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Chapter Three

“So, what’s the plan for this evening, Slayer?”

“I dunno. I’ve got to patrol, but we really didn’t practice finding you last night, so maybe....”

“Know a good place for it,” Spike said. “We’ll have to clean out the inhabitants first, but then we’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”

“The inhabitants?”

“Vamp nest. In one of the old mansions on Crawford.”

“Crawford Street? Not—”

He interrupted before she could finish. “Not that one. Wouldn’t do that to you, Slayer. It’s one block over. Bit less substantial – less stonework, more rotting wood, but it’s big and has lots of hiding places.”

“Oh. Okay.” They walked toward Crawford Street with their usual casual seeming but ground covering strides. “What did you mean, you wouldn’t do that to me? It’s just a house, Spike.”

He snorted. “Right. And my grandsire’s just another vamp. Saw your face when you found out in the middle of dinner that he’d been here. You’re not over it yet. No sense putting you some place full of memories of sending him to the hell he deserves.”

“Those wouldn’t be the only memories,” she said softly. When he gave a non-committal “no?”, she continued. “That’s where Angel lived when he came back from...from where I sent him. He lived there almost all last year.”

“So good memories too?” She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard a low growl.

“Not really. I mean, some, yeah. You know, Angel back and still with a soul, so that was all good...” Buffy went silent again as she remembered learning what he’d done with Faith in order to get the information about the Mayor from her, as well as his ultimate decision to leave Sunnydale and her. “But there was some not so good stuff, so yeah, all things considered, not one of my favorite places.”

“Well, not one of mine either, and not where we’re going, so no worries.”

“Why would you care?”

“About what?” Spike began to walk faster, his hunched shoulders indicating how little interest he had in pursuing that line of questioning.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Slow down. I’m not going to—gah!” She ducked as Spike came flying through the air followed by the Fyral demon that had thrown him. Cursing her lack of sword, Buffy was reduced to trying to knock the demon off balance so she could put a stake into his eye. A wild swing that connected with her chin sent her staggering back to land on her ass beside Spike. He looked over at her, vamp face to the fore.

“I’ll take high if you take low.”

“Got it.”

Without further discussion they kipped to their feet and dove at the advancing demon. Buffy hit his knees, dodging the toxic snot and causing him to stagger. The weight of a snarling vampire smashing into his upper torso was enough to cause him to lose his balance and fall backward. Spike grabbed his horns and began twisting as he rode the demon’s head to the ground. He kept wrenching until, with a sickening sound, the head came off in his hands. He threw it away and watched in amusement as Buffy tried to avoid the ichor spouting from the headless torso still thrashing around.

“Ewww, Spike! You should have warned me!”

“What the bloody hell did you think I was going to do? It’s not like either one of us is carrying a silver sword, is it?” He held out a hand to help her up. “I’d say it was a job well done.”

Ignoring his obvious request for praise, she spun in circles, trying to see if she had any demon blood on her back. “Do I have any icky stuff on me?”

“Oh for— hold still, Slayer.” He grabbed her shoulders to stop her, then walked in a circle around her, still in game face. “You’re fine. Not a speck of.... stuff... on you.”

“Icky stuff.”

“I will dust myself before I use a word like that,” he growled. “Com’n let’s go before they get out huntin’ and leave the place empty.”

As they neared the old Victorian that Spike indicated was their goal, Buffy slowed down and tugged on his arm.

“Why don’t I practice on them? I can try to sneak in and find them before they know I’m there.”

Spike shook his head. “You know that quiet, no breathing thing that fooled you last night?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “You don’t have that. You breathe and your heart beats – fast when you’re hunting, I might add. And you smell like food. They don’t have to see you to know there’s a human in the house.”

“Well that sucks!”

“So do vampires. So unless you’re planning to donate some of that tasty elixir in your veins...”

“Fine. We’ll do it your way. Kill them all and then we can practice. Let’s go.” Buffy pulled out a stake and checked to make sure she had her extras. “Do you want one of these?” She held one out to Spike, who shook his head.

“Nope. Fists and fangs. Got my weapons.”

xxxxxxxxxx



A half-hour later, the house contained nothing but dust and Buffy and Spiked high-fived each other in the now-empty living room.

“Well done, Slayer. Not sure they knew what hit ‘em.”

“The ones you fought did. I heard one of them call you Spike. Were these... friends... of yours?”

“Not friends. Ex-minions, a couple of them. Minions that couldn’t be arsed to help me out when I was starving.”

“You used me to get revenge?” Buffy’s triumphant smile faded and her eyes narrowed. “You were using me?”

