Hello everyone! Another quick question. Would you like me to do some one-shots (on another document/fic) about Ally and Lindsey's encounters back in L.A.?
As always, I really appreciate reviews, so if you can tell me what you think about the story, a certain chapter or what you don't like about it/wish for me to change, don't hesitate to tell me! I usually reply to most reviews, so we can discuss things or you can ask me if something isn't clear enough!
Enjoy!
Lee out.
When Ally went back downstairs, leaving Dawn in her room to keep her away from accusing eyes, Spike, Willow and Anya were in front of the door, waiting for something. Apparently, Tara was doing a spell to free them, and they were just waiting for her signal to throw themselves at the door.
Somehow, Ally knew it wouldn't work, and she was right.
But something else had been freed. Something -or someone- who Buffy and her had killed a few nights prior. The demon from the graveyard, with the huge sword Buffy had unwisely left in the living room attacked them, slashing the air and wounding Richard before the senior Slayer tackled him, both of them landing on the floor before the demon disappeared.
Ally hurried to the injured man's side, taking in the large sword wound on his stomach, probably life threatening if they didn't act fast.
Night came again while they were still trapped in the house, on high alert due to the demon that could appear and disappear at will, brandishing a huge sword.
"So, you ever think about not celebrating a birthday? Just to try it, I mean." Spike suggested to Buffy as the three sisters, Sophie and Spike sat around the living room.
Buffy shot him a dry glare but mostly ignored him, changing subjects. "I'm gonna go check upstairs. Keep an eye on things down here?"
Spike and Ally nodded, the brunette sitting next to Dawn on the couch, holding each other's hand in an attempt to calm their nerves. Buffy turned toward them on her way out of the living room. "You stay here, okay?"
Not a couple seconds after the senior Slayer had left, they started to hear creaking noises coming from the walls, making Ally's hold on Dawn's hand tighten, even as she tried to keep it fairly soft so as not to hurt the teen.
"What's that noise? It's in the walls, isn't it?" Her baby sister asked, Spike turning and getting his ear close to the wall to listen to the sounds coming from the inside.
Ally stood from her seat and approached him, placing her hand on his arm as she tried to guess which part of the house the demon was in. "No, love, stay away from the wall." Spike pulled her away, getting himself between the wall and her.
"Be careful, then." She pleaded, frowning lightly in concern.
He smirked at her then, brushing a lock of her hair out of her face. "Aren't I always?"
"No, that's the problem." She growled under her breath, averting her eyes from his.
And then, just as he was about to retort, they heard Xander scream from the dining room. Both of them ran, not a moment of hesitation, and Spike tried to pry the demon away from Xander as Ally kicked it as she grabbed hold of his sword arm. They managed to get the dark haired man free, yet the demon threw his elbow back and knocked the vampire down, slashing his sword around and making Ally have to back away and dodge, the blade barely missing her head. Xander wasn't that lucky, or fast, and got his arm cut lightly, not an important wound.
Soon Buffy joined the fight, actually managing to hit the demon and giving Spike and Ally time to go back into the offensive, only for the vampire to get badly hit again. Between the two Slayers, they landed several kicks and punches, eventually causing the demon to disappear into the wall again.
Ally immediately went to Spike's side, helping him sit up and trying to find any wounds or bruises that needed to be taken care of. "Are you alright?" She asked once she made sure there was nothing visible.
"Peachy." He drawled as he held onto her hand and stood up, frowning at the point where the demon had disappeared. After glaring holes into the wall, his eyes turned toward Ally, softening at her concerned look. "I'm fine, love, nothing to worry about." He brushed her hair over her shoulder again and wrapped his arm around it, bringing her closer to his side, her head laying on his chest.
She sighed, getting tired. They had barely slept, they were trapped, and a demon was trying to kill them inside the house. She was starting to feel a bit claustrophobic, yet his cold touch seemed to calm her down, keep her grounded. "I always worry about you."
At the gagging sounds coming from Buffy and Xander, who was joined by a slightly catatonic Anya, Ally rolled her eyes and brought her arms around Spike's middle, daring them to say something about them.
Most of the Scoobies gathered in the dining room, except for Buffy and Dawn, trying to come up with anything that could get them out of there. "I just think we haven't thought of the right way out yet, that's all."
Spike, with his arms wrapped around Ally's waist, her back to his chest, looked around the room as if not wanting the demon to hear him. "Well, we can't just stay put like cattle, waiting for that thing to pop out every time it gets peckish."
"I'd say we do another spell, but I-I think we've tried everything." Tara admitted, clearly not happy about it, and even nervous, as it was only natural.
Anya didn't seem to agree with her, though. "Well ... that's not completely true, is it? I mean, not everything. Not exactly." She looked at Willow, making Ally frown, suspecting what the ex-vengeance demon was going to suggest. "We're sitting here with an incredibly powerful witch ... much more powerful than you, Tara, I'm sorry ... only no one seems willing to say it."
