A/N: Thanks to our wonderful beta, Immortal_Beloved :)




Buffy and waiting were definitely very unmixy things.

Especially when her vampire was locked inside a slave compound waiting to be violated and abused in ways she did not even want to begin to imagine. Of course, on the rather meager bright side, at least she knew that he would not be abused again until the person she was waiting for arrived – and if all went well, not even then.

*Never again,* she vowed silently as she crouched at the edge of the clearing that Rayne used as an airstrip. *No one’s going to touch him ever again.*

She glanced up at the clear evening sky, still showing no sign of any activity, before sighing as she glanced at the girls around her. A half dozen of the junior Slayers accompanied her, waiting on the edge of the airstrip, keeping a careful eye on the few demon guards Rayne had dispatched to guard the perimeter of his property. Apparently, the airstrip was just outside that line, only a few hundred yards from the beginning of the mystical field that kept the slaves inside.

Suddenly, Buffy heard the soft beating sound of an approaching helicopter and gestured sharply for the girls to keep low and quiet as she edged closer to the clearing while still remaining out of sight. Within a few minutes, the helicopter had landed, and the demon guards moved forward to meet the new arrival.

A rather severe-looking woman with dark hair pulled back in a tight bun emerged from the helicopter, flanked by two security guards of her own in dark suits. A few words were exchanged between her and the demon guards, though Buffy and the others were too far away to hear what was said.

At any rate, within a few minutes, the woman’s guards got back into the helicopter and left, leaving her to be accompanied to the compound by Rayne’s men. As soon as the humans were out of sight, Buffy gestured the girls forward, and they slipped into the clearing, swiftly moving up behind the little party and easily dispatching the pair of demons on either side of the woman.

Much to Buffy’s disappointment, she seemed to be quite human. As much as she wanted to make her suffer as she had no doubt intended to make Spike suffer, Buffy knew that she could not seriously harm this woman, could not do much to her beyond taking her prisoner.

Of course…there was no rule that said she had to be gentle.

In minutes, she and the younger girls had their prisoner gagged and bound and back at their campsite. The woman was seated on a fallen log, glaring in outrage at her young captors, struggling uselessly against the tight ropes that held her wrists behind her back.

Buffy brought out a small duffel bag from her own tent and rejoined the group of girls surrounding the prisoner, sitting cross-legged on the ground and opening the bag.

“So, how does this work again?” one of the girls asked uncertainly. “I mean…what exactly are we doing? What is all that stuff?”

“Just some gifts from a friend,” Buffy murmured distractedly as she began to remove various magical articles, herbs and powders and other things, from the bag. “Complete with full, step-by-step instructions on how to use them.” As she spoke, she took a sheet of paper from the bottom of the bag, smiling a little to herself as she began to read it, whispering, “Thanks, Will.”

As she scanned the paper, Buffy rose idly to her feet and approached the prisoner. Without even looking at her, she reached over and abruptly ripped the tape off her mouth with a bit more force than was necessary.

The woman let out an indignant cry of pain, jerking her head away from Buffy, before glaring back at her again defiantly.

“What do you think you’re doing? I demand to know what is going on here! Who are you people? Do you really think you can get away with this? This is kidnapping! I am an American government official! Do you realize what can happen to you for this? What I can *do* to you all? I have connections…I have power…I have…”

“Okay, that’ll do,” Buffy cut her off in a bored voice as she grabbed her hair to hold her head still and placed a fresh piece of tape tightly over her mouth. She smirked as she met the woman’s eyes and ripped a good-sized chunk of hair from her head, her smile widening at the woman’s muffled cry of rage and pain.

“Sorry.” She shrugged, sounding not at all sorry. “Need it for the spell.”

As the woman struggled to continue her threats and protests, Buffy’s smile slowly faded, her eyes on the woman narrowing in a dangerous way as she thought again of what the woman had been going to the compound for – all the things she might have intended to do to Spike.

Barely restraining her fury, Buffy gripped the woman’s hair again and yanked her head backward, leaning in close to her face. Her voice was softer, but had lost all trace of its casual tone as she spoke.

“You know, you’re in no position to make threats, honey,” she informed the prisoner. “At the moment, it’s all I can do to remember that you’re supposedly human and therefore off limits to me as far as slaying goes. If I were you, I’d just relax and try not to draw attention to myself, because the longer I think about it—what you are, what you were going to do—the easier it is for me to forget that.”

She jerked the woman’s head back harder as she added softly, “Are we clear?” As she spoke, she moved the woman’s head for her in a parody of a nod, though by now the politician’s eyes were wide with fear, and Buffy was pretty sure she would have nodded on her own.

“Good.”

The Slayer smirked as she released her head with a sharp slap to the back of it and returned to the magical supplies laid out on the ground in front of her, adding the clump of hair to the pile.

“Okay, girls,” she said in a voice of grim determination, holding out her hands to the girls and gesturing for them to sit down on the ground with her in a circle. “Let’s get to work.”

***********************************

One moment Giles was standing on the rooftop, staring down at Andrew’s broken body and the young witch standing over it.

The next, he was surrounded by swirling blackness, his thoughts a whirl of confusion as he tried to remember where he had been, what had happened. He had been…following the boy up to the roof. He had to find him, had to stop him before he did any more damage.

And then…what had happened?

He stared uselessly into the darkness that surrounded him, trying to get his bearings, trying to remember what had happened.

