67

Standoff

Even though vampires no longer had most bodily functions, Spike felt like he was breaking out in a cold sweat. "You're sure, luv?" he asked, and could've kicked himself for it. "Bloody stupid question. Forget I asked. Door holding?"

"For now," Rose replied through chattering teeth. "I think they're supposed to be reinforced to stand up to vampires. But it won't stop him, just delay him."

"That's all I need," Spike soothed her. "You just hang tight, babe. I'll be there in a tick."

He hung up the phone to see the children watching him with solemn expressions. Whatever of the conversation they hadn't heard, they'd no doubt snooped out of his head. The question now was, what to do with them? He certainly couldn't take them with, nor did he like the idea of leaving them on their own. But he had to come up with something, and right smartly. Rose needed him.

&&&&&&

"Open up, Rose," Angelus shouted. "You know I'm going to get in eventually. And you have nowhere to go from there."

"Go to hell," Rose ventured. She started going through the desk drawers, not sure of what she was looking for. Anything useful, she supposed, and tucked Gunn's spare cell phone in the only place she could think to put it. It wasn't comfortable.

Angelus laughed. "Been there, done that," he replied. "Tell you what, Rosie girl, since you're being so uncooperative, I'll give you a taste."

Rose didn't know whether he meant a taste of hell, or of his blood, but neither prospect appealed. There had to be somewhere else she could go. She looked longingly out the window at the bright, midday sun. She'd be safe if she was out in that. She blinked. It couldn't be that easy, could it? Her fingers fiddled for the catch, as the door began making ominous sounds that suggested it was giving up the fight.

&&&&&&

"Wyndam-Pryce here." Wes hated answering the phone of a weekend. More often than not, it was the telemarketers, wanting to sell him things no sane person would buy at prices no sane person would pay.

"Wesley, it's Rose." Even over the telephone, she conveyed a measure of terror that was nearly palpable.

"Rose? Where are you? What's wrong?" Wesley himself felt a cold shudder travel the length of his spine. Rose may have looked like a china doll, but for the most part, she didn't frighten easily.

"I'm on the ledge outside of Charles' office," Rose forced out. Her teeth were chattering again.

"What are you doing there?" He'd have never thought that Rose would be suicidal. Especially since there was much more than her life at stake. "You're not planning on killing yourself, are you?"

"No." Rose tried to summon up a measure of calm, but it wasn't easy. "I'm out here because the sun is shining."

"Because the sun is..," Wesley started to repeat the phrase when it sunk in. "Holy mother of God. Angelus is loose, isn't he?"

&&&&&&&&

The door finally gave way with one last groan. Angelus scanned the office, but curiously, there was no sign of Rose.

"Stubborn little bitch, aren't you?" he remarked conversationally. "I'm gonna do you sooo slow."

It was then that he noticed the window, not entirely shut, since it was designed to be operated solely from the inside.

"Well, aren't you the little sly boots?" he muttered. Even though it had been Angel, and not him, at least, not exactly, he'd gotten too accustomed to ignoring the sun. He reached for the window.

And snatched back his smoking hand as the unfiltered rays of the sun touched it.

"Son of a bitch!" he swore. By flattening himself against the protective glass, he could just make out the cowering form on the ledge. Scared she might be, but stupid, she wasn't. She was well more than an arm's length away from the window. Even if he were inclined to brave the sun's unforgiving rays, he'd have to expose too much of himself to them to be sure of keeping his own skin intact.

"Come back in, Rose," he wheedled. "I won't hurt you." Even he didn't think it would work.

"Liar," Rose shot back. She was plastered against the side of the building. It looked like she was almost as afraid of falling a few dozen floors as she was of him. Almost.

"You'll fall if you stay out there." Angelus decided to play on that fear. It was one of the things he did best. "If you fall, you'll die. And so will Spike. But I already said that I'm not going to kill you. Not yet, anyway. I want you around to play with for a while."

"I'll take my chances out here, thank you," Rose said. Panic inspired tears trickled down her cheeks, but she was too afraid of falling to even swipe her wrist across her eyes. "If I'm going to die, this way at least, is cleaner. And probably less painful."

Angelus tssked in annoyance. "Rose, Rose," he said in gently scolding tones. "Be as smart as everyone in this hole thinks you are. I could make it easy on you. I could turn you while I'm laying you. You'd hardly notice it."

"And give up everything I became human for," Rose murmured. That was the most appalling thought of all, that she would no longer be capable of loving Spike or her children. If, that is, the change didn't kill both her and Spike outright.

"You have no idea what it feels like, Rosie girl," he cajoled. "How liberating it is. Do you have any idea how it feels to have the power of life and death over everyone you meet?"

