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Chapter 13- Runaways and Returns


Taking the elevator up to his penthouse, he was glad for her, but also extremely worried. He had never seen Buffy snap like that, not even at a demon. She hadn’t even seemed remorseful which wasn’t like Buffy at all, there had to be something wrong.

When the door opened it wasn’t Buffy’s face that he saw but Spike’s.

“She’s not here.”

“Where did she go.”

“I don’t know, I followed her as far as the street, then she hailed a cab and took off. I’m worried Angel, she’s not in the frame of mind right now to be alone.” Spike’s hands were buried in his duster to hide from his Sire the fact that they were shaking, he had just popped back in when he saw Buffy running for the cab, a tidal wave of emotions pouring off of her, so much so that Spike couldn’t tell one from the other.

Picking up the nearby phone Angel dialed a number. He was worried now too, if Spike was worried about her then there was something that was really wrong.

“Check the outside camera’s I want the license plate and the whereabouts of the cab that Ms. Summers’ got into, and I wanted it five minutes ago.” There were times like this that he was glad that he had taken over an evil law firm, other times it was just a pain in the ass.

“So it stopped about five blocks away and now its moving again. I’ll be in my car, you can reach me on that line. Whatever you do, don’t lose that cab, you’re life depends on it.”

Turning around Angel grabbed a set of keys from a table by the elevator.

“If you’re coming let’s go, I’m not going to stand around and wait for you.” Stepping in the elevator, he wondered what was going through Buffy’s mind, especially for her to just take off like that without telling anyone. He knew that something had been wrong since she had come to L.A. but it must have been a lot worse than he had thought.

“What do you think she’s doing. I hate to say this but you know her a lot better than I do, have spent more time with her.” Angel was worried enough to even ask Spike for advice, what was he going to be doing next asking for the family secret recipes.
“I don’t know, I haven’t seen her this wigged out since she thought she killed a girl. She beat me up pretty good to get the frustration out then left me in an alley.” Spike remembered the time, he had been trying to hard to earn her love, and he thought that he had almost achieved it. He knew that she had been using him, but felt that given enough time they could get past it and she would eventually love him.

Spike was trying hard not to think about the things that he had overheard Buffy telling her sister, it was enough to make his ghostly gut clench and more than enough for him to almost feel his heart beat. She loved him, and from the look of it, a lot. It was all of his dreams come true, not only if they could find the stupid bint and get his body back then he would finally be able to be with her. What in the hell was she thinking just running off like that. When he got the chance he was royally going to give her a piece of his mind, at least after he shagged her senseless no fewer than a dozen times.

Driving down the road Angel kept in constant contact with the firm, according to them, they were about a block away from where the cab was stopped at a light. All they could really do was tail it to see where it went since it was the middle of the day, and hello sun, Angel vampire, go poof.

When they saw the cab being hailed and another passenger getting in, they realized they had lost her.

“Son of a bitch.” Spike exclaimed as the cab took off with no sign of Buffy anywhere.

“She must have gotten out of the cab somewhere along the way and we didn’t realize it. The only thing we can do is get the group together and start doing a search of all the places that she might go. Maybe she just wanted to get away from a few and she’ll show up at the hotel tonight. After all she’s a slayer she can take care of herself.” Angel hoped that soon he would feel as convincing as he hoped he sounded. It was time to get back to the office and get the group together. Not only did they have a missing person, but that person was Buffy.

Driving back to the office Spike let Angel have it both barrels.

“So what are we supposed to do, just wait around until she decides to pop up out of the blue. She ran away Angelus, doesn’t that say something to you. If she just wanted a merry jaunt because she needed a break she would have told someone, especially Dawn.”

“She can take care of herself Spike, she’ll probably turn up tonight at the hotel loaded down with packages from shopping. I’m not saying that we won’t go out and look for her, just that I want to see if she’ll show up on her own first.”

“So anything could happen to her between now and the time that you
have decided to send out the search party.” Spike couldn’t believe that Angel was just going to leave Buffy out there without looking for her.

Walking by Harmony’s desk Angel picked up his mail and listened to Spike rant on his heels.

“Spike, wait up.” Harmony called.

“What do you want?” Spike exclaimed, frustrated at the fact that he couldn’t get through to Angelus. Damned nancy boy was just begging for an ass kicking.

“I have a package here for you. Kind of strange really, getting mail for a ghost. Who knows that you are still alive anyway? Well besides everyone here at the office anyway, and like anyone would want to give you something. Let alone take the time to mail it.” Harmony went off on one of her tangents completely forgetting the package that she was supposed to be giving Spike.

“Harm, would you just give me the damn thing before your yapping makes my non existent ears bleed.”

Glaring at Spike she put the package on the counter and smirked at the thought of a ghost picking it up, she couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when it went through his fingers. Picking up the phone to dial out a call Angel had told her to make she waited.

Spike concentrating his energy picked up the package much to Harmony’s astonishment and chagrin and tore it open. A brilliant flash of light filled the area and a horrible screeching came over the phone making Harmony drop the phone and rub her ear.

“Well that was a slap and a tickle. Just great someone trying to play jokes on the spook. It wasn’t bloody funny, about blinded me and I don’t even have real eyes, stupid wankers.” Spike mumbled and stomped off in search of Angel and the crack team that would help him find Buffy.

