Chapter Four – Recuperation
“I’m bored, Spike”
“So read a bloody book, slayer.”
“Can’t we go out and do something? We never do anything! isn't this the part where you get all inspirational and tell me that if we stay in here all cooped up and scared they've won?”
“No. Who the bloody hell thought of that?”
“I don’t know. Confucius?”
“You really are batty one aren't you? Why do I always have to go with the batty ones?”
“What are you talking about? It’s uplifting!”
“No, its hogwash meant to get someone traumatized into bed w’them.”
“Ew Spike!”
“Ow! Wot? I’m just sayin’”
“Are you saying you don’t think we should be out there doing something and we should just cower in here and wait for them to come to us?”
“Fuck no. I’m sayin’ if you want to take back your life or make some sort of grand sweeping statement like that you go ahead-but don’t you drag me into it.”
“Are you scared, Spikey?”
“No. I’m pissed off. Not even pissed off, I’m fuckin’ enraged slayer. Do you have have any idea what they did to me? I want to rip off their heads and drink of their necks as I would a chalice, but I’m not going to do that until I know little bit more so I’m not swaggerin’ in guns blazing just to have them shock me off to lalaland to do it all over again.”
“Really? Would have thought that was exactly your style.”
“They’re humans and I’ve got a little Pavlov in m’head trying to keep me from chasing puppies, remember?”
“So you’re really not going to get back at them?”
“Sure I am, just as soon as I know who ‘them’ is.”
“So you’re not going to be all uplifting and inspiration profound guy?”
“Bout you an’ me? I’m not going to tell you to live your life in defiance of the people who had us, luv, because you’ll do it when you damn well please."
“Well, poo. This is usually the part where you come in all big-baddy in and tell me to get over myself."
“Get over yourself.”
“No you have to say the thing!”
“Why? Already got you in my bed.”
“Ew!”
“S’true!”
“Yeah, but no touchies so there.”
“Gimme time.”
“Ew, Spike, quit leering at me! Spike I said quit it!”
“Bloody Hell! Ow! What the fuck was that for?”
“Leering like a gross leering guy!”
“Slayer I don’t know why you need me to tell you to feel better alright? If you want to go out, you do and you can. You don’t need someone big, broad and brooding to tell you that.”
“Big, broad and broo-why do you always make things about Angel.”
“Just sounds like something he’d say all earnest and trying to help. Just bloody packed with good intentions, but captain forehead dosen’t realize that he’s not helping he’s just addin’ to the bloody problem. Makin’ people feel all guilt-ridden cause they don’t feel better.”
“Shut up, Spike.”
“M’ just saying, slayer.”
"So you won’t come out and explore with me?”
“No, Slayer.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because it’s day.”
“Fuck you.”
“Aw, c’mon slayer, don’t be like that.”
“I hate you, Spike.”
“Oh, cry me a river.”
“I can’t keep being in here, Spike. I can’t not do anything. I need to be getting better. I need to get better to get back—”
“I know, Sweetling”
“Sweetling?”
“You know what, I’m just trying to—”
“Thanks, Spike”
“Why don’t we take a look at what they have by way of a patrol, yeah?”
*****
Buffy had been patrolling every night since she was fifteen. The idleness succeeding the ordeal they had both suffered allowed her time to heal but it took less than a week for her slayer instincts to kick in. Spike relented and they had ventured out that night to find some action. Her slayer instincts were right. She had gone soft and sloppy and as Spike had pointed out a few months and a lifetime ago all any garden-variety vamp needed was one good day. Maybe 3 weeks ago she would have let that happen to her. But she had managed to crawl out of that hell and now she was angry. The last week had her incredibly agitated. All the sitting around had only reminded her that she didn't know who they were. She didn't have a plan and she was not even close to that. And that made her mad.
In the days before Professor Walsh revealed herself to be a psycho sociopath of epic proportions. She had covered PTSD so Buffy knew enough to know she should worry about it. But after a few days in London when her flight response died down the nightmares slowed down and Buffy stopped being scared and started being really fucking angry. She started by lashing out at Spike which quickly escalated. Two warriors cooped up together for any amount of time would create problems of all sorts. It was 2 days of this before Spike broke down and stared plotting patrol routes. They both needed to get back in shape.
The first few days she had been content with the odd fledgling, but one quiet Monday even the fledges seemed to have disappeared.
“Phooey!” she pronounced.
