Chapter 52
Band Aid
A/N: Chapter fifty one of the series.
Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss Whedon and the parties involved in airing the shows.
Feedback: Sure, as you wish.
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Outskirts of London, England
December 2017
Buffy sighed and stared into the eyes of the man who'd been her husband for the past fifteen years. Her partner, and someone she thought would be her equal and her companion for the rest of her life.
Turned out the rest of her life had already happened.
"So, no kiss?" Angelus sneered. Buffy didn't answer and held Faith's arm as the other slayer made an attempt to attack. Buffy shook her head and Faith nodded, feeling the need to erase the sick smile on Angelus' face.
"Aww, not answering." Angelus smirked, and out of nowhere produced a cigarette and lit it with his newly acquired silver lighter. "Probably want to avoid telling me something I could use, isn't it?"
Buffy remained quiet and pulled Faith to her when Angelus began walking to them. If history had taught her something, was to never let Angelus get the upper hand or let him into your brain. Once you fell in his web, there was no way out.
"I was thinking about surprising you, y'know?" Angelus said, circling them like a predator surrounding its prey. "Show up, apologize a bit. Grovel some time, I mean, you loved to have me under your thumb. Maybe appeal to your superior slayerness and swallow my pride some more. Maybe even have another go at you. Angry sex was always good, wasn't it?"
Buffy clenched her fists but didn't fall. She wasn't worried about his verbal attacks, she'd had years of practice, and she could zone him out while looking for other attackers or other dangers.
It was Faith she was worried about. The other slayer had always felt overprotective of Angel, and even when Wesley had told them all that the only way to get rid of Angelus was to jam a stake through his heart, Faith had done everything in her power to prevent that.
"You know, the silent treatment gets boring quickly." Angelus growled and threw his cigarette away. "But, I'm not stupid enough to try to take on two slayers at the same time."
"That'd be a first." Faith blurted out, and Buffy tugged on her sleeve and shot her a murderous look.
"Oh, getting on the slayer's nerves?" Angelus sneered. "Right, you were the feisty and wild one, weren't you? I knew I had married the wrong slayer. You must be a tiger on bed."
"Like you would ever know." Faith spat anew, and Buffy sighed. She could remain as light headed as she wanted to, but Faith would always be controlled by her emotions.
"That your comeback? Tsk, you're getting soft on your old age." Angelus laughed, and then roamed all over Faith's body with his eyes. "Then again, I don't think you'll be soft anywhere. Even at your age, still looking good, Faithy."
"Wish I could say the same, Angel." Faith shot back. "Like the gray on your temples?"
"Oh, this little thing?" Angelus cruelly smiled as he touched his temples. "This will go away. One way or the other. Thing is, I won't get any more. Immortal and all."
Faith smiled, and was about to say something more when Buffy grabbed her arm and placed her hand over the slayer's mouth.
"As amusing as this has been, we have places to be and things to see." Buffy said. "Nice talking to you. See ya!"
"No need to run, wifey." Angelus said, and began walking away. "I'll be the one to take off. There are things I'd like to show you, later."
Buffy nodded and Angelus bowed and walked away.
The slayer stared at him until he was lost in the dark, as she frowned the whole time when realizing she hadn't felt him at all.
"Didn't feel him as well, did you?" Faith asked, once they had seen their enemy disappear. Buffy shook her head and kept looking around.
"I can't worry about him now." Buffy said.
"Uhm, we're in the middle of a war, and now Angelus has returned and you can't worry about him?" Faith asked, shocked at Buffy's nonchalant reply.
"Look, Angelus may be a bastard but he's not a dumb bastard." Buffy replied, still looking around. "He's strong and resourceful, but even he wouldn't be able to take on the Initiative alone."
"We don't know if he's alone." Faith said.
"True, but there doesn't seem to be more enemies, and the distinct lack of blood on the ground is highly suspicious." Buffy clarified.
Faith looked around and noticed that as well. She'd seen Angelus in action, and she thoroughly noted the distinctive absence of destruction.
"Where is everybody then?" Faith asked. Buffy walked inside the main tent again and waited until the other slayer walked inside before answering.
"Riley had never met Angelus." Buffy said, and went quickly over her memories to check. "I think. Still, Riley and Angel never… got along, and I don't believe Commander Finn here would have let either Angel or Angelus get near enough to attack him."
"And?"
"I'm guessing Angelus got to a couple of them before Riley fled." Buffy said, going over the desk's contents.
