Okay so... been a while! Hey guys! I'm not going to give you some boring long explanation about my absence, but I will say that I'm trying to get the time to get back to writing for my stories. I have chapter 7 for Gypsy's Gift written as well, and I'll be posting that in a couple of days. It's not extremely long, like this one isn't very long, but it is (I hope) more exciting than this chapter.
This chapter is basically filler - sorry about that - background info and what not, but the real action will be starting up very soon. Hold tight, kiddies! This story's just getting revved up.
Chapter rating: T
-insert disclaimer here-
Buffy hadn't slept well. Of course she hadn't. After what she had done, she was surprised she had been able to fall asleep at all. It had only been for a few hours, but those few hours had helped. What was done was done, and since she couldn't do anything to change it, she'd just have to make sure it would never ever happen again and move on.
She stared up at her ceiling, the light streaming through her window growing brighter as the sun rose higher above the horizon. She didn't want to get out of bed… but she had to. She needed to call Wesley and get the full story. She didn't want to be thinking of all the different ways Angelus could have been released. The sooner she called, the sooner her imagination would stop playing reels of Angel having sex with other women. It was giving her a headache.
She sat up, slowly, trying to rub the tiredness out of her eyes. She was about to stand when she noticed something – something red. She crawled out of the covers and sat back on her heels, pushing her fingers through her hair until they hit her neck. They were rose petals. Rose petals were surrounding her bed in a beautiful red arc. Buffy's eyes darted to the window she distinctly remembered closing the night before – it was open. Then she noticed something else. An envelope was resting on the corner of her bed.
"Buffy" was written on the front in beautiful, swooping letters. She turned it over, pushing the flap up, and pulling out the letter inside. Buffy unfolded the paper, inhaling sharply as she saw what it was. He had drawn a picture of her, sleeping, with tear-stained cheeks and smeared mascara. Underneath, was the message: Looking forward to our next fuck, lover.
She sat there, staring at his letter, rage boiling in the pit of her stomach. How could she not have thought to uninvite him? How could she not have expected this? How could she have been so stupid? And how dare he enter her home and leave her something like this? Buffy gripped the letter tightly at the top, pinched it with her thumb and index finger and sharply pulled downwards, ripping it in half. She tore at the letter furiously, shredding it until there was no possible way to put it together again.
Scrambling off of her bed, she grabbed her wastebasket. Buffy grabbed as many rose petals as she could in each handful and threw them in the trash along with the scraps of paper littering her bed. When she was finished, she pulled the trash bag out and tied the top shut. She grabbed her perfume, her body spray, and some Fabreeze and sprayed around the room until she couldn't smell anything remotely related to roses. Finished, her nose tingling and stinging from the multitude of scents, Buffy leaned back against her wall, panting slightly, setting the perfume down on her desk. She needed to uninvite him, and she needed to uninvite him today. She couldn't let this happen again, especially with Dawn in the house. Calming her breathing, she took her phone from her bedside table and sat down on the edge of her bed. She needed to call Wesley first. Before she could fix any of this, she needed to get the story straight.
Forcing herself to calm down, taking deep breaths, she dialed Wesley's number.
"Do you need anything, Buffy? We can come down there and try and contain him. We originally had him in a cage, but… well, you know what happened."
She shook her head, taking a few seconds to realize he couldn't see it. "No, no I'll be fine. Willow's on her honeymoon right now, but I have someone else who can help me. Angel should be back in no time."
"Okay. Just… be careful, Buffy. Stay safe, and let me know if you need assistance."
"I will. Bye, Wesley, and thanks." Buffy hung up the phone, a small smile on her lips. So he hadn't found perfect happiness with someone else. That thought caused hundreds of knots and tension in her body to release, and she felt better – somewhat better, anyway.
She pulled the bag Xander gave her earlier from under the bed, and pulled out the paper with Tara's number. Now to uninvite that bastard…
"Hello?"
"Hey Tara, it's Buffy. I need a favor…"
"Thank you so much for this. Seriously, thank you." Buffy said, for probably the fifth time, as she nailed a cross next to the front door. Dawn was at school, thankfully, so Buffy didn't have to explain all of this to her. She wasn't planning on telling Dawn about Angelus at all. Hopefully Angelus would be a non-issue very soon.
"It's no problem, really. I'm happy to help. After what I saw at Willow's reception, I know I wouldn't want him to have a free pass to my house." Tara held the spell book in her hands, waiting until the second cross was nailed next to the door to start the incantation. Buffy and Tara had nailed crosses on Buffy's window, the back and front doors, and now all that was left was the incantation.
Buffy hammered the nail into the last cross, stepping back as Tara finished up the spell. She already felt much better. Now as long as Dawn didn't go outside by herself at night, Buffy didn't have much to worry about. Tara shut the book, finished, and smiled at Buffy. It was done. Thank God.
"Can I ask you another favor?" Buffy asked after a moment of hesitation. Tara nodded, and Buffy sat down on the couch in the living room, Tara sitting down across from her. "I can't do it by myself, otherwise I wouldn't ask… I need help restoring Angel's soul."
Tara's body tensed slightly. She looked over at Buffy, saying slowly, "That's very powerful magick Buffy… Very powerful. I'm not sure if I have enough power to do it successfully."
"That's why I would help you! I don't know much about magick, but I have plenty of slayer power to spare. Is there a power transfer spell or something? Please Tara. I know that we don't know each other very well, but you have to know that this is important. I don't want anyone to get hurt."
There was silence between them for a few moments, self-doubt, indecision, and finally a spark of a positive thought running over Tara's face. "Well, I do know of one transfer spell we could use."
Buffy's body relaxed, and she gave Tara a grateful smile. "Thank you, Tara."