“Don’t be getting’ your unmentionables in a twist there, luv,” he said, edging away from her. “You cleaned out a nest that you wouldn’t have known about except for me. And you probably wouldn’t have been able to do it by yourself, so you needed my help. It’s a win for both of us.” He continued to move away from her glare. “And now we have all this room to play in. In fact, I’m just going to go hide now.” He turned and left the room in a swirl of leather, leaving Buffy frowning at the space he’d just disappeared from. “Give me a count of fifty, then come looking.” His voice drifted back to her.

“Stupid vampire,” she muttered. Instead of counting, she tried to expand her senses to see if she could tell where he went. The particular tingle that said “Spike” to her was growing fainter, but her neck still felt as if she was very close to a vampire. Too close. Sliding her stake back into her hand, she tried to figure out where the strange signature was coming from by using her eyes and ears too. A flicker of movement at the corner of her vision had her bringing the stake up even as the stalking vampire leapt for her. His eyes widened at the last second as he realized his attack was going to land him chest first on the stake Buffy was holding. She watched his dust drift to the floor and scuffed her foot through it.

Losing interest in his remains and deciding she’d given Spike long enough, she set out to find him. She remembered she’d actually been able to track his signature to the kitchen in Giles’s apartment, and she walked briskly in the direction it seemed strongest. She hesitated at the base of a staircase, confused briefly about whether it was stronger from above, or from ahead of her. She went up a few steps, felt it grow stronger, and smiled. “Ready or not, here I come,” she whispered as she ran up the stairs. She halted at the top, scolding herself for not bringing a light with her. The upper floors were dark, unlike the lower ones that had candles and even some lamps burning.

“Crap!” she muttered. “Now what?” She remembered what Spike had said about her heartbeat and scent and decided there was no point in trying to be stealthy. She strode down the hallway using what night vision she had to avoid tripping over the occasional shadowy piece of furniture. She had just zeroed in on the room in which she was sure Spike was hiding, when she felt the signal growing weaker again.

“You’re cheating!” she yelled. “You’re supposed to stand still until I find you.”

“Did,” he replied, his voice fading as he moved farther away. “You found me, so I’m changing hiding places.”

“I don’t think I like this game.” Grumbling to herself, she began moving again, trying to follow his progress and marveling at how silently he could move in his clunky boots. She found, if she stayed close enough, she could tell when he was moving away by the strength of the tingles. But when he changed direction, she still had to stop and experiment with going one way and then another until she figured out which way he’d gone... by which time he was so far away she had to run to get close again.

After following Spike all the way up to the attic and then down to the cellar without actually seeing or touching him, Buffy was beginning to tire of the almost-but-not-quite-a game. When Spike’s signature became faint again and she’d followed the trail to the stairs leading up to the main part of the house, she completely lost her enthusiasm. She stopped part way up the stairs and plopped down on the one with the fewest splinters, vowing to wait until he came looking for her. When the tingles disappeared completely, she frowned in surprise.

“Spike?” she called. “I don’t want to play any more. Where are you?”

When he didn’t answer and she couldn’t sense him anywhere, she got up and stomped up the stairs, mentally rehearsing the names she was going to call him for running off and leaving her. It wasn’t until she was almost to the front of the house that she noticed the lights outside and heard voices shouting orders. Moving quietly, she ran to a window and peered out to see a small group of men in black outfits closing up the back of an equally dark van.

“Good night’s work, boys,” said an oddly familiar voice. “Maggie will be happy to have her vamp back, and to know the chip is still working.”

Shit! They’ve recaptured Spike! Buffy darted out a side door, keeping to the shadows and working her way toward the van. She could feel Spike again once she got close to the vehicle. The commandoes were standing by the front door, discussing whether they should take a run through the house to see if they could find any other vampires; they seemed confident Spike would not leave the van. As Buffy remembered what Spike had said about his time in their labs, she mentally promised him she wouldn’t let them take him back. She hid behind the van and waited while the men went back into the old house, their flashlights showing clearly where they were.

Running to the back doors, Buffy tugged on the handles, growling to herself when they appeared locked. “Spike,” she whispered. “Can you hear me? Try to open the door.” There was no answer, and the doors remained stubbornly closed. With a sigh, she grabbed the handles and wrenched them as hard as she could, smiling in satisfaction when she heard a snapping sound and the doors opened. Her smile changed to a frown when she saw Spike crumpled on the floor.

“He’s not dust,” she muttered, “so all I have to do is get him out of there.” She reached in and grabbed whatever body part she could, which turned out to be his leg, and began pulling. When she heard voices and saw the lights returning, she yanked hard and fell to the ground with Spike’s inert body on top of her.

“Not tonight, pet, I’ve got a headache....” he mumbled, as she squirmed out from under him.

“Very funny. Can you walk?”

“Dunno. Get out of here, Slayer, before they come back and find you—”

Buffy jumped to her feet and began dragging him into the over-grown bushes shadowing the front of the house. Ignoring his weak cursing and scratches from the twigs and thorns, she hauled him by one arm, not stopping until they were both lying concealed beneath heavy foliage.

