Disclaimer: The characters or themes mentioned from Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel do not belong to me. I am making no profit from this project.
Summary: Buffy, a vampire with a grudge against the Council, is captured by the Initiative and finds herself dependent on her enemy: Spike the Vampire Slayer and his band of white-hats.
Pairing:Buffy and Spike
Rating:PG-13
Thanks: To justsue for being a great beta!
Chapter 3
Sunnydale
1997
By the time Willow and Xander figured out where Spike had gone, he was already on the last vampire. They snuck out the back door of the Bronze just in time to see him sink a stake into its chest. He erupted into dust and fell in a light coat over the pavement.
"Spike, you could have told us where you were going," Willow said softly.
"Yeah," Xander agreed, "how else are we going to help you thwart the forces of evil?"
A few months ago Spike would have told them both to piss off. A shy, nerdy little redhead and the whelp Harris weren't likely companions for Spike. But their persistence--tagging along when he was patrolling, showing up at the library to research impending apocalypses, and just generally being in the way--while initially annoying as hell, had manifested into a deeper revelation. They cared.
Sure, lots of people cared. They cared about saving the world. They cared about slaying monsters, feeling like they made a difference in the world. They cared about adventure and glory, and making sure the world lived to see another episode of Passions. But Willow and Xander, they cared about him. And even Spike, badass lone-wolf figure that he was, could appreciate the value of that. But that didn't mean he couldn't still give Harris a hard time.
"Don't you mean so you can yell obscenities from behind Red's back until I dust the baddies?"
As expected, Xander sputtered indignantly. "That was only one time! And I got a few good shots in before Willow had to save me!" Spike ignored him. He spoke more softly to Willow, "I'll let you know next time." She gave him one of her awkward, but sincere little smiles that always made him wonder how such a fragile looking girl could be brave enough to take on vampires and demons.
"Let's go back inside," she suggested.
"Hang on," Spike said, rolling a stake between the palms of his hands. There was still a vampire in the alleyway. Without warning, he turned sharply on his heel and threw the stake, sending it flying end over end into the darkness. They heard it clang uselessly into a dumpster.
"That would've been cool if it had, ya know, come anywhere close to dusting me," a feminine voice said. The girl stepping from the shadows didn't look anything like a vampire.
Most vampires like to play up the darkness and mystery in their choice of wardrobe. This one didn't. She was wearing a mini jean skirt, white tennis shoes, and a cream colored tank top underneath a translucent white sweater. Topping off the So Cal valley girl image was a light tan and a head of highlighted blond hair…although, Spike thought he could see a little tattoo on her chest, peeking out the top of her shirt.
Undaunted by her confident attitude, he pulled another stake out of his back pocket and threw it just like the first. This one was dead on, aimed straight at her heart. It took a moment for everyone, excluding the vampire herself, to realize that she wasn't dust. She'd caught the stake between the palms of her hands, its point two inches from her chest.
"Like I didn't see that coming," she scoffed and tossed the stake at Spike's feet.
"Why the bloody hell are you here," he asked, irritated, "besides to critique my slaying skills?"
"Spike!" Willow hissed admonishingly.
"She's a vampire, Will," Xander told her, "pretty sure she already knows Spike's the Slayer."
"Oh, right."
"I'm here to kill you." The vampire told Spike honestly. A small shrug and carefree expression indicated it was no big deal.
"You know how many vampires have said that to me?" Spike asked her rhetorically. "I wouldn't know either. I've killed them all."
"I'm not like most vampires," she said cryptically, and smiled. A hint of fang showed on her normal, human face.
------
Spike sat back with his feet propped on the desk and picked at his black nail polish. His Watcher and legal guardian, Rupert Giles, hated both habits, which only gave Spike more incentive to do them. He let his friends fill Giles in on the occurrence in the alley, only lightly snorting when Xander gave himself a more involved role. He wasn't showing it, but the vampire last night had him concerned. Overconfident, Bela Lugosi vampires were no trouble. They were predictable. But the girl last night, she was different. Her whole demeanor was completely wrong. And then there was the fact that her canines dropped without switching to game face. What else could she do that other vampires couldn't?
"Giles, what's wrong?" Willow asked suddenly. The librarian looked unsettled, freshly polished glasses frozen halfway to his face.
"You say this vampire had fangs, but not demonic features?" He asked.
"Yeah," Xander confirmed.
The three teenagers watched as Giles turned abruptly into his office and came out carrying a hefty textbook. Spike recognized it immediately. It was a reference guide for Watchers, containing everything from training methods to what to do in the face of an apocalypse. Giles used to refer to it often, before he realized there was nothing in it that would help him deal with a rebellious teenager.
Now he flipped franticly through the glossy pages, muttering incoherently under his breath until he slapped down the book in front of Spike and demanded, "Is this the vampire you saw?"
Taking up almost half a page was a sketch, originally hand drawn by a Council member, of the vampire he had seen last night. Her features were rougher, and her face was twisted with malice, but it was definitely her. Her lips were drawn back in a snarl, revealing the fangs that could drop without her face changing, covered in blood. Whoever drew the picture had seen a monster, an image radically different from the one Spike encountered last night.
