Willow stared at the Now Leaving Sunnydale sign as Spike steered the car
out of Sunnydale. Xander had been right about the hole in it. Certainly was
DeSoto sized.
"Look, I'll tell you what's going on, all right?" Spike said abruptly.
Turning slightly, she fumbled in the back seat until she felt her laptop case and then blindly searched the pockets until she found her CD player.
"Stop your bloody moping," Spike said harshly as he lit a cigarette and pressed down on the accelerator. "They'll wake up with a headache, and they'll be fine."
In response, Willow put her headphones on and pressed play. What had she had in there the last time she'd used it? Rasputina? Poe? Ahh, Barenaked Ladies. Gordon. Perfect distracting music. It would take her mind from the fact that the plan she'd come up with to get Giles' copy of the spell had been for her to ring the doorbell, and Spike to tranq him when he'd come to the door.
The car sped up even more and Willow wisely refrained from looking at the speedometer. She turned the volume up on the CD player and sighed. All copies of the spell were now safely ensconced in her parents' house. Considering the fact that her parents were out of the country on vacation for the next several months, no vampire would be able to get in by charming an invite out of them. Clearing her mind of any further thoughts, Willow leaned against the seat and shut her eyes, listening to the music.
Twenty minutes later Willow reluctantly took her headphones off and tossed the player into the backseat. She looked at Spike, noticing the two crumpled cigarette packs on his lap, and the third freshly opened one in his hand. Chain smoking. Lovely.
"Oh, I see," he drawled around the cigarette he was lighting when he noticed her staring at him expectantly. "You're ready to listen, so I should start talking. Yeah, right. Put a quarter in me and I play a song."
Willow felt a good old dose of anger hit her in the face. "Shut up, Spike," she snapped. The car swerved before he grabbed the wheel and righted it, staring at her with wide eyes. "I've barely slept in the past two days and I'm tired. So excuse me if I needed twenty minutes to process it all."
Spike pulled the car over on the shoulder of the road and killed the engine. He shifted in his seat and pinned her with eyes that were once again empty. "You think you're the only one whose life has hit the shitter recently, eh?" he growled. "Yours has been a fucking cakewalk compared to others', pet, so suck it up."
"You're a fine one to talk," she shouted at him. A part of her insisted it was *so* very not smart to antagonize him, but a bigger part of her obviously had a death wish and didn't listen. "Your coping mechanism consisted of choking Buffy, starting a bar fight, partaking of a bloodbath, driving through a highway sign, threatening me in my dorm room and God only knows what else. But I listen to a CD and *I'm* the one who should suck it up?"
"Hey," he spluttered. "When you put it that way, it sounds like I'm being irrational And I'm not. So take it back."
She laughed. She couldn't help it. She was cranky from lack of sleep, and there was Spike, face scrunched up indignantly, ridiculous Spike-logic spewing from his proud mouth, and an inch of ash dangling from his cigarette. He glared at her, and then into his eyes crept a small sliver of amusement that caused him to chuckle slightly with her. A moment later he tossed his cigarette out the window and rested his head against the steering wheel.
Willow took a deep breath. Time was dwindling, and if they didn't get moving again even Spike wouldn't be able to drive fast enough to get them to Angel's before sunrise. "Drive and tell me," she said thickly. "Chop chop."
"Chop chop," Spike echoed as he started the car again. "Right."
They drove a few miles before Spike starting talking. "Ever hear of the Amalgamated?"
She shook her head, twisting in the seat so that she could look at him. "Is it a demon?" she asked.
"No, it's a vampire," he corrected her as he changed lanes. Willow grabbed the dashboard at the sudden motion and wondered why he bothered to keep the mirrors attached to the car if he didn't use them. "Creature of prophecy, actually. One vampire. Three sires."
"Three sires," she repeated slowly. Spike had mentioned lives were at stake earlier. "You, Angel and Drusilla," she breathed in realization. "You sired the Amalgamated."
"Yeah," he said with a sharp nod. "*After* the Poof got his soul back, Drusilla dragged us to some pregnant woman she'd found. She'd drained the woman, but the babe had been birthed. Screaming up a bloody storm, the brat was." Willow watched him light another cigarette and exhale a lungful of smoke.
"Drusilla wanted to turn the brat. The Poof was horrified." He paused and snorted. "Should've been my first clue that he wasn't Angelus. Anyway, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea. It was just repulsive. Taking care of some squalling infant until Dru got bored and I had to kill the thing." He shivered.
"What happened?" Willow asked.
"Drusilla drained the kid," Spike informed her bluntly. "Then she slashed her wrist open. Peaches and I grabbed her, and we all fought. Blood got drawn on all of us, and somehow, I still don't understand exactly how, little bugger got some of each of us." He clenched his jaw. "It was turned."
"A baby vampire," Willow choked out, sickened by the very thought of it.
"No, but I'll get to that," he said severely, and his hands were tighter than they needed to be on the steering wheel, Willow noticed. "The Poof and I decided to kill the baby. Couldn't do it."
"Couldn't do it. You felt.bad?" she ventured in confusion, but she knew that couldn't be the reason. The Scourges of Europe? Feeling Bad? Did not compute.
Spike snorted. "Hell no. We physically couldn't. Our bodies wouldn't do what we told them to do. We stayed at the cottage we were in and tried to figure out what to do. Drusilla was having a blast, playing with the little girl, and talking nonsense." He stopped and rubbed his forehead. "We went to sleep, and when we woke up the girl was half grown."
"Oh," Willow exclaimed, her brow wrinkled.
"The next night, she was an adult," Spike continued lowly. "Drusilla said the stars had talked to her, had told her about the girl. Poof recognized the prophecy."
"What did it say?" Willow asked curiously.
Spike shrugged, staring at the road and not looking at her. "Eh, bunch of fancy words for something simple. Said we couldn't kill her, that she wouldn't kill us. Said she got my demon, Dru's psychic gifts, and Peaches' soul." He rolled his eyes. "Of course, he didn't feel inclined to tell us that part of it at the time. No, he insisted she'd gotten his mind and the soul was just a bonus."
Willow did a passable imitation of a fish, with her mouth opening and closing in shock. "So she's an insane you-wannabe with a soul?" she gasped.
"No, she's not a me-wannabe, she's not Dru's crazy little minion, and she's not a brooding wanker, either," he snapped angrily. The car swerved to yet another lane and barely missed side-swiping a blue Cadillac, whose driver honked at them. "Blow it out your arse," he snarled out the window, then flickered his eyes in Willow's direction. "She's Dev, all right. Just Dev."
"Dev?" Willow echoed, treading carefully.
"Dru named her Devil," he explained, something in his voice telling Willow that he knew just how screwy a name it was, but that most anything Drusilla had done was still remembered fondly. Spike definitely had her beat when it came to the messed up love life. "No one calls her that, though. 'Cept Dru, of course."
"An Angel and a Devil," Willow muttered weakly. "Uh, cute."
It was starting to make sense to her. Something had happened to this vampire named Dev, and Spike was none too pleased about it. She'd witnessed and heard about some of the lengths he'd gone to for Drusilla when they'd been together. It stood to reason that Dev garnered the same feelings in him.
Willow tucked her hair behind her ears and said simply, "Then tell me what she *is* like," in a voice that did its best not to actually make him focus on her, but rather on what she wanted to know. It worked.
"Dev gets the visions and crap, yeah, but Drusilla wasn't insane until Angelus got his hands on her," Spike told her, his voice similar to how hers had been, in that he wasn't really talking to Willow, he was just talking. "And yeah, Peaches stuck her with a soul, but she didn't do anything she feels the need to brood about. As for the demon, well, it's definitely mine, but the soul keeps it reigned in, unfortunately."
"Well," Willow replied, closing her eyes. "That makes sense in a freaky, Hellmouthy, otherworldly way." Her eyes flew open as a thought occurred to her. "Happiness clause?"
"We don't think it applies."
"But you don't know for sure?" Willow pushed.
He looked at her, one eyebrow quirked. "How can we, hm?" he asked sardonically. "Made the beast with two backs. Soul's still there. But just because that was the trigger for Nancy Boy doesn't mean there's no clause. Gotta have hope, I say."
"Hope. Right," Willow drawled, leaning against the passenger side door and tucked one leg under her. It wasn't the safest position to be in should they have an accident, but the DeSoto didn't have seatbelts, so there actually wasn't a safe position in it. "So Dev grew up over the course of two nights, and then what?"
"She pretty much did her own thing," Spike responded diffidently. "Spent time with me and Drusilla, spent time with the Poof. Never got involved in our fights, though how she bloody managed that is a miracle. Lives independent of us, but keeps in contact." He looked at Willow, smiling slightly. "Actually, she came to Sunnyhell a while back. After Angelus returned," he clarified with a nasty snicker. "Wanted to meet the wanker, and she wasn't all that impressed."
Willow fell silent as she digested everything he'd told her and left Spike to testing the limits of the DeSoto. She didn't say anything until the dashboard starting humming slightly as the car reached its sympathetic vibration point. Once again she ignored the urge to check their speed. This next question was going to incite him again, but there was no getting around it.
"What happened to Dev?" she whispered gently.
Spike hissed and clenched his fist on the steering wheel. A deep growl issued from his throat and Willow's heart jumped in her chest.
Tictictictictic settled down to its normal tic-tic-tic and his hands loosened their murderous grip on the steering wheel. "You know how the Slayer has the damned Codex of prophecies?" Willow nodded but he didn't see it. He went on anyway. "Dev's got something similar called the Analects. We didn't want her targeted because of them, so we kept her existence a secret."
"If she was made, and is important enough to have an entire Codex of her own," Willow said slowly, her mind trying to wrap itself around what he'd said, "how can no one realize she exists?"
Spike looked at her quietly, a hard edge in his gaze. Willow frowned, then her face cleared. "You guys all made sure no one knew," she realized, blanching. "You did...things, to make sure. Oh boy."
"Even Angel," he added. Willow realized that was the only time during this conversation he hadn't referred to the elder vampire by his given name. Did he reserve saying Angel for times when he respected him? That was filed away for future consideration.
Silence fell briefly and then Spike started speaking again. "Dev showed up at Peaches' on Thursday, just before sunrise," he growled. "She'd bloody crawled on her hands and knees from who the hell knows where. She'd been tortured near to death." He stopped. "Takes a lot to bring a vampire to that point," he muttered flatly.
There was distress on his pale features. At least, that's what she assumed it was, never having seen him display that particular emotion. But she thought it was distress that had both his brows lowered and his mouth stretched into a thin line.
"Will she be okay?"
"No. Passed out the second she saw Angel, and hasn't woken since. She needs sire's blood, because her damn healing is under too much strain, and only a combination of all of our blood counts. That's why we couldn't let my soul be restored; her body didn't recognize Angelus' blood back when she was in Sunnydale, and we figure it works the other way as well."
