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Fated Series - All Roads Lead Underground -- by Kismet
Rating: PG-13
Description: Things come to a head when Spike is taken by The Initiative and Buffy becomes the next target. All is revealed, for better or for worse. Can the Scooby Gang accept the Slayer's betrayal, and is there such a thing as immortal love ?
Disclaimer: This is a work of amateur fiction. All characters etc. are the property of their respective creators and no copyright infringement is intended. The author reserves rights over her work and storyline. Feel free to read and enjoy, though ! (Song lyrics by David Bowie for the movie soundtrack 'The Labyrinth')
**HOW YOU TURN MY WORLD, YOU PRECIOUS THING,
YOU STARVE AND NEAR EXHAUST ME.
EVERYTHING I'VE DONE I'VE DONE FOR YOU;
I MOVE THE STARS FOR NO ONE.
YOU'VE RUN SO LONG YOU'VE RUN SO FAR,
YOUR EYES CAN BE SO CRUEL.
JUST AS I CAN BE SO CRUEL.
THOUGH I DO BELIEVE IN YOU,
YES I DO.
LIVE WITHOUT YOUR SUNLIGHT,
LOVE WITHOUT YOUR HEARTBEART,
I.....I CAN'T LIVE WITHIN YOU. **
The blond man leaned against his car, smoking. The glowing ember at the end of his cigarette sparked brighter with each intake of breath, and trails of heavy narcotic smoke rose away into the night.
Stacey, Amber and Heather were on their way to a club to start their night of partying. It was, after all, Saturday, and there was a one week break coming up soon. Their spirits were high as they came down the pavement just outside the hedge that marked the perimeter of this side of campus. Stacey thought that life just couldn't get any better, then the man shifted, the light from the streetlamp illuminating his face, and life did.
"Oh. My. God." Stacey stopped just before they rounded the curve. "Guys, don't scream, but there's a major, total hunk straight ahead."
Heather skidded to a stop in her high heels, giggling as her long chestnut hair swirled around her. "Where ?" she asked in a stage whisper. Stacey pointed.
"Be still my heart !" Amber put one hand to her bosom, which was practically falling out of her low-cut dress anyway.
Stacey watched in fascination as the man tilted his head back, drawing deep on the cigarette before exhaling. His hair was almost silver in the light, but his dark brows were in stark contrast to the pale angles and planes of a beautifully-structured face. She watched, mesmerised, as he pushed off casually from the car and swung around to stub out the cigarette under his boot. The long leather coat swung out around him with the motion.
"Judging from the dress sense, he isn't from campus," Heather whispered. "He looks like a blond version of Keanu Reeves from the Matrix !"
"Better looking, definitely better looking," Stacey muttered. "Red silk shirt too."
"Then why are we hiding behind a hedge, girls ?" said Amber. "Let's go and wiggle our butts !"
"Amber, did anyone ever tell you you're a slut ?"
Giggling and whispering, the three girls came down the sidewalk towards the man. Stacey was on the inner side closest to him, and she purposely put her feet in front of one another as she walked, swaying seductively. He looked even better close up ! She looked up at him from under her lashes and smiled.
Eyes shaded black by the shadows looked at her, but didn't turn as they passed by.
"He didn't even look at me," whispered Amber in exaggerated disappointment. "Did you see the scar over his eye ? I'll bet he got that in a knife fight, he's just so...so..."
"James Dean ?" offered Heather. "If our luck is going to be like this tonight, I can't wait to get to the club !"
They all laughed.
They didn't see the projectile shoot out from the dark and bushes across the narrow street. They didn't see the net open and wrap around the man, blue snakes of electricity coming to life for a few seconds and stunning him. They didn't see the black figures run out and drag him into the darkness.
All Stacey heard was a strange kind of half-grunt, half-growl, but when she turned around to look the road was empty.
"Good work," the Professor said approvingly. "Very good work." She was looking at a monitor among a stack of similar screens which showed her the interior of a white, modernistic containment cell where a figure was curled up on its side under a long, leather duster. " Now that Number 11 is back where he belongs, I think we could start testing your theory on him." She turned to the tall young man standing in the middle of the room, his hands folded behind his back. "Well ?"
He looked silently at her, without response.