"I think I have some notion of what it's like," she said dryly. She was starting to feel a little calmer now. He obviously wasn't going to try to challenge the sun to get to her. Words, she could handle. But where was Spike? He'd said that he was on his way. Shouldn't he be here by now?

&&&&&&&

Spike had finally solved his dilemma by taking the twins to the nearest safe room. He'd even gone inside with them to assure himself that they could work the locking mechanism by themselves.

"I don't like this," he muttered, more than half to himself. But he really was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

"We'll be all right," Alaric reassured him. "You go rescue mummy."

"Are you going to hurt Uncle Angel?" Ariel seemed almost as concerned on that score as she was about her mother.

"It's not Angel," Spike replied. "Even if it does look like him." He dropped to one knee and hugged and kissed them. "The second I'm out of here, you lock that door. And don't open it again unless it's me or your mum. Got that?"

"Yes, daddy." In perfect chorus. They could be a right pain sometimes, but when it was hitting the fan with a vengeance, they were good kids. Spike couldn't ask for better.

&&&&&&&

Normally, Wesley eschewed the use of the cell phone while he was driving, but this was an emergency, and speed was of the essence.

"Gunn? We have a situation at the office," he said without preamble when the lawyer answered his phone. "Angelus has Rose trapped on the window ledge outside of your office."

"He what? When did this happen?" Gunn had been looking forward to a relaxing weekend. It looked now like he wasn't going to get it.

"According to Rose, quite probably early on in the week," Wesley replied, looking for an open spot that would let him slip through the traffic. He didn't find one. "She locked herself in your office because it was nearby. Then, when it looked like Angelus was going to break the door down, she went out on the ledge so that she'd be protected by the sun."

"We can't leave her out there forever," Gunn agreed. "And if we can't get him the hell away from there, he'll probably just wait her out until the sun sets."

"That's what I was thinking," Wes agreed. "Even Fred, brave as she is didn't argue about staying home and contacting the others. She remembers Angelus rather vividly."

"Don't we all?" Gunn muttered. And none of them were good memories. "You want me to meet you there?"

"If you could spare the time," Wesley said a little sarcastically. "I hope I don't have to tell you not to come empty-handed?"

&&&&&&

Outside the shattered door to Gunn's office, Spike could hear him talking. And bloody hell if it wasn't Angelus. How could he have missed it?

"I'll bet your legs are starting to cramp up, aren't they?" Angelus asked. "Maybe getting a little dizzy from the heights?"

'Getting dizzy from the heights'? What in hell was the bastard on about? He strained his ears for Rose's reply.

"I think I'd rather go splat on the sidewalk than to go back in there with you." Her voice sounded too distant to be in the office with him. So where was his precious girl?

"But the sidewalk is such a long way to go down," Angelus pointed out. "Speaking of going down..,"

"Not with my girl you don't," Spike snarled, pushing aside the remains of the door.

Angelus had been sitting on the floor by the window. Now, he stood. "Well, Spike to the rescue," he said mockingly. "It's about damned time too. I was beginning to think that you'd shown your true colors and chickened out."

"I am not, never have been, and never will be afraid of you," Spike growled. "You're still a big, fat, spotty-assed ponce. With a soul or without. And I've bloody well warned you to keep your meathooks off of Rose."

"Ooh." Angelus raised his hands and pretended to tremble with fear. "You ever tasted her blood, Spike? Guess not, what with the soul and all." He wiped his lips ostentatiously, even though all traces of Rose's blood were long since gone. "It's sweeter than honey," he added. "Almost virginal. I wonder how she manages that? Maybe it's because you're so shortchanged in the manhood department."

Spike stuck his hands in the pockets of his duster, feeling the dilemma pressing in on him. In one pocket was the trank gun that Fred had equipped him with. In the other was a stake. He'd come prepared for all the possibilities. He could feel his anger threatening to boil over, but he reigned it in, with difficulty. He had to think of Rose first. He could soothe his wounded ego later. "Where's Rose?" he asked, keeping his voice level. "Surely such a little slip of a thing couldn't get the better of Angelus, could she?"

Angelus shook his head, feigning sorrow. "The time was, buddy mine, when you'd have been trying to tear me a new asshole for making remarks about your dick like that," he remarked. "How the mighty have fallen. Here's the Big Bad, doing the nine to five, raising a pair of knee-biters and being completely pussy-whipped."

"Like I really give a rat's ass what you think," Spike snapped. Despite his best efforts, the digs were starting to have an effect. Since Angelus didn't answer his question, he decided to try for the information another way. He raised his voice. "Rose? Where are you, babe?"