All of their blood.which explained why Spike had been in Willy's asking about Drusilla.
"Spike." He looked at her and only turned his eyes away when the car began drifting yet again. "Why am I on my way to L.A.?"
"Drusilla is already there," he said flatly. "She had a vision and you were in it. You saved Dev."
"I--uh--well--oh wow," Willow stammered, sinking back into the seat.
"Yeah, that about sums it up," Spike bit out.
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Once again she was woken up by Spike. Willow blinked sleepily, noticing that they were in the small parking area under Angel's building. "Fell asleep?" she mumbled, staring around in confusion.
"Yeah. We hit traffic as soon as we got into town and it's only half an hour until dawn. Come on, in we go."
Willow stumbled from the car and tried to clear away the sleep cobwebs from her mind but wasn't very successful. It was only when Spike grabbed her suitcase from the trunk of the DeSota that she woke up and remembered everything he'd told her.
"Shoot," she sighed, crawling back into the car and getting her CD player and laptop from the backseat. She slung the case over her shoulder and slammed the car door shut.
Willow dawdled for a moment, gathering her resolve. She wanted to jump into the car and speed back to Sunnydale, far away from the injured vampire she was supposed to save. Actually, she wanted to be *anywhere* but there. Looking at Spike, she realized he was feeling something similar. His eyes were on the car and he seemed just as reluctant to go into the building as she was.
One hand was holding both the side handle of her trunk and the handle of her suitcase. The trunk would drag on the ground when he started walking, she found herself thinking inanely. Then he motioned her forward with his free hand, still looking away.
They turned and walked across the concrete to the back entrance of Angel's office. Spike opened the door and shoved her behind him when a crossbow appeared.
"Put that damned thing down, you stupid sod," Spike snapped.
The crossbow lowered and Willow saw Angel step fully into the doorway, staring from Spike to her and back again. "You all right?"
"Fine. Can we come in now?" she asked wearily.
Angel stepped aside and led them into the front office. Wesley was there, behind one of two desks that had seen better days. There was a mug in front of him, tea she assumed at first, but then she got a look of his eyes and thought something stronger might be in there. Cordelia was nowhere to be seen.
"Willow," Wesley greeted softly. Willow nodded at him then dropped her laptop case on the empty desk. Spike had deposited her trunk and suitcase in a corner and was leaning against a wall, not looking at anyone. Willow walked to a ratty looking sofa and sank down into it, shifting uncomfortably on the exposed springs.
Angel sat behind the unoccupied desk and stared at Spike until the blond vampire looked up. "Did you tell her?" he asked.
"Yes, he told me," Willow answered tightly. Now that her mind was back on track, Willow recalled the thoughts she'd been going over before she'd fallen asleep. "But he left some things out. Didn't you, Spike?" She saw Spike smile, a small little stretching of his lips that didn't make it to his eyes. Angel turned at her, a bit of surprised evident on his face.
"Told you everything you wanted to know, pet," Spike replied smoothly.
"Yeah, but you didn't tell me anything I didn't ask."
"Want me to tell you now?" he said softly, and she shook her head. No, he was still too emotionally volatile for her liking.
She faced the other vampire in the room. "No, I want Angel to tell me."
"What do you want to know?" Angel asked quietly.
"I want to know who did that to her and why." The hypothesis Willow had formed on the drive over was confirmed by Angel's silence. "You have no idea." He shook his head slightly. "But you think it has to do with that Codex-like book of prophecies about her." Angel nodded, the surprised look returning to his face. "You sent Cordelia away and you're going to send Wesley away. You want me to do research duty."
The silence was broken by Spike's sharp bark of laughter. "Told you not to bother easing her into it, that she'd figure it out on her own right away."
Willow felt something in her...not snap, but bend almost to breaking. "And what are the rest of you going to be doing while I'm figuring everything out and saving some vampire I don't even know?" she exploded hysterically. "Arguing like children and beating each other up? 'Cause I definitely don't see either of you behaving like adults, that's for sure. And how the heck am I supposed to do any of those things, anyway? Because I have no idea, and it's obvious that the rest of you don't either, but did that stop you from dragging me out of my bed in the middle of the night? Nooooo. Of course not. Because it's all right, Willow can figure it all out. Right. Easy as pie. Wait a second while I pull all the answers out of my--"
She stopped abruptly, clamping her mouth shut and biting her lip. Angel flinched and looked away. Wesley's bleary face was filled with sympathy. Spike's expression was...amused.
"Done with the hissy fit?" he asked blandly.
"Spike!" Angel snapped angrily.
Willow deflated, sagging against the cushions uncomfortably. "Yeah," she muttered quietly. "I'm done."
"Good," Spike said approvingly and came to sit next to her on the couch. He punched her on the shoulder lightly and nodded.
Willow felt like telling him she wasn't a dog, to be praised in such a way, but she really didn't have the energy. Instead, she settled on a half- hearted glare that made him chuckle.
"You're really tired aren't you?" he remarked. "Didn't even give me a not- so-snappy comeback." He rolled his eyes in disgust and she roused herself enough to elbow him in the gut.
"I need to wash up," Willow muttered. "Road grime. Where's the bathroom?"
Angel pointed towards the back, and Willow went in that direction, finding the small bathroom tucked away in the corner of the back room. Inside she turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face several times before bracing her hands on the sink and taking several deep breaths. Her head lifted and she stared at herself in the mirror.
There were dark circles under her eyes and her face was paler than normal. She also saw that her features were drawn, the skin seemingly stretched too tightly across her bones.
"Okay, this will not do," she told her reflection. "You *are* research girl and you can help them find out what happened. Relax. I know you have no idea about the other part, but you will. Okay? You'll get some details about Dru's vision and you'll know what to do. Trust me on this. I know me. Granted, Buffy isn't here with the Slayer powers. And, sure, Giles--who is way more reasearchy than you--isn't here either. And it's obvious there will be *no* comic relief without Xander. But, you've got.Angel. And Spike. And Dru. And a vampire that's at death's door."
As pep talks went, it wasn't really peppy. She tried again.
"It's not entirely hopeless. Really."
That was so far from better that it was actually a worse effort.
"Shut up," she snapped at the mirror. "I don't see you doing any better."
She turned the water off and dried her face and hands on the towel next to the sink. Groaning hugely, she left the bathroom and went back to the office, only to come to a sudden halt at the doorway. Angel was an inch from Spike's face, glowering at the sneering blond.
"What's going on?" Willow asked incredulously.
Spike's head swiveled in her direction and his eyes narrowed before he smiled a bit and stepped away from Angel to sit on the couch again. "Nothing," he said casually.
Willow raised a brow and leaned against the doorway. She looked from his too-casual face, to Angel's glare. "You're ticcing," Willow told Spike, "and Angel looks like he wants to get all grr and beat you up. What's up?"
"Why don't you tell me," Angel said immediately, turning that probing gaze on her again. Did they remember that she, as a lowly human, did not function well without sleep?
"What are you talking about?"
Angel pointed at her. "You." He pointed at Spike. "And him. What's going on with the two of you?"
Willow felt her eyes doing a weird bugging-out thing as she stared at Angel in disbelief. "You think there's something going on with me and Spike? Me and Spike!?"
The look Angel gave her was so patronizing that she wanted to smack him. Yes, she was really too tired for this. "You two seem.comfortable with each other."
Willow waited, but Angel didn't say anything else. "And?" she prompted. He still didn't say anything and she rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me that you think we're making with the wild monkey sex because we're not at each other's throats?"
She saw the flicker of uncertainty arrive on his face at the same time that she heard Spike snort. Shaking her head, Willow sat back down, her eyes touching on Spike as she did so. Her and Spike. Yeah, right.
"Angel, Spike's been working with us for months now," she explained impatiently.
"I know, and I've heard about how *well* it's going. So why are you two so chummy?" Angel demanded.
"Chummy?" Willow and Spike repeated simultaneously, her sounding shocked and him sounding disgusted.
"We're so not chummy!" Willow insisted hotly. Then she frowned and looked at Spike. "We're not, are we? 'Cause, I was going for non-arguing and non- violent."
"And you succeeded," Spike assured her, glaring at Angel. "Look, you stupid wanker, the only thing going on with us is a mutual state of ignoring each other as much as possible. It works well so stay out of it."
Angel had something to say to that, Spike had a reply, and Willow leaned back and closed her eyes. Apparently, vampires had testosterone, and it was thick in the air tonight.
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Spike felt Willow slump against him and broke off in the middle of his latest insult, looking down at the redheaded woman that had fallen asleep. In the space of five minutes with two vampires yelling at each other at the top of their lungs in the same room.
"We need to keep a careful eye on her," Spike said suddenly. He was too drained to keep the argument going. They weren't even arguing about anything, really, just doing it for its own sake. "Drusilla smelled her on me after that mess with the love spell," he explained.
"Hell," Angel said in horror. "Will she..."
Spike shrugged, his face hard. "She understands that Will is Dev's best chance, and you know she'd walk into the sun before hurting Dev. But, there is the whole insanity thing. You got some place she can sleep?" he asked, motioning at Willow.
"My apartment, but I'll need to get Dru out of there first." Apparently Angel had also realized there was no point to the fight.
"Take her for a walk," Spike suggested, standing carefully so as not to wake Willow. "Let her see the stars. Maybe they'll bloody tell her something that might actually be useful to this mess."
Angel nodded, then went to lure Dru out of the building. Spike bent at the waist and picked Willow up. She murmured in her sleep, but didn't wake. Hell. If only two days of stress had taken this kind of toll on her, what would the coming days--and weeks, he admitted harshly to himself--do to her? Shit, the Slayer was going to torture him before she plunged the nearest phallic symbol into his chest.
"You two are cute."
Spike turned, glaring at the half drunk ex-Watcher, who was leaning against a wall near the door. The amused look on Wesley's face brought a growl to Spike's throat. Wesley's eyes widened, and he seemed to be trying to push himself through the wall behind him. But then Willow stirred and Spike looked down to see a frown marring her brow, and her hands shifting restlessly. He stopped growling, and Wesley's expressing shifted back into amused.
"Wipe that smile off your face," Spike said quietly, almost pleasantly. "Before I do it myself. I need a pair of rogue demon hunter lips to complete my collection of loser body parts."
Wesley chuckled, folding his arms across his chest and looking smugly at Willow like a damned drunk imbecile, puffed up with his own importance at having joined the help the freaking helpless squad. "That might upset her, so I don't think you will."
Spike curled his lip. "For now. But when this is all done, there won't be a reason not to cut you up into little pieces and feed them to Priwol demons."
The annoying Brit titled his head, studying Spike carefully. "Why do you care about upsetting her at all?"
Shifting Willow in his arms, Spike rolled his eyes. "Because, you stupid feeb, it'll be just one more excuse for the bitch Slayer to dust me. Not even sure I'll be able to come out of this without that happening as it is, but I'm not taking any chances."
