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Chapter 50

Angel’s thoughts were troubled as he walked through the various cemeteries of Sunnydale. He hoped that the watcher was right, that he’d be able to get Buffy back to their time, safe and in one piece. And her memories intact. His lips compressed in a hard line as he thought of all the things that Spike could be doing to her, alone and without him to look after her – his mind conjuring several possibilities, not the least of which was the Slayer’s death at his grandchilde’s hand.

And the condition Buffy had been in before she’d disappeared…

He shied away from his negative thoughts and tried to distract himself by taking out a few newly risen vampires. His sensitive ears picked up the faint sounds of earth being displaced a few headstones over, and turned towards that direction. A vague sense of being followed drew him up short, and Angel turned in a circle while listening intently to the night sounds all about – blocking out the rather loud ones coming from the awakening fledge near his feet.

His eyes narrowed as he gazed into the distance, but his preternatural hearing could detect nothing amiss. He shook his head and dismissed the matter from his mind, once more concentrating on the ground shifting near his feet.

‘Damn fledges making minions. It’s a wonder that vampires haven’t become extinct due to stupidity alone.’

The vamp had no sooner gotten his chest above ground that Angel squatted beside the struggling demon, driving his stake home. Dust covered his arm and the elder vampire smacked at his leather sleeve to clean it off, rising to his feet as he did so.

His thoughts once more turned to the brief conversation he and the watcher had had in the library. Rupert had claimed it was just a question of determining which spell had been used to send Buffy to the past, and that it was a simple matter of doing a counter spell to get her back. Angel wasn’t leaving anything to chance, however, and his lumbering steps took him towards Sunnydale’s warehouse district.

It was time to pay his psychic childe a visit.

~*~*~*~*~

From his place atop the adjacent building, dressed entirely in black and keeping to the shadows, Joseph watched the crazed vampiress through the open windows of the warehouse. She’d been screeching since before he’d arrived, scaring the minions scattered about the room while she railed and screamed, alternately whining for her “Spike” and her “Daddy.” He winced when another ear-piercing scream rent the air, the sound having the effect of nails down a chalkboard – and he was a good distance away. He could only imagine what her minions were made to suffer, since they stood much closer.

He turned away from her antics as he sensed the approach of another. His amber eyes scanned the ground beneath him outside the building and noticed the familiar vampire making his way towards one of the side doors.

‘Interesting,’ he thought as Spike’s grandsire let himself inside. He turned back to the window to see the vampiress stop in her tracks and race toward her visitor.

“Daddy!” she cried, before stopping abruptly some distance from his side. “You’re not my daddy.” She hissed then, fangs bared as she backed away.

Joseph watched her hands return to her hair, pulling on the dark tresses while she mumbled incoherently, swaying back and forth. Angel seemed to take her behavior in stride, moving closer until he could draw the sobbing female into his arms.

~*~

“He’s lost to me….lost,” she whimpered.

“Who’s lost, Drusilla?”

“My Spike….”

Angel drew back, gripping his childe’s upper arms tight in his hands. “What do you see?” He shook her, eyes narrowing as her head lolled and a demented smile came to her lips. “Tell me what you see.”

“I can’t…they’re…” Drusilla’s eyes glazed over. “…hidden. Why is he hiding from me, Daddy?” she wailed. She was mumbling now, lost in a place of her own making. A place she’d created after he’d broken her. After Angelus had broken her.

Angel drew her back against his chest and he tried to calm her down. He’d seen Drusilla in moods like this often enough to know that he’d not get any more information out of her. He turned, his eyes pinning one of the minions in place. “You! Tell me what happened here.”

The minion cowered in the corner under the weight of the master vampire’s stare, but answered nonetheless.

“I don’t know, Master. She just started screeching all of a sudden. Calling for somebody named William over and over.”

Angel grunted. She’d obviously seen something happen that had to do with Spike. He was just going to have to wait until she was lucid before he could question her further. Sighing in resignation, he guided his childe towards the makeshift bedrooms in the warehouse.

~*~

“I thought he didn’t have contact with any of his childer,” Clayton commented as the pair disappeared from their sight. The vampire had joined Joseph earlier, since he’d been tasked with keeping an eye on Angel.

“I don’t know. His actions aren’t consistent with what Spike shared about him. Guess we’ll just have to keep an eye on him, see where he plays out in this thing.”

