An insistent tapping finally registered in Riley Finn’s overly large, but seldom used brain. He turned his attention away from the closed circuit monitor to see Forrest typing away and using the Vocoder machine to voice his concerns about the footage they had just watched.
“Isn’t that your girlfriend?” the machine asked Riley, who was now frowning fiercely.
“Not girlfriend, knows about Walsh,” Riley quickly wrote on a notepad and flipped to show Forrest.
Forrest shook his head in disgust. “Does she know about you, man?” the computer asked once again.
Riley scowled at the hulking machine and scribbled something on the paper. “Sounds like fucking ‘War Games!’”
Forrest raised his eyebrows to indicate that, uh yeah…they were right in the middle of war games. Getting no answer from his teammate, he tapped the blue screen again to direct Riley into answering the question.
“Saw me there, hit me,” he wrote and pointed at his bruised face.
Forrest frowned and opened his arms wide and mouthed ‘why.’
“Not sure, has to do with HST 17,” Riley wrote and then threw the notepad across the room in anger and frustration.
A sudden blast from an air horn caused them to jump about ten feet and they scramble to attention in front an annoyed looking Walsh, who handed the used air horn back to her assistant. She raised an eyebrow in a perfect ‘Spock’ look and sat at the computer that Forrest had vacated.
“They will be in town tonight. Take two squads and bring in the girl and HST 17, leave the rest,” she typed quickly as the computer gave voice to her words.
Riley pointed to the notepad he’d thrown across the room and Walsh nodded. He retrieved it and started writing. “What about the Gentlemen? Bag and tag?”
Walsh considered for a moment. “If you happen across one, bag and tag. Otherwise, I want those two!”
“How? According to intel no man made weapon can kill!” Forrest had grabbed Riley’s notepad and started writing. He wasn’t risking his ass for nothing.
“Concentrate on defense. Immobilize the creature and bring in for further study. Use tasers. Will contain and find source of problem.”
“Eliminate or immobilize HST 17 and girl?” Riley wrote pensively.
“Immobilization only! Dress as civilians. A military presence would only increase panic,” the computer Vocoder instructed them. “You have your orders, move out!”
Riley and Forrest left the briefing room and headed for gear-up. Riley stopped Forrest with a hand to his shoulders and showed him the notepad again. “Keep Buffy safe, but leave 17 for me!”
Forrest looked over his shoulders for any witnesses, confirming there were none. He looked back at Riley and nodded his agreement. They then headed to brief their squads and what they hoped would be a productive night.
**********************************************************************************
“Spike should patrol with Buffy tonight,” Giles tapped his board to get everyone’s attention as they entered his flat.
Xander looked put out. “What about us?” he wrote with a pouty face on his board and then pointed to everyone but Buffy and Spike.
Giles rolled his eyes and grew impatient. “It’s best everyone stays here, just in case,” he wrote and sighed heavily after chucked his board on the coffee table, slumping on the couch and rubbing the bridge of his nose.
Anya stamped her foot at that suggestion. She looked at Xander and made an ‘X’ with her fingers…then proceeded to make kissy motions that became rather obscene. Xander immediately stopped her from going into more graphic detail and she pouted.
Willow and Tara’s eyes grew wide and Giles tried to moan in disgust. Spike and Buffy, in the meanwhile, were trying to develop a strategy on who was to go where and when they were supposed to meet up after patrol.
‘Gonna have to talk this way pet, it’s the only way for now,’ Spike whispered to her mind and she silently nodded in agreement.
‘It’s better this way…at least we can communicate where other’s can’t,’ she sent him and he grabbed her hand, giving it a squeeze in reassurance.
Missing his board again, Spike approach a wary Xander and started writing on his board. “Slayer and me are going now, back later!” Before he capped his marker though, he dotted Xander’s nose in black ink and threw the pen to Anya. He then mock saluted Xander and they were out the door.
Anya looked at the marker and then at Xander’s nose, stifling a giggle. Apparently it was a permanent marker that Spike had grabbed and the offending dot wouldn’t come off, no matter how hard Xander tried to rub it.
Eventually, he went to the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror, grimacing at the look that he was stuck with for the time being. He wanted to hate the bleached pest, but for some reason, found it exceedingly hard to obtain the level of hatred he thought he had for Spike. Good guy, bad circumstances…could happen to anyone, including Xander.
***********************************************************************************
The silent people wandering around unnerved Buffy more than the car crashes and the uncapped fire hydrant that spewed water everywhere. Major looting had gone on, and with no voices, there were no 911 calls, no way to respond. Guilt nudged its way into her conscious as she tried to help in any way she could to make up for not being there to avoid the mess she viewed.
‘Nutin you could’ve done pet, you’re only one person. Don’t go beatin yourself up about something you can’t change,’ Spike assured her from miles away. He had heard the self-berating thoughts that lodged in her mind and he sought to sooth her any way he could. It wouldn’t help them tonight anyway. They booth had to keep their eyes sharp and their noses to the wind.
‘I used to question the calling, you know? Why create the Slayer if you can’t save everybody?’ she asked despairingly. ‘I still do sometimes. Other times, I’m just too busy or too tired to care.’
Hearing no answering quip or thoughts from Spike, she froze and listened intently. ‘Spike?’ she practically yelled to his mind.
‘Godamnit, Slayer! Ease up on the noggin! I can bloody hear you, just busy at the mo,’ he swore in her mind.
‘Doing what? Taking a leak?’ Buffy groused, knowing very well that wasn’t the case.
‘Actually, watchin Captain Cardboard takin a leak against an alley wall,’ Spike retorted. He had been watching the Commandos in plain dress circling around the area he was in, so he was keeping a low profile.
