Parts: 21 - 22
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~Part: 21~
Angel knew something was off. It nagged at his mind but he couldn't quite place it. He'd prowled the sewer tunnels beneath the hotel numerous times when business was slow. It was a habit based on survival: he wouldn't have survived a decade, let alone two centuries, if he hadn't learned to defend the perimeter of his own lair.
He knew these tunnels. Something was different, but to his aggravation he couldn't put his finger on it just yet.
Of course, it would help if his mind weren't distracted by images that hammered unwelcome and unbidden at his brain. He tried to focus on the twists and turns of the labyrinth of tunnels, mapping them against his memory in order to discern what discrepancy was prodding his subconscious. Yet his own treacherous heart mocked his attempts at mental discipline. He was alone in the dark and all he could see was them.
Buffy and Spike. He imagined them...
*****
...writhing together in a tangle of limbs and sheets, wrapped around each other so closely that they almost merged into one, hips slowly rocking together in a languid, hypnotic rhythm.
Their kisses were deep yet reverent. When Buffy needed to breathe, Spike shifted and brushed his lips against her cheeks, her eyes, her jaw line, and her throat. And still their hips met and thrust. Raising himself slightly, Spike gazed down at his beloved Slayer. Their eyes locked and held each other in enraptured disbelief until Buffy's breath hitched and her eyes squeezed shut against the exquisite, steadily mounting ache. Spike closed his mouth over hers and ravenously devoured her moan.
The bed beneath them shook, yet everything, all distractions had been blocked from their minds, so completely were they wrapped up in...
*****
...the sensation. It was eerie, feeling that the world was askew with his memory.
Everything about the tunnels was the same, yet something was amiss.
Briefly, Angel wondered if this is what it was like for Willow. Did she retrace her steps over and over through a maze of lifetimes, searching, world without end, for answers that eluded her?
Angel sadly shook his head. The Powers That Be were literally asking her to move heaven and earth six times over and they expected him to help her. He frowned and leaned against the dank tunnel wall. How was he supposed to help Willow with something of that magnitude? He, a walking corpse, who was so preoccupied with threats against his son, so wrapped up in jealousy and regret that he couldn't even perform a simple survey of his own territory.
Angel felt old.
Why couldn't he let it go?!
He'd made his peace with Buffy. It had taken her death and resurrection for both of them finally to lay to rest the terrible, wondrous passion that had burned between them and that, once upon a time, had nearly reduced the world to ashes. Yet it ate at his very soul that Spike was enjoying what he couldn't. Spike, one of the deadliest of the breed that Buffy had been chosen to destroy; Spike, who had tortured him without hesitation in his quest for the Gem of Amarra.
But maybe that was the difference between them. Spike had reached for the sunlight with single-minded determination; Angel had thrown it away.
And here he was, in the darkness, in the catacombs...a fitting place for the dead.
Angel let out a weary sigh and shook his head again, disgusted with himself. He was wallowing in self-pity, not to mention being dishonest with himself, and there wasn't time for that.
He didn't envy Spike. As much as it pained Angel to admit it, he knew he could never be what Spike was to Buffy: a lover who made her the center of his universe. Angel had his own calling; like Buffy, he was a champion. It was that, more than his fragile, temperamental soul that ultimately came between them.
Right now, though, his duty to the Powers coincided with the instincts of his heart: he could still protect her. He could protect all of them, but that meant focusing. Impatiently, Angel shook his head as if the gruff motion could clear out all the mental cobwebs.
Wait.
Angel halted.
He scanned the walls where they curved up to the ceiling and frowned in intense concentration.
No cobwebs.
That was it. That was the difference.
It was too clean.
*****
Spike basked in the warmth of his Slayer-blanket. Buffy lay sprawled across his chest, still heated from their lovemaking although her pulse was gradually slowing back to normal. He ran his hands across her sweat-glistened skin, loving the feel of her, the deceptive softness of his golden warrior.
He savored every moment of peace, just holding her, because he knew she'd eventually want to talk, and from what he'd seen earlier, it wasn't likely to be good. She'd been so wound up.
"Would you really do it?"