With that, Spike turned and took the stairs to Angel's apartment. Once there, he settled Willow on the more comfortable sofa, then went into Angel's bedroom for a blanket. That was where they'd set Dev up, in Angel's bed.
He stopped at Dev's side, staring down at her. She was lying on her stomach now; Angel must have shifted her since Spike had left for Sunnydale. He focused on her face, thinking that he wouldn't be able to keep himself under control if his eyes traveled over her brutalized body. Her face was bad, but not as horrible as the rest of her. He could see only one of her eyes, the other was pressed against the pillow under her head. Her aquiline features were twisted in pain, but thankfully no pitiful sounds were issuing from her throat anymore.
Her eyelid flickered, and Spike dropped the blanket he'd been holding. "Dev? Dev?"
Spike almost fell on his arse when her eye opened, wide and unseeing sapphire orb focused on something that wasn't there. She mumbled something, and he strained to hear it. It wasn't English, he realized too late as she stopped talking. Then she blinked, and began again. This time, Spike closed his eyes and listened. Now that he knew it wasn't English, he realized it was Russian.
*Onah mozhyet pomogat menye; ona mozhet spahsat menye. Otraseel, leestya, koryen, kreek, derevo. Onah mozhet pomogat menye; ona mozhet spahsat menye. Ohnee smoteryat. Ohnee zhegyoot ohtbersteeya vo menye es eekh preectaleem vezgelyadome. Ona mozhet pomogat menye; Ona mozhet spahsat vehseh eeznahs.*
As suddenly as her eye opened, it closed again, and Spike stared down at her in a panic. "Damn it, Dev, wake up!" he shouted.
"Spike?"
He froze, turning slowly to see Willow standing in the doorway, blinking sleepily. "Red, go back--"
"I heard you yelling," she mumbled, stepping farther into the room. Spike ran to her, blocking Dev from Willow's view with his body. He put his hands on Willow's shoulders and turned her around roughly, pushing her out of the room.
"What's wrong?"
She still didn't seem to be fully awake, which Spike was grateful for. "Nothing, pet. You need more sleep."
"Okay," she murmured, letting him guide her to the sofa and sit her down. She stared up at him, still blinking in slumbered confusion. "Sleep?"
Spike nodded, shifting her around so that she was lying down on the sofa. Almost immediately, she was again asleep. That had been too close, Spike realized. If Willow had seen Dev, seen the devastation that had been visited upon the female vampire, she might freak out. As far as he was concerned, she wasn't going to see it, either. Not if he had anything to do with it. They needed Willow with her wits in tact, or else they were all screwed.
He hurried back into Angel's bedroom, grabbing the blanket he'd dropped and being careful not to look at Dev again. He returned to Willow and covered her with the blanket, then rummaged around in the kitchen for a piece of paper and something to write with. When he'd secured these items, he sat at the table, painstakingly writing out what Dev had said. His spoken Russian wasn't too bad, but writing in Russian was something he'd never much practiced, and it took him a while as he tried to remember the Cyrillic alphabet. Underneath the Russian words, he wrote the translation.
By the time he'd finished, Angel and Dru were back. Wesley came down to let Spike know, and promised he would stay in the apartment to keep an eye on both women, and to make sure the red head didn't get a look at the vampire. Spike took the paper with him as he went upstairs, a grim look on his face.
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Angel waited for Spike, absently keeping an eye on Drusilla. She was twirling around the room, her midnight blue velvet skirt swooshing with the effort, the material lifting and twisting, failing to fall against her legs before she yet again changed direction.
When he looked at her like this, eyes all glittering madness, body sensually undulating, mouth dropped open in supreme enjoyment, he wondered if maybe she wasn't his heaviest load of guilt. If he closed his eyes, he could still see her as she'd been so many years before: sweet, innocent, so easily hurt in so many ways, and waiting for her life to unfold before her. And another image, of the fragile woman she'd become, who had hidden away in a convent and been prepared to give herself over to God to forget what he had done, to escape the truth of what he'd taken from her.
But in front of him was neither of those images. The woman spinning through his office was the product of him ripping her apart, then sewing her back together again in the completely wrong way.
For the thousandth time since Dev had shown up, Angel wished this wasn't happening. Not only because of the state Dev was in, but because of the woman in front of him, and the man who had been her mate for so very long. If Drusilla was his heaviest load of guilt, then Spike was the next heaviest.
And even with the weight of their deeds on his over-burdened shoulders, he'd still missed them. They had been his children. Mischievous and problematic, deadly and unrepentant, but his to teach and provide for, and punish and forgive. It made the antagonism between himself and Spike even harder to bear.
He'd hoped that, with Dev's life on the line, they would be able to at least be civil to one another, but there was too much baggage there. All of it recent. In a way, he wished it could be like it had been the last time the three of them had been together, when they'd sired Dev. Spike and Dru had had no idea that he was no longer Angelus, they'd done nothing to betray him, and there had been no baggage. Just.family.
Cut to Sunnydale, where his family had found out the "awful" truth neither he nor Darla had told them. Mix with a healthy dose of attempted murder, a pinch betrayal, a dash of torture and heaping spoonful of treachery. Cut back to the present, where these same three vampires were being forced to cohabitate. Willow's angry predictions of earlier were a certainty, and unless something was done, he and Spike would be worse than helpless to her.
Speaking of which.
Angel looked up as Spike hurried into the room, thrusting a piece of paper under his nose. "She woke up." Angel flew to his feet, but Spike stopped him, planting a hand in the center of his chest and pushing him back into his chair. "For a minute. And I don't even think she was actually awake. She was.like when she gets a vision. Like that. She was mumbling in Russian. I wrote it down."
Looking down, Angel began to read the English that Spike had scrawled underneath the messy Russian words. "She can help me; she can save me. Branch, leaves, root, crying, tree. She can help me; she can save me. They stare. They burn holes in me with their gaze. She can help me; she can save us all."
Drusilla sighed contently, and when Angel looked over, she had sunk to the floor with a dreamy look on her face. "She plays on the merry-go-round, but it just takes her in spinning little circles. It's the swings that will let her fly, set her free. But she can't reach them, she can only meet her new friend in the sandbox."
Spike snorted, but Angel just fought back a wince and looked at the blond vampire. "Any ideas?"
"Besides the obvious fact that it ties to Dru's vision?" Spike drawled. "None."
Angel nodded tiredly and put the paper aside. "I tried to backtrack the blood trail she left in the sewers," he told Spike. "She was only underground for about three blocks. The trail ended by a parking meter.
"I also checked my sources," he added. "No one knew anything about a vampire being tortured, and no one knew of any new arrivals. I'm beginning to think she wasn't worked on here. We need to start figuring out who would know about the Amalgamated, and who would have an idea that it's Dev."
"See, what bothers me about this," Spike said, taking a seat, "is that it came out of the damned blue. When she was in Sunnyhell while the rest of us were there?" He raised a cynical brow. "Yeah, it would have been more expected then. But now? When she hasn't been in the same room with any of us in a couple of years?" He shook his head. "Something happened."
Angel thought about that. "What if someone who knows about the Analects knew something was going to happen in relation to it, and found out about her that way?"
"Peaches, we killed everyone who'd ever set eyes on that damned book. You were there, remember?"
Angel flinched at the reminder of deeds he couldn't blame on being soulless, and Spike smirked.
"No, we killed everyone who we *knew* had seen the book," Angel corrected, falling back into his normal habit of ignoring Spike. "There were probably others. And the ones we did take care of might have passed stories on to others."
"So how the bloody hell do we figure it out then?" Spike growled.
"We start with the Analects," Angel said simply. "We find out what Dev was involved with recently, and we go from there."
Angel watched as a condescending look fell over Spike's countenance. "Gee, that's a great idea. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Wait, I do. We don't have the fucking Analects; Dev has had it in her hands since we got it for her, and we have no idea where it is now. We have no place to start, either, because trying to get the little bitch to talk about it is like pulling teeth. She keeps it all to herself, even if she thinks she won't make it."
Angel closed his eyes. Wasn't that the truth? Dev had read through the Analects one long German night, after Spike and Dru had killed the human who'd had it in his possession, and thereafter refused to let them lay eyes on it. Several months later, she'd taken off at dusk one evening without a word.
She'd trusted her three sires to finish the task of taking out anyone else who'd possessed the Analects, and they had done so before parting company again. That had been the last time, until Sunnydale, that he'd seen any of them. He'd spread rumors about his death, even letting Dev believe them.
After Spike had called her to let her know that Angel was actually alive and kicking, she'd shown up in Sunnydale. She'd yelled at him for that deception, then yelled at him for not telling her that she'd gotten the soul from him--though she'd actually figured that out not long after reading the Analects, she admitted later that night--then burst into tears.
He'd kept in contact with her after that, but hadn't seen her again until after he'd lost his soul, when curiosity had brought her back to Sunnydale. She hadn't liked what she'd seen. Dev had walked into the main room of the mansion, watched her three sires interact for five minutes, and accurately assessed the situation for what it was: totally fucked up, and Angelus for what he was: half off his rocker and nothing like the vampire patriarch he'd been in the past.
Angel thought she might have accepted Angelus if he'd been the vampire she'd heard about from Spike and Dru. Angelus had merely thought that she was *his* and should obey him as such. That had been a nightmare of monumental proportions, that week. He'd sent her off to be broken by several of his best minions, only to have her escape after several days and seek him out in the garden.
One moment Angelus had been sitting on the edge of the broken fountain, mocking Spike, and the next moment Dev had been on top of him, pinning him to the edge of the fountain with her legs and pushing his shoulders down into the shallow water with her hands. With a quick flick of her fangs she'd cut his chest, tasted his blood, then spat it at his face.
Before he could grab her, she was off of him, and halfway through the garden. "Blood never lies," she'd hissed. "And you are *no* sire of mine. Call me if you get the soul back."
Angel's head snapped back, and he blinked up at the ceiling before realizing what had just happened. The little blond bastard had just punched him. *Punched* him. He lowered his head and glared at Spike.
"Back to this planet, are you? Fabulous," Spike drawled. "I can't imagine why Willow's worried about any of this."
Drusilla laughed, still sitting on the floor, her skirt spread out around her so very prettily. "Daddy was remembering power he was afraid of. He didn't know, you see," she whispered in a conspiratorial manner. "What she'd learned and become. What she'd ever been, really. Blood was on his face, and he wiped it away, wiped her away."
Spike's eyes flickered and Angel saw understanding pass through them. "Thank you for the news flash, princess, but I remember when Dev visited Sunnyhell, too," he said indulgently before turning a cold glance on Angel. "She's worried and scared, Peaches, and I don't bleedin' blame her. I think I've got even less faith in us than she does."
Angel sighed, and ran a hand across his face. Spike was talking about Willow again, and he was right. "How about we come to one of those uneasy truces?" he suggested.
