9

It wasn't the most comfortable seat in the world. In fact it wasn't a seat at all, just the kind-of carpeted bottom of an old van. And no seatbelt meant she was getting jarred around at every little turn. Still, a seatbelt would probably hurt more than it was worth, especially where it would strap her. And she was quite happy to be unrestricted, especially with how her upper body hurt. Buffy had struck her hard, even holding back a little. Her ribs definitely hurt, even with Spike's light touch skimming her skin. Her cheeks flushed a little, with the contact. There was an intimacy about him touching her bare skin, and she hadn't felt that intimacy in a long while.

Though it was definitely made less private by the two slayers sitting with them in the back of the vehicle. There wasn't much between them, only a few crates and a couple of feet, and they made no effort to hide their prying eyes. Still, where else would they look? And though Jade couldn't discern the words they spoke to each other, she could hear the impact of their whispers and giggles to each other. She was thankful to pull her shirt back down to cover herself. Though it was doubtful they were whispering much about her—or even cared to notice her with Spike sitting right there, she felt vulnerable, and shy. Perhaps that was due to Spike's presence as well, because he was certainly making her feel that way each time he came close, even when it was to help. And why was he helping her, still? Was it to make Buffy jealous? The blonde had certainly reacted to Jade being in Spike's apartment, and the gazes between the vampire and the slayer had not gone amiss. Definitely a history then, but as Jade even tried to approach it, Spike had shut down. He covered his discomfort with humor or anger, but now he was simply quiet, and Jade regretted she had inadvertently ended their smalltalk by starting with something Spike didn't want to discuss. She had sounded judgemental about it too, hadn't she. But she was simply curious. Certainly it fell into her theory, but she didn't have the whole story, and she wanted to.

But he was slurping his blood with vehemence, and she saw the expression on the girls' face, which had turned from admiration to displeasure. Jade brushed the strands of hair from her face, searching in her backpack for a hairband, with which she pulled her hair into a bun, grateful to have it finally away from her face. She was missing a few things though, the bow she had dropped at the stone building, as well as her motorcycle. She definitely had to go back for those things, at least the latter. When this was all over. After she met the rest of the gang, she supposed, and convinced them to let her fight this, to bring those kids back. She looked back at the teenage girls, who were still murmuring among themselves.

"So you're Slayers, then?" Jade broke in, and the girls stopped uncertainly, tearing their eyes away from Spike to look at her reluctantly. The one named Ashley nodded her head, while Samar smiled more proudly.

"That's right."

"You seem sort of young…"

"I'm not young. I'm almost seventeen. Ashley's turning seventeen just a couple months after that. And we've been at the Slayer Institution for over a year now, after Xander found us. We've lived with the San Francisco group ever since."

"You left home?"

"Of course. Duty over security, you know?"

"That, and our parents live just ten minutes away on the other side of the city. I go to her parent's for Sunday night dinners." Ashley chirped up for the first time, cowering a little under Samar's answering glower.

"And who's Xander?" Jade asked, in distraction and curiosity.

The both of them smiled, Ashley a little more dreamily. "He's a Watcher," the blonde answered, while Samar rolled her eyes.

"She was heartbroken when he moved to the Toronto Squad with Dawn."

"Was not," Ashley protested.

"So you've been with the Slayers for a year then?" Jade was starting to feel older already, The sad part was, it reminded her of the few times she had been at the orphanage. The children loved to vie for attention. Neva, the most. Not because the young girl particularly needed attention, but she had taken to Jade with a strong affection Jade couldn't quite shake. She ignored Spike's not-so quiet burp in the corner, refraining from turning towards him, but seeing him tilting his head back, probably deciding to take a nap now that his belly was full. She found her gaze start to linger, before shaking her head and turning her attention fully back to the girls. She wanted information, this was her time to get it. Music was playing in the front of the band, and Buffy was speaking quietly to the woman driving the van, not that Jade was overly eager to talk to Buffy. The blonde didn't like her much, and she doubted she'd be as free with answers.

"That's right. This here's our first mission, too. Buffy chose us to investigate the sites." Samar answered, boasting.

"Sites?"

"Like the one by your town. There was … four more I think? They were all over the place. Well, in the States. The last one was near Phoenix, but they were long gone. I mean, I get that those Seers in the coven are all seeing and everything, but if they were just a little quicker, maybe we could have gotten them, you know? But it looks like this whole thing has just been a waste of time. Now we're just heading back to San Francisco again. A big circle of nothing."

"And there they're going to find out how to recreate the portals that the Order did?"

