Darkness. Everywhere she looked, it over-shadowed her view. Dawn had
never in her life thought anywhere could get so dark; it was as if the sun
had never existed. She didn't even know if it was night or day outside, all
she knew was that whatever had taken her, sure as hell didn't want her to
be found. She had long known that calling for help in a situation like this
never benefited anyone, but that didn't stop her from doing it. It was just
instinct. Even if there is nobody around who could possibly want to help
you, you have to try.
"Buffy!" She screamed as loud as she could with her sore throat. She could
feel the bruising rising on her neck where her attacker's strong hands had
gripped her, and she knew the mark wouldn't go away for quite some time.
The air around her was damp and old, as if this was a place not frequently
visited by human life. It hurt her lungs to breathe it. "Spike!" She tried,
knowing that if Xander knew that he was who she cried out to for help, he
would be shattered. Xander always fancied himself the big strong hero of
the group next to Buffy, but in truth, everyone knew they had a better
chance of being saved by the vampire. The sound of a shoe scuffing the
ground drew her attention to her left and she squinted through the
darkness, trying to see what had made the sound. Suddenly, the room in
which she was being held was illuminated by the flame of a lighter, which
was then used to light a sea of candles one by one. Dawn watched her captor
as he calmly went about lighting the wick of each candle and remarked how
relaxed he looked. Like he had all the time in the world.
"You're not being very polite, y'know," The man informed her in his thick
Irish drawl. "I was just asleep before you started bawling for help." Dawn
shivered with cold and waited for what would come next. A threat, maybe; an
explanation of what was happening. But nothing came. He simply set his
lighter down on the ground and left.
Unlike most people he knew that were inclined to the evil way of things, Gabriel saw no sense in telling his captive of his plans. She would only be able to call out some last minute warning to whoever came to save her, and his endeavours would have been in vain. He understood why others did it, to brag about their intelligence or whatever else, but he prefered to keep everything to himself. Telling the little girl about his plot to kill Spike would do him no good. Especially since she seemed so attatched to him. The only reason he could fathom for this attatchment was that she found him good-looking; otherwise, he was at a loss. As his Childe, Gabriel was supposed to like and even idolise Spike, but he found him arrogant, rude, and with a likeness for violence which was entirely un-necessary. When the pair had hunted together in Paris back in 1925, Spike would take him on a wild chase after some poor soul that would last half the night, only to reveal after capturing them that he didn't even intend to kill them. 'A little torture never hurt anyone', was a joke he was fond of. Well, not that Gabriel thought himself better than Spike, but he didn't have the same taste for that sort of thing, finding a good clean kill much more rewarding. He had been drawn to him one night after watching him brawl against seven others in a pub and win easily. The way he had fought so fearlessly had made Gabriel curious and eager to get to know him better, and that he did. God knows why Spike decided to Sire him, probably because he reminded him of home as he had recently lived in London after moving from Ireland, but that was what happened. After that, Gabriel stuck around for about two decades before one day, he awoke to find Spike and Drusilla had left. It had left him feeling totally rejected, a feeling he had never quite shaken off, but now was his time for revenge. He would fight his Sire to the death, and finally bury the feeling that he was insignificant. He would prove just how significant he could be.
"And what makes you think I need your help?" Willow narrowed her eyes, toying with the idea of killing him just for disturbing her. She had never particularly hated Spike, always felt sort of sorry for him, actually, but saying that, she hadn't exactly liked him. He was too cocky. "Oh I don't know," Spike drawled sarcastically "Can't have anythin' to do with the fact you're holed up in my old hideout, drained to the core, can it?" The Wiccan glared evenly at him. In one respect, she supposed he had a point; she couldn't fight forever, no matter how powerful she felt at the time, and she would need some backup. However, his irritating personality was making it hard not to just kill him. "Look, y'know you'll agree eventually, so lets get down to business, shall we? I've never been one to procrastinate." He interrupted her thoughts, and started to wander about his old bedroom. She could imagine how strange it must be for him to return to this place where he and his Sire had once lived, back when things had been so much simpler. "How do I know I can trust you?" Willow asked after a substantial silence in which the vampire picked up a stray doll Drusilla had left behind before throwing it angrily aside. If she didn't know better, she could have sworn Spike laughed at that, but she knew nobody were stupid enough to laugh in the face of someone as powerful as she was. Stupid, no, but cocky? "You don't," He told her matter-of-factly "You can count on my ability to kill the Slayer, though." Willow carefully went over what he had just said, analysing the language he had used. He had told her the truth, but, knowing that wouldn't hold, had added on the end part; cleverly de-personalising Buffy by calling her by her title. Well, he seemed eager enough to get some killing done, and that was all she was after. When the sun set the next day, they would get to work. Then, after she had gotten what she wanted, regardless of whether he proved to be reliable or not, she would stake him. Simple.
