Part XI...
Later that afternoon...Back in Sunnydale...
Warren seeks his heart donor...But has a perfect candidate in mind...
At the Mears' home he finds the locks changed but no problemo for a skilled grave-robber cum nerd magics practitioner/lab assistant cum stepfootman...
"Hey, babe..." he calls upstairs from the hallway...
"Daddy's home...!"
"Warren! Damn you!" Katrina calls down. Rushing to the stairs...
"I told you to get..."
He flashes the cerebral depressor. Good for one more heavy jolt, at least...
As he thought...Poor kid still hadn't protected herself against magics...Part his mental block placed via the depressor, part her own trusting nature.
"I love you, Master. Welcome home..." she obediently bows.
"You, too, baby. Would you like to do me and a friend a favor? And make a major contribution to Science...?" he grins.
She nods...
"Well...How's about you go take a little walk in the street? With your eyes closed, please...Once you get into the middle of traffic?" he leers.
"Yes, Master..." she eagerly nods. And heads out...
Hey...He wasn't about to do it himself...To his own wife?
That'd be sick...
Just...Taking advantage of an opportunity...
(Now this is a part I like...Angelis nods.
Though when Spike burned to death was the best so far...
Spike snarls but cans it as the butler returns to ask if anything else is required before he retires...)
The new heart is an immediate hit. Kat's amplified beat filling the lab...
"It's beating perfectly..." Willow beams.
"Oh, if only I can keep it going..."
"It was a very...Fresh one..." Warren happily calls...
Andrew drops his scalpel...Damn! Moron...he thinks.
Jesus...Jonathan sighs from his workbench.
I can just guess...
"Where did you get it?" Willow glares.
"I gave the EMT a thousand bucks..." Warren hastily notes.
"What EMT?" Willow scowls at him, anxiously staring at the heart in its tank...
"It was...A..." he eyes Praetorius...
Police case...Andrew mouths.
"Police case..." Warren finishes.
Willow eyes him...
Andrew rushes over...
"Yes, yes...Very sad...Only we can't bother about that now. Can I do anything...?"
Anything? He thinks, eyeing her...Such beautiful eyes...
"No, no, no!" Willow turns back to the heart, applying more current...
"I can work better alone..." she nervously stares at the heart, rubbing her exhausted face.
Andrew turns back to his work. And gives Mears orders to head out to Tara's holding place...
Time to give Willow some incentive for her work...Poor girl's just about ready to drop from exhaustion.
Just as Buffy appears at the lab doorway...And fiercely glares at the departing Warren...
"Hey...There." Warren nervously smiles.
"Bastard..." she eyes one of her burned arms. She remembers Willow's fiendish lab assistant. The one who delighted in torturing her those first coupla days when she was locked in Willow's dungeon...
He gulps. But hey, he hastily notes...As she stares at him...
"All on the same team, Slayer. Workin' for the same final goal, right?" he points down into the lab...
She growls at him...
"Hey...Andrew? You got a visitor?" he calls nervously.
"Gotta go...Keep an eye on little Willow's girl, ya know?" He smiles at Buffy...Who just glares but lets him go by...
Deal later...she thinks. Glaring after him…
She rushes down the stairs...To see Willow asleep at her bench...
Hurrying over she shakes her awake...Violently...
"Work..!" she points at the bench.
"Where's Tara...Have you brought her?" Willow asks her anxiously.
What...Not even a "hi, Buffy...How ya doin'..."? Some "best friend"...Buffy thinks angrily.
"I wait...She wait..." Buffy glares at her.
"I can't go on like this...I'm exhausted! I must get sleep!" Willow cries. Andrew hastening over...
"Work! Finish! Then, sleep!" Buffy growls.
The Slayer still runs the scooby operation, bitch…For all your family's cash…Buffy thinks.
She nervously stares around the lab...Rather interested in the work's progress. Jonathan waves from his bench...Hey, Buf...Things are going pretty well...he calls.
She hovers over Willow, glaring...Also knocking over test tubes, sticking her finger in the heart saline solution, and generally becoming a nuisance. Only eight days old, after all...And with probable brain-damage thanks to Warren's brain-manhandling and Willow's overuse of lightning...
"I can't work like this! She must go away!" Willow twists anxiously in her chair...
Just tryin' to help...Buffy thinks, hurt. Geesh...Some "best friend" I got...
"I'll settle her for a little while..." Praetorius glares at Buffy.
