The next morning Owen was grumbling again; this time it was as he dissected the demon they had brought in yesterday.
"What is this? This doesn't make any sense. Would you look at the state of this intestine?"
Buffy leaned over the rail watching. "Something wrong, British doctor man?"
"What do you call this thing?" he asked her, clearly annoyed by the demon and her happy attitude. "Its insides don't make any sense."
"No clue," Buffy answered. "I'll ask Giles."
"Who?" Owen asked.
But Buffy didn't answer. Owen continued to grumble about the demon and threw in a few new remarks about blondes that just up and left without giving proper, useful answers. Buffy meanwhile was sending photos of the demon to Giles' email account.
It didn't take too long for Giles to respond. Just reading the email she could imagine all the "good lords" and glasses-polishing he must have done before writing back to her.
"Jack," Buffy called. "We've got a problem."
"What is it?" he asked while coming over. Gwen was busy, but Toshiko listened to them while she looked on from her work station.
"That demon Owen's cutting up—which I'm only not objecting to because I wasn't sent to kill it for the purpose of cutting it up—is an Yrak N'ashuren."
"A what?"
"Yrak N'ashuren. And now we've got a problem. They're body guards to the Alavet."
"Body guards? So now that we've killed the body guard we still have the Alavet to worry about. How bad is an Alavet?"
"Pretty bad," Buffy said while glancing through the email again. "According to Giles it's probably come to Cardiff to feed off of the rift energy. Usually that energy repulses demons rather than attracts them."
"But we've got an exception here," Jack surmised.
"Yeah. Feeding off rift instead of hellmouth energy might have some epically bad consequences."
"How bad?" he asked.
"End of the world bad," she replied.
"Two questions," Owen said as he joined them. "What does it look like and can we kill it?"
"Um… I'm not sure," Buffy said.
"Why not?" Jack asked.
"Essentially… it's a zombie."
"A zombie?" Tosh asked. "Do those even exist?"
"I've come across a few different variations," Buffy answered. "It gets tricky killing something that's already dead. Decapitation, stake to the heart, fire, bullets through the head, those might work. Other times there's some sort of controlling power source that needs to be destroyed. Giles is going to get back to me as soon as he finds the method for this one."
Jack was mulling that over when Toshiko's rift alert starting beeping.
"There's some minor rift activity in Trowbridge," she announced.
"All right, Ianto and Gwen with me on that," Jack ordered. "Owen, stay here with that demon. I want to know if there is anything that might tell us where it's been recently. Buffy, I trust you to handle the zombie problem. Tosh, stay here and monitor us. Let's move people!"
Tosh got busy pulling up map scans and CCTV while the group left. Buffy leaned on the rail watching Owen as he took another look at the demon corpse.
"Find out where it's been," he muttered. "Right."
"Oh come on," Buffy encouraged cheerfully. "They do this all the time on CSI."
Owen raised an eyebrow and glared at her. "Not exactly helpful."
Buffy made a show of thinking about it. "Usually they find some sort of pollen or dirt unique to one tiny little spot. That might be a bit unlikely."
"A bit?" Owen griped. He was huffing, and puffing, and complaining to himself again. Buffy went back to her station to check if Giles had replied yet.
"Anything yet?" Tosh asked her.
"A quick line about some minor leads," Buffy said. "If we were back at the Magic Box I'd tune this stuff out until it became important. But Giles has to be thorough."
"I think I've got something that will help Owen," said Tosh.
"Really?" Buffy then yelled, "Owen!"
"What?" he demanded angrily. Buffy pointed to Tosh with a smile.
"We know where the Yrak N'ashuren was yesterday," Tosh started.
"Yeah, Tosh, I was there."
"But how did it get there?" she pointed out. "I've been running a program to back track it on the CCTV. I traced it to a warehouse and didn't find any sign of it before that until two days ago. I looked over more footage from outside the warehouse over the past two weeks. It shows up again and again."
"You think it was living there?" Owen more stated than asked. "Nice work, Tosh. Thanks."
"You've got to be kidding me!" Buffy said suddenly.
"What is it?" Owen asked.
"Giles found how to kill the zombie."
"How?" Tosh asked.
"A solution of water and 0.2 percent chlorine. The amount of chlorine is apparently 'of the utmost importance.'" She gave her best Giles impersonation. Tosh ducked her head to hide her laugh, and Owen openly stared at her. "What?"
"That's your English accent?" he asked her. Buffy glared as he shook his head and muttered, "Rubbish."
"Yeah, and how does your American go?" Buffy shot back at him.
"So chlorine and water?" Owen restated to divert the conversation.
"I'm guessing it won't be near any pools," Buffy said.
"Tosh, are there any pools near that warehouse?" Owen asked.
"None," she replied.
"All right," Buffy said in her best I'm-in-charge voice. "Owen, can you mix the solution together? Then I'll go kill it."
"You'll need backup," Owen said loudly as he went to prepare the water and chlorine.
"Fine, but try not to get in the way or end up the victim." She turned back to Tosh. "How are things with the others?"
"They haven't found anything at the site, so they are canvassing the area to see what might have come through." Tosh stared at Buffy's frown. "Is something wrong?"