A single ray of sunlight filtered through Buffy's cream coloured curtains and shone on her face. A second later, her eyes flickered open. She peered across at the clock and sighed. It was 6am. She didn't understand how that always seemed to happen. When she had somewhere to go, she always woke up late, but whenever she had a day in which she had absolutely nothing to do, she woke up ridiculously early. Well, she knew from experience that now she was awake she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, so after a couple more minutes of lying in bed, she pulled herself up. Her blond hair felt heavy on her head and after she ran her fingers through it, decided it was in need of a wash. Buffy yawned and frowned in the mirror at herself. The rings under her eyes were huge; it looked like she hadn't slept in months. The Slayer quickly brushed her teeth next door in the bathroom before creeping downstairs. After all, she didn't want to wake Dawn. Suddenly, she remembered that her little sister had ran off to Spike's crypt last night, and turned around on the stairs to check if she was in her bed. Nope, no-one in there. She surely hadn't slept on one of Spike's old chairs? Buffy left the room again and decided that as soon as she was ready, she would take a little trip into the cemetary and collect her sister. Even if that did mean she would have to see the vampire she really, really wanted to be avoiding.
The tiredness has slowly but surely crept up on Spike as Willow droned on and on in the factory about her plans until he could no longer conceal his yawns. Did she not understand that his time to sleep was during the day? After he had jerked himself awake for the tenth time, he excused himself and began to run home. She had kept him there much longer than he had anticipated and now he would have to be bloody quick back to his crypt if he didn't want to end up with a particularly nasty tan. Spike slammed the door shut behind him and cringed as the noise echoed throughout the deserted mausoleum. He had just made it. His skin felt hot, as if he had been sitting too close to the fire for too long, but at least he had missed the full sunrise. A movement next to the tomb in the corner of his home alerted him to the fact that he had not arrived to the emptyness he had grown used to. Before he could raise his defences, however, Clem jumped out from behind the tomb, having apparently been asleep. Spike sighed in relief and ran a hand through his hair. "Wow, you were really cutting it close if you've only just got back," Clem exclaimed with his usual cheeriness, motioning to the rising sun outside, and watched as his friend simply shrugged. "I just came to give you a bit of a heads up." Spike looked over at him lazily and yawned, making Clem eager to get going. He didn't want to deprive his friend of any sleep. "Word is some guys been after you since last night." The vampire shrugged again. "Clem, I appreciate y' tellin' me," He managed a small smile in favour of the kind-hearted demon he had become mates with. "But there's always some guy after me. I'll handle it." Especially with the world's most powerful witch on my side. Clem said his goodbyes, prompting Spike to invite him back over 'some time next week' for a game of poker or something similar, and left. Despite his dismissal of the demon's warning, however, Spike was now feeling particularly paranoid. Nobody knew of his relapse back into the good old bad way of things, so he still had a whole load of enemies. It was just a case of guessing which one was after his blood this week. He was sure he would have reached a conclusion eventually, but his tired mind just couldn't manage sufficiently coherent thoughts, so he gave up soon after, resolving not to give it another thought until he'd had a decent sleep.
