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Morpheus\' Child by icemink
 
7&8
 
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Chapter 7: Fights

Buffy was majorly creeped out listening to Angel talk about tactical strikes, and helicopters, and stuff like that. It was like someone had smooshed Angel and Riley. In fact, suddenly Buffy was noticing how physically alike Angel and Riley were.

She was just starting to think maybe the reason things had gone so badly between her and her "normal" boyfriend was because she'd been using him as an Angel replacement, when she remembered that it was Riley that had pursued her. She hadn't even been aware of him as more than a TA until he'd asked her out.

Besides, Parker, who'd clearly been her rebound guy from Angel hadn't been anything like Angel, physically or personality wise. And Spike. . . was gone she suddenly realized.

"Look fine, just do whatever, Angel," she said, hurrying out of the conference room, leaving a stunned vampire behind her.

Once her mind had managed to process the fact that Spike was back, she'd realized that her dream must have been telling her something else. Considering that her dream had included the First Slayer staking Spike, she figured Angel was right and that Spike shouldn't be fighting this crazy slayer.

Unfortunately she hadn't gotten the chance to warn him yet, although knowing Spike if she told him that she'd had a dream that prophesied his death at the hands of a slayer, he'd probably be even more determined to find her.

As soon as she was in the elevator, and sure that Angel couldn't hear her, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Giles' number.

After several rings, a groggy voice answered her, "Hello?"

"Hey, Giles, it's Buffy."

"Is there a reason you're calling so early in the morning?" he asked.

"Oh, sorry. Time zones. Forgot. I'm in L.A."

"What are you-"

"Long story, not important right now either. Look, I need you to get every Slayer, Watcher, or whatever we have near L.A. here as soon as possible."

"Why what's going on?" Giles asked, suddenly sounding both alert and concerned.

"There's a slayer out here, only she just escaped from a mental institution-"

"And you need help recapturing her," Giles finished for her.

"Maybe, but that's not what I'm really worried about. I'm worried I won't get to her first. Giles, I found out about this from Angel, and he's . . . He's gone all corporate commando. I can tell he thinks he's doing the right thing, but that's what scares me. This place has sort of an Initiative vibe, only with better suits."

"Yes, I see. I was afraid of this sort of thing. I'll get those Slayers to you as soon as possible. It may be advisable for you to wait till they arrive to try and recapture this girl."

"Yeah, sounds good. Look can you call me back once you've gotten in touch with the others slayers?"

"Yes, of course Buffy. But I must stress-"

"Be careful, yeah, I got it. I have to go now, Giles. Bye." She clicked her phone shut as the elevator door slid open again.

Buffy hurried outside, trying to figure out how long ago Spike had left, and trying to guess which way he might have gone. She scrunched up her forehead and tried to do that honing thing Giles had been trying to teach her since they first met, but she'd never been very good at it. Plus, all the vampires that worked at Wolfram & Hart made it impossible to figure out which vague tingle was Spike.

"Hmmm," she said to herself. "If I were an annoying vampire searching for a slayer I'd go . . . that way." She pointed in a random direction.

Or rather she hoped it wasn't a random direction. She hoped that it was really the direction her finely tuned Slayer intuition was leading her. After all she had nothing else to go on. She decided running was the best course of action. If she was heading in the right direction, she'd catch up to Spike sooner, and in any case, it would mean it would take Angel longer to find her, assuming he tried.

Just when she was about to give up, she noticed a hint of platinum down a side street. She stopped to look closer. From this distance it looked like a floating spot, but she was willing to bet it was Spike, his black duster vanishing into the night.

She took off down the street toward the retreating dot. After a block the dot turned around and stopped moving away from her. Another couple blocks and it had clearly resolved into Spike. She could tell from his posture that he was annoyed at having been followed.

"Angel send you?" he asked as she got near him.

"What?" Why would he think that? she wondered. "No! I realized that you were gone, so I followed."

"Well, you found me, so you can run along now," Spike told her as he turned his back and started to walk away.

"Hey!" she yelled at him. He stopped and turned around. "What is this? Aren't you happy to see me?"

"It's very good to see you, Buffy," was his insincere reply. "Is that what you want?"

She tried not to look as hurt as she felt. Why is he acting like this? she asked herself.

"I want my friend back," she said without thinking. The moment the words left her mouth she knew it was a mistake. She could hear his voice in her head, as he berated her for only thinking of him as a friend.

But Spike didn't yell at her. Instead he looked kind of shocked. "Oh. Well. Sorry. Haven't been sleeping been well."

He turned away from her and started walking in the direction he'd been headed in before she'd found him.

She caught up to him, falling into stride next to him.