"Aside from hunting down a zombie? No… it's just weird stopping world-ending danger with only part of the group." Buffy then saw Tosh becoming worried too. "It's probably nothing. If it needed a body guard how tough can it be?"
HXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXHXH
"I had to jinx myself," Buffy muttered as she came into the main part of the warehouse. There were three more of the Yak-something-or-other bodyguards in addition to the really big, really ugly zombie. She had come armed with a large squirt gun rifle and a sword on her back.
Owen was right behind her as they hid behind crates to scout the warehouse. He whispered, "You can't take out the guards and the zombie."
"I was noticing that," she replied.
He looked around the inside of the building. "I've got an idea. Take out the guards; I may be able to handle the big guy."
Owen ran silently back outside the warehouse. He hit his comm. "Tosh, I need you to get the blueprints for the warehouse."
"Already done," she said.
"Where does the fire sprinkler system get its water from?"
"There's a tank on the roof. The ladder is on the north side of the building."
"You don't happen to see the easiest way to activate the fire alarm to get the sprinklers to go off, do you?" he asked as he climbed up the ladder holding a jug of chlorine.
"Leave that to me," Tosh said. "Just let me know when the solution reads at 0.2 percent."
Owen placed the device to measure the chlorine levels and started to slowly pour in the chlorine. He hoped Buffy was holding out against those demons, and he especially hoped that she wouldn't be too angry getting soaked.
"All right, Tosh, what now?"
"I can't hack into the warehouse to set off the sprinklers, but if you go through the door just east of you, there should be a way there to set off the alarm."
"Let's hope this works, Tosh," Owen said as he ran to the door. Sure enough, just down the stairs was a "Break Glass in Case of Fire." At last he could listen to the temptation to break the damn glass. He pulled the alarm and ran back down to the main area.
Two of the demons were dead and Buffy was locked in battle with the last. The zombie was watching the fight from a distance. As Buffy moved in for the kill, the zombie looked about to make its move. Luckily that's when the sprinklers activated.
Buffy hacked off the head of the last demon, and the zombie convulsed to the ground in the solution spraying from above.
The bad guys defeated, Owen went to shut off the alarm. He and Buffy then managed the cleanup by piling the bodies and burning them. Being so wet it required a lot of accelerant, but soon the job was done.
As he had predicted, Buffy wasn't happy about being wet.
"My socks in my boots are all squishy," she complained.
"I think saving the world was a little more important than the state of your socks," Owen shot back. Buffy only stuck out her lip in a pout. "I'll take you home to dry off and change."
During the drive Owen was regaled with tales of various clothing disasters she had been victim to over the years. From the sound of it, she was more concerned about her hair and the chlorine than her clothes this time. Owen tried not to laugh and make things worse. He concentrated on driving.
Owen insisted on walking Buffy up to her flat. Though he wasn't as soaked through as Buffy, Owen hadn't escaped getting wet. Buffy offered the use of her clothes dryer for his wet jacket. Then it was decided that they should go back to the hub together. While he waited for Buffy to wash the chlorine out of her hair, Owen went to the kitchen to fix them something to eat.
"Should have worn the leather jacket," he grumbled when she came out dry and dressed.
"I'm pretty sure that leather and water don't mix well."
"I'd at least be drier," he said. "And there's nothing Ianto can't fix when it comes to clothing."
"But then you would have had to beg Ianto for the favour," she pointed out. "I think borrowing my dryer is the better deal. Lunch ready?"
"Hope you fancy omelettes." He slid a plate over to her as they sat on the bar stools at her countertop. "So how's it been? Living here in Cardiff, I mean."
"It's fine, I guess. Colder than I'm used to, that's for sure."
"You just need someone to help keep you warm."
Buffy stared as he leaned towards her. Her eyes went wide.
"No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no," she said quickly and quietly.
He held his hands up and pulled back. "All right. No. Why not?"
"I… You're a friend, Owen, and I can't see it ever being more than that."
"So you don't even want to try? Buffy, you're one of the most incredible girls I've ever met."
"I can't. I don't feel that way about you. And I can't… Tosh is my friend too. Oh God, it's my first year at Sunnydale all over again."
He looked at her with some confusion. "What does Tosh have to do with it?"
"She likes you, you big idiot."
"Tosh. Likes. Me. Likes me likes me? You're joking." He frowned while she shook her head. "You're not joking? Bloody hell. Then… Oh dear. It's all making sense now."
"If by that you mean you feel like a jerk for showing off your relationships with other women in front of her, then yeah. Go with the feeling."
"And if I don't feel the same way about Tosh?" he asked angrily.
"You do," Buffy said. "You just don't know it yet."
He sighed and still looked upset. "We better be getting back."
The car ride back to the hub was silent. Buffy decided it was probably best to leave him alone with his thoughts.
"How was your little rift scavenger hunt?" Owen asked the group as he went to his station. "Find anything cool?"
"Nothing but space junk," Jack answered.
"Well, we saved the word from total zombie destruction," Owen gloated back.
"I'll need the full report on that," Jack said.
"We've got ours done," Ianto said as he passed by.
Everyone was smiling while Owen started grumbling again.