Why did Dawn always manage to make everything all that much more worse for her in every situation? It was like she didn't realise that other people had problems, and the world didn't revolve around her. The Slayer rubbed her tired eyes as the sun re-appeared from behind a clump of clouds which were an ominous shade of gray. She was never usually up this early. But then again, when were things ever usual in Sunnydale? Ah, she had reached the cemetary. Something is clearly wrong with your life when you end up in cemetaries at the end of your night and at the beginning of your day. Well, that meant there had been something wrong with Buffy's life for quite some time now. She spotted Spike's crypt looming in the distance and sighed heavily. The night he'd disappeared, she had vowed never to return to this place, and yet, not a fortnight later, here she was. Nothing would make her forgive what he had tried to do to her, but her heart already felt it wanted to. It was as if she was already trying to forget it. The Slayer shook her head at her own stupidity and glanced at her watch. 7am. Not as bad as 6, but still an un-godly hour for a Sunday. She took a deep breath upon reaching her destination and burst in, where she found Spike tiredly making his way down the stairs to the bottom level of his crypt. "Late night?" she asked drily, making sure her tone invited no explanation. "Well, babysitting Dawn's a tough job. Is she down there?" Spike frowned and massaged his temples. "What?" he complained, the total confusion he felt clear in his voice. Buffy looked hard at him and the facts hit her. Dawn wasn't there. He hadn't seen her. And yet she wasn't home. All pointing to...? Without another word, Buffy darted back the way she had come. Spike frowned and shook his head tiredly. Whatever.
Xander's body tensed in fear and his eyes squeezed shut even tighter. The sweat on his brow began to re-new itself as another set of images visited him in his sleep. He had been plagued by dreams of Willow all night, and had only managed to get about three hours rest despite going to bed earlier than usual. In this particular one, he and his best friend were just stood there, staring at one another. She cocked her head to one side quizically and spread her arms wide. Xander smiled and went to give her the hug she was inviting, but found to his dismay he couldn't move. His limbs felt like lead. He tried with all his might to walk towards her, but he simply couldn't. Willow frowned, a hurt look in her eyes, and dropped her arms to her side. Then without another word she walked away into the utter darkness surrounding them. The ring of a phone dragged Xander back to consciousness and he waited for his frantic breathing to calm before answering it. It was Buffy. "Dawn's missing," She excalimed worriedly as soon as Xander had picked up. "She said she was going to Spike's, but he wasn't there 'cause I sent him after Willow, and now I went over to his crypt and he hadn't seen her, and I don't know where she is, and I think she's been taken!" Buffy gulped in some much needed air down the receiver and awaited a reply. "Oh." he croaked, his clouded brain trying to put all the facts which had been fired at him in order. "Come to mine in an hour." The Slayer ordered and hung up. He yawned loudly and groaned before flopping back down in bed. Why couldn't he just go to sleep and stay that way? A warning signal went off in his mind as he was reminded that that was also known as 'death'. That was something he was having too much of at the moment. He'd just stay in bed a minute longer, then. Just another minute...
Unlike most people he knew that were inclined to the evil way of things, Gabriel saw no sense in telling his captive of his plans. She would only be able to call out some last minute warning to whoever came to save her, and his endeavours would have been in vain. He understood why others did it, to brag about their intelligence or whatever else, but he prefered to keep everything to himself. Telling the little girl about his plot to kill Spike would do him no good. Especially since she seemed so attatched to him. The only reason he could fathom for this attatchment was that she found him good-looking; otherwise, he was at a loss. As his Childe, Gabriel was supposed to like and even idolise Spike, but he found him arrogant, rude, and with a likeness for violence which was entirely un-necessary. When the pair had hunted together in Paris back in 1925, Spike would take him on a wild chase after some poor soul that would last half the night, only to reveal after capturing them that he didn't even intend to kill them. 'A little torture never hurt anyone', was a joke he was fond of. Well, not that Gabriel thought himself better than Spike, but he didn't have the same taste for that sort of thing, finding a good clean kill much more rewarding. He had been drawn to him one night after watching him brawl against seven others in a pub and win easily. The way he had fought so fearlessly had made Gabriel curious and eager to get to know him better, and that he did. God knows why Spike decided to Sire him, probably because he reminded him of home as he had recently lived in London after moving from Ireland, but that was what happened. After that, Gabriel stuck around for about two decades before one day, he awoke to find Spike and Drusilla had left. It had left him feeling totally rejected, a feeling he had never quite shaken off, but now was his time for revenge. He would fight his Sire to the death, and finally bury the feeling that he was insignificant. He would prove just how significant he could be.
