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 26: Drama queen

Faith watched Dana as she went outside after the vampire who'd brought her there. "If anyone can help her, it's Angel," said Faith softly.

Xander was trying to shave, and he glanced at her in surprise. "What?" he said.

"Angel. He's good with people who're skating the edge," said Faith. "Pulls them back. Like he pulled me back."

Xander scowled into the mirror. "Whereas I failed?" he asked, just a little bitterly. He didn't like that, either, noted Faith, didn't like it that Angel could do what he couldn't do.

"Wasn't your fault," said Faith, walking up behind and hugging him. He was stiff, and she sighed, clinging to him.

She could feel the walls pushing in on them, the dark green ugly wallpaper staring down at her.

"I hate being the bad guy," muttered Xander.

"It was kind of fun for me," said Faith. "But, yeah, right there with you. Come on, we fix this, we can get them out of our hair for a while."

"I don't know how to fix it," grumbled Xander.

"I think the vamps do," said Faith.

When they were finished they headed outside to join the others. Spike was standing alone in front of the door, staring out into the darkness.

"I hate you," he said to Xander, his voice almost whimsical.

Angel melted out of the shadows to their right. "He's just saying that because he had to stake Dru," he said, his voice calm and smooth.

"Gah!" said Xander, jumping. "Less of the stalky predator thing!"

Faith grinned. "I knew he was there, Xan," she said.

He frowned at her. "Must have been on my blind side," he grumbled, even though Angel had been to his right, in his line of sight.

"We have to go to LA," said Spike. "I made a pretty big mistake, and it's coming back to haunt us."

Xander sighed. "Oh, this is familiar. Spike messes up, and we have to pull his fat out of the fire."

Spike glowered at him. "By we I mean me an Angel, boy. You and your Slayers are quite welcome to run back to daddy Watcherbucks."

Angel moved closer to Spike and casually smacked him in the back of the head. "Of course, we'd love some fire power…given that we'll be walking right into a firestorm."

"Consequences!" growled Spike. "Who'd have thought? We weakened the dimensional fabric between their world and ours with our double-punch in the same spot. They got through in LA. And now they've managed to find out where I buried the blasted things."

"Oh, really?" asked Xander, his eyes widening. "What blasted things, may I ask? And why were we not told of this before?"

"I did," muttered Spike. "Only maybe you weren't listening when I said that Blue and I had done some things nobody else would understand? No, you thought I was crazy, and you just tuned it out completely. Blue and I, we were doing good till I got killed. When I came back, I went looking for her. And…" He looked away from them all, suddenly completely still.

Faith misinterpreted the action, turning the direction he had turned, expecting some threat. There was nothing there.

She looked back at Spike. There were tears running down his face.

"You liked this girl, huh?" asked Xander.

"How'd you know Illyria was a girl?" asked Angel, glancing to Xander.

Xander shrugged. "With Spike, it's always a girl. I don't think he's ever had a single friend who was a guy."

Angel shrugged. "Well, there was that fellow, Andrew, who you sent down to check on us."

Spike turned towards Angel, a disbelieving look on his face. "Andrew? Oh, bloody hell!"

"So you buried these things?" asked Xander, hoping to stop a fight. Fun as it would be, he was afraid they'd start hitting him.

Spike sighed. "I buried Illyria," he muttered. "Her head's in north LA, under a mall. I left an arm near the crater that was Sunnydale…li'l bit of irony, there. And the rest of her is scattered. They're going to resurrect her, and then there'll be hell to pay."

"Wasn't she on your side?" asked Xander, helplessly confused now.

"Yeah," muttered Spike.

-line break-

Buffy watched Dawn and Giles conferring in hushed tones, feeling a rush of pride. She'd never been very good at being a leader, but apparently between the positive examples she'd given and the bad ones, she'd given Dawn a blueprint.

The tall brunette glanced back at her and tossed a quick, saucy grin her way. "Would you like to join us at the big kids table?" she called over to Buffy.

Buffy glanced at the other Slayers around her. None of them reacted, so she shrugged and stood up, heading over to the Watchers' table.

Robin Wood was seated beside Dawn, scowling down at the table. "Why'd we send Andrew to Seattle?" he asked, a hint of petulance in his voice.

"He knows how to handle Angel and Spike," said Dawn. "Now, this last report was kind of disjointed. Xander said something about a dead goddess being dismembered and buried in ten different places by Spike. Apparently the bad guys want to revive her."

