Buffy stands and brushes off the back of her pants. "Thanks again for patrolling, Spike."
"Yeah, yeah. Said I would, even though there's hardly a point on Halloween night."
"Oh, I've heard all about how Halloween is supposed to be demon-free. And yet, every year, somehow I'm kept pretty busy."
"Well, demons have definitely gone to ground this year. Too much going wrong, everyone's circled the sodding wagons."
Buffy shivers in the chill air. "At least that's one thing going right."
Spike gives her a rakish half-grin, honestly relieved that the night hadn't ended with him a pile of dust at an emotionally unstable Slayer's hand.
"I can't do this," Joyce's voice floats to them from above.
On the back porch, under the overhang, Spike and Buffy's heads swing together to look to each other at the same time.
As one, they rush down the steps and look up to the second story where Joyce's bedroom window faces the backyard.
Joyce stands barefoot in her open windowsill looking out into the night. She is supported on either side by two humanoid beings with large black wings. A third emerges from behind her to unhurriedly place its hands over Joyce's ears.
"MOM!" Buffy screams from the yard. Joyce appears to not hear her daughter.
"Are you sure it's safe?" Joyce asks.
The front two winged beings had turned their expressionless gazes down towards Buffy and Spike at the horrified scream. They disregard Buffy completely and turn back to lift Joyce up from under her arms.
"Spike!" Buffy shouts over her shoulder as she tears back into the house ripping the kitchen door open.
"On it!" Spike hollers back, face tipped up to track Joyce and the winged beings. He backs up to get a better look, eyes never leaving Buffy's nightgown-clad mother.
Buffy races up the stairs and bursts into her mom's room, hurling herself at the windows but it's too late.
The flying creatures had already carried her mother too far away from the roof for Buffy to follow, even if she were to fling herself at them at full speed.
"Mom! Spike, stay with her!" Buffy shouts out the window and turns around to run back downstairs. She almost smacks into her sister in their mom's doorway.
Buffy gets a brief impression of Dawn's huge scared eyes before she's pushing past her. Buffy leaps down the stairs calling over her shoulder to Dawn, voice short and commanding: "Lock yourself in! Call Giles!"
Buffy grabs the only weapon laying out she can easily snatch up, the dagger from the entryway.
Buffy runs out to the backyard and immediately searches the sky for her mother and the three winged humanoids in dark robes flying off with her.
She can't find them.
Buffy's heart is slamming into her chest when she hears Spike call for her.
"Slayer!" He's over in the street already a few houses down.
Buffy runs to him feet slipping slightly on the frosted ground. She hadn't been wearing shoes when she'd gone to sit on the porch earlier. Now she gives chase in thick woolen socks.
Spike doesn't look at her when she pulls up even to him, his eyes still glued to the angelic figures holding her mom maybe twenty, thirty feet up in the air now.
Spike stumbles over a grinning jack o lantern, boot smashing it in as he runs down the sidewalk without paying much attention to what's on the ground in front of him.
"She's too high up!" Buffy pants at Spike's elbow.
Their quarry executes a gradual turn, powerful wings flapping slow and steady, carrying Joyce farther and faster away, now cutting overhead the neighborhood block.
Obstacles slow the pair following. Buffy and Spike give chase through someone's backyard, dodging Halloween decorations and vaulting over a fence.
"No, God no!" Buffy chokes out as they fall farther and farther behind. They spill out into the street again.
Spike grabs her arm and drags her down a side street, which takes them the wrong direction.
"Let go!" Buffy cries out, shaking him off violently.
"We're losing them this way! C'mon I've an idea!" Spike runs along the road, head whipping back and forth as he checks each driveway.
Torn, Buffy hesitates watching her mother taken farther away off to her left and Spike's furious hunt in front of her.
She's just about to say hell with it and go without him when Spike skids to a stop beside a motorcycle parked in a driveway. It's been covered with a tarp so Buffy doesn't recognize it until Spike tears off the covering and begins messing with it.
Wheels. Yes, wheels.
Buffy waits for him in the street, eyes straining to keep her mother in her sights. She hears the bike roar to life and approach her.
When he pulls up next to her, Buffy swings her leg over the bike and wraps her arms around Spike's stomach, shouting, "Go, go, go!" in his ear before she's even settled.
