Hey everyone! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it and Happy Holidays to those who don't! I hope you are having a great time whatever you're doing and here's another chapter for you! I'll probably take long to write the next one, so I can't tell you when I'll upload next. Meanwhile, have a great time and enjoy this one!
We have a new visitor. Things are going to get complicated.
Lee out.
Mrs. Marie Woods-Winchester: I wholeheartedly agree with you. Can't get much gentler than Lorne. He was such a sweetheart!
starrienight: You're itching for another Buffy-Ally fight, aren't you?
bwburke94: Glad to have surprised you? Who did you expect her ex to be?
Since spending much time with Buffy was out of the question, Ally had started taking Dawn to the training room in the Magic Box in the afternoons, after visiting Spike in the morning. Her days were once again busy, but that didn't mean they were necessarily easy. Sure, having her boyfriend back was a plus, yet the state he was in worried her more each day that passed. How could she help him get better? She could only think of one person who would know what to do, from experience, but she didn't want to have to call him. Spike wouldn't want it, she didn't want it, and Buffy probably wouldn't want it either.
So there was no way in hell she would call him, not until she was much more desperate, at least.
Besides, judging from Dawn's reaction when Ally had told her about her relationship with Angel, it wouldn't be safe for the vampire to show up just then. Dawn seemed to think that her old friends had been mean to her, had somehow kicked her out of L.A., and Ally was not about to tell her the true story of what had happened. She just told the teen that her friends would always be her friends, and Angel would always be dear to her, even if she wasn't exactly itching to see him again anytime soon.
It was one of those days Dawn and her had been training at the store and had decided to run all the way back home. It had gotten quite late and the sun had just set when they got to Revello Drive, slowing down the pace the closer they got to the house.
"How are you feeling, Dawnie?" Ally asked as she walked a couple of steps ahead of her baby sister, glancing back continuously to check that the panting teen hadn't fainted.
"Like someone set by lungs on fire."
"Don't feel like puking anymore? That's good." She smiled widely even as Dawn shot her a dry glare, hands on her hips as she tried to breathe as best as she could. "No, I'm serious. It's good. You're getting better."
The youngest brunette's face lit up considerably. "Really?"
"Really." Ally nodded, turning and walking backwards so she could face her sister. "And you'll soon be able to come patrol with us."
Dawn frowned, meeting her eyes. "I don't know if I should be proud or scared."
Ally, instead, rolled her eyes, but then looked at her sister softly. "Come on, your two sisters are Slayers, and you have the best babysitter vampire protecting you too. Do you really think anything will happen to you?"
"Better not tell him that we refer to him as my babysitter, alright?" The teen smirked, letting her arms fall to her sides as they reached the front porch.
Ally pushed the door open, still looking at Dawn as they walked in. "Yeah. But we can go back to teasing him when he's better. Hopefully it will…" She paused, completely forgetting what she was going to say as she caught sight of the tall man in a black leather coat standing in front of Buffy in the living room, both looking like they'd just been arguing. She would recognize that posture, that coat and that hair anywhere. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Angel and Ally stared at each other for a full minute before anyone else said anything. Angel's expression was a mixture of sternness and fondness, a strange combination at that. Ally, on the other side, was just shocked, her eyes wide as she took the image of her former love in. He hadn't changed one bit, he never would, but there was a certain… sadness in his eyes, more than she remembered.
Or maybe it was just her memory playing tricks on her.
"I should ask you the same." He countered at last, taking a couple steps closer to her.
"Huh, I live here. You don't."
"Yeah, that's what I've just heard." He glanced at Buffy over his shoulder, his eyes as harsh as his voice. "Care to tell me why you haven't called in over a year?!" He growled, closing in on her, his coat billowing behind him.
"Knew you'd get angry." She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Didn't want you coming to get me and getting killed in the process. I didn't know you and Buffy had a history until a couple days ago. Wouldn't have worried that much over talking about you, Cordy or Lorne to them had I known." She met his gaze just as sternly.
"So what? You told us you'd travel some, have a normal life, and instead ended up in the Hellmouth? How does that work, Ally?"