A side note was scribbled on the sketch, in miniscule cursive, stereotypical of Watchers. "Crucifix tattoo, above left breast," it read. "Yeah, that's her," Spike confirmed.
Xander added, "More or less."
Willow was the only one not concentrating on the picture. She was reading the text. "Uh, Giles?" she asked, her voice wavering. Giles either didn't hear her or decided to ignore her.
"That's impossible," he said forcefully. "That vampire died two years ago in Prague, she—"
"She's alive." A new voice entered the library. Angel stood in the doorway, looking somber. But then again, he looked somber most of the time.
Angel was a vampire with a soul and a nose for trouble. He'd showed up like a supernatural Uncle Abner after Spike and Giles moved to Sunnydale, popping up at the most unexpected times to give cryptic warnings. It pained Spike to admit it, but Angel had saved him from a bad situation more than a few times. That didn't make him feel any more inclined to play nice with the vampire, though. Sunnydale wasn't big enough for the both of them, as the saying went.
"What do you mean?" Giles asked.
Angel looked at him and said simply, "She's alive and she's here."
That was one of the things Spike hated about Angel. When you were ready for a bit of rest and relaxation, the bloke showed up and yammered on about rising evils or age-old prophecies. But when you wanted a straight answer out of him he spoke in circles, like he was trying to impress you with his cryptic mysticism. It drove Spike batty. Willow, on the other hand, thought he was "helpful".
"How can you be sure?" Giles demanded.
"I know her," the vampire said softly, looking at the floor.
"Buffy came for Giles?" Willow asked, putting a name to the vampire. "This says she kills…" she trailed off and looked at the Watcher.
"For Spike," Angel clarified.
"Got a Barbie after me, do I?" Spike remarked leisurely, one hand running provocatively over his chest. "The ladies never can contain themselves."
"Spike," Willow said insistently, "if this Buffy person is really here, you can't take this lightly. It says here that she's killed eleven Slayers in the past century and hundreds of Council members, and they don't even think she's been a vampire for more than two hundred years."
He hadn't honestly been taking it lightly before, but now Spike let his devil-may-care façade drop. Eleven Slayers in the past century were dead at the hands of one vampire. That was probably somewhere around a third of them. Bollocks.
"She won't be making it twelve," he said in a hard voice. Spike stood up and reached for a stake.
------
She was waiting for him in front of the flat. Actually, she was sitting at Giles' patio table and looking for split ends in her hair, but the intent was the same.
"How'd you find me?" Spike asked.
"Watcher's Council keeps it on record," Buffy answered.
"And you, what, just walked in and asked for it?"
"Pfft, no!" she snorted, as if he was the stupid one. "They completely hate me. If I had a nickel for every time I've broken in to the Watcher's Council, I'd…" she trailed off for a moment and looked speculative before finishing, "well, I'd have a lot of nickels!" Buffy even glared at Spike, as if her inability to string together a punch line was somehow his fault.
This vamp is a joke, Spike thought. There was nothing about her to suggest she was a vicious killer. But then again, the psychotic-serial-killer-guy-next-door type always just looked like the guy next door. Giles had been thoroughly concerned at the news of Buffy's presence, made her sound like the idol of evil undead and whatnot. And then there was the fact that she'd already killed eleven Slayers. But looking at her now, Spike couldn't imagine that she'd be so tough.
"We going to fight, or are you just gonna sit there and twirl you hair at me?" he drawled.
A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Buffy's mouth, and when she stood up she grabbed the rim of Giles' patio table and shoved it out of the way. The table slid over stone tiles until it was stopped by the garden wall, and the Plexiglas tabletop shattered with the impact.
Buffy waited for him to come to her, and easily evaded his first swing. She ducked underneath his right arm and popped up behind him to deliver a powerful kick to his back. Spike smashed face-first into the wall, not far from Giles' broken table.
Maybe he should rethink that whole "not so tough" idea.
Seconds later he heard her come at him again. When she grabbed a handful of his jacket to spin him around, he spun with her and brought his left arm up to backhand her across the face. Her head snapped to the right and she spat blood. Spike continued with several body blows before she had time to recover. Spike thought he had the upper hand, but the second he paused to pull out a stake Buffy straightened up and popped him in the nose twice.
"Ow!" he cried, as his hands flew to his face to make sure it wasn't broken. "Lay off the nose, woman!"
"You made me spit blood!" Buffy accused, and tried to kick him in the midsection. He caught her foot before it connected and pulled. Her shoe came off in his hands, startling him, and giving Buffy another opportunity to shove him backwards. When she grabbed the lapels of his collar and moved in to bite him, Spike pushed against her shoulders and jerked his knee up in between her legs. On a man, the move would have been incapacitating. Buffy was decidedly female, but Spike figured it would take her attention away from his neck, even if it was to mock him.
Their difference in height caused Buffy's feet to leave the ground for a moment as she was lifted by his leg. When her feet connected with the ground again she had lost her center of balance, and slipped on the pebbles of broken tabletop. Spike was pulled down with her as she fell backwards. He landed flush on top of her, hands still holding her shoulders.
For one still moment they just looked at each other. Then Buffy pushed him off her and scrambled to her feet. "Don't get cocky," she snapped, before disappearing. Spike stared after her and wondered if she meant his attitude…or something else.
