"Yes. Agent Finn. Riley. Tell him we need some help with Spike's chip."Buffy was talking in the phone, putting up her most professional voice, and listening sterny to the questions from the other end of the line, while trying to explain. "No, his chip!" New comment from the other, which Buffy answered with rising apprehension, "Well, maybe he used to work there, and then got transferred?"... "Ah, don't give me that "flower shop" crap again. Just give him the message, ok?!"
She turned to Spike, who was waiting nearby, and smiled. "At least they hadn't been alerted of my recent death. If that really was Riley's communication center, he'll hopefully get the message, and love me too much to not send someone to help." They shared a conspiratory look, and smiled at each others.
At the same time, Tara sat at her desk in her dorm room, trying to study, when someone knocked on the door. Outside was a highly disturbed Willow. "Can I come in?" she asked shakily. "Of course, Willow" Tara said, lead her ex girlfriend to the bed, and sat down on it with her. "What is the matter? Have something happened to you?" Willow just sat there, seeming unable to speak out her issues, just gave Tara a desperate gaze. "Is there anything I can do?" Tara asked, uncertainly. She still loved Willow, and was greatly disturbed by seeing her in this shook up condition. "Any problem you need handled? Any monster we should go out and kill together?" She tried sounding highly energized, to show Willow that whatever it was, she was up to it. But Willow just looked down, and continued shivering. Then, finally, she muttered "Buffy".
"Aww, of course" Tara mumbled, taking Willow into her arms. Buffy's death had already brought them closer together again. It was here, to Tara, Willow had gone for comfort after leaving Buffy's body with Spike, trusting him to take it home faster and safer than she could. They had spent the whole night just crying, in each others arms, and talked about Buffy. Her life, her death, and her probable eternal bliss in Heaven by now. Tara reckoned that it was another such night Willow needed now. She quickly learnt that she was wrong.
Willow broke away from Tara's embrace, to look her in the eyes, and started telling. "It turns out she is not exactly in Heaven. She was at our house tonight, talking to Dawn, and then nearly sank her fangs into me!"
Tara gave her a look of utter shock and confusion, and just sat there for a little while, her mind racing. "S…so she's a vampire. Wow! And invited into your house. By Dawn? How is Dawnie now? Is she … bitten?" Willow looked down. "I hope she is ok. I didn't get the impression that she was going to bite Dawn. It was all weird… But it seemed like the only reason she didn't go through with biting me, was that Dawn wouldn't like it. She wouldn't have cared about that if she was going to kill her too, would she?" Tara nodded, still working on processing what Willow was telling her. "So then" Willow continued, looking down at the bedsheet, "She let me go, and I went here. I am sorry to have to burden you with all of this, I don't want to be a burden, especially since we are not together anymore and all that, but…" Tara took her hand, and forced Willow to look at her. "Will, stop rambling. You can always come to me with your problems! I still care about you so much, and always will. And I will help you through this, as well as I can." They hold each others gaze for a good while after this, and Willow shed another tear, which Tara reaches out a hand to wipe away.
"Now, let's look at the problem at hand." Tara said, after having gotten her thoughts more or less in order, after Willow's bout of information. "Buffy is a vampire. She has gone evil, and you want her back to be your good friend again." Willow winced at this short and direct summary of the situation, but nodded. "I know the proper thing to do would be to stake her. But I can't bring myself to do that. I couldn't even stake myself as a vampire. I take it staking my best friend will be all the more impossible."
"Hmm" Tara nodded. "But that will only be necessary if we cannot think of a way to turn her back to good." She smiled, and sent Willow a knowing look. "Willow, doesn't this remind you of a situation you told me about before?"
Willow took only a second to catch up with her ex-girlfriend's point. "Of course! Angel. The redoing of the soul curse! But…" she sighed, and the enthusiasm left her. "That orb of Thesula went missing. And the Magic Box don't have such in stock for the moment. Getting another one might take a while. And you know I can't do magic anymore. It is too dangerous, even doing it for Buffy." "But you remember how to do it, right?" Tara asked. Her enthusiasm was not wavering. "Then you can teach me. And I am sure Giles or Anya can put the orb on express delivery, due to the exigencies of this situation. Who knows, maybe Giles even has one more left, laying around somewhere?
