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Disclaimer and Notes: see Prologue
Author's notes: Special thanks for my new beta Sandy aka. TalesOfSpike, you're the best, hon. All remaining errors are to be blamed on me. Also more special thanks to Andrea and x...megz...x for their mails regarding my story, the so to speak butt-kicking for me to sit down and finally continue on this.
Spike’s brain
 
by Belladonna
~Chapter 11~
Return to yesterday
 
“I might know where they are.” Angel repeated into the stunned silence. “These guys you were looking for.”
 
Once more all hell broke loose in the Summers household. Only this time it was due to the cacophony of voices all speaking up at the same time.
 
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
 
“What in the world were you thinking of keeping that from us when we were trying to figure out exactly that for the last three hours!!??”
 
“How could you do that to Buffy!”
 
“That’s so bloody typical for you, Peaches.”
 
Of course the last one was only muttered under the pig’s breath or non-breath or whatever. Which was a good thing, but in the current situation Angel wouldn’t have noticed that slip anyways. With the whole room yelling at him, his own little Fang Gang was grinning broadly again. Let Buffy be angry at him, Cordy thought silently to herself and that was probably the thing all the others were thinking too. She wasn’t the only one who was really mad at Angel for his Formula One style race towards Sunnydale. Cordelia also noticed that Buffy clutched the stuffed pig even closer against her than before almost holding onto it for dear life, as if it was the only thing to helping her keep her sanity in the nuthouse the living room had now become.
 
“Which question do you want me to answer first?” Angel tried to make a joke but the mass of grim faces sending daggers towards him made him turn serious really quickly. “But in my defence I have to say, that I didn’t say anything about it before because I didn’t remember. I never wanted to keep something important like this from you.”
 
“Yeah, right.” Spike snorted silently. “And you never kept the kid with the stupid name secret from Buffy.”
 
“But how could you do that to Buffy?” Dawn kept her angry stare fixed on Angel. “I thought you loved her.”
 
That brought another snort from the pig and Angel finally noticed it, looking now curiously towards Buffy.

”What was that?”
 
“What was what?” Buffy replied sourly. Sure Spike had almost revealed himself now, but she didn’t care. She was madder than hell right now and wanted nothing more than for Spike to be returned in one piece so that they could spend some private time together, Angel gone and her own serenity back. “Why don’t you tell us what you know about those geeks so that we can find them and you can return to your happy little life in L.A.?” Maybe she would even tell the others about her and Spike like she had wanted to do the whole time but hadn’t had the chance to do yet, so she could start over with a clean slate. She hadn’t realized it before, but now she was sure, Angel just had come back to gloat about his perfect life and to show her just how pathetic hers was. Just like she was sure Riley would do if he ever came back again. Hugging Mr. Gordo tightly to reassure herself with Spike’s comforting presence, at least some of the anger dissolved. She finally understood that she could be happy with Spike, that she was happy with him in fact and that she wouldn’t repeat the mistakes she’d made before. Once she got him back, she would give him a real chance, the one both he and she deserved so much.
 
“Go on. Tell us where these morons are.”
 
***
 
the night before (when Buffy and Spike went to L.A. and Angel broke every speed record racing to SunnyD…you get the meaning)
 
“This won’t work, Warren.” Jonathan told their fearless leader.
 
“Of course it will work.” Warren shot back. “Tell me one good reason why it wouldn’t.”
 
“Well, there’s the whole issue of the head gear not going with any outfit and of course the Slayer knowing his real voice and…”
 
“Shut up!” Warren was severely pissed. It would work, it was still his great plan and therefore it simply had to. There was no reason why it shouldn’t, unless one took his fellow Super Villains into consideration. While they seemingly remained blissfully unaware of their own incompetence, it had become even clearer to Warren. They needed his help, cried out for his leadership and that was what he would give them. I mean they wanted it, right? Besides, as he always tried to make clear to them, he was the leader and it was his great brain that came up with all those clever plans and if they all failed, hey, he could always put the blame on them.
 
