Title: What If They Don't Come Back
Author: Rude's Mom
Sunnydale
"Bloody Watchers stole my Dru and I'm aiming to get her back."
Nimue threw her head back and laughed.
Spike lunged from his chair across the table as he went for the laughing blonde's throat. Nimue twisted her body as she grabbed his shoulders and shoved him away deflecting the vampire into the door. Off balance, he slid down it and landed on his ass.
"You bitch," he spat as he stood up.
"Temper, temper Spikey," Nimue said. "I wasn't laughing at you. Well, not much anyway."
"Right," he snarled.
"Really. How often do two people come full circle?"
"Come again?"
"Last time I needed you help to save my Watcher and stop Angelus. In return, I let you take Dru. How would you like some help getting Drusilla back again?"
"Now why would a Slayer help rescue a vampire? The last time you wanted me to keep your Watcher alive What's in it for you?"
"I have plans for the new Slayer and the Council is in the way," she said with a grin worthy of Angelus. "So, are you up for a spot of mayhem and a chance to rescue your demented sweetie?"
"Just what do you have in mind," he asked as he settle back down in his chair.
"We kill the Watcher and any of the Council minions that get in our way."
Calendon
Merdenn sat near the door. He had entered the colonel's room a few minutes earlier but other than a brief greeting, silence reigned. He noticed how she stayed close to the window, allowing the bed to serve as a barrier, if a flimsy one, between them.
He studied her face. There was no longer any trace of the bruising that once marred her skin. Her eyes, however, spoke of pain and fear. No, perhaps not fear, maybe only extreme caution. He didn't blame her. He suspected it would be quite sometime before she felt at ease among men and especially around the Jaffa.
Sam observed Merdenn from the relative safety of the other side of the room. So far, he had yet to make any threatening gestures. If anything, Nimue's consort seemed curious. She was curious as well. She couldn't sense a symbiote in the man. Merdenn was neither a Goa'uld nor a Jaffa. But there was something else about him, just out of reach.
Merdenn continued to focus on the colonel's face. He rubbed his beard covered chin in thought. He knew that face. It was the same face from his dream, albeit older with faint crow's feet around the eyes and lines bracketing her lips. There were a few strands of silver hair mixed in with the blond. He should know her, or at least he thought he should.
"Sha're?"
Colorado Springs
Major Simmons joined George Hammond in the O'Neill kitchen. They could see Jack O'Neill and his son from the window over the sink. The retired colonel gently pushed his son on a swing, a perfect father/son picture until you looked at the man's face. In the last few days, Jack had aged a decade.
"Any new leads Graham," Hammond asked tiredly.
"Nothing else that looks promising. I think our best bet is still the gray van the clerk saw. A vehicle matching its description was caught by a security camera in Las Vegas and by a second camera a short time later just over the border in California."
"Thank god Janet's a biter," George sighed. "Her mother was biter too. Jacob still has the scar to prove it."
Sunnydale
"Atkins, you incompetent fool. How could you let this happen?" Andrew Wyndham-Smythe scowled at his subordinate. "Travers will have your head for this."
"The little bitch bit me. Again." Edmund Atkins, along with Wyndham-Smythe, stood in the basement of one of Sunnydale's many abandoned homes. "She must have grabbed the key before she ran."
"Show's the girl's a fighter, that she has potential you useless git. Not that it's going to do her a damn bit of good now that she has her."
In the center of the room, in a relocked cell, Druscilla held little Janet O'Neill tightly in her arms as she danced to a tune that only she could hear. Suddenly she stopped and turned towards the two men. She morphed into her game face and snapped her teeth at them. Janet began to whimper.
"Don't worry little one. Mummy's coming soon," Dru crooned softly her face resuming its human visage. "She'll take care of those nasty men."
Calendon
Sha're. Sam was puzzled. Why was Merdenn asking about Daniel's late wife?
"I'm afraid I don't know a Sha're," she lied.
"You're not Sha're?"
"I'm Colonel O'Neill."
"No. That's not right." Merdenn shook his head in confusion. "You can't be Colonel O'Neill. He's taller. He's taller. Jack is taller. Jack is Colonel O'Neill."
"Your intel is old. Jack retired years ago," Sam shot back.
"I'm afraid I really don't have any intel," Merdenn said wryly. "Just the occasional vision. A woman who was killed by a First Prime, a man in a dungeon trying to save people, and you in blue dress. You said something about eating your headdress."
Samantha froze. While most of the SGC had heard about the blue dress incident all those years ago, there had only been three witnesses to her little verbal explosion. Jack, Teal'c, and Daniel. She stared at Merdenn for the longest time, finally focusing in on his eyes. It shouldn't be possible but she thought it might be.
"Oh, my god. Daniel?"
Sunnydale
Nimue knocked on the door of Giles' hotel room. She was about to announce herself when the door swung open.
"Did you find out where she is," he asked noting that his slayer was only accompanied by her companions from earlier in the evening. He stood aside to allow them entry.
Nimue sat down on the edge of one of the room's beds as Giles closed the door.
"Not exactly. I found out where she will be though. They are going to do the test tomorrow."
"Are you sure about your informant?"
"Yeah, I've used him before. I think that in this instance he can be trusted. But Giles, you can't be here. If the Council finds out you were anywhere near Sunnydale, they will kill you."
"Buffy," he started before sitting down heavily in a chair. "Buffy, it really doesn't matter. I'm living on borrowed time as it is."
"I know. When this is over, if you come home with me, I have something that will cure you. The catch is, you can't come back, not for a long time. And you can't tell anyone that you are going. You will just vanish."
Giles allowed himself a moment of hope before discarding it. "I can't."
"Why not?"
"Willow. I can't disappear. She's lost too many people already."
"But you are going to die," Nimue pointed out. "She's going to lose you anyway."
"Yes but she will have closure if there is a body and I will have some time to prepare her for it."
"I see," she said softly. "I can offer you another option. It may only be a temporary cure, it may be permanent. I really don't know for certain but then you have to leave. Go back to England, visit Willow, whatever."
"What do I need to do?" He asked having made his decision.
"Pack."