Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc., are the property of Joss Whedon. The original plot is the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


Chapter 07

Xander stopped in the middle of the street when he caught sight of a familiar figure slipping into a dark alley. He felt his rage boil inside him as recognition hit him a moment later.

Angel.

So he was in Sunnydale now. Probably looking for one of two things—Buffy or trouble. Xander cursed. He decided to follow Angel and quickly crossed the street. As soon as he walked up to the mouth of the alley, he knew that it was a lost cause. The alley was too dark for him to see anything.

Sighing, he turned around and walked back toward the lighted street. He had dinner plans with Anya, and he didn't want to be late. She'd been complaining that he wasn't taking her anywhere lately and said that it was because he was ashamed of her. Halfway to her place, he paused. He should probably talk to Giles and let him know that Angel was in town first. Xander glanced at his watch and decided that he had just enough time to drop by Giles', give him the news, and still make it in time for dinner with Anya.

As he made his way toward the Watcher's apartment, Xander wondered if Angel was Angelus already or not. He didn't think either should have been spared the stake, but he was smart enough to know that dealing with Angelus would be that much more dangerous than dealing with his souled counterpart.

Xander hadn't wanted to believe Buffy was seeing Angel again, not at first. He trusted Buffy, and even though he'd gotten over his crush on her—he had Anya now—he still cared for her as a friend. He wanted to believe that she knew better than that, but…

Xander sighed inwardly.

Buffy had lied to them before when it came to seeing Angel, so he knew her capable and willing. She would never lie about anything else to her friends, but when it came to Angel…Buffy just didn't see clearly. It didn't surprise Xander that she'd tried to deny it this time. They hadn't reacted well the last time she'd hidden Angel, so she was probably even less thrilled at telling them all she lied again.

Xander wished they could do more regarding Angel. His preferred method would have been a stake through the heart and be done with it. Having seen Buffy's reaction when others—such as Faith and Drusilla, to name a few—had threatened Angel's life left a lasting impression. It was enough for Xander to know that if he wanted Angel dusted, he would have to make sure it looked like an accident or that it could be blamed on another demon.

As Xander approached his destination, he heard something breaking and a very familiar voice utter a pain-filled groan.

Giles was being attacked!

Xander broke into a run, his heart beating frantically in his chest as fear and adrenaline coursed through his veins. The lock on the front door was broken, he noted. Then, he heard glass shatter and Giles grunt in pain. Pushing through the door as quickly as he could, Xander looked up in time to see the back of a large figure in a long black coat slip through the broken window of Giles' living room.

"Giles!" he called out. That coat looked familiar… "Giles, are you okay?"

A moan from behind the sofa caught his attention, and Xander quickly made his way around it. He found Giles with a split lip on the carpet.

"Xander." Giles groaned again as he sat up.

"What happened?" Xander asked as he helped him lean against the sofa.

"Something…attacked me," Giles said slowly. He held his hand across his chest, taking slow breaths as he tried to decide if his ribs were broken or just severely bruised. "I came back from the shop. Saw that the front door was broken. Next thing I remember is pain and darkness."

Xander watched as the older man gingerly checked his head and winced. "It knocked you out."

"Yeah, I woke up on the floor." He struggled to stand on his feet. "I don't think that whatever had attacked me was too careful when it dragged me in and tossed me behind the couch."

"Did you get a chance to see what it was?"

Giles shook his head and winced again as pain erupted at the movement. "No. I don't think it was human, though. Too strong for that. I got the impression of yellow eyes and dark attire."

"Angel," Xander muttered through clenched teeth as he suddenly realized why the black coat of the escaping attacker looked familiar. He'd seen Angel wear the same coat as he disappeared into the alley earlier. Yellow eyes definitely screamed vampire, and Angel was the only one Xander knew to have been invited into Giles' home.

"Angel?" Willow asked from the doorway. "What did he do this time?"

"This!" Xander said, gesturing around them.

"I don't think we should jump into conclusions," Giles tried to say.

"No jumping," Xander said. "I saw the devil earlier in town. I was actually on my way over here to give you the heads up. Angel was wearing the same black coat when I saw him earlier as the one I saw on your attacker before he jumped out of the window. Yellow eyes and growling screams vampire, and—"

"And Angel is the only vampire who's ever been invited in," Willow said, her eyes widening in alarm. "Oh, God, Giles!"

"I'll live." He tried to smile reassuringly but grimaced when his split lip protested. "I'm okay, really. It's only a small bump on the head."

Rushing over to him, Willow helped Giles to the couch. "Why would Angel attack Giles? And why would he escape before, you know, finishing the job?"

"Don't know, don't care," Xander said. "I've had it with Angel. I say it's time to stake first and ask questions later."

