"Rupert, wake up." Wesley poked at the older man's shoulder gingerly, wondering what, precisely, he had done to deserve wake-up duty. The two men had red-eyed it back from London, pleading Sunnydale cleanup as their cause to leave again. It wasn't entirely untrue. Weren't Buffy's mental state and a possibly reconstituted vampire all part of the Sunnydale fallout?
When Giles merely grunted and mumbled a few unimaginable Cockney curses under his breath, Wesley lost his patience.
"Hello, Ripper," he said in a sliding, gravelly voice completely unlike his own. "I've come to take you apart, limb by limb and organ by—"
He got no further before Giles sat straight up in bed, eyes wild. He clamped a hand around Wesley's throat before his eyes had even focused, but Wesley was prepared for such an eventuality. He slammed the heel of his hand into the crook of Giles's elbow, forcing Giles's arm to bend and bringing their faces closer together. As Giles's eyes cleared with recognition, Wesley whipped a hand around and gripped the nape of his elder's neck, bringing tears to Giles's eyes.
"Well, now," Giles said quietly, his free hand groping blindly for his glasses. "I see you've much improved, Wesley."
Unable to pass up the opportunity, Wesley released Giles's neck and slapped the hand away from his throat. "You haven't," he said flatly. "Come on. There's a girl on the phone at Angel's, a Slayer in Indiana. She's calling about Buffy." He knew the less he said, the faster Giles would move, so he said no more. The second they walked into Angel's office, they were accosted by Willow.
"I told you she was miserable!" she said accusingly to Wesley. It was the best she could do, considering she couldn't bring herself to look at Angel.
Angel rubbed his eyes as he listened to the young woman's voice pouring over the speaker phone. Together again, he thought, looking around him. It was as though Buffy was the tie that bound, that pulled its weight so far as London to have them all together again. He wondered fleetingly if there was a limit to the number of directions a man, a vampire, could be pulled in.
He was Angel from Sunnydale.
He was Angel of L.A.
It was becoming increasingly more difficult for him to keep it all separate, to keep all of it straight. Sunnydale was taking over again. Buffy was consuming him in her love for Spike.
~~~
Laramie was already shouting when the brick wall materialized in front of them. It was precisely the same wall they'd started from, only now the sounds of automobiles and radios pounded around them, making Ramie's head ache.
"Tenfold times three! Threefold times ten! The bloody Hub is where it begins and where it all ends! If I wish to speak, to entreat, to see, I shall tell the God damned Hub who I may be!" he shouted, whirling around to look for the Hub. "It's Laramie, vous foutu batard, you bloody bastard!"
"Now, now," the Hub's new voice, thin and reedy, purely British, reached Ramie's ears as a painfully thin young man with a green mohawk and a shard of black glass dangling from his left ear came striding down the sidewalk. The safety pins and buckles that adorned him from head to toe jingled slightly as he sidled to a halt. "Patience. I can't be all places at once, Alain." Though it basically a lie, it was entertaining.
"Why am I here? Mon dieu, you brought me along with—" For the first time since they'd traveled, Ramie thought of Spike. "Oh, dear God." Ignoring the Hub, he knelt on the dirty stones of the alleyway and touched a gentle hand to Spike's pallid cheek. Bruises had purpled beneath his eyes and his trembling lips were nearly white.
"What has happened?" Ramie turned to the Hub, his mossy eyes bright with rage and worry. "What in the hell have you done?"
The Hub tilted his head and stroked his hairless chin. "I have sent a traveler on his way. I never said the trip would be easy or the payment easily given."
Laramie stood, towering over the punk the Hub had presented himself as. Though such attire should have been bizarre to a man from more than a century ago, Ramie immediately associated him with various demons and ignored the anomaly of dress and appearance. "And me? Why am I here?" Even as he asked the question, though, he felt a fierce sense of gladness that he was there. Not only for William, but also because his obligation to Ekaterina had been taken away from him by someone else. It was harder to feel guilty if it was an accident. Or it was at least easier to dismiss the guilt.