‘What’s Riley doing there? And ewww, can you being any more crude?’ she questioned with a grimace. She was glad she didn’t have her voice; she would be gagging all over the place from the picture Spike painted.
‘Ha! Knew you two were an item!’ Spike accused.
‘Are not! I only knew you were talking about Riley because that’s what you always call him,’ she defended herself. Stupid vampire.
‘Yeah, pet…keep telling yourself that,’ he sent her and moved from his position now that the Commandos had left. He followed at a discreet distance, always remaining behind the straggler of the group.
After hearing nothing for ten minutes from Buffy on how he was such a jerk for telling her the truth, he became worried. ‘Buffy?’
Nothing.
‘Buffy! Answer me now damnit!’ he screamed at her mind, waiting for her response.
It never came.
****************************************************************************************
A sudden beeping came through on Riley’s walkie-talkie, startling him to grab it and hold it to his ear. The group had agreed to use Morse code to talk to each other, Graham needing a quick refresher on the logistics of it. Now as he listened, he also scanned the horizon for anything that moved. The beeping stopped and Riley replied with his own beeps, leaving the area quickly.
A few minutes later, he approached Forrest on the east side of the movie-plex, two large bodies lying at his feet. Riley stopped and looked at the now unconscious beings that had a permanent smile, even while knocked out, and a bag full of scalpels. He kicked one body to see if it moved, but nothing happened. Next to him, lay another body somewhat identical to the first one and again, it had a perpetual evil grin.
He looked at Forrest and nodded, making several hand gestures and pointing to other members of the team. They then picked up the bodies and started heading out towards the forest behind the building.
Spike was about to follow them, as foolish as it seemed, but he stopped in the middle of the street when he saw a small form detach itself from the shadows and move behind the last member of the team. Frowning, he watched as Buffy silently ‘removed’ the Commando and incapacitated him. She drug his body with her to her hiding spot and left him there to sleep it off.
‘Buffy!’ he yelled to her mind as she rounded the building to follow the rest of the unit. She never answered him, and he cursed to himself.
‘Elizabeth Ann Summers! Woman answer me now!’ he roared at her brain as he trailed her into the woods.
‘Oh no you did not!’ she huffed at him. ‘How did you know my full name, mister?’ She had come to a dead stop on the path that the Commandos were taking and she waited for him to catch up to her.
‘Oh now you answer me! Slayer, you’ll be the death of me, I swear to bloody GOD!’ he shouted the last at her as he stopped to stand in front of her.
‘Spike, how did you know my full name?’ she sent him in a miffed way, hands on hips, cocked at an angle.
‘Um, snuck a peek at old Rupes Watcher’s Diary is all,’ he admitted rather bashfully with his eyebrows raised in a sad puppy dog look.
‘Don’t EVER tell anyone, got it?’ she forced with her arms crossed and glaring.
‘Oi! Why didn’t you answer me back there? Scared a hundred years outta me, you bloody chit!’ he complained as he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her in for a fierce hug, holding on tightly.
Why didn’t she answer him? Simple. She hadn’t wanted him to follow her because she feared he would get caught again. And she couldn’t bear it. If she had answered him when he first started calling for her, he would now be in the hands of the Commandos.
She had been breaking up a fight when she saw two of the Gentlemen floating by; almost exactly the way Spike had drawn them. Lumbering before them were two lackeys, their heads wrapped in bandages and their bodies wrapped in unbuttoned straightjackets. She heard snuffling sounds, like a dog searching for food, so she hid herself until they passed.
Unfortunately for them, they ran right into a Commando, Forrest to be exact. Him and his team bludgeoned the minions to death and tasered the two lanky figures, their bodies crashing to the ground in a thud. Spike’s first call to her would have brought him running if she had revealed where she was and what she was witnessing. So she kept silent, learning to not voice any thoughts to attract him. She heard his anguished cries and nearly doubled over with her own pain.
Now, as she was being squeezed to death by his arms, she decided to herself that she had done the right thing, regardless if he was angry with her or not. She relaxed her body and slowly wrapped her arms around his waist and returned the bone-crushing hug. She nuzzled her nose into his chest and inhaled deeply of his scent.
Spike was shocked to see her response, but not so much that he didn’t know what to do. He laid a tentative hand on the back of her hair and pressed a fervent kiss to the top of her head in gratitude that nothing had happened to her.
‘Don’t do that again…please?’ he begged softly as he laid his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes to savor the feel of her.
‘They’re getting away,’ she thought in a languid tone, too relaxed to care now that they were escaping.
‘They’ll be out tomorrow pet. Gotta get you home now,’ he admonished lightly as he pulled away and slowly led her away from the forest and into the hub of the city.
‘What do you think they’ll do with them?’ Buffy asked the million-dollar question in her own mind and in Spike’s.
Spike rubbed the back of his head and shuddered. ‘I don’t rightly know luv, but I pity the poor buggers.’
‘Some people are crazy Spike,’ Buffy mused.
‘Well, Earth IS the insane asylum of the universe, ducks,’ he thought with a grin and swung an arm around her shoulders as they made their way back to Giles’ flat.
She chuckled to herself. ‘I believe it!’
After all, she was the Slayer…the Keeper of said insane asylum.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you all who have followed this story! First of all this is for David, my husband - who told me the name of the software/computer program that used the computer voice in the episode HUSH. Many thanks to Zoe who nattered with me while I hedged out this chapter and all the directions I wanted to take. Also to IBE who sent me the funniest damn things to watch while I was trying to think about writing and keeping me sane. And of course Sotia, who is my naughty groupie, love you you crazy lady! And of course to all who review, you spank my little muse into submission! Direct quotes from Hush. And so many, many, many (is that too many?) thanks to EdgeHead for the awesome banner that she did for this fic. It's so wonderful! Round of applause for Mel!