As the sunlight fell upon the corpses strewn across the alley, many burst into flame and shattered into dust, leaving little poufs of smoke and ash floating through the air like something from the land before time. As Fred watched one mutilated demon burst into flame, she felt a strange swelling of pride and from somewhere a dim memory of pulling its spine out and using it to strangle another demon floated into her thoughts.
She shuddered and continued searching for any signs of her friends.
After countless hours the sun was now full in the sky and Fred gave up any hope of finding Angel in some form of not-completely-deadness. But she searched for Wesley.
Among the demon corpses and the rubble of a few destroyed buildings she found the bodies of civilians, police, and some young women that she could only assume had once been slayers. Fred grieved.
Dusk was soon to fall and she hadn't found Wesley.
Returning to the building she had hid Spike, Fred trudged through the bloody mud that was all that was left of the army that had been there before.
What army?
Fred shook her head and rubbed her eyes in confusement.
What had happened to her?
Spike was still there when she managed to limp back to the dusty warehouse. He was just as she had left him, only now he seemed to be lightly breathing, something that had never ceased to amaze her. Despite the fact that he had been undead almost as long as Angel, he still breathed in his sleep… and often when he was awake, as well.
Even when he had been a ghost he breathed, though it was as unnecessary as it was now.
Feeling a wave of exhaustion surge over her, Fred curled up into a tight ball on the floor next to the unconscious vampire, resting her head lightly on his chest, and fell asleep.
Spike groaned and dared to crank an eyelid open.
It was dark.
He frowned and opened his other eye.
It shouldn't still be dark.
He sniffed and could smell the repulsive stench of demon gore and ash all around him… and another scent. Human.
"Bloody hell!"
There was a woman sleeping against him.
Quickly doing a mental check to see that all of his parts were attached and he was fully clothed, the blonde vampire rolled away from the strange woman next to him.
She was very still, her face hidden by long brown hair.
Tentatively, with a shaking hand, Spike brushed the hazel locks out of the way and breathed, "Illyria?"
Slowly an eye opened and came to rest on his face.
"Spike?"
Spike looked at the huddled form in disbelief, "Oh god!"
He knew her voice, he heard the fear and uncertainty, damn, and he could even smell it.
Blue had smelled just like that, like blueberries and water, but this… she smelled like country grass and that lemony disinfectant wolfram and hart used to clean the labs.
"Fred?"
sorry the chapters are so short, but once again it is 1:34am and here I am, writting three different stories at the same time and thinking 'hmmm... sleep would be nice.' So yeah! you'll just have to take it all in stride and wait up.
toodles