Buffy scowled, leaning back in her seat. "Wasn't she on his side?"

"That's something Xander doesn't get either. Spike's playing it close to the chest."

"Again!" snapped Robin. "I wish I'd been in on this from the beginning."

Giles shook his head. "At this point we don't have a lot of choices," he said. "Spike and Angel made this mess, and they're dealing with it. I don't want to put Slayers at risk for them—but I don't want their mess moving into our backyard again."

Buffy leaned forward. "Wait a minute. Spike buried her, but who killed her? I've seen Spike face a hell goddess, and last time it didn't end so good for him."

Dawn scowled. "More he won't tell us. Worse, he and Angel are closing ranks. Angel wouldn't give Xander any details on this goddess either."

Giles took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. "And Faith and Xander are staying with them…and taking Dana with them…to LA," he summed up, for Buffy's benefit.

Robin shook his head. "What's the American military doing?"

"Nothing," said Giles. "I spoke to Riley. He considers this outside his jurisdiction, although he did say he'd give support to Spike if he asked for it. Spike, not us. I'm a little uneasy about that."

Robin squinted at Buffy. "I suppose you want to be there?"

Buffy thought about it for a second. "That depends," she said. "Do we have any idea what they'll be facing?"

"No," said Giles.

Dawn narrowed her eyes at Buffy, examining her sister. "And we have several Apocoli looming in Africa, Germany, and China right now."

"Apocoli?" asked Robin, confused.

Buffy smirked. "A plural for Apocalypse. Riley said—anyway, we already have a Slayer and one of our very few Watchers with Spike. I don't think we can do any more than this."

Dawn nodded triumphantly. "You're right, of course. I'll call Andrew, and pull him back to China. That's the nearest for him."

"Wait a minute," said Robin, interrupting. His face was stretched in a scowl. "What about the danger to Faith and Xander if this turns bad?"

"We'll just have to trust that they'll call for backup if things go wrong," said Dawn. "Giles, do we have an English translation of the Sumerian texts?"

"The early ones or the later ones?"

"Both."

line break-

Xander watched Faith sleep while they bounced along the dark road. They were crammed into the back seat and she was curled up in a ball, her head resting in his lap.

"Long time coming, eh?" asked Spike, from his seat on the other side of Faith.

Xander scowled at him. "Don't talk to me," he said brusquely.

Spike shrugged. "Yeah, never was sunshine and flower between us, was it?" he asked. "Despite being roomies for so long."

Xander shuddered, shaking his head. "Worse than the times you tried to kill me, truly," he said morbidly. "Why, you expected differently?"

"No, I was just thinking about what you said about never making friends with guys. Kinda weird, really."

Angel leaned over the front seat, glancing back. "I think it's because you were a geek, and you never had any friends," he said shortly.

"Eyes on the road," said Spike coldly.

"What?" said Xander. "Who was a geek? Spike? No way! I thought he was William the Bloody before he was turned?"

"Yeah," muttered Spike, turning his head away from Xander and pretending to look out the window.

Dana, in the passenger's seat, turned around to face Spike. "Your hair was different in China," she said. "It was brown."

"That's the natural color, pet," said Spike, a bit lazily.

"William the Bloody Awful Poet!" sang Angel from the front seat.

"Besides that, Angelus put me off friends right good," said Spike. "Besides, I had Clem, didn't I?"

"Wasn't Clem a bit fruity?" asked Xander.

Spike glared at him. "Oh, don't you start. If I had been making bets on which one of Buffy's friends was gay that first time I met you all… the smart money wasn't on Red."

"Hey!" said Xander, outraged. "That's… just what Larry said."

Spike frowned. "Who?"

"Um, an old friend," said Xander. "Never mind."

Spike grinned, turning back and glancing at Dana. "You have a question, fruit-of-the-loony?"

She shrugged. "Just looking for signs of evil."

He shot a British hand gesture at her. "Anytime you want a demonstration of how evil I can be, love, just ask," he said, smirking at her.

Xander scowled at him. "You still say that like it's a good thing," he noted.

Spike shrugged. "Fish gotta swim," he said, grinning. "At least I don't run around with dreadlocks."

"Huh?" said Xander.

"Long story," said Angel.

"I'm getting dizzy," said Dana. "But it's an incredibly fun kind of dizzy watching hot guys argue."

"Oy!" said Faith sleepily. "I have dibs on this one!"