At that moment, Buffy ran through the open door. Having noticed the busted lock, she was ready to fight as soon as she cleared the threshold. "Giles!" she cried out when she saw his face. "What happened?"

"What happened is your honey felt like a snack!" Xander snapped, glaring at her.

Buffy took a step back in shock. "What?"

"We don't know it was Angel," Giles said. "Something attacked me as I came in. I think that I've interrupted its search."

"Search for what?" Buffy asked, looking around at the upturned furniture and the broken glass on the carpet. "And why would you think it was Angel? I've told you he hasn't been in town since Graduation!"

"Wrong again, Buff." Xander stood up and approached her. "I saw mister tall, dark, and vampy tainting the street not fifteen minutes ago."

Buffy felt as though she'd been physically struck. She paled and nearly took a step back. "Angel's in town?"

"Yeah, and it didn't take him long to do just what I told you he'd do—go after your friends!"

"Xander," Willow called out. "Like Giles said, let's not jump to conclusions. Plus, I need to tell you about the body I found."

"Body?" Buffy turned to look at the redhead, deciding it was a safer topic of conversation. Her heart was beating frantically inside her chest at the mere idea of Angel being back in town. "Where?"

"At the party," Willow said. "You remember the party at the Porter dorm? The one you said you'd meet me at? Where were you by the way?"

"Slaying," Buffy said. "Came across a vamp. Bastard was strong, nearly knocked me out, but I staked him. I came here thinking I might be able to find out more about the earthquakes." She decided not to mention that she'd hoped nobody would be in.

"Oh." Willow lost her steam.

"You said you found a body?" Giles prompted. He didn't like Angel all that much, that was true, but having the kids—well, Xander, mostly—chomping at the bit to go after the centuries' old vampire was not a good idea. Giles remembered very well how close he had come to dying when he tried his own hand at revenge against the demon after Jenny's death. Xander was more likely to get himself killed than anything else. Besides, Giles reminded himself firmly, there was no proof that it was Angel who had attacked him tonight.

"Yes." Willow nodded and handed Giles a napkin with a drawing on it. "He—the dead guy—was propped up like whoever killed him wanted to drain his blood, and there was this symbol carved on his chest."

"Kind of looks like the CBS logo," Xander commented. He would have made some kind of joke, but he wasn't in a joking mood. He would find a way to dust Angel this time.

"Looks like a big creepy eye to me," Willow said. "Though it also looks kinda familiar, too."

Buffy nodded in agreement. She felt that she'd seen this symbol before, perhaps even recently, but she couldn't pinpoint it. "Giles?"

"Hmm…" Giles turned around and gently moved toward one of the trunks to the side of his sofa. He grimaced with the pain that the movement caused him, but he cursed when he saw that the trunk had been ransacked. Just to make sure, he took out the box in which he'd held small artifacts and opened it to make sure the one he had in mind was missing. "Oh, as usual, dear."

"Giles, what is it?" Buffy asked. She really didn't like his expression.

"It's the end of the world."

"Again?" all three of them asked at the same time.

"No, no, it can't be," Willow protested. "We've done this already."

"I'm afraid so," Giles said. "The drained body, the earthquake, and now the missing talisman—which is what I suspect the demon that broke in came to find—they all point toward an apocalypse."

"Talisman?" Willow asked.

He nodded. "The Word of Valios. It's a talisman that I've purchased it in a sorcerer's estate sale. To be honest, I thought it was a fake."

"So what do we do?" Willow asked, wishing Tara were there. She'd left her girlfriend at the dorms after finding the body, not sure how her friends would react. She'd dated Oz before, so they had no reason of suspecting she was attracted to women. Soon, she promised herself. She would tell them all about Tara soon.

"I stop it," Buffy said. She walked over to the armchair and table, which had been knocked over, righted them, and then proceeded to Giles' weapons cabinet. She picked up a crossbow and began loading it with bolts.

"Good," Willow said. "In the meantime, Xander and I can take Giles to the hospital to check that his ribs aren't broken."

"My ribs aren't broken!" Giles protested. "I don't need to go to the hospital."

"Humor us," Buffy said. "I'll call if I find anything."

Xander watched as Buffy turned and walked out of the front door. "I say we find Angel and shove a stake through his heart."

"Xander." Giles gave the young man a stern look.

Willow shook her head. "Xander…."

"Fine!" Xander threw his hands in the air. "You don't want to listen, fine, but don't expect me not to say I told you so when he comes in and kills us all."

The phone rang before anyone could answer Xander. Giles picked it up. "Hello? Wesley? I'm surprised to hear from you. What? Yes, we've just come to that conclusion ourselves. How did you—? Oh, Cordelia. I didn't know… Yes, there was an earthquake earlier this morning. Also, a body was found with a symbol of an eye inside a triangle carved into its chest tonight. Did Cordelia see anything else? No? Okay. Let us know if you find anything else. Okay. Bye."

