The good news is my computer's fixed! The bad news is that my posted chapters vs already written chapters gap is shrinking. Ah well, what's a little writer's block?To all the people who reviewd the last chapter - thank so much! There were a lot of people I'd meant to reply to, but my smartphone wouldn't let me and by the time my computer was back up and running, I forgot what I was going to say, so I'll settle for a simple thank you. Thank you for reading, thank you for having the patience to read a work that's still in progress (because god knows I don't) and thank you for taking the time to let me know what you think.
And a very sincere and special thank you, as always, goes straight to Love-el-ly Joy, who's given me some great advice with the chapter I'm currently struggling with. I just have to implement it! That's it, so on with the show!
Something was ringing. Loudly. Buffy snuggled in a little more, hoping the noise would just go away. When it didn't, she blindly groped for a pillow to throw over her head.
She found a hand.
Mentally shrugging, she put the hand over her ear and held it there to muffle the sound. Then she heard a deep rumble from underneath her other ear and, a second later, her head jostled as her pillow started to chuckle.
"Buffy," her pillow said.
She pried her eyes open to find Angel smiling down at her, clearly amused. "Giles is calling," he said.
Buffy closed her eyes again. "Tell Giles 5 more minutes."
"Buffy, we've been asleep for 3 hours. Giles is probably here by now."
"Good for him," she mumbled.
"Buffy," he said sternly.
"Angel," she said sleepily.
Sighing, Angel removed his hand and put her now-silent phone on top of her ear. Buffy jumped about a foot as it started ringing again a minute later. She snatched the phone up from where it had fallen and murmured a dazed "'M up!" into the mouthpiece. She glared at Angel as he started to laugh.
"You're evil," she said to him. Giles clearly said something in response, because she said "No, Angel" into the phone.
Buffy rolled her eyes as Giles's panicked voice came across. "No, not actually evil… No, he… That's not… Giles! He still has his soul. I was being dramatic…Yes, I know I shouldn't joke about things like that." She sighed. "I'll be over in a few minutes."
She hung up the phone and ran her hand through her still-damp hair. "Sorry about your shirt," she said with a slight smirk, pointing to the damp spot on his shoulder.
"Worth it," he said with a half-smile. "You about ready to go?"
Nodding as she twisted her hair up, Buffy grabbed her bag. "I think the sun's starting to rise."
Angel nodded. "It is. We can make it to the car though."
She handed him a blanket. "Just in case," she said.
He grimaced. "Let's go."
Most of the group was already in Angel's office when Buffy and Angel walked in. Giles and Wesley sat with their heads bent over a table, clearly discussing a passage in some text. Spike was the first to see them.
"Nice of you to join us, Peaches."
"Nice to see you've made yourself at home in my office."
Spike smirked and deliberately propped his feet on top of his table. "Well if you're going to be off gallivanting-"
"I wasn't gallivanting!" Angel said, swatting Spike's propped up feet off the table.
Giles had taken his glasses off, rubbing his eyes wearily in response to them. Buffy turned to Gunn. "They're always like this, aren't they?"
"Yep."
Buffy shook her head and went over to give Giles a hug. "Flight was okay?" she asked, looking up at him.
Giles looked down at her with faint amusement. "9 hours confined to a very small space with Andrew. Now I know why you wanted to go ahead of us."
Buffy chuckled. "Where is he?"
"He decided he 'must visit the bagno' and left to find it… about 10 minutes ago."
"Probably got distracted by something shiny on the way," said Spike. "He'll be back."
"Why did you bring him?" asked Gunn curiously.
Giles smiled faintly. "Despite his… er… utter ridiculousness as a person, he can actually be quite good at his job."
"Except when he finds meaning in his instructions where none is intended," she said, throwing an apologetic glance at Angel and Spike, who both nodded in understanding. "Right, Giles?" she asked, turning back to him, steel in her voice.
Angel and Spike shared a grin at her tone.
"Ah… yes, yes of course," he said, focusing intently on cleaning his glasses.
