*1630 Rovello Drive, Saturday*
Hank Summers was unemployed for the first time since he’d finished grade school. He’d stacked books in libraries, groceries in stores, plates in restaurants, files for law firms, and that had all been before he’d actually graduated collage. He’d been hired right off the bat to work for the firm he’d been temping at, only to be scalped by another, which then merged with another, and finally had been offered partnership right before his divorce became final. He’d given all that up after learning of his daughter’s Calling, and he wasn’t entirely sure why.
So when Joyce started talking to him as they were waiting for Buffy’s friends to get her ready for what she called a ‘slay-date’ with the vampire that couldn’t seem to make up his mind about whether he wanted her dead or alive, her questions blind-sided him, despite the fact he was thinking them all the while.
“What are you going to do now?”
The question itself was no worse than others she’d asked him, for example when she asked if he’d cheated. He briefly wondered if maybe answering ‘yes’ back then might have been easier than answering her current question.
“Don’t get me wrong, I liked how you put that weasel of a principal in his place when he tried to put Buffy down in front of us on ‘Parent-Teacher Night,’ and you’ve been very helpful with her training and Slaying.” The word rolled off her tongue with not a small measure of bitterness. It could very well be that Joyce would never be okay with Buffy’s duty. Then again, Hank wasn’t sure he was anymore okay with it either.
“But you told me coming back here so soon after you’d left meant you were out of a job.” She paused and looked at him in a way that reminded him of when she’d asked him what his intentions were, all those years ago.
He stared at her for a minute, taking in the new grey hairs that she hadn’t had time to conceal at the hairdresser’s, the subtle way her skin wrinkled around her mouth and eyes, and then her eyes that bore into him as intense as ever. She was still beautiful and he briefly wondered what she’d ever seen in him. “I was thinking of maybe opening a practice here.” The words came unbidden, voicing a thought he hadn’t known he’d had.
Her eyebrows lifted a fraction—the only sign of her surprise. “And you’d what, move to Sunnydale?”
He caught on to the fact that she hadn’t said ‘here,’ making it clear he’d have to keep his distance from her. He’d known it was coming, and yet it still slightly hurt. Old habits die hard indeed. “Yes, I’d move here. I’m sure with the death rate in this town I can find both a property to own, and a thriving business.” He stopped and looked at the stairs leading up to where Buffy was getting ready to put her life in danger again. “It would mean I’m closer, too.” He left the words hanging, unconsciously using a bit of obfuscation to disguise what he would be closer to. In truth, he wasn’t sure himself.
“It wouldn’t change anything between us. You know that.” Leave it to Joyce to cut through his courtroom persona and get right to the problem. She’d stopped doing it during the last years of their marriage, both content to pretend they were happier than they were, but the end-result had been an even bigger disaster than anything they’d been avoiding.
Maybe they could at least learn how to talk again.
“It would change everything.” He meant it, he discovered. Maybe it wouldn’t lead to where she thought he wanted it to, maybe it would just make them friends again, but he was certain of one thing: it would be a new start. “I won’t make any promises, or demands, I’m not saying we should give ‘us’ another chance, but I hope we can at least be the best parents a Slayer has ever had. In our own way.”
She studied him for a second, using the level stare that he felt peeled away all his layers, leaving him completely vulnerable in front of her. Something else he’d forgotten she could do while he was off being the cliché. Then again, back then she was just as much of a cliché as I was: the hot-shot lawyer and the socialite. What a joke!
“From what Mr. Giles tells me, that won’t be that hard, seeing as how all the other parents either gave them up to the Council, or wouldn’t understand and-” There was a flash of pain and anger in her eyes.
“It was my mistake that we sent her to that place. At least we know now and won’t make any mistakes like that again.” He remembered briefly the rage on Spike’s face once he’d figured out Buffy had been sent to a mental home by her own parents. Maybe he really is in love with her.