He goes.
The bike screeches down the slippery road, wheels out of control for a few moments until they gain purchase and speed forward.
For a terrifying few minutes, Buffy thinks they've lost them.
Spike turns down another road and all of a sudden Joyce is right ahead again. The third winged creature turns to view the pair on the bike below briefly then continues on behind the other two carrying Joyce.
Something about the robes, the bland sexless faces, the long tied-back hair, the wings…Buffy is reminded of angels.
Oh god.
Her mom hadn't been talking about Angel, but angels. And Buffy had been right there outside of her room.
A sick thrill of fear shoots through her.
But Buffy's slayer instincts don't fail her now. She stays as calm as possible, focused only on balancing on the bike behind Spike, who expertly navigates the icy slick streets and stays right on their tail.
Buffy grits her teeth.
Eventually, these bastards have to land and when they do…
Nobody messes with Buffy's family.
Buffy's senses have sharpened to pinpoint focus. Her eyes burn slightly from how hard she stares at the dark winged figures surrounding her mom up in the air. Joyce is a bright light in their midst. Joyce's light hair and white bandages, her pale nightgown which covers everything but her face, hands, and feet…she looks unearthly. Radiant. Her face is turned up as if watching something get nearer.
Buffy squints around Spike's shoulder.
Something is getting nearer.
Spike leans the bike around a curve which takes them along a wider older road that runs along the edge of a stone-walled creek. Past the stream, which is bisected with a couple of wide foot bridges, are open fields that lead to a forest's edge.
Far, far above where the clearing meets the trees is a bright slash of light in the dark night sky.
The angelic figures appear to be heading straight for it.
"Shit!" Spike shouts, revving the bike to go faster. As they get closer, Buffy realizes the slash of light is more like a tunnel of light….a portal?
The panic Buffy has held off until now slams into her full force.
For days, Buffy's been quietly falling apart over the thought of losing her mom to the shadow in her brain. And now, something has come to physically steal her away. Away, beyond where Buffy can reach her.
The winged figures make a slow arc over the creek.
"Spike, Spike, you have to get closer!" Buffy's breaths burst harshly from her. "They aren't going to land."
How were they going to get to her?
"Hold on!" Spike urges the bike past the first foot bridge and Buffy's panic ratchets up.
What was he doing? They had to get over there. They had to catch them before those things took her mom into the swirling light.
"Get ready!" Spike shouts.
For what?
As soon as the bike is directly across from Joyce, Spike turns it to drive straight at the short wall dividing street from stream.
In a flash, Buffy understands he means to ram the bike and send her flying.
She shifts, preparing to launch.
With a horrible crunch, Buffy is airborne.
She flies through the air, dagger pointed out, and barely catches the blade tip into the calf of the third creature.
It sinks in and rips down. Buffy grabs its leg with her free hand and climbs it like a tree, grabbing black prickly feathers for purchase.
The thing twists in her grip, midair. Its bland features glare out intensely. Inhumanly beautiful and vague. Its eyes are black. It opens its mouth and a horrible whispery scream hisses off its forked tongue.
Not angelic. Demonic. Its eyes are red now and it slashes at her with talon like fingers.
Buffy cuts its throat.
A silvery mist sprays out and its head tips back, half-decapitated.
Buffy springs from its descending body onto the back of the creature holding her mom's left side.
She buries the dagger as deeply as she can between its ribs. Buffy reaches an arm out to grab hold of Joyce's shoulders. Joyce is unnaturally calm.
Buffy's left hand grips the dagger which sticks firmly in the screeching demon and hugs her mom to her with her right arm.
The four of them, two creatures and two humans drop in the air in stops and jerks. Joyce cries out for the first time, in alarm. The wings of the right creature beat frantically to make up for the dead weight of the other three.
It slows their decent, but they do descend.
Several feet above the open clearing, Buffy kicks out at the injured creature, sending it careening to the snowy ground, and swings her free arm around to fully hug her mom.
They hit the ground, Buffy taking the brunt of the fall.
The last winged demon yowls and rears back to attack.
A black and white form blurs past and tackles it to the ground.
