One Last Time
Chapter Four: A Bad Feeling
Willow sees Xander off without so much of a problem, playing the supportive friend as he tells her the possibility of him and Faith dating. She smiles, and nods, and tells him that Buffy will come around, before watching him leave so that she can go about her business.
After another call from Spike, she puts the next part of her brain child into action. She goes to Rome to see Buffy with one quick spell.
The slayer is sitting in Dawn's room, looking as if she's lost the one thing in the world that's meant for her. Only it isn't. Dawn isn't. Dawn was given to Buffy to protect her; she never does it well enough, does she?
"Buffy," Willow says, softly, once again falling into the slot of the supportive friend.
Buffy looks up. "Oh, hey, Will." She tries to smile, but fails. "What brings you by?"
"I thought I'd give you a heads up."
"About what?"
"Xander and Faith are getting mushy. He's going to New York in a few days to see her." Willow says. Then, "There's something else."
Buffy stands, not able to imagine what could be worst than her best friend dating a girl who wished she'd killed her. "What?"
"They're not going to be able to find Dawn."
"How…how do you know?"
Willow grins, slowly. Before Buffy can see it coming, Willow swings a lamp at her full force, and she's knocked down. She lies unmoving and Willow pouts at her inert form.
"Aww, Buffy, Dawnie's expired."
-
"Kill me." She almost begs the woman – demon – that dressed her in what she's pretty sure happen to be sacrificial robes. She's clean, fed, and dressed properly. A good time to die, right?
The symbol, the same one from the book, is painted on her chest. It would make sense; you want to kill the sacrifice on the first try, make sure you get the heart, right?
She's accepted fate. She's going to die. Angel, Buffy, Faith, Illyria – no one's going to find her, and she's going to die and bring the world to an end. Again. Only this time is for real, and makes last time look like practice.
Wesley appears in the mirror, instead of the demonic woman. "Glad to see you doing things our way, Dawn."
"Did I have a choice?" She bites out.
"No. But we're doing this the easy way."
"The easy way?" She asks harshly, not turning around. "If this is the easy way, what the hell is the hard way?"
"Oh, don't be bitter." He says. "To tell the truth, if Willow hadn't suggested it, we wouldn't be doing this. Willow happens to be the brains behind this all."
Dawn's brain slowed to a near-stop. This entire time she was missing, and Willow had known, had not done anything about it, had not saved her, had been the damn inspiration. Had gotten her into this mess to begin with.
"Betrayal happens all the time, doesn't it?" He's right behind her, his eyes meeting hers in their reflections, his hands on her bare shoulders. "Love leads to betrayal. Just look at history."
"I'm done already. Nothing I think matters anymore. Nothing at all matters anymore."
"Liar." He whispers in her ear. "You don't strive to live for Andrew anymore…" he became a bit slighter and shorter. Andrew. "Just maybe, maybe, you strive to die and be with me."
"Don't you even – "
"It's not me." Andrew says, crossing to face her and block her view of herself. "It's your imagination. Just one of the perks." A bit taller and bleached blond. "I'm only whoever you heart desires to see at a particular moment, Bit." He turns to look at his reflection and sees the familiar bleached blond. He looked at her. "Didn't know you cared so much."
Her face twists in a way that can only be deemed as unnatural. "Stop it." She whispers, going deathly pale by the minute.
"Or what?" he says in her ear, Andrew again. "You love me. You loved all of us, each in a different way." His lips ghost hers before he pulls back, grinning as she stares at him, wide-eyed. "You give me strength, and I only feed off it. Like a parasite, I suppose."
"You don't know the first thing about me, then." Dawn says stubbornly. "No one does."
Wesley has to hand it to her; she's still going strong. He smiles humorlessly. "Ah, yes, well, does anyone ever truly know anyone else? We all have lies, secrets, and we deceive each other. Even the little ones count. Even if we deceive ourselves, it counts. So, with all do respect, it's in our nature, and, in case you hadn't noticed yet," he makes a big show of pausing, "I was resurrected as a demon."
Dawn doesn't reply and Wesley steps to the side, walking around her. Dawn reaches out and catches his wrist, turning him to face her. "So, what; all that good-triumphs-over-evil-in-the-end is a load of bullshit?"