“I’m just as much to blame. I was too busy being a betrayed wife to be a good mother.”
He took her hands in his. “You did what you could. We both did. And Buffy says she forgave us.”
“I hope so.”
He held her hands a little longer while wishing there had never been anything to forgive in the first place.
~~~***~~~
*Warehouse district, one hour later*
He had picked her up in his car and drove them to the deserted part of the warehouse district. She had known on some level that he needed some method of getting around, but she still hadn’t been prepared for the DeSoto with its painted windows. To say it made for a weird ride would be an understatement.
To make it all worse, apart from the empty pleasantries at the very beginning, neither of them had spoken for the past whatever length of time it took for them to get to their destination. If you can’t see the scenery, the trip lasts forever and then some.
They had left the car behind and were standing on the rooftop of one of the dilapidated factories.
“My men are stationed there, there, there, and in the sewers.” He pointed out the places where she realized she’d have positioned her own troops, had she had any troops to position.
They’re all safer indoors on a night like this. “I never actually asked: how many minions do you have?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, then smirked. “More than I need, but less than what I started out with.”
She realized getting an actual number would require a bit more trust between them. Funny how he declared to love her without actually fully trusting her. “Why’s that?”
He scratched the back of his neck, a somewhat contrite look on his face. “Well there were some losses when I decided to take over after the whole Master disaster; then there were some that got caught in the crossfire with the Poof.” He frowned a little, supposedly tallying up the losses in his head. “Might have dusted a few myself when Dru left.”
The jolt that went through her body at the mention of his ex’s name and the effect it had on him had nothing to do with jealousy. Nah-uh.
“Of course, lost a bit more during the fights to become Lord of the flies, and finally there were those that wouldn’t get with the no-killing program.” He shrugged slightly. “All in all, I think less than a quarter are left, but I can vouch for most of them, and the rest are too idiotic to try anything.” He sniffed loudly. “Probably lose more tonight.”
She hadn’t really thought about what it took for a town full of vampires—and Sunnydale was a bit fuller than most—to stop hunting humans for their dinner. Spike seemed to just shrug it off, but she guessed there had been many battles and a lot of bloodshed between him and his own kind over the past few months. “Why do it?”
He looked at her surprised for a second, but then his eyes softened and filled with that something that she was beginning to understand was how he felt about her. Not that she wanted to put a name on it yet, despite his declarations. “Did it for you. Well, not the first part, that was just me trying to save my Sire; but the rest, from that last night in LA until now—it’s been all for you.” He paused. “Actually, I think everything I did since that first night in LA was for you.”
She really didn’t know how to answer that, so she just looked at their target in silence.
Before her was an old office building that had been the nerve center of whatever it was that had once been produced in this area—the factory they were standing on top of had also been a part of that complex. Now a few square blocks were completely devoid of human life and had been overrun by various demons. Spike had said this is where his initial lair had been, but had declined to tell her his new headquarters’ location ‘yet.’ He doesn’t trust me with anything regarding his vampire minions, despite the truce.
“So whose party are we crashing?” She took a pensive pose. “Or is it your party they’ve crashed, and we’re playing bouncer?”
He chuckled and came to stand right next to her, so close that they were almost touching, but not quite. “They’re technically encroaching on my domain, so bouncing it is.” He lost all mirth from his voice as he continued, though. “The bloke in charge is a right nasty bugger called Kakistos.”
“Gesundheit!”
He didn’t seem amused. “He’s about as old as the Master was and even some of his minions are Master vampires, so you best be careful around him.”
Hearing the Master’s name brought a cold chill through Buffy’s bones, but she shook it off. “What does he want?” Not my blood, not my life, not now, I have too much to lose: Dad, Mom, Giles, Willow, Xander, Jenny, Spike, even Cordy. That’s a sobering thought.
“To kill me and take my place.” He said it like it was nothing. Like talking about the weather. It made her feel sad for him.
