DISCLAIMER: No.
WORDCOUNT: 1271
SUMMARY: Future fic. "Hey, rescuing the boy in distress isn't my specialty. I'm more an enter-and-destroy girl. Apocalypses? Call 0-800-BUFFY. We plan, we fight and we outsmart big bads - We also rescue puppys! Now, kidnapped son of my boyfriend? It was a gut thing; can't blame me for miscalculating the welcome committee."
Author's Note: Now I notice that I read the challenge wrong. I apologise.
FEEDBACK: pets it

Written for the 'Something worth dying for' challenge at stillmygirl

WORTH REPEATING

by Leni

---

Connor glared at the woman in the next cell. "Great. Now I have company."

"Hey, rescuing the boy in distress isn't my specialty. I'm more an enter-and-destroy girl. Apocalypses? Call 1-800-4BUFFY. We fight, we outsmart and we slice big bads - We also rescue puppys! Now, kidnapped son of my boyfriend? It was a gut thing; can't blame me for miscalculating the welcome committee."

Connor blinked, shook his head in disbelief. "Do you always talk so much?"

She looked down, made a face and took off her jacket. "Only when others don't. Which is the case here, but don't worry. I know it's all genes talking – or not talking?" She shrugged, folded her jacket and hesitated before putting it on the ground. Then she sighed and resigned herself to another lost garment. There was no way she was sitting directly on that surface. She'd seen at least three crawling things since she'd been pushed inside. "God. Where's the bug spray when you need it?" she muttered as she sat down slowly, looking around herself cautiously. This was an uptown Hytrin hide-out; you'd think they'd keep the high lifestyle down to the dungeons.

Connor looked at her and wondered for the umpteenth time how Buffy Summers, Californian girl extraordinaire, had become the terror of the underground across the country. If asked, he'd have chosen Nina as his father's girlfriend. At least the werewolf woman wasn't so damn perky in the most serious situations. But Angel clearly hadn't agreed with his opinion and now he was stuck with a sorta-stepmother who looked more like his classmate. His life was weird, definitely. Again, for the umpteenth time, he had no answer. With a sigh, he leaned against the bars and cocked his head. "Got any plans?"

Buffy crossed her legs in front of her and consulted her watch. "None at the moment. Unless you mean general life-plans." She didn't let Connor state how interested he wasn't. Was she always that bossy? No wonder his dad had chosen her in the end. "Well, everybody's telling me to go back to college; but I don't see the point. Is there a Council Management 101 class? Or How to Train the Average Teeanage-Slayer lectures?"

Connor rolled his eyes. "Can't you act seriously for once?"

Buffy took in his deep frown and had to snigger. Yep, genes did run deep. "Not unless the world is in danger, and unless the Hytrin manage to take out your heart and your liver, cook them in their own blood and eat them under the full moon, there's nothing to worry about."

Connor stared at her, mouth sagging open. "Unless they what?"

Buffy belatedly put her hand over her mouth. "Oops. You didn't know? I figured they'd have told you by now. You know, evil guys are always bragging 'I'll kill you', 'I'll have your head', 'I'll eat your heart for dinner', etcetera etcetera. Except, in this case they mean that last one literally." Connor's face, if not the green of newer Slayers facing a gruesome picture, still became distinctly pale. Buffy took pity on him and stopped. She always forgot that the boy had chosen a civilian life, and only helped if strictly necessary. "Hey, it's just a theory. Giles has been wrong before."

He recovered quickly and again, glared at her. "And they sent you alone?"

"Told you, it was a gut thing. They told me to come in a team; but if I had to wait until Angel stopped panicking and got his ass here, you'd already be on the menu."

"Angel couldn't hurry for me?"

Buffy sighed. Connor and Angel got more moods between them than your regular unstable couple. One day they were the family picture of the century, and the next…. "I'm tired of your attitude." She swallowed the 'young man' that followed and wondered when she'd become her mother. "Angel was in the middle of Africa when you let yourself be caught. He'll put security on you now, you know? Probably one of my girls. Just try not to impregnate her, will you? I've had enough pregnancy scares in this year."

Connor blushed, but wouldn't let her have the last word. "You weren't much better. We have matching cages, remember?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Was I ever that young? Dear Grasshopper, it's all a plan."

He looked at her in disbelief.

"My part was to find you and postpone all ceremonies. Done and done. A good third would have been to get you out; but I'm on that. You're here and the Hytrin are busy investigating whether what I 'let slip' is true and Slayer blood makes the spell stronger. By the way, it does."

Connor's eyebrows rose. "If that's true, what are you doing here?"

"You don't get it, do you? You're Angel's son. You're the most important part of his life. If Darla, Cordelia, Nina and I banded together, we still wouldn't match you." She chuckled to herself. "He'd die for you, Connor. Hell, if you were in a demon dimension, he'd try the impossible to go after you – again."

That still didn't explain why she'd come solo to his rescue. Unless... Connor looked at her pensively. "And you'd go with him."

Buffy gave him a small smile, then lifted her shoulders. "Well, you know what they say. True love, puppy love, suicidal love. If he thinks something's worth dying for, then it goes the same for me. Guess we're mushy that way." She consulted her watch again and this time stood up, leaving her jacket to the monster-sized cockroaches around. "Okay, time to go!" She grinned up at him and began rolling up her shirt. Connor's eyes widened but she stopped right below her breasts. Carefully, she unrolled a thin wire that'd been covered by the harder material of her bra and held it up in triumph. "Picking locks is a good hobby. Never forget that," she told him with a wink.

Connor couldn't help a smirk. "Can't wait to tell Angel what you just said."

"Who do you think taught me this?" she retorted with a laugh before she introduced a bent end of the wire into the lock and manoeuvred it until a click answered her efforts.

Connor moved to the door of his cell and waited for her to repeat her actions. "What's the plan?" he asked as soon as he got out.

Buffy pulled a dagger from her boot and gave it to him. Connor took it with a grin. It had taken a dozen demons to restrain him, and he'd been unarmed. Now the story would be very different. He eyed the wire around her wrists and asked for it. In his hands, it became an effective method of decapitation. If anything, the memories of Quor-Toth had taught him resourcefulness all over again.

Buffy took the dagger's twin for herself and her eyes lit almost ferally as she turned to the stairs leading up to the main room where the Hytrin were assembled. "A plan? We go in and kill everything with scales and horns around the nose. How does that sound?"

Connor nodded and grinned. He may not like his father's girlfriend very much, but fighting with her was always exciting. "Sounds like my kind of date," he laughed.

She almost tripped and whipped around to glare at him. "Don't ever say that again," she told him with a visible shudder.

Connor laughed harder. Okay, watching her reaction had been fun. Worth repeating even, maybe in front of Angel the next time? He let out a wicked smile and advanced until he'd passed her. "Gotcha!" he threw back before he ran up the stairs. He heard Buffy following after him, and on the other side of the metal door, he could hear a battle in motion, his father's voice somewhere in the fray.

Time to play.

The End
27/03/06