"So, um, what have you been up to since, you know, coming back from the dead?" she asked.

She felt stupid. There had been day dreams, vain hopes in which Spike had been alive and she had found him. They had all gone much better than this was going. In her day dreams she always knew the right thing to say, and Spike didn't act like a jerk.

"Dunno. Not much. Saving Angel, saving damsels, that sort of thing," he said without so much as glancing at her.

"Yeah, what's with that anyway? You and Angel I mean. When did you to start working together?"

He stopped and spun around to face her, his blue eyes speckled with gold. "We are NOT working together." He turned back around and continued walking. "He just shows up and gets in my way."

"So why stay in L.A?"

"Look," he stopped again. "Enough with the twenty questions already. I'll help you get back your slayer, and then you can scoot back along to whatever corner of the continent you now fancy."

"You think . . ? I'm not here for the slayer. I came here to find you."

"Yeah?" he asked. And just like that Spike's Big Bad facade cracked and crumbled. He looked almost like a little boy, face full of hope. "Why . . ? I mean, how'd you know? That I was back."

"I didn't. I thought . . . I wasn't sure. I had a dream, a slayer dream where I had to find you or something really bad was going to happen. And then I did, but the First Slayer was there, and she tried to kill you. I don't think you should be looking for this girl, it could be dangerous."

This time she really had said the wrong thing. The hopeful little boy vanished, and Spike was back in full swagger.

"Danger, huh? I'll remind you, I've fought three. . . no make that four slayers and not a one ever managed to kill me. So I think I know what I'm doing."

"Four? Wait you mean Faith? Faith doesn't count. You can't count Faith. I had to pull her off of you, remember?"

"I didn't mean that. I meant later, you know when Andrew and I got back from the monastery and your mates had thrown-" He stopped in the middle of his sentence.

Buffy couldn't help but wonder what exactly he was thinking, remembering. But it still meant something. She could tell that. That night, that had been one of the worst and one of the best nights of her life all at once. When her friends, her sister, and her Watcher had all turned their backs on her, and only Spike had been there. The night they'd been close.

It still meant something to him, and that gave Buffy hope. Hope that sooner or latter they could have a real conversation that didn't fall apart into nasty arguing.

They just stood there, the silence and the stillness hanging between them. But it was okay. It was just a moment they needed, to try and bridge the gap between who they'd been, and who they were.

And then Spike was gone.

It took Buffy a moment to process what had happened. To realize that Spike had been knocked to the ground, or that the cracking sound was his head hitting the pavement. But long before her brain had caught up, her body was moving. She grabbed the wrist of the girl who'd tackled Spike and thrown him to the ground. Buffy twisted the girl's wrist, but she refused to drop the stake she obviously meant to use on Spike.

"Hi, I'm Buffy," she said brightly as she punched the other girl in the face. "You must be Dana, the new girl."

She kicked the girl in the stomach, while still gripping the hand that held the stake.

"Here's the thing," Buffy continued as she took another swing at the girl's head. But this time Dana ducked under the blow and charged Buffy, thrusting her head into Buffy's stomach and knocking her backwards.

As they rolled, Buffy released the other girl's wrist, so that she could scramble back to her feet. She could see Spike shaking his head, as he tried to get up. Seeing that he was relatively alright, she focused all her attention on Dana.

The two slayers squared off. Dana was completely silent, but Buffy continued her monologue, "I know you think Spike's a vampire."

Dana feigned a right punch, and Buffy, expecting an inexperienced fighter, fell for it, and right into the girls left hook. She shook her head, and grabbed Dana's right arm with hers as another punch came at her. Buffy spun away from the punch and into Dana's body so that her back was to the other girl. She let the momentum of Dana's punch add to the force as she slammed her elbow into the girl's stomach.

"And you'd be right. But here's the thing."

Buffy shifted her grip on Dana's arm and then threw the girl to the ground. But Dana rolled nimbly to her feet. The other slayer growled at Buffy, and as her long stringy hair fell in front of her face, she reminded Buffy of someone else.

"He has a soul."

Buffy moved forward, pressing the attack, but Dana managed to avoid or block most of her blows, while getting in a few of her own. They traded a series of punches and kicks. The more they fought the more a feeling of deja vu crept over Buffy. Even though she'd never seen or heard of Dana before this evening, this was an opponent she'd fought before. Besides, slayer or not, no girl who'd spent most of her life in an institution without any training could fight this well.

"Besides, no one kills Spike but me," Buffy concluded.

"Jealous, pet?" Spike asked, and just like that he was there, in the middle of the fight.