Spike who had disappeared for a second to investigate some promising rustling took his place next to her and lit a cigarette. “Bloody squirrel.”
“What is with this town?” Buffy demanded. “Two or three fledges a night and not even a single good demon in days.”
Spike arched an eyebrow. “Not everywhere is so mystical or as dangerous as the hell mouth, slayer. Else the watchers’d need an army instead of just the one.”
Buffy tensed at a sudden ruckus but it was a bunch teenaged girls. Spike nodded at them as they crossed the graveyard. They were carrying candles and blankets on their way to some sort of clandestine séance.
“Reckon you don’t see that in Sunnyhell too often.” Spike took a last puff and blotted out the cigarette. “Which is ironic really, since s’likely the only place somethin’ like that would work. But then the poor chits would attract every one of the daily 15 fledges that pop up. That’s there you come in. But every city in the world can't have vampiric activity like that else something like thevampires that go bump in the night would blow all our cover. And you couldn't patrol the whole bloody world, could you, pet?”
Buffy sighed.
“I guess that makes a stupid kid of sense. How long have you been sense guy and we just didn't know it.”
Spike smirked at that.
“Since always love, you and the scoobs are just good’t ignorin' it.” He paused for a moment and shrugged.
Buffy frowned.
“What, slayer? No quippy come back?” he asked. “No swipe at my expense?”
She didn't reply, suddenly interested in the names written on the tombstones.
Spike kicked himself when he realized what had gotten in the way of her chipper mood. However, before he could apologize or begin damage control his supernatural hearing picked up the distinctive scratching of a newborn vamp. Before he could open his mouth, however, Buffy vaulted off a gravestone running towards the sound.
“Dibs!” she yelled back to him following her slayer sense to the newly undead.
Mentally berating himself for constantly chasing the crazy ones, he took off after her. They arrived just in time to see the girls scatter but Buffy managed to intercept the vamp. Spike tugged one of the girls aside and shoved her behind him and out of the fray. The girl froze shell shocked, her eyes locked on the Golden eyed monster she had just tried to stand up to.
Buffy knew it was probably wrong of her to toy with the fledge but she couldn’t help it. It felt good to flex her muscles. Felt good to get some exercise on the kicks and punches that had softened due to disuse. Her reaction time, however, could use a little work, as she was crudely reminded when the fledge dodged an admittedly clumsy round house and embarrassed as she was, it wasn’t as bad as when a lucky jab caught her square in the face. For a moment she wondered how a new vamp could pack so much of a punch. It took her a second to realize that had actually been Spike. Her off balance round house put her square in the path of on of his deadly right hooks. Thankfully, Spike did nothing more than bark an apology over his shoulder before taking over and giving her a chance to recover.
She turned her attention to the girls whom she thought had scattered but, thankfully they had better sense than that. One of the girls was rallying everyone together. She caught Buffy’s eye and nodded. It was the one who had tried to stand up to a vampire.
Spike seemed to be toying with the fledgling as well. He threw a flurry of punches dodging any of the vamp’s clumsy strikes. It seemed he was even bantering. The fledgling had no idea Spike was even a vampire, much less an Aurelian Master. It was dust in a few seconds.
All his focus was on her as soon as the fledge was dust. Not wanting to talk about her flub, she chose to focus on the girls. All of whom had disappeared. Buffy surveyed the cemetery. Someone had a good head on her shoulders taking advantage while the super-beings were distracted to make herself and her friend’s escape.
Spike was staring at her like she was made of glass. That really pissed her off.
“Spike?” she questioned. “Are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghos-alien- you know what? I give up! All those are plausible. You look like you just saw a monkey riding a unicycle holding a puppy.”
That seemed to snap him out of it. Buffy congratulated herself. That kind of quip always seemed to work on Giles. Spike, too, who’da thunk!
“You are a right weird bird, slayer. You know that?”
Buffy shrugged.
“Pot, kettle.” She said. “What’s got your fangs all fuzzy”
She expected another comment off that but Spike looked like he was fighting an inward battle. She waited.
“It was the chip.” He said finally. “It didn't go off just now.”
Buffy continued to wait; for her gut to constrict maybe, or for her hand to come up and dust her companion, or even for something, And yet nothing came. Spike was clearly waiting as well, he was balanced on the balls of his feet waiting for the ensuing fight.
Buffy felt like she was making herself care about this. Really the only thing she wanted to know was if this was going to help their fight against that facility.
