Disclaimer: I don't own a thing.

Summary: Post AtS and BtVS, Faith and Xander are approached by a secret government agency. Surprises all around.

Rating: PG-13

Chapter 19: Revenge and vengeance

When Spike returned to the hotel room he was in a foul mood. Faith had challenged the existence of love—true love, even—and that was the deadly sin, as far as he was concerned.

He didn't like to admit it, but he was a romantic at heart. He might be a cold-hearted cynic, but he still believed in love with every beat and fiber of his cold, dead heart.

He stomped past Drusilla, who was watching TV again, and sat down on the floor, on top of the messy pile of sheets that had served as his bed.

Xander was sitting up, watching the TV, and looked at Spike with bleary eyes, a hint of malice behind his gaze.

"What?" snapped Spike.

"No demons?" asked Xander.

"Bloody woman is demon enough," growled Spike, clutching his head in both hands. "I wish I could just kill her."

"Whining about the good old days doesn't help," sighed Xander. "Take it from me."

"Oh? What good old days did you have?" spat Spike.

"When Faith and I just slept together, or she'd just try to kill me," replied Xander. "Now it's all complicated."

Drusilla looked back at them, grinning. "Death and dying," she predicted.

Spike shook his head, glaring around the room. Then he grabbed his bag from the corner of the room and pulled a notebook out of it, opening it up quickly, flipping to the first empty page. He pulled a pen from the spine, and began writing.

"Whoa," said Xander. "What is that? An evil spellbook? Evil journal? And since when can you write?"

"Little something I've been picking up recently," he replied.

Xander leaned forward, reading it. "What?" he said, confused. "That's not a complete sentence!" he accused, sitting back.

"It's not supposed to be," said Spike, his voice scathing, closing the book. "Like you said, it's magic. Very dark, very dangerous."

Xander glared at him for a minute, folding his arms. "You do realize that's a load of crap, right?"

"Complete load," agreed Spike.

Xander sighed, standing up and stretching. "God, I'm not going to get ANY sleep tonight, am I?" he asked wearily.

Spike watched the boy, sneering. "You look like you haven't got a whole night's sleep in a long, long time," he said.

Xander shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. "Nightmares," he said vaguely.

Spike shuddered. "Been there," he said, his voice low. "Every night, I dreamed of English. I didn't see him fall, so that was the worst. Never knowing how he fell. And Charley. And Blue. And dying, of course." He looked down at his hands, and Xander found himself feeling sorry for the former vampire.

It wasn't a comfortable feeling, and he immediately tried to banish it. "So, breakfast?" he asked cheerfully.

Spike shrugged mournfully. "I miss the blood," he admitted. "Nothing tastes as good as blood. Nothing's as sweet, strong, and intoxicating."

Xander hesitated, grossed out. "So, breakfast?" he asked again, no cheer left in his voice.

Drusilla rose up off the bed, swaying in time to nonexistent music. "Yes, please," she said sweetly.

Xander giggled nervously. "Um, just to be clear, pig's blood for you," he squeaked. "Not me."

She pouted. "Very well, let's all eat of poppy and swine," she agreed.

"What?" said Xander, still uncertain.

"The blood's drugged," said Spike. "I didn't think she'd cotton to it so quick, but she'll always surprise you." A nostalgic smile passed across his face. "Every time," he added, redundantly.

Xander was glad they were back on familiar ground, where he could easily hate the blonde. "Just keep her on that blood and not mine and we'll be fine," he grumbled.

Drusilla smiled mysteriously, her head tilting back. "I can see it…a glorious moment of spark and burning, and then freedom," she whispered. "Soon my spark will come."

Spike smiled encouragingly. "That's right, love. Soon you'll have a soul, and then you'll understand true freedom."

Drusilla glanced at him, her mysterious smile widening. "Soon," she promised.


Buffy entered the room quietly, glancing at the bars on both sides of the corridor, searching for Angel.

The room was lit only with fluorescents, and there was an unearthly pallor surrounding the bars, bathing it all in an unholy atmosphere of fear and death.

Angel sat up on the bed, surprised, dropping the book he'd been reading aloud. The girl in the opposite cell also sat up, scowling.

"Who're you?" she asked.

"Uh, I'm Buffy," replied the Slayer, frowning. "Hello," she added, a bit awkwardly.

Angel moved closer to the bars, one corner of his mouth curving up in a smile. "Buffy," he said softly. "I…" He cut himself off, frowning. "You shouldn't be here!" he accused, his mouth twisting in a pout. "Don't you know…no, I guess you wouldn't, would you?" He sighed, moving back to the bed.

"Know what?" asked Buffy.