"Isn't that ex of yours a bit hard headed?" Faith asked.
"He may be hard headed, but he wasn't stupid." Buffy answered. "You have fought Angelus before. The safe thing would be to fall back and think your next move."
"And you're going over this guy's things because…?" Faith asked.
"Looking for a radio." Buffy replied, and her mouth turned into a smile when she found exactly what she was looking for. "And, bingo."
"Do you know the channel?" Faith asked. Buffy gave her a look that clearly indicated she had no idea.
"I'm guessing there won't be many open channels." Buffy said, turning knob until the digital screen showed a '1'.
"Here goes nothing." Buffy said and clicked the button. "Can anyone hear me?"
Faith crossed her arms and chuckled. "That your message?"
"Shut up." Buffy clicked the button again. "Any member of the initiative out there? Can anyone hear me?"
Only static answered, and Buffy didn't know what to do anymore.
"Might as well head back to the others." Faith muttered. "Can't waste more time here. Not now that Angelus knows we're here."
"Who is this and why are you using this channel?" An electronic voice cracked through the radio.
"My name is Buffy." The slayer said. "Who is this? Are you with the initiative?"
"You are a civilian, get off this channel." The voice crackled again.
"No!" Buffy shouted. "Can you get Commander Finn? I need to talk to him."
Silence was their only answer for several seconds, until a familiar voice came over the radio.
"Glad to hear from you, Buffy." Riley's voice carried a sarcastic tone. "I know we may not be on the best terms, but you could have warned us about that husband of yours."
"I honestly didn't know, Riley." Buffy said. "He had been missing for quite some time."
"Whatever. He slaughtered many before we managed to stall him." Riley replied. "Where are you and why are you using this channel?"
"I went looking for you." Buffy said. "We were on our way out of the city. The council took some heavy hits and we had to evacuate."
"Wait, are you on our base camp?" Riley asked.
"That's where I found one of your radios." Buffy replied. "Look, I saw what happened with your planes, Riley. Maybe we could help each other."
More silence.
"Riley?"
"Very well." Riley finally answered. "What do you know?"
"I know there's an army coming this way." Buffy said. "Larger than anything we've seen so far. I don't know why, but the sun won't come up tomorrow."
"What?"
"There's more." Buffy said. "But I guess you don't want me to speak about it over the radio."
"We'll meet on middle ground." Riley said. "Go back from where you came. I will find you."
"Riley, come on…"
"Buffy, I'm a soldier. I have been a soldier all my life. I will find you."
The communication was cut and Buffy sighed.
"Let's get back."
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Twenty minutes later, Buffy, Faith, Riley and a small unit of soldiers were sitting around a small fire on an abandoned building.
"Man, this rain sure has ruined these clothes." Buffy complained. Faith and Riley chuckled, the absurdity of the comment getting to them.
"What?" Buffy asked.
"Good to see you're not nervous." Riley said. "I sure as hell am." He whispered, making sure his men didn't hear.
"As you should be." Buffy said. "I hate to say this, but I told you."
"I know." Riley shrugged. "Thought we had the firepower to take them out."
"Those are dragons, Riley:" Buffy stated. "Dragons. Fourteen years ago it took hours to take one of them down. One. And we had a goddess on our side."
"A goddess?"
"Long story. What do you say now about joining forces?" Buffy asked.
"Don't know, Buffy." Riley said. "My men are a bit demoralized right now, and I couldn't afford to submit my command to you, or Giles for that matter."
"I heard something about what he did." Buffy said. "He might have been wrong, but his reasons made sense."
"Tell that to my men." Riley chuckled. "Some of them used photographs of him as target practice."
Buffy flinched. "Look, this is not about lines of command. This is about the survival of us all."
Riley frowned.
"It is really bad, isn't it?" Riley asked. "If you're telling us to work together, if must be really, really bad."
"Worst scenario possible." Faith intervened. "But we may have some aces under our sleeves."
Riley narrowed his eyes and looked at both slayers.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah." Buffy said, thinking of Annie and the strange command she had over the turok hans. "Safe to say that you won't have to worry about the turok hans."
"You took them all out?" Riley asked.
"Nah, but they're under control." Buffy replied. "Bottom line is, the Council is offline. We sent a distress call for slayers all over the world. We're gonna need all the help we can get."
"Even from
us?" Riley asked.
"They now have both Drusilla and Angelus on
their side." Faith revealed as well. Riley blanched and rubbed his
face with his hands.
"It get worse." Buffy said. "I, uh, had a vision."
"Bad vision, right?" Riley mumbled between his hands.
"One of the worst." Buffy offered a sad smile. "This attack? It's an organized attack."
Buffy spent the next twenty minutes retelling what her mother had told her, what the other light beings had said, and how the battle had progressed before the initiative struck.
After some more tense moments of silence, Riley nodded and stood up.
"You've convinced me." He simply said. "Even though you sure know how to paint a grim scene."
"What will your men do?" Faith asked.
"My men answer to me, and only me." Riley said. "They'll do what I order them to do."
Faith nodded and Riley turned around to walk away.
"Riley." Buffy called. Commander Finn stopped and turned to look at her.
"What happened to Sam?"
Riley seemed to think
about answering or not, but he sighed and looked away.
"She's
back in the States." He said. "Don't know where."
Buffy didn't ask anything else.
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Giles' cell phone began ringing and forced him to slow down to answer.
It had taken Xander and Willow quite some time to successfully wake up every slayer and watcher asleep, and had even wasted more time dealing with the occasional panic attack. It seemed not every slayer could get used to a sudden and massive apocalypse.
'Children.' Giles thought. But even his own had been children when their first apocalypse struck, and he didn't remember any of them panicking. Strangely enough, the only one who had succumbed to fear had been Wesley when he'd been first assigned to Faith and Sunnydale.
The ringing brought him back to reality and he wondered again if cell phones were water proof.
"Hello?"
"Hi grandpa." Buffy said.
"Hi, dear, where are you?"
"Walking back to you." Buffy answered. "Where are you?"
"Trying to follow your lead, dear. What happened?"
"Good news and very, very bad news."
"As usual, what is it?"
"Since I know that human radar will be listening, please, Xander, be quiet about what you're going to hear."
"Xander is several feet away, Buffy, what is it?"
"He'll hear, I know." Buffy sighed. "Good news is the initiative will help us."
"And the bad news?"
"Angel is back." Buffy said. Giles carefully looked at his son's back, but didn't notice anything different.
"And why would that be bad?"
"Cause it's not Angel exactly. Try more along the lines of Angelus."
This time Xander stopped and turned around, which caused Giles to frown, realizing there was no privacy whatsoever if his son was around.
"Xander heard." Giles said. "And so did I. How do you know this?"
"I saw him. Faith saw him."
"You fought?"
"Nope. But he did pay the initiative base camp a visit."
"Bloody hell."
"Right. How is that child of mine?"
"She's fine, leading the way."
"You're gonna have to ask her to stay behind with the turok hans. The initiative agreed to meet us halfway and I don't know what could happen if we get the soldiers and the vampires in the nearby vicinity."
"Very well, dear." Giles sighed. "We'll reorganize."
"K, bye."
As soon as Giles closed his cell, Xander appeared next to him.
"What she said…"
"Yes." Giles replied. "Those are really bad news."
"God, what are we going to tell Annie?" Xander whispered. Giles frowned and his mind raced in a thousand different directions. Buffy had been more worried about other things, but both Xander and Giles felt Annie would be a perfect target for Angelus.
"I think our time here is up." Xander said. "Drusilla, Angelus, Spike."
"They still haven't attacked." Giles said. "Form what Buffy said, Angelus killed some soldiers. Spike killed Kennedy. Drusilla hasn't struck yet."
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"What if those three are together?"
Giles thought about it for a second.
"Don't think so." He finally answered. "Angel..us, hated Spike. Spike obviously hated both Angel and Angelus, and he and Drusilla didn't part in exactly the best of circumstances. Remember what Buffy told us when Spike first professed his love for her?"
"The cattle prod."
"So I don't think those three are together." Giles said. "At least Spike and Angelus won't be."
Xander nodded. "We're gonna have to tell everyone."
"Let's wait until Buffy gets back." Giles said.
"We should at least warn Annie." Xander countered.
"Very well." Giles sighed. "Do call her, please."
Xander nodded and sprinted to the front of the pilgrims. Giles rubbed his temples and thought about the best way to break the news to his granddaughter.
He closed his eyes and wished everything could be as simple as when he only had to care about training his rebellious slayer.
"What up, grandpa?" Annie's voice brought Giles out of his thoughts and he was forced to open his eyes. He saw a young girl, younger than Buffy when she'd been called, and he wondered if Annie's innocence would survive the night.
"There's something I have to tell you, dear." Giles said, and noticed how Xander's hand found its way onto Annie's shoulder.
"It's about your father."
End of Chapter