“This is going to work and we are going to make it work, understood?” Warren emphasized once more and rolled with his eyes inwardly.
 
“Yes, but Warren…”

”No buts, people.” Warren sighed heavily. “It will work and we’re testing it right away to prove to you that it works, alright? And who knows, maybe we’ll create a new fashion statement.”
 
They all looked closer at the mute vampire in the middle of the room in his totally black attire and the flashy head-gear on him. It was a good thing that he already had been clothed except for his duster, but that was something they had managed to improvise by using one of Warren’s jackets. There was a dreamy smile on Andrew’s face and a rather impatient one on Jonathan’s due to his not-yet-seeing his Trek marathon and of course the proud impression of a true genius on Warren’s. But enough bathing in their admiration of his technical work, he wanted them truly pandering to his genius again.
 
“Alright, we’re going out. Move it people.”
 
***
 
It was one of those typical Sunnydale late evenings or rather nights. All the brave citizens of Sunnyhell, as it was known to some of its inhabitants were at home or out to party. The first group was the cleverer ones, knowing that inside their houses they were safe from at least one type of nightcrawler. The second one was the not so intelligent variant or it could be that they were the more adventurous group of Sunnydales citizens, the ones who still hadn’t returned from their trip down that river in Egypt, despite having seen what went on in sunny SunnyD.
 
On second glance though, it wasn’t that typical a night, even for Sunnydale standards because the Trio were roaming the streets of the small Californian town. Granted you couldn’t describe the casual strolling along from Warren and the frantic tries of Jonathan and Andrew to get at least one shot at playing with the remote control exactly roaming, but you got the meaning of it, right?
 
The object of everyone’s interest was walking a bit ahead of them, completely controlled by the remote control in Warren’s hand. He looked a bit pale, more so under the moonlight and it couldn’t be said that this look was all that healthy, not even for a guy whose last sunbath was a hundred and something years ago and not even then since it wasn’t in fashion to have a tan. The one brief encounter with the sunshine from two years ago didn’t count anyways.
 
Spike was wearing his trademark black clothing and a leather jacket from Warren that hung a bit loose on his lean frame. It also made his skin tone look even whiter than usual and the shadows around his eyes added to the unhealthy deader-than-usual look. Warren had decided to hide the mike and the headgear under a baseball cap which somehow made the vampire look hilarious, but couldn’t be helped. It also served to obscure his dead eyes rather successfully and the fact that his lips didn’t move when he spoke, but the funny look wasn’t something that concerned Warren that much right now, he just had wanted to test the microphone and the headgear in public before he went on the next stage of the plan with the Slayer. It was going to be a success; it just had to and maybe if he repeated that part of it often enough, maybe the other two thirds of the Trio would finally believe in his genius as well. As if on cue, the first potential victim walked up on them.
 
Warren pushed the other two even further back so that the unsuspecting citizen wouldn’t notice him talking into the headset on his own head.
 
Mary Sue had been walking down the street, thinking of nothing much other than her evening or how she wanted to spend it. She had been so deep in thought she hadn’t even noticed that gorgeous hunk of a man coming towards her, which itself was something unbelievable. She’d never missed checking out a guy like that. Not when he had those sexy cheekbones. He did look a bit on the pale side, but she’d seen her fair share of those running around in Sunnydale, so she didn’t worry much about that, it was normal for the town, wasn’t it?
 
When he stopped right in front of her, Mary Sue felt her heartbeat speeding up. That fine piece of a man was going to talk to her, take her out for a date and then they’d end up preventing the end of the world with her superpowers that she hadn’t even known she had until then, she would save the day and his bacon that way and afterwards they would make out again. Mary Sue sighed dreamily at that thought, her perfect fantasy only one tiny step away from coming true when a slight screeching noise brought her out of her reverie.
 
“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you.” Mary Sue rushed to say. She didn’t want to have it look like she had been ogling the salty goodness standing in front of her.
 
