Tears swim in Buffy's eyes but she blinks them away. It wasn't fair. Nothing was ever, ever, never, not even once fair.
It was her fault. She'd cursed them. She'd said those three little words too early and let go too quickly and now obviously everything was going to come crashing down and her own optimism was coming to bite her in the ass, as per usual.
She wipes at her eye furiously so she can focus on the trail of blood dotted here and there, smears on the leaves and bloody footprints on the gravel leading her out of Restfield into the woods.
She pumps the stake in her fist. This was it. She couldn't keep letting Dru waltz in, eat a load of people, and then waltz back out again scott-free.
I should've killed her after what she did to Kendra, truces with Spike be damned. All those people on the train… that was my fault really. I let that cockney nutcase have a get-out-of-jail-free card and now people are dead and it's my fault.
I'm an idiot. A gooey romantic idiot that got swept up for a moment and forgot what she was supposed to be doing.
…I was deluded to think anything with him would be simple.
Leaves and twigs snap underfoot as she climbs higher but the moonlight dwindles and the trail stutters out, leaving Buffy turned around and confused.
Oh shit.
Every direction looks the same. Just shadows and branches and trees every turn she takes. Nothing familiar or grounding. Only endless black shapes on top of a dark gray backdrop underneath an oppressive impenetrable canopy of trees.
Fantastic. I'm lost in the woods with my… my whatever's ex who's entirely blood drunk on a trainload of people.
Something snaps off in the underbrush to her right and she whips around to face nothing but murky darkness. She tries to pay close attention to the tingly area at the back of her neck that normally gives her little spidey-senses for things approaching with entirely too many teeth and forehead bumps, but there's nothing. Nothing to indicate that Dru might be by.
Or that Spike might be following.
I told him don't follow me. I told him that, so I don't get to feel all lonely and sad because he stupidly listened.
She turns another couple of times trying to figure out which section of impenetrable forest would be the best direction. No good options present themselves so she opts for a bracken-clogged footpath that at least looks like it might be heading upwards.
Just keep climbing up. Then you can get your bearings, she coaches herself. And the caves were high, right?
She sighs exasperatedly as an enormous bramble obscures her way, forcing her to take the long way around near a treacherous outcrop, dislodging rubble as her ankle slips dangerously. It twists, causing a twinge that promises to make her pay later as she grasps a branch. Holly, it turns out, and the spikes sink into her palm.
OW!- she pulls her hand back instinctively and loses her footing, slipping down the slope of the hill in a shower of stones and branches.
A gnarled tree trunk breaks her fall as she crashes into it, and she lies gasping for breath as stars dance in and out of her vision.
"Ok. Really ow." She probes with careful fingers, mapping out an egg-shaped lump that's blossoming at the base of her skull. "Super ow."
She smells the salty wet scent of blood but her fingers come away dry. Shakily she gets her feet underneath her, resting her hand on the ground to push herself up-
And feels fabric underneath her hand. Wet fabric. The military Kevlar is stiff, and it feels disgustingly slick. The smell of salt suddenly makes sense.
Buffy jolts her hand back just as a sweep of white light illuminates the bloodied corpse next to her. There's blood everywhere, pools of it, soaking into her clothes where she's come in contact with whoever has been torn to shreds.
The face is contorted in horror, dimly visible under a splatter of blood that obviously sprayed out of the enormous gash at his neck. Tendons and meat and veins glisten wetly, but instead of the eviscerated neck Buffy can only focus on the feeling of dread as she recognizes the face under the blood.
He's one of Riley's super troopers-
Graham-
All this she registers in seconds.
"Buffy?"
She turns into the beam of the flashlight, and as it lowers a nauseating mix of confusion and rage engulfs her.
"Riley?!"
As the crypt door thumps shut and Buffy's footsteps dwindle Spike tilts the vodka in his glass, before hurling it into the wall where it shatters in an explosion of glass and booze. "Fuck!"
He leans against the fridge, sinking his fingers into his hair as he doubles over, trying to get his head to stop swimming with shock. Ten whole minutes and everything he'd clawed together with torn fucking fingernails was slipping away out of his grip again.