"You know I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to stop slaying. Well, I ended up exactly where I should. Now, don't pretend you didn't hear me the first time. What are you doing here?"
It was a brief glance, a fraction of a second, yet Ally caught it. He'd looked at Dawn. Didn't matter how schooled his expression was, how good a poker face he thought he had, she could read him like a freaking open book.
"You called him?!" Ally screeched as she turned toward her baby sister, who jumped back in surprise at her outburst.
"She did the right thing." Angel, not happy with the way things were turning, tried to focus the conversation again, grabbing Ally's shoulder and turning her toward him once more. "You shouldn't…" He stopped, sniffing and making the other three women in the foyer frown. "Why do you smell like Spike?"
Ally's face set into a determined expression, briefly looking at Dawn, understanding why the teen had called her ex of all people. She wasn't happy about it and they would have a long conversation about not involving Angel in her issues afterwards, but there was no going back. He could help, even if she didn't want him to, and so she would have to use his help.
"I'm with Spike."
"No, really." He insisted, not even believing her for a second.
"I'm with Spike." She repeated, a bit more harshly this time.
For a moment, his eyebrows rose, bewildered, but it soon turned into a scowl. Quickly looking at the other two women in the room, he grabbed Ally's arm and left the house, dragging her behind, muttering "Give us a minute" as he did so.
They stopped by the fence surrounding the Summers home, Angel pacing a couple steps as he tried to reign his temperament, one hand treading through his hair as his jaw clenched and unclenched. "Have you completely lost your mind?" He finally voiced, halting right in front of her, towering over the brunette as if he could intimidate her. She only arched an eyebrow in response as she crossed her arms over her chest. "He's a vampire, Ally!"
"So are you." She replied dryly, her bitch-face getting more and more annoying to him.
"Don't start with that, you know I'm nothing like him."
"No, you're nothing like him. Doesn't mean he's bad. And doesn't mean you're good. It's a choice. And he chose to play for our side."
"He doesn't have a soul, he won't…"
"He has a soul." She interrupted, averting her eyes for the first time in the whole discussion. "He got it sometime in the last three months. And now it's eating him." Sighing softly, she looked back at her ex. The change in her expression took him aback; there was no more harshness, no more bitterness, only sadness. "I hate to say this… But I need your help."
The ex-couple didn't take long to get to Sunnydale High. No matter what their past experiences might have been, Angel was Spike's sire –grandsire- and he had a responsibility toward his childe. Even more if said childe had gotten his soul back.
They went around the main building until they located a window easy enough to open, just on top of a low protruding part of the high school. The walls were high enough to keep normal people from climbing to the top, but easy enough for a master vampire and a Slayer to go up.
As Ally got closer to the side of the building, Angel passed beside her, crouching and placing his hands so he could propel the girl.
"No need for that, hun." She smirked for the first time since she'd seen him, running up, propelling herself against the side and jumping over the nine-feet-tall wall with apparent ease.
"How…? What?" Angel looked up from the ground, open-mouthed.
"Slayer." She explained, stepping back to leave him room to jump.
"What?!" He repeated, too shocked to react yet.
"Hurry up, hun." She rolled her eyes and approached the window, examining the lock while she waited for the dark haired vampire to reach the top.
The sound of his coat billowing in the air preceded the soft thump of his feet touching the roof, followed closely by footsteps going closer to the girl. "Slayer?"
"Uh-uh. When Buffy died… Wait, you know Buffy died, right?" She looked at him from over her shoulder and searched his coat without asking for permission, expecting him to still put everything in the same places. She was right, there was the little pocketknife he often carried. When he nodded, not even bothered by her search, she continued. "When Buffy died, I was Called. So now we have two active Slayers in Sunnydale, which… still doesn't keep those idiotic demons from coming."
Angel watched as he waited for Ally to open the window, the blade unlatching the lock through the little gap. "Buffy told me you live with them."
"Yeah. Been with them since… woah, about… a year and a half now. It's… so weird to think about a time when I didn't know them. It feels like we've been together our whole lives and…" She paused and spun on her heel to face him again. "So you and Buffy, huh?"