Samar shrugged. "I guess. Willow's there, so if anyone can figure out, she can. She's pretty powerful, for a witch. It's just annoying this 'mission' was such a bust."

"You should be thankful you weren't there." Jade contradicted with a wince. She looked over at Spike, whose eyes remained closed. He had been hurt too, struck in the shoulder, but it'd heal quickly enough. Maybe even faster than her own wounds. Not to mention, the amount of times he had been tossed down the stairs and into the wall. But it didn't even seem to slow him down. Perks of being a vampire, she supposed. She was unnerved that his chest didn't rise and fall as he napped, but she knew vampires didn't need to breathe. But he was just so… still. It gave her a chance to just look at him. Samar and Ashley had long dissolved back into their whispered conversation, and the back of the van was ignored by Buffy and her driver. The drive wasn't a short one, and pain and exhaustion eventually lulled her to sleep. This time, instead of pure blackness, she dreamed. It was hazy, erratic flashes. She was running, leaping and falling at one point when she felt hands like manacles wrap around her arms.

Her eyes opened to see Spike, steadying her as he propped her back up in a sitting position.

"You were falling," He said gruffly. Jade blinked groggily.

"Thanks. Hitting my head would just be the cherry on top, I guess." So she had been asleep, for a while, and she blinked hard to clear her eyes. Spike was still there, steadying her, and she found her breathing a tad constricted. With an odd look at her, he released her, settling back down against the opposite wall. He seemed awake, and she wondered for how long.

"We're almost there, anyway." He drawled as he leaned back. It was darker now, without even the filtered lights from the front of the vehicle. She knew Spike could see her much clearer than she could see him, with the dark clothes he wore, he blended in quite well to the shadows, although his paler skin and white blonde hair were the exception. "Did you have a good sleep, Van Winkle?"

"Yeah. At least, it was an actual sleep, and not brought on by blood loss." Jade scoffed. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her just how long it had been since she had eaten.

"There's fruit-y bars in that crate over there," Spike nodded to a box over on Jade's right. She looked at him in surprise, and then realised he could probably hear her stomach growl, and smell the food, even if he didn't eat it himself. She reached for it, grinding her teeth at the pain in her torso, but it wasn't. She pulled a piece out, ripping off the plastic covering and taking a large bite.

"You're quite a prattler in your sleep."

Jade rose her head warily, though she shrugged casually. "Yeah. I always have."

"Make you nervous? You talk a lot, too. Full on monologues. Bloody lengthy."

"Anything good?" Jade allowed herself a humorous smile.

"Not as good as Shakespeare. Ha! I'm kidding. Ponce didn't know a thing about poetry. Well, he did. But there are better, you know."

Jade shook her head with amusement, panic dissipating. She knew she spoke in her sleep of course, she'd been told. She was always curious, but she didn't have many inhibitions when she wasn't awake, and she could had said just about anything. Even when prophecies weren't hacking into her dreams, they were discombobulated and strange. She stuffed the rest of the bar in her mouth, chewing quickly when the van took a sharp curve and then slowed, coming to a stop.

"We're here, Dorothy." Spike spoke to her, his expression impassive, although she could see a slight discomfort.

"Sun's gone down. Everybody out," Buffy ordered from the front. Spike sighed lightly, and then in tandem, he and Jade opened the doors. She held onto the van as she heaved herself out onto the pavement. It was past the sunset, as Buffy had said, but only just. Violet rays still made their way through the sky. She felt like she had lost a whole day, but it was more the apprehension that the kids were still trapped in the other dimension, if they were alive. The words chain and drain came to mind, and not in a happy way. They were running out of time. If they hadn't already.

Spike bounced onto the ground next to her, a sneer on his face as he straightened. "Home sweet home."

She followed his gaze, surprised to see what looked like, well a hotel. There was a large parking lot, partially enclosed by trees, a garden that sprawled around it. It was several stories high, four, with a courtyard that extended behind it. "Oh, it's nice."

"Willow's idea. Well, Angels Investigations used to be run in a hotel, so she got that idea for that. And then Wolfram & Hart bought it for us as kind of a treaty thing. Well, Angel did." Samar explained as she tumbled out of the van with Ashley. It wasn't much of an explanation, for Jade was more confused than if Samar hadn't said anything at all, but she shrugged.

"Oh goodie. Can't wait to catch up with the gang." Spike rubbed his hands against each other in fake glee.

"How many of you are there?" Jade asked Samar, who shrugged.

"About a hundred, although more or less at any given time. People go in and out a lot. This is the base of Slayers for the whole east coast, so we got a lot of newbies, and anyone coming in to report. Like Willow and Kennedy. They were heading things in Scotland, but they came back to the States for the last mission, and now this."

