Come with me
Into the trees
We'll lay on the grass
And let the hours pass
Depeche Mode - Stripped
~~~***~~~
*Giles’s apartment, the next day*
Spike walked to the door and was just about to barge in as usual when somebody beat him to the punch and opened it wide for him. He didn’t have to wonder who it might be, since the power radiating off her could mean only one thing: Junior Slayer was present and accounted for. Good. They needed everyone to come together and focus on what was really important: getting Buffy back.
She marched out of the house without as much as a ‘by your leave,’ dragging him along with her by the arm until they were in the alley behind the building. Once there she squared up to him. She was full of piss and vinegar this one. Touched by a darkness that Buffy had been spared even after years of slaying. This was a girl, no woman that had seen some shit on top of shit before being called, and was still working on exorcizing her inner demons while killing the outer ones. She reminded him a bit of Nikki.
His sizing her up was rudely interrupted by her kicking him in the solar plexus. He bounced back ready for a fight, only to find her calmly resting against the alley wall, getting ready to light up. “What was that for, you deranged bint?”
“That was for sleeping with Buffy and making her cry afterwards.” She raised an eyebrow as if to challenge him. “Anything else you deserve some kicking for? I’m all worked up and ready to pummel something into the ground.” Despite her words, she took a careful drag out of her cigarette and exhaled slowly, making smoke circles.
He smirked. “Guess I had that coming.” He leaned against the opposite wall and light his own cigarette. “Didn’t figure she’d want to tell anyone how that went down.” He gestured with his hand towards the watcher’s building. “Or at least I thought she’d be more inclined to share with the White Hat Brigade. Considering they didn’t mention it even when they thought I’d been the one to spirit her away or off her, I guess she kept mum about it.” He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. “So why you?”
She gave a short, hollow laugh. “Because her and me? We’re sisters. More than Slayers together, we share a connection.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
She looked pained for just one moment, before her indifferent mask was back on. “I made the same mistake you did once, and sometimes I regret how that played out. Other times I just feel so lucky to have her to talk to about anything that… well…”
If Spike had a heartbeat it would have stopped. “You and her…” He let out a low whistle. “That girl has more things to surprise me even when she isn’t here.”
She ground out her cigarette under her boot heel. “You care for her.”
“Well, yeah. ‘S why I’m here, innit?” He adopted a fake circus announcer tone. “Come to Sunnydale for the fight of your life, stay to fall for the enemy.”
She seemed taken aback at that. “So why tell me?”
He threw away his own butt. “I figure if she trusts you enough to tell you everything about me, I can trust you enough to tell you I’m all in.”
“You mean getting her back?”
“I mean I’m all in.” He took a step closer to her. “And I intend to fight for what’s mine.”
A genuine smile lit up her face. “Good. Now let’s get back to nerd central and figure out how to get our girl free.”
***
Everyone was there, researching, planning, strategizing, and in general doing everything they could to be useful so they could save her little girl. Joyce had proposed they go to the police and announce her daughter missing, but Giles had shot down the idea on the grounds that it hadn’t been 48 hours yet, and that the Sunnydale PD was infamous for being better suited at covering up crime and demon activity, than at doing anything remotely useful.
“What if I turned up there dressed as a Bobby and started asking questions? Maybe it would get me close enough to try and break her out.” Spike was pacing the room for the nth time while thinking out loud.
“They probably have files on every law enforcement member in town, and even if they don’t, the government does, and they’re part of that. So they could look you up and ‘kablamo’ everything could explode in your face.” Willow didn’t even look up from the laptop she was using to answer him.
It seemed strange to Joyce, the way these people—her daughter’s friends—interacted. In order to distract herself from the ever widening pit of worry about Buffy’s safe return, she decided to observe them for a bit.
There was some tension between Cordelia, Xander, Anya, and that man—Doyle—who came over with the LA crew. Of course, that was to be expected considering how things had ended between Buffy’s two former colleagues. The way Doyle looked at Cordelia, it was clear he had at least a crush on her.
Speaking of smouldering looks, the ones shared between the bad boy wannabe—Gunn—and Faith made her think about taking him aside and asking him about his intentions. That might actually be a bit amusing. Maybe if she got desperate enough she’d go ahead and do it. She wouldn’t be a very good pseudo-mother if she didn’t. Even if she couldn’t find and protect one of her girls, she could look into the guy trying to make his way in the other’s life.
