Yum….James in black slacks, dark purple shirt with a few buttons undone…yum yum YUM! Gotta say that was my favorite outfit in Cool Money. :) He’s one of the few guys I know of that can actually wear purple and look damn good in it.
Thanks to those that reviewed the prologue :) And here, as promised, the next chapter :)
Chapter One: Thought You Should Know
The Watcher’s Council
London, England
Three Days Later
The hallways of the normally quite Council headquarters was full of the hustle and bustle of slayers and watchers. They had received word of an apocalypse arriving and made their way to their designated stations where they would receive their orders. This would be their first major battle since the recreation of the Council. None had ever fought in an apocalypse and were now faced with the real possibility of not returning home.
At the end of the hall stood Rupert Giles. He watched the young and eager slayers and newly-appointed watchers before turning and entering the door that was just behind him. The room held the most experienced of the Council; the ones who had fought alongside the Slayer for eight years. Giles had sent for them as soon as he heard about the impending doom and now they congregated the meeting room, the first time they had all been together in the last year. He just wished it was under better circumstances.
Giles made his way to the head of the meeting table. Buffy sat in the seat next to his; Dawn next to her sister and across from her sat Willow and Xander.
“I wish I didn’t have to call you together under these circumstances but,” Giles sighed. “It was necessary.”
“It’s okay,” Buffy reassured her watcher. “It’s just like old times.”
“Yeah,” Willow piped up. “With all the research, and the late nights…”
“And the donuts,” Xander finished.
Giles allowed a small smile to appear on his face before turning his attention back to the task at hand. “We need to start preparing ourselves for the worst when we arrive.”
“I just can’t believe this could happen,” Buffy said, letting her grief at the situation show on her face. “It’s not like him, I mean, this is the same guy…” She didn’t finish her thought, just shook her head and looked to the ground.
“It’s the power,” Willow said quietly; knowingly.
“What do you mean?” Dawn asked, a questioning look on her face.
“All that power,” Will tried to explain. “It does things to you. You do things you never would have done in the first place. Believe me,” she whispered, “I know.”
“We can’t let our personal feelings get in the way of the mission here,” Giles said, taking over the conversation. “Whatever has gotten into Angel, we mustn’t let it cloud our judgment. And if he gets in the way, we deal with it anyway we can. We have to stop the coming apocalypse.”
“Actually, we already stopped it,” a voice came from the back of the room. All eyes turned to see Angel. Most of his injuries were already healed, leaving only faint scars to mark their existence. Next to him stood Spike and Illyria. Spike slightly stood with his weight mostly on his left leg. His wounds were still apparent, not having healed as much as they should have.
“Well, more like pushed it back,” Angel corrected his former statement, but it was unheard.
“It’s the First!” Xander exclaimed, jumping out of his seat to grab the closest weapon around to aim it at Spike.
“Xander, stop,” Buffy spoke calmly, standing to pull the weapon out of hand. “It’s not the First. It’s really him.”
Spike and Angel looked at each other, confusion written all over their face. How did Buffy know? They returned their questioning looks toward Buffy to find that everyone else in the room did the same.
Buffy noticed the room staring at her and shrugged. “Andrew told me,” she said as explanation.
Spike took a deep breath, anger beginning to boil inside him. “Gonna hurt that poncy git,” he muttered to himself before returning his gaze back at the group of confused Scoobies. “Right, so I’m back.” He locked his eyes with Buffy trying to gauge her expression before speaking. “It’s a long story, one that I’ll be happy to share with you as soon as possible, but right now, we got more pressing matters.”
The group seemed to realize the solemn tone Spike’s voice took and snapped out of their stupor and actually realized the extent of the injuries the vampires, particularly Spike. Giles gave them a silent cue to take a seat at the end of the meeting table. Spike chose to take Giles on his offer and slowly taking a seat, as to not jostle his injuries further than they already had.