She was learning a lot of names, a few to many to catch up, but she nodded. Buffy walked around from the van. Her alluring gaze stopped first on Spike, who looked around unimpressed. "Willow's waiting. Girls, go report to Vi, get yourselves some supper, and get an early night. Be rested, and ready." The girls nodded at Buffy's instruction, walking off with the third Slayer who had been driving. Buffy looked back at Spike and Jade. "Come on. Maybe you can give some useful information about the kids that were taken."

"That's what I'm here for." Jade said solidly, not missing Buffy's narrowing of her eyes as she stalked off towards the entrance. Buffy would have been willing to leave her in Haven, but Jade did have information, and leaving her would have been a mistake.

Spike whistled. "Careful. Don't want to start another fight. Although it would be fun to watch."

"I'll behave." Jade said with light amusement. She was stiff, but no longer wrought with pain, and for the most part, managed to keep up with Spike and Buffy as they strode across the parking lot. They stepped through the glass doors, opening to within. It wasn't particularly fancy, and almost normal looking within. But it was a large place, and if it housed as many people as Samar had claimed, a hotel was perfect.

In the middle, two women stood waiting, close together. One was native American, with bold dark eyes, and defined cheekbones that inadvertently reminded Jade of Spike's. His were certainly elegant, their pronounced curve and indent. She shook her head slightly, impatiently, to look at the slightly taller woman standing there as well, with copper red hair that fell just past her collarbone. Of the two, she looked friendlier, giving Buffy a warm smile, and looking over at Jade with affable curiosity.

"Glad you're back." The redhead said to Buffy, her lighthearted expression reverting to one more of somber concern. "Hi Spike. You made it." Her eyebrows raised with a easy grin.

"Well I didn't have much choice. Especially after you made your plea in my telly, Willow. My poor telly." Spike muttered under his breath.

"Have you found out how to get into the dimension after the Order?" Buffy cut in, restlessly. Willow shook her head reluctantly.

"Giles is working on finding the exact portal they used. The coven's ready, for the most part. They just need to know where to open the portal to, and well, how to protect you from what's on the other side."

"And how much time do we have left?" Buffy questioned. They began walking, and Jade followed silently. She saw Willow's companion look at Jade with narrowed eyes, slight suspicion, but said nothing as they stepped out of the main lobby and into a side room—a meeting room, rather, with a long table and chairs. There were already heaps of books out, opened, three more young women sitting there, reading, and didn't even look up as the others entered.

"Uh… one of the books that mentioned them said they need a whole day to prepare. If that's in our hours or their dimension hours, we don't quite know." Willow said, slightly flustered.

"It's written in the normal language of 'obscure as hell'," The native American woman supplied, disgust in her voice.

"Well, these two were here. They can tell you about the portal, and those it took. I'm getting on the phone with Giles. We can't waste much more time." Buffy declared.

"We haven't been wasting it," Willow's shorter companion declared, though Willow reached out with her hand, touching her in comfort.

"We'll get it done, Buffy." Willow promised her.

"I certainly hope so. If it's another one of those end-of-the-world options, I've had more than my fill." Spike commented dryly. Buffy looked at him, her gaze lingering for a heartbeat before turning back through the swinging doors, letting them close behind her.

"Well." Willow said in the silence, her lip twitching in a slight show of discomfort. "I'm Willow, by the way."

"Jade," She shook Willow's hand as it was offered.

"And I'm Kennedy." The dark haired woman added in.

"Great. Now that we're all introduced, you all hit the books, will you. Get me something physical to punch." Spike sat down on one of the chairs. Kennedy rolled her eyes at him, before taking her own seat. "Buffy said that that didn't work all that great for you."

"Well, if miss Red here sent me after the physical type, and not magic mojo people, I might have been able to do something. Instead they just threw me around like a rag doll with their hocus pocus. It was bloody fun. Not."

"We're working on that." Willow assured him. She sat down next to Kennedy, and motioned for Jade to as well. "Sit down. You seem a bit shaky."

"Tell us what you remember of the portal," Kennedy ordered in the next breath, as soon as Jade sat down at the table.

"Eh. Green. Lightning. Held open for a couple minutes." Spike shrugged, crossing his fingers behind his head.

"Any of the words they used to open it?" Willow asked.

"Do I look like I speak latin?"

"They ended the spell with Aperta Porta." Jade supplied, and Willow nodded, her face skewed up in thought.

"That narrows it down, a little. Pretty general stuff, but. I wish we had Fred." Willow added in a quiet off-note.