And fetches a bottle of brandy...His only weakness...and a glass.
"Drink..." he intones to her, smiling...
Good...
Buffy eyes him and the glass. Hasn't had anything all day...
Still, water would preferable. Hate to have Mom see her hitting the sauce as much as she has been these past few days with Andrew. Though really only a couple of glass of wine...she notes.
And she is pretty thirsty...
Well...Ok...
"Drink...?" she reaches for the glass. He pulls it away and reaches for something on the bench...A powerful narcotic...Pouring it into the glass.
Good...he leers, handing it to her...
She gulps it down...Hmmn...
Funny...I...Whoa...she stumbles. Groping a bit...
God, Mommy always told me not to take drinks from guys I barely knew...she thinks as she collapses. On to a bench...
Andrew, sneering, throws a coat over her... "That'll keep you quiet..."
"Tara..." Willow looks at him. And the unconscious Buffy...
"She's dead..." she gasps.
"Tara is alive and she is well..."
"I don't believe you..." Willow shakes her head.
Buffy doesn't seem that good a caregiver right now...
"I have proof..." Andrew solemnly notes.
Proof...? Willow eyes him anxiously.
"In a few moments...She will speak to you via this electrical machine. A wireless telephone..." Andrew notes. Holding up a cell phone…
(Remarkable...Angelis notes.
Indeed, Dru nods. But I saw many of them in my visions...)
The phone buzzes...
"Speak..." Andrew hands Willow the phone...
"And she will hear you and answer you..."
"Tara!" Willow gasps. Hearing her voice...
"Are you alright?"
In the cavern where she is being held Tara struggles to speak into the phone as a newly arrived Warren holds the phone to her lips. Watching nervously for any signs of spell-casting...
"Oh, Willow! Yes, I'm alright! But Willow, darling! Come for me! I'm..." Warren covers her mouth and turns the phone off...
Ummn...Just for your protection, ma'am...he notes to Tara.
"Buffy'd kill us all if this project gets screwed...Or I let you go. You understand..." he nods to Tara, reapplying the gag...
Hell...He may still want that stepfootman/lab assistant's job after this is over. Not a bad idea to cover his ass...
Twerp...You are so fired...Tara thinks. Eyeing him...
Told Willow to can him after the way he handled Buffy's care those first few days. And I just know he screwed up when he got her brain out for us...
Willow releases the phone...
"She's gone..."
"But...You heard her..." Andrew notes.
"Yes...She's alive..." Willow sighs.
"And will be returned to you...Unharmed. When this experiment is complete..."
Willow nods, turning back to monitoring poor Kat's heart...
Warren returns about half an hour later...
"I wouldn't sit there..." Jonathan calls. Warren looking down to see an unconscious seven-foot tall Buffy lying spread-eagled out on the bench he's about to lie down on...
Oops...
Andrew glares at him...No time for napping anyway. And sends him and Jonathan to the top of the tower to begin preparations to utilize the electrical storm predicted for tonight...
He and Willow are now engaged in checking the storm's likely intensity...Listening over headphones...
"It's going to be a terrific storm..." Willow grins happily, removing her headphones.
"We shall be ready..."she smiles at Praetorius.
He does have something about him...she can't help noting to herself...
And he is one hell of a truly dedicated scientist...
"How is the heart?" Andrew asks anxiously, listening to the amplified beat.
"It's been beating for almost nine hours..." Willow notes eagerly. As they rush over to the tank...
"Not yet...But soon..." she beams at the tank, eyes gleaming.
And she said she was out of this line...Andrew grins happily at her...
Are those the eager eyes of someone who's "had enough of this hell-spawn"...? I think not.
"What about the brain?" he asks. Clearly fishing for a complement...
"Perfect..." Willow eagerly notes... "And already in position…"
"Shall we put the heart in now?" she beams at Praetorius...
Yes...he hisses back, equally excited...
They wheel the heart tank over to the corpse and lift the heart carefully out...
"It's beating quite regularly now..." Willow happily notes to Andrew...
God...Warren, eyeing them, sneers to Jonathan as they begin putting on their raincoats to go up top.
Why don't they just get a room?...
"You know, Sparky..." he leers at Jonathan as they climb up to the tower roof platform...
"That Andrew is preety gay himself if you ask me...Maybe two opposing gays cancel each other out..." he smirks.
Shut up...Jonathan shoves him along...
…
The storm is building now...Fierce wind and rain beginning...Some early lightening flashes...