Disclaimer: Joss owns ‘em, not me, so unfair.

Author’s note: *Huggles* to BTL for the great betaing.
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Chapter 13: The Cricket

Buffy pulled back from Spike’s kiss and glared at her former watcher and the Slayer that she had marked.

“It’s time to say goodbye, Buffy,” declared Faith, clutching a stake in her hand.

“Uh, can we not do this right now?” asked Buffy.

“Or ever,” added in Joyce, tears still trailing down her face at her betrayal.

“I have been negligent in my duties for too long as it is,” answered Giles.

“You can’t be serious Giles! She saved me! She’s a good vampire!” protested Willow.

“There is no such thing Willow. I thought that Angel would have cured you of that misconception,” continued Giles.

“She’s not like Angel!” Willow continued. “She doesn’t have a soul to lose!”

“All the more reason to put her in a ash tray,” muttered Faith, stepping towards the two vampires.

“I think you should back off!” exclaimed Amy. “She may be a vampire, but she’s done nothing to anyone at school, she’s even helped a few of us out from time to time.”

“You know she’s a vampire?” asked Xander.

“Sure, I mean come on, the sun allergy? The dark clothes? It’s pretty obvious,” Amy remarked.

“You know about vampires?” asked Cordelia.

“I’m a witch, not an idiot,” Amy snapped back at her.

“Hey, you better watch it, Sabrina,” countered the cheerleader.

“Ooh what are you gonna do to me? Cheer at me? Give me bad makeup tips?”

“Ladies, can we get back to the matter at hand?” asked Giles, shaking his head in annoyance.

“Yes, let’s get back to why I need to condone the further death of my daughter...” interrupted Joyce.

Buffy squeezed Spike’s hand and quietly, while the whole group was arguing, they slunk away, heading to the mansion for some peace and quiet for the inevitable discussion about their future.

The mansion was deathly quiet. Buffy hadn’t been there since there were oodles of minions running about the place.

And there had been Dru.

“Is she really gone? To Brazil or wherever?” asked Buffy, slightly insecure for some reason.

“She’s gone luv,” he stated, sitting down on what was once their bed.

“She left on her own though, you didn’t tell her to go, did you?” she asked sadly.

“No, I didn’t luv.”

Buffy nodded sadly. “And how long is going to be before she comes to interfere in our lives?” she asked with a sigh.

“I don’t know love,” he admitted.

Buffy turned to her sire with a frown. “It’s not going to change is it?”

“Of course it will Goldilocks,” he began.

“I was stupid to think that it would. When I got that box, I honestly thought it was Dru. That you would stake her to make things right between us... But you didn’t.”

“Would you be able to kill your mum for me Buffy?” he asked quietly.

Buffy looked up with a start. “Spike...”

“It’s exactly the same thing, Goldilocks,” he explained. “She made me, was my bloody salvation, without her I wouldn’t have you.”

Buffy nodded, as a tear escaped her eye.

Spike rose from the bed and made easy distance between him and his mate. Wrapping her up in his arms he brushed the tear away.

“Anyway I look at it Spike I’ll be giving up something else. Haven’t I given enough up for this relationship to work?” she asked tearfully. “I died!” Buffy paced for a few steps. “You know what I’m sick of this. I’m sick of the back and forth, I’m sick of wondering what Dru will think. I’m sick of dealing with this all. With school, with what my mom thinks, with when Giles and Faith decide to dust me again. Can we just go? Please, back to LA or wherever, just away from here. We can take Willow and...”

“Why are we taking Red, Goldilocks?” Spike promptly asked, his eyes watching her.

Buffy faced Spike with a look of a secret being found out.

“Why do we need to take the witch?” he asked again.

Buffy tore her eyes away from him for a moment, before glancing up at his hard blue eyes.

“I need her,” she whispered.

“Why the bloody hell do you need her?”

“I just do, okay?”

“Not good enough.”

“Well I’m not leaving without her!” shouted Buffy into the quiet recesses of the house.

“What about the boy? Can we take him too? And maybe the Slayer? Oh hell, let’s take all the damned Scoobies. Maybe we can put together a travelling band...”

“Don’t be ridiculous Spike, Faith would stake us while we slept.”

“Why do we have to take Red, love?” he asked tenderly.

“Cause she’s my jimmeny cricket,” Buffy quietly confessed.

That earned her a raised eyebrow.

“From Pinocchio! The movie? You have seen Pinocchio haven’t you?”

“I know who the bloody cricket is! What do you need a conscience for? You’re a bleedin’ vampire!”

“So? What’s wrong with not killing everyone I see? What’s wrong with drinking out of blood bags?”

“It’s not right, Buffy. There’s a place in the food chain for us, and we drink from humans. Not pigs, not Turkeys, from the too stupid and the gullible.”

“So you are saying we weed out the stupid, so the human race can progress? How dumb is that?”

“It’s the truth Buffy!” he seethed.

“Well maybe I don’t want to be culling the herd. And why are you all offended now? You had to realise that I wasn’t killing people.”

“I guess I only saw what I wanted to see, pet.”