She had to mental backtrack to figure out what she'd said that made her sound jealous. She was pretty much quipping on auto-pilot as her mind was divided between the fight, and deciding if this girl really was who Buffy thought she was. Luckily with Spike up and around, the fight was no longer the draw it had been.

Oh crap! Buffy thought as she realized just what it was she had said. But Spike didn't seem upset by it. No, he just had that big grin he got when he was really enjoying a fight.

Then Spike managed to grab the other slayer's arm immobilizing her enough that Buffy could get in a strong enough punch to knock her unconscious. Dana, or whoever she really was slumped into Spike's arms.

"Look, Spike. About what-" Buffy was interrupted as several black vans came to screeching halt at the corner of the street. Angel and several S.W.A.T. team looking guys got out of the vans.

"Crap," Buffy said. Her hands scrambled to pull out her cell phone and she thrust it into Spike's hands. "You have to take her," she told him. He only looked at her confused. "Look, I don't have time to explain, but Angel and his law-firm CAN'T get their hands on her. Chain her up and keep her safe. I'll stop Angel." He still looked doubtful. She looked down the street to where Angel and his tactical team were getting closer. "Look, please Spike I need you," she pleaded. "I'll call you, on my phone, once I've gotten rid of Angel and you can tell me where she is. Just, please, make sure Angel doesn't get her."

Spike nodded then, and put the phone in a pocket of his duster. "Right, I'll wait for you call." He threw the unconscious slayer over his shoulder and took off away from Angel.

Angel, of course saw that, and he and his team began to move in on them faster. Buffy ran to meet Angel, half way.

"Hey, Angel. No need for all these guys. We've got everything under control."

He stopped in front of her. "Look Buffy, you may have stunned her, but she could wake up at any moment."

"You're right, and I'm sorry."

"Sorry for-Ooof!" Angel cried as she sucker punched him.

Buffy heard several clicking noises all around her, and one of the S.W.A.T. guys yelled at her, "Put your hands up!"

Buffy did as she was told, trying not to smile. Just as she had hoped, they had decided she was a threat, and were more concerned with her, than Spike, who was getting farther by the minute. And, since as far as she could tell, Angel was the only one of them who was a vampire, they wouldn't be able to catch Spike on foot.

"Don't worry about her," Angel said as he clutched his stomach and got back up. "Go after Spike."

They lowered their guns, and started after Spike.

"Yeah, no worries." Buffy chirped in a too cheerful voice. "It's not like Angel broke up with me right before the prom. Oh wait, you did."

"Miss, I'll need you to put your hand behind your head and kneel on the ground."

Buffy smiled as the tactical team, which had started to move after Spike, once again surrounded her.

"She's bluffing. Go after Spike." Angle ordered again.

But it was obvious that his men thought they might need to protect Angel from his ex, which would give Spike more than enough time to get away.

Buffy just hoped that it was enough that she had saved him from being staked earlier. She didn't know what she'd do if she found out she'd killed Spike again by sending him off alone with the First Slayer.

Chapter 8: Waiting

Spike was elated and annoyed all at once. But mostly he was elated. Buffy had asked him to keep the new slayer away from Angel. She trusted him and not Angel. Of course last time she'd given something to him and not Angel, he'd ended up burnt to a crisp, but that was only a minor detail.

What annoyed him was what she'd said about them being friends, or rather his reaction to it. The way he'd lapped up her scraps of affection, and all but begged for more.

Although he'd known they had been friends back in Sunnydale, she had never actually said it. In those days, when his soul still felt jagged and new, it had been wonderful. To be allowed back in her life, after he'd so nearly hurt her so badly. It was more than he'd dared hope for. But now things were different.

Spike was no longer the broken man whom Buffy had put back together piece by piece the year before. Although Spike still wasn't sure of his place in the world, now at least he thought he had one. The Powers That Be certainly seemed to think there was some purpose to his un-life.

So he didn't want to be friends with Buffy, he wanted to be more to her than that. It wasn't that he thought he deserved her, he knew he didn't. He knew that any hope or right to expect more from her had been shattered by his stupidity and blindness when he'd nearly raped her.

Instead he wanted to move on from Buffy. To find someone who could love him back. Just because he wasn't worthy of Buffy, didn't mean that somewhere there wasn't someone else whom he could love and who would love him.

And yet when Buffy had acknowledged him as a friend, his heart had soared. He would have done anything for her then. He knew the longer she was around, the harder it would be for him to break away from her. And yet she needed him, so he had to help her. Besides, it looked like helping her meant getting in Angel's way and that was enough of a reward in its own right.

Of course there was one other problem. As flattered as he was at Buffy's faith in his ability to handle a slayer, he wasn't really set up right now to restrain someone with her strength. It suddenly seemed a big oversight on behalf of Doyle and the Powers That Be that they hadn't set up some chains in the flat they'd provided him with. Although maybe that was for the best since it would be the first place Angel would look.