"That it's a bad idea for you to be here," said Angel mournfully. He smiled at her. "You aren't mad, are you?"

"Mad? At you or at Giles?" asked Buffy sweetly.

"Either. Both," answered the vampire. "It is really good to see you again."

"Yeah?" asked Buffy, a bit combatively. Angel winced. "That's one of those reasons you ran off, right?"

He frowned. "I guess it is, in a way," he said.

"Because a mostly platonic relationship with me just wasn't enough," said Buffy, a bit angrily.

Angel sighed. "Because even if we weren't sleeping together, I was still too happy to be with you," he said softly. His smooth voice grated against Buffy's ears. "Because even without the sex, I was happy enough that my soul was in danger. Is that what you want to hear?"

Buffy stood there, nonplussed. "Actually, I was mostly hoping for an angry response so that I could believe you'd changed," she finally said.

He shrugged. "I've changed," he said wearily. "I had a son. I fell in love with Cordelia, and lost her. I fed a room full of lawyers to Darla and Dru. I've done things I'm ashamed of, and even more things I didn't even realize at the time I should have been ashamed of. But I was still trying to do the right thing."

Buffy stared at him. "Cordelia?" she said finally.

Angel shrugged mysteriously. "It was a thing," he said, his face impassive.


Faith seriously considered simply leaving, walking off into the night and finding her own way. It was an attractive idea, on many levels.

But it wouldn't solve her deepest problems, and she was just coming to terms with facing those.

She stood up and headed inside when it was coming close to dawn. She knew that Spike wanted to leave, and drive in the daylight hours, while Drusilla would be at her weakest.

Inside Spike and Xander were eating, watching a talk show. They weren't talking, just throwing the occasional hostile glare at each other. Drusilla was standing in the kitchenette area, staring a toaster.

Faith sighed. "Ready to get going?" she asked.

"Drusilla needs to eat, first," said Spike.

"Me too," said Xander sourly.

"We can stop for coffee and Danishes somewhere," responded Spike.

Xander shot an angry look at Spike. "Or I could just eat something here and now," he replied.

Spike shrugged. "Well, we have…blood. And…blood," he said, smirking at the younger man. "Are you sure you want to eat here?"

"All right, I can take a hint," growled Xander angrily.

But he didn't get up, and neither did Spike.


Dawn carefully examined her e-mail, searching for anything from the Devon coven. If there was some mystical significance to Buffy's recent trip to hell with Spike and Connor, she really wanted to know about it.

But there was nothing except a cryptic message from AiredaleTrekkie that he'd returned to Italy, as per their plans, and was continuing their surveillance on the remaining Wolfram and Hart office.

Dawn felt vaguely concerned for Andrew's safety. Often the Scoobies sent him off without thought or concern for his welfare, but she was more than a little fond of the odd nerd.

Not that she'd say that out loud. Given their relative ages, she knew half the Slayers expected them to just shack up—and that was something that would compromise them both. There wouldn't be even a hint of it, ever.

Still, she felt responsible for him. She quickly typed up a reply telling him to be careful, that the information they'd received from Spike and Angel so far indicated that Wolfram and Hart was deadlier than they'd expected, and more vindictive.

There was another message from Oz, three weeks old. She opened it and scanned it, but it wasn't much more than a postcard. Thailand. Miss you all. She didn't bother replying; she'd learned a long time ago that no matter what she put in her reply, he wouldn't acknowledge it.

She closed her e-mail and shut the computer off, then stood up, glancing around the room.

"Hey, still there?" she asked.

The young Slayer detached herself from the shadows. "How do you do that?" she asked, far more impressed then she should have been. "I was doing everything Kennedy taught me about being stealthy!"

"Yeah, well, maybe it was a guess, or maybe you did something wrong," grumbled Dawn. "It doesn't matter. Either way, I knew you were there."

The Slayer grimaced. "You're here about the vampire, right?" she asked, ignoring Dawn's twisted logic. Dawn nodded unhappily. "I don't get the whole soul thing," said the girl, pleadingly. "Can you explain it?"

Dawn laughed. "I am SO the wrong person to explain it," she said harshly.

"Oh, c'mon!" whined the Slayer. "Giles wouldn't explain it at all, he just cleaned his glasses and mumbled about guilt and stuff!"

"Yeah, he doesn't buy it either," grumbled Dawn.

"What?" said the Slayer, surprised by Dawn's blunt response.

"You want to know what a soul is? It's an excuse." The Slayer was silent, staring at Dawn with wide eyes. "It's what your best friend goes to get after he tries to rape your sister, and then they all act like it just didn't happen. It's what your sister's boyfriend loses when he sleeps with her, and then when he does get it back, they act like that didn't happen either. It's the world's biggest excuse for guys acting like Cro-Magnon jerks, and it sucks!"