~*~*~*~*~

“You’re just tryin’ to get eaten’, aren’t ya?” Spike grumbled at the figure lounging comfortably in the chair situated before the dying fire. “You do realize that I was sleepin’ here, right? It being bloody daylight an’ all?”

The answering laughter grated the vampire’s nerves and he growled for a moment before realizing that he was going to end up waking the Slayer.

“What do you want? Can’t you let a vamp sleep in peace?”

“I could, yeah. But why deny myself the pleasure of your charming disposition?”

Spike rolled his eyes and slipped out from beneath the Slayer’s grasp. With the half-breed ensconced comfortably in his room, there’d be no sleep until Doyle had said what he’d been tasked with saying. Better to get up now and get it over with so he could crawl back beside Buffy’s warm body and go back to sleep. He climbed naked from the bed and snagged his pants from where they’d been discarded earlier, slipping them on over his lean hips.

“You want something to drink, mate?” he called out as he walked towards the dresser that held glasses and a few various bottles of liquor. Marcus was nothing if not the ultimate host.

“Whatever you’re having is fine with me.”

The vampire poured two healthy doses of Scotch in each tumbler and made his way over to the chairs. He handed the half-breed a glass, setting his own down on the table between the two chairs so that he could stoke the dying embers and chase the chill from the room. Not that he noticed, but his Slayer was partial to the heat. His annoying friend could freeze for all he cared.

“So, what is it this time?” Spike asked as he plopped down in his chair and took a healthy sip of his drink. “Wait… Don’t tell me. You came to gloat about the blood bond, right?”

Doyle grinned at the disgruntled vampire. He remembered the first time they’d had this conversation. How the vampire had practically torn his head off in his denial to claim the vampires as his. And, in the subsequent years the vampire had been equally adamant about not performing the blood rite. How he’d managed to resist his demon’s demands was a constant source of amazement for Doyle and those he worked for.

“Slayer made you do it, huh?” he chuckled knowingly. If the vamp had one weakness, it was his human wife. Though Spike never said anything, Doyle knew there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to make her happy.

Spike snorted, not bothering to answer. It wasn’t like the half-breed didn’t know anyway.

“Yeah, well… when you cave, you do it with gusto. I see you finally told the girl.”

Spike looked askance at his friend, not sure what he was referring to.

And then it hit him.

He jumped up from his chair, eyes darting towards the bed and zeroing in on the slumbering figure huddled beneath the covers. He’d actually done it. Not that she’d probably heard him…or maybe she had. But…. Bloody hell! His fingers raked through his unkempt hair as the weight of what he’d done pressed in on him.

“I’d tell you to breathe before you pass out from lack of oxygen, but you being a vampire and all…”

Spike’s head swiveled around towards Doyle, ready to tear off his head if he so much as cracked a smile. The smile was there, but it was tempered by the understanding he saw in the half-breed’s eyes.

“Sit down before you fall down, Spike. You look like you’ve been sucker punched.”

The vampire fell into his chair, his unsteady hand reaching out to grip his glass and bring it to his lips – downing the remaining contents in one long swallow. Doyle rolled his eyes at the waste of good Scotch but stood up to retrieve the bottle. At the dresser, he stared at the other two bottles before grabbing those as well and rejoining the vampire.

~*~*~*~*~

“Check!” Doyle shouted, pleased that for once he had the vampire on the run.

“Shhh! You’re gonna wake the—”

“Spike?” Buffy called out sleepily.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Spike hissed at his friend, then turned towards the bed. Unfortunately, the three bottles the two demons had consumed the last several hours had messed with his coordination and the vampire scattered the chess pieces all over the board.

“You did tha’ on purpose,” Doyle complained drunkenly. “Jus’ couldn’ stand t’see me win for once!”

“I bloody well did not, you git.” Spike growled at the half-breed, having momentarily forgotten the Slayer.

Buffy rolled her eyes as the two commenced to bickering back and forth. It would be a while yet before either remembered her presence, if at all. There was something about chess and those two that made everything else take a back seat in their minds. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she’d not really eaten last night. She grabbed her robe and slipped it on, calling out that she’d be back shortly and slipped from the room.

Their raised voices continued to chase her down the hall.

The smell of freshly cooked meat lured her towards the dining room and she stepped inside to see Clayton sitting at the head of the table, his nose buried in The Times.

