat in the Jacuzzi or choke on a baguette here." He dropped onto an overstuffed couch.

"New hotels." Faith joined Lorne. "Guaranteed free of cockroaches and restless spirits. You gotta love modernity sometimes."

"I suppose," said Giles, still staring at the closed door, "although Colette found her way into the hallway. And Bonaparte died on St. Helena, not in Paris, but he still managed to appear on the street. Still, we're probably freer of spectral interference here than in an older building."

Giles' reassurances hadn't been reassuring enough for anyone to retire to the bedrooms that led off the main room of their spacious suite. Lorne couldn't blame them. He wasn't feeling like getting much shut-eye himself. He was tormented by ghosts at the best of times, and in spite of his earlier curiosity about the happenings at the Moulin Rouge, he didn't really need any additions, however historically and artistically intriguing, to the list of friends and enemies who haunted his dreams.

He rested his head against the back of the couch and watched Buffy through narrowed eyes. She had accepted him after he'd found himself helping a squad of slayers in Marseille a few months ago. She'd even accepted his reluctance to go into details about the last battle he'd fought with Angel and never brought up the subject again after his brief, stammered explanation.

Lorne had expected Faith to press harder, but she'd asked no questions at all. Giles had been the real inquisitor, and Lorne had been frank with him. How much of that conversation had been repeated to the slayers, Lorne didn't know.

Now, Faith was alternating between fidgeting on the couch next to him, twitching the curtains to watch the strange parade of live and spectral figures on the street below, and stalking around the room. Giles had gone into his bedroom, but left the connecting door open. The sound of a guitar being tuned clashed with the noisy, uneven counterpoint of Faith's boots on the tiles in the hall and the carpet of the suite's central room.

Ignoring the others, Buffy had pulled out some books and was apparently trying to read. This activity seemed to irritate Faith, who demanded if this was the time for studying.

"I've got to do something." Buffy turned a page. "And I'm trying to learn a bit of this language."

"I find that 'Voulez-vous coucher avec moi,' works for most of my needs." Faith flung herself down on the couch again.

"Yeah, well the rest of us have other needs." Buffy reached for a pencil. "Next time I buy shampoo, I don't want to tell the sales clerk that the cow will touch me from Tuesday."

"Is that likely to happen?" asked Lorne in surprise.

Giles came back into the room, carrying his guitar. "Do you mind?" he asked, finding a chair.

"Just don't play anything sad that's likely to attract the dead and gloomy," said Faith, resuming her pacing.

"Play something French," said Buffy. "I want to see if I can understand it."

Giles thought for a moment, and then launched into a song that Lorne had to admit sounded cheerful.

"Alouette, gentille Aloutte," repeated Buffy. "I know what 'gentille' is and 'alouette'—" She paged through a bilingual dictionary. "Oh, a lark. That's good, Giles. After what we dealt with tonight, I'm all for sweet little birds."

Lorne looked around and saw a phone sitting on a desk by the cold fireplace. He got up and reached for it as Buffy worked on "Je te plumerai." As he recalled, "Alouette" was a typical children's song, which meant that a distraction might soon be needed.

By the time he hung up, an argument was raging.

"That's supposed to be cheerful? Plucking the feathers off a helpless little bird?"

"It's a famous childhood song, and it's not about torture. The lark is already dead and is being prepared for the pot."

Even Faith contributed a "Gross!" to this.

"No more bird plucking," said Buffy firmly, looking down at her book again. "And, the French? Even weirder and more orally fixated than I thought."

"I thought you liked the orally fixated," contributed Faith.

Giles strummed aimlessly for a few minutes before he started crooning, "Ne me quitte pas . . ."

There was a knock at the door.

"Oh, that's just the thing to entertain a girl with abandonment issues." Lorne hissed some advice in Giles' ear as he made his way to the door. "Come on, bud, I love Brel as much as the next frog-colored Francophile, but you've got to be able to come up with something that sounds cheery and isn't about larkicide."

Giles went back to vague strumming while Lorne opened the door and reached in his pockets for a few francs to tip the waiter who was pushing in a tray.

"What's this?" he asked as the boy was about to leave. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

"Arrived while you were out," said the waiter. "When you called, I remembered."

Lorne examined the box cautiously. It was about a foot square and bore a host of stamps. "It's for Buffy." He waved the slayers back as they came to look. "Be careful. It could be dangerous—"

"I don't think so," said Buffy, reaching for it. "That's Dad's handwriting on the label."

She took the box over to the table. Lorne began passing out drinks as she tore off the wrapping.

"Really, Lorne, did you have to get these poncy drinks with umbrellas?" asked Giles peevishly. "And why are they these strange colors?"

Before Lorne could answer, Buffy said, "Mom," in a tight little voice. All the others turned to look at her.