Spike sighed. So much for post-coital bliss. Gently, he shifted Buffy off his chest, rolled to his side and looked her in the eyes. Normally, he could lose himself in those resolute, passionate pools. At the moment, though, they were heavy with self-doubt.
"Would you really turn me?" Buffy asked softly.
"Yeah," Spike admitted, stroking a finger down her cheek, his eyes never leaving hers. "I would. Never without your consent. I told you and I meant it. 'S that what's really bothering you?"
Buffy averted her gaze and remained silent for several moments. Spike could feel the tension building in her and stroke his hand soothingly along her arm.
At last, she said, "I just wish...it's...I've never had a relationship where I could just be who I am and have that be enough. With Angel, all I wanted to be was seventeen and in love. But that was the one thing I couldn't have. I could choose between loving him or being with him, but...to stop loving him I'd have to turn myself into someone else."
Spike quietly clenched his jaw at her mention of Angel, but said nothing.
"Riley..." Buffy continued slowly, "Riley needed me to lean on him more than I did. I think he wanted to be able to accept me as I was, but in the end he couldn't. He needed something I couldn't give him. I think...I think it bothered him that I wouldn't let myself depend on him. Maybe he thought it meant I wouldn't let myself trust him. But it wasn't about him, it's who I am. That's what being a Slayer is. I *have* to rely on myself, always, or I'll end up dead -- sooner, rather than later."
"Shh," came Spike's sibilant reply as he brushed a kiss across her forehead.
"And now you," Buffy murmured, raising vulnerable, glimmering eyes to his.
"I don't want to change you," Spike protested.
"Slayer into vampire? Don't you think that would be a pretty big change?" Buffy pressed.
"That's not why I want to turn you," said Spike, cupping her cheek in his palm and rubbing his thumb in gentle circles over her soft skin. "I told you, I want to love you forever. Losing you before...it nearly destroyed me. Don't have it in me to go through it again. I'll never force you -- *never*. But when you go, I go."
Buffy frowned stubbornly and her voice rose in agitation. "Being mortal is part of who I am, what I am. So -- what? You mean when I die you'll just give up?"
"It's not giving up," Spike countered firmly, a brief flicker of gold in his eyes. "After the first century or so, you learn a few things. Like the fact that eternity is a long, empty time without something that matters. The killing, the bloodshed, it keeps the demon happy for a while."
Buffy pulled a face and opened her mouth as if to comment, but Spike pressed onward. "You should know by now, I'm a man as well as a demon. I have the mind of a man, and that needs something more to hold onto. You're what I've chosen to hold onto."
The sarcastic remark that had been poised on Buffy's lips dissolved at his simple admission and all she could say was, "Spike..."
His expression softened once more. "I'll take whatever you'll give me, for however long you'll give it. On your terms. 'S how it's always been, innit? But I'll fight beside you to the last, and yeah, I'll probably take a walk in the sun when you die, if it comes to that. Better than wasting down to a bitter shell, 'cos that's all'd be left without you."
Buffy frowned at him, but it was forced and the slight quiver of her chin belied emotions deeper than she probably cared to admit. "Isn't that just a little too poetic, even for you?"
"What can I say, luv?" Spike smirked. "Always was a bloody awful poet."
He drew her near and closed his mouth over hers, ending their conversation for a while.
*****
"Honestly, Xander, I don't see what the problem is," Anya insisted, having long abandoned her bridal magazine and sitting with her arms stubbornly folded across her chest. Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Why do you care that Willow will probably spend the rest of her life in the service of higher powers?"
Xander halted his agitated pacing and stared intently at the floor, his hands on his hips. He wanted to do something, wanted to fix something...but this was something he couldn't fix.
He'd thought he could help Willow, that he would be her link to her past, her trail of breadcrumbs back from the witch's gingerbread house in the woods, although how messed up was that metaphor, considering Willow was the witch in this story? But if what Anya said was true, then somewhere along the way...they'd all lost their links to the past. It was gone, and they couldn't go back.
So when had it happened? Which choice had Willow made that brought her to a place where she wouldn't be free to walk away any more?
"Ahn," he began, his voice low and softly wavering. "Try to understand, none of us really knew what we were getting into when we started helping Buffy. I know Willow made some bad choices -- believe me. Fighting her was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but I still did it, because what she was doing was wrong. She was hurting Dawn."