“Maybe you…screech…go….screech…with me?” came the strained voice from the stranger, sounding a bit metallic and off. Mary Sue thought about that, still nearly drooling all over the guy.
 
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys with a funny speech impediment, ‘cause that would be bad. But on the bright side, your body doesn’t look that bad.” She still almost undressed him with her eyes. Around the corner Warren was frantically trying to work out the little kinks that disrupted the transmission of what he was saying through his microphone to the speaker that Spike wore as part of the headgear.
 
“No, wait, now I get it. You’re just controlled by some guys that want to have some fun and aren’t really in there, you know?” Mary Sue concluded then, waving a finger at his head. “And all of this is just the master plan of someone out for the Slayer and you can do nothing to help her. Instead you’re trapped somewhere where you can’t escape on your own… unless she and her friends will find a way to reverse what they did and then you can go back to your girlfriend. Ah well, I should have known it. It was just too good to be true. But you really should eat something, you don’t look that good.”
 
And with that Mary Sue left him standing there and three Nerds around the corner with their mouths agape.
 
“What was that?? And how the hell did she know about our plan??”
 
***
meanwhile earlier present day
 
Somewhere across the ocean Rupert Giles was currently sitting at the airport and waiting to be allowed to board the plane. He had started polishing his glasses again though it wasn’t as if they hadn’t been cleaner than clean before he began with this cleaning spree. Said glasses had been cleaned already a hundred times or so during the past hours. That cleaning session probably had been the most thorough his glasses had ever seen. Giles sighed, thinking of the conversation he’d had with Travers and just like all the previous ones it hadn’t been pleasant. In fact, despite the topic they’d discussed, Giles still had to fight the strong urge to just strangle the older man towards the end. Come to think of it, he still wanted to do that.
 
He polished his glasses even more furiously now and it didn’t help the matter that all the newspapers had almost identical headlines to them, praising the new shooting star in the music business and all the larger record companies still claimed to have that talent under contract, the smaller ones as well, despite everyone knowing that it was a bootleg tape and that neither the performer nor anyone else involved with the song had come out into the open yet. But that would be only a matter of time; that was the one thing everyone again agreed on.
 
Giles sighed heavily again, putting his glasses back on his nose when he noticed someone sit down in the seat next to him. A young man probably in his thirties had made himself comfortable; apparently he too was waiting for the plane to arrive. The newcomer was grinning broadly, holding a newspaper in his hands that sported the ever present headline and looked way too cheery for Giles’ comfort, especially after the talk he’d had earlier with Travers. The highlights of that talk still kept repeating themselves in his mind about what a bang up job he’d done as Watcher, allowing his Slayer not only to ‘fraternize with civilians’, as Travers had put so nicely, but also have ‘highly inappropriate relations with a vampire, for the second time now!!’. Giles really had wanted to tell him where he could put his suggestions on how to bring the Slayer back to her true calling but then remembered that there might very well be the stick in the way that hadn’t seen any daylight since the Council head was in diapers. With Quentin Travers one never knew.
 
As if on cue, the newcomer started humming the dreadful melody that had haunted Giles from the moment when he’d seen the report and Giles had to fight down another urge – to strangle that man. If only he would stop, before…
 
“I’m sorry.” The man suddenly addressed him. He probably had seen the pained expression on Giles’ face or something. “I can’t help it, but ever since I’ve listened to that song, I can’t get it out of my mind.”
 
“Believe me, I know what you mean.” Giles told the other one wearily.
 
“Really?” Now he seemed to be overly enthusiastic. “I’m so mad that I missed the video when they aired it, I only go to see it from the reports about it. A friend of mine saw it when it premiered and he’s had this great idea of selling t-shirts about that. ‘I was there, when it first aired.’ That’s what he wants to put on them. Have you seen the video yet?”
 
“More than I’ve wanted to.”
 