She raised her eyebrow. "Well ?"
His eyes stared straight forward again. "Of course."
She considered him. Of late, Riley had not been quite himself. Quiet, subdued, but she sensed something below the surface, something barely kept in check. She thought she knew the reason too. Students in her lectures always thought they were safe in their numbers, never guessing that she could see little details very well from where she stood. Riley had been spending quite a lot of time lately staring morosely at a certain sun-streaked female head.
"Dismissed." She turned back to the monitors. Her Agents and students' love- lives were not the question or concern here. They had to find out what Number 11 knew, what he was hiding.
When Riley stepped outside the office George, Nathan and Eric were waiting for him in the hallway. Wordlessly, they fell into step with him.
"So," George said. "We've got the bastard. What do we do now ?"
They stopped in front of a door and went into the relative privacy of their team's meet-room.
"I hope he doesn't talk," said Eric angrily. "Let the bloodsucker starve for a little while."
Barely hearing them, Riley paced back and forth for a while. Then he stopped and looked towards the filing cabinet in the corner.
"Riley," Nathan put his hand on his friend and team-captain's arm, but Riley shrugged him off as he went to the filing cabinet and pulled open the third drawer from the top. "It's no good, man. You're only hurting yourself."
Riley's fingers shook as he took out the manilla folder whose contents very existence put them in constant threat of being discovered. The consequences would be bad, very bad. But he would rather let The Initiative take a piece of his flesh than hand these over to them.
His friends watched in silence as he took the folder and put in down on the table. Opening it, he fanned out the contents.
They were large black and white pictures, seemingly innocuous. Pictures of a pair of lovers in the early hours before dawn. Romeo and Juliet sharing a kiss before day forced them apart. Literally. Because one ray of sunlight and Romeo would have been dust.
His fingers stroked down the cheek of the girl. In the picture she was leaning back in the arms of Number 11, her face tilted up towards him with a tender smile. He recognised the emotion that glowed in her eyes, and it hurt beyond repair that he would never see that look turned on him.
The rage that rose in him was killing, obliterating as his fingers crushed the topmost photograph. He was a man of firm convictions and strong will. Now he called upon that will to kill the last vestige of emotion in his heart.
The other three men looked at one another uncertainly.
"Containment rules: we can't have the possibility of another vampire loose in the dorms. Is she.. ?" Riley indicated the photographs.
"Still walking around in sunlight," said Nathan cautiously. "No sign of abnormal behaviour, except..."
"Except what ?" Riley's head came up.
"She stays out a lot at night. Very late, and we're talking about coming back in the early hours of the morning here. Not drunk and none of the usual signs of late-night partying either. Sometimes she's accompanied by her room-mate or a dark-haired boy we haven't yet identified."
"If she was with Number 11 that night, she definitely sheltered him," Riley said. Again the others exchanged uncomfortable glances. There was only one thing the two could have been doing in the room all night. Riley caught the look. "I want your opinion, Nathan."
"Riley," the young man began, "I'll tell you beforehand you're not going to like..."
"It's not a matter of what I like or what I don't like, dammit ! Now spit it out !"
Nathan shrugged. "Either the girl simply doesn't know the nature of Number 11 and that night was just a coincidence, or she's in league with him. In which case she would have to be non-human. Not a vampire, but there are other creatures which, though we don't bag, we know are out there."
"Which do you think is the most likely explanation ?"
"The latter. We may not have much info on vampires' sexual habits, but generally it is accepted fact that no human would survive the mating since vampires cannot control their killer instinct and will bite."
Silence fell as Riley nodded curtly. "Then an investigation is in order. Test her."
Two weeks later:
"Earth to Buffy, earth to Buffy. Calling Ms. Summers !" Xander waved a hand in front of the blond slayer's face, making her jump. "Boy are you out of it. Can I have your hamburger ? Since it's been sitting on your plate for the last half-hour."
"Sorry, Xander," Buffy said sheepishly. "I was .... Daydreaming."
"You've been acting weird lately," Willow said in a concerned voice. " All spaced-out. It's really wiggy sometimes," she added as Buffy reached for her chocolate milk and took a gulp.
"Daydreaming of what, phantom lovers in the night ?"
Buffy choked on the milk and coughed a spray of droplets right into Xander's face.
