Willow set down her cold coffee and picked up a thick stack of papers. “You’ve dismissed forty of sixty possible suspects. We’re running out of people,” she complained, not caring that she sounded like a whiny child. She and Buffy had been at this for six hours straight, and Buffy had yet to put any suspects in the “potential” category.
Buffy looked down at the reports in her hand and shrugged her shoulders. She wrote a big red “NO” on the top one, then handed it to Willow, who held the “rejected” suspects. “None of them feels right. They’re either too stupid, not interested, on the other side of the country, or trying to walk the straight and narrow.”
After three days of watching Buffy spend every waking minute at the office, Spike had suggested moving the investigation control center to his house. Jack immediately agreed, foolishly hoping that this would give the blonde agent a chance to rest. Willow and Buffy had transformed Spike’s study into the main office. Willow was able to access the FBI’s files through her laptop.
Rather than have the four agents driving back and forth from their houses, Spike insisted they stay with him. Xander claimed a spare bedroom for himself, leaving Willow to bunk with Buffy and Anya to share a room with Tara. Not only did it make it easier on the team, it provided additional security for Buffy. The murderer hadn’t made another appearance, but no one was willing to taking any chances.
“Why isn’t Dru’s name in here?” Buffy inquired, flipping through the pages. She had been going through her and Spike’s old cases for two days. Each one had brought back a different memory, most of them not so pleasant. However upsetting the memories, they were still better than dealing with the pain she was trying to ignore. Olivia reported that Dawn wasn’t faring so well in London. She spent most of her waking hours in a daze and relied on the sedatives to get her through the night. Buffy was somewhat envious of her sister. Dawn was allowed time to grieve, but the elder Summers was expected to be the “strong” one. She wished she could be the younger child for once, allowed to break down and not be the self-assured one. She just wanted this to be over, wake up from this nightmare that had become her life.
“Dru? I don’t remember seeing a Dru anywhere in the logs,” Willow’s voice brought Buffy out of her thoughts. Willow reached for her laptop and quickly logged on to the network. By now she figured she had Buffy and Spike’s history memorized, but she didn’t recall the name Dru.
“Drusilla Moore - murder and kidnapping. Her lawyer claimed she wasn’t stable enough to handle a trial so she was sent to an institution. By the time the doctors said she was ready to go to court, most of the evidence turned up missing. She was released about a year ago,” Buffy summarized, desperately hoping that would be the end of the conversation. She mentally kicked herself for even mentioning the other woman.
“Dru? Will, how could you not know about the Dru Moore case?” Xander jumped over the edge of the couch and plopped down between Willow and Buffy. Her heart sank. Here we go, she thought bitterly. “Before that woman came on to the scene, the Buffster here and Spike were the hottest duo in Maryland. They’d been working together since Quantico. They’d solve cases that no one else would touch and made it look easy. Hell, it was even rumored they were using telepathy,” he gushed excitedly.
“What happened?” Willow was drawn in by the story. She had spent most of her early career at Quantico and was relatively new to the Baltimore office. By the time she’d arrived on the scene, Spike had already retired and Buffy was working with Xander. She’d heard a few rumors about Buffy and Spike, but had dismissed them as run-of-the-mill office gossip. Whenever she’d worked with Buffy, the blonde hadn’t mentioned her ex-partner or any of their cases.
“Drusilla, the dark princess. Spike took one look at her and fell hard and fast,” Xander began, shaking his head. He still didn’t quite understand the other man’s attraction to Dru. He’d take a blonde beauty like Buffy or Anya any time.
“So she was attractive?” Willow interrupted, trying to get a picture in her head.
Buffy let out an unladylike snort and rolled her eyes. “Oh sure, she was gorgeous, if you go for that ‘I’m a British goth slut’ look.”
“That sounds like Dru,” Anya interjected as she walked in from the kitchen. “Although I think she was going for the “I’m an insane British goth whore serial killer’ look instead.”
Anya perched on edge of the loveseat next to Tara, who had been quietly listening to the conversation. The bowl of popcorn Anya had been carrying was quickly passed around and returned.
“You’ve heard of Dru? Am I the only one in the dark here?” Willow pouted, crossing her arms over her chest.
The others looked around and nodded. Willow turned her head and focused on Tara. “You, too?” Tara had been transferred to the Baltimore office seven months before Willow.
Tara nodded and reached across to pat the redhead’s knee. “Sorry, sweetie, I was brought in to help Buffy arrest Drusilla,” she apologized.
“Wait a minute, you and Buffy arrested Dru? What happened to Spike?” Willow was confused. She glanced over at Buffy, but the other agent was staring at the ceiling.
“I was trying to get there before everyone started interrupting me!” Xander exclaimed, exasperated. Once everyone was quiet and facing him again, he continued. “Spike fell hard and fast. He’s so blinded by his black beauty, that he starts to forget she’s killer. He starts thinking that maybe she didn’t do it and drags his feet. Meanwhile, another man turns up missing and Buffy busts her ass trying to find Dru. Once Buffy gets a fix on her location, Spike steps in and orders Buff to stand down. As independent as always, she tells him to go to hell, this is her case and she’s not going to let another man die.”