Spike rolled his eyes and then moved to the chair in front of Angel's desk, running his hand through Dru's hair on the way. He sat down and raised an eyebrow. "We already have one of those, courtesy of Dev."
"And it doesn't seem to be working."
"Not so far, no," Spike agreed instantly.
That seemed to be all the input he'd be getting from Spike, Angel realized, and he frowned as he thought about it all. Just as he'd come to a decision, Drusilla rose, a wide smile on her face. She glided behind Spike and rested her hands on his shoulders, leaning down to put her mouth close to his ear, her eyes sparkling like obsidian as they stared at Angel.
"Daddy wants to play house," she sang lightly. "The past come back, but only in the present tense." Angel could literally see Spike's muscles tense at her words. "Don't worry, Spike, it will be fine until it's not anymore. It'll be like a party with costumes, and we'll play ourselves just a tiny bit. I'll get a pretty dress to wear and we'll dance and dance until our feet can't hold us any longer. Then we'll crawl and cry and it'll be grand."
It seemed that Spike was made of stone as he sat there with Drusilla hovering at his back and his hands clenching the arms of his chair. It hadn't been so long that they didn't know what Dru was saying.
"Not a truce," Angel said into the silence, watching Spike carefully.
"We can't forget," Spike ground out. "Can't pretend none of it happened, and you bloody well know it."
"No, we can't and we won't," Angel said quietly. "But we do the next best thing and act like we have. We need to get Dev through this, and Willow is our best--our only--shot at it. She can't carry the load on her own, and if we keep on the way we have been, then she will be."
There were only two beings on the planet that could get Spike to ignore his emotions and focus entirely on the situation at hand. Drusilla was one, and Dev was the other. Angel watched Spike's face and saw the myriad of emotions that played across it before resolution settled in for a stay.
"Right, whatever. We'll play house," Spike growled. "But there are ground rules, you hear?" Angel nodded. "First, you don't do anything to upset Willow again. Any more tension and she'll be useless." The thought crossed Angel's mind that Spike was going a little overboard where Willow was concerned, but he put that aside for later consideration and simply nodded again.
"Second, the imbecile ex-Watcher goes now, instead of Wednesday." That actually fit into Angel's plans and he rolled his eyes to let Spike know that went without stating. Spike continued with, "Third, you bloody well remember that it's not actually how it used to be. You are not head of shit anymore, and I'm playing along for Dev, and no other reason. And fourth, when it's over, it's over. We go back to the way it should be and we don't talk about it."
"Fine," Angel replied in a clipped voice. "Just as long as *you* remember all of it, too. Your little rebellions of old aren't allowed. Neither are your desperate bids for attention. And if *you* talk about it, then it's free game."
Spike nodded jerkily, and Angel wondered if maybe they weren't all doomed, truces and pretending aside.
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Willow's eyes opened, and she was staring at black leather. She sat up, realizing that she was on yet another couch. When would she next see a bed? The only illumination in the room came from a small light over a kitchen sink. Angel's apartment, she recalled. She looked around, her vision tuned to the dimness. Two bodies were on the floor next in the middle of the room. Spike and Drusilla. Curled around one another familiarly. She looked away quickly.
Willow sat up and ran her hands through her hair, then looked at her watch. Eleven in the morning. She hadn't had nearly enough sleep and she couldn't understand why she'd woken. Then she heard it. Whimpers. Coming from Angel's room. Had to be Dev. Willow groaned quietly and got to her feet, carefully stepping around Spike and Drusilla and making her way to the kitchen. She grabbed a glass from the dish rack and filled it with water from the tap.
Her stomach growled as she drank the water, and she paused. When had she last eaten? The fact that she wasn't sure was a bad sign. Setting the glass on the counter, she went to the fridge.
The bedroom door opened, and Angel was there. He stared at her for a moment then went to the vampires on the floor. "Spike, wake up," he said quietly. "Your shift."
When Spike had been chipped and staying at Giles' place, Willow had once had the unpleasant task of waking him. It had taken an arsenal of techniques to get him up, including yelling at him, smacking him with a pillow and, finally, taking hold of his shoulder and shaking him. Spike's headache had passed in a few minutes, but her bruise hadn't faded for several days.
So she watched apprehensively as Angel stood over Spike and Dru. To her surprise, there were no theatrics. Spike sat up almost instantly, seemingly wide-awake. Willow saw his head turn as he looked at Dru for a moment, then saw him look to the couch.
"She's in the kitchen," Angel told him.
Spike glanced at her, and Willow waved her hand. "Morning," she said, her voice still husky with sleep.
"You should still be asleep," Spike said as he disentangled himself from Dru and stood up.
Willow shrugged. "Hungry."
"There's not much here," Angel told her apologetically.
A sneaking suspicion made Willow sigh and open the fridge. Two shelves of bagged blood, and a carton of eggs whose expiration date was a week before. "I don't suppose the cabinets are stocked?" she asked wryly.
"Uh, no. Cordy hasn't had to stay here lately, so she didn't do any food shopping. I think she left some yogurt in the mini fridge in the office, though," he offered.
"Ugh," Willow said distastefully.
"Yeah, bacteria ain't very appealing," Spike added as he stretched. He joined her in the kitchen and pulled several bags of blood out of the fridge and then opened a cabinet.
"I'll go through the sewers and pick some things up," Angel said. "I'm sorry that we didn't--"
"Didn't remember what humans need?" Willow finished with a grin. Despite Cordy's influence during the past year, the situation would most certainly have made Angel lose sight of the small details like food. "No worries. Mind if I go with?"
Angel looked at Dru's sleeping form. "That might be best actually. I'll also need to get some more blood."
Blood didn't seem to be something he was running low on, and Willow frowned. "I'll take a shower and change. Fifteen minutes?"
Angel tilted his head to the side. "Fifteen minutes. More like an hour, I think."
Spike put several mugs of blood in the microwave and pushed some buttons. Then he snickered. "Not Willow. Lowest of low maintenance, she is."
Willow wrinkled her nose and wished he wasn't a vampire, because she had the urge to kick him for that comment. She settled on glaring at him, and he smirked.
"Make Angel cook for you when he gets back; he's pretty good at it."
Angel. He'd called him Angel. Not Poof, or Peaches, or Nancy Boy. Angel. Hmm. Lots to ponder in the shower this morning.
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It took Willow seventeen minutes to get ready. When she came out of the bathroom, dressed in a pair of jeans and a forest green button down shirt, Angel was nowhere in sight. She heard voices from the bedroom, and crept closer to the door.
"Hate to break it to you, but she hates this," Willow heard Spike say.
There was a pause. "She told me she liked it," Angel murmured.
"That soul of hers makes her try to not hurt your feelings," Spike chuckled. "Ain't that right, Dev?"
"Are you sure? Because she was really excited when I got her a first edition last year," Angel said uncertainly. "I mean, she wouldn't just pretend to like it that much. Would she?"
"Whatever. You can read that to her. I'll read." Willow heard some noises. Books being sorted through. She was very familiar with that sound. ".this."
"What is that.Bram Stoker?" Angel said, sounding shocked. "You can't seriously believe that she'll want to hear that tripe."
"Yeah, she will. It's funny. She needs some amusement after spending the last few hours listening to *your* drivel. And may I ask why you even own this supposed *tripe*?"
"Cordelia."
"Yeah, I figured. You better get going, 'cause if you stay in here much longer Red might fall through the door eavesdropping," Spike said loudly.
Willow stuck her tongue out at the closed door and turned around. Only to find Drusilla right in front of her. She took a step back, but the vampire shook her head, one finger lifting to her lips in a "shush" motion, and her other hand taking hold of Willow's arm just above the elbow. Dru's eyes were glittering, and there was a sweet smile on her face. It didn't ease Willow's fear. She'd had that same look on her face as she'd killed Kendra.
"Uh, guys?" she squeaked.
Angel was at her side immediately, pulling Dru away. "Drusilla," he snapped. "What did we tell you?"
"Princess, come sit with me and Dev," Spike called out from behind Willow.
Pouting, Drusilla slunk away from Angel and moved past Willow to enter the bedroom. The door clicked closed and Willow took a great huge breath. "So, uh, how's this going to work without me getting killed?"
Angel stood in front of her, hands on her shoulders. "She's dangerous, Willow, there's no getting around it," he said. "She knows better than we do that you'll be helping Dev. But she.forgets sometimes. Keep your eyes away from hers, remind her that Dev needs you, and then tell her to back off from whatever she's doing."
Willow grinned wryly. "And if that doesn't work, scream like hell?"
"Yeah, that'll work, too. Come on, let's get you some food."
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Angel had expected some comments about traveling via the sewers, but Willow hadn't said much after they'd climbed down the ladder. He supposed he was used to Cordy, who took any opportunity to voice her opinions. Also, Willow had spent more than a handful of time in Sunnydale's sewers.
The silence was fine with Angel, who at times had the urge to gag Cordelia to keep her quiet and stop her from trying to get him to talk. Sadly, it didn't last very long.
"Why all the blood?"
And of course it would be a question, so he was forced to respond. Sometimes he really did miss his solo days.
"Spike and Drusilla aren't hunting, so we need enough for three of us," he said, glancing at her. She nodded, as if she'd expected the answer, then a thoughtful frown fell over her face.
"Why not? Why aren't they hunting?" she clarified when Angel looked at her oddly.
"Oh. We have to give Dev huge amounts of our blood, and Spike and Drusilla wouldn't be able to hunt enough to keep themselves strong without drawing attention to their presence her."
"Okay, thanks. We'll go back to silent mode now."
He heard the smile in her voice and grinned a little bit. True to her word, Willow didn't say anything else until they got to the supermarket entrance, at which point she stared up at the ladder and then looked at Angel.
"Yeah, so I'm a little creeped out that you know the sewer entrance to the grocery store, and where exactly will this take us?"
"Into the back stock room," Angel told her. "Cordy and I have done it before. If anyone sees us, we'll just say we accidentally wandered back there and ask them to show us the way out."
"Ah, simple. I like it. Lead the way, then," she said with a grin, making "up" motions with her hand.
Angel climbed the ladder and unlatched the sewer grate, pulling himself out and then reaching down to lift Willow out. He remembered doing the same for a battered and almost unrecognizable Dev, just a few days before, and set Willow on her feet less gently then he'd meant to. She looked at him for a moment, but didn't say anything.
They made it into the store without incident, and Willow grabbed a small basket from next to the cash register. "We'll just get enough for today right now. I guess someone can come back when it's dark and stock up for the.week."
"Uh, yeah," Angel stammered, hastily looking away. Should he have been more honest with Willow? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, he thought she'd be more inclined to agree to come to L.A. if she thought the situation was temporary. "You and Spike can come by later tonight--"
"Angel."
Willow placed her hand on his arm, and Angel looked down at her. "Yes?"
"I know it will be more than a week," she said quietly. "I knew before I left. So stop feeling bad about it, all right? Now, I'm thinking steak. Oooh, and mashed potatoes." She looped her arm through his and led him down an aisle. "Can you do mashed potatoes?"