"Well, she's gone, isn't she. So handle it without her." Spike said, a little brusquely.

"Watch your mouth, Vamp." Kennedy snapped, her eyes blazing. "We've been doing all we can. You're the one who let them go."

"What?" Spike's eyebrows raised in angry surprise, contempt in his burning blue gaze. "I didn't have a bloody clue of what I was up against. You gits sent me in there without barely a flight plan."

"We told you everything we knew." Willow answered quietly.

"Which wasn't bloody anything!"

"How did you find about this enough to try to stop it, anyway?" Jade interrupted.

"One of the seers in the coven had a vision, and we found a prophecy, a very obscure one to back it up. We've been figuring this out as we've gone alone." Willow said with a sigh. "We could have delayed this… conflict if we had found the power sources before they gathered it. Which we didn't find out until they basically gathered them all. Now that they're gone, we're back to trying to find them before we can even stop them. And they're strong, now. After the ritual they'll be highly powerful. Maybe even invulnerable."

"Does who they took help?"

"Yeah. Maybe. They were taken from an orphanage, right?"

Jade was nodding when Spike rose to his feet.

"Where do you think you're going?" Kennedy demanded.

"Going for a walk. No need to pick my brain when you got hers. I don't know a thing about the kids they took."

"You could at least pretend to be interested—" Kennedy protested, and Willow placed her hand on the woman's arm. "It's fine." Willow soothed. "Just stay nearby." She told Spike with a seriousness in her green eyes. Spike shrugged, waltzing out of the room. Jade followed his figure until it disappeared.

"He's just going off to stalk Buffy, probably." Kennedy muttered.

"That's fine. Well, not fine. We got other things to worry about," Willow corrected in increasing agitation. "Anyway, you were saying?"

"Five kids. The orphanage, like the town, is full of strange… things. One kid's half demon. Another one's a full Brachen demon. But the ones they took, they're all full blooded human. They just have one thing in common. All come from magical families, in their blood."

"Potential witches." Willow said.

"Wait a minute," Kennedy frowned. "That doesn't matter. Willow doesn't have a lick of magical blood in her family and she's the strongest witch in the world. So why these kids, then?"

"Well—" Jade started, but Willow was speaking first.

"That's true, sweetie. But it's in their blood, gives them like, a head start. Most of the time. There's still some magic there, and that's what they wanted."

"How do you know all this about them?" Kennedy asked Jade suspiciously then, looking up at her. "Did you work at the Orphanage with them?"

"No. I just babysat from time to time. It's a small town." She added to Kennedy's raised eyebrow. "I was bored, and I like to not be in the dark, so I read their files, once."

"And you just happen to remember the information?"

Jade bit back the impulse to roll her eyes. "Yes." She stated simply. She risked a look at Willow, who looked more contemplative than distrustful.

"And they're all from magic families? You're sure?" The redheaded woman asked inquisitively, as Kennedy grumbled to herself, not keeping her black eyes off of Jade. Jade had the feeling that the two of them were a couple, and while she felt herself immediately falling to Willow's accepting, easy-going attitude, Kennedy was the protective one. It didn't matter. Jade didn't have anything to hide, and she was here to help.

"Yeah. That's what the files said, anyway. The one on the youngest, Sophie's probably the barest. She's about four years old, dropped off as a newborn, basically. That one, apparently her mother was killed by demonic possession on her twentieth birthday. She was dropped off on the doorstep."

Jade saw Willow's eyes widen in something akin to distress and memory. "What's the last name?" Willow asked slowly.

"Of Sophie? Uh. Mc…Maclay? It was on her birth certificate, I guess, she didn't have much else."

She watched the distress escalate to anguish and disbelief, Willow's wide green eyes staring at her, or through her, rather, lost in her own head. "Maclay?" Willow repeated, her voice a hoarse whisper. "Tara?"

A/N: Thank you Nicole Wire for the review! I really appreciate it and I'm glad you're enjoying the story, it makes me want to write more.

I have a whole lot of arcs in mind, and I hope I get to do them all. Some of these chapters are a little short and sweet, mainly because I just put them up as I'm done, and I chose one shorter chapter every day/every other day rather than a longer one every couple of days. For now, I've just been stopping them as the point of view switches between Jade and Spike. Thank you to everyone who has kept reading this far. As an writer, I've always been more heavy on description, and weaker on dialogue, and humor. But Spike talks a lot and I try really hard to write things he'd likely say. I hope I've done and continue to do him justice. This is a more dialogue heavy chapter than I usually write, but hopefully it moves and explores the story a bit more. Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear anything, praise or criticism on how the story is going so far. Thank you!