Xander and Willow looked at him expectantly.

"That was Wesley," Giles said. "He said that Cordelia saw the earthquake—"

"Saw?" Xander asked, cutting in.

Giles nodded. "Apparently, she gets visions from the Powers that Be."

"The Powers that Be…what?" Xander asked.

"They are the force that guides the good in the battle against evil," Giles explained. "Wesley said that Cordelia got a warning about an apocalypse coming up and asked if we've been able to make any progress."

"He wasn't able to offer you anything more?" Willow asked. "Like when and how to stop it."

Giles shook his head. "Only that Cordelia said it felt close."

"Okay, then we start with taking you to the hospital to check those ribs, and then there's a night session of research to be done," Willow said.

"I don't need the—"

"This is my resolved face," Willow cut him off.

"Come on, G-man," Xander said, knowing the nickname would annoy the Watcher and distract him. "It'll be faster if you comply. You'll be back with your books in no time. Plus, while you're there, I can fix the lock for you and perhaps even do something about the broken window."

Seeing that he was not going to talk them out of taking him to the hospital, Giles sighed. "Okay, let's go. The sooner we go, the sooner we get back."

"That's the spirit." Willow smiled in approval and led him to the front door. "See you in a bit, Xan."

"See ya." Xander walked after them and crouched at the door to look at the busted lock. He'd make a trip to Home Depot and get a new one. It wouldn't be too hard to install it. He'd always been good at handy jobs such as this one, and since moving into the basement, there had been plenty of opportunities for him to practice. His parents hadn't done much to keep the room up.

Before leaving, Xander made a quick call to Anya to update her on everything that happened. Their dinner date would have be postponed to another night. He offered her to come over and help but knew, even before she declined, that she wouldn't want to. Anya wasn't one for research, and she made it perfectly clear that she expected him to make up for missing their date. Sighing, Xander ended the call and made a mental note to get her something nice tomorrow to appease her.

While he was making a trip to the hardware store, Xander decided to take a small detour before going back to the Watcher's apartment. It would be a good idea to see where Angel was staying while he was in town. The vampire had a history with wanting to end the world, and he was smart enough to know that Giles had the talisman necessary. All Xander needed was some way to prove that Angel was behind this.

o.O.o

"Knew I saw that symbol somewhere before. Where else? The place where I spend most of my waking hours, memorizing the stuff on the sides of mausoleums." Buffy stood before one of said mausoleums, which had a carving of a triangle with an eye inside it. It was very much like the one Willow had drawn on the napkin. "Big cereal boxes of death," she muttered.

A sound from inside the structure had her raising her crossbow. She crept up to the entrance and peeked through the trellises of the door leading inside. She saw a green demon in some kind of armor snooping inside one of the graves.

Wonderful, she thought, a grave-robbing demon. Hadn't seen one of those in a while.

In fact, the last time she recalled dealing with a grave-robbing—or mausoleum-robbing—demon was when she'd caught Spike trying to find something he called the Gem of Amara. He'd failed to find it, and Buffy had a good time laughing at his expense in the process. Can't blame me for laughing, she thought. Spike had been dating Harmony. Harmony! That girl's last brain cell died of loneliness years ago. What on earth did Spike find in her? Well, she wasn't doing much better herself in the love department, she reminded herself. Her own soulmate…

Cutting short that particular train of thought, Buffy aimed her crossbow and fired. She hit the demon in the shoulder, and the green creature roared in anger.

He charged at her, and she had to ditch the crossbow in favor of hand-to-hand combat.

She dodged a punch and threw one of her own. Throwing the demon over her head, she followed through with a kick to its back. It turned and punched her. She saw stars when her head collided with the wall behind her.

Buffy groaned as she tried to get her vision back into focus while, at the same time, kicking in the general direction of the demon. He caught her leg and flipped her on to a grave marker.

Out of breath and nearly blinded with the pain of the punch the demon added at the end, Buffy tried to gather her senses. It took precious few seconds for her to come to but, by then, the demon was long gone.

"Damn it!"

A shadow falling over her had her instinctively turning with a well-aimed punch.

Riley grunted when her fist connected with his stomach. "Damn, you have a mean right hook!"

"Riley! What are you doing here?" she demanded. Then she looked around, trying to see if she could find a trace of the demon that got away. "And where did it go?"

"I saw it take off toward the woods," Rile replied.

"And you just let it get away? Didn't even try to follow?" she knew she sounded exasperated. But, come on! He should at least have some common sense, shouldn't he?

"No weapons, no backup," Riles said, spreading his hands to the sides. "You don't go after a demon that size by yourself."