***
back to the night before
 
“Alright, now it should be working perfectly.” Warren announced finally after he’d spent the past couple of minutes figuring out what kinks the head gear now had. It should have been in perfect working order, it had been his design after all but it hadn’t been and that was something that pissed Warren severely off. Now they just needed to test it again on the next unsuspecting victim.
 
Once again, the three Nerds fell back a bit to leave their test subject alone, waiting for him to be approached by someone. Somehow it never occurred to them that they just could’ve done the whole testing part by themselves. And as if on cue, someone else was coming right towards the remote-controlled vampire.
 
***
 
When June had decided to go out for a walk that night, she didn’t expect something interesting to happen. Not that anyone else would’ve expected that when stepping out of the house. One just went out of the damn house to get some fresh air or whatever. Tonight was one of those nights for June, she really needed to go out and clear her head. June was so lost in her thoughts that she almost ran into the person that had the pleasure of walking along the same way she did. On that side note, it was a miracle she hadn’t ran into some more people with her eyes cast down all the way from the moment she’d crossed the threshold of her home.
 
“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry.” She frantically apologized before even getting a glimpse at the man she’d ran into. “Are you alright? It’s my fault, I should have paid more attention to where I was going.”
 
“Yeah that’s right, you could’ve messed up with the head gear!” came the reply from the man, sounding a little bit off but otherwise perfectly clear.
 
“What?” Now June was baffled. Here she was apologizing for nearly running the guy over and he’d snapped at her! And what was that part with the head gear??? “Excuse me, but I apologized. No need to get all snippy!”
 
***
 
Around the corner Jonathan and Andrew looked up at their proclaimed leader Warren with similarly shocked expressions.
 
“She heard you!!”
 
“Yeah, no big deal. She’ll forget about that.” Warren said smugly, tightening his hold on the remote and microphone he was holding. “Now watch and learn, kiddies.”
 
***
 
“Ah, sorry. My mouth was running ahead of me.” The stranger in front of June told her sweetly.
 
“Whatever you say.” June wasn’t completely convinced but then she went for the closer look at the guy and nearly started drooling. “It’s alright, I don’t mind. I…uh…I was just on my way out…” Damn, he was really good looking, June mused silently. The only thing was the annoying cap and the headgear, hopefully he didn’t hide something underneath it. But those cheekbones… “…uh out, yeah so maybe you’ll want to go with me.”
 
The man just continued to stare at her, his head making slightly jerky movements at times during her small rant but he remained silent. Also his hands were twitching a bit, but maybe he was just nervous, or shy. And June remained blissfully unaware of the power struggle that happened around the corner.
***
 
“Gimme that!!” Andrew whined, trying to fend off Jonathan who was jumping up to get his hands on the remote Warren was holding just out of reach, for both of them unfortunately. “I want to play with him too!!”
 
“I so didn’t need that mental image right now.” Warren sighed. “There won’t be any playing of any kind with him. I am in control and you’ll keep your hands off him…err the remote.”
 
“But you’re having all the fun for yourself!” Jonathan protested, still desperately reaching for the remote. “It’s not fair! We want to have the controls as well.”
 
“But I’m the brains in this operation, kiddies.” Warren reminded them once more. “So I get the privilege of first action.” And second and third and so on but they didn’t need to know that. Leadership was hard work. It required being constantly on guard and having a lot of patience, especially with this crew. But like he always kept saying to himself, and probably already had more than a few hundred times over the past few days, competent personnel were so hard to find. He sighed deeply again.
 
***
 
“…so I was thinking maybe you could join me for a drink at the Bronze.” June finished, a bit shocked at her bold advance. It had been a while since she’d asked someone out and even longer since she’d been asked. Tonight would be different because this was going to be good.
 
“What about the Bronze?” The gorgeous man asked her and June had the suspicious feeling that he hadn’t even paid any attention to what she was talking about. She had just opened her mouth to say something else when he started talking again.
 
“Oh, you know, the Bronze, the only club worth going to.” He said, the voice sounding a bit differently than before. Also a bit more whiney.
 
