Quicker Than Ever
"Mr Winchester."
Dean groaned quietly. Perhaps he could pretend he hadn't heard. He continued walking down the school corridor without so much as slowing down.
"Mr Winchester!" Louder this time, and impossible to pretend to ignore. "Entschuldigung*, Mr Winchester!"
Sighing, he stopped and slowly turned around. "Hi, Janica."
Tall, blonde Janica was an Austrian slayer who had only been with the school for a month. About a week ago she had decided that she was madly in love with Dean, and she'd been finding excuses to catch up with him at least a half a dozen times a day. He wouldn't have minded so much if she hadn't been only seventeen, and he hadn't been completely in love with a demon slayer. As it was, it was getting very annoying.
"Guten morgen**," she replied bashfully. She knew perfectly well how to speak English, but often went back to her native language when shy.
After she had stood there almost a whole minute, just staring at him, Dean began to feel quite uncomfortable. "So did you need something?"
"No. All I wanted was to say hello." She waved cheerfully. "Hello!"
"Right," he acknowledged, slowly. "Okay, kid. Get back to class. Seriously."
"Okay! Tschuss!***"
Yeah, she was kind of annoying.
Finally, some peace and quiet! It was crazy that Dean had to patrol in a cemetery just to get some time alone. All he'd had for a week solid were orders from his father or bitching from Sam or question after endless question from curious and admiring slayers.
And what was that even about? How and when had he become this authoritative figure to these kids? They actually listened when he told them to do something!
He felt so old.
"Mr Winchester!"
Holy mothering Jesus!
He paused mid-step. "Janica, if I turn around and find out that you really are standing behind me then I am going to be seriously cranky."
"Oh...shall I hide?"
He sighed and turned to find, for the seventh time that day, Janica standing there, watching him. When she caught a look at his face, she took a timid step back, even though they both knew she could knock him down with her pinky.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
"Miss Lehane brought a group of us out to patrol. One of the other girls mentioned that you were also out here tonight. I sneaked away to find you."
"You sneaked away? Jeez, kid! With everything that's going on right now! Do you know how irresponsible that is?"
"I just wanted to say hello."
"Well now you've said it. Come on, I'm taking you back to Faith. And if she tries to give you a good ass kicking, I'm not gonna try to stop her, you hear me?"
"Dean..."
He stopped moving and squeezed his eyes shut tight. That voice had sounded just like...
"Buffy," he breathed, turning around and opening his eyes.
She looked bad. Pale, weak. Her clothes were ripped and her hair was knotted.
"Help me," she pleaded. "I broke free of the spell and escaped. I need help."
He didn't think about the fact that she had managed to end up here, at this particular graveyard where he had just happened to be hunting. He didn't think about how impossible it would be for her to have escape the demons, especially as weak as she seemed. He didn't think about anything.
"Mr Winchester." Janica grasped his arm to stop him moving towards Buffy. "Something doesn't feel right..."
But this was Buffy. His Buffy. And there was no one on earth who could stop him from going to her, especially when she was calling for him, weakly. He brushed Janica's hand away and went to her.
"Be careful," Janica warned.
But he ignored her. "Buffy," he choked out, pulling her into his arms. "I was so worried about you." He kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her lips. "How did you get away?"
When she didn't answer him, he looked down at her face.
She was smiling, wickedly.
He'd been played.
He shoved her away from him, feeling sick to his stomach as she began to laugh. "You can come out now, sister," she called over her shoulder.
A happy looking Meg sauntered out from behind a large tombstone. "Hello, darlings."
His heart beating furiously, Dean slowly backed away from the pair. "Janica, stay back."
"I think we should leave now," she replied with a shaking voice. It was the first time she'd ever encountered a non-vampire type of demon. "Mr Winchester, let's leave now. Bitte****."
Meg rolled her eyes and waved a hand.
Dean heard a sick snap, and turned just in time to see Janica drop the floor, dead. From the angle of her head, it was clear that her neck was broken. He twirled back to face Meg, fury burning in his eyes. With no thought in his mind other than inflicting pain, he rushed towards her, but was stopped by Buffy, who casually stepped in between them. With one hand, she lifted him up by the front of his jacket and tossed him unceremoniously to one side. He hit a gravestone, hard, and was powerless to do anything but lay there, dazed.
With a bored sigh, she moved towards him to finish him off, but was blocked by an angry whirlwind of dark hair.
"Can't let you do that, B," Faith announced.
"Get out of my way, F."
Instead of answering, Faith punched her, right in the face. But Buffy's head barely even turned. She punched back, sending Faith flying towards the ground.
Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Faith ground her teeth and climbed back up. "Knock me down, B, and I'll always get back up. You should know that by now."
Buffy cocked a patronizing eyebrow. "You wanna fight me? Seriously? You do know I can totally wipe the floor with you, right?"
"I don't want to fight you. But I will."
"Honey pie, if you don't want to fight me, get out of my way. Me and you can go at it another time."
"Get out of your way so you can kill Dean? Kinda can't do that. Because you're gonna want him when we get you back."
"I'm right here. And I don't want him."
"I'm not gonna let you hurt him."
"Fine." Buffy let out an annoyed huff. "Then I'll just have to settle for hurting you."
They flew at each other, and Faith gave it everything she had. But she couldn't even touch Buffy. She was quicker, stronger, and more skilled than she had ever been. No matter what Faith threw at her, she threw it right back, at double the strength.
Buffy didn't even break out into a sweat.
"Buffy, honey, this is getting boring," called out Meg.
"You're right," she agreed, kicking Faith's feet out from under her. "You know," she said, looking down. "I'm really not supposed to kill you just yet. There's this whole big thing. A time and a place, you get the drift. But you've annoyed me tonight so-"
"Miss Summers," came a timid sounding voice. "Step away from Miss Lehane. Now."
She stopped and looked up. She chuckled at the sight of a dozen, scared looking slayers, surrounding herself and Meg, Faith and Dean, all wielding swords or crossbows.
"Oh no, this is so scary," she called out sarcastically. "Meg, aren't you just terrified?"
"I'm trying to contain my horror." Meg folded her arms impatiently. "There's quite a lot of them, though. Breaking them into pieces would be easy enough, but so time consuming."
"Good point." Buffy nodded. "Father wouldn't be happy if we were late."
"You're not leaving just yet," Dean exclaimed, pulling himself up with a cough. He slipped out his gun and aimed it at Meg.
She snorted. "Come on now, Deanybear. You know that's not gonna-"
He shot.
"-work."
"No. But it sure as hell made me feel better."
"You idiot, you ruined my shirt! You're gonna pay for that. Real soon."
Buffy looked down at Faith. "Until next time, sweetheart."
Faith blinked, and when she opened her eyes, Buffy and Meg were gone.
The school hospital was quiet as Nurse Phoebe patched up Dean and Faith. The others listened glumly as they relayed what had taken place.
"We've lost her, haven't we?" Faith spoke up, her face in her hands.
Giles looked up at the ceiling, unable to meet anyone's eye. "I fear that may be so."
"What?" Dean slipped down off the bed and faced them all. "What the hell are you talking about? We haven'tlost her! Nothing's changed. We can still get her back. We just have to figure out how."
"But...didn't she kill Janica?" asked Andrew, biting his lip.
"She didn't kill her, Meg did."
"She was a part of it," John said, quietly.
He shook his head. "No. I'll save her. And damn all of you if you give up on her now."
"We're not gonna give up on her," Sam promised him. He gripped his shoulder tightly. "I promise."