"Angel's soul is in the ether, right?"
Buffy shook her head. "No. It's in a jar somewhere. It sort of went missing."
Tara sat back in the chair, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, Buffy. I can't do the spell. If the soul isn't in the ether, I have to be able to see it in order to free it. If Willow were here she might be able to pull off what you need, but I can't. No matter how much power you give me, I'm not skilled enough to do that sort of a spell. It could go very wrong."
Buffy nodded. It looked like she was going to have to find another way to deal with Angelus, but she wasn't going to fault Tara for saying no. Buffy didn't want to put Tara in danger, and if it could harm Angel's soul there was no way Buffy was going to risk it. "Well thank you for helping me uninvite him, Tara."
"Of course! I'm just sorry I couldn't do more. Call me if you need anything else, okay?"
"I will. Thanks again, Tara, for everything."
Almost as soon as Tara left the house, Buffy heard the phone ring. She walked over to the kitchen and picked up the phone from the receiver. "Hello?"
"Buffy? It's Xander."
Something in his voice sounded a bit off, but she was glad to hear from him. "Hey, Xander! How's Hawa-"
"Buffy I'm in trouble. I'm in deep trouble and I don't know how to get out of it. Willow's in danger, and I don't know what to do."
"What? What's wrong, Xander? What's going on?" Buffy took the phone with her into the living room, sitting down on the sofa, preparing herself for whatever it was Xander had to say. This had to be something big if he was calling Buffy on his honeymoon and sounded this upset. No, he didn't sound upset… He sounded terrified.
"Okay. Um… Don't say anything until I tell you the whole story, okay Buffy?"
Buffy promised she wouldn't, and could hear him sigh and could visualize him running his hand through his hair. What on earth was making him this scared?
"Right. Well… A few months ago I noticed something weird. I had this feeling like someone was following me. I didn't see anything incredibly suspicious, but I just had this creepy feeling I couldn't shake. Well, a month or so after that feeling started, I bumped into this woman on the sidewalk. I apologized and kept on my way. But then… I started seeing this woman everywhere. Like… everywhere, Buffy.
"I would see her at the coffee shop, I'd see her in the grocery store, I'd see her on the street when I was heading over to your house. She was the one following me. And um… Uh, one day I confronted her about it, and I found out that she wasn't a regular woman. She's a demon, Buffy - a scary, glowy-eyed, pointy-teeth demon. She um, she slammed me into a wall and then left. I didn't tell you about it because after that I didn't see her anymore. I thought she'd gone.
"But she's here, Buffy. She's in Hawaii, and I think she's planning something. It has something to do with Willow, I know it does, and I'm freaking out over here. I don't know what to do. I'm so scared that I don't want Willow to leave the hotel room."
He stopped talking, breathing heavily on the other line. Buffy leaned forward on the sofa, resting her arm on her knee. "Well, first, you definitely should have told me about this Xander. Right from the start. You wouldn't be in this situation if you had just told someone about it."
"I know, Buffy. Don't you think I know that? I'm stupid, I'm an idiot, I'm a failure as a husband and as a friend and all that, I get it. I would change it if I could, but I can't, and now I'm stuck in this situation. I need your help, Buffy, not your lectures."
Buffy exhaled slowly, trying to think. "Okay. Well, this is obviously not something small, or this demon wouldn't have been following you for so long. She's been planning something for the past few months, which means you need to leave Hawaii as soon as possible. Whatever she's been planning, you are completely isolated over there. You need to get back to Sunnydale with Willow as soon as you can. Book the next flight home. Do whatever you need to do, just get back here."
"Done."
"Can you give me any more details about what this thing looked like? Maybe then Giles and I can find some info about what it is."
"Brown hair, small, female... But besides the fact that she looks like a completely regular human most of the time? And that her eyes glow, turn black, and her teeth lengthen into razor sharp points? No, nothing."
Buffy leaned back against the sofa, biting the inside of her lip. "Well, that isn't much to go on…"
"Wait! There's one more thing. She's been in my dreams the past couple nights. And I don't mean that I was dreaming about her, I mean she put herself in my dreams somehow to talk to me. Creepy shit, Buffy."
"Well what did she say? Did she tell you what she wants?"
"She said… she said that if I didn't do what she wanted when the time came, she'd hurt Willow."
What was this demon after? The things Xander had told her weren't giving her any clues. "Okay, get out of there. Get on the earliest flight to California, or wherever in the states, just get back here. Rent a car and drive back to Sunnydale. I'll talk to Giles about it and see if we can find anything. The dream thing has to narrow it down. Have you told Willow about any of this?"
There were a few moments of silence on the other line. "No. I didn't want to ruin the vacation for her."
"Well, now would be a great time to tell her. Tell her, get packing, and get your asses back here asap. And be careful! Travel in crowds, stay in public places, don't go off by yourself or let Willow go off by herself. Stay together."
"Got it. Anything else?"
"Yeah. Do you have anything that could be used as a weapon? I know plane security is tight, but can you get anything now that you could throw away when you get to the airport? A pocket knife, a bigger knife, anything?"
"Yeah, I can do that. I'll get home as soon as I can. Thanks Buffy. I- Oh, hey! You done with your shower?"
Buffy heard Willow speaking in the background, and figured their phone conversation was over.
"Gotta go, Buffy. I'll text you about our flight. Thanks."
She heard the click that signaled the hang-up, and then the dial tone rang in her ear. Buffy pressed the OFF button and fell back against the sofa, running her hands over her face. Another problem to add to the list. God, couldn't things just stay easy and simple for a while? Was that too much to ask?
Review review review! If you review, maybe I'll let you spend a few hours with our favorite evil Angel. ;)
