Part One
There was still no answer at Apartment 92 when Buffy knocked the third time. Unwilling to give up, she tried the doorbell again, pressing her ear against the peeling brown paint to see if she could hear it ringing. Still no answer, nor was there any indication of movement inside. “Shit,” she hissed under her breath, tugging up the wilted strap of her tank top as she headed back toward the car.
The humidity outside was stifling. Buffy felt as if she was trapped inside a big oven, which someone with a penchant for cruelty had begun to preheat. She ran her forearm over her brow, wiping away the beads of sweat that had gathered there.
“No one’s there,” she said when she reached the parking lot, not bothering to look at the person she was addressing. But in her peripheral vision, she saw him and took comfort in the fact that he was still there. Sometimes she worried that she would look back and find he wasn’t.
Safely concealed within the building’s shadows, Spike cast doubtful eyes towards the sky as he rolled an unlit cigarette between his fingers. “We’re wasting time here, Slayer.”
She winced at the nickname, wondering if he’d ever call her anything else again. It wasn’t as if she’d asked him to. They didn’t have conversations like that anymore. “Quit saying that,” she said. “We’re not wasting anything. This girl is just as important as any of the others.”
Pulling his gaze from the sky, Spike stared hard at her. It wasn’t quite a glare, but it was close. “I just don’t see why you have to gather all these Slayer-types up. You hunt ‘em down and herd ‘em across the pond, whether they want to go or not.”
Sighing in frustration at the fresh start of an old argument, she replied, “They need to be trained, Spike. They need to be educated about their calling and how to handle it. Trust me, it’s better this way.”
Spike snorted and shook his head. “Yeah, whatever. Apparently this particular Slayer doesn’t want to be found. We’ve been all over town, and she slips away right before we get there. Maybe you should just let it go. Let the bint live her life, short as that life might be.”
Buffy spun around to face him, lingering in the sunshine just outside the building’s shadows, knowing he couldn’t join her there. “Look, if you don’t want to be here, find a payphone and book yourself a plane ticket home. I have work to do, and I’ll get the job done, with or without you.”
“Have you looked at the sky?” he snapped back, jabbing a finger at the dark clouds gathering to the southeast. “Have you paid attention to any of the news reports? There’s a bleedin’ hurricane coming in, heading right for New Orleans, which in case you haven’t noticed, we’re in. That doesn’t concern you at all?”
“Not really, no,” she said, pulling a map out of the back pocket of her cutoffs. “Now we’ve got one more lead on this girl, and I’m going to follow it. Her parents have a house north of town. She might have gone there because of the storm. Are you coming with me, or should I just drop you off at the airport?”
“Doubt I could get a flight. Town’s clearing out, in case you haven’t noticed. People are evacuating. If this Slayer of yours has a shred of common sense, which you obviously don’t possess yourself, she’s probably already packed her suitcase. You’re not going to find her here.”
Buffy glowered at him as the line of clouds passed over the sun, sending everything into shadow. The truth was that she was a bit concerned. She’d seen the boarded-up windows and the people crowding the gas stations, topping off their tanks before they headed inland. But part of her didn’t understand what the big deal was. It was just a big, swirly thunderstorm, wasn’t it? Why should she be afraid of a little rain and wind? Besides, giving up now would be equivalent to saying Spike was right, and there was no way in hell she was going to run up the white flag when it came to arguing with him. She was going to find that Slayer and put her evasive ass on the next flight to London if it killed them both. And then she’d rub his nose in it.
Spike threw his unlit cigarette to the ground, muttering a string of curses underneath his breath that Buffy didn’t catch. But to her relief, he got into the backseat of the car and pulled the blanket over his head without another word of protest. Buffy slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, cooing happily when the air conditioner came to life. Shooting a final glare at the backseat, she pushed the air vents so that they were all hitting her directly – and nowhere else.
She hoped it was very uncomfortable underneath that blanket.
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Their next lead was further inland, which proved to be something of a challenge. The freeways were packed with evacuees, forcing Buffy to find more creative paths to take toward their goal. But after an hour had passed since she detoured from the main road, she realized she had spent every minute of it trying to convince herself that she wasn’t lost.
It was all Spike’s fault, of course. He was ignoring her, refusing to speak, and that was terribly distracting to Buffy. He didn’t even yell at her when she accidentally drove over a median, testing the limits of the rental car’s shocks and the patience of every other driver in the vicinity. But the second the sun dipped behind the cloudy horizon, Spike emerged from the blanket, leaning forward so that his face very close to hers. “Pull the hell over, Slayer,” he growled. “I’m driving.”
She let him, and to her relief, they found the house they were looking for five minutes later.
“Bloody hell,” said Spike when he saw the boarded-up windows adorning the old antebellum home. “Do the words ‘I told you so’ mean anything to you? Because if not, they’re about to. Trust me on that one.”
“Shut up, Spike,” she snapped. “There might be someone still inside. C’mon, let’s go knock on the door.”
Clenching his teeth, Spike followed her out of the car but not up to the porch. He leaned against the side of the house and stared up through the summertime foliage of the ancient trees that dotted the property. The wind had picked up considerably since they’d left the apartment complex, and the enormous branches were beginning to sway wildly in protest. Placing a cigarette between his lips, he tried to light it, but the wind kept blowing out the flame on his lighter.
“All right, I give,” said Buffy after five minutes of futile knocking. “She probably evacuated with her family. Let’s just go back to the hotel and wait this storm out. We’ll contact her when she comes back to town.”
Spike flicked his useless lighter shut. “We won’t make it to the hotel.”
“It’s not even raining yet,” she argued. She had more to say on the matter but was interrupted by the sudden spatter of raindrops in her face. They were harsh and biting, like no rain she’d ever felt before. “Okay, please tell me these people just forgot to turn off their sprinkler system.”
He didn’t reply but continued to stare at the groaning tree limbs above them. His wary silence frightened Buffy more than anything. He looked like an animal that knew instinctively when nature was about to do something not-so-nice. “So what do we do?” she asked.
Spike sighed and nodded toward the house. “Nothing like a little breaking and entering to get the evening off to a nice start. We’re in for a bumpy ride, I’m afraid. Oh, and Slayer? Just so we’re clear: I fucking told you so.”
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To be continued.
A/N: Just about everything in this story is symbolic. From the storm, to Spike’s lighter that just won’t light, to the missing Slayer, to the house. Even Buffy’s poor driving choices. I think there were three symbols in the first paragraph alone. There’s going to be a lot of that, so keep your eyes open. I’ll post what everything means after I put up the final chapter.
I'm eventually going to turn this into a series of Buffy and Spike traveling around together.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
A little background info for this story – Spike and Buffy have already had their moment of reunion, but it didn’t go well. Months later, Buffy is still angry with Spike but tolerates his presence. Since Spike isn’t the pushover he was in BtVS Season 7, he’s angry right back at her, simply as a defense mechanism. As I said in the summary, they’re working together to gather up new Slayers around the world. Their journey has brought them to New Orleans, which is where this story begins.