Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters except for the ones that I created like Mercedes and Audrey.
Author's Notes:
J-Willow will comment on a lot of things, Angel/Nina being among them, Kristine will stick around at least for the time being, and remember Spike and Mercedes have met before. The Scoobies will continue their detective work, though without knowing what they've stumbled onto yet. But even if they figure out what's going on with Kennedy there are many more mysteries yet to come.
Tamara-There's always a chance, but first more mystery for Mercedes with the aftermath of the attack on Kristine. The Immortal will suffer when he finally dies, though he'll be taking someone with him when he dies. This story will still probably have a Spuffy ending to it, though if it does it'll be a twisted Spuffy ending.
Jess5x5-More is coming…well actually it's here, hope you like this chapter, don't worry about your reviewing skill, it's fine…gee I wonder where the 5x5 part came from…
CHAPTER 15-THE NOSE KNOWS
Immediately upon Mercedes' entrance through the front doors of the hospital there was a flurry of activity. The doctors rushed Kristine off to the first available emergency room while another tried to talk to Mercedes and find out what happened. At first she ignored the doctor trying to talk to her and shouted down the hallway at the doctors to help Kristine. When she finally calmed down a bit she gave a believable story about how she found Kristine and that she herself wasn't injured before she rushed off to one of the bathrooms to clean up. She couldn't stomach the thought of ingesting any of Kristine's blood, even though she was beginning to get a little hungry. When she had finally made herself look halfway presentable she rushed back to the nurses station and asked what was going on. She was directed to a waiting room in the middle of the building. Fighting back tears she took a seat and took a useless deep breath, knowing full well that she was going to be there for a while.
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"Where have you been," Dawn asked with an unpleasant expression on her face as she looked up and saw Willow stepping out of the elevator.
"Uh…seeing a friend," Willow replied with a slight stutter as she tried not to look like she knew something that she wasn't telling the others. Something that would affect them all profoundly, perhaps none more so than Buffy and Dawn.
"Kennedy came back earlier looking for you, she went to your room, got something, and then left again, I don't have a clue where she is," Dawn shot back with a very somber and cold look on her face as she walked past Willow and headed towards her room.
"Thanks…uh Dawnie, did I do something to you…were we supposed to do something today and I forgot about it," Willow asked with a nervous and confused look on her face as she turned around and stared at Dawn's back.
"Nope, everything's just fine," Dawn started to say back with a morose tone to her voice as she turned the knob on her door before Willow spoke up.
"He's back Dawn, Spike's back," Willow stated quickly with a hurried look on her face as she rushed forward to stop the younger girl from walking away.
"That's not funny," Dawn finally said softly after several moments after her body initially went rigid and she froze in her tracks.
"It wasn't supposed to be, he's back Dawn, right now, he's here in Rome, he's with Angel at the hospital that I met my contact at," Willow replied with a very serious and concerned look on her face as she walked forward and laid her hand on Dawn's shoulder.
"What," Dawn asked softly with a shaking voice as she slowly turned around, and Willow was struck by the look of restrained joy in Dawn's eyes.
"He's alive Dawn…or at least as much as he ever was, he came back," Willow continued with an earnest look of sincerity on her face as she caught Dawn's gaze.
"Show me," Dawn said back, suddenly regaining her composure and reminding Willow greatly of Buffy in the middle of a major fight, before she brushed a bit of hair off of her face and then walked back to the elevator, repeatedly pushing the button for the elevator to open its doors.
"What, Dawn I," Willow stammered back softly with a scared and confused look on her face as she turned around and started forward.
"I want to see him now Willow," Dawn snapped back with a very determined look on her face as she balled her hands up into fists while waiting for the elevator doors to open.
"Okay…we're going," Willow weakly said back with a nervous look on her face before the doors opened and the two stepped inside, with Willow hitting the button for the lobby before the doors closed.
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"Is that all she does," Faith asked with a confused look on her face as she sat down in the wheelchair and then backed it up in between their beds so that she was almost eye to eye with Wesley, who had just woken up.
"Who," Wesley asked softly with a tired look on his face before he yawned widely and rubbed his eyes.
"Fr…Illyria, doesn't she have to eat…sleep," Faith asked, having to work to get the name right, as she nodded her head towards Illyria, who sat in one of the chairs on the other side of the room staring off into space.
"She sleeps, though I doubt for very long," Wesley replied with a sarcastic smirk on his face as he looked over briefly at Faith before reaching out and gently brushing a lock of hair off of her face and pinning it behind her right ear.
"Oh," Faith stated back in an almost stunned into near silence manner as she held tightly to the armrests of the chair and turned to Wesley, not being able to stop a slightly crooked smile for working its way onto her face and a bit of blush from rising to color her cheeks.
"We cannot stay here any longer, they will find us," Illyria suddenly stated with a very clear and firm tone of voice as she stood up and turned to Wesley, appearing almost as if she were a robot and someone had just flipped her switch and turned her on.
