Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warnings: This is one chapter and I'm not sure I'll expand it. The story starts in media res, and is essentially one long scene I couldn't get out of my brain. Crossover with Angel the series. Underlying Spuffy, but they aren't the focus. Eventually, events would lead to Spuffy. Vampires doing their thing. Somewhat graphic descriptions of gore. Extremely unreasonable Riley. There maybe should be a warning for unlikely large groupings of characters in one place ha.
Family Matters
Spike lies in the electrical-field reinforced cage. He looks like hell. Outside of Spike's prison, Riley twists Buffy's arm behind her in silent reminder. Forrest digs the gun into Tara's back. Willow stares fearfully over at Buffy. Buffy can't throw Willow's love under the bus for Buffy's own. She keeps her face expressionless and makes no indication to Spike that she's here to rescue him. Riley drapes a heavy arm over her shoulder. Great, now it looks like she's here with Riley to gloat over Spike's brokenness.
Spike lifts his head to look at Buffy the way a man looks at a safe haven in a storm. Then he sees her with Riley. Her forced capitulation is not clear from where he sits. Buffy sees the last spark of light in Spike's eye snuff out like a guttering candle. Her heart breaks at the sight. Spike has never looked so defeated and Buffy knows she's responsible for a great deal of it.
Riley smiles nastily at Spike. "All right. We can go. I've gotten what I wanted." He'd seen the last flicker of hope die in Spike's eyes, too.
More soldiers pour into the other end of the corridor.
"Where are we taking the intruders, sir?" A soldier at the front of the line says.
Buffy sees, with great surprise, that Cordy, Gunn, Wesley, and Fred are being led forward. What were they doing here? And if they were here, where was Angel?
Riley, not recognizing any of the group, says, "Are they in cahoots with you, Buffy?"
"No," Buffy honestly answers. She has no idea what the LA crew is doing in the research facility.
Someone either from Buffy's team or the LA side must give away with their expression that they recognize each other, because they are lumped together and ordered to be detained until further notice. Riley starts to lead Buffy and the others out of the containment center when a decidedly tweedy set come strolling up.
Four council members. Giles and Wesley make noises of surprise and disgust.
"You've bastardized the mission, combining forces with this low-brow agency!" Giles snaps at one of the council men.
"It is you, Rupert Giles and you, Wesley Windham-Pryce, who have sullied the mission. Vampires as cohorts, companions, even leaders. You have fallen so far off the grid with your work, you don't even realize how insensible you've become."
Buffy watches Spike's eyes gaze dully at the floor in front of him. He is slumped against the back wall. He is starved, beaten, his bleached hair has been shorn down to a buzz cut. They've dressed him in sickly pale green hospital scrub bottoms and nothing else. Buffy can clearly see the angry red lines on his chest where they'd vivisected him and then sewn him back up.
Buffy feels tears prick her eyes. She doesn't know if she loves Spike, not the way he loves her, but he has loved her. She can see that now. These last weeks with him missing left a huge hole in Buffy's life. She never realized how much she'd come to rely on him. His strength on patrol, his emotional support, his unending belief in her. All he'd done was build her up and all she'd done was tear him down. That was their relationship. That was them, sleeping together. That was who they were with Buffy in control. And now, the proud and cocksure master vampire with the blazing personality who had crashed into her town so many years ago, lays crumpled and pathetic on the cold unforgiving floor. Spike's had a bad run of it, but Buffy can't help thinking: this is what happened because he knew Buffy. If they'd never known each other, or if they'd done things properly and killed each other, Spike wouldn't be this shadow of his former self. Buffy wants to scream that she's sorry, that she'd come to save him, that she still wants him in her bed, but she also thinks she wants him in her life…the gun doesn't waver from Tara.
Xander meets her eyes. He looks wary. Once Buffy had become frantic in her search for Spike, it became clear to all that the Slayer's relationship with the vampire had changed, intimately. Xander had nearly blown a gasket, but he still came on the rescue mission. Buffy thinks it might have been more motivated by Xander wanting to rescue Buffy from herself than anything to do with the chipped vampire. Still, Xander looked equally horrified by Spike's condition. Xander doesn't like Spike, but he wasn't heartless. They knew Spike. Like him, love him, hate him…they knew him. It is Xander's knowing gaze that keeps Buffy's mouth shut. She can't afford to be selfish. If Xander can tell that she's tempted to make a reckless play for Spike, then she must look pretty desperate. Buffy grits her teeth and bides her time.