He sat for a moment as the milk trickled down his nose and cheeks onto his shirt, before opening his eyes. "O...Kay...a plain 'no' would have been sufficient."
"Oh, Xander, I'm so sorry !" Buffy said in horror as the two girls seized napkins and began wiping their friend off. "It just went down the wrong pipe."
"Buffy, are you really OK ?" Willow said with a worried frown, ignoring the titters from other tables around them in the cafeteria.
Buffy twisted the napkin in her hands. "Yeah, I'm just.. impatient. I want to find out who the Mad Marines are and punch the daylights out of them. They're really starting to cramp my style and I don't like mysteries since I'm no Nancy Drew."
"Yeah," Willow nodded. "They're really making it personal since they knocked me out at the library that night. Some sort of warning. I should cast a bad luck spell over them, if only I knew who they were."
"You know I used to have the biggest crush on Nancy Drew ?" Xander said. "I used to fantasise about her."
"Urrgh !! We so did not want to know that !"
Later Buffy was walking out in the warm sunshine, her books clutched to her chest as she and Willow parted ways. Willow had a class scheduled for the next hour, and she did not.
She kicked at the grass. Lying to Willow and Xander and Giles was not something she liked to have to do, but what other choices were there ?
By now he would have left Sunnydale already, she thought. Part of her was sorry that he had not left a note or a forwarding address or anything. No phone call.
"What," she muttered to herself. "You expected him to say ' It's been great, I'll call you tomorrow' ? Get a grip on yourself. He made it clear there are no strings attached, and maybe it's better that way. You have enough undead people in your life already, Buffy Summers, and can you imagine what Mom would say when her daughter picks and the phone and tells her, 'Gee Mom, it's been hectic. You see, there's this really powerful evil, soulless vampire who's out to kill me, only we slept together and now I think I'm in love ' ?"
The trouble was, she had a hard time believing the evil bit anymore. How could anyone really evil love, or cry, or create such wonderful, lucidly heartbreaking music ? Did the demons in Hell love each other and sing like the angel choirs in Heaven ?
"It sucks being a Slayer," she said, keeping her head down as she stormed down the path, and collided smack into another person. That person was carrying a coffee cup which dropped out of his hand. As if in slow motion to her eye, it fell and turned a complete spin as it headed for the ground.
Reflexively she bent, her hand shooting out to catch the cup a moment before it hit.
"Wow," said a voice. "You've got really good reflexes."
She handed the cup over to the guy with it's protective cap still on and shook the few droplets that had escaped off her fingers. "Hey, I know you, don't I ? You're one of Riley's friends." She smiled.
"You got me." The good-looking young black man held out his hand. "Nathan."
"Buffy the Sla...Summers." She caught herself just in time and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."
"You too," he said warmly, then looked at his watch. "Oh shit I have to run. Lecture in five and I'm going to have to do the cross-country across campus."
"Good luck !" she called after him as he dashed off, waving. Then she smacked her palm against her forehead. "Stoopid Buffy. You're thinking too much Slayer stuff." Shaking her head, she walked off.
Behind the wall of a Union Store, Nathan handed the intact coffee cup to Riley as they exchanged a look.
"Night, Giles," called Buffy to her Watcher as she crossed the parking lot near the Bronze. "I'm doing patrol with Xander tonight."
"Happy hunting !" said the Watcher as he went to open his boot. It didn't give. "Oh dear."
"What ?" Buffy turned around and trotted back. "You left your keys in the car ?"
"No. I seem to be having a little trouble with the catch." Giles took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's ha-happened before and I was supposed to send it to the garage yesterday, but I overslept.
"Well, as long as it's just the boot. You'll still be able to drive home and go to the garage tomorrow."
"It's not that." Giles looked slightly embarassed. "My house keys are in my briefcase which is unfortunately..."
"In the boot," Buffy finished for him. "What would you do without me, Giles ? Stand back." Obediently but with some trepidation Giles stood back, only to have Buffy swing around expertly and drive her booted foot with Slayer-level strength into the rear of his car. The whole vehicle shook as a nice dent appeared in the back and without pausing Buffy completed the turn and slammed her fist down on the metal.
Which gave way with a screeching rip, creating a nice little tear a foot long. The catch still held fast.