“Yeah, the club in the bad part of town, ‘bout half a block from the good part of town.” A third speaker chimed in, all the words coming from the man standing in front of June. On her behalf, she started to become extremely confused. Why did all the good looking men have to be either taken or talked in riddles?
 
“I know that, dimwit!” The man said in the voice she’d thought belonged to him “I’ve been there before. Hell, we’ve been there before not that long ago. But it wouldn’t be that good for the plan if we showed up at the Bronze with him again.”
“Uh, maybe another time then.” June slowly started backing away from the man who had started getting into a serious argument with himself, all the time gesturing wildly with his hands. “It was nice bumping into you.”
 
With that June dashed away and left the three Nerds wondering.
 
“You had your finger on the transmit button again, Warren.”
 
***
 
on the flight that would bring Giles back to Sunnydale, present day
 
“This is going to be a long flight.” Rupert Giles thought immediately when he noticed his seat neighbour. It just had to be the man from the airport waiting room and Giles was pretty much sure that someone above must really hate him.
 
“What a pleasant surprise meeting you again.” The guy beamed at him when Giles had settled down in his place, fiddling with his carry-on and finally succeeding in stashing it away in the small compartment over the seats.
 
“Believe me, the pleasure is all yours.” Giles mumbled and then plopped down into his seat to make himself comfortable for the flight. Or as comfortable as one could get having that person sitting next to him. For most of the time from then on Giles had managed to ignore the guy who had introduced himself as – surprise – Guy something. Giles didn’t listen that closely to whatever he was blabbering about, only nodding and making agreeing noises at appropriate intervals. He was still desperately hoping the guy would shut up eventually but that hope was fading the closer they got towards L.A.
 
At one point, Guy had gone to the bathroom so Giles had seized his chance of getting rid of him and put on the headphones for the on-board entertainment. It had been his plan to have the headphones on by the time Guy returned so that he would leave him alone but unfortunately there wasn’t that much to choose from. That left Giles with the tough decision to either listen to “True Reflections” from the Dave Matthews Band or Guy. By the time Guy returned from his little trip, Giles still had the headphones on but the music had stopped a while ago after the tenth repeat of the song. Apparently the fact of him wearing said headphones didn’t pose any hindrance to Guy as he continued talking to him.
 
“Oh, you’ve found the on-board entertainment.” He said enthusiastically. “I wonder if they have the song here, you know the one everybody’s talking about.”
 
“God I hope not!” Giles muttered miserably. The damnable song and its video seemed to be following him wherever he went. Of course, it had been the reason for him to leaving his home and going back to Sunnydale in the first place but that didn’t matter now. Realizing his efforts to shut out Guy were as futile as they could get, he put the headphones down again. In doing so he noticed one of the flight attendants looking rather suspiciously towards the cockpit. Giles also noticed the amount of different other female flight attendants to go there and leave with something that could be described as a really satisfied smile plastered on their faces. On second thoughts, Giles didn’t want to know what that was supposed to mean other than hopefully the pilot would keep his hands on the controls.
 
“I think I’m gonna burn that song.” Guy said suddenly and Giles looked at him.
 
“Ah, yes, that would be the appropriate thing to do with the thing.” Giles agreed heartily. Maybe he had misjudged the man. Maybe he had some common sense after all.
 
“If you want, you can give me your address and I can send you a copy of the burned CD as well. That friend of mine has taped it and made himself the mp3 file.” Guy was practically bouncing in his chair. “He can make me a second CD for you. It’ll get a great place in my collection at home, right next to my Shatner CD. Hey, by the way you seem to have a great voice as well. Maybe you should make a CD, that one can go there as well.”

Giles groaned loudly.
 
“Are you alright?” Guy asked him, looking at Giles rather suspiciously. “You’ve been doing that a lot now. Maybe the flight attendant should bring you something for the pain.”
 
***
 
A couple of hours later, the plane neared its destination and the Captain leaned back in his chair. He’d sent his co-pilot out to fetch one of the girls so she would get him something to drink again and then prepared for the landing.
 