“He ends up following her to Dru’s hideout,” Anya jumped in, eyes bright and hands gesturing wildly. “Dru’s got a gun and a hostage and she’s not going to go down without a fight. Buffy gets off a one in a million shot and nails Dru in the shoulder. She drops her gun and the hostage gets free. Buffy moves to tackle her and Dru whips out a wicked looking knife. The two are locked in hand to hand and Spike just stands there watching. Dru gets Buffy in the thigh and races out. Buffy has to call for back up on her radio because Spike’s too enthralled by Dru…”
“Anya and I got there first and found Buffy still on the floor in a pool of blood, Spike’s staring at the door and the hostage is trying to get out of his ropes. It was almost like a bad cartoon,” Xander added.
Buffy shifted awkwardly on the couch when Willow put an arm around her shoulders. “I bet you were pretty pissed off.”
“Are you kidding? We followed the ambulance to the hospital and we could hear her yelling at him the entire way there. The nurse had to sedate her just so she wouldn’t disturb the other patients,” Xander couldn’t help but laugh at the memory of a hospital gown-clad Buffy screaming at Spike.
“Twenty-one stitches later, she tells Jack that she refuses to work with Spike because he can’t remain objective. Tara gets assigned to the case and Dru’s in custody two days later. There’s an inquiry into Spike’s behavior, but Buffy refuses to say anything about it and the matter is dropped. Buffy requests a new partner and Spike gets seriously hacked off. Shortly afterward, Spike retires and that’s the end of the Buffy/Spike saga,” Anya concluded with a sigh.
Willow silently digested the information while the rest reflected on that tumultuous period. Tensions had been high in the office after Buffy and Spike split up. Buffy had requested an office on a different floor and Spike opted to work more from home. Even Jack tried his hardest to keep them out of the same room together. Though genuinely sad to see him go, everyone had breathed a sigh of relief when Spike retired and took the uneasy atmosphere with him.
Spike walked in and glanced around the quiet room. “What happened? We run out of suspects?” he attempted to lighten the mood.
“No, we were just discussing your pathetic love affair with Dru, the wacko killer you lusted after for months,” Anya spoke up tactlessly.
Spike turned to face his ex-partner. “Bloody hell! This was your idea, wasn’t it? Ol’ Spike’s not around so it’s story time, is that it?”
Buffy did a double take and took a deep breath to calm herself. “Me? I’d rather face a horde of demons than discuss Dru. Criminals who get off scot-free are not my favorite subject.”
“She did her time, can’t you just let her go on with her life in peace?” Spike demanded, defending his former flame.
“She didn’t do any time!” Buffy raged, abruptly getting to her feet. “She spent thirteen months in an institution and then she was released onto the streets. Right before she was supposed to stand trial, all the evidence mysteriously disappeared and she got to walk free. You know, you never did tell me where you hid it all.” By now she had stormed around the coffee table to stand in front of Spike.
Spike let out a low growl and grabbed her upper arms. “Watch what accusations you make, Summers.”
Buffy wrenched herself from Spike’s grip and rubbed her arms. “I’m not making accusations, I’m asking questions. I don’t think I’m out of line at all. You’re the only one who had the motivation to get Dru off. You’re the one who kept announcing that as soon as she got out you were going to ask her to marry you.”
“I would have waited for her to get out of prison. I would have waited a bloody lifetime for her,” Spike’s voice rose as he took a step towards Buffy. “Besides, you know as well as I do that she never would have survived a trial. She’s too delicate for that.”
“Delicate? The word is crazy, Spike,” Buffy rubbed the back of her neck. After all this time, Spike was still defending Dru. What would it take for him to realize that the murderess had just been using him? “Insane, nuts, certifiable, bonkers, a -“
“Raving lunatic,” Anya threw in with a smile.
“Complete wacko.” Xander chimed in.
“She was a bit deranged,” Tara added, shrugging her shoulders ruefully.
“Bollocks!” Seeing the skeptical looks, he amended, “All right, so she was a little… unglued. That doesn’t give you people the right to judge her this way. She’s had counseling and she’s sorry for what she did.”
“Sorry? She murdered three men in cold blood then tried to make me her fourth victim, and she gets off with a ‘sorry’?” Buffy cried indignantly, jaw dropping in disbelief. She couldn’t believe that such words were coming from Spike’s mouth. Before Dru, he’d been all for making lawbreakers pay for what they did and now he wanted to let them off with an apology.
Seeing that this argument was not going to end nicely, Willow picked up Buffy’s cell phone and offered it to her. “Buffy, isn’t it time to call Dawn?”
Buffy turned away from Spike and reached for the phone. She silently thanked Willow for interrupting. She and Spike had gone through this many times before and it always ended the same way: him defending Dru and her blaming him for the evidence mishap. She stalked toward the porch clutching the phone, resisting the urge to throttle Spike.
Before she reached the back door, she turned around and glared at her ex-partner. “Put her on the suspect list, Will,” she instructed the computer genius. Her eyes never left Spike’s, daring him to contradict her. She momentarily doubted his ability to protect her. What if Dru was the killer? Would he stand by and let his love murder Buffy and Dawn or would he stop her? As if he could read Buffy’s thoughts, Spike averted his eyes. She spun on her heel and slammed the back door on her way out. He would never forgive her for what she was about to do, but she had Dawn to think of. If Spike couldn’t defend them against Dru, she’d take Dru out of the equation.
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