CHAPTER EIGHT

It took time to get Smith safely back to the house, properly shackled and (reluctantly) given first aid for his hand. The point of Buffy’s stake had actually gone in between the tendons, so she didn’t think there was going to be lasting damage.
 
“Not that I care if there is,” she muttered at him when he complained about having been crippled. “I don’t think you get how close you are to being dead.  And I’ve got no idea if the Council is going to find you useful or not.”  He paled at the reminder that his fate was in the hands of a renewed version of the organization that had fired him for taking an inappropriate interest in their young charges.
 
“Slayers don’t kill humans,” he said, his voice not as confident as his words. “A Council of watchers and slayers wouldn’t do that.”
 
Buffy just stared at him, then began ticking off on her fingers: “One – these girls weren’t all carefully groomed potentials. They come from a lot of different backgrounds. Some of them are carrying around a lot of anger. Two – many of them have fought the First Evil and his minions. They had to toughen up early. Three – one of the heads of the new Council is a witch who has already killed at least one human.”
 
“Is that it?”  He tried to sneer.  “That’s all you’ve got? A bunch of little girls who might reject their training and a witch?”
 
“Well, there’s Four and Five, but I didn’t think I needed to mention them....”
 
He glared at her and pulled on his shackles, subsiding when he realized he was thoroughly and professionally chained up.  “Still not hearing anything scary.  Once your precious Council realizes how useful I can be, they’ll probably put me in charge. Your four and five will be worthless.”
 
Buffy nodded. “Maybe. But since they’re the ones who will get a shot at you first, I’d be more worried if I were you.”
 
He sneered again and sat against the wall, cradling his wounded hand. “So, what are these scary reasons Four and Five?”
 
“Four would be Spike. You’ve met already, but you may be more familiar with him as William the Bloody.” She smiled when his face paled again. “And he’s not my ‘minion’; he’s his own man—er vampire. He does what he wants. If I were you, I’d be hoping he eats while he’s gone. He might come back hungry.” Summoning up Andrew’s voice, she added, “You won’t like him when he’s hungry.”
 
 She walked toward the stairs, throwing over her shoulder, “And Five? That’s your escort, who’ll be here tomorrow. You might recognize her name too. Faith Lahane? Speaking of slayers who rejected their training....”
 
 With a flip of her hand, Buffy went up the stairs, slamming the door shut behind her. She paused at the top of the steps, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. It had taken every ounce of self-control she had not to smash his face into the wall until she had wiped the sneer off.
 
“You okay?” Vi frowned in concern as Buffy visibly got herself under control.
 
“Yeah. I just... five minutes with that guy is enough to make me feel like I need a shower.” She shuddered. “To think he was a watcher at one time.” She shuddered again.  “I had no idea how special Giles was until I started meeting other watchers.”
 
Vi nodded. “I guess things are really different now. We’re more on our own. I think I like that.”
 
Buffy smiled. “And you should. It’s nice to have Willow and everybody for backup, but all things considered, you should be very glad you’re not being told what to do by a bunch of tweedy English guys who would wet their pants if they saw a real vampire.”
 
Vi laughed, then asked, “Speaking of real vampires, when is Spike coming back?”
 
Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know. He said not to wait up, but... I think I’ll take a shower and just hang out down here till he shows.  You and the other girls can go to bed; I’ll keep an eye on our guest.”
 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 
When the other girls began to stir in the morning, Buffy was still sitting outside on the deck, waiting for a vampire she knew wouldn’t be able to come now that the sun was up.  She didn’t speak to anyone, except to give instructions to feed Smith, but not to unchain him no matter what he said.
 
“What if he has to... you know...”
 
Buffy shrugged. “Leave a bucket for him. I don’t want him loose until Faith gets here. I’m going to take a nap. Wake me when she calls from the airport.” Without another word to anyone, Buffy went to her room and curled up on her bed. Sleep was elusive as she went over and over Spike’s words when he’d left her the night before.
 
“ ‘I’ll try to come by’? What the hell does he mean try? There’s no try. There’s I’ll come by later, Buffy, or...” She sighed and stared through the darkness at the invisible ceiling. “Or there’s ‘Don’t wait up for me’. Which sounds a lot like ‘I’m not really planning to come by, but I don’t want to get into a fight about it right now.’ Crap!”
 
She tossed and turned, refusing to let herself consider that now his wounds were healed, there was no need for him to remain in Cleveland. He could just disappear again, and go back to his life of the past several years in which he “rarely” killed anybody he drank from and didn’t have to worry about it if or when he did. Eventually she gave up and got dressed to go downstairs to wait for Faith’s arrival.
 
Instead of calling when the Council plane had landed, Faith took a cab and showed up at the front door a little after noon.  Buffy and Vi had agreed to bring Smith upstairs to await his escort back to England, keeping him shackled, but no longer chained to the floor of the basement. He was sitting, somewhat uncomfortably, in a wooden chair when Faith walked in, announcing herself with a “So where’s this asshole that thinks it’s cool to hurt little girls?” He visibly shrank back as her gaze found him and her eyes narrowed.
 
She sauntered toward him, playing her bad girl persona to the hilt as she looked him over, her lip curled in contempt, for a full minute before dismissing him with a sneer. “Thought you might be bigger,” she said, turning away and addressing Buffy. “So, where’s William the Blondie? Still abed?”
 
“I don’t know,” Buffy said stiffly. “He doesn’t live here.”
 
