What the hell had they done to Spike?
For a moment she forgot what the people in white were doing to her head; she saw red and in a feat of incredible strength ripped through her bonds, fuelled by her anger. She pushed the doctor preparing to insert a chip into her brain aside and strode out of the room, sobbing as she remembered the look on his face as the arrow had hit him, fired by his own sire. She guessed he was dead. And he her friend too.
It was funny to think at his end she had trusted him more than Angelus, her ex-lover and the guy who'd knocked her out.
Except it wasn't funny, because he was dead.
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He wasn't dead. But, he thought, in the depths of despair, she probably was.
Spike fluidly rolled up from the chair in his crypt, trudging through the dust of his sire, the only pang being a familial sire-bond one.
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What had happened? As Dru had fired the shot, Angelus was preparing to swirl round, to knock Buffy out with the hilt of his sword. Once the arrow had been released, Angelus had swung around to do so, her hitting the ground before Spike could look up in pain at Dru, who had missed. On purpose? No. He could read her like a book, and she was pouting at her 'Daddy' in apology. He turned back, but the poofter was making a dramatic exit with Buffy hooked over his shoulder. Dru would have followed, were it not for the spine of wood piercing her own, flung with unerring precision and anger at her by Spike, that turned her to the dust she should have been 100 years before.
Spike had sat down for but one minute, placing a reassuring hand on a quivering Clem's shoulder before deciding that, having now taken care of his friend, he could go after his Slayer.
The Slayer.
You know, if he had to.
To save the world and all.
Not because he'd been denying himself that pleasure since Angelus' swooshy coat had made its stupid exit.
No way.
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Giles had seen it all unfold, a terrible set of tableaux, each one staying as a still in his mind. The kiss. The unification. The unconsciousness.
Christ, he had wanted to scream, but he recognised that he was no use to Buffy dead. That hadn't stopped him from crying now, the only sound that jolted through his haze of tears was the slam of the door and Spike's thudding footsteps as he ran up the courtyard steps.
"Wait!"
Spike rotated on his heel impatiently. "What, Watcher? Gotta get our-your girl, han't I?"
Summoning his imperious voice, Giles voiced that he was coming too. But he suspected that Spike the character studier saw through it all, and in a steadier, softer accent that belied the violence of his words, got the response: "Then get your arse moving, Rupes. I have not got all day!"
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Clem was not pleased.
How...just how could he hear of the great Bangel romance and then see that? The poor dear had, from what Spike had told him, had a number done on her-fooling herself into thinking no soul meant no emotion in all vampires, simply to account for her ex's evilness and hatred, and ruining Spike's chances, unless he-Clem- could fix it by enlisting his friends. He had an inkling of where she might have got to; on the grapevine he had heard of an underground group giving out rewards for her head. Literally underground.
The girl had the cavalry coming. He and Spike had discussed their plan of action; it was time to get some of those nice moleworm demons on side to dig her out.
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If it was possible, her captors should have been even more secure when it came to containing a vastly pissed off Slayer. They had a girl effortlessly beating away highly trained soldiers-no girls, she noted, which would have annoyed her until she realised, further in, that this was the Initiative, and there was Maggie, and no one should have to deal with that level of bitchiness, and that the girls would have seen that level a mile off.
"Bloody eyeshadow," she muttered in a Spike voice, punching someone casually in the face. "Dead giveaway."
Girls were a good judge of character when it came to make-up. Especially Cordelia. If she qualified as a girl, she thought sadly but almost jokingly before remembering that her sort-of-friend had been hospitalised by her ex and was genuinely doing some good in LA; by all accounts she was really growing as a person-
Wait. Angel wouldn't sleep with someone he didn't know well. Cordy?
No. Cordy had respect for herself-some would say too much-and she knew of the curse. Buffy kicked a nameless crotch and continued on. If she wanted to get her rocks off-ew, Spike-ism- then she'd find another way.
So how did Angel lose his soul this time?