"I can't." Willow lightly shook her head.
"No, see, that's not exactly true either. Not can't, won't."
"You don't know how much I hate this. I don't know if there's even ... anything I could do."
"Yes ... and a good way to find out is to sit around and try nothing. That was sarcasm, by the way."
Sensing his girlfriend tense between his arms, Spike tried to speak up. "Look..."
Willow cut him. "It's dangerous."
"And so is all of us dying!" Anya insisted, getting angrier by the second.
"Will ... look, I don't wanna gang up on you ... but Anya kinda has a point. We brought you back from it once. We're all here, it's just one little spell, whatever happens, we can bring you back again."
"You seriously have no idea what having an addiction is like, do you?" Ally sneered at the couple, her grip on Spike's arms around her tightening dangerously.
Willow still tried to defend herself, convince the rest of what a spell could mean for her. "No. I can't. If I start, I ... I might not be able to stop."
"And whose fault is that?" Anya stood up brusquely, walking up to the redhead with a scowl on her face. "You know, if you hadn't gotten so much of this in your system in the first place..."
"Hey!" Tara shot from her place and got right in front of Anya, preventing her from getting to Will. "You're gonna back off!" She stared down at the blonde, holding her own like Ally had never seen her do. "She said no, and that's it. You're not gonna make her do something that she doesn't want to. And if you try... You're gonna have to go through me first. Understood?"
As Anya glared at Tara, Ally couldn't help but smirk in satisfaction, proud of the usually meek witch.
"Fine. If you all aren't willing to get us out of this, then I will do it myself." And with that, Anya left the room, going upstairs for who-knows-what, Xander right behind her.
Ally caught Tara's eyes and nodded at her, the smirk still in place, getting a grin in response. She thought it would be good to leave the witches alone for a few minutes, so she turned toward her vampire, getting out of his embrace, and took his hand instead. "I'm thirsty." As subtly as she could, she moved her eyes toward the ex-couple before dragging him to the kitchen behind her, only letting go of him when she got to the fridge.
"That was a lame excuse to get them alone, Ally Cat." He chuckled from across the counter, leaning his forearms on the surface.
"Or maybe I wanted us alone." She winked at him over her shoulder from her bent position before the fridge before turning back and grabbing a bottle of water. But when she straightened herself and turned to leave the bottle on the counter, she found Spike right in front of her, his hands resting on the closed fridge, caging her.
"Did you?" His face came closer, lips twitching into his classical smirk as her heart started to beat faster.
It was amazing, really, how his proximity still sent her heartbeat right up, made her forget how to breath properly or made her cheeks burn like a teenage girl on her first date. His smirk grew as he sensed all those things -blasted vampire senses giving away every single one of her reactions- and she wiped it off his face by kissing him. At least, when they had both closed their eyes, he couldn't see her tomato face.
And then they heard Anya talking to someone, clearly upset, and everyone rush downstairs to where she was. Something was going on.
They pulled away from each other and joined the rest in the living room, where Anya was facing Dawn, Buffy by the blonde's side. "Anya, hold on, okay?" Then she turned toward Dawn, who Ally soon joined so as not to leave her alone under everyone's stare. "Tell her you didn't do this. Tell her it's a mistake."
Ally intervened, her eyes moving from Anya to her eldest sister. "What's going on?"
Instead of answering her, Buffy looked over toward the couch, where the box with the coat Dawn had given her as a birthday present had been left the night before.
"No!"
Buffy walked over to the couch, staring down at the box holding the black leather jacket as her face fell in sudden understanding. "Oh."
"Buffy..." Dawn couldn't even come up with an answer, making Ally frown as she tried to understand the situation.
"How are we supposed to trust you, Dawn? I mean, you ... you say you didn't put us here, but look at this stuff! How are we supposed to believe you?"
"What the heck is going on?" Ally asked once again as she put herself in front of Dawn so Anya would stop looking at her. Alright, she was pissed at Anya, there was no denying that.
But Buffy was at least trying to defend Dawn too, much to Ally's surprise. "Look, I-I don't think she... I don't think it's all her fault, okay? She ... there was a guidance counsellor, or someone pretending to be a guidance counsellor, she, she made Dawn make a wish."
Anya immediately seemed to catch to what was happening. "Guidance counsellor? You made a wish to someone you've never seen before?"
Dawn moved from behind her sister, if only to be able to look at the ex-demon. "Yeah?"
"Did she wear a pendant with a, with a dark blue stone?"
"And little red flecks?" The teen specified.
"Uhh, for crying out loud. Halfrek!" Anya called out, looking exasperated. "It's Halfrek, a vengeance demon. You made a wish to a vengeance demon."
"I didn't know." Dawn defended herself, letting Ally take her hand in support.