“Alright, everything’s clear and we’re ready for landing in Los Angeles.” he drawled and waited for the tower in L.A. to answer. “Alright, we’re coming down. Over and out.”
 
Giles watched fascinated as the one female flight attendant made her way towards the cockpit. He took advantage of the last chance to use the facilities before the plane set down. Maybe he really shouldn’t have drunk that last coffee. So he had a clear view towards the cockpit and all that happened inside. And after he heard something about a “Mile High Woohoo drink” that the Captain wanted the woman to make for him Giles resorted once more to his usual habit of cleaning his glasses. Unfortunately that only prevented him from seeing things he didn’t want to, it did nothing for his hearing though.
 
And he still had no idea what kind of drink that might be.
 
***
 
and back once more again in Sunnydale the previous night, the Nerds have yet to make one successful test of their equipment
 
It had been dark when they arrived in Sunnydale but the way they figured it, it would be worth the long trip. Billy was steering the car through the streets of Sunnydale and he looked really pleased with himself. There had been a couple of rough moments when they’d started their little road trip and he couldn’t get the car going smoothly but now everything was perfect. Billy grinned inwardly at the pained expression on Lenny’s face when he had managed to kill the machine every couple of metres back at their house. Lenny had told him he had to become one with the car to drive it successfully and his grin had nearly split his face then. After that Billy just had to steer the car through a lot of potholes on his way to Sunnydale, returning the advice with an evil grin of his own to his friend.
 
Their reason for the little trip to this lovely town had been a fairly simple one. They had recognized some of the locations in that music video and were doing a little sight seeing. Also maybe they would catch a glimpse of the rising star of the music heaven, Spikey X. And if not, that left the gorgeous girl he appeared with in the video. They just had to be somewhere around here.
 
“There, I’ll slow down a bit!” Billy told his friend. “I think I saw her going into one of these houses.”
 
“You sure?” Lenny asked him sceptically, having heard that particular comment about three times before.
 
“Yeah, she was blonde and hot, so it had to be her.”
 
“That would be the logical assumption.” Lenny agreed with him. Then he frowned. “Which house did she go in?”
 
They currently were driving through Revello Drive past all those lovely houses that looked almost the same to him.
 
“Dunno, maybe it was 1630 or 1680.” Billy said, trying to get a better look at the nearly identical looking homes.
 
“Maybe you shouldn’t have pawned your glasses.” Lenny told him sourly. They had been a gift to his friend after all.
 
“Yeah, but we needed the money for our transportation.” Billy returned, grinning widely. “And don’t worry about the glasses, I know you gave them to me as a present. The great thing is, you get to give them to me all over again. Now quite whining ‘bout them and start looking for the girl.”
 
“Huh?”
 
***
 
Warren was getting rather impatient with the other two, really quickly at that. They kept whining that they wanted to control the vampire as well and he could do only so much to fend them off. But hadn’t it been his idea and his technological expertise that had brought them so far and allowed them to gain control over the vampire? And shouldn’t they be grateful for his genius and worship him for that? But no, all they did was whine and get on his nerves because of such trivial things like wanting to control the vampire or that the headgear looked too large. Also they had started criticising him for losing the vampire in the television. So far, Warren had managed to get them off that track, but the longer it took to manage a successful test of the device that would allow the vampire to talk and start the final phase of his great plan, the bigger the chance of them getting back to thinking about that little glitch in his plan. Warren still had no idea how the vampire had ended up inside the television or how he was able to escape from there but he wouldn’t tell them that.
 
Also, they kept constantly reminding him of how sickly the vampire looked under the streetlights. But didn’t everyone look like the walking dead underneath those lights, really?
 
At the end of the street they saw a car parking and some people getting out, stretching their limbs, which were obviously numb from a long drive. That would be the perfect situation to test the electronics again.
 
