Chapter 15 – You’re the Girl



Buffy marched as fast as she could to Riley’s truck. She was dripping water, her nose was bleeding and she couldn’t walk as fast as usual, because her boobs jiggled, which they never did before she got pregnant, and jiggling made them hurt. When she reached Riley’s truck, she bashed in the passenger side window with her fist, making the alarm shriek, and hauled out her bag with her stakes and other weapons.

She whipped a stake out of her bag and headed back to the bar to kick some ass, whose ass she hadn’t quite determined, although Spike figured high on the list for slopping water all over her.

Spike caught up with her and took her arm. “You don’t want to go back there. Come on, let’s go.”

She jerked her arm away, but, seeing five police cars pull up in front of the bar with their lights flashing, she walked away from the bar.

“You did that on purpose to get me to break up with Riley.”

Spike took out a cigarette and lit it before answering. “Yeah.”

Buffy was surprised he told the truth. In some weird way, his telling the truth mollified her. He wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble of dragging Carmelita to Tanzgotik to bust up her relationship with Riley, if he hadn’t cared about her a little. Nevertheless, she couldn’t let him think his ploy had worked.

“It won’t work. Riley and I are really interested in each other. Every couple has problems. We’ll work this out. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation why he knows that Carmelita girl.”

Spike grinned. “It did work. You’re not going to be seeing any more of Lieutenant Lunkhead now you know about his vamp trull.”

“Shut up.” What was a trull?

Spike was right about one thing, in his typical, all too exasperating way. She couldn’t bring Riley home to meet her Mom after finding out he paid a vampire girl to suck his blood and whatever else he let her suck.

Spike put his arm around her. “He’s no good for you, pet. He’s normal. You need an exciting guy like me, with some monster in him.”

Riley wasn’t so normal, as it turned out. Buffy felt embarrassed, but relieved. She had no feelings for Riley. In fact, she’d come to dislike him and was ashamed of herself for seeing him after she knew she didn’t care.

She wasn’t about to tell Spike she was happy to see the last of Riley or that Spike was right - normal wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Her anger at Spike melted away. It was getting harder and harder to be mad at Spike for any length of time. When did that happen? She used to be mad at Spike for hours, days, weeks at a time. The outside limit on Spike Infuriation these days was about five minutes.

She remembered she had important news. “Spike? Willow hacked into the Initiative and found out our baby’s a boy.”

“I know.”

Buffy jabbed his arm. He had his nerve blowing off her announcement like that. She might not be able to be angry at Spike for long, but she was making up for it in frequency.

“You did not either know. Willow only told me yesterday and you haven’t seen her. Have you?”

“I didn’t see Red. Didn’t have to.”

“Don’t tell me you smelled the baby because I will stake you.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you.” Spike laughed when she pummeled his chest.

Spike caught her in his arms and pressed her close.

“There is something you can tell me.”

Spike kissed her long and hard, hoping she’d forget whatever it was she wanted to ask. She could only want to know something he didn’t want to tell.

“Don’t distract me,” Buffy said when Spike let her come up for air. What was it she wanted to ask him? It was so hard to think when Spike was holding her. Oh, yes. “What’s your name? Your last name?”

Spike swallowed hard.

“Vampires don’t have last names. We’re like movie stars – yeah, I’m like Arnold or Bruce or Sly or …”

“Cher?” Buffy said with a smirk.

Spike swiped the air over her head. “Nothing like Cher, bint.”

“So, what was your name when you were alive, William?”

“I forgot.”

“Liar. Tell me!”

She tickled his ribs, which never worked, but made him smile anyway. It was good to be back with Spike and laughing together. When they were together like this, she didn’t worry about being normal or what her friends thought about her vampire lover or whether the next apocalypse was going to keep her from signing up for Aitutaki Tribal Drum Appreciation class or even whether she was going to be a good mom to her baby or any of the stupid things that clouded her days. When she was with Spike, she could just be Buffy. Happy Buffy.