"Only a vengeance demon can break her own vengeance spell. Nothing else will work. She's the only one who can get us out of here. Hallie, get your ass down here!"
And in a puff of smoke, a gross looking woman appeared, a pendant just like the one they'd described hanging from her neck. "You rang?"
Before anyone could say anything else, Halfrek was ran through with a sword, the demon that kept disappearing right behind her.
Both Slayers jumped into action, attacking the demon with practiced moves, their teamwork having improved with all the patrols they had been doing together lately. Spike came behind the demon, holding it for them and making it easier to land powerful hits, even giving Ally the chance to grab its sword arm and bend it until she heard it crack, the sword falling to the floor with a clank. Buffy quickly picked it up and buried it deep in the demons chest, Spike jumping back to avoid being skewered too.
The demon glowed blue and melted into the sword, which Buffy made sure to snap with her knee so he would not be able to come back.
As soon as the demon was out, Anya hurried to the other demons side, who was still lying on the ground. "Her pendant! Get her pendant!"
However, when she was just a couple inches away from the vengeance demon, she jerked upright, holding her hand out to prevent Anya from going any closer, instead sending her flying to the couch. "There will be no touching of the pendant." Halfrek rose to her feel, brushing her clothes off after being on the floor. Everyone, even Ally who had tumbled farther into the living room after breaking the other demons arm, stared at her in surprise. " What? Did you think I'd be stopped by a sword in the chest?" She looked down at her chest and pulled at her clothes to see the hole the sword had made. "Flesh wound. Honestly, Anyanka, you used to know better."
Anya came closer to the demon she seemed to know quite well. "How could you? Why would you do this?"
Halfrek looked at her as if stating the obvious. "I told you I was going to take care of some business while I was here in town."
"Yeah, but cursing us? Some of them are in the wedding party." She said those last words in a hushed voice, as if they couldn't hear every single thing she said.
"I just go where I'm..." Halfrek paused then Spike entered the living room, her eyes widening in shock. "William?"
He stared at her in bewilderment for a moment, leaning a bit back when a look of familiarity hit him. "Hey, wait a minute."
"You guys know each other?" Buffy asked, glancing between them like the situation was not as weird as it was.
Ally, though, frowned at the look Halfrek was giving her vampire and walked up to him, crossing her arms across her chest as she stood close to him, making the demon's eyes move to her. "Uh, no. No." Still, Halfrek fiddled with her hair, watching the vampire from the corner of her eye.
Spike played along, glancing down to his girl before averting his eyes guiltily. "Not really."
They proceeded to discuss vengeance demons, Anya hinting to Halfrek's daddy issues while Ally glared at her, leaning back against Spike just to feel some part of him, which soon became a lot as he brought his arms around her waist once again.
The demon felt the need to defend herself, even as she frowned when she caught sight of the brunette Slayer with the vampire she seemed to know from way before. "Sling all the little barbs at me that you want, Anyanka, it doesn't change the fact that this girl was in pain, and none of you could hear it. I could hear her crying out everywhere I went in this town. It was unbearable. And none of you knew." Ally's heart clenched at the thought of how much Dawn had suffered, Spike's hold tightening a bit in an attempt to make her feel a bit better. Still, she knew the demon was somewhat right, and she had neglected her baby sister. Guilt made her eyes water, convincing her even more that she needed a lot of quality time with Dawn was all that was over. "You people deserve to be cursed. Enjoy your time together. From now on ... all you have is time. Time ... and each other. Good luck!"
Halfrek moved her arms dramatically, trying to leave in what was probably another puff of smoke, only to realize it was not working. After the second try, Anya huffed, rolling her eyes. "It's the curse, Hallie."
Realizing how ridiculous she looked, she muttered, annoyed. "Oh, for crying out loud." She laughed a bit. "Fine, the curse is lifted! We can all leave now! ... Damn it." And with a snap of her fingers and a puff of smoke -drama queen -, she was gone.
When everyone had finally left or gone to bed, except for the two Slayers, the weight of their family problems finally settled. They sat on the couch, side by side, staring off into space.
"Dawnie needs help." Ally told her eldest sister, knowing that in this case, they could both work together. When Buffy needed help, they couldn't include Dawn on it. They couldn't include anyone but Tara on it. But they could then, for Dawn. They would both work together.
"Yes, she does. She has been stealing. From the Magic Box, from other shops..."
Somehow, this revelation didn't surprise her. It was a cry for help, as Halfrek had put it. "We have to take care of this, and we have to do it right. We can't attack her now, Buff."
"I know." The blonde nodded, hugging herself.
"We need to be by her side, not against her. She's lonely."
"I know." Buffy locked gazes with her, for once, looking hopeful. "We can do it, right?"
"Yes. We will do it, together." Ally threw and arm around Buffy's shoulders and let her lean into her. "We'll figure out something."