"Uh-oh," said Buffy as Giles put both hands up to his temples, which were beginning to throb as his Slayer sheepishly said, "Well, at least you can reach your briefcase now."
Across the lot the video-camera moved slowly back behind the curtains of a window.
It was 2 a.m., and the gym was deserted, save for a small girl in sweats with a sun-streaked honey ponytail.
She scowled as she drove her fists into the black punching bag with all her strength. Strike, strike block. Upper, lower, left cut and upper again, then turn and jump to deliver a swing-kick to the head. The dull thuds echoed through the gym and the tough black bag, bigger than the girl herself, swung and shuddered under the onslaught.
Buffy dropped into a crouch, her hands up defensively before her as she panted, sweat streaming down her face. It was no good. She hadn't been able to sleep in that bed since without remembering and running the details of that memory over and over again in her mind. She was afraid to sleep, in case the dreams came, and when they came she was afraid to wake up and end them.
She stared at the mirrored wall in desperation, then strode over to the gymnastic equipment at the other end of the huge hall. The parallel bars.
Body bursting with agitated energy, she jumped and caught the lower bar in her hands, legs coming together neatly as she swung, gathering momentum as she raised herself waist high with the strength of her shoulders then slipped down again. Forcing her body to its limit to exorcise her mind, she flipped over to the higher bar, her legs clearing the lower in a split. Once, she had done this to get out of a burning building. Once, before... Making a sound of helpless frustration she let go at the apex of a full swing, her body spinning through the air in freefall as she arched her back and somersaulted to land on her feet in a perfect dismount. Then she crumpled to the mat, sobbing.
Why ?! Why this, why me ?Why is it that I lose every man that I love to the demons within ?
The hand-held camera recorded this, as it had recorded everything else.
The hunger tore like a clawing animal trying to break out from inside his body. Walking helped, pacing helped, anger helped, but he didn't know how much longer he could hold on before the hunger took control and he chewed through his own arm in a desperate search for blood.
They were playing with him. Every day the woman came in with her questions, always the same bloody questions. Sometimes the incentive was a blood-bag, which in itself was OK. The worst was when the blood was in an open container, its scent reaching over to him till he thought he would go mad. The sessions always started the same way.
"What is your name ?"
At first he had refused to answer even that, turning his back to her. What had gotten to him was the boredom. There was nothing to do but pace. The cell was exactly five strides long and three and a half strides wide, he discovered. He had always had an active mind, and needed to be constantly doing something or planning something. Most of the escapades he had gotten into had been caused by his need for a new challenge to face, a new quest to embark on, whether it was treasure-hunting for the Gem of Amara or seeking to raise demons from the dead and opening a portal to Hell. Here there was nothing but white walls and his own mind.
"What is your name ?"
"Spike."
If she had been surprised, the bitch hadn't showed it. The blood-bag in her hand had been lobbed through the electric barrier to him before she left. He had held it for about an hour, turning over in his mind whether it was drugged, and in the end he had discovered that he couldn't care less. Letting his demon face through he had ripped the bag and drunk the cold, viscous stuff down as fast as he could. Not nearly enough, but enough to take the edge off the hunger. Surprise surprise, he hadn't passed out.
"What is your name ?"
"Spike."
"What is your real name ?"
No blood bag this time when he clammed up. Soon he began to get the hang of it. With each blood bag, another question was added to the list. A clever, insidious form of interrogation. And he was the only one on the block subject to it. He bloody well knew why. They wanted to know about the series, and about the vampire meeting places. Hell would freeze over before he told them.
The occasional blood-bags had eased his pain a little, not like the rest of the poor sods around him. Whenever any humans came into the Row there was complete silence, but the moment they left, the sounds began. Not very loud. He learned to recognise the stages. First human sounds, groans, the occasional moans, even whimpers. Then the guttural growls and rumbles of an angry demon. After that came the whining, like a dog in pain. Once, there had been one who had broken out into howls, howls of pain and desperation and that snapping, coiling hunger that had shaken every one of them down to the bone. At first he had scoffed at this show of bravado in front of the humans. As time wore on he began to understand it, and to respect it. What they had left was their pride. They were the predators, they were the strong.
