Spike opened his eyes tentatively in Angel's large bed. Although they had definitely enjoyed spending the night together, he wasn't sure how Angel would react in the morning. After all, it had been over a hundred years since their last similar encounter.
Beside him, his Sire was waking up also, "good morning," he whispered hoarsely and Spike couldn't notice any negative connotations in his voice.
"How are you feeling today?" Spike asked suspiciously and with a hint of mockery. Apart from Angel's health status, he also wanted to know the standing of their relationship.
"Home," Angel answered distractedly, referring to the relaxing state reverting back to his old self caused, and that without loosing his soul. Suddenly he sat up, as if he had just come to his senses, "where do you think Buffy is by now? You think she went back to Rome?"
"What does it matter?"
"You're right, it doesn't matter. We messed it up."
"No, mate. If she really loved either of us, she would forgive. Why it doesn't matter is because we've given up. Me, recently, you, a while ago."
"True…nevertheless…"
The phone that they knocked down onto the floor last night in their haste began to ring. Angel moaned as he turned over and out of bed to answer it.
"We were expecting you to be here by now," they heard Harmony chirp from the handset, "Lorne and Gunn is here for the meeting. Wesley is with Buffy, handling the situation."
"What situation?"
"The situation she came here for?"
Angel and Spike looked at each other, dumbfounded, not responding to Harmony for a few seconds, which she took as a non-answer, "didn't she tell you about it??" It was her turn to be surprised.
"I'll be down in a minute," Angel concluded to Harmony.
"So she didn't even come over here for either of us!" Spike sat up, throwing the covers, "some goddamn situation that is!"
"Why are you so upset, Spike?" Angel said ironically, "didn't you just say we didn't stand a chance?"
--------------------------
"It seemed a good idea at the time," Spike explained to Angel while they were being pissed about Buffy still giving them her orders of trying to interrogate a possibly evil Slayer in LA to find out where their headquarters are. But more importantly they were angry with themselves, for following those orders.
"But even if Willow didn't empower all Slayers, you still would've burnt the ubervamps with your amulet, there wouldn't be a whole organisation of dark Slayers on the loose and we wouldn't be in this mess now."
"Well, yeah, but who did know that at the time?"
"Besides, it's dangerous," Angel fumed on, "she's a Slayer after all!"
"That doesn't usually seem to bother you. She probably thought we could handle a new inexperienced Slayer the two of us, hey?"
"I don't understand why you keep defending her Spike."
"I don't. I'm just trying to calm you down…but actually, why doesn't she do the interrogating herself?"
"Harmony said she went to Arizona with Wesley to collect some magic book with the spell of how to take away the power of the rest of the Slayers. She needs to get to it, before the new dark circle d…," Angel enlightened Spike as they walked down the hallway of the apartment house the alleged dark Slayer allegedly lived.
"What was that?" Spike interrupted and put up a warning hand. They both stopped to his quiet words, listening. There was another noise and then there were four women approaching down the corridor behind them and three exiting an apartment door in the front, all armed with stakes, "now that's trouble," he paused till the woman closest to him was in the ideal position and attempted a hip roll throw. His attacker hit him across the face and then pulled out a gun from her pocket and fired it into his chest, the shot disturbingly ear-splitting in the confined space. Spike's head hit the wall as the blast sent him backwards, then he slid down, lay on the floor and grunted quietly, "what the f…"
So far, Angel didn't attempt to move. He figured, if he would, he would get the same treatment. These were new slayers. They didn't have much training, they didn't know much. Maybe if he could figure out something…he looked at Spike for suggestions.
The blond vampire however, choose one of his characteristically preposterous ways of dealing with things, taunting the girls, "shoot me huh? Nobody told you that doesn't work?"
"It does when it's with bullets filled with garlic concentrate," his assailant told him and raised her gun to Angel's head, while the others closed in, "are these Buffy's boyfriends?"
"Yes," Dana stepped forward.
"What is this?" Angel was confused.
"Kidnapping," the woman let him know before she pulled the trigger.