“Something you and my mom have in common,” she muttered with a scowl.
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Buffy stared blankly out the Desoto window, well as much as she could stare out a blackened window. Her head rested on her fist as she tried to tone out Spike’s music blasting from the tape deck. Behind her and the speeding car remained Sunnydale, and most importantly, her mom.

Her mom that probably thought she was running away again.

This time she left a note trying to explain. Even Buffy realised that it was a futile attempt to actually persuade her mom that it was time for her to leave. Her mom was all with the vampire love after all.

She didn’t know just where they were going, or if they would ever return to Sunnydale, but she did know that she wasn’t going back while Giles wanted to dust her.

She was a vampire for Sire’s sake.

“Are we going to LA?” she finally asked in between songs, an hour out of Sunnydale.

Spike nodded briefly before beginning to tap out the beginning notes of the next song with his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Have a few things to pick up before we get on our way.”

Buffy nodded absently, bringing her left leg up onto the seat with her, and hugging it tight. She should be happy. She knew she should. But the fact remained that she wasn’t sure about this. Leaving Sunnydale seemed like such a big step.

Which was silly when she started to think about it.

She’d been away before. She’d lived on her own. It was time now to embrace what she had become. Spike had been rather persuasive in that area.

“Where are we going after that?” she asked.

“Anywhere you want. You have until we get to LA to figure that out.”

He was laying the whole world at her fingertips. It was surreal really, that they could go anywhere, do anything.

There was a whimper from the back seat, and Buffy unbuckled her seat belt to see what the commotion was. Peering over the seat, Buffy’s eyes connected with the green eyes of her best friend.

“Good afternoon Red,” greeted Spike, his eyes catching the witch’s reflection in the rear view mirror.

Willow’s response was muffled by the gag in her mouth. With a giggle, Buffy removed the gag from her friend’s mouth.

“Buffy? What’s going on? Where am I? Where are we? Did you...kidnap me?” babbled Willow semi coherently, her eyes wide.

“Ya, I did,” started Buffy. “It was kinda fun.”

Willow leaned back against the seat and gave her friend a look.

“Hey!” protested Buffy. “There will be no shocked and appalled Willow! It’s no fun when you are all disapprovy.”

“Where are we going?” asked Willow who had really just realised that she was in a moving vehicle.

“LA, and then, who knows!”

“Can I make a suggestion?” asked a timid Willow, pulling at the duct tape around her wrists.

“Sure Wills, you probably want to go somewhere where there are museums and stuff, right?” babbled Buffy not bothering to look at her friend anymore.

“I vote you take me back! I don’t want to go to LA. I like Sunnydale. Sure it has the vampires and the violence, and the occasional apocalypse, but it’s home, you know. And...and plus, Oz.”

Buffy turned to face Willow again with a concerned look. “I forgot about Oz!” Buffy put her hand gently on Spike’s arm, causing him to tear his eyes from the road. “We have to turn around and get Oz for Willow!”

Spike snorted. “We will be doing no such thing, Goldilocks. Bad enough we got the witch. Soon we’ll have the whole bloody council on our tails.”

“That is true you know,” Buffy admitted to her friend in the back seat.

“I don’t care if it’s true! Buffy, you Willow-napped me!”

“But it will be fun! We’ll go where you want to go, alright?”

“No, Buffy! That doesn’t make up for it! Please, take me home!” Willow pleaded.

“I can’t, Wills,” admitted Buffy sadly. “I need you with me.”

“But why?”

“You’re the bleedin’ cricket,” muttered Spike, as he turned up the music already blaring from the stereo system.
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Two vampires and a witch rushed into the old abandoned warehouse that Buffy was oh so familiar with. It was the same one that Spike’s minions had lived in that summer. It wasn’t clean, it wasn’t hygienic at all. But this was where they were going to spend the night.

“Set the witch up in one of the offices, pet,” ordered Spike as he walked towards what had been at one time their room. Whatever it was that they had come back for must be in there.

With a slight push in that direction, Buffy herded Willow to the furthest office.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” asked Buffy of her friend.

“I don’t suppose you’ll let me go alone?” asked Willow, glaring.

“You’ll run away.”

“Ya, I will. You know I’m really not cool with the kidnapping.”

“Ya, I get that,” admitted Buffy. “I can’t be a vampire without you Wills.”

“Huh?”

“Well I can be, but if Spike has his way, I’ll be attached to every neck that walks by. I don’t want to be that kind of vampire. I don’t want to be the kind of vampire you fear.”

“Well you are a bit scary right now, with the kidnapping and all. You don’t need me to not kill people Buffy. Somewhere inside of you is Buffy that was alive’s wish not to kill people. I think that’s stronger than anything I’ve got going. I’m just some girl that can float pencils and do the occasional soul restoration. You don’t need me Buffy. And I don’t want to be your safety net. I want to be your friend. And if you don’t let me go, I don’t see the friendiness staying very long.”

“I’m sorry I kidnapped you Wills,” whispered Buffy, her face hard against what Willow had said. “But I can’t let you go. Not now, not ever.”

Buffy swung the door to the office closed and locked it before making her way to find her mate.
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tbc...