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"Look, I'll tell you what's going on, all right?" Spike said abruptly.
Turning slightly, she fumbled in the back seat until she felt her laptop case and then blindly searched the pockets until she found her CD player.
"Stop your bloody moping," Spike said harshly as he lit a cigarette and pressed down on the accelerator. "They'll wake up with a headache, and they'll be fine."
In response, Willow put her headphones on and pressed play. What had she had in there the last time she'd used it? Rasputina? Poe? Ahh, Barenaked Ladies. Gordon. Perfect distracting music. It would take her mind from the fact that the plan she'd come up with to get Giles' copy of the spell had been for her to ring the doorbell, and Spike to tranq him when he'd come to the door.
The car sped up even more and Willow wisely refrained from looking at the speedometer. She turned the volume up on the CD player and sighed. All copies of the spell were now safely ensconced in her parents' house. Considering the fact that her parents were out of the country on vacation for the next several months, no vampire would be able to get in by charming an invite out of them. Clearing her mind of any further thoughts, Willow leaned against the seat and shut her eyes, listening to the music.
Twenty minutes later Willow reluctantly took her headphones off and tossed the player into the backseat. She looked at Spike, noticing the two crumpled cigarette packs on his lap, and the third freshly opened one in his hand. Chain smoking. Lovely.
"Oh, I see," he drawled around the cigarette he was lighting when he noticed her staring at him expectantly. "You're ready to listen, so I should start talking. Yeah, right. Put a quarter in me and I play a song."
Willow felt a good old dose of anger hit her in the face. "Shut up, Spike," she snapped. The car swerved before he grabbed the wheel and righted it, staring at her with wide eyes. "I've barely slept in the past two days and I'm tired. So excuse me if I needed twenty minutes to process it all."
Spike pulled the car over on the shoulder of the road and killed the engine. He shifted in his seat and pinned her with eyes that were once again empty. "You think you're the only one whose life has hit the shitter recently, eh?" he growled. "Yours has been a fucking cakewalk compared to others', pet, so suck it up."
"You're a fine one to talk," she shouted at him. A part of her insisted it was *so* very not smart to antagonize him, but a bigger part of her obviously had a death wish and didn't listen. "Your coping mechanism consisted of choking Buffy, starting a bar fight, partaking of a bloodbath, driving through a highway sign, threatening me in my dorm room and God only knows what else. But I listen to a CD and *I'm* the one who should suck it up?"
"Hey," he spluttered. "When you put it that way, it sounds like I'm being irrational And I'm not. So take it back."
She laughed. She couldn't help it. She was cranky from lack of sleep, and there was Spike, face scrunched up indignantly, ridiculous Spike-logic spewing from his proud mouth, and an inch of ash dangling from his cigarette. He glared at her, and then into his eyes crept a small sliver of amusement that caused him to chuckle slightly with her. A moment later he tossed his cigarette out the window and rested his head against the steering wheel.
Willow took a deep breath. Time was dwindling, and if they didn't get moving again even Spike wouldn't be able to drive fast enough to get them to Angel's before sunrise. "Drive and tell me," she said thickly. "Chop chop."
"Chop chop," Spike echoed as he started the car again. "Right."
They drove a few miles before Spike starting talking. "Ever hear of the Amalgamated?"
She shook her head, twisting in the seat so that she could look at him. "Is it a demon?" she asked.
"No, it's a vampire," he corrected her as he changed lanes. Willow grabbed the dashboard at the sudden motion and wondered why he bothered to keep the mirrors attached to the car if he didn't use them. "Creature of prophecy, actually. One vampire. Three sires."
"Three sires," she repeated slowly. Spike had mentioned lives were at stake earlier. "You, Angel and Drusilla," she breathed in realization. "You sired the Amalgamated."
"Yeah," he said with a sharp nod. "*After* the Poof got his soul back, Drusilla dragged us to some pregnant woman she'd found. She'd drained the woman, but the babe had been birthed. Screaming up a bloody storm, the brat was." Willow watched him light another cigarette and exhale a lungful of smoke.
"Drusilla wanted to turn the brat. The Poof was horrified." He paused and snorted. "Should've been my first clue that he wasn't Angelus. Anyway, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea. It was just repulsive. Taking care of some squalling infant until Dru got bored and I had to kill the thing." He shivered.
"What happened?" Willow asked.
"Drusilla drained the kid," Spike informed her bluntly. "Then she slashed her wrist open. Peaches and I grabbed her, and we all fought. Blood got drawn on all of us, and somehow, I still don't understand exactly how, little bugger got some of each of us." He clenched his jaw. "It was turned."
"A baby vampire," Willow choked out, sickened by the very thought of it.
"No, but I'll get to that," he said severely, and his hands were tighter than they needed to be on the steering wheel, Willow noticed. "The Poof and I decided to kill the baby. Couldn't do it."
"Couldn't do it. You felt.bad?" she ventured in confusion, but she knew that couldn't be the reason. The Scourges of Europe? Feeling Bad? Did not compute.
Spike snorted. "Hell no. We physically couldn't. Our bodies wouldn't do what we told them to do. We stayed at the cottage we were in and tried to figure out what to do. Drusilla was having a blast, playing with the little girl, and talking nonsense." He stopped and rubbed his forehead. "We went to sleep, and when we woke up the girl was half grown."
"Oh," Willow exclaimed, her brow wrinkled.
"The next night, she was an adult," Spike continued lowly. "Drusilla said the stars had talked to her, had told her about the girl. Poof recognized the prophecy."
"What did it say?" Willow asked curiously.
Spike shrugged, staring at the road and not looking at her. "Eh, bunch of fancy words for something simple. Said we couldn't kill her, that she wouldn't kill us. Said she got my demon, Dru's psychic gifts, and Peaches' soul." He rolled his eyes. "Of course, he didn't feel inclined to tell us that part of it at the time. No, he insisted she'd gotten his mind and the soul was just a bonus."
Willow did a passable imitation of a fish, with her mouth opening and closing in shock. "So she's an insane you-wannabe with a soul?" she gasped.
"No, she's not a me-wannabe, she's not Dru's crazy little minion, and she's not a brooding wanker, either," he snapped angrily. The car swerved to yet another lane and barely missed side-swiping a blue Cadillac, whose driver honked at them. "Blow it out your arse," he snarled out the window, then flickered his eyes in Willow's direction. "She's Dev, all right. Just Dev."
"Dev?" Willow echoed, treading carefully.
"Dru named her Devil," he explained, something in his voice telling Willow that he knew just how screwy a name it was, but that most anything Drusilla had done was still remembered fondly. Spike definitely had her beat when it came to the messed up love life. "No one calls her that, though. 'Cept Dru, of course."
"An Angel and a Devil," Willow muttered weakly. "Uh, cute."
It was starting to make sense to her. Something had happened to this vampire named Dev, and Spike was none too pleased about it. She'd witnessed and heard about some of the lengths he'd gone to for Drusilla when they'd been together. It stood to reason that Dev garnered the same feelings in him.
Willow tucked her hair behind her ears and said simply, "Then tell me what she *is* like," in a voice that did its best not to actually make him focus on her, but rather on what she wanted to know. It worked.
"Dev gets the visions and crap, yeah, but Drusilla wasn't insane until Angelus got his hands on her," Spike told her, his voice similar to how hers had been, in that he wasn't really talking to Willow, he was just talking. "And yeah, Peaches stuck her with a soul, but she didn't do anything she feels the need to brood about. As for the demon, well, it's definitely mine, but the soul keeps it reigned in, unfortunately."
"Well," Willow replied, closing her eyes. "That makes sense in a freaky, Hellmouthy, otherworldly way." Her eyes flew open as a thought occurred to her. "Happiness clause?"
"We don't think it applies."
"But you don't know for sure?" Willow pushed.
He looked at her, one eyebrow quirked. "How can we, hm?" he asked sardonically. "Made the beast with two backs. Soul's still there. But just because that was the trigger for Nancy Boy doesn't mean there's no clause. Gotta have hope, I say."
"Hope. Right," Willow drawled, leaning against the passenger side door and tucked one leg under her. It wasn't the safest position to be in should they have an accident, but the DeSoto didn't have seatbelts, so there actually wasn't a safe position in it. "So Dev grew up over the course of two nights, and then what?"
"She pretty much did her own thing," Spike responded diffidently. "Spent time with me and Drusilla, spent time with the Poof. Never got involved in our fights, though how she bloody managed that is a miracle. Lives independent of us, but keeps in contact." He looked at Willow, smiling slightly. "Actually, she came to Sunnyhell a while back. After Angelus returned," he clarified with a nasty snicker. "Wanted to meet the wanker, and she wasn't all that impressed."
Willow fell silent as she digested everything he'd told her and left Spike to testing the limits of the DeSoto. She didn't say anything until the dashboard starting humming slightly as the car reached its sympathetic vibration point. Once again she ignored the urge to check their speed. This next question was going to incite him again, but there was no getting around it.
"What happened to Dev?" she whispered gently.
Spike hissed and clenched his fist on the steering wheel. A deep growl issued from his throat and Willow's heart jumped in her chest.
Tictictictictic settled down to its normal tic-tic-tic and his hands loosened their murderous grip on the steering wheel. "You know how the Slayer has the damned Codex of prophecies?" Willow nodded but he didn't see it. He went on anyway. "Dev's got something similar called the Analects. We didn't want her targeted because of them, so we kept her existence a secret."
"If she was made, and is important enough to have an entire Codex of her own," Willow said slowly, her mind trying to wrap itself around what he'd said, "how can no one realize she exists?"
Spike looked at her quietly, a hard edge in his gaze. Willow frowned, then her face cleared. "You guys all made sure no one knew," she realized, blanching. "You did...things, to make sure. Oh boy."
"Even Angel," he added. Willow realized that was the only time during this conversation he hadn't referred to the elder vampire by his given name. Did he reserve saying Angel for times when he respected him? That was filed away for future consideration.
Silence fell briefly and then Spike started speaking again. "Dev showed up at Peaches' on Thursday, just before sunrise," he growled. "She'd bloody crawled on her hands and knees from who the hell knows where. She'd been tortured near to death." He stopped. "Takes a lot to bring a vampire to that point," he muttered flatly.
There was distress on his pale features. At least, that's what she assumed it was, never having seen him display that particular emotion. But she thought it was distress that had both his brows lowered and his mouth stretched into a thin line.
"Will she be okay?"
"No. Passed out the second she saw Angel, and hasn't woken since. She needs sire's blood, because her damn healing is under too much strain, and only a combination of all of our blood counts. That's why we couldn't let my soul be restored; her body didn't recognize Angelus' blood back when she was in Sunnydale, and we figure it works the other way as well."
All of their blood.which explained why Spike had been in Willy's asking about Drusilla.