“Just for me or-?”
Spike eyed her cautiously.
“Worked back in that hell hole.”
The pit of her stomach finally constricted, not in fear she realized but disappointed. Whoa. She had wanted the chip to be kaput. The people in that place were human and she wanted to unleash the full power of an enraged master vampire on their heads.
“Dammit.” She said simply.
She expected him to be surprised like Angel would have been. But Spike had always been able to read her.
“You aren’t worried about the implications.”
“Could it have been the heat of the moment maybe?”
Without a word or warning Spike pulled back his fist and punched her right in the face.
“Nope.” He said. Smirking as she sputtered and tried to recover.
He expected her answering blow and soon they balls out fighting.
Buffy nearly let off a whoop of delight. If fighting the fledgling had been fun, fighting Spike was exhilarating. That vamp had been a newborn. He has been no match for a veteran slayer. Now, a master Aurelian that was another story all together. He matched her blow for blow, switch for switch. Fighting for Buffy had always been a duty, her calling, of course, but not her idea of a good time. Right now, however, with Spike, it wasn’t really fighting. It was dancing, exhilarating and instinctual, but still deadly. Somewhere along the line Buffy had forgotten Spike was deadly. Some of his hits were a pretty good reminder.
She wasn’t pulling any punches, but Spike managed to land a good haymaker that thrwe her off balance. She was getting some good blows in too. Spike was never much of a kicker so Buffy took full advantage. She managed to get a really good leg jab that got him right in the cheekbone—which of course made him laugh. That caught the slayer off guard for a second, long enough for him to head but her and then she was laughing too. Buffy couldn’t remember the last time she laughed like this. A few more half hearted swings that the dodged easily. Finally Spike caught her on a fake uppercut and sudden she was on the ground pinned under a couple of hundred pounds of vamp.
“Stop your wiggling, slayer.”
“Why?” She demanded continuing her efforts to slip out under him. She caught his meaning just a little too late. Her eyes widened and she stilled.
Spike straightened up, avoiding the slayers eyes and doing his very, very best to calm himself down.
"Spike, I--"
“Nevermind it, slayer.”
“Sorry, I just--”
“I said never mind!”
She flinched at his raised voice and he immediately looked contrite.
“Buffy--”
Buffy’s eyes widened. She could count on one hand how many times Spike had called her by her given name. It sounded so strange coming from him. Sillier when he said that when anyone else did. His eyes were locked with hers. They are blue, she thought. She had never really put much thought into the color of Spike’s eyes before. She noticed belatedly that he hadn’t said continued his trail of thought and that she had now not said anything for too long. Now she was just trying to think of something quippy or funny to say but nothing was coming to mind and all she could think was: Say something! Anything Buffy just make some sort of noise and break this silence that is starting to get really deafening just say something! Anything!
“Words!”
Spike arched an eyebrow. “What?”
“Shit.”
“You are one daft bint you know that?”
“I think at this point I actually have like a really, really good reason for that.”
That made him frown. He didn’t reply to that, instead he reached for her hand. Was that that bolt of electricity other people talked about? Because it was not a pleasurable moment. In fact it made Buffy want the world to swallow her whole. She felt herself jerk back automatically.
“That didn’t come out right.” She stuttered. “I just-Spike I can’t—I—we should just go home? I think all the vamps are gone.”
With that she turned on her heel and stalked off all the while repeating her own idiocy in her head. Words? What the hell was wrong with her?
Spike sighed as he watched her go. He thought the better of trying to catch up with her right away. He needed to give her a second. Something had just happened between them and he wasn’t sure what it was. Either way he was going to have care with this situation it would either turn out really well or really poorly for him. Either way nothing would come of it tonight. Spike lit a cigarette and allowed himself a little time to finish it before taking off after the slayer. Maybe they had been spending a little too much time together.
*****
The next day Buffy was still not sure what had happened and why last night had unsettled her. They had come back to a normal camaraderie a few moments after reaching the flat and turning on the the telly. Neither of them brought it up and Buffy hurried up to bed before she was really tired. She gave up trying to sleep without him but faked it anyway to avoid any confrontation. He seemed to bite and just got in behind her.
The next morning it was as if nothing had ever happened. But while Spike was content to sit around all day like a slug, Buffy was restless. Her slayer reserves of energy, replenished after the massive amounts of adrenaline of the escape drained them, now forced her to go out and do something. Spike had mentioned they were leaving London in a few days time, but Buffy had never seen the city and she wanted to see what it had to offer. While sketchy at night, the place around the apartment was loaded with shops and food vendors. Buffy got herself a kebab and continued to explore.