She left that thought linger and comfort her for a bit. She frowned and tried to find something else to distract her. She noticed the way Wesley was interacting with the others, while being apart. She couldn’t really find it in herself to be too upset about that, since she still blamed him, at least in part, for the whole Cruciamentum disaster. Sure, he hadn’t been personally involved in trying to steal her baby’s power away, or putting her up against a criminally insane vampire, but he was part of the Council, and they were miserable bastards.
She’d barely had time to imagine that Travers person grovelling at their feet and asking for forgiveness when she realized they maybe could help. “What if the Council started putting some pressure on the US government?”
“Bloody brilliant idea, mum.” Spike whirled in place and pointed at Wesley. “You get in touch with your puppet masters. Tell them what’s going on here. I’m sure those stuffy gits will do anything to stop anyone else trying to dissect their Slayer.”
Things got blurry for a while after that. When Joyce came to, she was laid down on the couch and there were a lot of worried faces in her line of vision.
“I’m sorry. My mouth gets away from me sometimes.” Spike looked genuinely apologetic.
“You okay, Joyce?” Faith was kneeling next to the couch, looking worried.
“Of course, honey.” She blinked against the black spots playing in front of her. Jenny placed a cup of before her. “Thank you.” She looked around. The faces were too grim for comfort. “What did I miss?”
Giles cleared his throat and took off his glasses. “I called the Council. They were… less than forthcoming with offers of assistance.”
“What?”
“They won’t do anything. Some bullshit about me being the active Slayer. As soon as we get B back we’ll let them know exactly what we think about that, but until then…” Faith grabbed Joyce’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s not on you, honey. This is them trying to get back at us over last year.” She fixed Wesley with a death glare. “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“There is nothing I can say to justify their actions. As for me… I quit. I shall continue to aid Faith, but I am no longer affiliated with the Council.”
Joyce spared him a tight lipped smile. “Good for you.”
Spike slapped his hands together. “Right then. As touching as all of this is, I’m off do my part. Let me know what you decide.”
Joyce barely knew him through what Buffy had told her, but she recognized a man on a mission when she saw one. There was a part of her—the one she’d tried to ignore for so long while her daughter was sneaking out of the house to save the world—that was telling her he was more invested than he should be. She found she didn’t really care at the moment. As long as this vampire was going to do everything in his power to bring her daughter back, she could turn a blind eye. After, there would be questions. For the moment, all she did was give him a nod as he left the house in a whirl of black leather.
The rest of the meeting was far less fruitful. A number of plans were proposed, then shot down on account of the Initiative’s superior firepower and connections. In the end it was decided Faith would patrol, but never alone, while Willow would hack into the Initiative’s files—something she swore wouldn’t take too long. The same Willow who was sharing furtive glances with the new girl, Tara, but by that time Joyce wasn’t in the mood to people watch anymore. In fact, coupled with the loss of her daughter, the fact that everyone seemed to have a significant other left her with an acute sense of loss, and the hope Spike would be more successful on his end.
~~~***~~~
*Initiative holding cells*
Her whole body hurt. Head to toes. By her estimate, she’d spent the better part of the last eight hours being almost fried, frozen, exposed to various types of bright lights, and incredibly loud sounds. Of course, all of that was while they weren’t taking X-rays and CAT scans, and other medical tests. She’d bled more for their test tubes than she had for the last couple of apocalypses… apocali… whatever, put together. The real treat though was hearing Walsh’s voice over and over again asking her a variation of the same things: ‘what demon are you,’ ‘what are your weaknesses,’ and Buffy’s all-time favourite ‘do you hunt other demons to sustain yourself?’
She wasn’t sure what some of the tests were even supposed to prove. Then again she couldn’t worry about that. She needed to sleep and recuperate. If what Walsh said yesterday was true, things were only going to get worse.
She closed her eyes and revisited her memories of the initiative layout. She kept an eye out for any chance of escape, but she hadn’t been able to find one yet. Of course, she’d first have to get rid of the three guys who’d taken her to the testing area and shadowed her every move. They were armed to the teeth and one of them always had a gun trained on her.