“Ma non prendi mai niente meno seriamente? Dobbiamo trovarti un compagno, Clayton , seriamente! Tutto questo leggere non farà che strizzarti il…. Qual'è la parola che stavo cercando?” [Don’t you ever lighten up? We’ve got to find you a mate, Clayton, seriously! All that reading is bound to shrink your…what’s the word I’m looking for?”]

“Penis?” he asked, lowered the paper and smirking at the Slayer.

“Erm… yeah.” ‘Don’t blush, Buffy. Don’t blush, Buffy.’ She slipped into the chair to his left and quietly thanked the servant that set a plate filled with steaming hot food in front of her. “Ad ogni modo…” [Anyway…]

“And who’s to say I’m not.” Clayton folded the paper and set it aside, grabbing his goblet of blood and saluting her. “Just because I’m not as loud as some people…”

The blush she’d been trying to prevent blossomed on her cheeks. She and Spike had been rather loud last night after their brief nap on the floor. “Ok, fine. I concede defeat. But seriously though, Clayton. Have you given it some thought? Surely there’s some nice girl out there…”

The male vampire looked up at the approach of another.

“Quick, Byron. Rescue me! Buffy’s on her mate kick again.”

Buffy’s head swiveled towards the newcomer, taking in his cautious stride as he walked up the opposite side of the long, wooden table and sat down across from her.

“¡Diablos, no! Ella me perseguía la semana pasada. Ella puede fastidiarte por un rato.” [Hell no! She was hounding me last week. She can pick on you for awhile.]

“No veo—” Buffy began. [I just don’t see—]

“Célibataire, Buffy. Regarde dans le dico.” [Bachelor, Buffy. Look it up.]

“Est-ce que vous pourriez choisir un langage et vous y tenir, les gars? Il est bien trop tôt pour passer de l'un à l'autre comme ça.” [Would you guys pick one language and stick with it? It’s too damn early in the morning for this constant shuffling back and forth.”]

“Hey, du mischst dich hier ungefragt in unser Liebesleben ein, du kannst nicht ernsthaft erwarten das wir dir das leicht machen?” [Hey, you're getting involved in our love lives without being asked, you don't seriously think we will make that easy on you, do you?]

“Arsch,” she grumbled good-naturedly, throwing her napkin at Byron’s head. He caught it easily and smirked at her.

“I see our friend is back,” Byron commented, switching back to English. He’d passed by Buffy and Spike’s borrowed room and heard the master vampire yelling at the half-breed. The words were rather garbled, and the smell pervading the room indicated that both had been drinking rather heavily. “Does he have some enlightening news for us?”

“Probably. But, it’ll be a while before we get to find out what it is. Those two went through the three bottles that had been left on the dresser. It’s a wonder they aren’t both comatose right now.”

The two males heard the sound of a fist connecting with flesh, and resultant thud of something against the floor. Then all went quiet.

“I think they are now,” Clayton commented unnecessarily.

“Well, if he thinks I’m going up there to haul his ass into bed, he’s got another thing coming.”

Clayton and Byron hid their smiles behind their cups as the Slayer attacked her food.

~*~*~*~*~

Buffy’s hair fanned out behind her as the stallion she was riding galloped along the trail in the late afternoon sun. While the others either slept or lounged about, she took the opportunity to escape outside and contemplate the decision she’d made last night. The decision she’d forced Spike into making.

The appearance of Doyle so soon after their blood rite ceremony couldn’t be a good thing, and the Slayer wondered if maybe she’d been too hasty. But, she was tired of waiting, if the truth be told. Not that she was ready to go home. Far from it, in fact. The thought of being dragged back to Sunnydale was anything but appealing. She was just tired of walking around on egg shells, waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.

She’d initiated the blood rite because if she and Spike were suddenly sucked back in time, she wanted a way for her friends to find her…provided they lived through whatever it was that was going to happen. No, she’d made the right decision. Even now she could feel the subtle tug in her blood, and felt comforted by it.

The Slayer reached the crest of another hill and pulled her mount to a stop. He tugged at the reins a bit, snorting his displeasure at being stopped in the middle of his run, and Buffy’s legs tightened about his girth as he prepared to rear. She rode out his temper tantrum, leaning down to give him a pat to his neck once he’d settled down. When she sat up, her eyes roamed over the wide open spaces of Marcus’ ancestral home, wondering if she was looking at it for the last time.

Her thoughts were growing morose, so she shoved them away. She’d not let what might happen cloud what was, to her, a special occasion. Digging her heels in the stallion’s sides, she raced back towards the mansion.

It was time to find out what Doyle had to say.

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