Spike is so far gone, he isn't picking up any of the conversation around him. Buffy recognizes the look of someone present who wishes to escape and can't. He's chosen to escape inward to avoid the pain of being under such intense scrutiny by those he is acquainted with.
"Run and catch…run and catch…" a faraway woman's voice echoes around the corridor. The heated conversation between the commandos, the council members, and Buffy's group dies down.
Two Initiative soldiers break away to investigate the singing. Spike has perked up and looks with wide unseeing eyes off to the side, head cocked, listening.
"The lamb is caught in the blackberry patch…"
Spike's arms and legs tremble as he fights to stand. He manages to stagger closer to the invisible electric wall separating him from freedom before collapsing again. His eyes are more present, awed, hopeful.
"Blood on her dress…blood on the floor…"
Drusilla creeps into the light of the corridor, looking both innocent and devious. The soldiers shift uneasily. "Halt, hands in the air!"
Drusilla ignores the shouted order. She walks right up to Spike's prison and tips her head lazily to the side, looking in at him.
"Lamb doesn't know his own mind, anymore." Drusilla finishes singing, eyes locked on Spike's.
Buffy watches Spike's eyes begin to shine with tears. His face is bleak and desperate, but a different sort of spark has ignited in his eyes again. Not hope, exactly. Maybe relief? Riley still has a grip on Buffy's arm. Tara is still being held at gunpoint. Buffy wants to break free and stake Drusilla or warn the soldiers that she was a vampire, but her hands are tied.
Conflicted, Buffy remains silent.
"Oh, my beautiful Spike. What have they done to you?" Drusilla coos at him.
The councilwoman who interviewed Spike when Glory was in town, Lydia, is staring hard at the vampire in the long dark dress. "So familiar…"
One Initiative soldier approaches her, face serious and brow furrowed. It's obvious to everyone present that Drusilla is not in her right mind. The soldier comes to her in confusion and pity, still ready to secure her. He, and all the other soldiers and scientists, clearly aren't taking Drusilla seriously.
It is a mistake.
"Dru," Spike croaks hoarsely in warning as the soldier comes up behind her.
Understanding lights Lydia's face and she shouts, too late, "That is Drusilla, the Mad! Proceed with caution-!"
Drusilla whips around and with snake-like striking movements, stabs two fingers in the air in front of the soldier's eyes. Her eyes practically glow, hypnotic.
"Be in me." The soldier halts in front of Drusilla. Spike watches, wide-eyed, face tipped up at his Sire in an almost child-like way.
Buffy feels dread bloom in her gut.
"Dear, god." Giles murmurs.
"What are you doing, soldier? Reynolds! Apprehend her!"
But Reynolds is no longer fighting for the Initiative. Drusilla skips around the frozen man and peers around the room with dark, seeking eyes. She looks like a kid with an exciting secret to tell.
"Naughty toy soldiers with their naughty tin guns. Inviting my poor Spike to play, but not giving him a turn. Your toys make you think the world is yours, but that just isn't so. See?" She giggles madly. Drusilla aims her pointer finger and thumb at a soldier next to Fred like she is holding a gun. "Piu! Piu! Piu!" Drusilla makes cartoony shots fired noises at three different confused soldiers, re-aiming her finger-gun each time. Reynolds, still under her thrall, snaps his rifle up and fires off three shots in quick succession. Each soldier Drusilla aimed at staggeres back, blood spraying from each kill shot.
Fred screams as the soldier who had been holding her arm, collapses at her feet, dead. Blood has sprayed all up Fred's skirt and cardigan.
Drusilla shakes a finger at Fred, "Blood on your dress."
The remaining soldiers are shouting in horror and confusion at their seemingly traitorous comrade.
Each council member and demon fighter from Sunnydale and LA stare at the blood pooling at Fred's feet. Blood on her dress. Blood on the floor.
Lydia's voice shakes, "Release the Slayer, soldier. You are outmatched for this vampire."
Riley's face is taut with tension. "Every vamp's the same where it counts. They dust, and we know how to make it happen." He looks at his remaining squadron. "Take her and Reynolds out. There's no room for turncoats on this base."
Drusilla waves an unconcerned hand at Reynolds, who points his gun at the advancing soldiers. She glides around the room, placing two more of the closest soldiers under her thrall.
A stalemate.
Drusilla's three thralled soldiers stand off against the rest of the group. Drusilla turns back to Spike.
"My poor Spike. It took so long to find you. I could hear you," Dru puts trembling fingers up to her temples, "screaming and screaming all the way from Brazil. But I've good news for you." She smiles in fiendish delight, clapping her hands together like a pleased child. "We're having a family reunion!"
