Chapter Four

At the Hyperion

"Is Faith still asleep?" Buffy asked. She had Willow and Dawn meet her in the cellar. Spike was already there. It was almost noon.

"As far I know," Willow answered. "Haven't heard anything from your old room, so I guess she is."

"Unless she got up and left without us knowing about it," Dawn speculated.

"I doubt that, not with her appetite," Buffy contradicted her. "If she got up, she'd eat something before she left, and would leave a mess in the kitchen."

"So, what's this secret meeting all about?" Willow asked. "Something about Faith?"

"More or less. I'm going to leave Sunnydale for a while. I think if I give Faith some breathing room she might not feel so pressured. Plus it will give her a chance to be the only Slayer here."

"Where will you go?" Dawn asked, not liking that idea.

"I've already talked to Angel, and he says it's okay if I - we, come for a week or two."

"You're going, too?" Willow asked Spike. "And Angel's okay with that?"

"He wasn't too keen on the idea at first," Buffy replied, not giving Spike a chance to answer. "But we both agreed that Faith should be the only one here with super powers. And I think Spike will be safer with me than with Faith."

"You have super powers now?" Dawn asked Spike, mocking him a bit.

"You know what she means," he growled.

"Are you going to tell Faith?" Willow wanted to know.

"I think I should, otherwise, she'll think I've got something to hide leaving without telling her. Plus, she'll probably know that's the only place I'd go."

"Well, at least you're going to be upfront about it."

Everyone looked up to see Faith standing on the stairs.

"How long have you been there?" Buffy asked.

"Long enough. So, B, you're skipping town, huh?"

"I think it's for the best, for now. You said you wanted to make the decision about me on your own. So with me gone, you can do your job and figure things out without any pressure."

"Taking your boy-toy is probably a good plan. I know you don't want me boinking him like I did Xander, and ol' what's-his-face, the commando guy; or staking him if he gets in my face."

Buffy felt the anger in her start to rise and almost said something, but decided it wasn't worth it. She knew Faith was just pushing buttons. "We'll be leaving right after dark," she said in a calm, mater-of-fact voice. "You can still stay here while I'm gone, if you want to."

"Thanks. Be sure to tell Angel I said hello."

Faith turned to go back upstairs, then hesitated. "I'll call Giles later on, after you've gone."

Buffy nodded in acknowledgement and Faith continued up the stairs, then they heard her in the kitchen.

[ten hours later...]

As Angel's car pulled up to the Hyperion Hotel, Buffy once again expressed her appreciation to Cordelia for picking them up at the bus station.

"Not a problem," she replied. "It was just so spur-of-the-moment. I mean, what else did I have to do? Oh, other than my first real date in six months, which I had to cancel, thank you very much. But who's complaining?"

'Same old Cordy,' Buffy thought to herself. Out loud she said, "If I had known Angel and Wesley and the other guy. . . ."

"Gunn," Cordelia reminded her. "And Fred's with them, too."

"Yeah, Gunn, and that other guy. If I had known they would be tracking the queen Trochahn demon before she could lay any more eggs, we would have waited until tomorrow night. Or come a day early to help out."

"Well, you didn't, so here we are."

As soon as they had unloaded Buffy's suitcase, Cordelia restarted the car. "Angel said to take any room you like, just not on the second floor. He left clean sheets and stuff on the desk in his office. 'Bye now."

"Trusting sort," Spike commented as they entered the lobby. "Nobody locks the doors?"

"Maybe he left it unlocked because he knew we were coming," Buffy guessed.

They looked around some, checked out the weapons cabinet, then took the sheets, pillow cases and blankets up to the third floor. After looking into several rooms, which all pretty much looked the same, they took the one closest to the stairs. Neither were particularly sleepy so they had sex and talked about Faith, had sex again and talked more her until they heard the front door of the hotel open and they went downstairs. It was 4 a.m.

Everyone Angel, Wesley, Gunn and Fred, were covered in green, yellow and brown slime and a lot of red pieces of entrails.

"You made it," Angel said when he saw them. "Both of you."

"Hello, Buffy," Wesley said. "It's good to see you." He barely nodded at Spike.

"Wesley. You doing okay?"

"Surprisingly well."

"Everyone, this is Buffy . . . and Spike," Angel said. "This is Charles Gunn and Fred, Winifred, Burkle."

"Hi," Fred said a bit too enthusiastically as she offered a slimy handshake, then pulled her hand back when she realized what she had done. "It's nice to finally meet you. The real Slayer. Wow."

"Thanks. Cordelia didn't say you were a girl - woman. So, you kill demons with the guys, huh?"

"Charles and me, we're kind of a team."

Buffy nodded, but couldn't help but notice an almost imperceptible tension in Wesley when she said that.

"We need to get cleaned up," Angel said. "It's been a long night and everyone's beat. So. . . ."

"Oh, sure. We can catch up later. I guess we could use some sleep as well. We took room 302, so if we oversleep or something you know where to find us. Oh, and Faith says hello."

With "good nights" exchanged, everyone separated to their rooms, except Wesley, who left for his own apartment.

"Well, that was awkward," Spike commented after they had gotten back into bed.

"I don't think they're still really sure about us being here. But maybe after a few days . . . ."

"Maybe."

Before they could fall asleep, there was a tap at the door. Buffy put on a robe and went to answer it. It was Angel.

"Just checking to see if you're all settled in. I have some blood pig's blood, in the small refrigerator in my office downstairs, if you need any."

"Thanks, but we're good."

After an awkward moment Angel said, "It might take Gunn a while to warm up to you. His sister was sired and he had to stake her, so he's not big on vampires, re-ensouled or chipped."

"We'll give him some space."

"Okay. So, goodnight."

Buffy closed the door and got back into bed. "You heard?" she asked Spike.

"Yeah, I heard. Don't much care about what Gunn likes or doesn't like, but I might take him up on that blood."

Buffy felt as if she had just fallen asleep when she heard a knocking on the door. From the light filtering around the curtains she could tell it was late morning. Once again she put on her robe, and opening the door she found Cordelia standing there.

"Something going on?" she asked.

"Angel said you could come, so I have no control over that," Cordelia said with no preface. "It was his decision and this is his hotel. It's taken him a long time to get over you, but I know he still has feelings. So if you hurt him or break his heart . . . "

"Cordelia, I'm with Spike now."

". . . I'll stake you myself," Cordelia said, talking over Buffy. "Slayer vampire or not, there won't be enough of you left to fit into an ashtray. Are we clear?"

"Look, I'm just here because of Faith."

"You heard what I said."

Cordelia turned around and marched off as Buffy closed the door.

'That is NOT the same old Cordelia,' she thought as she dropped the robe and climbed back into bed into Spike's waiting arms.

To Be Continued