Twist of Fate: Chapter 25
by Lisette
Legalese: See Chapter 1 for disclaimers and ratings.
As a bleak silence fell over the room, Giles slowly lifted his glasses from his face, ignoring the trembling in his own hand. His Slayer, his Buffy, had been taken almost five months ago, which meant that she had been imprisoned in this Centre for that long... that she had been in the hands of this man for that long. He didn't need Miss Parker to go into torrid detail for him to understand that his illusive fantasies of Buffy being held by people that fed her, clothed her, and kept her warm and safe were nothing more than fantasies. Instead, Buffy had obviously been forced to endure five months of Hell... perhaps something worse than Hell. It was all too easy for him to remember the night that he had spent as a prisoner of Angelus two years ago - a night that seemed to last an eternity. And here this woman was all but saying that his slayer... that Buffy had been forced to endure a night like his that lasted for what had to seem to be an actual eternity.
"Dear God," he whispered, sagging back against the counter behind him as his mind began to spin. Upon hearing her words, he couldn't help but wonder now, just not if they would get Buffy back... but what kind of condition she would be in when she was finally returned to them. If she was finally returned to them. What condition in body and more importantly, in mind?
"Damn," Xander murmured weakly, filling in the bleak void that had fallen upon the room. "If all they wanted was a psychotic Slayer to go kill some people, they should have just taken Faith," he murmured as he shrugged his shoulders. "If they could have woken her up."
"Faith?" Miss Parker asked, her attention sparked by the familiar word as she realized that faith wasn't a thing, but a person. "Who's Faith?" she demanded, her eyes urgently sweeping from person to person. But it was as though that question finally brought the others back to the present, pulling their worrying minds away from their lost friend. And with that pull came the realization that they didn't trust her. That she was one of the 'bad' guys. Instantly, both Xander and Giles' faces closed up as they looked at her with obvious suspicion. Sighing, she was about to try again when the small redhead spoke up, Willow, if she remembered correctly.
"Faith is another Slayer," Willow supplied, ignoring the glares that she was receiving from both Giles and her best friend.
"There are two?" Miss Parker asked quickly, arching an eyebrow at the group. "But I thought you said one girl in every generation-"
"There's not supposed to be," Xander interrupted with a small shrug. "A loophole in the whole once a slayer dies, another called theory."
"Well, where is she?" Miss Parker asked, Buffy's last words to her ringing in her mind.
"Currently?" Xander continued, a frown pulling at his lips. "A vegetable in good old Sunnydale Memorial. Previously? A psychotic she-bitch working for the Mayor, aka demon-ascension-meet-TNT," he finished with a wry grin.
Ignoring the teen's colorful side commentary, Miss Parker pursed her lips and slowly tapped one long finger against her chin. "Before I left the Centre, I saw Buffy one last time," she murmured, completely oblivious to the fact that she now had everyone's undivided attention. "She was under some kind of drug, and not very coherent," Parker admitted with a small frown, "but she said something about needing to tell you," she continued, nodding towards Giles, "that someone needed Faith. That someone was coming for Faith and that you needed to save her." Smartly, she decided to not pass on the part about Buffy saying that there wasn't any hope left for her - no way to help her any longer. "At the time, I didn't know that she was talking about a person."
For a brief moment, a thick silence fell over the group - a silence that was quickly shattered by the sound of exploding glass. Startled, the group flinched as Giles sent another glass crashing to the ground as he angrily pounded his fist on the counter, his back turned towards them. "Damn them," he hissed in a voice that was too easy for the other Scoobies to recognize by this point.
"Uh... Giles?" Willow asked tentatively from her place on the couch, knowing from experience that it wasn't the best of ideas to physically approach him when like this.
"The Council," Giles responded, finally turning back towards the group, his face flushed and a vein throbbing in his temple. "It's why the Council hasn't sent any aid," he continued quickly, his tone biting. "Those bloody pillocks have decided to forgo Buffy and go after Faith instead!" he hissed, kicking himself for not having realized it sooner. For not having realized the extremes that the Council that he had been sworn to would go in order to ensure the Slayer line continued.
"They're going to kill her to activate the next Slayer," Willow murmured, comprehension dawning on her face.
Startled, Miss Parker could only stare at the others for a few moments before common sense kicked in once again. "But how could Buffy have possibly known about this?"
"Buffy has dreams," Willow explained quickly, her forehead wrinkling. "Prophetic dreams because she's the Slayer."