“Put my coat over us,” he whispered, his voice raspy with effort. “It’ll block your heat signature a bit and hide our hair.” He wriggled one arm free of the sleeve, and Buffy pulled the coat over their heads. She huddled into his side, breathing as silently as she could, while the commandoes milled around their van cursing at Spike’s escape.

“No way should that vamp have been able to recover enough to rip off a door handle,” one insisted. “I hit him twice with the taser and the chip fired too. He was down for the count.”

“Right. So? You think the I-rescue-vampires fairy showed up and carried him away?”

“Didn’t Maggie say he was stronger than most of the vamps we get? If another vampire or demon didn’t help him, then he had must have done it himself. Even if he did regain consciousness and break out, we weren’t gone that long. He couldn’t have gotten very far. Spread out and search the neighborhood. He’s probably holed up in one of the other empty buildings.”

Buffy and Spike remained where they were, sharing the shelter of his coat and resigning themselves to waiting for the soldiers to give up and leave. Spike managed to roll to his side and pull Buffy closer, leaning in to run his tongue over her cheek. She squeaked and flinched away.

“Stop that!” she hissed as his arm tightened around her.

“Sorry, luv. Couldn’t resist. You’ve got scratches on that pretty face from our little crawl through the shrubbery. I was just cleaning them up.” His voice sounded much too happy about it to suit her.

“I have perfectly good soap and water back in my dorm,” she said. “Just keep your tongue to yourself.”

As she spoke, she became conscious of the way she was pressed against him, trying hard to deny how good his body felt next to hers. As if reading her mind, he lowered his head again to nuzzle her cheek as he tried to pull her even closer.

“What will we do with ourselves while we’re stuck here?” he purred, nipping on her lower lip. When she stiffened and started to speak, he sighed and loosened his grip. “Don’t get all ‘We can’t do this’ on me, Slayer. Soon as I can be sure my body’s going to obey me, we can get out of here. And since most of my parts aren’t working yet, I’d wager your virtue is safe from me. More’s the pity....” he said under his breath.

“I heard that,” she growled. “You just concentrate on the body parts you need to get working so that you can run. That one can just take a nice long rest.”

She felt his chuckle and smiled in spite of herself.

“Whatever you say, luv. Can’t make any promises with you so close, though...”

“Spike....” Her warning was clear and he sighed.

“Yeah, yeah. I got it. Time and place. This isn’t it.”

“Exactly! I mean, no! Not exactly! There is no time and place for—”

His hissed shhhh interrupted her before she could say what she did mean and they pulled closer together under the coat as they waited for what Spike had heard. In just a few seconds, the commandoes began coming back, grumbling about their lack of success. The voice that Buffy was sure she’d heard before said, “Let’s get back to base, men. At least we can tell Maggie that Hostile Seventeen is still in Sunnydale and hanging out in this neighborhood. We’ll get him next time.”

Buffy and Spike waited until his sharp hearing could no longer detect the sound of the vehicle’s motor before they crawled out of the shrubs more carefully and slowly than Buffy had dived into them.

“Ow! Ouch!”

“Problem, Slayer?” Well-protected by his leather coat, Spike had less trouble getting out without damage to his skin than Buffy did. His amusement turned to concern when she gritted out, “My hair is caught!” and he turned back to reach in and help her free it from the twigs it was caught on. He snapped the small branch off at the base and pulled her free, trying not to laugh at the small tree growing from her head.

“Not. One. Word. Spike.” She combed with her fingers until she managed to free her head from most of its leafy decoration. “Let’s go.”

Biting his tongue, he ran with her, but at a much slower pace than they normally would have used. They stuck to the shadows as much as possible, now that they knew the commandos would be looking for Spike, only emerging into the open when they had to in order to cross a wide street or the parking lot. When they were safely inside Giles’s apartment, they collapsed onto the couch, promising him they would explain as soon as they recovered from their race across town.

Giles looked back and forth between them, noting Buffy’s scratched face and arms, as well as her tangled hair, and Spike’s complete lack of energy. “What happened?” he said.

“He can tell you,” Buffy responded, rising to her feet. “I’m going to go wash out these cuts and try to do something about my hair.” She headed for the bathroom, saying over her shoulder, “He knows more about it than I do anyway.”

Giles turned to the exhausted-looking vampire. With as concerned a tone as he could manage, he asked, “Are you quite all right?” The answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, but eventually Spike responded.

“Been better,” he said. “But been worse, too.”

“Are you going to tell me why Buffy looks like she’s run a gauntlet?”

“Not a gauntlet, just a bunch of bloody bushes in need of pruning. Was the only place we had to hide.”

“Hide? From what?”