The Hub feigned shock. "My dear Alain, surely you don't think I would leave a soulless wretch—" He nudged Spike with his toe—"To wander the earth alone."
Ramie bared his straight, white teeth in a low growl. "Don't pretend you are tender of heart, greed-demon. You gave me a free ride, you have to have a reason."
The Hub reached out with a corded, tattooed arm and grasped the lapel of Ramie's now antique wool coat. "You have too many questions, Watcher. Usually I would answer you just for the pleasure of demonstrating that I know more than you idiot humans. But this is bigger than me." Letting Ramie go with a jerk, he sneered. "Your traveler here apparently requires guidelines and a companion. Lucky you." The rules forced upon him had made him angry, indeed. He'd never been sanctioned before, never been restrained.
Something bigger than the Hub? Before Ramie could process that bit of information, the punk-rocking Hub was gone and Spike was waking.
~~~
"This is very bad." Buffy looked at the paper in front of her and back at Dawn. "I can't believe this."
"Oh, come on," Dawn said, rolling her eyes. She hadn't even wanted to give Buffy the teacher's note. It wasn't like they were hard to hide, or anything. She'd hidden teacher's notes all the time back in Sunnydale, forged Buffy's signature, faked all sorts of things like that.
"When did you become a brainiac?" Buffy demanded, waving the paper and trying to keep her glee from leaping out of her in a shout. If she showed her sister how completely and totally great it was that she was a freakin' genius, then Dawn would surely back away from it.
"Umm… somewhere between Key and Ubervamp." Dawn smiled sheepishly.
"They want you to take college courses. Two years ahead of time. That's just… wow." Buffy looked up at Dawn and nodded thoughtfully. "Think we ought to frame this?"
"Buffy, no!" Mortified, Dawn tried to snatch the paper back from Buffy. "I shouldn't have even brought it home. I'm not planning on doing it."
Now was the time for brawn over brains, Buffy thought, planting her hands on her hips. "Ohhh, no you don't. I don't care if you're not planning on doing it. You'll do it anyway." At Dawn's petulant look, she added, "I can turn you over my knee."
After hugging her younger sister hard enough to make her back pop, Buffy rushed to the telephone and starting trying to call anyone and everyone to relay the good news.
But everywhere she called, no one picked up their phones. Xander and Will's apartment got no answer, as did Giles's place in London. Though she hated to call, she got a busy signal at Angel's. Lastly, she got a busy signal at Kelly's, too.
"Huh," Buffy said, staring at the phone. "That's weird." With a shrug, she hung it up.
~~~
His first thought was that he hurt like a motherfucker and that someone was going to pay. He opened first one eye, wincing at the pain that pulsed with each heartbeat he had. The light seemed to be attacking his eye in waves, so he opened the other one to distribute some of the shock. All that did was double it.
"Bloody fuckin' hell," he said, trying to sit up. He was hotter than a bitch in heat, and the jacket he was wearing itched like a—
"Spike?"
Spike jerked, smacking his head against the brick wall behind him and cursing colorfully. As he narrowed his eyes at the man standing in front of him, he discovered the added benefit that squinting just so blocked out a good portion of the light. "Peachy," he muttered, studying Laramie. "You're Ramie," he said matter-of-factly.
Good, Laramie thought. At least he hasn't forgotten me. "Right so far," he said, hunkering down and looking at Spike. "We made it. The Hub sent us over."
"You mean the fuckin' Godfather?" Spike asked, struggling to his feet.
Laramie was trying to hide his excitement. Though he didn't understand Spike's last remark, the soullessness didn't seem to be making much of a difference, and as odd as that was, it simplified things greatly. "So you know where… when we are? And why?"
Spike touched a hand to his head and felt a great, gaping hole re-open inside of him. It was like dying, only greater, like losing Buffy, only deeper. It was like… regaining his soul only to lose it again.
"I came to find Buffy," he said wonderingly. "Only now…" He struggled to find the words, tilting his empty eyes to Ramie's. "Only now it's like I can't find it in me to care."