"Gonna half to be a bit more specific there Smurfette," Faith asked with an impatient look and a sly smile on her face as he fought back the urge hit something and remained seated in the wheelchair.
"I do not understand," Illyria stated back with a perplexed expression on her face as she leaned back a bit and turned to Wesley, expecting him to answer her question immediately.
"La," Faith started to add with a mocking grin on her face before Wesley reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"Not now Faith, you can't make fun of someone unless they understand the context of the joke," Wesley replied softly with the faintest hint of a smile on his face before Angel walked in.
"How's Nina," Faith asked with a bored look on her face as she got up out of the chair after Angel looked at Wesley's hand on her shoulder and raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Finally asleep, Willow went back to the hotel promising to not tell anyone and Spike's checking something out on another floor, how's everyone here," Angel replied softly at first with a visibly relieved expression on his face as he nervously slid his hands into his pockets, hunched up his shoulders a bit, and shuffled his feet.
"Should we be worried about Spike, not him…but whatever it is that he's checking out," Wesley asked with a concerned look on his face as he sat up slowly as Faith kept watch over him out of the corner of her eye but otherwise did not move a muscle to help him.
"I don't think so, I didn't smell anything out of the ordinary and he's not going far, what we have to do now is find a doctor and leave, we can't stay here much longer, I'm surprised that we haven't seen one of the Immortal's flunkies here already.
"I believe that we have, earlier I briefly woke up and saw one of the orderly's reading my chart very closely and writing something down on a small notepad, I think that it's a safe bet that the Immortal knows exactly where we are," Wesley started to say with a nervous look on his face as he slid his legs over the side of the bed and started to slide out. At first his legs held, but after the injuries that he received added in with the time of not using them Wesley's legs gave way.
"Wes," Faith exclaimed loudly with a stunned expression on her face as she snapped around and provided Wesley a shoulder to stand fully back up and keep himself steady as she stayed at his side, watching him closely with a very concerned look on her face.
"You're right Wesley, he probably does know that we're here, I'll go find a doctor…you take it easy, and use the wheelchair, I don't need you passing out on me before we get out of here, things might get interesting," Angel replied with a serious look on his face as he stared straight ahead at Wesley before he turned on his heels and left the room, leaving Faith to help Wesley into the wheelchair that she had just vacated moments before.
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"I could ask you what you're doing here but then I'd just be blowing smoke up your ass," Spike stated with a cold tone to his voice as he walked up to Mercedes, who was sitting in the waiting room in one of the chair with her head down and thinking about anything but Spike.
"Yeah well…Spike," Mercedes started to growl back with an angry scowl on her face before she raised her head and saw who was speaking to her.
"Guess you're not a total loss…now I'm giving you five seconds to tell me why I shouldn't stake you right here and now, I know all about you and Kennedy so don't give me any reason to," Spike started to say softly with a slight shrug of his shoulders before he surprised Mercedes by grabbing her by the throat and then slamming her against the wall, keeping his hand closed tightly around her throat. Usually in this situation Mercedes would have started to fight back at that point, however she simply didn't have the heart for it at the moment.
"She…Kristine, he…hurt her," Mercedes choked out through Spike crushing her windpipe before what she was saying got through to him and he loosened his grip on her throat, but kept her slammed up against the wall and completely at his mercy.
"Who the bloody hell is Kristine," Spike snapped with a tempered look of anger in his eyes as he kept his grip and made sure that he got the message across to Mercedes not to fight back.
"A friend of mine, she's a lawyer for the Immortal, she, Kennedy and I…I found her on the floor of her own office, covered in blood and nearly beaten to death, he could have killed her," Mercedes started to reply with a timid and scared look on her face as she expected Spike to explode at any moment before she couldn't contain her anger any longer at the end and shouted the last bit straight into Spike's face. He closed his eyes during her outburst but kept his temper in check and swallowed hard before speaking again.
"That doesn't make any sense, she's on his side, why would he," Spike asked with a very pointed scowl on his face although he loosened his grip on Mercedes' neck just a bit.
"I don't know, I just found her like that, they won't let me see her," Mercedes stated back with a very worried look on her face before Spike had to do a double take to make sure that he wasn't seeing things as tears appeared in Mercedes' eyes. The entire time that he had known her he had only seen her cry once, and that was after she had eaten the rest of her family. He had thought about telling her on that day that she had done something grand by killing her parents and her brothers and sisters however when the moment came he had found that he hadn't anything to say.
"So this bird's important to you," Spike said softly with a confused but slightly more relaxed tone of voice as he let go fully of Mercedes' neck before being taken aback as she leaned forward and laid her head on his check and started to cry, nodding her head ever so slightly. "I'll take that as a yes, but what about Kennedy, can't say as I'm very fond of the bitch but Red's a friend of mine and," Spike started to add with a tense and anxious tone to his voice as he awkwardly began to comfort his former minion before she pulled back just enough to look up at him and wipe away a tear.