He ran through his options. He couldn't go to Wolfram & Hart, even though most of the friends and allies he had in L.A. currently worked there. Doyle always contacted him, not the other way around, and there was no way of knowing if he had any chains or not, though Spike was willing to bet he did. After that Spike's list of resources was pretty thin. His old friends in L.A.'s demon community were more likely to double cross him than help him now that he was one of the good guys–in fact they probably would double cross him even if he were still evil–and he'd yet to establish many contacts among the more benign demons.

As he ticked through the list of who he knew in L.A, he realized he'd been going about this the wrong way. He didn't have many allies, but he did know people he could pay to help him. He'd just have to hope that Marvin would consider him good for the kittens. Since his ensoulment, Spike had stuck to currency of the non-fury kind. Not that he had much in the way of dollars either.

His mind made up, he hurried off towards West Hollywood, hoping he could make it to Marvin's before the slayer he was carrying woke up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dana was very quiet. Sometimes if you were very quiet the man would forget about you, and he would leave you alone. Sometimes no matter how quiet you were he got mad and gave you shots and hurt you anyway. But there was a chance if you were quiet.

Besides, no one ever heard you if you screamed. No one ever came.

That seemed even more true here in the cave where Big Sister had led her, and where the three strange men had chained her. No one had come, not Big Sister, not the strange men, not even the bad man. And Dana was alone for a very long time.

Sometimes she thought about screaming, about making noise, so that somebody would find her. But she was too scared about whom that somebody might be. And so Dana was very quiet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn't often that Spike found himself wishing he was still evil. After all, evil hadn't worked out for him very well that last several years. But at times like this, evil started to look really good.

He'd been stuck in a room for over an hour waiting for Buffy to call. His only company was the deranged slayer who refused to talk despite his best efforts. The most she would do is growl and glare at him as if she could stake him with her eyes.

There was no TV, no radio, not even any books to keep him occupied. Just the bed the slayer was chained to, and all the sex toys and torture implements your typical demon could want. Except he wasn't your typical demon any more, so all he could do was wait for Buffy's call.

Just when he was beginning to wonder if Buffy actually knew her own phone number, a rather annoying, cheerful, and electronic tune began to play from his pocket. He hurried to pull out the phone and answer it. Although there were many things he loved about Buffy, her taste in music wasn't one of them.

"It's about time," Spike barked into the phone.

"I'm sorry, I must have the wrong number," a familiar British voice answered.

"Rupert?" Spike asked.

"Spike!" came Giles startled reply. "What on earth are you doing answering Buffy's phone! And didn't you die?"

"Yeah, well over a hundred years ago. Sounds like you're slipping in your old age, Watcher."

"You most certainly know that is not what I meant. Questions of your resurrection aside, where is Buffy?"

"Don't know, waiting to hear from her, so if you don't mind getting off the phone."

Spike was about to click the phone closed, when he heard Giles yell from the other end, "Spike! Wait!"

Spike sighed and put the phone back to his ear, pacing back and forth as he listened to the other man. "Yeah, what is it?"

"Look, it's vitally important that-" Just then he passed in front of Dana who snapped at him, rattling her chains. "Were those chains?! You have Buffy locked up don't you?" Giles accused.

"What? No, why would I-" Spike didn't finish the sentence as his eyes passed over some of the sex toys and several very good reasons to chain up Buffy came to mind. "Look, it's not her. It's this other slayer who's not all there. Just got her restrained for her own good."

"You have her? Good. Where are you?" Giles asked.

"Why?" Spike asked suspiciously.

"Spike, I don't have time for that. This slayer is the whole reason I was calling Buffy. I have several other slayers ready to take her into custody. Just tell me where you are, and I'll have her safe and off your hands."

Spike snorted. "You've got to be kidding. You really think I'm going to tell you where I am so you can send a company of slayers here?"

"Well, yes. Didn't Buffy tell yo-"

"Buffy didn't mention it. And honestly, Ripper, after that business with the principal you really think I trust you? How stupid do you think I am? And that was rhetorical," he added before the other man could give his opinion on the subject. "Look, I'll let Buffy know you called. Bye."

Spike hung up the phone over Giles continued protests. He was probably being paranoid. After all Giles hadn't known he was alive. On the other hand, there was no point in taking unnecessary chances, especially when he didn't know all the facts. Buffy had told him to keep the girl safe and away from Angel, and until she told him otherwise that was what he was going to do.

He sat down in the room's one chair and went back to counting the spots on the ceiling as he waited for Buffy to call.
 
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