They walked down the sidewalk, hand in hand, jostling each other and giggling. She twirled her stake.

Buffy heard the soft scrape of footsteps behind them. Spike heard it, too. They exchanged glances and kept walking.

The footsteps came closer.

She snapped her stake into her fist and whirled to face their follower. Buffy grabbed the girl’s throat and slammed her against a nearby building, the stake pressed against the girl’s ribs, ready to plunge into her heart.

It was the blonde girl who’d stared at her earlier in the bar.

“What do you want? Why are you following me?”

The girl’s eyes widened with terror and she gasped for breath. “You’re Buffy, aren’t you? You’re the girl who kills vampires?”

“Why?”

“My boyfriend, Thomas. The Initiative caught him. A detective with the police department told me to find you. He told me you could help.”

***

Riley stood at attention in front of Walsh’s desk. She’d summoned him in the middle of the night on his pager, interrupting his tender reconciliation with Carmelita. Walsh loved to do that – send out a call when she suspected he might be having sex. Old Bat.

Professor Walsh sat at her desk for several minutes without speaking or looking in his direction. Another thing she liked to do. Intimidate people by pretending they weren’t there. She was looking at some damn report which he wasn’t able to read upside down.

“Special Agent Finn, you recall our conversation a few months ago concerning Buffy Summers?”

Riley’s face exhibited surprise and sneaking guilt. “Yes.”

“And, what were my instructions concerning Ms. Summers?”

“I was not to see Ms. Summers outside my capacity as your teaching assistant.”

“You purposely disobeyed my direct orders, didn’t you?”

“Ms. Summers requested my assistance with her studies,” he said. “You aren’t my commanding officer. I’m not required to obey orders from you, Professor.” She’d said so herself not three months ago.

“I think you’ll find you are mistaken. You’ve been seeing Ms. Summers on a social basis. Since Ms. Summers is pregnant and she’s accomplished the current goal of my program, I’m willing to overlook your interference. What I’m not willing to overlook is your abuse of your security clearance to …”

“She’s pregnant? With that vampire trash, Hostile 17?” Little bitch strung him along the whole time. He didn’t know who he was madder at, Buffy for pretending she was going to have sex with him and be his human girlfriend or that jackass vampire for getting her knocked up.

“Do not interrupt me again, Agent Finn. You abused your security clearance to obtain information about the Positive Reinforcement program that Ms. Summers was participating in with Hostile 17.”

“I didn’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If you didn’t look up that information, you are guilty of an amazing breach of security protocols in failing to secure your passwords for computer access.”

Riley said nothing.

Buffy. She’d been sitting in his office at the Psych Building the day ‘someone’ broke in. She must have broken the door herself and stolen his passwords. She’d been leading him on with promises of sex and used him to get information. She’d pay for that. She’d pay and so would that bastard Seventeen.

“You’re not arguing, so I will take your silence as an affirmative. I’m also aware you tampered with Hostile 17’s security implant. Fortunately for you, it suits my purposes for Hostile 17 to be reactivated and fully functional. I’m reassigning you to the high security installation at Fuego.”

Finn’s face, once she mentioned Fuego displayed precisely the look of disgust and mortification Walsh hoped to achieve. “Unless you’d prefer to be reassigned to Diego Garcia? I hear the Indian Ocean is refreshing.”

Diego Garcia was worse than the Cleveland Hellmouth. Wind, dust, 140 degrees every day, reruns of ten year old movies, no beer and no women. Fuego sounded like a tropical paradise by comparison.

“Fuego will be fine, Professor.”

Walsh shoved a piece of paper across the top of her desk. “You will take your team to this address and follow orders. I don’t expect any more acts of insubordination on your part. Is that clear?”

He picked up the paper, glanced at the instructions, smiled, folded the paper and placed it in his pocket. Here was one order from Walsh he wouldn’t mind following.

Finn saluted and left.