Spike sat near the back of the plane, trying to go over what exactly had happened in his head. Buffy was here. Not even twenty feet away, he could sense her. He glanced up to look at her. God, he thought to himself. She looks even more beautiful then I remembered. I miss her so much. Spike quickly shook those thoughts away, he wasn't about to let himself get soft. Buffy obviously wanted to have nothing to do with him.
"Are you in there?" a voice asked.
Spike glanced up, meeting a very annoyed looking Buffy Summers.
"Buffy."
She tore her eyes away from his. "We're having a meeting before we get to England. To, you know, explain some things."
Spike nodded and stood up, following behind the slayer as she headed to the next room.
Giles, Willow, Buffy, Spike, Angel and Illyria all sat around a table in what appeared to be a rather large looking conference room.
"How is Gunn doing?" Angel asked Giles, as soon as he sat down.
"He'll be fine. He's already recovering. These doctors are the finest in all of England. They know what they are doing." he answered.
Buffy cleared her throat. "We're going to need some answers from you," she said, looking at Angel. "All I know is that Wes called me today and within the hour we were all on a plane headed to L.A. He explained that you were planning on taking down a group called the Black Thorns. We hadn't heard anything about them before this, but Giles did his research thing and we knew that Wes wasn't kidding. You were in way over your heads."
"You had no right-" Angel started.
"No right to what? Save you. You want to be reckless with your life. That's fine. But you put your friends in danger, Angel. What about Gunn? What about Wes? If we hadn't shown up you would all be dead. So how about saying 'Thank you'?"
It seemed as though she had more to say, the anger and hateful words were just spilling out of her.
Giles stepped in. "Buffy, this is not the time." He looked over to Angel. "We came here because we were told that we might be needed, and it looks as if we were."
Angel shook his head. "Maybe, but the Senior Partners are never going to just let us go. They are probably sending another army after us right now."
"No, they won't." Willow said, to Angel's right. She had been watching all of this unfold and finally decided to step in, before things really got out of control.
He turned to look at Willow. "What did you do?"
"I created a shield for you - all of you. The Senior Partners and anyone involved with them can no longer see you. To them, it's just as if you went poof in that alley. They'll have no way to track you down. You're free."
They had landed in England just a few hours ago and already Buffy was exhausted. She wanted nothing better then to just go home and curl up in her own bed and forget about everything that had happened the past couple days. Seeing Spike again, seeing Angel again, it was just all too much for her to deal with right now. She just started to feel like she was getting her life back and then once again, she became the Slayer.
She looked around the concrete room and sighed. It looked like a prison cell. Of course, she was not in prison. She was going to be staying in a room at the new Council Headquarters. Giles was in charge of everything here which suited Buffy just fine. She had only been here a few times before this, and she was not looking forward to the next few days. They would be awkward, to say the least.
"Hey," came a voice from the other side of the room.
Buffy turned and ran, embracing her into an extremely tight hug.
"Uhh, Buffy.. I can't-t-t... breathe!"
She took a step back and released her. "Oh! Dawn, I'm sorry! But what - what are you doing here? I told you not to come! You have school! Are you playing hookie?"
"I just thought I should be here for you. It's got to be painful seeing Spike again," Dawn moved and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Believe me, it was. All of kinds of pain," she sat beside Dawn and began running her fingers through her hair. "But, you know, he doesn't seem to care, so why should I? It's all business now."
"You don't need to be tough for me. You loved him."
Buffy lowered her eyes, "I did."
Dawn hesitated for a few minutes. Her sister usually clammed up and changed the subject when she mentioned Spike's name. "Do you still?" she looked up at her. "I mean, really."
Buffy choked back some tears that threatened to fall. "There's no sense in bringing all this up again. I've moved on. He's moved on. Let's just leave it at that, okay?"
Dawn nodded, deciding not to push it any further.
"Good. Now let's go eat. I don't know about you but I'm starved!"