For the first time she realized she had not been away from Spike’s immediate presence in a week. They slept in the same bed, they watched TV together they were like the world’s most fucked up old married couple. Disturbing as that was there was nothing Buffy could really do about it. They were in a truce and she would much rather recuperate with Spike than try and make it back to Sunnydale on her own. Nothing could stop them from intercepting her en route. The watchers council was also out of the question, if Buffy was being honest with herself she was not entirely sure they weren’t behind the whole thing.
She passed a salon where several Korean women were cutting hair, that was an idea. They were looking for Buffy. They knew what she looked like spy movie logic dictated then not to look like that. She walked into the store and immediately set up a cut and colour.
Just as she was sitting down accepting the hair shield she reflected on the watcher’s council and how much help they would be.
The facility had been obsessed with her lady parts. They had probed her and prodded her and the whole thing was like the gynecologist’s exam from hell. They were a powerful group, who could track them and send mercenaries after them. But most importantly they had used British soldiers. The watcher’s council was looking more and more plausible. She wondered vaguely what they had done to Spike.
Lost in her thoughts and plans she didn’t notice that Joo had finished cutting her hair all she had done was reshape and add a distinctly Asian looking fringe. The next step was dye her hair a rich auburn. They had done a marvelous job, considering Buffy had paid a little over 20 £ for the whole thing she thanked them and left the salon. While the hair looked a little choppy for her liking, it definitely made her look different. The dark her made her feel a little bit better.
She must have been in the hair place longer than she thought because the empty streets she had enjoyed before her impromptu haircut were now packed with people. Buffy willed herself not to panic. There had been way more people in the subway station when she and Spike had been down there. She could manage an open air street.
A man bumped into her on the street jolting her out of her reverie. Buffy glanced after him but couldn’t make out which one he was in the crowd.
That was weird.
Turning her attention back into the road, she nearly stepped into the path of an oncoming car. It beeped at her as it passed. She had managed to catch herself. Everyone was staring at her. Buffy glanced around it seemed like everyone was staring at her.
Spooked. Buffy had not realized how long she had been away from the crush of people. Suddenly everyone was looking at her. Everyone seemed to get in her way. It was all she could do to maintain a normal, unhurried pace back to Spike’s apartment. She unlocked the bottom door and let herself into the landing. Her heart was pointing in her chest and she felt queasy.
Spike would not doubt make fun of her to no end if she told him about her episode so she did her best to stop sweating as she walked up the couple of flights of stairs that lead to the flat.
Thankfully, she didn’t drop her keys as she opened the door.
It took her less than a split second to react to the stranger sitting across Spike in the living room. She picked up the nearest human she could and pressed one of her keys to his neck. The man she was taken prisoner was a lanky guy, taller than her, but Buffy’s eyes did not leave the dark-skinned man sitting across from Spike.
“He dies unless you let Spike go.”
Belated she realized he was holding a cup of tea and Spike was smirking at her bemusedly.
“Put him down, Slayer.” Spike said. “You’re going to want to hear this.”
“Are you crazy?” she demanded.
“Jury’s still out on that.” A familiar voice answered her.
For the first time she looked at the person she was holding hostage.
“Wesley?”
Wesley Wyndham-Pryce smiled rather sheepishly. And waited for her to let him go.
“Hello, Buffy, take a seat we have quite a bit to talk about.”
[Reviews - 185]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 3159 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
Hello all! Happy Christmas and happy 2013! I've been on vacation but I'm back now, and so is this story! I've just had another breakthrough so I'm very excited about what's going on and what I have in store for you all! Just a heads up I'm playing around a little with timelines--just a little. It will all be explained in my next Author's note.
I've gotten a few comments about the occasional typo, I'm trying to rectify that and write chapters quickly--so bear with me!
Petra x
I've gotten a few comments about the occasional typo, I'm trying to rectify that and write chapters quickly--so bear with me!
Petra x
Chapter End Notes:
What do you guys think? I'm playing with everyone a little bit but basically when Buffy was taken, Willow went to LA to tell Angel and his brood. That lines up with when she did that in the canon timeline. So this is happening when it should be that "summer break" but not really, whatever, its La there's not real winter anyway.