Pausing to draw in a shaky breath, Xander glanced briefly toward Giles and was unsurprised to see a pained, sympathetic expression on his face. Xander knew that Giles understood. The former Watcher had looked out for all of them, and had often treated Buffy like his own daughter, but Willow had held a special place in his heart. She'd been his protégé. It had been just as hard for Giles as it had been for Xander to put Willow in that category of Threats-To-Be-Disarmed.
"But deep inside, Willow is just like me. She's still someone who wants to help, who doesn't always know what's around the next corner, or what the next fight will bring, but sticks with it because her friends need her. And now you're telling me that because of this, the rest of Willow's life won't be her own anymore?" Xander finished. His jaw clenched and he shook his head in defiant refusal. "I won't accept that. Willow made a mistake. She's trying to make up for it--"
"Some mistakes take a lifetime to atone for," Anya interrupted, looking up at him patiently. Her eyes shone with an almost parental indulgence, as if she were waiting for a small child to grasp a very basic concept. "And some can never be rectified. But this isn't about mistakes or punishment anyway, it's a simple matter of power. Willow has it -- lots of it. Do you really think the universe would have survived this long if the higher beings didn't enforce *very* stringent restrictions on who has the ability to engage in something as tricky as inter-dimensional manipulation? Anyway, look at me and my situation. It's not like I chose to be human, but I made a mistake and had to deal with the consequences. I managed to find the silver lining in my situation; I have you. Willow will find hers, too."
Giles took a few steps toward the lounge where Anya sat, then stopped, as if his intellectual uncertainty had manifested itself physically.
"Anya is right," he observed quietly, casting a furtive, apologetic glance at Xander. "Although I never imagined that it would ever come to this, it is one of the reasons I was so adamantly opposed to allowing you, as Buffy's friends, to help her in her duties as the Slayer. She had no choice in the matter; you did, but you were all too young to know what the consequences of your choices might be."
Xander returned Giles's glance with his own, resigned half-smile. There was no way Xander was going to let him blame himself. Giles couldn't have stopped them from helping, even if he'd known any better than they had what the consequences would be. And considering all that Xander had seen and learned since he'd first discovered what living on a Hellmouth was all about, he knew that it was largely due to Giles that he'd even survived to join the Older-But-Wiser club.
"But...we can help her, right?" Fred ventured hopefully from the counter, where she stood with Wesley, the notes that had preoccupied them earlier momentarily forgotten. "I mean, I was trapped in Pylea for years after I experimented with inter-dimensional manipulation, but Angel, Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn managed to bring me back."
Wesley, who was leaning on the counter, clasped his hands together and answered her with a regretful shake of his head. "I'm not sure that Willow's situation is similar, Fred. It's not a question of rescuing Willow from a *place* so much as a state of being. I don't even know if it would be possible to...well, to liberate Willow from the power she has, to use your analogy."
"It wouldn't," Anya confirmed with matter-of-fact brusqueness. She gestured toward Wesley and explained, "Wesley, who is about as anal-retentive about research as Giles is, has already said that something or someone intentionally preserved Willow's power. That's why our first attempt with the Ptersian spheres failed. For better or for worse, Willow is stuck with a tremendous amount of power -- an obscene amount, by human standards."
The lobby fell silent for a few moments. Fred fiddled with a pencil, while beside her Wesley frowned, visibly mulling over Willow's prospects. Giles, likewise, seemed to be lost in thought as he stood with this hands thrust in his pants pockets.
Xander could only stare at the cradle he'd been sanding. He felt a painful stab of irony at the thought that Angel, once a mass-murdering demon, now had a son, an infant -- a symbol of future hope and a chance to start over, maybe get things right. Meanwhile, Willow, who had always been the sweetest person Xander had ever known, had somehow sealed her fate and was facing an unknown future of servitude to some higher powers.
And there was nothing Xander could do about it.
"Perhaps there is still a way we could help," Giles remarked at last, although his voice was laced with more doubt than hope. "There might be something we can do about the test she is facing. Anya, do you--?"