The Slayer stared at Dawn, her mouth hanging open. She shut it with a snap. "Wow. Issues?"

"You have no idea," said Dawn, sighing. "It's this whole mess. Want some Cocoa or something?"

"Um, sure," said the Slayer, suddenly much more unsure than she had been before, when this had been an impersonal assignment. Watch the Slayer's sister. She doesn't have powers. Just keep her out of trouble.

Nobody had said anything about issues.


Angel sat on his bed, scowling. "I'm just tired of it being all about Spike, that's all," he snapped.

"Didn't Spike save you?" asked Buffy, bemused.

"Yes!" snapped Angel. "And I don't even want to go into how much I resent him for that!"

"You resent the fact he saved you?" asked Buffy.

"He's always there with some quick quip," grumbled Angel. "I had one, ONE good line for him. That time we were fighting, he was blasting away at me with all my faults, but I saved up my one trump card, one I already knew he was all over. And he…trumped it. Pow."

"What was it?" asked Buffy.

Angel shifted uncomfortably. "Just some stupid thing I'd topped him at," he mumbled. "It doesn't matter any more. That was back when he'd just become corporeal."

"When he got a body," interpreted Buffy. "I'm amazed he didn't come running to me then. Even with all his talk of being his own man, and growing, and moving on…"

"He didn't move on," mumbled Angel quietly.

"What?" said Buffy.

"He didn't move on. He hasn't moved on." Angel looked as if the words were physically hurting him. "Spike doesn't move on."

"He said he had," Buffy reminded him. Angel snorted angrily.

"And Spike never lies," he said sarcastically.

"I'll never get why you two hate each other so much," she sighed.

"At the core of it, he'll never understand why I do what I do," snapped Angel. "He'll never understand why I left Sunnydale the first time…" Angel trailed off.

The truth that he'd been denying for weeks suddenly slapped him in the face. Spike did understand that sacrificial love now, even if he hadn't before. Spike had done the same thing, staying in LA with Angel. He'd allowed Buffy to move on.

Spike had grown.

Angel groaned, dropping his head into his hands. "I really, really hate Spike," he muttered. "All he ever does is make me look like the immature one."

Buffy laughed. "It isn't Spike," she assured him.

The whole deal, sitting on the other side of the bars and talking to him, was bothering her. The crazy Slayer, Dana, was pretending to read, but darting knowing glances at them in the meantime.

Buffy glanced to Dana, taking advantage of Angel's sudden brooding spell. "So, how're you doing?" she asked.

Dana shrugged. "Better," she said shortly.

"Good, good," said Buffy.

"I was just trying to explain to Angel about why I cut Spike's hands off… he thinks it was an overreaction," said Dana, proud to be able to contribute something to the conversation. Buffy choked, and Dana nodded sagely. The expression of surprise was a clear indication that she understood the necessity of cutting his hands off.

"I sowed them back on," said Angel.

"What!" screamed Buffy, staring at Angel.

"Well, not me. My medical staff. They reattached his hands. Although the tissue was dead, a vampire naturally regenerates, so he was able to… um, yeah, Spike got his hands cut off and put back on. He wasn't really that freaked out about it, after we put them back on." Angel was appropriately apologetic, but he remembered all too well the nice feeling of 'I-told-you-so' that had suffused him when he'd seen the suffering vampire.

And now Spike wasn't a vampire any more. Why did he have to keep reminding himself of that?

He really would like to see some quality Spike suffering again, before Spike died.

Which was an inevitability now, not an 'if.' Spike was human. Mortal. He wouldn't make two hundred, unless he was particularly careful—something Angel knew he wasn't.

And why, if he hated Spike so bloody much, did that hurt? It shouldn't hurt. He should be happy he was finally getting rid of Spike.

Buffy finally had collected herself. "You know Spike, Dana?" she said.

"Nope," said Dana cheerfully. "We really only met once or twice. And I cut his hands off."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Right, of course. That makes sense."

"Um, she was channeling the Slayer memories," said Angel. "The ones where he killed two Slayers."

"What!" said Buffy angrily. "Did she miss the one where he saved my life? Or Dawn's life? Or burned up for the world?"

Dana stared at her. "Duh, you're not dead," she pointed out logically. "I can't have YOUR memories."

Buffy thought about that for a second. "You know, that logic would work…if I hadn't already died once, AFTER Spike had saved the world…twice. Maybe more, if you count the times I paid him to do it…"

Angel shook his head, shaking off the terrible feelings that arose in him when he was reminded that his Childe (grand-Childe? Screw these vampire names!) had saved the world. Shouldn't he be proud, or something?