Faith noted the dark circles under Buffy’s eyes and nodded, changing the subject again. “What’s the almost oldest slayer in the world got to do to get a meal around here?  I’ve been on that freakin’ plane all night. I’m hungry.”
 
Only Vi, who was used to Faith’s attitude wasn’t taken back by her arrival. She walked up and gave the dark-haired slayer a quick hug, saying, “Kitchen’s this way. Let’s see what we can find for you.”
 
“Don’t leave without me,” Faith said to Smith, smacking him on the head as she walked by. Buffy had to turn away to smother a laugh as the man’s eyes went wide with fear. When her phone rang and she saw Spike’s number on it, she signaled one of the other girls to stay in the room with their captive and sprinted into the office.
 
As she pulled the door closed behind her, she was saying, “Spike? Where are you? Are you okay?”
 
“I’m fine, Slayer. Why wouldn’t I be?”
 
“Because you... I waited....” She exhaled and tried to calm her voice. “No reason, I guess. I just thought you might come back.”
 
His voice got softer. “I told you not to wait up, love.”
 
“As if!” she said, angry now that she knew he’d not planned to come back to the house.
 
Ignoring her attempt to deny she’d waited up for him, he continued, “It was coming on toward morning, Buffy. If I’d come there, I’d have been stuck all day. And if we couldn’t.... It just didn’t seem like the right time to have that talk we need to have.”
 
“Fine. It’s not like I care if you’re here or not.” Before he could react to her obvious lie, she rushed on. “But Faith asked about you. She’s here to take sleazeball back to the Council. Willow wants to see if he’ll tell them anything useful about other ex-watchers and how he got the drugs.”
 
“Tell dark, dangerous and delicious I said hello, and that I’m countin’ on her to make that wanker sorry before he ever gets to Red and whatever she’s got planned for him.”
 
Biting back the jealousy his request sparked, she tried to keep her tone short and business like.  “So, I guess when I told him he had to worry about you and Faith, I was wrong. It’s just her.”
 
“You told him he had to worry about me?”
 
“Well, in a I-threatened-him-with-how-you-might-come-back-hungry-last-night kinda way. It’s no biggie. I’m sure Faith can scare him enough for both of you.”
 
“You told him you were going to let me eat him?”
 
“I told him you were your own man, and I... I don’t tell you what to do. So, I might have kind of implied that if you were hungry....” She looked up as the door opened and Faith peered in. “Doesn’t matter now I guess. I’ve gotta go, Faith just came in.”
 
“The hell it doesn’t matter! Make up your bloody mind, Slayer. I thought we left mixed signals behind a long time ago. What do you want from me?”
 
“I don’t know!” she blurted. “I’ve gotta go. Bye.”
 
She threw the phone down on the desk and glared at it.
 
“That didn’t sound like you and sex-on-a-stick are having that romantic reunion that Willow thinks you are.” Faith sat on the desk and took another bite out of her sandwich.
 
Buffy just rolled her eyes.  “Should I be disturbed that you and Spike refer to each other as sexy?”
 
Faith grinned and shrugged. “We’re just trying to keep you on your toes and focused,” she said with perhaps more honesty than was necessary. “I know you, B. You’ll toss a good thing right away if it doesn’t meet your standards of perfection. Just trying to keep you from making a mistake that you’ll regret.”  When Buffy raised a dubious eyebrow, she laughed. “And that the rest of us will pay for when you become the bitch from hell because you’re unhappy.”
 
“You worried me there for a minute. I thought you might be going soft in your old age.”
 
“Not gonna happen.” Faith tossed the crust of her sandwich into the wastebasket and stood up.  “Let’s get the slime out of here so you can get prettied up and go find your man and tell him you want him.”
 
“I don’t think he’ll believe me,” Buffy sighed.
 
“Then you’ll just have to prove it to him, won’t you?”  Faith left the office with a twitch of her hips. The two slayers entered the general meeting room and walked over to Smith, who looked them both up and down.
 
“Aren’t you quite the pair. Not quite salt and pepper, but close enough. Both a little too old for my taste, but—” Faith’s hand across his face brought an end to both his words and his attitude. He shrank back in his chair, glaring at her.
 
“News flash, scum of the scum, she’s the good slayer – in spite of not caring if her men have a pulse – I’m the bad slayer. And you’re all mine now. Every last little part... I’m guessing it is a little part? That’s been my experience with perverts. They always have little peckers.” She leered at him and pulled a knife from her boot. “At least they do when I get done with them...”
 
She stood up and turned away from Smith, who looked like he might be sick any minute. “Okay, ladies, who’s going drive me and my new bestie here back to the airport?” She had volunteers almost immediately, and in no time they were half-walking, half-carrying Smith out the side door and into the van.  Buffy shuddered as she watched the door close on the man who’d planned to use slayers as food for his minions and playthings for himself. 
 
“Good riddance,” she muttered as Faith climbed into the passenger seat. “If he falls out of the plane over the ocean....”
 
Faith grinned at her. “You probably don’t really mean that, but it shows you’re starting to lose that stick up your ass.  Might be a good time to go find your honey and tell him you aren’t as hard to please as you used to be.”
 
“I don’t know how to talk to him anymore,” Buffy admitted. “I think I’m going to be flirty and friendly – and then we end up yelling at each other. No wonder he thinks I’m sending mixed signals.”
 
“Think about it, B. You’ve got to remember how to get his attention. It hasn’t been that many years.”  Faith winked at her and closed the door, leaving Buffy standing in the driveway with a thoughtful look on her face.