Spike stares at her wordlessly, not understanding. Darla dead, and Angel all souled up in LA, what kind of reunion could there be?
"You still haven't finished? Drusilla, what I have told you about playing with your food?"
Dru turns slowly, with a playful pout. "Not today?"
Darla, undusted and regal as a queen entering her throne room, strides into the crowded corridor. "That's right. Not today. We are on a schedule. Where is your childe?" Darla comes to stand by Drusilla. "Ah. There you are William, I hardly recognized you. Can't say the years have been kind. You look like hell."
Davis and Henderson, the closest two council members have begun muttering together agitatedly.
"Who the hell is this?" The commander of the second squad asks angrily. Far too many intruders. Not to mention casualties, turncoats, and a forced standoff. Heads were going to roll for the mishandling of the situation occurring today.
"Darla," Buffy whispers. Riley jerks her arm. "Riley, I watched this vamp dust years ago. Something's wrong here."
"Wolfram and Hart brought her back," Gunn says with gritted teeth. His eyes are on the two female vampires who have drawn close like school girls, sharing secrets. Drusilla suddenly appears so much younger next to Darla, though both women's faces are preserved with eternal youthful beauty. "These two have been causing trouble all over LA for months."
"And that's just the short story," Cordy mutters.
"Why wasn't I told?" Buffy hisses.
"Silence!" A soldier barks.
"Geez!" Cordy winces as she's shoved into Wesley by a pissed off soldier.
"Yes, it is a long story." Darla drawls, half-hooded eyes resting on Buffy. "And part of the reason for our little trip today. I've decided it's time to come together as a family once more. That's what family is for, after all. Standing together, back to back, when shit hits the fan." Darla turns to Spike. He's staring at her like she's a ghost.
"Bitch," he rasps. "Since when do you think like that? You've always been the first to turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble. How many times have you abandoned us when it looked like we weren't going to make it?"
Darla scoffs. "Ungrateful childe. How many times have we risked our necks pulling you out of the clutches of an angry mob when you grew careless and caused a huge scene? We have pulled your ass out of the fire, again and again. I won't hear such ingratitude from you. Would you prefer to rot in this prison?" Her bearing is supercilious. Buffy can more clearly see the family resemblance to the Master in Darla, just in the way she speaks and carries herself. "I am the head of this family. You haven't lived a quarter of the time I've walked this earth. You think there aren't reasons for what I do?" Her voice is like honey, convincing and sickly sweet. Darla is as dangerous and in charge as a queen bee.
Drusilla clasps her hands together in delight. "Our family has grown, my Spike. It will just like the old days, but even better! You must join us and meet him. Our darling new boy is precious like the worms in the earth. Wriggling!" She squeals a little at the end.
The soldiers, still in a standoff, stare at Drusilla in confused horror. Davis hisses, "Three members of the Whirlwind together again? And with a new vampire in the lineage? They must have replaced Angelus." Henderson, white, makes no indication of having heard his colleague.
Darla stares straight at the tweedy men with a viscous smile. "I suppose that's true, in a sense. But make no mistake. My Angelus is irreplaceable. Believe me, I've tried."
"Compliments will get you everywhere," a familiar boisterous voice calls out cheerfully. Buffy feels her stomach try to turn itself inside out.
Angelus strolls into the corridor with a lively bounce in his step. His good mood is clear. In his voice, in his walk, in his manner. That was proof enough that the Angel's soul had left the building. The blood spattered across Angelus' white shirt made it even more obvious.
Fred whimpers. Angelus' head whips towards the slight girl, a wolfish grin stretching his mouth. It looks so unnatural on his usual pondering face.
Something terrible was going to happen if things continued to spool out, unchecked.
Buffy chokes back her horror and her tears so that when Angelus finishes scaring poor Fred and turns to Buffy, her face is implacable.
Angelus' eyes are dead, though lit with a fiendish light. Everything good, and right, and loved gets swallowed in those eyes. Buffy knows first-hand.
Shocking, the difference between Angelus' soulless eyes and Spike's.
"Hey there lover. I'm pretty busy today, but I promise we'll be catching up sometime real soon."
Darla clears her throat disapprovingly. "If you're quite finished with my poor replacement, Angelus, I remind you again that we are on a tight schedule."
Angelus laughs, "Happy women, happy home, amirite?" He smacks a hand across the back of Henderson's head. The tweedy man's face is so white that Buffy expects him to collapse at any moment.
The second commander glares at what he perceives is the alpha threat in the room. "What the hell do you want?"