Buffy's request was answered with a return call the next evening, telling her that Riley had got her call, and asked some of his old Initiative friends to come check out her problem. They had arrived and were right now headed for the old Initiative facilities, which were not quite as sealed off as they were intended to be. They had agreed with Buffy to bring Spike over there, so that they could check out the problem, down in the medical lab.
Buffy turned away from the phone, as she put it back on the reciever, and gave Spike a wide grin. "They're coming. A soft plea from his old darling was all Captain Cardboard needed, to arrange a full aid squad." She laughed, and grabbed his arm, leading him out of the door, while adding "This is gonna be easy!"
They came to the old Initiative facilities at about the same time as the soldier squad, who, to Buffy's slight relief and disappointment, only consisted of three soldiers and a doctor. They greated each others with a nod, and went inside to find the right lab. When they got there, the soldiers and Buffy stood nearby, waiting, while the doctor put Spike on the operating table, and checked on his chip. He soon came back telling that the device may have some minor problems, from old age, but nothing serious enough to make a real issue. So he asked Buffy to specify what, more exactly was the the problem she had called in about? Buffy smiled, and replied, with a heavy touch of sarcasm: "The problem, doctor, is that it's keeping him from killing people!".
As she spoke, she morphed into game face, and quickly turned to face the soldiers, spinning around to the entire circle of them, hurriedly hitting and kicking the weapons out of their hands, and them to the ground. She then turned back into her human visage, while she collected the weapons, and twisted the necks of the knocked out soldiers, to make sure they were properly dead. Then she left the guns in a pile, except for one, which she pointed at the now terrified doctor and smirked. "So now, doc, I suggest that you take care of that problem, won't you?" He looked slowly from her to the dead soldiers, to Spike, and slowly shook his head. "I am not gonna help you do any more evil, Hostile!" "Hmm, not the answer I was looking for. Didn't I ask nicely enough?" She gave the doctor a wry smile, and then looked comtemptously at the gun in her hand. "These things…" she pointed out, more to herself than to him, "…never useful!" She threw the gun away, and approached him menancingly, grabbed his arm and gave him a cold smile. "You are afraid of ending up like them?" She gestured towards the soldiers. "Then let me tell you, they got it easy. Remarkably easy. There is a whole lot of ways to die in, and most of those are not as pleasant. At least not those I can come up with." She gave him a menancing smirk, and chuckled a little. "You know, there is an advantage to being a Slayer before becoming a vampire. I know a lot about violence. In lots of different ways, and more methods than you can imagine. And I am all to willing to test those on you. But we Slayers also have a strict code of conduct. Slaying is for enemies, not for good people. So if you are a good boy now, and do as you are told, we might let you walk out of this place. Do we understand each others?"
They stood for a good while like this, Buffy holding the doctor's gaze firmly with hers, before he finally nodded, and was let out of her grip and escorted to the operating table, where Spike still laid. Buffy stood behind him, and made sure he did it right, as he slowly got the chip out of Spike's head, and patched him up. Then he walked a little away, and mumbled "there, the job is done, so then I can go, right?" "Just a moment", Spike replied, standing up from the table, and rubbing his head. "got to check if you filled your end of the deal first." He walked up to the terrified man, quickly catching up with him when he tried to run, and hit him solidly over the head, so he fell back on the floor. "Congrats doc!" he smiled in delight. "The pain is gone! You have done your job. You are free to walk out of here" He turned to Buffy, casting her a knowing look, and getting a conspiratory wink back.
The doctor picked himself up, cast one last glance at the vampires behind him, and ran for the door. As soon as he was out of it, Buffy walked up to Spike, and said "so, he has walked out of here. We kept our part of the deal. Now, do you want the honour? It hasn't been too long to remember how to do it, has it?" Spike cast her a quick look, and chuckled. "Don't worry pet. That is not something a vampire is likely to forget!" "Good." Buffy smiled broadly, as they ran after the fleeing doctor, who never got any much further. "But this calls for a greater celebration. Want to go to the Bronze tonight? We could dance, listen to the music, and have ourselves a really good meal"