***
 
“You just had to drive here like a madman, didn’t you?” Cordelia moaned. The migraines she’d got when she first inherited the visions were nothing compared to the ones from Angel’s driving. Over the last few miles it had gotten even worse and she’d feared for her life. Angel might survive any crash that would end with the car wrapped neatly around any tree unfortunate enough to stand in the way but she wouldn’t be so lucky. But with her line to the Powers maybe they’d grant her wish to come back and kick his butt for it, repeatedly.
 
The others didn’t look so great either, even Gunn was starting to look pale and that really had to mean something. They had decided to stop for a quick break because Connor had started to wake up and wail miserably. But that could also have had something to do with the fact that Angel thought he had seen someone familiar and stepped on the brakes with all his might.
 
It had turned out not to be anyone he knew but it had given them a short break before Angel resumed driving; thankfully not for much longer, since they already were in Sunnydale and only needed to get to Buffy’s house.
 
During the drive towards Sunnydale they all had silently agreed that it would be daytime when they returned to L.A. or came to visit Buffy, if ever.
 
A bit further down the street where they had stopped so abruptly before, they saw a couple of guys making their way towards them. Cordelia thought she recognized at least one of them from her time in Sunnydale, back when she was still in high school but then dismissed the thought real quickly. There was no way she would know one of those losers wearing a shirt with a former Borg printed on in a really tight suit, not that she ever dated one of mentioned guys who’d had the whole Babylon 5 collectors plates set in their basement.
 
Angel thought that one of them seemed familiar somehow, too. But it wasn’t the small one with the shirt or the other one with the pained expression on his face because of the fact that the smaller one was pestering him with annoying questions in a sort of whiney voice. No, it was the one the third guy was making moon eyes at, the one walking in front of them with the baseball cap drawn down his face so he wouldn’t be easily recognizable. Something about him made Angel extremely suspicious and he started walking slowly towards them. He could faintly hear them talking.
 
***
 
“Warren, we want to have the control at least once.” Jonathan lamented in that whiney voice of his and Andrew joined in, talking about how unfair it was that Warren had all the fun for himself and didn’t let them play. And they now had gone that exact way for the past 30 minutes or so. Warren had lost track of it some time ago. They were just walking along that street, the vampire a few steps ahead and the other two following behind Warren just like they were supposed to. No… wait, they weren’t and Warren felt a hand reaching out for the remote again from below him.
 
Warren soon found himself busy fighting Jonathan off as he tried once again to get control of the remote, nearly begging him for this shot at testing the vampire’s gear over and over again. Of course it wasn’t that hard to fight Jonathan off, he just had to hold the remote at head-level which was way above the shorter man’s reach.
Andrew had returned to just staring at the vampire and admiring his handiwork with the make-up. Suddenly, Jonathan noticed that someone from that group at the corner was coming towards him while the rest of them remained there next to the car and he tugged at Warren’s sleeve.
 
“Warren, one of them is coming here.” he told their fearless leader. Warren, of course, had already noticed.
 
“I saw that.” Warren hissed rather annoyed. “And we were going to test the equipment on him; that was the plan in case you forgot.” In his mind, the colourful expressions for idiot and similar descriptions that he had for the short one came forward again.
 
“We can’t do that, we have to get away.” Jonathan suddenly sounded very frightened.
 
“What?” Warren snapped, turning to face Jonathan. “Are you out of your mind?? We wanted to test the gear and that guy is perfect for it. Why would we do such a stupid thing and leave now?”
 
“B-because that is Buffy’s boyfriend.” Jonathan told him, his voice still wavering a bit. Warren rolled his eyes, clearly impatient.
 
“But I thought he was Buffy’s boyfriend.” Warren pointed towards the mute vampire in front of them. At least they looked very touchy-feely in the crypt when they’d first tried out the controls for the vampire and she hadn’t minded that at all.
 
“No, the other one.” Jonathan was now really nervous.
 
“She has two?” Andrew was a bit confused. He hadn’t been really paying attention to his fellow Nerds because he’d spent the time ogling the vampire but that prospect intrigued him if he was honest.
 