Faith rummaged in the mini-fridge, hoping against hope that there would be alcohol there. But if there had been, Spike had already nicked it.

She really hated him. He was the complete antithesis of Angel, who could be gentle and caring and help you face your demons. He was the antithesis of Xander, who could be completely wrong and still make you feel good about yourself just by being willing to lavish praise on you.

He was the most annoying vampire ever to claw his way up through the dirt to life, and she really wanted to kill him.

Spike, in the meantime, was staring out the window. "Dru, eat," he called back to the kitchen.

Drusilla was sitting on the counter, holding a bag with blood in it. She shook her head petulantly. "It's not time yet!" she snapped.

"It's past bloody time, Dru!" snarled Spike, turning around. "We should've left hours ago! Now we're bloody well behind!"

Drusilla giggled, looking at Faith with those dark, dark eyes. She was a lot like the dolls she prattled on about, realized Faith. The Victorian ideal, actually. The realization almost made her laugh out loud.

"No, it'll be time…tick tock, tick tock," giggled Drusilla. "I saw it, you know. And I'm never wrong."

Spike frowned, realizing something at that point. "Dru, what'd you see?" he asked.

"Why did I think I could kill you so easily?" sighed Drusilla. Faith blinked.

"What does she mean by that?" she asked.

Spike shrugged uncomfortably. "It was, you know, part of the whole 'demon armies out to kill us' bit Angel and I were doing," he said awkwardly. "Dru, what did you see?"

"Freedom, such as you never imagined!" she whispered, darting forward, grabbing the toaster.

The TV was still on, and Xander was halfheartedly watching it. It made a popping noise, and the picture disappeared, as the power went out.

Faith understood very little about electricity, but in jail she had learned that you never wanting to be touching something electrical, or to be in a shower, during a lightning storm. The surge of electricity that came in through the outlets could kill you.

Drusilla's hand was in the toaster when the electricity surged through the hotel room, and she arced backwards with a scream of pain. Faith could smell the flesh sizzling.

"Bloody—stay back!" snarled Spike, jumping forward.

He was too late. Drusilla darted up, punching Faith so suddenly and so hard that she flew backwards, slamming into the hard wall and crumpling up into a ball.

Then Drusilla spun, her dress flaring, petticoats showing as she slammed into Spike with both hands, claws out. He was bashed back, to the floor, ragged trails across his face.

"Aah!" screamed Xander, realizing suddenly what was happening. He stood up to run away, and Drusilla moved to follow him.

But Faith was faster, already up. The instant she'd seen the danger to Xander she'd felt something snap, and she didn't bother hiding it. With a scream of indignation she leapt at Drusilla, sending hard blow after hard blow down on her.

Drusilla blocked and returned, blow for blow. She was as strong as Spike, easily as strong as Faith, and deadly. She had almost two hundred years of practice, and she'd never hidden behind Spike during those times he had brought mobs down on them.

Then Drusilla got in a good hit, knocking Faith back. "And the sun is out, behind the clouds," she giggled.

Spike got up behind Faith. "We can take her together," he rumbled.

Drusilla slipped out the door.

"Bugger!" cried Spike, patting his jeans. "She took my keys!"

Faith ran out in time to see their car making tracks. She glared out at it, then glanced back to Spike. "She picked a cloudy moment to make her break. In a car that has…what did you call it? Vampire proof glass? Anyway, she's high and dry."

Spike was staring out at the car, which had disappeared. "I'm such a fool," he whispered. "She had a vision earlier…she knew this would happen! She planned it!" He grimaced. "She was always better at the plans than I was."

"So, we'll go after her?" asked Xander, coming out behind them.

"Hm?" said Spike. "Uh, no. She'll be coming after us, with all the hounds of hell."

"What!" asked Xander, freaking out.

"Because she was one of the assassins supposed to kill you and Angel," muttered Faith.

Spike nodded. "Now she'll tell them where we are, and we're buggered," he sighed. "Better get ready to run."


A/N: I know, I ought to have all my notes at the beginning. However, it's much more fun to talk to you AFTER the big plot twist of the day has been revealed. Listen, I'm sorry I'm not updating. I just finished writing my first manuscript (joy!) and now I must try to sell it. It's really different from the work I do here, so… well, if you happen to read some cheap paperback, and think, "I know that particular style of stupid writing!" just don't think too badly of me. (sell out that I am) Anyway, I'll try to update more regularly. And I think this whole plot line with Dru will finally help those who've been confused to see what's going down… reread the summary, if you will. There are three names there. Do you think there's a reason I put those three names in the summary? I do. Ciao, catch you next update.