His eye twitched, a sign of discomfort, but he managed to keep a blank face. "Yeah. You and Spike?" The last thing he wanted was to talk about his relationship with the blonde Slayer.
Unlike him, she smiled, happy about her choice of partner. "Yeah." She couldn't regret her time with Spike, not a second. He'd been her first friend after L.A., her protector, her lover. He was more than she could have ever hoped for. She wasn't about to let him get consumed by the voices in his head.
Observing her pleased expression from the corner of his eye, he left her go back to opening the latch. "Looks like you've got a thing for vampires." He commented, pacing around her while she worked.
"Looks like you've got a thing for Slayers." She countered, once again going back to the dry glare.
"You weren't back then."
"No, I was a Potential, big diff."
"It is." He grunted sternly, quickening his pacing.
"Sure, hun." She conceded sarcastically, letting out a happy hum when the window unbarred. "Come on."
The walk down to the basement was short thanks to the brunette Slayer's knowledge of the layout of the building, turning in just the right corners, soon to arrive in front of the white door leading to the underground floor.
"Why is Spike here?"
"I don't know. I found him here. I… was away for a few months. Went back home." She ignored the shock in Angel's face. "When I came back, Dawn told me he'd left, and then I found him down here."
"You went home?"
"Yeah. And old friend died. I got there just in time for the funeral. Almost gave a heart attack to half my family and old friends. I stayed for around three months and came back a few weeks ago."
"Why didn't you come back to us?"
"There's been a lot going on here, and… I knew it would be hard to tell you I was not going to stay in L.A. I'm not leaving Buffy and Dawn. They're my sisters."
"We were your family too."
She turned around so fast he barely had time to stop himself before they crashed. "You don't understand. They are my sisters. I was meant to be here. I was meant to be with them."
"'Meant to be?'" He repeated, face scrunched in confusion.
"I had to be here, with Buffy. I was meant to die for Dawn."
"You… What?"
"We'll sit down and talk later. Right now, we have to get to Spike."
As they reached the basement, their steps echoed in the silence. It was eerily quiet, more so than ever as they were no students trudging through the upper levels. It wouldn't take much for Spike to hear them.
"Spike?" Ally called out, walking toward the last place she'd found him in, Angel close beside her. "Hey, I'm back, I..:"
"Oh, no, you didn't!" The voice of the bleach blond vampire came from further inside the maze of corridors.
"What…?" She wondered out loud, halting in her steps at the scream.
"I can smell you, you poof!" Spike bellowed one more, still out of sight.
"That's you." Ally realized, glancing toward Angel.
"I know." He nodded, his face set into a reluctant acceptance.
"Spike? Where are you?" As they rounded another corner, they found him stalking in their direction, nostrils flaring. "Oh, there you are." She walked faster so she could stop him from getting to Angel, judging from his not-too-happy reaction toward his sire. "Hey, calm down. He's here to help."
"Why did you call him?"
"I didn't. But he's here, and he's the only one who can help you."
"Help me? This sod spent a hundred years moping and brooding. Not the best role model for ensouled vamps, love."
"He's the only one. Not much of a choice there, right?" She insisted, her back to Angel as she looked straight into Spike's eyes. "Please, just… give it a chance, he might be able to rid you of those… voices. Please, baby. Just try."
"I think I'm gonna be sick." They heard the dark haired vamp mutter from behind her, making them both turn their heads to glare at him.
"You're a vampire. You don't get sick. And, please, I've had to put up with worse things from you." She growled, not ready to have to childish vamps picking on each other right then.
He jumped right into the argument, taking a couple steps closer as if to assert his authority. "Worse things? Like what? You've never seen me giving the puppy eyes to someone else like…"
"Mandy." She shut him with that one word.
Angel clenched his teeth and averted his eyes, giving them some room once more. He'd never argue with that, and she knew it.
"Mandy?" Spike asked, out of the loop.
"It's nothing. Well, are you going to talk to him, then? Try?" She held one of his hands, her free one coming to the side of his neck to caress softly.