"And what makes you think I need your help?" Willow narrowed her eyes, toying with the idea of killing him just for disturbing her. She had never particularly hated Spike, always felt sort of sorry for him, actually, but saying that, she hadn't exactly liked him. He was too cocky. "Oh I don't know," Spike drawled sarcastically "Can't have anythin' to do with the fact you're holed up in my old hideout, drained to the core, can it?" The Wiccan glared evenly at him. In one respect, she supposed he had a point; she couldn't fight forever, no matter how powerful she felt at the time, and she would need some backup. However, his irritating personality was making it hard not to just kill him. "Look, y'know you'll agree eventually, so lets get down to business, shall we? I've never been one to procrastinate." He interrupted her thoughts, and started to wander about his old bedroom. She could imagine how strange it must be for him to return to this place where he and his Sire had once lived, back when things had been so much simpler. "How do I know I can trust you?" Willow asked after a substantial silence in which the vampire picked up a stray doll Drusilla had left behind before throwing it angrily aside. If she didn't know better, she could have sworn Spike laughed at that, but she knew nobody were stupid enough to laugh in the face of someone as powerful as she was. Stupid, no, but cocky? "You don't," He told her matter-of-factly "You can count on my ability to kill the Slayer, though." Willow carefully went over what he had just said, analysing the language he had used. He had told her the truth, but, knowing that wouldn't hold, had added on the end part; cleverly de-personalising Buffy by calling her by her title. Well, he seemed eager enough to get some killing done, and that was all she was after. When the sun set the next day, they would get to work. Then, after she had gotten what she wanted, regardless of whether he proved to be reliable or not, she would stake him. Simple.
A single ray of sunlight filtered through Buffy's cream coloured curtains and shone on her face. A second later, her eyes flickered open. She peered across at the clock and sighed. It was 6am. She didn't understand how that always seemed to happen. When she had somewhere to go, she always woke up late, but whenever she had a day in which she had absolutely nothing to do, she woke up ridiculously early. Well, she knew from experience that now she was awake she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, so after a couple more minutes of lying in bed, she pulled herself up. Her blond hair felt heavy on her head and after she ran her fingers through it, decided it was in need of a wash. Buffy yawned and frowned in the mirror at herself. The rings under her eyes were huge; it looked like she hadn't slept in months. The Slayer quickly brushed her teeth next door in the bathroom before creeping downstairs. After all, she didn't want to wake Dawn. Suddenly, she remembered that her little sister had ran off to Spike's crypt last night, and turned around on the stairs to check if she was in her bed. Nope, no-one in there. She surely hadn't slept on one of Spike's old chairs? Buffy left the room again and decided that as soon as she was ready, she would take a little trip into the cemetary and collect her sister. Even if that did mean she would have to see the vampire she really, really wanted to be avoiding.