“Andrew?” he called out quietly, almost hopefully.

Suddenly, his memories came flooding back, filling his mind with the nightmare image of the innocent boy’s body crashing to the ground with a sickening cracking sound and the strange, unnatural angles of his body as Giles had stared down at him.

Andrew was dead.

He could not answer. But…

More cautiously, Giles called out, his voice softer and uncertain, “Willow?”

The girl materialized out of the darkness directly behind him, though Giles did not see her at first. Her voice startled him, and he spun around to face her with a jump.

“It’s funny, the kinds of things you can find out in deep meditation…even from across the ocean.”

Willow’s hair swirled around her face in an unnatural wind, her eyes black as midnight as she stared at him coldly, and Giles was dreadfully aware of the immense power the girl possessed. Willow’s feet did not touch the ground, and she hovered a good foot or so off it so that she seemed taller than usual – taller even than Giles – and far more frightening.

“Willow,” the Watcher began carefully, his voice low and even. “You do not know what has happened here. You didn’t see…”

“I didn’t have to,” Willow cut him off, her voice soft and calm, though her fury was obvious in her demeanor, the expression on her face…and the power Giles felt all around him. “I felt it.”

Giles stared at her, shaking his head slightly, confused by her words.

Willow was quiet for a moment, studying his face as she continued, “His terror. He knew you were going to kill him, Giles. He also knew he didn’t deserve it…but he accepted it. I *felt* his acceptance…and his courage. He was willing to die to stop you from doing something terrible.”

Giles found that the excuses he had been preparing mentally no longer seemed adequate, and he was struck silent by her words. He closed his eyes, trying to shut them out, but found that he was faced instead by only the nightmare image of Andrew’s terrified face as he had fallen from the rooftop.

He shook his head, raising a hand to his forehead as he tried to escape the image, and opened his eyes with a gasp…to find himself no longer in the darkness of Willow’s making or on the rooftop, but in the quiet, warmly lit library of the Council Headquarters.

Her eyes back to their normal green, Willow was standing in front of him dressed in a rather ordinary, youthful pair of jeans and a jean jacket as she looked up at him, her feet firmly planted on the floor. Her eyes were full of sorrow as she studied his expression.

“So what was it?” she asked matter-of-factly, though the look on her face was solemn and unyielding, a fire in her eyes that reminded him that the power she had just displayed could be accessed again at a moment’s notice. “What did you do that was worth committing murder to hide?”

***************************************

As Buffy and the girls completed the spell, Buffy drew in a deep breath, steadying herself as she opened her eyes and looked at the others. It was a positive, yet unsettling sign that they were all staring at her with stunned expressions on their faces.

“Okay,” she sighed. “Anybody have a mirror?”

One of the girls silently obliged, reaching into her pocket and taking out a compact and handing it to Buffy, all without taking her eyes from the older Slayer’s face. Buffy opened the compact and looked warily into the mirror, and though the spell had achieved its desired effect, her eyes widened with shock at the sight in the mirror.

Well…not exactly *her* eyes.

Buffy looked exactly like the bound woman on the log who was now staring at her in wide-eyed horror, struggling to speak again behind her duct tape gag. Her blonde hair had been replaced by dark brunette, and her green eyes were now steely grey. The woman was considerably less pretty than her, too, but that was not the worst of it.

Buffy’s lips turned downward in a pout of dismay as she gasped, “Ewww! This is terrible; I have crow’s feet!”

“It’s just…temporary, right?” one of the girls guessed uncertainly. “I mean…how long’s it gonna last?”

Buffy’s smile faded as she stared grimly into the mirror a second longer before snapping it shut and handing it back to its owner. “I don’t know,” she replied. “Hopefully long enough.”

She left the girls guarding the prisoner and headed toward the compound, well armed and alert to any sign that her disguise might not be believed as she approached the two weak, weary-looking guards Rayne had posted at the main entrance to the compound.

Fortunately, they seemed to recognize her, and Buffy wondered uncomfortably how many times this woman had come here in the past. The demons bowed slightly as she neared them, one of them speaking to her in a tone of respect.

“Welcome, Senator. Mr. Rayne has been expecting you.”

As he spoke, his partner took out a hand-held radio and let Ethan know that she had arrived. Buffy waited stiffly for the sorcerer to arrive, trying her best to keep her nerves under control. Of course, it became increasingly easier as the demon guards made it clear that they suspected nothing; they thought her to be exactly who she appeared to be.

Of course, Ethan Rayne knew her – the *real* her – and she was aware that facing him would be the real challenge. There was a definite risk that he would recognize her mannerisms, her voice, if she was not careful to keep them well-disguised.

There was also that danger that she would tear his limbs from his body on sight and ruin her chances of actually getting to Spike at all.

As Rayne approached her, holding out his hand in a welcoming gesture, she forced herself to smile stiffly and shake his hand, deliberately restraining her grip so as not to hurt him and give herself away.

“Welcome, Senator,” Rayne echoed the words of the guard. “Please do come in. It’s been quite a while since your last visit. How have you been?”

“Very well,” she replied curtly, in an impatient tone of voice. “And in no mood for pleasantries, thank you.” She hesitated just an instant, fighting back the bile that rose in her throat at the very thought of the next words, even as she forced them from her throat in a clipped, authoritative voice.

“Just take me to what I’ve paid for.”