She was holding a small box and a slip of paper. "Dad found some of Mom's things and sent them to me," she said. Her expression was blank but her
hand shook as she dropped back in her seat and opened the box. "This is some of her jewelry."

Faith leaned forward as Buffy's fingers began to play with a long gold chain. "I remember her wearing that. And these." She picked up a pair of silver
earrings and held them so that they glittered in the light from the chandelier. "I always liked these."

"There are some old pictures and greeting cards too." Buffy put down the chain and reached into the shipping box again. And a bunch of old records."

"Really?" Giles set down his blue-tinted cocktail and came to look. "Hmm."

Buffy tried to smile. "I didn't think you were into Seals and Crofts."

"Well, no," he admitted. "But there's a nice collection of folk music here." He looked vaguely in the direction of his bedroom. "I had the hotel give me a room with a full stereo system, including a turntable--"

"Knock yourself out," said Buffy. "Take what you want. I don't have anything to play vinyl on anyway." She turned to Faith. "And if you want the earrings—"

"No way!" Faith pushed her chair away from the table. "I couldn't. Your mom and I didn't exactly part as best buddies, and I don't think she'd want me taking her stuff."

Buffy shook her head. "You're wrong. She worried about you. She would be glad we were friends now."

"I don't think so, B."

Buffy didn't press the matter, allowing herself to be distracted by an envelope of old snapshots. As a gentle, instrumental tune found its way to them from Giles' bedroom. Lorne watched Buffy slowly flick through cards and photos, and recognized the wistful expression of someone who is learning to come to terms with grief. He noticed that Faith was watching Buffy too, and there was an odd yearning in the other slayer's expression. Neither girl was as much as humming under her breath, but Lorne was suddenly certain that Faith was thinking that at least Buffy had had a mother worth mourning.

Lorne picked up his drink, sipping slowly and keeping watch as Faith continued to brood and Buffy's eyelids drooped and her fingers opened, scattering the pictures across the table next to the contents of the jewelry box. From time to time, his gaze flicked to the window. Dawn was less than an hour away. By the time the sun was up, Paris would be free of its unusually large and active population of ghosts, and they could all get some rest.

Buffy's breathing was slow and even now, her eyes shut, and her head thrown back against the back of her chair. In the other room, the record skipped to an uncertain end. Lorne smiled, remembering the quirks of old LPs. They scratched easily and collected dust in their grooves, but there was no denying their sound was more mellow and somehow more real and immediate than electronically recorded music. At times, he could even catch an echo of the souls that had recorded them. That never happened with CDs or the contents of the young slayers' iPods.

There was a rustling sound as the LP was returned to its paper and cardboard sheaths. Lorne heard Giles move to place another record on the turntable and carefully set down the needle. Its diamond tip was still skating over the empty grooves at the beginning of the disc as the watcher came back into the main room and reached for his drink, flicking the multi-colored umbrella aside scornfully before taking a sip.

A voice lamented, aching with sorrow, "Sometimes I feel—"

Lorne leapt to his feet, his eyes on Buffy's face. She twitched as if in pain, but did not wake.

"Sometimes I feel like a motherless child—" Giles was moving now too, heading for the bedroom and the turntable.

Buffy frowned and gave a little moan.

Before Giles reached the door, a gust of wind ran through the suite. Lorne tried to follow it, noting that the curtains didn't move, while a tremor of something on the edge of his perception started near the cardboard flaps of the open shipping carton on the table and rushed past Giles into the bedroom.

There was a screech that could be nothing other than a phonograph needle skipping against the protesting surface of an LP, and one song ended as another began abruptly.

Slumber my darling, thy mother is near,
Guarding thy dreams from all terror and fear.

As the gentle tones of the lullaby filled the room, Buffy relaxed back into sleep. A little flurry of air moved about her, and one of the photos from the box slipped off the table. There was a sterner nudge, and something bright glinted as it flew towards Faith, who raised a hand to catch it in a reflexive gesture.

Sweet visions attend thy sleep,
Fondest, dearest to me,
While others their revels keep,
I will watch over thee.

The gust swished around the room again, circling Lorne before approaching the watcher. Giles clapped a hand to his lips, as if something had touched them, and his eyes followed the little swirl of movement as it whisked into the fireplace and disappeared.

"Well, I'm glad I finally had the opportunity to meet Buffy's mother," said Lorne quietly. "The lady is a class act."

"Indeed." Giles stood still in the doorway of his bedroom, a faraway look in his eyes.

Faith, who had been about to put the earrings back on the table, stopped her movement and stared down at her hand. Slowly, her fingers closed over the silver twists of metal.

Smiling, Buffy shifted her position a bit and slept on, her hand resting on a picture of Joyce holding a small blonde girl.

Slumber my darling, till morn’s blushing ray
Brings to the world the glad tidings of day:
Fill the dark void with thy dreamy delight--
Slumber, thy mother will guard thee to-night.

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