"You haven't started without me, have you Angelcakes?" Lorne said, rushing in.
Giles put on his glasses. "Dear Lord, you're green," he said, as Buffy mouthed a silent "Angelcakes?"
Spike smirked and Angel lightly cuffed him upside the head.
"Oi!" said Spike, his hand coming up to his head.
"Oh please. I didn't hit you that hard."
"You didn't have to hit me at all!"
"Baby."
"Poof!"
Buffy held in a giggle as both big, scary vampires looked about ready to stick their tongues out at each other.
Lorne ignored both of them. "And you must be slayerkins!"
"Also known as Buffy," she said, amused.
"I was crushed that I didn't get to meet you last time," he said, holding her at arms length. "Well I can see what all the hype was about!"
"Hype?" she said, raising her eyebrows.
Angel cleared his throat. "Okay, we're all here for a reason. Did you guys find anything about our demon?" he asked Giles and Wesley.
Wesley stood up. "Well there's not a lot of information, and what we do have is very difficult to translate. We're dealing with a Dankaar demon."
"Ah, yes! A Dankaar demon!" Andrew said, dramatically from the doorway before walking in.
Angel frowned. "I've never heard of it."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Neither has Andrew." She turned to Andrew. "Did you stand outside the door waiting for an opening for a dramatic entrance?"
Andrew shifted uncomfortably. "um…no..." He turned to Angel. "Hey, did you know that you guys have a room that looks exactly like the room in Return of the Jedi where Admiral Ackbar is-"
"That is the room," Lorne interrupted.
Andrew's eyes widened and, Angel found himself hoping that he had actually gotten to the bathroom before he got sidetracked, because he looked about ready to pee himself with excitement.
"That's where they filmed the scene?" Andrew asked, barely able to choke the words out over his glee.
"Yeah," said Lorne, " and Admiral Ackbar wasn't actually a costume. He was a demon called a-"
"Hey, guys, this is all great, but can we focus here?" Angel interrupted.
Andrew practically vibrated with excitement, but managed to keep him mouth shut.
"So what do you know about this Dankaar demon?" asked Gunn.
"Well we can't be sure of what we have so far. Like Wesley said, the translation is rough at best. We're unclear about a possessive pronoun, and the sentence structure makes the meaning unclear…"
"Okay, take it with a grain of salt, I get it," said Buffy impatiently.
"Well it appears you were right; it does attack on two fronts. And right again – one of the two appears to be mental… somehow," said Giles. "The creature can also change its form depending on who it's attacking." Giles took off his glasses in frustration. "Andrew, stop trying to pass notes to Lorne."
"But that's where the translation gets unreliable," Wes continued as if there had been no interruption. "If we understand correctly, you must face it and…" he looked at Giles, who shrugged, "it's demons… in the mind? It's possible that it sends its monsters into your mind, so that you must mentally battle them and physically battle the demon itself simultaneously."
"What do you mean 'mentally battle'?' asked Fred. "Are you talking about a battle of the wits or more of a mental distraction…?"
"We don't know," said Giles, clearly frustrated. "We don't even know if we've understood what we have correctly."
"Okay, but it's safe to assume it's a creature with intelligence .A purpose. Not your average killcrushdestroy demon?" said Buffy.
"I think that's a safe assumption," said Wes.
"Okay," she said. "Keep working on the translation. Whatever you can give me. Andrew, you too."
"We will get to the bottom of this!" said Andrew, overdramatically.
"Fred, you and Lorne try and figure out what this thing's purpose is," said Angel.
Buffy looked around. "I guess that leaves the rest of us to look into weird deaths until we have more to go on."
"Harmony!" Angel called.
"Yeah boss?" Harmony's squeaky voice came from the doorway.
"I need newspaper articles about recent deaths and obituaries."
"So… we're looking for someone who was killed by something – it could look like anyone or anything, and, what, looked distracted while doing it?" said Gunn.
"Oh, this is going to be fun," Spike muttered.