"Spike." He looked at her and only turned his eyes away when the car began drifting yet again. "Why am I on my way to L.A.?"
"Drusilla is already there," he said flatly. "She had a vision and you were in it. You saved Dev."
"I--uh--well--oh wow," Willow stammered, sinking back into the seat.
"Yeah, that about sums it up," Spike bit out.
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Once again she was woken up by Spike. Willow blinked sleepily, noticing that they were in the small parking area under Angel's building. "Fell asleep?" she mumbled, staring around in confusion.
"Yeah. We hit traffic as soon as we got into town and it's only half an hour until dawn. Come on, in we go."
Willow stumbled from the car and tried to clear away the sleep cobwebs from her mind but wasn't very successful. It was only when Spike grabbed her suitcase from the trunk of the DeSota that she woke up and remembered everything he'd told her.
"Shoot," she sighed, crawling back into the car and getting her CD player and laptop from the backseat. She slung the case over her shoulder and slammed the car door shut.
Willow dawdled for a moment, gathering her resolve. She wanted to jump into the car and speed back to Sunnydale, far away from the injured vampire she was supposed to save. Actually, she wanted to be *anywhere* but there. Looking at Spike, she realized he was feeling something similar. His eyes were on the car and he seemed just as reluctant to go into the building as she was.
One hand was holding both the side handle of her trunk and the handle of her suitcase. The trunk would drag on the ground when he started walking, she found herself thinking inanely. Then he motioned her forward with his free hand, still looking away.
They turned and walked across the concrete to the back entrance of Angel's office. Spike opened the door and shoved her behind him when a crossbow appeared.
"Put that damned thing down, you stupid sod," Spike snapped.
The crossbow lowered and Willow saw Angel step fully into the doorway, staring from Spike to her and back again. "You all right?"
"Fine. Can we come in now?" she asked wearily.
Angel stepped aside and led them into the front office. Wesley was there, behind one of two desks that had seen better days. There was a mug in front of him, tea she assumed at first, but then she got a look of his eyes and thought something stronger might be in there. Cordelia was nowhere to be seen.
"Willow," Wesley greeted softly. Willow nodded at him then dropped her laptop case on the empty desk. Spike had deposited her trunk and suitcase in a corner and was leaning against a wall, not looking at anyone. Willow walked to a ratty looking sofa and sank down into it, shifting uncomfortably on the exposed springs.
Angel sat behind the unoccupied desk and stared at Spike until the blond vampire looked up. "Did you tell her?" he asked.
"Yes, he told me," Willow answered tightly. Now that her mind was back on track, Willow recalled the thoughts she'd been going over before she'd fallen asleep. "But he left some things out. Didn't you, Spike?" She saw Spike smile, a small little stretching of his lips that didn't make it to his eyes. Angel turned at her, a bit of surprised evident on his face.
"Told you everything you wanted to know, pet," Spike replied smoothly.
"Yeah, but you didn't tell me anything I didn't ask."
"Want me to tell you now?" he said softly, and she shook her head. No, he was still too emotionally volatile for her liking.
She faced the other vampire in the room. "No, I want Angel to tell me."
"What do you want to know?" Angel asked quietly.
"I want to know who did that to her and why." The hypothesis Willow had formed on the drive over was confirmed by Angel's silence. "You have no idea." He shook his head slightly. "But you think it has to do with that Codex-like book of prophecies about her." Angel nodded, the surprised look returning to his face. "You sent Cordelia away and you're going to send Wesley away. You want me to do research duty."
The silence was broken by Spike's sharp bark of laughter. "Told you not to bother easing her into it, that she'd figure it out on her own right away."
Willow felt something in her...not snap, but bend almost to breaking. "And what are the rest of you going to be doing while I'm figuring everything out and saving some vampire I don't even know?" she exploded hysterically. "Arguing like children and beating each other up? 'Cause I definitely don't see either of you behaving like adults, that's for sure. And how the heck am I supposed to do any of those things, anyway? Because I have no idea, and it's obvious that the rest of you don't either, but did that stop you from dragging me out of my bed in the middle of the night? Nooooo. Of course not. Because it's all right, Willow can figure it all out. Right. Easy as pie. Wait a second while I pull all the answers out of my--"
She stopped abruptly, clamping her mouth shut and biting her lip. Angel flinched and looked away. Wesley's bleary face was filled with sympathy. Spike's expression was...amused.
"Done with the hissy fit?" he asked blandly.
"Spike!" Angel snapped angrily.
Willow deflated, sagging against the cushions uncomfortably. "Yeah," she muttered quietly. "I'm done."
"Good," Spike said approvingly and came to sit next to her on the couch. He punched her on the shoulder lightly and nodded.
Willow felt like telling him she wasn't a dog, to be praised in such a way, but she really didn't have the energy. Instead, she settled on a half- hearted glare that made him chuckle.
"You're really tired aren't you?" he remarked. "Didn't even give me a not- so-snappy comeback." He rolled his eyes in disgust and she roused herself enough to elbow him in the gut.
"I need to wash up," Willow muttered. "Road grime. Where's the bathroom?"
Angel pointed towards the back, and Willow went in that direction, finding the small bathroom tucked away in the corner of the back room. Inside she turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face several times before bracing her hands on the sink and taking several deep breaths. Her head lifted and she stared at herself in the mirror.
There were dark circles under her eyes and her face was paler than normal. She also saw that her features were drawn, the skin seemingly stretched too tightly across her bones.
"Okay, this will not do," she told her reflection. "You *are* research girl and you can help them find out what happened. Relax. I know you have no idea about the other part, but you will. Okay? You'll get some details about Dru's vision and you'll know what to do. Trust me on this. I know me. Granted, Buffy isn't here with the Slayer powers. And, sure, Giles--who is way more reasearchy than you--isn't here either. And it's obvious there will be *no* comic relief without Xander. But, you've got.Angel. And Spike. And Dru. And a vampire that's at death's door."
As pep talks went, it wasn't really peppy. She tried again.
"It's not entirely hopeless. Really."
That was so far from better that it was actually a worse effort.
"Shut up," she snapped at the mirror. "I don't see you doing any better."
She turned the water off and dried her face and hands on the towel next to the sink. Groaning hugely, she left the bathroom and went back to the office, only to come to a sudden halt at the doorway. Angel was an inch from Spike's face, glowering at the sneering blond.
"What's going on?" Willow asked incredulously.
Spike's head swiveled in her direction and his eyes narrowed before he smiled a bit and stepped away from Angel to sit on the couch again. "Nothing," he said casually.
Willow raised a brow and leaned against the doorway. She looked from his too-casual face, to Angel's glare. "You're ticcing," Willow told Spike, "and Angel looks like he wants to get all grr and beat you up. What's up?"
"Why don't you tell me," Angel said immediately, turning that probing gaze on her again. Did they remember that she, as a lowly human, did not function well without sleep?
"What are you talking about?"
Angel pointed at her. "You." He pointed at Spike. "And him. What's going on with the two of you?"
Willow felt her eyes doing a weird bugging-out thing as she stared at Angel in disbelief. "You think there's something going on with me and Spike? Me and Spike!?"
The look Angel gave her was so patronizing that she wanted to smack him. Yes, she was really too tired for this. "You two seem.comfortable with each other."
Willow waited, but Angel didn't say anything else. "And?" she prompted. He still didn't say anything and she rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me that you think we're making with the wild monkey sex because we're not at each other's throats?"
She saw the flicker of uncertainty arrive on his face at the same time that she heard Spike snort. Shaking her head, Willow sat back down, her eyes touching on Spike as she did so. Her and Spike. Yeah, right.
"Angel, Spike's been working with us for months now," she explained impatiently.
"I know, and I've heard about how *well* it's going. So why are you two so chummy?" Angel demanded.
"Chummy?" Willow and Spike repeated simultaneously, her sounding shocked and him sounding disgusted.
"We're so not chummy!" Willow insisted hotly. Then she frowned and looked at Spike. "We're not, are we? 'Cause, I was going for non-arguing and non- violent."
"And you succeeded," Spike assured her, glaring at Angel. "Look, you stupid wanker, the only thing going on with us is a mutual state of ignoring each other as much as possible. It works well so stay out of it."
Angel had something to say to that, Spike had a reply, and Willow leaned back and closed her eyes. Apparently, vampires had testosterone, and it was thick in the air tonight.
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Spike felt Willow slump against him and broke off in the middle of his latest insult, looking down at the redheaded woman that had fallen asleep. In the space of five minutes with two vampires yelling at each other at the top of their lungs in the same room.
"We need to keep a careful eye on her," Spike said suddenly. He was too drained to keep the argument going. They weren't even arguing about anything, really, just doing it for its own sake. "Drusilla smelled her on me after that mess with the love spell," he explained.
"Hell," Angel said in horror. "Will she..."
Spike shrugged, his face hard. "She understands that Will is Dev's best chance, and you know she'd walk into the sun before hurting Dev. But, there is the whole insanity thing. You got some place she can sleep?" he asked, motioning at Willow.
"My apartment, but I'll need to get Dru out of there first." Apparently Angel had also realized there was no point to the fight.
"Take her for a walk," Spike suggested, standing carefully so as not to wake Willow. "Let her see the stars. Maybe they'll bloody tell her something that might actually be useful to this mess."
Angel nodded, then went to lure Dru out of the building. Spike bent at the waist and picked Willow up. She murmured in her sleep, but didn't wake. Hell. If only two days of stress had taken this kind of toll on her, what would the coming days--and weeks, he admitted harshly to himself--do to her? Shit, the Slayer was going to torture him before she plunged the nearest phallic symbol into his chest.
"You two are cute."
Spike turned, glaring at the half drunk ex-Watcher, who was leaning against a wall near the door. The amused look on Wesley's face brought a growl to Spike's throat. Wesley's eyes widened, and he seemed to be trying to push himself through the wall behind him. But then Willow stirred and Spike looked down to see a frown marring her brow, and her hands shifting restlessly. He stopped growling, and Wesley's expressing shifted back into amused.
"Wipe that smile off your face," Spike said quietly, almost pleasantly. "Before I do it myself. I need a pair of rogue demon hunter lips to complete my collection of loser body parts."
Wesley chuckled, folding his arms across his chest and looking smugly at Willow like a damned drunk imbecile, puffed up with his own importance at having joined the help the freaking helpless squad. "That might upset her, so I don't think you will."
Spike curled his lip. "For now. But when this is all done, there won't be a reason not to cut you up into little pieces and feed them to Priwol demons."
The annoying Brit titled his head, studying Spike carefully. "Why do you care about upsetting her at all?"
Shifting Willow in his arms, Spike rolled his eyes. "Because, you stupid feeb, it'll be just one more excuse for the bitch Slayer to dust me. Not even sure I'll be able to come out of this without that happening as it is, but I'm not taking any chances."
With that, Spike turned and took the stairs to Angel's apartment. Once there, he settled Willow on the more comfortable sofa, then went into Angel's bedroom for a blanket. That was where they'd set Dev up, in Angel's bed.