The others had tried to talk to him, since they could hear the interrogations, but he did not want to talk to them. He had heard that once in a while someone went mad and had to be 'disposed' of. There had not been someone like that here in a long time, since most of the captives were young, mostly fledglings who could not fight the hunger. The oldest besides him was only thirty years old at most. Every day bodies were wheeled out tied to stretchers.
The less anyone knew about him, the better. But talking might have been a release. That was why he was afraid to indulge in it, afraid that he might spill out things he did not want to say.
He tried to remember as he sat down on the floor, hunched over and trying to ignore the pain. How long had it been, three weeks ? Night and day was the same here, why the sky was never seen. The interrogations had finally set into a pattern that he was unwilling to go beyond.
"What is your name ?"
"Spike."
"What is your real name ?"
"William Francis Mornay."
"You are known as ?"
"William the Bloody."
"How old are you ?"
"One hundred and ninety eight."
"Is the character of the same name in the television series '- - - ' based on you ?"
Silence.
Four blood bags. In order to avoid discomfort, an average vampire needs to take about five litres of blood, the content of one human body, each night.
In the silence, or when the cries of pain began, he thought about the Slayer. He had been doing it for weeks now.
Was she in league with his captors ? The other vampire who had spoken to him the first time he had been captured had said that he had been bagged after a fight with the Slayer. Yet he hadn't seen her, heard from her. Surely she would have at least come down to taunt him.
The reason he had been caught was simple: instead of heading directly out of Sunnydale, he had lingered two nights and on the second one he had driven to the outskirts of the university grounds for no reason he could pinpoint, except that he was drawn to her like a magnet. He had always been, even in the days when he had been with Drucilla. He had been captured that night like a mooning idiot.
His hands began to shake again, and his train of thought jumbled together incoherently as it had began doing at odd times for the past few days. Drucilla smiled sweetly, blankly at him, and she reached out her arm to draw Buffy close to her. "I love you," both mouths said silently to him, one red against pale skin, the other pink in a pink and gold face. And Drucilla was lying in the bed, asleep with her arms crossed over her chest on top of Miss Edith, and Angel was sitting in a chair across from her wearing the robes of a priest, holding a Bible. A stake appeared in her chest and Angel intoned "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Buffy was looking in the window at a figure in shadow hammering madly on a piano. "Let me in," she mouthed to him, bringing her lips back to reveal fang teeth. "Sweetheart, lover, let me in." He was walking down a street and it was winter in London in the old days, and Angelus was holding him by the waist, warm after sharing a kill, and they were kissing as the blood flowed between them, then Angel opened one side of his coat and drew out Buffy's severed head by its long blond hair. "Here, a sign of my love." And he was in the bed with Buffy, in Buffy, and she was scratching at his back and biting him until finally he could stand it no longer and he sank his teeth into her to drain her dry as Willow watched from the other bed. "It wasn't you, it was me. We can wait for half an hour and try again......."
In the monitoring room above Confinement Row, Professor Walsh was frowning at the screen, tapping a pen against her lips as she muttered to herself.
"The last one we had was 90 years old and he held out four months. This is a Master Vampire, nearly 200 years old, which means he should hold out thrice as long...can we afford to wait ? How much is truth and how much lies ? If so there are older, more powerful creatures out there. The Sire for one. And are there other people who know and choose to keep silent ? Is there a Slayer ? Can it be that there are those who have been guarding the human race from this disease for so long in secret ? Is there really a girl out there who was born expressly to kill these creatures ? If so, should I be expecting a visit from the girl to come and free her forbidden love ? But then I would also have to believe that she uses a flamethrower to kill vampires and that she has a whole gang of backers who are the arcane equivalent of the Yakuza."
Sighing, she ran her hands through her short hair and got up, needing a coffee quite badly. She gave the figure on screen one last glance, the inhuman, faint sound of its growling filling the room with a low hum as it rocked its body, arms hugging itself.
The door closed behind her, and for a few moments nothing happened. The sound continued steadily, the figure continued to rock.
Then an almost imperceptible line scrolled across the screen, as if the image had a long, thin fold running through it. After another length of time, the near-invisible scrolling happened again, as the tape replayed itself out.