“Those guys that captured Spike and put his chip in.” Buffy came back into the room, her small cuts already closing up and her hair somewhat tamed. “They caught him again and knocked him out. I got him out of their vampire-paddywagon, but he couldn’t move so we had to hide. The bushes were the closest place I could find.”

“Why couldn’t you move?”

“Did you miss the unconscious part? Chip went off when I tried to fight ‘em, and the wankers tasered me while I was rolling around holding my head. Didn’t wake up till the Slayer yanked me from the van, but I still couldn’t move. Dozy bint didn’t leave when I told her to, just dragged me into the bushes with her.” He frowned. “Which wasn’t as much fun as that might sound under different circumstances....”

“You told her to leave you?” Giles’s disbelief was obvious.

“Well, yeah. It’s not like those bullyboys weren’t going to want to know who she was and why she was helping one of their escaped projects, is it? And if she’d had to convince them that she was taking me whether they liked it or not, they’d have been all hot to show her off to that sadistic cow they work for.... After they recovered from whatever she may have had to do to them so we could get away,” he added, smiling at Buffy. “I expect a Slayer is a bit out of their realm of experience.”

Giles nodded. “I’m afraid you may be correct at that. She is probably much safer if they don’t know who or what she is. You will have to be careful, Buffy, that you are not seen doing anything.... unusual.”

She rolled her eyes. “Like going out patrolling every night and slaying vampires and demons? Face it, Giles. If these guys are targeting vamps and demons, it’s only a question of when, not if, we end up in the same place at the same time. I only hid tonight because of Spike. If I hadn’t been protecting him, I probably would have just told them I’d already slayed all the vamps in the house and they could go home.”

“So they never saw you?”

“Nope. They couldn’t figure out how Spike managed to break the doors after they knocked him out.” She grinned at Spike. “They probably think you’re super-vamp now.”

“By now, they’ll have noticed those handles were broken from the outside, Slayer. Just cause they don’t know about you, doesn’t mean they won’t be looking for you. You need to be careful.”

Spike and Buffy were looking at each other and didn’t see Giles’s reaction to Spike’s expression of concern. But they both heard the sigh he heaved.

“What?” Buffy stared at him.

“I’m just find it a bit difficult to accept that William the Bloody is suddenly so concerned about your welfare.” He paused. “In spite of your having possibly risked your own freedom to rescue him.”

“Nothing sudden about it,” Spike muttered while Buffy just flushed and stammered.

“I... he... we just... and then we....”

“Well, that cleared things up nicely.” With a wry expression his face, Giles stood up and faced them. “I’m going to take myself to bed. I’m assuming, Spike, with your narrow escape tonight, it is safe to trust you will not leave the building if we don’t chain you up again.”

Spike shook his head. “Don’t have the energy,” he said, “even if I was that stupid, which I’m not.”

“And, Buffy, as they didn’t see you, I presume it is safe for you to return to your dormitory tonight. Just take care that you are not seen doing anything beyond what would be possible for a normal human girl.”

“I am a normal human girl!” When both men just stared at her with raised eyebrows, she muttered, “Well, I’m human, anyway.”

“Just remember they may not see it that way, Slayer.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Spike.”

“Right. Forgot I was the one being kept as a pet. Didn’t mean to overstep my boundaries.” With a growl, he got up and went into the kitchen to look for blood.

Waving her good-night at Giles as he went up the stairs, Buffy followed Spike into the kitchen and put her hands on her hips. “What flew up your butt?” she demanded.

He closed door of the microwave, then turned to face her, the difficulty he was having remaining calm was obvious. After taking a deep breath, he blew it out all at once and shrugged. “Sorry, Slayer. I owe you my freedom tonight. Got no right tryin’ to tell you what to do. It’s just... I... “ He turned back to the oven and took out his warmed blood, mumbling, “I worry about you.”

“What? What did you say? Look at me when you talk.”

“I said I worry about you, alright? I don’t like it when you’re out there by yourself.”

“Slayers are always by themselves, Spike. If anybody should know that, it’s you.”

“Not you,” he said. “You’ve got friends, family, a watcher that isn’t a total wanker... You’ve got help, Slayer. Use it.”

She cocked her head at him. “Are you including yourself in that group? Are you going to help me?”

“Will if you let me,” he said, moving closer to her. He set his mug down on the counter and touched her cheek with his hand. “Don’t know why I don’t want you to get hurt or killed, but it is what it is.” His voice dropped to a seductive rumble. “The world would be a boring place without you in it, and I hate being bored.”

“So,” she whispered, watching his mouth come closer to hers, “it’s just because you don’t want to be bored. That’s why you want to keep me around?”

“That’s what I’m going with for right now,” he said, brushing his lips across hers. “Seems like what will cause the least trouble.”

“We don’t want trouble...”





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