As she said it she grabbed Xander, a bit tighter than she would have if she'd been awake. In response he jumped, letting out a yelp, nearly dumping her off his lap. Spike had to grab her ankle to keep her from kicking him in her half-asleep surprised jerk.

"Watch it!" said Spike, pushing them away from him.

Faith settled in on Xander's lap. "Sorry," she said, grinning at him. She blinked a couple of times, trying to wake up. "Where are we?"

"Almost to LA," said Angel. "We have a rest stop coming up. Anybody want to stop?"

"I could use a stretch," grumbled Spike.

"Almost to LA?" said Faith. "How long was I asleep!"

"It's a nice car," protested Angel. "It likes to go 120!"

Faith stared at the back of his head. "Okay, a new addendum to the list of disturbing things about Angel. Anybody else have any secrets to spill?"

"I staked my mum after I turned her," said Spike. "But everybody knows that these days."

"That explains a lot," muttered Dana.

"Don't start with me, symbolic girl!" snapped Spike. "I'll have you remember you cut my hands off while I was trying to help you, eh?" He glanced back at Xander, sneering at the dark-haired boy and the girl in his lap. "We weren't that far from LA to begin with, don't let Angel impress you."

Angel continued driving silently, but he watched the former vampire out of the corner of his eye. There was something disturbing about the way Spike was acting, and he didn't like it. Usually he would get a much snappier response when he needled Spike.

He supposed it was that Spike was human, which annoyed him even more.

"We'll have to stop in East LA, near the old warehouses where I killed the d'Frager demon," said Spike, still sulking a little. "Take this next exit. Fastest way to get there."

Angel shook his head. "I wish you'd explain this," he said quietly.

"Explain it!" demanded Spike. "Bloody hell, then I'd have to understand it."

They pulled up into the empty parking lot, and Spike scrambled out of the car, shivering and rubbing his arms at the chill night air. "How long till dawn?" he asked.

"About an hour. Let's get this over with and find a place to stay," said Angel, getting out of the car. The others followed him.

"It's over there, by the Dunkin Donuts," said Spike.

They made an odd group, wandering towards the shop. A tall vampire with hair sticking straight up, a darkly-clothed punk-rocker-lookalike with shockingly white hair, the Slayer and her Watcher, and the crazy Slayer hanging back, behind them, staring with wide eyes around the city.

"Yeah, right there," said Spike, pointing to a spot on the pavement. "Smash that pavement up, eh?"

Angel growled, glancing around. "There," he said, finding a concrete block and picking it up, throwing it at the pavement.

It hit with a crash, shattering the pavement. Then the dirt underneath started jerking spastically.

"What's that?" asked Faith.

"Trouble," sighed Spike.

A disembodied arm flew out of the hole, landing on the ground beside Angel.

"Neat," he said, leaning over to pick it up.

As soon as he touched it the arm lashed out, muscles straining, grabbing his arm. He grimaced from the sudden strong grip. "What—?"

It used the leverage of his arm to swing the arm around, using the wrist muscles, and swept his legs out from under him. Then, still holding his arm in an iron grip, it began to pummel him with the shoulder.

"Ow!" he yelped, trying to get it off.

Faith jumped forward and grabbed the arm, pulling it off Angel with a yank. "Stinking –hey!" she screamed as it doubled back, grabbing her throat.

As it squeezed she tried to pull it off, but couldn't get it off. Dana leapt forward, grabbing it and trying to help. It was too strong.

Then Spike was there, pushing Dana away and grabbing hold of the exposed bluish skin of the hand with both of his. Instead of pulling he started massaging the hand. "Come on, pet, it's just me," he said, his voice surprisingly gentle.

The hand snapped free, and Faith fell to the ground, gasping for breath.

Xander run up, kneeling down beside her and holding her. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She nodded, and he stood up, getting in Spike's face. "Another one of your pets endangering us all!" he shouted incoherently.

"Actually, I'm sort of her pet," said Spike, smirking. "How's that for irony? Symbolism?" He glanced to Dana, who was scowling at him.

"It's not funny," said Dana. "She nearly hurt us."

"Well, she's probably in a lot of pain herself," Spike pointed out reasonably. "So of course she lashed out. She's hurtin, people! I'd think you, especially, could get that."

Angel was rubbing his jaw as he rose, staring at Spike. "So she's still a good guy?"

"Much as she ever was," sniffed Spike.

"You were sort of unclear on that," said Angel.

"Well, it's a long story…"