“No, she only has one from my information.” Warren stated but now he could see the predatory gleam in the eyes of the guy who was making progress in closing the distance between them. “But we could postpone this test. Let’s go! Move it people!”
 
***
Angel saw them retreating rather hastily and wondered about that. Some bits of their discussion had sounded confusing and he had no idea what they had been talking about in the first place but them hightailing out of there was suspicious. He debated for a moment about following them, but decided against it. Maybe he just had mistaken one of them for someone he once knew and with his longer lifespan that could be a lot of people. Still, for a moment he had looked a hell lot like Spike. Except that the vampire would never wear a jacket that looked similar to one of Angel’s own. He shook his head and slowly walked back to his crew who all looked at him, really confused.
 
“What was that all about?” Lorne asked him and the others were eyeing him suspiciously.
 
“I just thought I’d recognized someone I know.” Angel defended himself.
 
“Aha, so that’s why we almost took flying lessons through the window or the front seat earlier?” Cordy asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “He thought he recognized someone. You go from 100 mph to stop in like zero seconds because you saw someone you might know and couldn’t talk to Buffy on the phone about the video?”
 
“Yes, that’s all.” Angel stated. His confidence was wavering a bit though. He knew that look Cordy was giving him all too well. “Besides you all were buckled in, at least I hope you were, ‘cause if not, that’s setting a bad example for my son. And hey, no big deal, I really don’t see why this is so important to anything and why you’re all acting like that.”
 
“Well, we are characters in a fan fiction so we can’t just pretend to not be aware of that fact. We just have to act a bit out of character at times. It’s mandatory.” Wesley told him. “Why don’t we forget about you thinking you recognized someone whom you’ve obviously never met before and get to Buffy as soon as possible. And arriving there in one piece is heartily appreciated.”
 
“Okay, okay.” Angel raised his hands in surrender. “Besides I really need to talk to her.”
 
“Right, before or after you beat the crap out of that Spike guy?” Gunn wanted to know.
 
“I think I’ll leave the therapeutic beating for later.”
 
***
 
finally present day in the Summers’ home
 
“So you knew where these geeks are the whole time and didn’t say anything.” Buffy said accusingly, clutching the small stuffed pig in her hands more tightly. It was a good thing that Spike didn’t need to breathe, whether in his own body or inside the fluffy pink animal. Otherwise he’d have been in serious need of oxygen during Angel’s speech. He wished so much to be there for Buffy, to give her comfort and even more urgently to give Angel the butt-kicking he deserved for keeping that from her. Not to mention the kid and probably a whole lot more Spike was just dying to find out. At least he could be sure that she was comforted by his presence alone, even if he was extremely fluffy and pink right now.
 
“But I didn’t know it was important.” Angel found himself in the situation of having to defend himself again. Then he frowned. “I knew I recognized one of them. It must have been Spike! See, we had that emergency stop for a perfectly good reason.”
 
The others from Angel’s crew just rolled their eyes
 
“And now we know where they are and where they took him.” Buffy said, smiling genuinely for the first time since Angel had told her about his real reason for the visit. She stood up and held Mr. Gordo/Spike in one hand, the other one on her hips.
 
“So what are we going to do now?” Willow asked her, already knowing what the answer would be.
 
“Now, we are going to get Spike back of course.” Buffy announced proudly. “The Scoobies are going to strike back.”

to be continued...

Author's note: The scene at the plane concerning the flight attendant, the captain and the drink is courtesy of Ted Raimi, it's from a little scene he wrote (his words) and performed on a Convention with Alexandra Tydings. I cut the scene short since it didn't fit completely with the rest of the story (also I can't remember the complete thing) The rest of the funnies in here are to be blamed on me.
next on Spike’s brain: The Scoobies and the Fang Gang are saddling up for some action as they head out for the Nerds. Will they find them in time and get Spike back to his own body, is the process even reversible or will he remain stuck forever being fluffy and pink?
 





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