“Just like that? He comes in, gunning to kill you? But why tonight? I thought all vamps get an extra boost or something.”
“No, they don’t. There has to be chanting, and rituals, and sacrifices, all things I couldn’t care less about.” The disgust was clear on his face. “But this bloke? He bloody loves it. Eats it up with a spoon and comes back for seconds.” He shook his head and chuckled like he couldn’t believe it.
“That means that technically I’m helping you. So you will owe me.” She flashed him a winning grin, but his answering leer almost made her weak in the knees.
“I’ll more than happily pay you back.”
Great, he had to add that sexy gruff in his voice and that reminded her of the fact that he’d called this a ‘date.’ She was on a date with Spike and he was looking at her like he wanted to eat her up. In the naughty way. Think slaying thoughts. “So what’s the plan?”
“Easy! We go in; we stake them all before they perform their ritual; we get out.”
She laughed at that. “Sounds like one of my plans.”
“Knew there was a reason I liked you, Slayer.”
Hearing him say that brought a shiver of a different kind, but she shook that off as well. It was almost time for battle.
~~~***~~~
*Half an hour later*
He ran as fast as he could, following his companion’s instructions. I can’t be too late! That thought kept repeating in his head like a mantra.
When he got close enough he could hear the sounds of battle and the two shadows moved even faster, drawing ever closer to the source of the racket.
Once he burst out of the side door he could finally take in the whole scene.
Vampires were fighting each other everywhere, clouds of dust bursting whenever a combatant was defeated. A few humans were hanging off the far wall from chains, most of them already dead or dying. The main battle was being fought between Buffy a vampire on a raised platform, their shadows flickering in the light of dozens, if not hundreds of candles, while both Spike and another vampire were weaving around some columns to the left.
Buffy was doing her usual quips in the midst of combat. “You said old, but you forgot to mention ugly as hell! Seriously, are you a vampire, or are you half pig?”
The vampire in question let out a roar and tried to pummel her into the ground, but she was too fast for him and managed to roll away in time, using her legs to topple him over. She then went in for the kill, but was visibly shocked to see her opponent shrug off the stake imbedded in his chest and backhand her a few feet away.
“You silly girl. You think a splinter can stop Kakistos?” He laughed full of malice, taking deliberate steps towards the now disarmed Slayer.
What followed next was more or less a blur, as the newcomers threw in their lot with Buffy and Spike’s forces—easily recognizable by their lack of screaming ‘for Kakistos’ over and over.
More and more of the ancient vampire’s minions were reduced to nothing, and even Spike dispatched his opponent, but the main foe was still standing, having even used the stake he’d pried from his chest to dust a couple of Spike’s vampires that had tried to take him out.
The distraction had given Buffy enough time to gather her wits and she was spinning and kicking at Kakistos with all she had, but it seemed like a losing battle.
That is until, all of a sudden, he let out a powerful scream and started to dissolve into dust, a giant piece of wood sticking out of his back.
The one who’d managed to stake him took a few steps back, joining her companion. Spike went to Buffy’s side and offered her a hand to stand up, while not taking his eyes off the newcomers.
She didn’t even notice him as she raised herself off the ground, looking at the same thing he was. “Angel?”
“Dru?”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Another chapter without a beta. I take full responsibility, but my schedule doesn't really allow me the time/energy to start looking for ways to make this work other than as is.
I would like to, once more, explain that some things will happen faster and other slowr than on the actual show. The changes in the power dynamic would have the 'ripple effect' and therefore some 'bads' would steer clear where they'd previously swarmed in, while others would be attracted like moths to a flame, appearing faster than they were supposed to.
Anyway, enjoy!
I would like to, once more, explain that some things will happen faster and other slowr than on the actual show. The changes in the power dynamic would have the 'ripple effect' and therefore some 'bads' would steer clear where they'd previously swarmed in, while others would be attracted like moths to a flame, appearing faster than they were supposed to.
Anyway, enjoy!