Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire
Chp.46
There's a Way
As always all other info is in the first chapter
The Scooby's and A.I. teams had been busy, uber-busy. Buffy had completely taken the law firm of Wolfram and Hart over, in the last few weeks. She'd taken charge so completely that even the people who aren't members of either team had been researching or doing what they possibly could. The mission being to find a way to make Spike a real boy, well vampire again. She is diligent in her quest, and stands over the teams, their every sigh or movement prompting the request of 'Did you find anything?' to come automatically from her mouth.
Fred's team in the lab worked day and night; since the order had come down to find a way to make the resident pain in the ass ghost corporeal.
Fred had come upon an epiphany one night, and written it down on a big, white board in her office. The equation is so long that when she'd run out of room on the board she'd started to write it out on the wall directly to the right of it. When she'd finished working everything out, she'd run to Buffy's side.
Buffy stands in the middle of Fred's office, staring at the strange new language the scientist had just come up with. Confusion mars her pretty, face, and she crosses her arms over her chest.
Fred starts explaining her theory, and everyone looks at her like she's speaking Japanese, but nodding their heads as if they know what she's blabbering on about. The only person who truly understands is the red headed witch that stands beside of Fred.
Willow stares in awe of the concept before her eyes, getting all giddy over the learning goodness, and absorbing all of what Fred is talking about.
Spike stands on Buffy's right, with the same confused expression on his face that his girl seems to have had on her face since walking into the room. His gaze shifts to the slayer.
Buffy feels his heated gaze land on her and looks up with a smile.
"What's the crazy bird on about", he whispers, directly into her ear as he leans even closer into her.
"Like I know, Spike", she whispers back. "All of this is totally non-sense to me."
"Bloody great!" His gaze shifts over to Willow, and he sighs in relief when he sees that at least on of the people in their little group knows what in hell Fred's spoutin' off about.
As he watches, Willow's shoulders stiffen, and she suddenly stops the scientist from going further with her explanation.
"Uh, Fred?" She'd noticed a slight mistake on the other girls behalf. She didn't really want to point out the little flaw in front of Buffy and Spike, but Spike is the one that is going to have to do this.
The brunette turns away from her emphatic motioning to the equation, with a questioning glint in her eyes.
"Uh." Willow gets frustrated at the stare of the pretty girl at her side and ducks her head, shyly. The ducking of the intense gaze served to let her get her nerves under control. She slowly raises her hand up to the mistake on the board, and points it out. "Shouldn't this be here", she asks nervously, as she points to another section of the equation, never letting her eyes drift from the board.
Fred's attention is immediately on the faux pas, and she takes in the whole section of the equation. Her head tilts slightly in Willows direction, eyes squinting, then going unbelievably wide, when she understands the mishap Willow had noticed. One little letter out of place and this whole thing would've spelled disaster.
"Thank god you found that", she exclaims, and hits herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand. She quickly steps up to the board erasing the part that shouldn't have come until later in the whole problem, then rewriting it in the appropriate place. "Who knows what could've happened if we'd have done it that way." She says.
Willow smiles, her face turning a bright red at the praise, and she quickly ducks her head again.
Fred laughs nervously as she turns her gaze on the two blondes on the other side of the room.
"It was just..." Willow whispers. "Well really nothing. I'm sure you would've caught it." The last is mumbled incoherently.
Spike smiles reassuringly at the jumpy, little brunette. She nervously fidgets beside Red; as if Buffy or he were ready to tear her head off for making a mistake that neither of them would've known about if Red hadn't noticed. "Well, it couldn't as bad as this." He finally says, as he reaches up and puts his hand through the side of Buffy's head. He wiggles his fingers as his hand halfway emerges from the other side.
"I don't know about that, Spike." Willow pipes up, after regaining her composure. She brightly, smiles. "It could've possibly blown you into little, pieces of Spike confetti." She watches as Spike's fingers still wiggle on the side of Buffy's head. "And uh, could you quit with the..." She wiggles her own fingers in demonstration.
"Does it make you squeamish, Red?" He wiggles his hand even more, while teasing the girl.
"Spike, stop it." Buffy reprimands, and swipes at him with her hand.
A slow, evil smile crosses the vampire's face. "Oh, ho! Even the slayer has a bad tummy", he taunts, but removes his hand from her head.
Buffy plants her hands on her hips and turns to Spike. "No, it just a little disturbing. What with the seeing of your fingertips wriggling out of the corner of my eye, and all."
Fred leans into Willow. "Are they always like this?" She whispers.
"Yeah, well no. Usually it's a lot worse, you haven't seen anything, yet."
The two women, watch the bickering going on across the room from them, and laugh.
"Maybe we should get them back to where we were", Fred asks, hesitantly.
"Yep, or we'll be here all night listening to the two of them bicker." Willow agrees.
"Buffy? Spike?" The couple quits their play fighting, and looks over at the red headed witch. "We were kinda in the middle of something." She arcs her hand behind her in the direction of the big, white board, and smiles.
"Oh, Fred! I'm so sorry." Buffy apologizes with a look of sheepishness crossing her features. "Please continue." She says, blushing brightly. "The sooner we get him corporeal, the sooner I get to kill him," she jokes, as she throws a pointing thumb over her shoulder in the direction of a ghosty Spike standing behind her.
"Hey, now!"
(Well here's another chappy, I hope that every one enjoyed. Hopefully I'll be able to have another one up tomorrow. Thanks to Kari, No I haven't given up on it; I just had a hell'uva a time trying to get the last few chapters up. Spuffyfan4eva, Yes, I had a very sick computer, but it's well now, and hopefully will stay that way. Spike(I'm sorry I can't remember all of the numbers.) Happy to see that you like it, can't wait to see what you think about the rest of this monster.