"Out on the ledge," came the faint reply.

"That's my girl," Spike said approvingly. He pulled his hands out of his pockets. Whether it was just the way things had worked out, or whether he had actually planned it, even Spike couldn't tell. But the trank gun was in his right hand. The left hand, the dominant one, held the stake.

&&&&&&&

Alaric and Ariel had explored the safe room, and were now sitting in the middle of the floor. There was an untidy pile of playing cards in between them, plus several groups of three on either side of the pile. Mostly on Ariel's side.

"Do you have any threes?" she asked sweetly. She was taking no end of delight in the fact that she was beating her minutes-older brother at something.

Alaric threw down the requested card. "You're cheating," he accused. He knew she wasn't. He could tell when she was in his mind, just as she could tell when he was in hers. But he had to say something.

Ariel took the card, added two of her own and placed them on the floor next to the rest of her collection. "It's your turn now," she reminded him.

"Got any twos?" he asked desperately. At this rate, she was going to be so far ahead of him that he wouldn't have a chance of catching up to her.

"Go fish," Ariel replied.

&&&&&&

"You're not going to stake me," said Angelus confidently. "You might take a swipe or two at me with that stake, but you're not going to kill me. Because you're hoping to saddle me with that damned soul again."

Spike hesitated for a split second. He reluctantly admitted that it was true. Unless Angelus was currently a threat to his nearest and dearest, and at the moment, he wasn't, then he couldn't just bloody well go and stake him.

The brief hesitation was all that Angelus needed. He plowed into Spike at full speed, flinging him up against the wall, disorienting him for a moment.

"I'll settle up with the two of you later," he snarled. He despised the thought of letting them best him, but his sharp ears had picked up the sounds of reinforcements arriving. He jumped through the gaping hole that was once the door, and disappeared into the unknown depths of the building.

Wesley and Gunn burst into the room.

"Was that Angelus that just took off down the hall like a big bird?" Gunn asked. He didn't believe that they had won so easily.

Spike nodded, picking himself up. "Poncey bastard said I wouldn't stake him," he grumbled. "And bloody hell if he wasn't right." He hit the side of his head, trying to get it back in some kind of working order. There was something important that he should be doing, but he couldn't think of it.

"Is Rose still out on the ledge?" Wesley asked.

That was the important thing. Spike wondered that even that eternal pain in his ass Angelus could make him forget about the light of his existence. He nodded again.

Gunn stuck his head out the window. "The coast is clear, Rose," he said. "You can come in now."

"No, I can't," Rose moaned. "He was right. My legs are cramping. I can't move, Charles. If I do, I'll fall, I know I will."

The three men looked at each other. Spike could probably retrieve her easily enough, but it was still broad daylight, and night wouldn't fall for hours. Rose couldn't wait that long.

In an almost choreographed motion, both Gunn and Wesley holstered their weapons. "I'll go," the Watcher said. "If we don't hurry, Rose is going to be all over the evening news. Or the sidewalk. Neither of which is an acceptable option."

"You're not a big guy, Wes," Gunn pointed out. "If Rose panics and makes a wrong move, you'll both go over."

"We're wasting time," Spike snapped. "Watcher, you go out. Gunn holds your hand, I hold his. And you'd bloody well better hold tight." His eyes softened. "That's the mother of my children out there."

They formed their human (and vampire) chain, and soon had Rose back where she belonged. In Spike's arms.

&&&&&&

Angelus prowled aimlessly through the building. He'd taken a few turns that led to areas that he, or Angel, had never been before. He was in a clinical white hallway lined with doors with tiny, tiny windows in them. He looked in one. And saw what was once a man, but now resembled a completely feral animal. Now it dawned on him. The psych ward. A grin spread across his face. He started down the hallway, looking in each window until he found the one he was looking for.

An orderly came up to him. "No visitors, sir, oh, excuse me, Mr. Angel."

"Do you have the keys to this cell?" he demanded. He knew the door was impervious to a vampire's strength. It had to be. It had held for over four years now.

"Yes, sir," the orderly stammered.

"Open it," Angelus ordered.

"But sir," the man protested.

"Don't argue, just do it," Angelus snapped.

Fumbling with the keys, but afraid to disobey, the orderly opened the door. "Be careful, sir. She's classified as highly dangerous."

"And so she should be," Angelus replied. He shoved the flunky into the room in front of him and shut the door behind them. Then, he tackled the straps on the straight jacket.

"Oh, that's ever so much better," Drusilla sighed. She looked at the prone figure on the floor. "Did you bring me a present, Angelus?"

"Are you hungry, Dru, baby?" Angelus asked.