Buffy kept her eyes on the blond vampire, noticing how he slowly inhaled a deep breath and closed his eyes as though he was trying to block out the pain of his injuries.
Angel chose to stand, feeling the need to pace while telling the story. Illyria looked from one Scooby to another, studying their faces. She looked to the red-headed witch and tilted her head. Willow noticed her studying her and then it clicked as to why she looked so familiar.
“Fred?” Willow asked, confusion on her face.
Angel and Spike looked over at Illyria. “That’s not Fred,” Angel told her.
“But…how? It looks like her…right…?” Willow’s puzzlement clear to everyone around her. She looked to Spike, silently asking him to explain.
“Fred’s dead, Red,” Spike whispered, his grief over her death still evident in his voice. “That’s Illyria.”
“An Old One?” Giles asked, surprise in his voice.
Illyria turned her attention to Giles. “You have heard of me?”
“Yes, I have, but I thought all Ancient Ones were dead, kept in the Deeper Well for all eternity?”
“It’s a long story,” Angel said. “A long painful story.”
Illyria had meanwhile reverted her attention to the witch. “You are Willow.” Illyria said matter-of-factly, cocking her head slightly. “I can feel your power. It’s strong, intense, and…intoxicating. Worthy enough to take on my strength,” she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
“Uh…yeah…okay…thanks?” Willow nervously said, her eye on the blue demon before her.
“Wait,” Dawn spoke up. “How does she know who Willow is?”
Illyria snapped out of her daze and looked at the teen. “I have gained the memories of the…person whose body I have inhabited: this shell...Winifred Burkle. And her emotions. They are becoming…increasingly difficult to ignore,” she said, becoming slightly agitated.
“Um…what exactly happened?” Giles asked Angel and Spike, bringing the conversation back on track.
“We killed them all,” Angel said simply. At the group’s lost look, he elaborated. “The Circle of the Black Thorn. They ran Wolfram and Hart, the wheels behind the apocalypse; taking their orders from the Senior Partners. It started two months ago. It was then that Cordy alerted me to their presence. It was the last thing she ever did for me,” Angel paused in his story to regain his composure. Cordelia’s death was still hard to talk about.
“Last thing?” Buffy asked, tearing her eyes from Spike to rest them on Angel.
“She was the first soldier down,” Spike spoke what Angel couldn’t bring himself to say.
“Cordy’s dead?” Xander asked, the shock obvious in his voice.
“Yeah,” Angel confirmed. The group inhaled a deep breath, taking in this news. “It was then that I went under cover, so to speak. Trying to find out everything I could about them.”
“Yeah, the lot of us thought he had finally gone round the bend,” Spike said.
“That’s what I needed Them to believe. They had to think that I had changed; that my people didn’t trust me anymore. And then…Fred,” Angel whispered.
“What happened?” Dawn asked, curiosity catching her.
“Her curiosity got the best of her. She got infected. We tried everything we could think to do, even made a trip to the Deeper Well. Got nowhere. She was gone by then anyway,” Spike said, frowning at the memory of her death. “Hollowed out to make room for Illyria.”
“I had to make the Circle think that I had a hand in Illyria’s resurrection. I needed them to believe that I killed Fred so that they would accept me. I needed to be a part of the Circle,” Angel said as he paced around the room.
“Um, pardon me for interrupting, but what exactly is this Circle of the Black Thorn?” Giles intervened.
“They do the dirty work of the senior partners. The give the orders, and the Circle see that they go through,” Angel paused. “The partners think they own us. We had to show them that they don’t. And to do that we had to start by killing every single member of the Circle. That’s part of why I needed in; to get to know them; know their faces.”
“That last night,” Spike took over, feeling the need to impart some of the story. “We set them up and knocked them down. We all had a hand in getting’ rid of th’ bastards. We’re all that’s left.”
“Wesley died during the battle,” Angel said, hanging his head, grief evident in his voice.