Stomping off after Angel’s who slammed his office door after him. Spike was willing to physically force Angel to see reason if he had to. They couldn’t just leave Buffy out there, she was alone and hurting, who knew what could happen to her.

Spike was really worried about Buffy, it didn’t matter that she was the Slayer, that she could physically handle herself against anything that the world could confront her with, he was worried about Buffy the woman.

As normal Spike had no regard for doors having grown used to being able to walk through anything he wanted to. Instead he found himself meeting the oak of the door face to face, the force at which he met the door forced him onto his back in a sprawl of limbs.

Angel hearing the blow to the door turned around and opened it ready to rip of the head of whoever was trying to break into his office, he was really going to have to take it up with Harmony as to what it meant to not be disturbed. What met him was the stunned expression of Spike who was laying sprawled on the floor.

It was but a split second before Angel was assulted by a jubulent Spike. It was all he could do to hold on to his cup of otter blood and the folders in his arms. Just as he was about to lose the cup in his hand it was roughly grabbed from him and it was all he could do as he watched his now corporeal childe drain it dry with obvious glee.

It was then that Angel noticed the screeching that seemed to come from everywhere, and Harmony rubbing her ears as if they were bleeding. What in the hell was going on, and why after all they had tried to get Spike back to normal and failing was he now all of a sudden whole again. He had the feeling that he was going to kill whoever was involved with this. Ghost Spike was bad enough but a living Spike was going to be the death of him.

“Harmony, what’s going on with the phones.” Angel’s patience was being tested, just standing here watching Spike drink his favorite otter blood was enough to make him want to break his childe in half add to that the hideous noise that overflowed from every room and you definately had a day that was a little worse than all the others seemed to be every since his team had taken over this law firm from hell.

“I don’t know Boss, it’s the same on every floor and every phone. They’re working on it right now, but there not sure when it’s going to stop.”

Angel grabbed his favorite mug, now drained of course back from his childe and strode back into his office slamming the door. Maybe he could actually get some work done if he went up to his apartment. That was definately a thought.

“Well you can stay here and do whatever you want, I’m going to look for Buffy, luckily for me someone decided that I needed to be whole again, so sod off Peaches. When I find her, and I will, I’ll let her know just how much you care.”

They stood there arguing for a good fifteen minutes, it wasn’t until Spike was attacked by Harmony and Lorne was bashed over the head that they realized what was going on around them. Spike had just enough time to knock Harmony’s porch lights out before she had done any damage. Looking around they finally noticed the chaos that was ensuing, people were going crazy, attacking each other and bleeding from the eyes.

“Guess you’re going to have you’re hands full here, I’m off to find a slayer.” Spike grinned, loving the feeling of leaving Angel in the lurch.

Spike turned around to storm off in true Spike fashion only to be stopped not by a door this time but by Eve, Angel’s liason to the senior partners.

“Leaving right now for any reason is not a good thing. We have bigger problems right now than your little runaway. Walk with me here gentleman. Seems that there was never supposed to be two vampires with a soul in this plane of existence. My theory is, the reality of our dimension has now been altered and you two have to figure out a way to fix it before we all cease to exist. You’re leaving now Spike might only make things worse.” They walked down the hall trying hard not to listen to Eve, because you never really did know whether the girl was out to help you or to help herself and the senior partners.

They were halfway down the hall when the elevator doors opened and a staggering Gunn stepped out, sheer shock registering on his face.

“We don’t want worse, worse is not good. I just went to the white room to see what the big cat had to say. The cat’s gone, the white room too, all that’s there is a howling abyss. Have either of you ever heard a howling abyss, terrible sound.”

“If the white room’s gone then the conduit to the senior partners is gone, which means we’re alone in this one guys, just us and a big gaping tear in the balance of the universe.” Eve looked shocked at the fact that the senior partners had decided to step out of this one.

Angel seeing Spike’s nonchalance about the whole thing knew that he was going to regret this one day.

“Spike, stay. Please, Buffy is around somewhere and I’ll help you find her once we work this out.”

“We’ll all look for her.” Gunn inputted, having comforted Dawn when she had realized that her sister was missing.

Spike couldn’t do anything but nod in agreement and pray that Buffy would be okay until they found her. If anything happened to her while he was helping Angel he would personally rip out his dead heart and feed it to him.

“All right, first order of business, finding out which one of you the Shansu was really written for.” Eve grinned on the inside knowing that this was definately an interesting turn of events.

“I just read the prophecy and there was nothing in it about Spike” Angel tried to be nonchalant about the thing.

“Wait a minute, you read the prophecy that you don’t believe in. You called it a load of rubbish. Well that’s bloody interesting.” Spike just stared at his Sire not believing his ears.

“Wait we need is for an expert to read it and tell us what it says.” Eve stood there looking almost confused as to what to do.

“And Wesley’s not here.” Gunn was finally starting to look more normal.

“But his department still is, so I suggest that we start there.” Eve made her suggestion as if she was actually a part of the group instead of an outsider.

Together the four of them got into an elevator and took it to Wesley’s department floor concern written on all of their faces, but Spike’s for a completely different reason. His concern the one and only that he had at the moment was finding Buffy and making sure that she was okay.





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