Angelus claps his hands together once, business-like. "Just our boy, Willy here." He walks over to the cage. "Damn! Did they work you over or what? Pretty poor use of a good canvas though. Look how boring those incisions are…"
Lydia stares in clear horror and fascination. She whispers at the second commander. "You have no idea what historical significance this gathering represents."
Giles has never looked grimmer. "Nor the danger."
Drusilla spins in graceful circles by herself, humming happily. She brings the thralled Reynolds into her grasp and begins waltzing with him.
Angelus paces up and down in front of Spike's containment room with deliberate strides and frenetic energy. He is like the ringmaster at a crazy kind of circus. He draws the attention of everyone, from the soldiers to the scientists to the councilmen, to Buffy and her friends. Darla smirks smugly and strolls over to the wall, idly slashing the throat of yet another soldier with razor sharp nails. With Drusilla's thralled soldiers still holding the room at a standstill, no one is able to react properly to murder.
Buffy vibrates with rage. "Let me go, Riley! Let Tara go!"
Riley swings his head back and forth, taking in the situation. His face is pinched with tension and anger. "No. Hold your position," he says to the man holding Tara hostage.
"This is not the time to try and assert your control! You have no idea what these vampires are capable of—"
"Buffy, I find it hard to believe that you would say that after screwing two of them. For once, let the professionals handle this."
Buffy is in disbelief. Riley has clearly lost it. She wants to believe he's been brainwashed again, but can't summon the will to care. As it is, he has tied her hands. She can't intervene without signing Tara's death warrant.
Because of that, people were going to die. It crackles in the air around Angelus.
He appraises Spike. "Now see, this just pisses me off. Not only did you people think you had the right to take what's mine, but you also seriously misused him."
Drusilla is humming a waltz tune now, still dancing with Reynolds, whose blank eyes stare sightlessly over her shoulder.
Spike glares at Angelus. "I can't fucking believe this. Will you ever show up when I'm actually at full strength? First, I'm a fledge, then I'm stuck in a submarine, then I'm paraplegic, and now I'm recently vivisected! What's it take? If you're here to play kick the Spike, you can just fuck off."
Angelus laughs, "Cute, that you think you have a say in all this."
"Boys," Darla scolds, "Remember we are playing nice now."
"Dru," Angelus snaps suddenly. "I'm sick of this damn song. If you're gonna do that, at least hum that tune…what was it we saw…"
"Giselle," Spike says after a thoughtful silence falls over the fanged four.
"Yes!" Angelus laughs, "that's it exactly! You always had a good ear for that cultured shit, Will."
Drusilla obediently changes the tune of the waltz and Reynolds hums the harmony. They twirl and spin together a little faster around the room.
"Now, where was I? Oh. That's right. You scientists make me sick and I'll tell you why. Never let it be said that I can't turn a failure into a teaching moment. So let me tell you where you went wrong and what would be right." Angelus places his hands on his hips. "You don't do torture right. When you cut into a body," he gestures at Spike, "it shouldn't be so unfeeling. Where's the beauty in that? Torture is an art." Angelus prowls the edge of the room. "Listen to Dru's music. You hear how pretty that crap is?" Angelus sways a moment to the lyrical sounds coming for his childe and her thrall. "It's like you people can only hear the math in music, the beats and the space in between, the notes and the technicality of it all." Angelus pauses in front of a soldier, cupping a sarcastic hand to his ear. "But you aren't really hearing it. You aren't feeling it when you slice and dice and and deal death. Where's the style? Where's the spirit?" Angelus grins and Drusilla's humming waltz crescendos in volume and speed.
Angelus gets right in the soldier's face. "Where's the heart?" Angelus plunges a hand into the soldier's chest and rips out his heart.
Someone screams.
Buffy's world narrows to the bloody organ in her ex's hand. The slayer within howls for blood and for justice.
Darla has an approving, indulgent look on her face. Dru laughs gaily.
Spike watches him, looking half-concerned and half-impressed.
Buffy meets Spike's eyes. He is the only one of the vamps in the room to seem concerned with a negative human reaction to the gore.
Angelus soaks up the horror and the hate radiating from the humans in the room like a maestro soaking up the applause at the end of a performance.
He pins one of the Initiative scientists with a predatory look.
"You seem more confused and curious than anything. Not the usual reaction I get. Why is that?"
The scientist looks at Angelus like an especially fascinating animal. As if the vamp was a wild bear who'd learned to wear a suit and walk down the street like a man.