“Oh, Goddess,” Willow’s voice emanated the shock and sorrow the rest of the Scoobies felt. They were never close with Wesley; hell, they never really liked him, but they still couldn’t imagine him gone.
“He bled to death. His life slipped away as I held in my arms,” Illyria spoke, quietly. “I…I wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do. I was too late.” She turned and looked at Spike, tilting her head, a questioning look on her face. “What is it that I am feeling? All these…sensations are new to me. I cannot tell if they are my own or…Fred’s.”
Spike looked at the puzzled demon and sadly shook his head. “I don’t know, blue,” he told her. “We’ll figure it out.” Illyria seemed to accept this and returned to her corner.
“After we picked off the Circle,” Angel picked up the story yet again. “Lorne took off, who knows where he went. We met up with Gunn in an alleyway. But by then, Gunn was too far gone. He died during the big battle.”
“Big battle?” Buffy asked.
Angel nodded. “The Circle was the easy part. After that, we had literally hundreds of demons after us. Apparently the Senior Partners were still able to open a gate to hell or something like that and sent them after us. How the hell we survived is anyone’s guess. But the Partners won’t give up. They’ll come after us and make our life a living hell until either we’re dead or worse.” He left the ‘worse’ to their imaginations.
The room fell silent. A deafening silence. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts. Spike and Buffy locked eyes and never looked away. Angel leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his shoulder. Illyria stood against the wall, still as a statue. Xander had his head in his hands, still unable to get past the fact that Cordy was gone. Dawn tried not to let the shock of the entire situation get to her by focusing all her attention to a single dust particle. Willow was attempting to keep her tears at bay. Giles stood at the head of the table, busily trying to remove a fingerprint that wasn’t there from his glasses, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts; one in particular.
“So, you came here. Leading these Senior Partners directly to the Watcher’s Council location.” His voice was accusing as his eyes bore into Angel.
“We weren’t planning on staying, Rupes,” Spike tore his eyes away from Buffy’s to look at Giles. “We’ll leave as soon as possible. We just thought that you lot should know seein’ as how you lot got the idea that Peaches and his gang had fallen off the bandwagon.”
“Since when did you join the Dead Boy Fan Club?” Xander asked. “Last I knew, you hated his guts…more so than me..”
“Don’t get me wrong, I still hate his guts,” Spike cast a look towards a glaring Angel. “But…I’ve seen things. I know enough to know for a fact that he hasn’t swayed from the good path.”
The Scoobies cast their eyes downward, suddenly ashamed that they had even let the thought cross their minds. Angel knew all along what he was doing and they turned their backs on him; on them.
“Where will you go?” Buffy asked, looking to Spike, her eyes passive, making Spike unsure of what she really wanted.
He shrugged. “Dunno, love. Wherever we can. Gotta keep movin’. Keep ‘em off our tails.”
Angel pushed himself away from the wall and made his way towards the door. Illyria followed suit. Spike took a deep breath and slowly rose out of the chair.
“Wait,” Giles said. The three of them turned toward the watcher. “Stay. At least until you know where you’re going to go.”
Angel nodded his thanks. Spike leaned heavily against the wall, grateful that he didn’t have to move much further. Illyria looked at Spike, her eyes scanning his body. “You’re bleeding,” she stated, simply.
Spike looked down at the blood that was now soaking his shirt, wondering why he didn’t notice it earlier. Breathing heavily, he looked up at Illyria. “Guess that’d explain why there’s two of ya.” He slumped forward, falling into Illyria‘s arms, unconsciousness taking over.
A/N: Hmmm….Buffy knows? Well…after re-watching “The Girl in Question” something about how Andrew said “She loves both of you” made me feel that maybe she does know he’s back. The way Andrew acted just gave made me feel that. Who knows…Andrew might’ve let it slip. We may never really know…so I’m just going to try and pursue this.
[Reviews - 12]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 1664 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +