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Author's Chapter Notes:
Been a while since I updated this. It's actually finished, so I'll try to remember to upload everything every few days.
I can't stand it I know you planned it
I'm gonna set it straight, this “Watergate”
I can't stand rocking when I'm in here
Because your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear
Beastie Boys - Sabotage

*Sunnydale campus, next day*
Buffy was still angry and confused about last night’s events, so when she literally ran into Riley on her way to the other side of campus to get her caffeine fix from someplace that Spike wasn’t working at, it took her a few seconds to recover. His hands lingered on her body a bit too much for her comfort, but she decided to shake the feeling off and try to be as charming as possible. “Oh, hi, sorry, I was just running a bit late and…” She plastered her best fake cheerleader smile on. “Hi, Riley.”
He gave her a half-grin and scratched the back of his neck. “Um, hi Buffy. I was just thinking about you.”
“Really?” She hated that batting her eyelashes at what was a perfectly human guy kinda made her feel like she was cheating on… She stopped her brain from going there and refocused on the discussion.
“Yeah, see, we’d said we’d go out for a picnic, and it’s such lovely weather that I was thinking: why wait?” He looked past her for a moment before speaking again. “I mean, we could just go now, what do you think?”
“Well, I was just on my way to get some coffee and maybe a bagel.”
“Nonsense, we’ll go by my dorm, grab some things, and have that picnic. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” He didn’t really wait for her to answer before he started walking on the way to Lowell House, using a hand on her back to guide her along.
Despite feeling a bit uneasy about the whole thing, she’d go through with it. If nothing else, that should show Spike.
***
Riley ushered her in the front door of his fraternity. Or maybe it wasn’t a fraternity. She hadn’t really noticed any Greek letters anywhere. Oh, right, they were just posing as students.
The door closed behind her. “Hey guys, look who I brought to visit: Buffy Summers. Try to make her feel welcome.”
Her senses went on high alert all of a sudden. Something wasn’t right. She looked around the room and realized she was trapped. There were at least ten men there, and they were all looking at her as if she were the enemy.
She heard the lock of the door click shut and dodged the first attack before she registered it was coming, and sent one guy sailing into the far wall.
She tried to dodge and weave her way to jump out the window, but all of a sudden every cell in her body exploded in pain. She was being Tazered. She kept crawling to the window as wave after wave of pain engulfed her. Her last conscious thought was a curse. Why the hell did Spike have to be right?
***
She came to with a groan. Everything hurt worse than it had after she’d had a building blown almost on top of her to stop the Mayor. She opened her eyes and tried to focus on her surroundings.
It took a couple of minutes, but she managed to make everything stop spinning. Maybe she shouldn’t have tried so hard. She was in a white cell, with one clear wall through which she could see other identical cells, each holding some sort of demon.
The Initiative had her. Which meant the glass was also electrified, and the walls were reinforced. She did another sweep of the cell and let out a relieved sigh when she noticed it did have a toilet. Sure, actually going there would be tricky with the lack of cover from the opening, but at least she had somewhere to relieve herself.
A female voice suddenly filled the room. “Good, you’re awake.”
She looked around trying to figure out who was talking. The only thing she could see was a camera trained on her. Great. Now she’d have to make sure she’d be covered both from the door, and from the camera.
“We know you can talk, Buffy, so the silent treatment won’t win you anything.”
She’d play the dumb blonde card. “Is this some sort of fraternity hazing thing?”
A male snort came through the speaker, only for it to be quickly replaced with Walsh’s annoyed voice—yes, it was the same one Buffy was used to hearing in class. “You can stop pretending. We already know you’re not human, so please, enlighten me, what are you?”
Well, that went nowhere fast. She almost answered. Almost. The words were right there, on the tip of her tongue: Slayer, comma The, look it up. Just that she had Spike’s voice whispering in the back of her head, telling her that she was exactly what the Nazis were after: human plus. They’d keep her down here and do things to her until they killed her, looking to find what it was that made her… her. Probably not stop once she was dead either. A chill went up her spine. What if they decide to try turning her once they were out of ideas? She bit back the bile rising in her throat. “What I am is a human being with friends, family, and rights. You better let me go right now, or you will all regret it.”
There was nothing for what felt like forever. “We shall see. I suggest you rest, we begin testing tomorrow.”
The voice was so cold, so clinical it made Buffy afraid in a way she hadn’t felt since the Council had taken her powers and it had almost cost her both her life and her mother’s.
Then there was a tap on one of the side walls and she could barely hear someone whispering. “Don’t worry, Ma’am, the Master will get us all out. And don’t worry, nobody is telling them shit about shit.”
She couldn’t see who was speaking, but through the windowed pane she could see all the demons in the row of cells opposite hers looking at her in a way that spoke volumes: they were Spike’s Trojan Horse.
Spike, who had been right about everything.
She sat down and tried meditating as Giles had taught her. All she had to do was endure until her friends, or Spike came to the rescue, or until she could find a weakness she could exploit and get herself out. And she would be getting out. She didn’t only have hope now, she had a certainty, and a goal. Survive, then get revenge.
~~~***~~~
*Giles’s flat, later that night*
Being Buffy’s Watcher had never been an easy assignment. She was insubordinate, borderline rebellious, and unconventional at the best of times. What she wasn’t, though, was silent. The fact that nobody had seen or heard anything from her since the morning was worrisome to say the least.
Where could she be?
“Can I just point out to the elephant in the room and say—where’s Buffy?” Xander was fidgeting, and touching random items in the room.