The tiredness has slowly but surely crept up on Spike as Willow droned on and on in the factory about her plans until he could no longer conceal his yawns. Did she not understand that his time to sleep was during the day? After he had jerked himself awake for the tenth time, he excused himself and began to run home. She had kept him there much longer than he had anticipated and now he would have to be bloody quick back to his crypt if he didn't want to end up with a particularly nasty tan. Spike slammed the door shut behind him and cringed as the noise echoed throughout the deserted mausoleum. He had just made it. His skin felt hot, as if he had been sitting too close to the fire for too long, but at least he had missed the full sunrise. A movement next to the tomb in the corner of his home alerted him to the fact that he had not arrived to the emptyness he had grown used to. Before he could raise his defences, however, Clem jumped out from behind the tomb, having apparently been asleep. Spike sighed in relief and ran a hand through his hair. "Wow, you were really cutting it close if you've only just got back," Clem exclaimed with his usual cheeriness, motioning to the rising sun outside, and watched as his friend simply shrugged. "I just came to give you a bit of a heads up." Spike looked over at him lazily and yawned, making Clem eager to get going. He didn't want to deprive his friend of any sleep. "Word is some guys been after you since last night." The vampire shrugged again. "Clem, I appreciate y' tellin' me," He managed a small smile in favour of the kind-hearted demon he had become mates with. "But there's always some guy after me. I'll handle it." Especially with the world's most powerful witch on my side. Clem said his goodbyes, prompting Spike to invite him back over 'some time next week' for a game of poker or something similar, and left. Despite his dismissal of the demon's warning, however, Spike was now feeling particularly paranoid. Nobody knew of his relapse back into the good old bad way of things, so he still had a whole load of enemies. It was just a case of guessing which one was after his blood this week. He was sure he would have reached a conclusion eventually, but his tired mind just couldn't manage sufficiently coherent thoughts, so he gave up soon after, resolving not to give it another thought until he'd had a decent sleep.
Why did Dawn always manage to make everything all that much more worse for her in every situation? It was like she didn't realise that other people had problems, and the world didn't revolve around her. The Slayer rubbed her tired eyes as the sun re-appeared from behind a clump of clouds which were an ominous shade of gray. She was never usually up this early. But then again, when were things ever usual in Sunnydale? Ah, she had reached the cemetary. Something is clearly wrong with your life when you end up in cemetaries at the end of your night and at the beginning of your day. Well, that meant there had been something wrong with Buffy's life for quite some time now. She spotted Spike's crypt looming in the distance and sighed heavily. The night he'd disappeared, she had vowed never to return to this place, and yet, not a fortnight later, here she was. Nothing would make her forgive what he had tried to do to her, but her heart already felt it wanted to. It was as if she was already trying to forget it. The Slayer shook her head at her own stupidity and glanced at her watch. 7am. Not as bad as 6, but still an un-godly hour for a Sunday. She took a deep breath upon reaching her destination and burst in, where she found Spike tiredly making his way down the stairs to the bottom level of his crypt. "Late night?" she asked drily, making sure her tone invited no explanation. "Well, babysitting Dawn's a tough job. Is she down there?" Spike frowned and massaged his temples. "What?" he complained, the total confusion he felt clear in his voice. Buffy looked hard at him and the facts hit her. Dawn wasn't there. He hadn't seen her. And yet she wasn't home. All pointing to...? Without another word, Buffy darted back the way she had come. Spike frowned and shook his head tiredly. Whatever.
Xander's body tensed in fear and his eyes squeezed shut even tighter. The sweat on his brow began to re-new itself as another set of images visited him in his sleep. He had been plagued by dreams of Willow all night, and had only managed to get about three hours rest despite going to bed earlier than usual. In this particular one, he and his best friend were just stood there, staring at one another. She cocked her head to one side quizically and spread her arms wide. Xander smiled and went to give her the hug she was inviting, but found to his dismay he couldn't move. His limbs felt like lead. He tried with all his might to walk towards her, but he simply couldn't. Willow frowned, a hurt look in her eyes, and dropped her arms to her side. Then without another word she walked away into the utter darkness surrounding them. The ring of a phone dragged Xander back to consciousness and he waited for his frantic breathing to calm before answering it. It was Buffy. "Dawn's missing," She excalimed worriedly as soon as Xander had picked up. "She said she was going to Spike's, but he wasn't there 'cause I sent him after Willow, and now I went over to his crypt and he hadn't seen her, and I don't know where she is, and I think she's been taken!" Buffy gulped in some much needed air down the receiver and awaited a reply. "Oh." he croaked, his clouded brain trying to put all the facts which had been fired at him in order. "Come to mine in an hour." The Slayer ordered and hung up. He yawned loudly and groaned before flopping back down in bed. Why couldn't he just go to sleep and stay that way? A warning signal went off in his mind as he was reminded that that was also known as 'death'. That was something he was having too much of at the moment. He'd just stay in bed a minute longer, then. Just another minute...