Chapter 2: Secrets

Directly after Drusilla had disappeared in the darkness, Spike felt his body finally relaxing. His hand dropped and he lost the grip on the stake, causing it to fall into the moist grass without making any sound. He let out the long ragged breath he had been unconsciously holding almost the whole time. What had happened? No, he knew that. The question was: Why hadn't Dru killed him, when she had the chance – or more importantly – what the hell was she doing here anyway?

He shook his head. It almost seemed to him as if she'd been waiting for him here. Maybe she wanted to give him another chance with her – maybe turning him again? No, that was out of question. She was over him. And what was she talking about this dark prince-guy? Everything was so confusing. Wait a minute – with Dru things were always confusing. You thought he wouldn't have forgotten that after having been her lover for a good hundred years.

But whatever she was here for, it had something to do with his Slayer. Suddenly his heart skipped a beat. I have something she might want back. "No," he mumbled in disbelief, before turning around hurriedly and starting to run as if a wild horde of really nasty demons were directly behind him.

Oh god, what a day, Buffy thought, when she opened the door and stepped into the hall. It was already almost midnight and now she wanted nothing more than maybe a hot shower and then go to sleep, cuddled up against the chest of an extremely sexy ex-vampire. After hanging her denim jacket at the dresser, she shuffled into the living room, from where she could hear the noises of the TV. "Hey Faith," she greeted the other Slayer, who was half sitting half lying on the couch covered by a blanket.

"Hey B," Faith answered, just looking up from the TV for the split of a second.

Buffy yawned and sat down in the armchair next to the couch. "Spike isn't here yet?"

"Nope, your wonderboy is still out patrolling. And before you ask," Faith said smirking, seeing that Buffy had already opened her mouth to ask another question. "Dawn is upstairs in her room and in bed. For about two hours already." The older Slayer sighed and leaned back in the armchair, closing her eyes. "B, are you okay?"

"Yeah, just a bit tired…" Buffy answered sleepily. "I swear, if tomorrow will be anything like today, I think I'll just stay in bed…"

"Come on, it couldn't have been that bad. You're still alive after all." Faith grinned at her.

The blond woman opened her eyes again to look at the younger Slayer. She almost couldn't believe how much Faith had changed over the last years. There had been a time when it hadn't been possible for them to talk like this. There had been a time, when they had tried to kill each other. Buffy wondered, when those changes had begun. She guessed that it had been, when they had been stuck in each other's bodies. Something while being in Buffy's body had triggered them, but Buffy couldn't exactly say, what. And she would probably never know. Fact is that Faith used the second chance she had been given - and used it well.

"Hey B, are you sure you're okay?" Faith asked again, when she noticed the faraway look in the other woman's eyes.

"Huh?" Buffy blinked, first after a few seconds comprehending the Faith's question. "Oh, yeah… I'm okay. As I already said, just tired. You can go home now, if you want. I'll go to bed and won't wait up for Spike."

"Good idea…" she said and got up from the couch, quickly discarding the blanket on the floor, followed Buffy out of the living room, but while Buffy walked over to the stairs, Faith grabbed her black leather jacket from the dresser and put her hand on the handle of the front door. "Buffy, I could take over your patrol tomorrow, if you'd like to relax and spend some time with Dawn or Spike or maybe both of them."

Buffy, who had already taken a few steps, turned around and gave the girl, of whom she would have never thought that they could become true friends, a tired smile. "That would be exactly what I need. Thanks, Faith, I really appreciate your offer…"

"Don't mention it," Faith said slightly embarrassed and suddenly acted like the handle of the door was the most interesting thing in the world. "Well, I gotta go now! Bye!" She pushed down the handle, opened the door and was almost run over by a very disheveled looking Spike, who had just wanted to open the door as well from the outer side and stumbled inside, falling down on his knees. "Spike?" she exclaimed surprised.

"Spike?" Buffy asked as surprised as her fellow Slayer, when she came back down the few steps.

The former vampire in questions was completely out of breath and sweat trickled down his face and neck. "Buffy…"

"Spike?" she asked again, this time growing worried and knelt down next to him. "What's going on? Did something happen?"

"Dru," he managed to choke out. "She's back… in town…"

"Oh god. Are you okay? Did she hurt you?" Buffy wanted to know, at the same time looking for any puncture marks on her boyfriend's neck. "What happened?"

"I'm okay," Spike answered. "She – she didn't want… to hurt me. She needed me – to tell you something…" He looked up and directly into Buffy's hazel eyes. "She said… she had something that you… might want… back."

Buffy looked at him and saw the look of fear and worry on his face – a look that started to mirror her own, when his words started to sink in and what they most likely would mean. "Dawn…" she whispered. Before even hesitating another second, she turned around and ran up the stairs, taking two to three steps at once. She hurried down the corridor until she reached her sister's room and threw her door open. "Dawn!" Her wide eyes frantically searched the dark room for her sister and she had to squeeze them shut, when suddenly the lamp on the nightstand was switched on.

"Geez, Buffy… What is it?" she heard the sleepy sounding voice of her sister asking.

Her eyes quickly wandered to the bed, where she saw her sister's form under the blanket and just her head sticking out of it. Buffy's heart started to slow down again and her breathing became again more relaxed, when she saw that Dawn was home and okay. "Nothing… Just…" Buffy shook her head. "It's nothing Dawn. Go back to sleep. I don't want you to sleep in tomorrow. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Buffy," Dawn said, when her sister closed the door again.