There was a human standing in front of Spike's cell, and he was on his feet, barely holding on to his human face as the warm scent of blood and flesh reached in and tantalised him.
"Did you ?" the young man asked.
Spike focused on the artery in his neck. The jugular, pumping that jet of luscious, warm red fluid through him.
"Did you sleep with her ?"
Spike looked at him with a perfect expression of amused contempt. I know you and you don't know me, mate. That puts me one up on you. "The interrogator is a little old for my taste. Bite her, maybe. Sleep with her ? You couldn't pay me to do it, mate."
The young man clenched his fists, making muscles jump under his tight shirt. He was as tall as Spike, definitely more stocky and heavier, but if that barrier hadn't been there he wouldn't have survived the next minute as he came so close to the barrier Spike was surprised his nose wasn't singed. "You know who I mean !" The fists clenched and half raised.
In a flash of movement so fast human eyes had trouble following it, Spike was as close to the barrier as he could get, one finger-breadth away from Riley as his demon-face came forth and roared his challenge, maddened by the closeness of its prey. "Take one more step forward and we'll see if the barrier doesn't work as well on humans as it does on vampires !"
The man barely even flinched, focused on one thing and one thing only. "Did you sleep with Buffy ? I know you were with her that night, I saw..."
How had the bloody wanker done that ? Surprise brought Spike's human face back, but no expression flickered over the gaunt, hollowed pale features or the blazing blue eyes as Riley continued in a harsh, hate-filled voice, "I would have loved her, cherished her, given her the earth. She was pure, gentle, unspoiled, untouched..."
You sick sot, Spike thought in amazement. Bloody weird adjectives to apply to the Slayer. You never knew her, mate. You idealised her into your version of perfect womanhood and put her up on your pedestal. You missed out everything in her that makes her...her. Everything that makes her perfect.
"...you made her a demon. You took her humanity from her. How did you do it ?"
What in hell are you talking about ? Spike thought in inner confusion. She's still bloody human, isn't she ?
"You wanted her, so you turned her into some other form of crawling creature of the dark."
Listen, I know what the problem is, Spike thought. When you were little your Ma must have boxed your ears too hard and part of your brain fell out....
"She was MINE."
At that, Spike began to growl. A low, powerful rumbling that cut Riley off halfway and made him blink before it registered in his mind that the vampire's pupils had dilated to an impossible extent and the fang teeth were down without the demon face being there. He backed away one step as the growling reached its peak, rolling around Confinement Row and echoing off the walls. And, drawn by some deep-buried, savage animal instinct, first one, then another and another of the vampires joined in, some coming to the entrance of their cells, others reaching out even in their mindless pain to add their voices to the whole.
"Did you think she was yours ?" Spike said, his voice lowered and eerily amplified. "Now she's mine. All mine, and mine forever."
And throwing back his head, he began to laugh, first low, then higher and louder until the sound ricocheted off the walls and bounced crazily along the hard white surfaces, maniacal and terrifying.
And Riley stalked out of the hall, quivering with rage and hate.
Upstairs, the tape ended and the image of Spike at the entrance to his cell, snarling, came onto the screen just as the guards on duty rushed into Confinement Row to find out what the commotion was about.
As Xander came down the steps into the basement he heard his mother call out from upstairs, "An envelope arrived for you in the mail today !"
"Yeah, Mom." Stripping off his sweat-soaked shirt, he headed for the fridge to get himself a cool drink. This was going to be a killer summer.
"Anya said she's coming over in an hour !" his mother's voice drifted down faintly.
"I swear, as soon as I can afford it I'm moving out," groaned Xander, holding the cold can to his forehead as he crossed the room and slumped down on the couch. He opened his eyes to see the envelope on the table.
It was large, like the kind used to hold official documents. It was also unmarked, save for his name printed in the centre.
Mystery mail, how about that, he thought as he ripped open one end of the envelope.
The pictures fell out onto the table and he frowned as he leaned forward for a closer look. Then he froze in horror.
Willow came out of the lab and took off her white coat with a sigh of relief. Thin as it was, the long sleeves and extra coverage was giving her prickly heat. She headed to her locker to put away her stuff and take out her books.
When the metal door swung open, a large, plain brown envelope fell out onto the floor. Mentally groaning, the red-headed witch leaned over awkwardly with her armload of books and notes and picked it up, frowning slightly when she noticed there was no address or name of sender, only her name printed in neat black letters on the front.