"It doesn't work like that," Anya cut him off. "This isn't a standardized exam, it's a test of worthiness to wield power, delivered by the Powers That Be themselves. The test is unique to each individual and situation specific. Unless you think you can second-guess higher beings -- which, mind you, I've seen *way* too many humans do, with extremely painful and messy results -- the only thing we can do is cheer from the sidelines. This way of maintaining a balance of power has existed for millennia. Do you honestly think that this is another puzzle for you to figure out? There's a lot more to the universe than what you're able to see."
Xander recognized the narrowing of Giles's eyes as one of the ex-Watcher's familiar signs of irritation, and braced himself for a full-blown argument to break out. However, before Giles could speak, a motion at the entrance to the hotel lobby drew everyone's attention.
Tara and a very perplexed, beleaguered-looking Willow stood just inside the doors.
"Um...guys?" Willow ventured in a strained voice. "How many of us do you see standing here?"
~Part: 22~
Get in, watch, neutralize the target, get out.
It was a routine so ingrained in the team of men that orders were no longer necessary. All that changed from assignment to assignment were the locations and targets.
Quick. To the point. Uncomplicated.
At each site, their base of operations was identical. A facility was secured: warehouse, garage, anything centrally located yet easily overlooked. The surveillance network went up, first around the perimeter, then around the target. A communications hub was activated. Weapons were unpacked, assembled, and double-checked for readiness.
All within a matter of hours.
Once the cell was in place, observation set in until conditions were optimal for a strike.
Waiting. Watching.
The outside world rarely intruded. Hours passed, day gave way to night which yielded to dawn, but the men noted only the echo of darkening or lightening sky on the pale video screens of their monitors. They knew it was morning not by the glorious sunrise but because it was the scheduled time for changing shifts. They knew night had fallen because the time signature on their laptops read 9:00 pm.
They were a team of six; one of the Council's elite units.
Together, they functioned like a machine.
But...
Like any machine, they could be sabotaged.
Without warning, the screen for the video monitor to their main access blinked out.
An instant later, a dull thump sounded against the door to the street.
Five members of the team looked up from their stations, glancing quickly at each other and then at the door. Nothing had disrupted their covert operation since they'd pulled up in the van and established a base camp three days ago. They left only for food and each of them knew to signal for help if necessary. Their sixth had gone out for provisions scarcely ten minutes ago; too soon to have returned.
Deviation from the routine spelled potential threat.
As procedure dictated, one man established contact with the Council's monitors in London. A second man initiated visual and audio recording of their headquarters to capture all evidence for later analysis should the threat prove real. Two arrayed themselves within a ten-meter radius of the door, weapons to the ready.
The fifth man approached the wall beside the door, listened momentarily, then opened the door while standing clear of the doorway.
The sixth member of the team collapsed just inside the entry, dead.
His nearest colleagues stared aghast at his mutilated, pale corpse, but only for a split second. Years of intense discipline kicked in and the man at the door quickly pulled the body inside while scanning the street outside for activity.
The street was deserted and quiet. Only distant sounds of traffic could be heard through the night.
The operative who had pulled his fallen comrade inside quickly shut and bolted the door.
Grimly, the five survivors surveyed the remains of the man who had been part of their team. His limbs and joints glared at unnatural angles; deep lacerations covered his entire body; two macabre, empty cavities were all that were left of his eyes; and his skin had the characteristic pallor of someone who'd been drained by--
"Vampires," one of the operatives observed soberly.
"He was a twelve-year veteran. He knew how to handle vampires," another countered, a slight edge of disbelief in his voice.
All five men frowned as they assessed their situation. A tense silence stretched out until one of them announced curtly, "I'll order a replacement."
Beneath the cool, detached veneer they maintained as they set about dealing with their situation, the members of the team were shaken.
They were professionals. This shouldn't have happened.
It had the potential to disrupt the entire plan. That shouldn't happen.
The plan was perfect.
Seamless.