"No, you don't," she agreed and took a deep breath. Her head was still tingling, and she knew that she would have a bruise across her back where she hit the grave marker.

Riley took out a portable radio and spoke into it, "Base one, this is Lilac one."

"Lilac?" Buffy made a face.

Riley held up his hand to silence her. "Confirmed sighting of an unidentified Sub-T. Mobilize patrol team for debriefing at oh-eight-hundred hours."

"Copy that," came the reply from the radio.

"Very commander-y," Buffy remarked. "Lilac notwithstanding," she corrected after a thought. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, the Good Samaritan of Sunnydale." Riley offered her a smile.

She ignored the smile and turned to pick up her crossbow. "I gotta go. Demon to catch."

"Don't sweat it." He put his hand on her shoulder. He took it off in the next moment, seeing the glare that gesture had granted him. "Don't sweat it. We'll bag it."

That's what I'm afraid of. "It's not that simple."

"Where is this hostility coming from, Buffy?" he asked her. "I know you like me, and it's not like we don't have anything in common."

Buffy stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. Like him? She could barely tolerate his presence. Could you say ignorant much?

"Buffy, I'm thrown by this, I'm confused, but I can feel my skin humming, my hands…every inch of me. I've never been this excited about anybody before. I'm not trying to scare you, and I won't force myself on you."

I'd like to see you try, she thought, gritting her teeth. She really should have just told him to fuck off weeks ago instead of trying to lay him off easy. Hadn't she learned anything from the mess with Xander in high school?

"However, by God, I'm not going to walk away because I think it might not work between us. I don't know what happened in your past—"

"Pain, death, apocalypse. None of it fun," Buffy interjected, cutting off his flow of words that made little sense to her. Where on earth did he get the idea that things might work between them. Ah, yeah, Willow. "Do you know what a Hellmouth is? Do you have a fancy term for that one, too? Because I went to high school on top of it. For three years. We do not have that much in common. This is a job to you."

"It's not just a job," Riley defended.

"It's an adventure, great." She tried her best not to roll her eyes at him. She was getting a weird tingling sensation at the base of her spine, and with the memories this conversation was bringing up… She just wished to go somewhere to curl up and cry for a little while. "For me, it's destiny. It's something that I can't change, something that I can't escape. I'm stuck!"

"You don't have to be," Riley said and placed his hands on her shoulders again. A growl had him turning around and checking if there was anything behind him. The cemetery was empty. "You're not in high school anymore, Buffy. You can change things."

"Riley, no." Buffy had heard the growl as well, and she knew what it was—a vampire.

"I know it may seem—"

"Riley, I said no!" What did she have to do to make him back off? Punch him?

Before Buffy could give into temptation, she turned away from Riley. There was a vampire nearby and a demon to chase.

She just made it past the wall surrounding the cemetery before she stopped. She felt a presence nearby, and her senses told her loud and clear that this was a vampire.

It had taken Buffy a while before she returned to training herself to work with all of her senses wide open. The first time she'd done such a training session was during summer vacation, and as soon as she started, a flood of memories nearly broke her. Standing with her eyes closed in the middle of her training room at the basement of Giles' apartment reminded her of the deadly test The Council had put her through on her eighteenth birthday and Giles' part in it, his betrayal. It was the first time he'd broken her trust, and it had taken her a long while to overcome it. With the memories so painful, Buffy almost gave up on that part of her self-induced training program. In the following weeks, as the vacation ended and the semester started, Buffy found that she could push those memories aside and work on training harder.

It was during a time when she thought that, by being a better Slayer, she could regain her friends' and Giles' approval once again. She'd gotten increasingly better at recognizing the supernatural around her, be it vampire, demon, or a powerful witch.

During the first weeks of the semester, Buffy found that this training had paid off when the roommate she had been paired with—Kathy—turned out to be a demon. It had taken some time before Buffy realized why she felt her skin crawling every time she was in the same room as Kathy. Her friends were of no help, though. Willow thought Buffy was overreacting, Giles was too busy enjoying his times as a "gentleman of leisure"—whatever the hell that meant, she was never quite sure—and Xander was still away on his attempted tour around the world.

All Buffy had was her own senses, and they saved her when Kathy finally made her move. Buffy survived, but now she thought that this event must have been one of the first breaks in what used to be a solid foundation of friendship. That foundation had cracked during the events following her seventeenth birthday, but they were mending. It was only after Angel's departure and her friends' subsequent abandonment that the cracks deepened once more.

Sighing, Buffy pushed those thoughts away from her for the time being. The presence was growing closer, and as she turned, her eyes widened in shock and, despite everything, in pleasure.

It couldn't be...


Thank you for reading,
Alley Cat.