She opened it and pulled out the contents.
The books crashed to the floor unheeded as footsteps ran down the hall.
Buffy came back from a visit to the ladies room to her table in the cafeteria, aching for her coffee, when she noticed something strange.
A plain brown envelope was under her coffee. With her name printed on the front.
"A shy pen-pal ?" she murmured as she took a sip of her coffee. Then she tore the envelope open. There were two things inside, some kind of letter and a blown-up black and white photograph.
It was a pretty scene. They were standing on the edge of the path, right in front of a row of flowerbeds that surrounded the sign showing the name of the dorm and just under the lowest branches of the trees. She was wearing her fluffy robe and the slippers with the powder blue pom-poms on the toes, and she was standing on tiptoe, her head tilted back and her arms around Spike's neck as he bent to kiss her, making her lean back into the support of his arms around her waist.
On the back the words were scrawled in angry red marker, ' We have him.
An emergency meeting had been called at Giles' house.
"How could you ?!" Xander was shouting. "How could you do this to us behind our backs ? Are you out of your mind ?"
"I must say I have to agree with Xander," Giles was saying. "This is a serious development with dangerous potential which should have been reported immediately.."
"Which shouldn't have happened ! Period !" yelled Xander.
"...particularly to me. How can I fulfil my duty as your Watcher if I cannot trust you to tell me the truth about such a large matter, much less the smaller incidences."
"Oh Buffy," Willow cried. "You were LYING to me about my being attacked in the library being a Mad Marines thing ?"
"Willow could have been killed !" Xander hit the table with his palm. "It's not as if he hasn't tried already before. How could you put her in such danger and not tell us ? It's the same as lying !"
Buffy let the aggrieved voices wash over her as she sat in the middle of them on the sofa, her head in her hands. She was staring down at the words.
We have him.
"How long has this been going on, Buffy ?" Giles removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Probably since Angel went into the Hellhole," spat out Xander. "She had a thing going for Peroxide Boy even then."
"It was just one night." Buffy stared at Xander hard. "One night."
"The night I was whacked out in the library," Willow put in. "How ?"
"I was asleep. I thought it was you at the door, so I told 'you' that you could let yourself in since I wasn't getting up. He was angry, about Drucilla being dead. He....he wanted to make someone pay and at the same time he wanted....I don't know, I guess he wanted to be comforted. I was the only one on hand, even if I didn't volunteer." She turned the picture over. One last kiss to end a love that could not be allowed to live. Or had it been the final link in the chain that would bind them together ?
There was quiet for a moment as the other swallowed this.
"He..he raped you ?" Willow mumbled, flushing.
"Then why were you kissing him on the lawn ?" Xander insisted.
"I don't know, Xander !" Buffy exploded. She felt like climbing the walls, like picking up a baseball bat and repeatedly whamming something with it, like going out and staking twelve vampires. "I had been alone for so long after Angel and I felt so..so cheap and so betrayed after Parker...It just felt right ! He knew what I was feeling, that I was hurting, and he knew about me and he had been there from the start and he was hurting too." She made a conscious effort to calm down. "We were both hurting and we both comforted each other. It shouldn't have happened."
"Damn right." Xander threw himself down on a chair and folded his arms. "And now he's got what's coming to him. Serves him right."
"He could do it ?" Willow wanted to know. "I thought after that night when he tried to bite me that he was having...problems."
"Willow, that's not exactly the point," Giles said uncomfortably.
We have him.
"I'm not leaving him there."
Three heads turned to look at her. "What ?" Xander said in disbelief. "Did I hear right ?"
"These people want something, that's why they're using Spike as bait," Buffy said firmly. "And they're not going to leave it alone until they get what they want."
"Do you even know who these people are ?" said Giles.
"The Mad Marines, of course," Buffy replied simply.
"And would you please like to share with us why you think that ?" Xander demanded. "And you're going to rescue Spike ?"