Spike, somehow ok and caught up, rolls with the creature and wrestles with it. Buffy has to release her mom and return her focus to the second creature which had risen to its feet while Buffy was distracted.
It stares with a terrible blank face at Buffy and the fight raging behind her.
"You. Cannot. Have her." Buffy's voice is steel.
The thing stretches its rumpled wings and holds one hand to its bleeding side.
It slowly beats its wings until it hovers above them then begins to fly away to the light.
A screech behind Buffy indicates the end of the other fight. The one Spike fought joins the other in the air. Silvery blood drips to the ground in its wake. They fly into the tunnel of light, getting smaller and farther away.
Buffy becomes aware of a ringing church bell.
The light disappears after the last bell tolls and the night is wrapped in quiet darkness once more.
Joyce lays crying quietly on the snow frosted ground. Buffy staggers over and falls to her knees beside her mom, flinging her arms around her in a desperate hug.
"Buffy," her mom whispers, trembling. "I thought I was dying."
Buffy feels tears on her own cheeks though she doesn't remember crying.
Joyce continues in a soft, confused voice, "I thought angels were taking me to heaven."
"No." Buffy says. No dying. No angels. No heaven.
Spike collapses on Joyce's other side.
His black shirt has been clawed up at the collar and blood runs down the side of his face. He's cradling one arm protectively against his side. His nose looks like it's been broken and reset. Blood runs over his top lip.
Buffy remembers that Spike must have crashed with the bike.
"Don't know what the fuck those things were but they weren't angels, that's for sure." Spike coughs wetly. "Demonic energy all over those fuckers. And shit. Did you see that portal? Pardon me, Joyce." Spike belatedly says of his swearing, something Joyce has taken issue with in the past.
Joyce stares at Spike with wide eyes. "Are you okay? You're hurt."
Spike wordlessly indicates he's fine.
He reaches a hand to Joyce's temple, where Buffy sees now the hospital bandage has spotted with blood at the incision site. Spike looks to Buffy with worried eyes. Buffy clutches her mom tighter, maybe too tight, she realizes as Joyce gasps out. Quickly relaxing her grip, Buffy says, "Mom. Are you okay?"
Joyce nods faintly. Buffy thinks her mom must be in shock. Buffy is pretty shocked herself.
The three of them hobble to their feet together, Joyce supported between Buffy and Spike. They slowly make their way across the field and over one of the bridges. Buffy's be-socked feet are wet and freezing. She can't imagine what her mom's bare feet feel like.
As they cross the street to a residential area, the front door to one of the houses swings open and a large man hefting a baseball bat comes down the porch steps.
Spike swears under his breath as their progress is halted.
The man drops the bat when he gets a good look at them.
"Are you people okay? I heard all sorts of commotion, thought it might've been hooligans high on some Halloween spirit."
Spike may look like a hooligan but he also looks hurt.
Buffy's been mistaken for a hooligan before but she can see the man dismiss that possibility with one glance at her torn woolen purple socks.
Joyce just looks like a nice respectable woman in her nightgown. Perhaps a bit dotty with the head bandage and the shock. Joyce's bare feet peek out from under the hem of her nightclothes.
The man shakes his head. "Want me to call an ambulance?" he asks with a dubious look at Spike. "Aw, hell, come in and warm up. Where are your shoes ladies? We're having record cold weather here, in case you haven't noticed."
They all shuffle their way inside the Good Samaritan's home.
"If we could borrow your phone, we can get a ride home," Buffy says hoarsely.
"Yeah, of course." The guy doesn't ask too many questions, obviously a Sunnydale native. Buffy's honestly surprised that anyone came out to investigate at all. She looks sidelong at Spike, the vampire this man unknowingly invited into his home. Spike is leaning heavily against the door, holding his ribs with a pained expression. Buffy knows she should care more about the invite but can't make herself worry about it. Not when Spike just hurt himself saving Buffy's mom.
The man shakes his head again looking at them.
"Forget the phone, lady. Let me give you a lift."
"Thank you," Joyce says dazedly. "That's so kind of you."
The man grabs his keys and ushers the whole motley bunch of them out the door with a wary glance out at the dark night. "Gotta look out for each other, don't we?"
