Chapter 7.

"Buffy. Are you sure this is Angel?" Giles asked as the desiccated vampire again rattled the book cage.

"Yes. Can you help him?" Buffy asked worriedly.

Giles scratched his temple, damning himself once again for ever letting his Slayer get involved with a vampire. "Y- Yes, I suppose. It's likely all he needs is blood."

"Well in that case..." Buffy jumped off the table she'd been sitting on and walked deliberately towards the cage. Three people jumped up to stop her.

"Buffy, what do you think you're doing?" Giles chided.

"Giving him some blood. You said he needs blood." Buffy said matter-of-factually.

"Yes, but I'm afraid he needs much more than you could spare. And he's not in his right mind right now. There's no way he could stop before you were dead." Giles explained.

"And then you just give the Incredible Sulk one more thing to brood over." Xander quipped.

"Let me handle this Buffy." Giles pleaded. "I think I know somewhere I can get blood in the quantities needed without killing anyone. Especially yourself."

"Besides, we need to go back to Ford's club and see if anyone is still there." Xander reminded her.

Buffy looked forlornly at her wounded boyfriend then her demeanor got cold. "I'm going to kill whoever did this. Painfully."

Buffy led the way into the Sunset Club. Inside, there were bodies everywhere. She walked over to one and checked it. "Blood in the mouth. Stake 'em." She staked the one she had checked and left the stake there. Then she went over to some wooden furniture and started to make kindling of it. She passed improvised stakes out to Xander and Willow as they ran out of pre-made ones.

Suddenly, five bodies jumped up and attacked. Buffy took on four of them while Xander scrambled to draw his sword and dust the one closest to him. Willow tried her best to look small, unimportant, and not at all delicious as she cowered against a wall. Once the vampires were dead, Xander was holding his arm where his vamp had slashed him with his claws. "I got a better idea. How about we just burn the place?"

Buffy sighed but nodded. "Is Ford here?"

Xander shook his head. "I didn't see him." He didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. With his luck though, almost certainly bad.

Xander stood back with his sword ready while Buffy piled the bodies together. She then piled everything burnable on and around them. Xander pulled a lighter and lit a piece of fabric. They all stood and watched for a couple seconds to make sure it caught before turning and making their way silently up and out of the club.

Giles resigned himself to a very late night feeding his Slayer's vampiric boyfriend cup after cup of pigs' blood through the slot in the book cage. This situation had never been covered in all his years of training at the watcher's academy. And it probably never would as he had no intention of reporting this to the council.

He wondered for a moment if Buffy would appreciate what he was doing for her, but he doubted it. American children had no sense of gratitude but he was fairly certain that Angel would. And it was a chit that Giles intended to call in.

Already the feeding was going better than the first few tries. Angel had learned that his bowl of blood would be refilled when he backed away from the cage bars and if he tried to rush the cage while refilling was going on, he would get less blood. He picked up his cup to do another feeding when Buffy walked in, alone. They didn't say a word, but Giles demonstrated how he was feeding Angel. When Angel was done with that bowl, he gave her the cup to refill it from the bucket. Once he was sure she had the matter in hand, he laid a hand on her shoulder and gave her a sad smile to show her his own gratitude that she was taking over. Her own sad smile was his reward. Then he made his way out and to his car for at least a little sleep. All without ever saying a word.

Giles had arrived early that morning with manacles strong enough to hold a vampire. Why Giles had such chains, Buffy didn't want to think about. Luckily, Angel had calmed down a lot since she'd been feeding him all night. He also looked almost back to his old self. He still couldn't or wouldn't talk to her though and until then they couldn't be sure he was safe to be around people again. So she and Giles found an out of the way spot in the basement to chain him up. They left him what was left of the bucket of blood and a long straw so he could feed himself during the day. Then both she and Giles tried to go about their day.

Buffy, however, was tired, distracted, and not in a mood to talk anyways. She ended up with detention for snapping at her English teacher.

But all was forgotten after school (and detention) when she went down to the basement to see Angel and he said "Buffy!" when he saw her.

"Your friend Ford." Angel began once they unchained him and brought him up to the library. "He knocked me out. I think with a Taser. Then he must have fed from me and drained his own blood. Not long after I woke up, he woke up as a vampire. He sired a girl himself, but then he decided to have everyone else feed off of me. That's the last thing I remember. You have to get to that club. Some of them might not have risen yet."

"We took care of it." Buffy assured him. "But Ford got away."

"We had a choice of saving you or going after Ford." Xander added.

"You should have killed me and gone after Ford." Angel said to Buffy, ever so nobly.

Xander smirked. "That plan had my vote."

Buffy glared daggers at her male friend, but the glare seemed to have no effect.

Ford breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Buffy and her friends were leaving for the second time. He could see flickering light and then smoke coming from the doorway to his club that told him not to bother going back for any more vampires that might have risen. Which was too bad, but still, he had gotten away and that's what really mattered. It had been a close thing too. He was fortunate that Buffy and her friends had taken away her crazed vampire boyfriend and had given him and Chantarelle time to escape. Of course they hadn't left alone, they had each carried a yet-to-rise vampire to an abandoned factory across the street. Then they'd come back for a second trip. Two vamps had risen in their absence and the four of them each carried another body.

Chantarelle had wanted to make another trip, but he'd nixed the idea. And his instincts had been right as the Slayer had returned soon after that. Soon enough that they might have been spotted, or worse... trapped in the club with a pissed off Slayer.

Ford had been planning on toying with her for a couple weeks before killing her. Instead, he changed his mind and decided against toying with her. He even decided against killing her... for now. Frankly, he wanted to get some strength back after turning Chantarelle and his minions also needed a couple good meals in them. Besides, he wasn't dying any more so there was no longer any rush. Now was the time to sit back and gather his strength. Soon enough, he would drain Buffy Summers.

"Xander, have you forgotten that I can pummel you into submission if I want?" Buffy asked lightly as she walked him home. Her tone belying her serious words. "When I glare at you to shut up, you should listen."

Xander had decided that if Giles wanted his sword back after patrolling, then he wanted a Slayer escort home. Which was why they were now walking together. "Do you know who had a scary glare? Julius Caesar. But it might have been the fact that he could and would crucify you if you displeased him." Xander said. "It's the willpower to follow through on your threats that renders your glares impotent. Besides. It's physically impossible to 'listen' to someone glare at you."

"You know what I meant!" Buffy accused.

"No. But I meant what you knew." Xander grinned back flippantly.

Buffy crossed her arms and stopped walking. "I'll leave you here." she warned.

"Fine. Then my horrific death will be on your head. I wonder if Ford will kill me himself or have one of his minions do it for him?" he asked rhetorically while waggling his eyebrows jokingly.

Buffy sighed/groaned, threw up her hands, and started walking again. "Were you always so quippy or is this just since Halloween?"

Xander shrugged. "Methos always had those lines I could only think of the next day. That's part of the reason why I chose him and not Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. Methos and I were already very similar. Honestly, it kinda blurs the line for me too. The best way I can describe it is it's me the way I wanted to be. If that answers your question."

"I suppose." Buffy allowed. They walked in silence for a bit. "I'm sorry." she said finally.

"For what?"

"I don't think I was really fair to you after Halloween." Buffy said. "I was trying to integrate 20 years of memories into mine. I guess I didn't realize what dealing with 5,000 would be like."

"Yeah. I'm sorry too. They made me a little snippy for a bit. And they're still changing me in ways I don't always realize until later. Like just now when you accused me of being 'quippy'. I hadn't even realized that my quip-fu had gotten stronger until then." Xander explained.

"I guess we could both be a bit more understanding." Buffy answered.