She let out the breath she had been holding the whole time and then inhaled deeply, waiting for her own heart rate to calm down again and listened for any noises that indicated that Buffy was again on her way downstairs. She waited a few minutes to make sure that her older sister was really gone, before she climbed out of the bed. First now you could see that she wasn't dressed in pajamas, but in long clothes that had traces of mud, grass and dust on them.

Still sitting on the bed she took off the black leather boots. Next she got up and slipped down the tight black leather pants, which she quickly discarded on the floor, followed by the black sleeveless top she had been wearing. After having put on her nightclothes, she pulled a black leather duster, much like the one Spike was wearing, out from under her bed along with several stakes, gathered the black clothes and stored them away in the back of her closet, where she was sure that no one would find them. At last Dawn took out a small hidden trunk of her closet, which she opened and put in the stakes, which had been lying under her bed, and in the end the silver cross that she had been wearing around her neck, before closing the trunk again and putting it back into its place.

When she was again lying in her bed and had switched off the light, she let out a long sigh. That had been close. Too close for her liking. She had to be more careful the next time, but this time it had just been unexpected. The appearance of Drusilla and Spike's wrong conclusion that she might be the one his ex had been talking about had almost blown her cover. Almost…

When Buffy came again downstairs, both, Spike, who in the meantime had enough time to gather his strength and was now standing again, and Faith looked at her expectantly and with worry written on their faces, but Buffy's smile let them immediately relax. "Dawn is okay…" she said. "I woke her up, but told her to go back to sleep again."

"Thank god," Spike muttered. "I don't know what I would have done, if something had happened to her."

"Me too," Buffy agreed, while walking back into the living room and sitting down on the couch, with Spike following her suit.

"Okay, guys," Faith said. "Now we know it isn't Dawn. Don't you think we should call the others to make sure that they are okay? And maybe call a Scooby meeting together? I mean, okay, I've never met Drusilla before, but she must be quite someone, if you're that worried."

"You're right, pet. The Nibblet may be safe, but we don't know about the others…"

"I'll call them." Buffy got up from the couch and went to the kitchen, where the telephone was.

Ten minutes and a few calls later, Buffy was back and was now lying in Spike's arms, while he was telling the two Slayers about his encounter with Dru. All of their friends here in Sunnydale were okay and they were now at a loss of whom Drusilla had been talking about, if not about one of their friends. But they had agreed that doing something about it right at that moment wouldn't do any good, so they set a Scooby meeting at nine o'clock in the morning. The two Slayers, as well as the two witches had to skip class, but the appearance of Dru was more important than college. Xander and Anya still had a few days left from their honeymoon, after they had spent two weeks in Florida and so he didn't need to go to work yet. The only one who couldn't be at the meeting was Dawn, which had been Buffy's decision, by which both Spike and Faith had been a bit surprised, since Buffy, at least since she had 'come back', let Dawn always help with researching.

"Her dark prince?" Faith asked, raising an eyebrow. "Who should that be?"

"I don't know," Spike answered shrugging. "Definitely not me. I've always been her dark knight and she doesn't want me back anyway. Plus I've never heard her talk about a dark prince before… There is of course one person, whom she could call dark prince."

"Angel?" Even though Buffy made it sound like a question, she knew that Spike was thinking about him.

"More Angelus, I'd say," Faith threw in. "Should we call him, too?"

"Pet, you forget that Angel is human. He can't convert back to Angelus…"

"We should call him anyway," the blonde mused. "He should be warned and maybe he could even help us. It's Dru we're dealing with and you and Angel are the only ones who know her well enough to be of help. I call him and then we should go to bed. I'm already tired enough as it is and I need to be fully awake when I'll face her tomorrow. Faith, you want to stay here over night?"

"Sure… I know where everything is. You call Angel and I go upstairs and make myself comfortable. Goodnight you two…" With saying this she rose from the armchair and made her way upstairs, while Spike helped an extreme sleepy Buffy up and went with her to the kitchen. There she picked up the phone and dialed the number of Angel Investigations in LA. She waited for a about a minute, until finally someone answered the phone. "Angel? Hi, sorry that I call you this late… Oh, you just came back from a fight?… Yes, I know that we haven't talked in a while… A very long while, I know. Please Angel, listen… We kind of have a problem here…"

"Yuck. This stuff will never be washed out," Cordelia complained, when Angel put the receiver back on the station. Her blue jeans and red sweater were stained with violet demon goo, showing that they really just had a nasty fight against some demon, which she tried to rub out with a wet towel. "Who was that?"

Angel, who miraculously looked as if he hadn't been fighting at all, looked up. "Krkow demon," he answered. "And you just have to use some turpentine to get this stuff out."

"And make my clothes all uncolory? No thanks, I think I rather spend a day in the bathtub and try to scrub it out with water and soap. And I was asking who was on the phone."

"Oh, that was Buffy. Drusilla is in Sunnydale and is planning something. I told her you, Wes and I will go to Sunnydale first thing in the morning," Angel told her.

"I see… Uhm, Angel," Cordelia hesitated. "Have you already told her?"

"What? That you're half-demon? No, not yet… But I don't think that this will bother her much."

"No, I mean… I was talking about," she motioned with her head to a teenage boy with short dark brown hair, who was storing away some weapons in the closet, "him." She looked back at Angel and noticed at once the look of guilt on his face.