"You display so much personality and reasoning potential. Until Hostile 17, I'd never come across an HST who could mimic humanity so closely. And now you and the females present yourself as a familial unit to Hostile 17, and you all share this strong characteristic." He seems to forget who he's talking to, caught up in an investigative fervor. The enjoyment has slowly leaked from Angelus' face during the scientists diatribe.
In his cell, a small smirk curls the corner of Spike's mouth. His eyes are much brighter than when Buffy first arrived. His expression says, 'oh you're gonna get yours.'
Angelus glides up to the babbling scientist.
"You're all wrong." The master vamp interrupts. "No wonder you people are confused over creatures of the night. Is this what you cracked my grandchilde open for? To find out the how and why of a vampire?" Angelus' voice has dropped to a silky whisper.
The scientist nods slowly, an excited gleam in his eye.
Angelus' lip curls back. "There's really only one answer to both of your questions. Do you want to know the answer?"
"Oh, yes." The scientist breathes.
"Fool," Wesley murmurs in the background.
"Open your mouth," Angelus purrs.
"What?"
"You can open your mouth, or one of us can make you."
The scientist stares in disbelief at Angelus, then at Dru still dancing with Reynolds.
Fear blooms behind the scientist's thick glasses for the first time. Slowly he opens his mouth a little bit.
"The answer, my short-sighted prey, is always blood." Angelus crams the dead soldier's heart into the scientists mouth. The man screams in a muffled way and chokes, suffocating. Angelus picks the man up, convulsions and all, and throws him into the electric field imprisoning Spike.
The traumatized, remaining humans duck and cover as sparks and ash fly from the electric explosion that results from this action.
When the smoke clears, Buffy sees Spike being helped to his feet by Drusilla. Darla is swept up in Angelus' passionate embrace. Dru's thralled soldiers still point their guns at their own comrades.
The commandos are in an uproar. The council members are in a panic. Then LA crew looks sickened, none but Cordy having previously been exposed to Angelus' cruel games before. Fred's crying, quiet and shocked. Gunn looks murderous and Wesley, bleak.
Riley's shaking in anger and fear and still Tara is held at gunpoint. Willow is trying to talk the shell-shocked soldier down, obviously worried that in his panic he might shoot Tara by accident.
Buffy only has eyes for Spike. Dru brushes his bare chest off as if the scars could be swept away. "All better my Spike. You're with family now. Would you like to eat your fill?"
Now that he's closer, Buffy can see where the chip had been removed. The scars in his scalp are clearly visible with his hair buzzed so short.
Spike stares at Buffy, Giles, Willow, Tara, and Xander with conflicted, haunted eyes.
"Buffy?" He whispers, that spark of hope flaring briefly again. His eyes beg her.
Tell me what to do. Tell me you want me. Tell me you love me.
Buffy knows that Spike will stay if she asks it of him. That he would fight by her side. But Buffy can't speak. She's going to bruise from how hard Riley is gripping her arm, even with Slayer strength and healing. And Tara is still in danger.
Spike waits in a moment that stretches long between them, unable to see the gun at Tara's back. Dru turns her dark eyes on Buffy.
And Buffy says nothing. Tears well in her eyes.
Spike's shoulders slump. Drusilla strokes his back. "Silly William. There's nothing for you there but ash. They spit upon you. Why would you go back?"
Spike's eyes are hollow. Buffy can see his heart break again. There's something final about it this time.
Spike slings an arm around Dru's waist. Darla scoffs. "Honestly, have you learned nothing from our lessons? Humans are notoriously unreliable, William. What on earth were you thinking, falling in with them?"
She sounds like a disapproving mother scolding her boy for playing with the unsavory ruffian children down the street. There's a strong 'I told you so' tone in Darla's voice.
Xander makes a weird noise next to Buffy.
Buffy understands. She can see the weirdness in the situation, too. How often had she and they been cautioned against fraternizing with Spike? How often had they cautioned themselves against his evil influence?
Weird, to see him be cautioned in turn, from the other end of the spectrum.
And quite frankly, compared to the rest, Spike does not seem particularly evil or insane.
If shunning Spike hadn't felt like a mistake before, it certainly did now.
"Wasn't there some noise about a schedule?" Angelus breaks in. Darla nods.
"We need to be back to relieve the sitter," she says to Angelus. "No more dawdling, no matter what."
"I'm ready. Had my fun." He assures her, then looks at Dru and Spike. "Time to go." Darla and Angelus sweep out of the area.
Dru grabs Spike's hand and leads him out of the corridor. Spike looks over his shoulder at Buffy one last time, before he too is swallowed up by the darkness.