"No." Dawn watches him intently, letting go of him slowly. "It's all a war, Dawn. Life is a war, filled with little battles. Let's face it. There is no end. If this world fell into utopia or hell tomorrow, there'd be another, doing as we do. Fighting. Good versus evil." He turned and walked away from her, leaving the room.
Dawn stares after him, tears in her eyes and her face expressionless as he disappears out the door. A moment later, she drops into a chair and stares unseeingly at a wall.
-
She's being followed. She's scented her stalker an hour ago and, after waiting in anticipation of an attack, she only wants to know its purpose. In short, she's become impatient.
A twig suddenly snaps behind her and she swings around, catching the unknown person by the throat. "Who are you?" When the figure doesn't answer because of a lack of breath, she lets go. A powerful feeling floods her being as they lay gasping. "I ask again. Who are you?"
The figure, a woman, glares at the Old One and then climbs to her feet. She adjusts her clothing. "That's not important."
"Then what is?"
"The Key. You want it. I may know where it is. The catch is, you have to do something for us."
Illyria contemplates the wisdom in her betraying Angel and Faith for power, yet she cannot find any faults in it. She has tried things their way, yet she grows sick of the humanity forming inside her own heart. She cannot stand it any longer. Even if in Wesley's honor.
"Something for you?"
"Yes." The woman nods. "Something that we only believe you have the strength to do. You do this, and you get your key."
The idea is tempting, more than desirable. Illyria calculates carefully what the error would be in stabbing the people she's spent nearly half a year with, what the consequences of her actions would be. Once again finding none, she looks upon the woman with interest.
"I have considered your offer, and I have decided that I will accept it."
The woman smiles, slow and malicious. "Good."
-
Faith finds Angel in the kitchen, sitting at the table. She sits down across from him. "Seen Irie around lately?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "Should I have?"
"No. No. It's just…I have this bad feeling, you know? A – and, I don't know…"
"Illyria might have something to with it?" Angel asks, not really ready to admit that he's been having that feeling of distrust for the blue Old One himself.
"Maybe." Faith answers. "Anything new on the Dawn front?"
Angel considers telling Faith about his dream. He really does. But then, the thought occurs to him that maybe it was his imagination. He won't know if the dream means anything until he has it again.
"No. Nothing. The demons are being tight-lipped." Angel says instead.
"No kidding." She stands, not really looking forward to calling Xander, only because she'll have to tell him that they still haven't found a lead on Dawn. Some elite team they are. "I have to call Xander."
"Faith, we'll find her." Angel has the sudden urge to say as Faith leaves the room.
Faith stops, but doesn't turn to face him. "Well, my bad feeling says different – it's all a question of whether she'll be alive or dead." She heads for the phone.
-
Faith's just gotten off the phone with Xander when May calls her from under her desk, screaming about Illyria attacking the Council and killing everyone.
She looks for Angel, but finds him to be gone (well, it's more like she takes a look in the kitchen, doesn't see him there and figures she'll go calm Illyria down by herself), and gears up to go by herself. She recognizes that she's going to have to calm Illyria down, because this happens a lot – it's even become a part of the monthly staff meeting agenda: what to do when Illyria wreaks havoc on the Council.
Only, this doesn't seem to be the case at the Council, Faith can see when she gets there. She's flying through the air before she even knows what's happening, because Illyria has just attacked her, and her back hits the wall, plaster cracking upon impact.
She lies there for a moment, blinking rapidly as pain races through her system. She lets out a slight groan and rolls onto her stomach, pushing herself onto her hands and knees. She coughs and looks around the first floor of the Council.
Illyria's gone.
Her lungs burn and it's a chore to take a breath, but she does anyway and she stands to her feet, limping as she makes her way through the halls.
By the sounds of the screams she hears as she stumbles forward, Illyria has returned to butchering the entire staff of the New York base of the Council.
Faith decides that this is the bad feeling she had.
She increases her pace, hoping to find her. She doesn't want to seem uncaring or anything, but the only person she's actually worried about in all the twenty floors, is May. May is her only friend in this entire place. And, yes, dying Slayers is a bad thing when considering their ages, but this place feels so impersonal anyway. And she's only one girl. How will she be able to help dozens of Slayers before they meet death when facing an Old One?
"Illyria!" she screams at the top of her lungs, and it's the first time she's ever called the Old One by her name. God, it doesn't feel right, she thinks, hearing a scream. "Illyria!" There's another, more male scream, and she spins, kicking the first door she comes across open.