Giles and Dawn meet them at the door back at Revello Drive, Dawn flinging herself at her mom with a cry.
Buffy thanks the guy, Mark, for the lift and leads the way back into the house.
Giles pulls her aside. "Buffy what on earth happened?"
She wishes she knew.
"They took her Giles. They came into our house and they stole Mom right out of her room." She swallows. "Out of her bed. There were three of them and they could fly…I thought she was gone for good." Giles asks more questions, but his words fade to the background. Buffy's eyes are on Spike, who's got a grip on Joyce's elbow to help steady her as she sits on the couch.
Buffy doesn't feel scared. She feels the burn of righteous anger, boiling in her veins. Though she knows there are exceptions, Buffy's overwhelming experience with vampires has solidified the concept of the sanctity of a home.
The sanctity is broken. Their home is no longer the safe haven it felt just that morning.
Mom. Dawn. How to keep them safe if home wasn't even safe? Buffy couldn't be there all the time.
Buffy's thoughts clash against themselves.
Giles is still talking when she interrupts.
"Spike."
He looks at her. In the proper light of Buffy's living room, the bruises he got tonight for her family are much more visible.
"Are you still looking for a new place to stay?"
The room falls quiet at the seemingly random topic.
He coughs, shifting on the edge of the coffee table. "I uh…haven't started yet…"
"Buffy, what—"
Buffy cuts her watcher off again.
"Move in with us. There's space in the basement."
Spike looks at her like she's speaking in tongues. Giles sputters in the background.
"Move in. You'll have a roof over your head, TV, food, shower, whatever in exchange for your protection of Dawn and my mom."
"That is completely unnecessary! Buffy, you're not in a rational mind, it's been a hell of a night—"
"This is beyond rational, Giles." Buffy faces her watcher. "Getting Mom back was a two-man job and not just anyone could've done it. Without Spike's help and quick thinking, Mom would've been…she would've been lost to us." Buffy hears Dawn make a small scared noise. Her sister clutches closer to their mom.
Joyce, looking very pale, says "Extra help is not a bad idea. Spike, we have a cot down there. It's yours if you want it."
"This is madness!" Giles says, essentially to himself behind Buffy. Buffy looks at Spike. "I can't be here all the time. I need to know my family is safe when I'm gone. You stay inside during the day anyway." She takes a deep breath. "My house may not be as safe as I thought but it's not going to crumble like your crypt could any day now—"
"Don't have to twist my arm, Slayer. I'll do it." He looks to Joyce. "That's what you want?"
"Yes." Joyce says, nearly overpowered by Dawn saying, "Will you stay tonight too?"
Giles, overruled, gets as many details from Buffy as he can while Dawn helps re-bandage Joyce's temple.
After Giles leaves for the evening—at nearly two in the morning-Buffy hears Dawn ask their mom if she can sleep with her. Buffy approves of that sleeping arrangement, which leaves one room to protect instead of two.
Spike has patched himself up and is sitting on the couch with a mug of nearly expired blood he'd found in the deep recesses of the Summers' freezer. Buffy is making the last rounds, checking the locks a final time. She looks over at him.
"Do you need a blanket?"
Spike is taking the couch. No one feels up to setting up a cot tonight.
"I'll do without, thanks." He winces shifting his aching body back against the cushions.
Buffy crosses her arms tightly across her chest, an unconsciously protective gesture.
"No Spike, thank you." She says softly and sincerely. "I don't know what I would've done…"
Spike clears his throat. "No need to go on and on about it. Not the hero type, Slayer. Don't need the praise."
"…Okay." Buffy moves to the stairs, pauses, and detours to the weapons chest and takes out her favorite axe.
Buffy climbs the stairs, leaving the vampire to sleep on her couch. She feels more secure knowing he's keeping an eye on the first floor.
Buffy opens her bedroom door and stares at her bed. There is no way she is going to sleep tonight. After she changes into warm, dry clothes, she gently closes the door again and sits down against the wall across from her mom's room.
Buffy sits with her axe resting on her legs, listening to the soothing sounds of her mom and sister murmuring to one another then the creak of beds springs and finally quiet.
She sits, awake and watchful until the first rays of sunlight creep into the hallway.