"Easy," Buffy said without emotion. "Willow actually told it to me on that night that Spike was having trouble trying to bite her. Everytime he tried he yelled and started rubbing his head. Right after that the Mad Marines attacked and smoke-bombed the dorm. To know where Spike was they had to have been following him, and for them to have been following him means that they had met up before, in not too friendly circumstances. Most importantly, Spike ran that night. He'd never run unless he knew that he wouldn't win the fight even before trying, and that's nearly impossible with Spike. The Mad Marines are also the only ones who prowl around at night, and whoever took the pictures must have had pretty good equipment to have taken shots of us in the dark without us hearing or sensing anything. The Mad Marines are the only ones who have that kind of equipment. Last of all, who else do you think could be strong enough and crazy enough to kidnap Spike to get the Slayer ?"
"Wow." Willow's wide eyes said it all. "That's pretty good logic."
Even Giles was impressed. "A fine piece of sleuthing, if I may say so.."
"HOLD ON A SECOND !" Xander jumped up. "Are we all forgetting something here ? She's going to rescue Spike ! This is another Angel-type thing developing here and that's the last thing we want. Do you remember what happened the last time the Slayer bonked a vampire ?"
"Xander !" gasped Willow, but the damage was done. They all remembered too clearly what had happened when Angel had lost his soul and become Angelus. Giles' face became strained as he remembered Jenny's death.
Buffy stood up. "I don't care, Xander, you know ? Spike doesn't have a soul to lose, as you're so fond of reminding me, but I'm not going to let those psychos tear him apart. I'm not going to let him die because I was too much of a coward to take the step, and if you're not with me I'm going alone." With that, she walked out.
"This is much more serious than we thought," Willow groaned. "Much-much."
She didn't know where she was because she was blindfolded. All she knew was that she was sitting in a hard chair with a metal back and her hands were tied behind her.
The instructions had told her to go to a certain bench on the grounds at midnight, alone, and wait. Someone had come up behind her and touched what felt like the muzzle of a gun to the back of her head, and a length of thick black material had been dropped on the bench behind her.
"Pick that up and stand. Slowly."
She had done as she was told, alternating between anger, curiosity and worry. These people were professional.
The voice then instructed her to tie on the blindfold, and she had been gripped by two people and led stumbling off into the dark till they reached a car. Some vehicle anyway, and she had been pushed in before her captors got in behind her and shut the doors.
The short ride was made in complete silence.
Afterwards there was a bit of walking. Steps and a door and more steps up and down, then a lift which had gone down. More walking, turning so many times that she lost track of left and right till they had reached this place and she had been forced down into this chair and tied up after being frisked.
She had been sitting here for some time now, and she was getting annoyed.
"I know you're there so why don't you just go ahead and tell me what you want ?" she said with an assured defiance she didn't feel. What had they done with him ?
"Who are you ?"
A male voice, coming from somewhere in front of her.
"Buffy Summers. Are we playing Twenty Questions ?" she asked sarcastically. "I'm bad at games."
"What is your relationship with Number 11 ?"
"Who ?"she strained to make out the voice. It sounded familiar, somehow.
"The thing you're kissing in the photographs."
She noted the use of the word 'thing'. For a moment she wondered what to say. Lover, no. Friend, no. Co-worker, no. Old acquaintance ? Maybe. Mortal enemy ?
"I can't say its any of your business. Who are you ?" she asked back. "What do you want with us ? You can't just go around spying on and kidnapping people."
"You are not 'people', " the voice said.
"Then what am I ?"
"That's a question we hope you will answer."
She was worried out of her mind about Spike, whom she intended to punch out the moment she saw him for lying to her about leaving Sunnydale. She was tired, confused and angry. She was fed-up.
"Look, you jerks, I'm not going to say anything until you take this blindfold off me. What are you, so ugly that you don't want me to see your faces ?"
The sound of murmuring made her turn her head towards the noise. She had been right, there was more than one person in the room.
After conferring for some time with the other unseen people, agreement must have been reached, because she felt hands at the back of her head undoing the cloth before it was pulled from her eyes, making her blink in the harsh light. When her eyes focused, she gasped.
"Nathan !" The man in army fatigues and boots didn't reply from where he was sitting behind a table. There were two other men in the room, also faintly familiar, and slowly she remembered where she had seen them before.
Slayer sense told her that there was another person in the room, watching her, and she turned her head with a growing sense of dread.
"Riley," she whispered.
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