He stopped at Dev's side, staring down at her. She was lying on her stomach now; Angel must have shifted her since Spike had left for Sunnydale. He focused on her face, thinking that he wouldn't be able to keep himself under control if his eyes traveled over her brutalized body. Her face was bad, but not as horrible as the rest of her. He could see only one of her eyes, the other was pressed against the pillow under her head. Her aquiline features were twisted in pain, but thankfully no pitiful sounds were issuing from her throat anymore.
Her eyelid flickered, and Spike dropped the blanket he'd been holding. "Dev? Dev?"
Spike almost fell on his arse when her eye opened, wide and unseeing sapphire orb focused on something that wasn't there. She mumbled something, and he strained to hear it. It wasn't English, he realized too late as she stopped talking. Then she blinked, and began again. This time, Spike closed his eyes and listened. Now that he knew it wasn't English, he realized it was Russian.
*Onah mozhyet pomogat menye; ona mozhet spahsat menye. Otraseel, leestya, koryen, kreek, derevo. Onah mozhet pomogat menye; ona mozhet spahsat menye. Ohnee smoteryat. Ohnee zhegyoot ohtbersteeya vo menye es eekh preectaleem vezgelyadome. Ona mozhet pomogat menye; Ona mozhet spahsat vehseh eeznahs.*
As suddenly as her eye opened, it closed again, and Spike stared down at her in a panic. "Damn it, Dev, wake up!" he shouted.
"Spike?"
He froze, turning slowly to see Willow standing in the doorway, blinking sleepily. "Red, go back--"
"I heard you yelling," she mumbled, stepping farther into the room. Spike ran to her, blocking Dev from Willow's view with his body. He put his hands on Willow's shoulders and turned her around roughly, pushing her out of the room.
"What's wrong?"
She still didn't seem to be fully awake, which Spike was grateful for. "Nothing, pet. You need more sleep."
"Okay," she murmured, letting him guide her to the sofa and sit her down. She stared up at him, still blinking in slumbered confusion. "Sleep?"
Spike nodded, shifting her around so that she was lying down on the sofa. Almost immediately, she was again asleep. That had been too close, Spike realized. If Willow had seen Dev, seen the devastation that had been visited upon the female vampire, she might freak out. As far as he was concerned, she wasn't going to see it, either. Not if he had anything to do with it. They needed Willow with her wits in tact, or else they were all screwed.
He hurried back into Angel's bedroom, grabbing the blanket he'd dropped and being careful not to look at Dev again. He returned to Willow and covered her with the blanket, then rummaged around in the kitchen for a piece of paper and something to write with. When he'd secured these items, he sat at the table, painstakingly writing out what Dev had said. His spoken Russian wasn't too bad, but writing in Russian was something he'd never much practiced, and it took him a while as he tried to remember the Cyrillic alphabet. Underneath the Russian words, he wrote the translation.
By the time he'd finished, Angel and Dru were back. Wesley came down to let Spike know, and promised he would stay in the apartment to keep an eye on both women, and to make sure the red head didn't get a look at the vampire. Spike took the paper with him as he went upstairs, a grim look on his face.
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Angel waited for Spike, absently keeping an eye on Drusilla. She was twirling around the room, her midnight blue velvet skirt swooshing with the effort, the material lifting and twisting, failing to fall against her legs before she yet again changed direction.
When he looked at her like this, eyes all glittering madness, body sensually undulating, mouth dropped open in supreme enjoyment, he wondered if maybe she wasn't his heaviest load of guilt. If he closed his eyes, he could still see her as she'd been so many years before: sweet, innocent, so easily hurt in so many ways, and waiting for her life to unfold before her. And another image, of the fragile woman she'd become, who had hidden away in a convent and been prepared to give herself over to God to forget what he had done, to escape the truth of what he'd taken from her.
But in front of him was neither of those images. The woman spinning through his office was the product of him ripping her apart, then sewing her back together again in the completely wrong way.
For the thousandth time since Dev had shown up, Angel wished this wasn't happening. Not only because of the state Dev was in, but because of the woman in front of him, and the man who had been her mate for so very long. If Drusilla was his heaviest load of guilt, then Spike was the next heaviest.
And even with the weight of their deeds on his over-burdened shoulders, he'd still missed them. They had been his children. Mischievous and problematic, deadly and unrepentant, but his to teach and provide for, and punish and forgive. It made the antagonism between himself and Spike even harder to bear.
He'd hoped that, with Dev's life on the line, they would be able to at least be civil to one another, but there was too much baggage there. All of it recent. In a way, he wished it could be like it had been the last time the three of them had been together, when they'd sired Dev. Spike and Dru had had no idea that he was no longer Angelus, they'd done nothing to betray him, and there had been no baggage. Just.family.
Cut to Sunnydale, where his family had found out the "awful" truth neither he nor Darla had told them. Mix with a healthy dose of attempted murder, a pinch betrayal, a dash of torture and heaping spoonful of treachery. Cut back to the present, where these same three vampires were being forced to cohabitate. Willow's angry predictions of earlier were a certainty, and unless something was done, he and Spike would be worse than helpless to her.
Speaking of which.
Angel looked up as Spike hurried into the room, thrusting a piece of paper under his nose. "She woke up." Angel flew to his feet, but Spike stopped him, planting a hand in the center of his chest and pushing him back into his chair. "For a minute. And I don't even think she was actually awake. She was.like when she gets a vision. Like that. She was mumbling in Russian. I wrote it down."
Looking down, Angel began to read the English that Spike had scrawled underneath the messy Russian words. "She can help me; she can save me. Branch, leaves, root, crying, tree. She can help me; she can save me. They stare. They burn holes in me with their gaze. She can help me; she can save us all."
Drusilla sighed contently, and when Angel looked over, she had sunk to the floor with a dreamy look on her face. "She plays on the merry-go-round, but it just takes her in spinning little circles. It's the swings that will let her fly, set her free. But she can't reach them, she can only meet her new friend in the sandbox."
Spike snorted, but Angel just fought back a wince and looked at the blond vampire. "Any ideas?"
"Besides the obvious fact that it ties to Dru's vision?" Spike drawled. "None."
Angel nodded tiredly and put the paper aside. "I tried to backtrack the blood trail she left in the sewers," he told Spike. "She was only underground for about three blocks. The trail ended by a parking meter.
"I also checked my sources," he added. "No one knew anything about a vampire being tortured, and no one knew of any new arrivals. I'm beginning to think she wasn't worked on here. We need to start figuring out who would know about the Amalgamated, and who would have an idea that it's Dev."
"See, what bothers me about this," Spike said, taking a seat, "is that it came out of the damned blue. When she was in Sunnyhell while the rest of us were there?" He raised a cynical brow. "Yeah, it would have been more expected then. But now? When she hasn't been in the same room with any of us in a couple of years?" He shook his head. "Something happened."
Angel thought about that. "What if someone who knows about the Analects knew something was going to happen in relation to it, and found out about her that way?"
"Peaches, we killed everyone who'd ever set eyes on that damned book. You were there, remember?"
Angel flinched at the reminder of deeds he couldn't blame on being soulless, and Spike smirked.
"No, we killed everyone who we *knew* had seen the book," Angel corrected, falling back into his normal habit of ignoring Spike. "There were probably others. And the ones we did take care of might have passed stories on to others."
"So how the bloody hell do we figure it out then?" Spike growled.
"We start with the Analects," Angel said simply. "We find out what Dev was involved with recently, and we go from there."
Angel watched as a condescending look fell over Spike's countenance. "Gee, that's a great idea. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Wait, I do. We don't have the fucking Analects; Dev has had it in her hands since we got it for her, and we have no idea where it is now. We have no place to start, either, because trying to get the little bitch to talk about it is like pulling teeth. She keeps it all to herself, even if she thinks she won't make it."
Angel closed his eyes. Wasn't that the truth? Dev had read through the Analects one long German night, after Spike and Dru had killed the human who'd had it in his possession, and thereafter refused to let them lay eyes on it. Several months later, she'd taken off at dusk one evening without a word.
She'd trusted her three sires to finish the task of taking out anyone else who'd possessed the Analects, and they had done so before parting company again. That had been the last time, until Sunnydale, that he'd seen any of them. He'd spread rumors about his death, even letting Dev believe them.
After Spike had called her to let her know that Angel was actually alive and kicking, she'd shown up in Sunnydale. She'd yelled at him for that deception, then yelled at him for not telling her that she'd gotten the soul from him--though she'd actually figured that out not long after reading the Analects, she admitted later that night--then burst into tears.
He'd kept in contact with her after that, but hadn't seen her again until after he'd lost his soul, when curiosity had brought her back to Sunnydale. She hadn't liked what she'd seen. Dev had walked into the main room of the mansion, watched her three sires interact for five minutes, and accurately assessed the situation for what it was: totally fucked up, and Angelus for what he was: half off his rocker and nothing like the vampire patriarch he'd been in the past.
Angel thought she might have accepted Angelus if he'd been the vampire she'd heard about from Spike and Dru. Angelus had merely thought that she was *his* and should obey him as such. That had been a nightmare of monumental proportions, that week. He'd sent her off to be broken by several of his best minions, only to have her escape after several days and seek him out in the garden.
One moment Angelus had been sitting on the edge of the broken fountain, mocking Spike, and the next moment Dev had been on top of him, pinning him to the edge of the fountain with her legs and pushing his shoulders down into the shallow water with her hands. With a quick flick of her fangs she'd cut his chest, tasted his blood, then spat it at his face.
Before he could grab her, she was off of him, and halfway through the garden. "Blood never lies," she'd hissed. "And you are *no* sire of mine. Call me if you get the soul back."
Angel's head snapped back, and he blinked up at the ceiling before realizing what had just happened. The little blond bastard had just punched him. *Punched* him. He lowered his head and glared at Spike.
"Back to this planet, are you? Fabulous," Spike drawled. "I can't imagine why Willow's worried about any of this."
Drusilla laughed, still sitting on the floor, her skirt spread out around her so very prettily. "Daddy was remembering power he was afraid of. He didn't know, you see," she whispered in a conspiratorial manner. "What she'd learned and become. What she'd ever been, really. Blood was on his face, and he wiped it away, wiped her away."
Spike's eyes flickered and Angel saw understanding pass through them. "Thank you for the news flash, princess, but I remember when Dev visited Sunnyhell, too," he said indulgently before turning a cold glance on Angel. "She's worried and scared, Peaches, and I don't bleedin' blame her. I think I've got even less faith in us than she does."
Angel sighed, and ran a hand across his face. Spike was talking about Willow again, and he was right. "How about we come to one of those uneasy truces?" he suggested.
Spike rolled his eyes and then moved to the chair in front of Angel's desk, running his hand through Dru's hair on the way. He sat down and raised an eyebrow. "We already have one of those, courtesy of Dev."