Each of the five survivors mentally ran through the same, troubling scenarios. Unfortunate coincidence? Not possible. Their comrade knew how to keep an eye out for vamps and defend himself if necessary. He'd been well-armed. Betrayal? Again, not possible, *absolutely* not possible. Nobody save two senior members of the Council knew of their mission and their specific location. Not even the other team. And the six members of this team were veteran covert operatives -- they knew how to make themselves invisible. No one ever saw them coming; no one was ever left alive to note that they'd been somewhere.
No living witnesses.
True...none living.
The living never had the chance to watch long enough to see this invisible team through the patterns it left behind. But the dead were quite another matter.
And there were those among the dead who had been watching and studying with interest for quite a long time.
Outside, on the roof of a nearby building, Ramon Diaz looked down at the door through which his kill had been retrieved. He smiled enigmatically. It had been a long time since he had savored the satisfaction of breaking an agent of the Watchers Council.
The Spanish vampire closed his eyes and let the lingering taste of blood and revenge flood his senses.
He opened his eyes for a final glance at the door before departing.
"Let's finish this, shall we, gentlemen?" Diaz murmured.
*****
Willow's head ached.
She sat in the Hyperion's office area, her feet tucked beneath her on the stylish, leather, retro armchair and wished that she could just close her eyes and escape.
But escape was impossible; short of cutting off her own head, she couldn't escape. Kind of like being a vampire, she guessed. Well, okay, not so much; vampires had to worry about sunlight and stakage, too. Bad analogy.
Absently, Willow massaged her temples and muttered, "What I wouldn't give for a pipe of chicum weed."
Wesley peered at her through his glasses, failing miserably in his attempts to appear sympathetic, or at least neutral, rather than dubious. "A pipe? I wasn't aware that you smoked," he said.
He scribbled something on a notepad.
A familiar voice spoke from the corner behind Wesley, "Now that I have seen the elusive ghost who haunted my apprentice's eyes, I must wonder about our evenings by the fire: was it your taste or his own that led Poydras to smoke with me?"
Willow smiled wearily past Wesley to Garat, her mentor from another dimension who had somehow ended up in this one.
Indeed, that was the source of her headache.
Ever since Tara had brought her back from the park, Willow had been ensconced in the office with Wesley, Fred, and Tara, feeling her shoulders slump beneath the fatiguing weight of well-meaning questions while experiencing her own, unique brand of vertigo as she carried on a separate conversation with Garat, who was invisible to everyone else, although he seemed to be able to see the others. It was uncomfortably like the stomach-lurching, head-swimming double vision she'd had when she'd first regained her senses in this dimension.
"I'd say that chicum weed was definitely a guilty pleasure for both of us, Garat," Willow mused, feeling a moment's comfort at the familiar twinkle in the wizened, dwarfish master's eyes.
Fred, who sat at the desk, ceased poring over a voluminous tome on trans-dimensional physics and glanced furtively toward the empty chair to which Willow seemed to be speaking. "Does your friend have a pipe?" Fred asked.
"No, Garat doesn't have a pipe," Willow sighed. "If he did, I'd be toking up right now."
"A pity you considered it not before you conjured me here," Garat chided, the quills on his chin twitching in bemusement.
Almost simultaneously, Tara stroked her hand and suggested, "Would some tea help? I got the good stuff yesterday. Unless," Tara frowned uncertainly, "unless, that is, you don't like tea any more? I suppose your tastes could have changed in three hundred years."
Once again, Willow's brain felt like a ping-pong ball as conflicting responses tugged at her.
Almost pleading, she defended herself to Garat. "I swear, I didn't do it on purpose. At this point, I don't even know if I would have trusted myself to try. I can't seem to do anything right any more. But if I *had* been trying to conjure you here, you bet I would've thought to throw in a bag of chicum, not to mention the amulet so I could keep trying to figure out what went wrong."
With schizophrenic speed, Willow's demeanor softened as she turned to Tara and murmured, "I still like tea. That might be just what I need right now. I'm pretty tired...it's been a long day, and I didn't think my life could get any weirder."
Wesley and Fred said nothing but exchanged a worried look. To all outward appearances, Willow's behavior did indeed seem schizophrenic.
Tara smiled and rose to go make some tea. However, she nearly collided with Angel, who stood in the doorway. No one had noticed Angel's presence and seeing him suddenly *there* gave Tara a slight start.