"And Faith and Buffy have some strange connection because of the sister slayer thing," Xander added, remembering how it was Faith in a dream that had given them the key needed to defeat the Mayor. Then, pushing away the memories of better times - amused at the thought that graduation could be considered better times - Xander quickly got down to the root of it. "So, now what?"
"Now we have no choice," Giles responded quickly, straightening as he said the words he never thought he'd be forced to say. "Our first order of business is to save Faith. We need to get her out of the hospital somehow before the Council can get to her."
"What?" Xander countered, jumping to his feet as he stalked towards the aging Watcher. "I can't believe this! You want us to leave Buffy in that place when we finally know where she is?"
Sighing, Miss Parker interrupted the teen's angry tirade. "If your friend is really capable of these dreams... well, she made it clear what she wanted you all to do. And storming the doors of the Centre wasn't what she was referring to," she murmured, arms crossing firmly across her chest. "Besides, it'd be near impossible to get to Buffy inside the Centre-" she broke off as the door burst open behind her, admitting Oz, followed by Jarod and Sydney, the former leaning slightly on the older man.
"Don't worry," Jarod said by way of greeting, eyes taking in the stunned group before him. "I'm pretty sure that the Centre isn't that far behind us."
Ignoring his pounding head, Lyle's angry gaze swept over the team of sweepers that scoured the room, as though they really thought that they could find a clue to Jarod and Sydney's whereabouts in the small cell. Grimacing, he adjusted the bag of ice slightly before turning his stormy eyes on the tall black man beside him. "Willie, what I want to know is how in the hell Sydney got down here!"
"Sydney had authorized clearance for this sublevel," Willie responded, refusing to have the blame for this mishap pinned on him. "Some of his subjects are located down the hall, and Security didn't realize what was happening until it was too late."
"Too late?" Lyle asked, his eyes widening before narrowing into slits on the man before him. "Security didn't realize what had happened until I alerted them! Security didn't prevent Sydney from giving me this," he continued, pointing angrily at the massive lump that was forming on the back of his head, "nor did they prevent him from getting away with Jarod. Again!" To this, the man had no response and Mr. Lyle continued to seethe for a minute more before he forced himself to get under control. "Find Broots," he ordered, his voice curt. "I'm sure that he had some hand in this."
"Yes, Mr. Lyle," Willie acknowledged, silently relieved to be escaping the temporary director's wrath.
Sighing, Lyle slowly turned until his eyes rested on the small slip of a girl that continued to sit on the bunk, completely ignorant of the bustle of activity that surrounded her. "Well?" he asked, directing his question to the man that knelt by the girl's side, a small bag lying open at his feet.
With a rare smile, Mr. Raines turned away from his patient and nodded once to the nine- fingered man behind him. "The procedure has worked... even better than... even I had imagined it would," he rasped, his voice a deep nasal echo in between airy lungfuls of oxygen from the tank beside him.
"So she won't break it this time," Lyle pushed, his eyes shrewdly taking in the girl's passive expression.
"She can't, even if she tried," Raines wheezed as he slowly forced his aging limbs to carry him to his feet. "It's impossible... theoretically, this isn't Buffy Summers any more... Buffy Summers is dead... your Slayer is the only thing that remains..."
"But are you sure?" Lyle persisted, clamping down on his expectations as he took a small step closer to the doctor.
"As sure as I can be with this new science, perfected since Angelo," Raines admitted with a shrug, his beady eyes trailing lovingly over the girl's blonde head. And then, as though a new thought occurred to him, Raines' smile turned wicked. "Although, if any part of Buffy Summers does remain, and if she tries to fight against the drugs and wins... well, let's just say that she won't be around to enjoy it."
As the group slowly absorbed the shock of the abrupt entrance, Oz casually made his way across the room and settled on the couch beside his girlfriend. "I ran into these two across town. Thought I'd bring 'em by," he offered, his explanation doing little to actually explain the sudden appearance of the older guy and the much- battered Pretender they hadn't seen in months.
Out of everyone, Miss Parker was the only one who didn't seem to share in the shock of seeing the two unlikely visitors, a slow smile lifting her lips. "I see that you've escaped again, Jarod," she murmured, her gaze locking on the twinkling eyes of her old friend.
"Does that mean that our game is on again, Miss Parker?" Jarod asked, a small smile lifting his lips as Sydney helped him into the hard backed chair she had so recently vacated.
