Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.


SECTION 6 - GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN

Some boys take a beautiful girl
And hide her away from the rest of the world
I wanna be the one to walk in the sun

Hey now, hey now
What's a matta with ya?
Girls just wanna have fun now
Come on

(Cyndi Lauper, Album - 12 deadly Cyns... and then some)




Chapter 6.08
Wednesday, May 15th, 2002

"There is a train. but Sam doesn't have the authority on her own to requisition it. Last I knew it was in the Midwest." Riley's voice was little above a whisper.

"Love, before this goes all Jackanory d'you think you could get Phil Silvers here to call off the goon squad so a man can have a quiet fag in peace?"

Buffy nudged the walkie-talkie that lay on the floor toward Riley with her foot. "You heard the man. Call them off. All of them."

Riley picked up the radio. "All units, this is Alpha One. All units stand down. Repeat, all units stand down. Mission is aborted."

Spike pushed himself away from the door, only to have it fall open under the weight of two soldiers in civilian clothing. Spike merely raised an eyebrow at the men sprawled on the floor, and then strolled casually to the broken window where he beckoned to Wes and Willow with the hand that held his lit cigarette.

The witch and the watcher made their way across the road and Spike scanned the other houses 'round about for signs of activity. "You know, slayer, you were right. Your neighbours will ignore pretty much anything." When Willow reached the front porch of the house she paused and muttered a few words and the barrier that had prevented Graham from getting from the roof into the house and the other soldiers from getting out, disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. The pair strolled into the room where the others had accumulated.

"Sheesh," commented the Wiccan as she eyed the broken glass and wood all over the floor. "You guys think you're too good to use a door?" The tip of her tongue peeked between her teeth as she flashed the blonde pair a grin. She was followed by a rather sheepish-looking Graham.

"Sorry, Man. We couldn't get in." His eyes travelled with obvious hostility from the bruises forming on Riley's face to the vampire who was currently picking stray fragments of glass out of the window frame so he could use it as a seat.

"Don't look at Spike," Buffy told him, intercepting the look. "He didn't do it. I did. And I'm not under his thrall, either. So, just forget that idea, too, along with any you have about killing him.

There's a kid in the ICU at the hospital tonight after Sam and her team drugged him, shot him and left him to die. Maybe, if he pulls through, we find my sister alive and well, and you leave us all the heck alone, then that kid's godfather won't use his pull at The Pentagon to see that every man in your crummy genocidal outfit leaves the army with a dishonourable discharge."

"And if you're really lucky his dad won't tell the story to his former colleagues at The Washington Post, or Reuters or even The Stars and Stripes," Willow chipped in.

Spike finally sat himself down, took a deep draw on his cigarette and announced, "I love it when all the politico-military shit works for us for a change." The vampire's eyes rapidly clouded over as the moment of levity passed. No one could doubt the gravity with which he framed his instructions. "Now, tell us what we want to know about this train and make it fast."

"Ri, man. You can't give up secret information to a sub-T." Before Buffy could silence Graham, Wes's fist unexpectedly lashed out and caught him in the stomach. As he doubled over, the watcher's knee came up and caught him in the face. One last shove left the well-intentioned but ill-informed soldier lying on his side in a foetal position.

"Okay, people..." Buffy took a stance in the centre of the room, facing off against all the military, looking each of them in the eye in turn as she spoke. "I'm only going to say this once. In this scenario you are not the good guys. You are the stooges. You have been played and made to dance like little puppets. One of your number has been manipulating you from within."

Buffy began to pace the floor as she spoke. "Sam Finn has used you, her personal relationships and her position in your unit as a cover for her dirty dealings. Unless I've missed my mark, somehow she worked out that we were onto her-."

"Um, that's kinda my fault. I sent her an email saying that we knew about the surveillance and how things had been manipulated to make Spike look guilty, and that her and Riley should stay out of Sunnydale. I guess I overestimated our effectiveness as a deterrent." Willow's eyes darted back and forth between the two blondes as if she expected some form of instant retribution for her misjudgement.

Spike's eyes glowed with a cold anger. Buffy's ire ran hot but only lasted for seconds. "Not the time to be laying blame, or claiming it, Will. There'll be time enough for that when we get Dawn home." She shifted her gaze to where Riley still sat on the floor.

"If I'm honest we thought that Riley had to be in on this thing with Sam, but it seems we had that part wrong. I guess she thought if Spike was taken out and she was holding my sister that we'd keep quiet, and no one, including Riley, would find out.