She had a sinking feeling if she had any chance of getting out of this place intact, she’d have to break out soon. Buffy went back in her trance state. She needed to focus on her inner strength since she would need all of it.
~~~***~~~
*The Bronze, that same night*
“I really like my job sometime.”
“Yeah. Like this morning when they took the new girl through the water tests. Too bad she was still wearing a bra under her shirt, otherwise it would’ve been just like Cancun.”
“I’ll drink to that.” All three Neanderthals cackled while they clinked their beers and downed their drinks.
“I’ll get the next round.”
The taller of the three stumbled his way to the bar and Spike smirked. He signalled to two of his people to create a diversion while he moved into position using every trick he’d ever learned.
A fight broke out over by the pool tables where some guys were accusing each other of hustling. Another drunk stumbled into the table with the two still snickering jerks, tipped it over and made a mess of everything. While nobody was looking, Spike made his move. A clock on the head and Tall-boy was just another drunk being carried home by his buddy. And what if that buddy was room temperature? It was nothing the bouncers hadn’t seen before. In fact, Spike got a nod from one of them, a half-Ravlen who’d been hired specifically to stop vampires dragging away their victims from the club. Nobody would help the Initiative, though.
Once outside, Spike got to his DeSoto as fast as possible, only to find his car being used as a bench by a smoking Faith. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
She gave a short, incredulous laugh. “So you didn’t just kidnap one of the guys that kidnapped B?”
“Well then, it’s exactly what it looks like. I just meant I wasn’t breaking the truce.”
“I knew that.” She jumped off the hood of his car and came closer, tilting her head to peer into the face of Spike’s captive. “So now what? Gonna turn him like you did that other soldier you had?”
The comment surprised Spike. He’d only told Buffy about it when she was asking about his sources, but not even the Scoobies knew. The Slayer thought it would just throw a wrench into their alliance, and she didn’t want that. Apparently telling Faith was a different story. “No, no turning this one. It would take a few days for him to rise, and I don’t plan on waiting that long.”
She straightened and crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her breasts up so her cleavage was even more pronounced. “So… torture the information out of him?”
“That was the plan, yeah.”
She hummed and raked her gaze over his body from head to toe. “I had a different plan in mind for tonight, but I guess you’ll be busy.”
There was something about her tone that made his cock twitch.
“And what, pray tell, were you thinking of doing?”
The smile she gave him was downright predatory. “As I said, me and B? We share everything.” She gave a shrug while she put on a fake innocent face. “So I wanted to find out if you really do eat pussy better than me.” She licked her lips. “I could ride you to a gallop and make you pop like warm champagne.”
Spike almost chocked on air.
“See, the last thing B told me before she was kidnapped was how good you were in bed and how lousy just after. It’s only my duty to see if that was a fluke, or a serious case of the asshole.” Her expression turned hard. “If you do turn out to be an asshole, it’ll be no skin off my back, but I’ll see you dust before you hurt her, got it?”
“Yeah, got it.” He shook his head clear of the lustful images her words had created. Instead he focused on what the subtext was: Buffy had confided to someone about him. And that someone thought he had the power to hurt her. So it was more than a one night stand. And that’s all he needed to know. “Just so you know, I don’t cheat. So that offer of yours? Table it.” He was getting tired holding up the soldier, but he’d be damned if he’d show any weakness in front of the Junior Slayer.
She narrowed her eyes at him then gave a curt nod. “Okay. No pony rides until we get Buffy back.” She smirked again. “Maybe she’ll be more into sharing than you are.” She turned and shouted over her shoulder as she walked away. “Just let me know if he lets anything interesting slip, okay?”
“You’re not going to give me a hard time about the torture of a human?”
She stopped and turned again. “I’m not B. She might give you shit about stuff like this, I’m not gonna. I’m the ‘bad’ Slayer. I smoke, sleep around, close my eyes when I have to, and I really only care that we get her back. I don’t care how we do it.”
Spike smirked. “Glad to hear that, pet. So we’re good.”
“Five by five.” She left without looking back.
Spike checked his hostage was still out cold, stuffed him in the back seat of the car, and then drove off to his lair. He had some unwanted memories to dredge up.
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