For a brief moment, it seemed as though Miss Parker considered his question before a sly smile, all too familiar, lifted her lips. "Haven't you heard?" she asked, arching a slim eyebrow at the man. "I no longer work for the Centre. As far as I'm concerned, you are officially my brother's problem. And good riddance," she added before turning to the Pretender's companion. "And Sydney, how did you manage to get caught up in all of this?" she asked, unable to mask the worry and disappointment in her voice. If she was honest with herself, it was how much she cared for the man who had always been a part of her life that kept her from going to him in the first place. She had wanted to keep him as far away from the danger she knew this would entail. It seemed that she had failed in that respect.
"Broots," Sydney responded with a simple shrug, watching as Miss Parker's frown turned into a small smile.
"Well, I'm glad you're here," she murmured, surprising herself with her words. "And to be honest, your timing couldn't be better," she added, her eyes narrowing slightly as she quickly returned to business. "We have a comatose teen that we need to get out of Sunnydale and someplace safe and hidden as soon as possible. Sooner, actually. Can we use your old contacts for your brother?"
As Sydney pondered Miss Parker's words, Xander quickly found that enough was enough as his hot temper got away with him. "Okay, I think I speak for the Scoobies when I say, huh?" he said, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest. "I mean, Ice Queen over there said that Buffy put you back in the Centre," he began, hiding his smirk as Miss Parker bristled as his words, "and - who's the old guy who speaks funny?" he finished, nodding at the older gentlemen, earning himself a new round of exasperated glares from Giles and Willow.
Smiling, Jarod couldn't help the small chuckle at the teen's words. He remembered him all to well from their meeting last summer. How could anyone possibly forget a person such as Alexander Lavelle Harris? "This is Sydney - an old friend," he introduced, before nodding to the rest of the room in turn. "Sydney, you just met Oz, and the redhead beside him is Willow, Xander, the teen beside her, and the man over there is Mr. Giles."
"Just Giles," the Watcher returned, his mind trying to stay abreast of everything being thrown their way. It was amazing how much their position could change in the matter of one night, after months of dead ends and long nights.
"But I thought he was one of the bad guys," Willow protested, her nose scrunching slightly as her eyes confirmed this statement with her friends.
"No, not a bad guy," Sydney countered with a small, serene smile. "Just working for the wrong team when we last met."
Pouting, Willow quickly reclined into the couch, her posture mimicking her friend beside her. "Can't you people start wearing little nametags or something? You know, ones that say, 'Hello, I am Bad.' Or 'Hello, I've switched teams. I am a Good Guy.'"
Rolling his eyes as the redhead's complaints, Giles focused on the Pretender sitting across from him. "What did you mean when you said that this Centre place was on their way? And what on Earth happened to you?"
"Mr. Lyle and Buffy happened to me," Jarod explained with a pained expression, either ignoring the Sunnydale group's stunned expressions or missing them entirely. "And Miss Parker didn't hide her trail to Sunnydale very well. If I was able to follow her this easily, I can guarantee that the Centre won't be very far behind."
Exasperated, Miss Parker shook her head. "When I came to Sunnydale, the Centre had no reason to pay attention to my movements!" she protested, her eyes flashing angrily. "And now with your little escape you've just led the Centre to their front door!"
"Not exactly the brightest genius I've ever met," Xander concurred with a smirk, by this point adding his snide comments more out of reflex than anything else.
And, like the rest of the group, Jarod proceeded to ignore Xander as he shrugged helplessly at the room, staving off a grimace at the movement. "Miss Parker, you just finished saying how difficult it would have been to get Buffy out of the Centre. But now... well, now they'll be bringing Buffy to us."
At his words, instant pandemonium took place as Xander bolted from the couch, Willow right behind as they clamored to be heard. "Whoa, they're bringing Buffy back?" "Buffy's coming?"
Yet Jarod was focused solely on the small frown that played across Miss Parker's painted lips. "I don't understand," she murmured, shaking her head slowly as her brown hair swirled around her slim shoulders. "How could they be bringing her now? Already?"
In response, Jarod's eyes slowly slipped shut, a grimace twisting his features as he tried to find words to explain what he had found. What he had witnessed. In the end, only one word was needed. Sighing, he slowly opened his eyes, his large brown orbs conveying all of the fear, pain, and guilt that radiated through his battered form. "Raines."