"What happened?" Angel asked. His eyes fell upon Willow. "Are you all right?"
Willow's gaze met his and she took in his appearance.
His expression might have been neutral enough to fool anyone. His eyes held just the right degree of concern, his posture was artfully relaxed, yet something she couldn't quite place told Willow that he was suffering deeply. Perhaps it was a level of pain that only a kindred spirit could see, as if written on his face in invisible ink.
Willow saw it. She knew it. She'd felt it.
But she also knew it was the kind of bone-deep misery that didn't want to have to explain itself. At most, it could be shared in a quiet moment. So she merely gestured toward Garat and said, "I've got a visitor from Tahar." She wasn't surprised when Angel's brow furrowed in confusion and, with a sigh, she explained, "Nobody else can see him. But other than that? Yeah, I'm all right."
The room was silent for a moment. Tara sat back down beside Willow and clasped her hand lightly.
"Tahar...was that the one with two suns?" Angel asked.
Relief surged through Willow at Angel's matter-of-fact question. She might have hugged him to death for giving him the benefit of the doubt except that, well...already dead.
"No, that was Upal," Willow answered, beaming with gratitude. "Tahar is where I was a Guardian. I don't know how or why, but my mentor, Garat, is here."
There was another silent moment. As an afterthought, Willow turned to the corner where Garat sat, eyeing the recent arrival curiously, and said, "Garat, this is Angel. He's sort of the head Guardian in this group."
Garat nodded thoughtfully, all the while scrutinizing Angel through narrowed eyes. "This one observes before he speaks," the wizened Tahareen remarked at last.
Willow closed her eyes, shook her head in bemusement and chuckled softly. Turning to Angel, she explained, "Garat approves of you."
Angel's eyes flicked to the seemingly vacant corner. Although his expression remained blank, he nodded and asked, "Do you think this is related to what happened earlier with the spell that transported you out the window?"
Fred gaped at Angel, glancing quickly between him and what to her looked like an empty seat, and blurted, "You can see him?"
In the same instant, Willow choked, "You believe me?"
"No, I can't," Angel answered Fred with a shake of his head. He then spared Willow an encouraging, if tired, smile and assured her, "I don't think you're seeing things, Willow. Trust me. I spent decades around Drusilla. I know a little about the subject, and I don't think this is what's going on with you."
Willow felt a tremor deep inside, a tiny spark of reassurance that was so intense as to be almost painful. She hadn't realized just how heavily everyone's doubts, even her own, had weighed on her until that moment. Her emotions must have played across her face because Tara gave her hand an encouraging squeeze and peered at her with concern.
"Thank you, Angel," Willow whispered, her throat suddenly tight.
He graced her with a half-smile that only briefly warmed his eyes, then turned to Wesley. Reaching into his jacket pocket, Angel withdrew a small object and tossed it at his co-worker.
"I found that in the sewer tunnels beneath the hotel this afternoon."
Wesley fingered what looked like a fragment of cable tipped with a metal point. He frowned. "Fiber optics," he stated bluntly and exchanged a grim look with Angel. "Somebody's watching us. Wolfram and Hart?"
Angel shook his head. "I don't know. They're not the only ones interested in us any more. Take Gunn and see what else you can pull down from the perimeter. No reason to make it easy for them."
Wesley nodded, rose to his feet, and headed toward the door. "Right."
With the shift in dynamics in the room, Willow seized her opportunity to escape. She knew her friends meant well, but she was tired of the interrogation -- not to mention juggling two conversations at once, one of which was with a being from another dimension nobody else could see.
"I think I need a break."
"I'm going to check on Connor."
Willow voiced her desire to take a breather simultaneously as Angel excused himself from the group. Instantly, she felt a bond of empathy with him. For whatever reason, whatever was bothering him, Angel seemed to be feeling as alone and alienated as she did.
At that moment, she decided that it would be nice to be alone together with him for a while.
"Need some company?" Willow asked.
After a brief, thoughtful silence, Angel nodded, but said nothing, merely turning and walking out toward the lobby.
Giving Tara a reassuring squeeze of the hand and seeing the compassionate understanding in her girlfriend's eyes, Willow withdrew from the office and followed after him.
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