Willow was perched on the edge of the couch, wringing her hands. “She hasn’t been in the dorm room all day. Guys, what if…?”
Xander sat down next to her and sighed deeply. “What if our resident evil bloodsucker decided to eat her?”
Jenny came out of the kitchen with a tray of tea. “If Spike had wanted Buffy dead, there would have been many more opportunities to do so. I don’t think he’s to blame.”
“Killing a third Slayer in less than a century would ensure songs would be sung in his honor until the final apocalypse.”
Anya’s bluntness made Giles wince, and he started wiping his glasses for the eleventh time that evening. Not that he was counting. “Yes, well, it would be perhaps wise if we were to at least contact him and find out if he knows anything.”
As if on cue, the front door was thrown open and Spike strode in, made himself comfortable on the couch, and put his booted feet on the table. “Missed me?”
Xander got up and started yelling. “What did you do with Buffy?”
Giles had been just about to ask the same thing, but instead got the chance to study the vampire. For the briefest of moments his usual indifferent mask fell away and he seemed concerned. Spike sneered and the indifferent monster was back to the fore. “Better watch who you’re throwing accusations at, whelp.” A muscle was ticking in his jaw. “When was it you lot last saw your Slayer?”
“Early this morning. She went for coffee and has yet to turn up.” Giles placed his glasses on his nose. “I believe you are employed at her usual haunt, are you not?”
“She never came by today. I thought…” He got up with preternatural speed. “You are all to blame if they hurt her.”
Giles’s heart skipped a beat. “You don’t mean…”
Willow started chanting ‘oh no’ over and over in the background.
“I don’t mean, I’m bloody saying it loud and clear: the Initiative got your Slayer, watcher. What are you going to do about it? Cause me? I’m gonna get her out.”
“Of course I want to get her out, if indeed that is what has befallen her, but we have no proof—”
“Proof? Last night she stumbled on a showdown between one of my teams and one of theirs, I got her out as fast as I could, but those wankers must have recognized her. Today she was supposed to meet up with one of them—bloody brilliant idea, by the way—and they must have decided to capture her instead.”
“But she’s human.” Xander’s voice sounded weak.
“No, she isn’t fucking human, as I keep telling you. She is the Chosen One. She’s catnip to those sadists, and the fact that even now you can’t see that just proves that you lot survived this far by sheer luck.”
“How do we know this isn’t just a trick? Maybe you have her stashed somewhere just so we help you take on the commandoes.” Xander stood toe to toe with Spike to make his accusation.
“You really think that I would chose to take away Buffy just so I can have a few humans without special powers, and a couple of small time witches help me? I’d laugh if it weren’t so sad.”
“What we need to do is make sure they have her.” Giles looked at Jenny and Willow. “We need to do a locator spell.”
“So you hadn’t done one until now because…?” Spike let the question trail off, and Giles couldn’t answer. The vampire was right. They should have done it hours ago.
Nobody spoke as the two practitioners prepared and performed the spell. Once it was done, the dot indicating Buffy’s life essence showed up on campus, before fizzling out, as if it hit static.
Jenny looked haggard as her gaze met Giles’s. “She’s somewhere around campus, but she’s shielded somehow. We can’t get a precise reading.”
Willow frowned. “What if we tweaked the spell? Maybe we could invoke a different entity.”
“No. Spells aren’t meant to be altered on a whim. They are binding covenants between the witch and the deity. Changing it would alter the result in ways that could be harmful. You know this, Willow.” Jenny put her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder.
“I know that, but… It’s Buffy.”
“And we will find her.”
“What if…”
“No if. The bastards won’t want to harm her… At least not in the beginning. They like to think themselves people of science, so they’ll want to test her. They’ll start off easy and work their way up. Since they never had a Slayer before, they won’t know what to expect, so it will take days, maybe even weeks until they start getting creative.” Spike looked grim. “We’ll get her out long before they harm her.” He fixed his gaze on Giles. “And they’ll pay for every second they have her down there.”
The threat was evident, but Giles couldn’t find it within himself to argue. Ripper would burn the place to the ground along with everyone in it if it meant getting Buffy back. As he contemplated it, something Spike said triggered an idea. “We need to call Faith.”
“The other Chosen bird?”
“As you said, we’ve lost our best warrior with Buffy’s disappearance, but we can get reinforcements of our own.” He glanced at the clock. Not that it mattered how late it was. A Slayer was as much a creature of the night as her prey. “Excuse me while I make the call.”
***
Faith’s evening had been rough. A string of robberies led her team to a demon run mafia organization, and it had taken all their skills and energy just to survive the fight. Thank God Gunn and his band had shown up when they did, otherwise things could have ended badly.
She had just sat down in her chair when the phone rang. She looked at it through the first two chimes, debating if she could just ignore it. In the end, her inner voice—the one that sounded suspiciously like Buffy—got her to move just enough to hit speaker. “You’ve reached ‘Faith for the Faithless,’ this is Faith speaking, what can I do for you?”
“Hi Faith, this is Giles.”
She frowned. A call this late from the watcher couldn’t mean anything good. “What happened?”
“We believe an army run program focusing on the supernatural seems to have captured Buffy with the possible intent to study her and try to replicate that which makes her unique for military purposes.”
“So what you’re saying is these guys want to take B apart to see what makes her tick so they can mass-produce universal soldiers? I guess that’s Sunnydale for you: never a dull moment.” She checked the clock mounted on the wall again. “I can be there in one hour, the rest will join in the morning.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t sweat it, Watcher-man. They made the ultimate mistake—they went after family.”





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