"It's complicated, I was supposed to lure the slayer away from the witch, I asked Kristine to help, it wasn't supposed to happen like this," Mercedes replied softly with a very worried look on her face as she slowly laid her head back down onto Spike's chest and then started to cry again. That would be how Angel would find them thirty minutes later.
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They stepped off the boat in one after the other, keeping their heads down so that no one could recognize them. They had paid for their passage across the sea by doing whatever job needed doing. The captain had been skeptical of them at first but after the ship had sailed through a particularly rough storm and the two had stayed at their posts through the worst of it his attitude changed. The others on the journey avoided them at all costs, mumbling jeers under their breath. They were an odd pair at that though, one a young man of college age, hiding his face behind his bangs and barely speaking to anyone, and the older man that wore his hair long and had grown a beard. They both kept to themselves and only appeared to any of the ships passengers or crew outside of work when it was an absolute must. They had met shortly before the battle in LA, but didn't know the full scope of their shared experiences until after the fight was over and Angel and the others presumed dead. A nest of vampires that had resided on the docks for decades disappeared that night as the two men found new lodgings before beginning their search.
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She grew tired of the parties and gatherings that she got invited to. She had left LA before the shit had really hit the fan, not wanting to get caught up in the maelstrom. She had though shed a tear after hearing about the deaths of Angel and the others. But she had been savvy in her grief, keeping any outward show of sadness to herself until she was alone and could use her wealth and resources to try and figure out what had happened. By the time that she figured it all out she discovered through several contacts that some of them were not dead. Wanting answers she packed for war, making sure to bring along the key to her new life, and set out for Rome.
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"Find anything," Angel asked with a very serious look on his face as Spike walked back into the waiting room.
"You could say so, remember that vamp that was sleeping with Kennedy earlier," Spike started to reply with a slight shrug of his shoulders before Angel cut in.
"Come on Spike, not this again, I told you then that," Angel interjected with a frustrated and impatient scowl on his face as he shook his head before Spike quickly replied.
"It's not that, she was the lead that I went to check out, I smelled something familiar and it was her, she works for our old friend the Immortal, seems she and one of his lawyers were supposed to split Kennedy and Willow up, but then something went wrong and the Immortal beat her lawyer friend to a bloody pulp," Spike replied with a very serious and somber expression on his face as he lifted his gaze up to match Angel's before nodding back towards the stairs that he had just walked down.
"How can you be sure it was the Immortal that assaulted her lawyer friend," Angel asked with a growing look of concern on his face as he dreaded what would probably come next.
"Because after I talked to her I slipped past the doctors and visited her, she reeks of him…the bastard knocked her around pretty good to, got so many cuts and bruises that she looks more like a mummy than anything else," Spike bitterly said back as he sneered at the memory of what Kristine looked like lying there in the hospital bed.
"You didn't sire her did you, the vampire friend of yours upstairs," Angel asked with an unsure frown on his face as he hoped that he was wrong.
"Nope, staked him though, bloody git…named her Mercedes because he thought he turned her in the back of a Mercedes, fool couldn't even tell his cars apart, had the imagination of a gnat," Spike answered with a grim and mocking tone to his voice as he scowled at the memory of Mercedes' sire.
"Well we can't all be me," Angel mumbled softly to himself with an amused smirk on his face before both vampires stopped silent by a gasp from behind them.
"Bloody hell," Spike stated with a look of shock and surprise as he looked past Angel and back towards the doors of the waiting room as Willow and Dawn stood there, with the former looking quite guilty and the latter looking like she was ready to pass out.
"Willow, what is this…is Buffy here to," Angel exclaimed in shock at first before he glared across the room at the witch and asked a very pointed question, his expectations being that they were soon to be surrounded by young slayers.
"N…no, just us, I had to tell her," Willow mumbled back with a sad and scared look on her face as she jutted her bottom lip out a bit and then pouted
"Spike…are you…real," Dawn stammered out with a look of disbelief on her face as she slowly started to walk across the room towards him, barely taking note of Angel as she brushed past him.
"Yeah Niblet, I'm," Spike started to answer with a nervous but happy smile on his face before he glanced up to Angel, just in time to miss Dawn rear back and smash him in the nose with her fist.
"Damn it, what the bloody hell was that for, what is it with you Summers women and my nose," Spike growled back in shock and some pain as he covered up his nose with one hand and took a half step back away from Dawn.
"You idiot…you weren't supposed to leave, you were supposed to be the one to stay, she loves you, you left…you left," Dawn began to grumble back with an angry scowl on her face before as she went on she began to cry more and more and her voice faltered considerably as she pounded her fists against Spike's chest. Just when he thought that she was going to hit him in the nose again Spike was taken by surprise as Dawn instead threw her arms around him and buried her face into his chest, letting the tears flow.
"I see you haven't lost your touch," Angel remarked with an amused smirk on his face as he grinned at Spike and then turned and left the room, dragging Willow with him.
END OF CHAPTER 15
Note: Dawn finding out about Spike might be a little rushed to some, however it now brings up a whole new set of possibilities as well as there's another mystery on the horizon.