Illyria has interrupted a meeting. And the only person that Faith knows in the room is Robin Wood, currently attempting to fend Illyria off and not doing a very good job of it. Everyone else is either unconscious or dead from what Faith can see.
"Illyria."
Faith has never, ever, in all the five-going-on-six months that she's known Illyria, called the god king by her name. And this is the third time she'd done it in the past five minutes. Amazing, huh?
Blue eyes turn her way as the Old One holds Wood by the neck, essentially choking him as he struggles to get out of her grip. As far as Faith can see, he's losing the battle against passing out and death.
"Faith, I am stronger than you, yet you continuously attempt to spar with me."
"Part of the hero package," Faith shrugs. "Let him go."
"Why? You no longer hold any romantic interest in him."
"I don't need to." Faith answers and she realizes that Illyria has really learned nothing from them in five months. It was all just smoke and mirrors. Fake.
"Then he is important to you, why?"
"Because he's human. In – innocent." The slayer stammers to say, because Illyria is putting her on the spot, and because she isn't ready for half of these answers she must come up with, and because her feelings aren't that clear on Wood – she just knows that Illyria isn't supposed to kill him. Or anyone else, for that matter.
"That isn't good enough."
Faith's eyes widen as she realizes Wood's forthcoming death. She puts her legs into motion, racing forward to stop Illyria before it's too late.
She isn't fast enough.
Illyria lets go of Wood's lifeless body with a bit of a flourish, Faith within her reach. "You will never find your Key in time." She says, giving the implication that she knows where Dawn is.
"You know – "
"I will."
Faith is angry all of the sudden. She and Angel had trusted her, had believed in her goal of redemption, had stuck by her for five fucking months and this was how they were repaid? She betrayed them to the next highest bidder?
She flies at Illyria, attempting at least one punch before Illyria can get a hold of her. Faith struggles with all her strength to pry the Old One's hand from around her neck.
Illyria doesn't hesitate to toss her across the room. She flies through the air, the wall crumbling on impact and she crashes onto the conference table in the next room.
Faith takes deep breaths, the feel of blood running down her temple a somewhat new sensation for her – well, in the past year it is. Illyria stalks out the room Faith was thrown from and the Slayer sighs, her head falling back onto the collapsed table and darkness claiming her.
-
After Faith leaves to call Xander, Angel goes to his own room where he falls asleep, thinking about Dawn. These past few days have tired him out, and he figures he might at least rest some time so that he can have a better chance at finding her. Once again, he wakes up on a stone cold cement floor, confusion claiming his foggy mind until he remembers. This was where he'd seen Dawn in the first dream.
He walks forward, nearing the two sacrificial altars before him, and then she appears beside him again.
"It feels like a stupid plan at the moment." She says.
He takes a look at her and notices her half-dressed state, the only clothing on her person a skirt, a symbol painted in black over her heart. He raises his eyes to hers.
"What?"
"A good day to die. It's for the greater good, or didn't you know?" She asks, as cryptic as ever. "Always for the greater good," she murmurs under her breath, but he catches her.
"What are you – ?"
"Go up there and see for yourself." She says, giving him a slight push forward.
He looks back at her for a second before taking her instructions seriously. He looks at the first altar. As before, it's Dawn.
"I'm not the surprise – and I guess, the fact that I'm going to die without a bra or shirt on should really bother me." Dawn says from behind his right shoulder. "Did you happen to sneak a peek at the newest sacrificial offering?"
Dawn's right, Angel finds out as he looks to his left. Pinned to the stone slab, in the same fashion and dressed the same as Dawn, is –
-
"Illyria?" Dawn sits up as the blue figure nears her in the room she's been locked in to wait for death.
Illyria only gazes at her intently, pursing her lips. "Key."
"You – you know?"
"I once protected you." She replied, nearing Dawn ever so slowly. "I made you exist."
"Then – then you're here to save me?" Dawn asks nervously as Illyria stops before her.
"Oh, I seriously doubt that." The new comer says, red hair and bright green eyes her signature. She wears a smug smirk on her lips at Dawn's hope.
"Willow." Dawn's voice hardens, Wesley's words of betrayal spinning in her head.
"Hey, Dawnie." Willow continues to grin, not the least affected by Dawn. Her smile is almost charming and it makes Dawn sick. "We're gonna end the world. Wanna come?"
-
Author's Note: And the plot thickens…