Well, she screwed up. She does not know how much shit she is in. Now, we are going to find my sister and bring her home. Riley is going to tell us exactly what we need to know to make that happen and none of you are going to interfere. If you're truly the men of honour that this nation's forces are meant to produce, you might even help. Believe me when I say you do not want to be in our way."

Spike's cigarette butt sailed past Buffy to bounce off Riley's leg before Buffy crushed it out with her foot, turning to give the vampire a withering glance.

"Well, I would spit but it's so crass and, hey, when I shoot his back full of arrows, then you can make with the dirty looks," the vampire gave by way of defence. "For now, I suggest you get him to start talkin'."

Buffy's gaze turned to Riley and he swiftly got the point.

"There's a train we use sometimes in the field. It acts as a mobile lab and containment unit. but it's not like the Initiative. We don't hold specimens long term. There's no experimentation or anything. It's purely so the techs can work on any vaccines or anti-toxins that we might need."

Spike burned to make a comment about it being so much better to know they would exterminate their friends rather than holding them prisoner, but time wasn't on Dawn's side and petty bickering would help no one. Just the same, when the dust of this whole affair settled, Spike was determined to make sure that Riley knew that the non-human population of this fair burgh were henceforth outside the military's remit.

 

---

 

"You worry much for man you only know few days," Lily's eyes scanned the face of the woman she had come to care for as if she were her own flesh and blood.

"What? No. no. It's just the whole thing with those creeps being back in town and Rosa... Isn't it?"

Lily shrugged. "Is maybe both? Two years is long time for young woman or for a lonely little girl. She should have father, brothers, sisters."

"Lily, I've barely met the guy and you have us married off."

The Quarnoth demon shrugged. "Is not like you can play in the field. A good man, he know he no can play with the heart of a child, and my Marie, she no choose a bad man."

"It's not that simple. I think there's someone else."

"Pff. Skinny girl with baby horse legs and cow eyes and her own man. She make her choice. May be right. May be wrong, but is made. His life no more with those people. You see. He stay."

"Even if he does stay in Sunnydale, it still doesn't mean anything."

"No, it no mean nothing that he young, pretty, smart, has good heart and is comfortable with demons and he here. What matter is he makes your heart beat like it no beat since Thomas and maybe sometime soon when he open his eyes, he feel same way 'bout my Marie."

"Okay, I find him attractive, but that isn't enough, and even if he did eventually feel the same way, any man would think twice about taking on a ready made family, especially one that's not entirely the same species."

"I hear, reason Spike's grandpapa no talk no more that he do just that." Lily retorted with a smug grin.

Marie sighed and wandered in the direction of Lily's kitchen, muttering under her breath in Spanish about interfering mothers-in-law as she went.

 

---

 

Three black humvees pulled up in front of the house on Revello, carrying the teams who had been stationed by Spike's apartment and at his old crypt. The driver of the front vehicle got out and was going to leave it for Riley's team but Riley stopped him before he could.

"Stay. We can regroup into teams later. Graham you're with me in Car 1. Lars, Car 2. Tom, Car 3. I want you to bring the guys on the other teams up to speed on what's happening and I want radio silence. If you need to communicate with the other cars then use the cells. If at all possible Sam is to be detained for debriefing by the appropriate authorities, but the safety of the civilians is our first priority."

"Sir? Wouldn't it be safer for them, if we left the civilians here?"

"It surely would, but you have things the wrong way round. It's them who're letting us come along."

Back in the house Spike pulled Wesley aside making sure they faced away from the window. "Here, watcher."

Spike pulled the pouch with the orbs from his belt and held them out toward the other Brit.

"Are you sure?" Wesley hesitated to take the orbs in view of the fact they were all that had kept Spike undead during the earlier hail of arrows.

"Am I sure you're going to need them more than me in the middle of whatever goes down out there tonight? Hell, yeah. Besides, I can always use you as a human shield."

"Don't you want Buffy...?"

"She can use you as a shield, too. Slayer's a big girl. Doesn't take to bein' overly protected."

"Okay, then. Let's make a move."

 

---

 

Tara's spell showed that although the Sunnydale group was closing the gap between them and Dawn, it was still going to be a considerable length of time before they managed to catch up. If the train kept to its current course, it was going to be much quicker to arrange an intercept from another direction entirely.