"And it doesn't seem to be working."
"Not so far, no," Spike agreed instantly.
That seemed to be all the input he'd be getting from Spike, Angel realized, and he frowned as he thought about it all. Just as he'd come to a decision, Drusilla rose, a wide smile on her face. She glided behind Spike and rested her hands on his shoulders, leaning down to put her mouth close to his ear, her eyes sparkling like obsidian as they stared at Angel.
"Daddy wants to play house," she sang lightly. "The past come back, but only in the present tense." Angel could literally see Spike's muscles tense at her words. "Don't worry, Spike, it will be fine until it's not anymore. It'll be like a party with costumes, and we'll play ourselves just a tiny bit. I'll get a pretty dress to wear and we'll dance and dance until our feet can't hold us any longer. Then we'll crawl and cry and it'll be grand."
It seemed that Spike was made of stone as he sat there with Drusilla hovering at his back and his hands clenching the arms of his chair. It hadn't been so long that they didn't know what Dru was saying.
"Not a truce," Angel said into the silence, watching Spike carefully.
"We can't forget," Spike ground out. "Can't pretend none of it happened, and you bloody well know it."
"No, we can't and we won't," Angel said quietly. "But we do the next best thing and act like we have. We need to get Dev through this, and Willow is our best--our only--shot at it. She can't carry the load on her own, and if we keep on the way we have been, then she will be."
There were only two beings on the planet that could get Spike to ignore his emotions and focus entirely on the situation at hand. Drusilla was one, and Dev was the other. Angel watched Spike's face and saw the myriad of emotions that played across it before resolution settled in for a stay.
"Right, whatever. We'll play house," Spike growled. "But there are ground rules, you hear?" Angel nodded. "First, you don't do anything to upset Willow again. Any more tension and she'll be useless." The thought crossed Angel's mind that Spike was going a little overboard where Willow was concerned, but he put that aside for later consideration and simply nodded again.
"Second, the imbecile ex-Watcher goes now, instead of Wednesday." That actually fit into Angel's plans and he rolled his eyes to let Spike know that went without stating. Spike continued with, "Third, you bloody well remember that it's not actually how it used to be. You are not head of shit anymore, and I'm playing along for Dev, and no other reason. And fourth, when it's over, it's over. We go back to the way it should be and we don't talk about it."
"Fine," Angel replied in a clipped voice. "Just as long as *you* remember all of it, too. Your little rebellions of old aren't allowed. Neither are your desperate bids for attention. And if *you* talk about it, then it's free game."
Spike nodded jerkily, and Angel wondered if maybe they weren't all doomed, truces and pretending aside.
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Willow's eyes opened, and she was staring at black leather. She sat up, realizing that she was on yet another couch. When would she next see a bed? The only illumination in the room came from a small light over a kitchen sink. Angel's apartment, she recalled. She looked around, her vision tuned to the dimness. Two bodies were on the floor next in the middle of the room. Spike and Drusilla. Curled around one another familiarly. She looked away quickly.
Willow sat up and ran her hands through her hair, then looked at her watch. Eleven in the morning. She hadn't had nearly enough sleep and she couldn't understand why she'd woken. Then she heard it. Whimpers. Coming from Angel's room. Had to be Dev. Willow groaned quietly and got to her feet, carefully stepping around Spike and Drusilla and making her way to the kitchen. She grabbed a glass from the dish rack and filled it with water from the tap.
Her stomach growled as she drank the water, and she paused. When had she last eaten? The fact that she wasn't sure was a bad sign. Setting the glass on the counter, she went to the fridge.
The bedroom door opened, and Angel was there. He stared at her for a moment then went to the vampires on the floor. "Spike, wake up," he said quietly. "Your shift."
When Spike had been chipped and staying at Giles' place, Willow had once had the unpleasant task of waking him. It had taken an arsenal of techniques to get him up, including yelling at him, smacking him with a pillow and, finally, taking hold of his shoulder and shaking him. Spike's headache had passed in a few minutes, but her bruise hadn't faded for several days.
So she watched apprehensively as Angel stood over Spike and Dru. To her surprise, there were no theatrics. Spike sat up almost instantly, seemingly wide-awake. Willow saw his head turn as he looked at Dru for a moment, then saw him look to the couch.
"She's in the kitchen," Angel told him.
Spike glanced at her, and Willow waved her hand. "Morning," she said, her voice still husky with sleep.
"You should still be asleep," Spike said as he disentangled himself from Dru and stood up.
Willow shrugged. "Hungry."
"There's not much here," Angel told her apologetically.
A sneaking suspicion made Willow sigh and open the fridge. Two shelves of bagged blood, and a carton of eggs whose expiration date was a week before. "I don't suppose the cabinets are stocked?" she asked wryly.
"Uh, no. Cordy hasn't had to stay here lately, so she didn't do any food shopping. I think she left some yogurt in the mini fridge in the office, though," he offered.
"Ugh," Willow said distastefully.
"Yeah, bacteria ain't very appealing," Spike added as he stretched. He joined her in the kitchen and pulled several bags of blood out of the fridge and then opened a cabinet.
"I'll go through the sewers and pick some things up," Angel said. "I'm sorry that we didn't--"
"Didn't remember what humans need?" Willow finished with a grin. Despite Cordy's influence during the past year, the situation would most certainly have made Angel lose sight of the small details like food. "No worries. Mind if I go with?"
Angel looked at Dru's sleeping form. "That might be best actually. I'll also need to get some more blood."
Blood didn't seem to be something he was running low on, and Willow frowned. "I'll take a shower and change. Fifteen minutes?"
Angel tilted his head to the side. "Fifteen minutes. More like an hour, I think."
Spike put several mugs of blood in the microwave and pushed some buttons. Then he snickered. "Not Willow. Lowest of low maintenance, she is."
Willow wrinkled her nose and wished he wasn't a vampire, because she had the urge to kick him for that comment. She settled on glaring at him, and he smirked.
"Make Angel cook for you when he gets back; he's pretty good at it."
Angel. He'd called him Angel. Not Poof, or Peaches, or Nancy Boy. Angel. Hmm. Lots to ponder in the shower this morning.
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It took Willow seventeen minutes to get ready. When she came out of the bathroom, dressed in a pair of jeans and a forest green button down shirt, Angel was nowhere in sight. She heard voices from the bedroom, and crept closer to the door.
"Hate to break it to you, but she hates this," Willow heard Spike say.
There was a pause. "She told me she liked it," Angel murmured.
"That soul of hers makes her try to not hurt your feelings," Spike chuckled. "Ain't that right, Dev?"
"Are you sure? Because she was really excited when I got her a first edition last year," Angel said uncertainly. "I mean, she wouldn't just pretend to like it that much. Would she?"
"Whatever. You can read that to her. I'll read." Willow heard some noises. Books being sorted through. She was very familiar with that sound. ".this."
"What is that.Bram Stoker?" Angel said, sounding shocked. "You can't seriously believe that she'll want to hear that tripe."
"Yeah, she will. It's funny. She needs some amusement after spending the last few hours listening to *your* drivel. And may I ask why you even own this supposed *tripe*?"
"Cordelia."
"Yeah, I figured. You better get going, 'cause if you stay in here much longer Red might fall through the door eavesdropping," Spike said loudly.
Willow stuck her tongue out at the closed door and turned around. Only to find Drusilla right in front of her. She took a step back, but the vampire shook her head, one finger lifting to her lips in a "shush" motion, and her other hand taking hold of Willow's arm just above the elbow. Dru's eyes were glittering, and there was a sweet smile on her face. It didn't ease Willow's fear. She'd had that same look on her face as she'd killed Kendra.
"Uh, guys?" she squeaked.
Angel was at her side immediately, pulling Dru away. "Drusilla," he snapped. "What did we tell you?"
"Princess, come sit with me and Dev," Spike called out from behind Willow.
Pouting, Drusilla slunk away from Angel and moved past Willow to enter the bedroom. The door clicked closed and Willow took a great huge breath. "So, uh, how's this going to work without me getting killed?"
Angel stood in front of her, hands on her shoulders. "She's dangerous, Willow, there's no getting around it," he said. "She knows better than we do that you'll be helping Dev. But she.forgets sometimes. Keep your eyes away from hers, remind her that Dev needs you, and then tell her to back off from whatever she's doing."
Willow grinned wryly. "And if that doesn't work, scream like hell?"
"Yeah, that'll work, too. Come on, let's get you some food."
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Angel had expected some comments about traveling via the sewers, but Willow hadn't said much after they'd climbed down the ladder. He supposed he was used to Cordy, who took any opportunity to voice her opinions. Also, Willow had spent more than a handful of time in Sunnydale's sewers.
The silence was fine with Angel, who at times had the urge to gag Cordelia to keep her quiet and stop her from trying to get him to talk. Sadly, it didn't last very long.
"Why all the blood?"
And of course it would be a question, so he was forced to respond. Sometimes he really did miss his solo days.
"Spike and Drusilla aren't hunting, so we need enough for three of us," he said, glancing at her. She nodded, as if she'd expected the answer, then a thoughtful frown fell over her face.
"Why not? Why aren't they hunting?" she clarified when Angel looked at her oddly.
"Oh. We have to give Dev huge amounts of our blood, and Spike and Drusilla wouldn't be able to hunt enough to keep themselves strong without drawing attention to their presence her."
"Okay, thanks. We'll go back to silent mode now."
He heard the smile in her voice and grinned a little bit. True to her word, Willow didn't say anything else until they got to the supermarket entrance, at which point she stared up at the ladder and then looked at Angel.
"Yeah, so I'm a little creeped out that you know the sewer entrance to the grocery store, and where exactly will this take us?"
"Into the back stock room," Angel told her. "Cordy and I have done it before. If anyone sees us, we'll just say we accidentally wandered back there and ask them to show us the way out."
"Ah, simple. I like it. Lead the way, then," she said with a grin, making "up" motions with her hand.
Angel climbed the ladder and unlatched the sewer grate, pulling himself out and then reaching down to lift Willow out. He remembered doing the same for a battered and almost unrecognizable Dev, just a few days before, and set Willow on her feet less gently then he'd meant to. She looked at him for a moment, but didn't say anything.
They made it into the store without incident, and Willow grabbed a small basket from next to the cash register. "We'll just get enough for today right now. I guess someone can come back when it's dark and stock up for the.week."
"Uh, yeah," Angel stammered, hastily looking away. Should he have been more honest with Willow? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, he thought she'd be more inclined to agree to come to L.A. if she thought the situation was temporary. "You and Spike can come by later tonight--"
"Angel."
Willow placed her hand on his arm, and Angel looked down at her. "Yes?"
"I know it will be more than a week," she said quietly. "I knew before I left. So stop feeling bad about it, all right? Now, I'm thinking steak. Oooh, and mashed potatoes." She looped her arm through his and led him down an aisle. "Can you do mashed potatoes?"
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