He can still smell the blood Dru left on him, can smell it on his thumb where he wiped it away, and on his clothes and in the air, and on the petal still crushed into the concrete floor. The scent is so bright and red and all-consuming that he can't smell anything else, feeling tainted with it inside and out.
And wasn't it just the way it was supposed to fucking be?! Every time he almost had what he wanted that bloody monster from his past sunk her teeth in and dragged him back. Every time he thought maybe he was done with the whole nightmarish carousel she reared her psychotic, gore covered head and spoiled everything.
He swallows down a gulping choke. This isn't just Dru. This is my fault too… Should've told Buffy soon as I saw that fucking newspaper.
Fucked it up.
Poor girl was already on the ropes and I bulldozed right over it like she hasn't got trust issues a sodding mile wide.
Fucking fuck!
He slides to the floor, fingers digging into his temples as he tries to calm down. Tries to think.
What to do… what to do, what to do?
She obviously wanted space. And space made sense after the entire catastrophe that conversation had been, but space was never his strong suit. Wasn't even in the sodding deck, if he was being honest. Bashing down the doors and spilling his guts, now that was his wheelhouse. Huge over-the-top gestures that generally came on too strong. Waiting for her to cool off felt like he was giving her the opportunity to go cold on him completely.
You'd think the whole extended un-life bollocks would come with an extended bit of patience too.
He thumps his head hard against the fridge door, trying to batter himself into giving her a breather. Give her time. She'll cool off. She said she loved him, she wasn't just going to turn tail and run now. Not after everything…
A seething minute goes by and every atom of his being is howling to go after her. Throw himself at her mercy and beg. He was never above begging anyway…
He tries counting to ten.
Then twenty.
Eventually, a plan rises out of the mist of his anguish. Pretty good plan actually.
Kill Dru.
He'd stake her through the heart, sweep up all the dust into a jar, and show Buffy he could do a clean slate. Fresh start.
Serves two purposes really.
The more Dru fed the more deranged she would get and eventually she was going to be in the middle of a burning Sunnydale with the flames licking at her feet screaming but there'd be no one left to save her.
And she hates being on fire…
It should be me to stop her. I could do it gently. Give her an ending with a bit of meaning, a bit of poetry, not just a battle lost. She should have some tenderness for an ending.
If she was going to blow on the wind then he should be the last face she saw. That seemed right. Plus finding her would give Buffy a good couple of hours to calm down and he wouldn't have to sit here counting the seconds.
Alright, good.
He picks himself up off the crypt floor and reaches for his coat, shrugging it on over his dress shirt. A stake goes in each pocket.
The night surrounds him like an over-eager friend once he steps out of the door, the air feeling close and full of pressure like a thunderstorm should be blowing in.
He heads towards the cemetery's gates and freezes.
Oh fucking hell.
He didn't know why he thought Buffy would just go home. Curl up in her bed and have a good cry or a good scream or punch the punching bag she had in her cellar into sawdust.
Of course she wouldn't. Because that's definitely her scent floating off into the woods, mingling with Dru's and the salty suffocating smell of blood.
"Goddammit!" he growls. What fresh Midsummer Night's Dream bullshit was this?!
He follows a trail, barely more than an animal path, feeling anger fizz in his back teeth.
Leaves and twigs crunch under his boots. Low-hanging branches snatch at his clothes, tipping his impatience all the higher. He can't remember the woods being so dark. He tries to follow Buffy's scent but it's getting too mixed up and diluted and strangled by Dru and the blood she's wearing. The whole place reeks of it.
God Dru, what have you done now? It's like she's walked round and round in circles, creating a Labyrinth that he can't follow her through.
He climbs, batting back branches out of his way as his jaw feels like it's going to all but lock in place if he grits it any harder.
"BUFFY!" he shouts but hears nothing back. "BUF-FY! For fucks sake!"
Drusilla you mad bitch, you can bloody well forget tender, I'm gonna rip your sodding head off…
Buffy gets slowly to her feet, keeping her eyes on Riley.
"So I guess that whole 'transport is leaving tonight' bit was crap," she says eventually, wiping her hand down her leg to rid it of Graham's blood.
"I never said I was leaving Sunnydale," he says, his flashlight taking a tour of Graham's body as he acts like her presence is nothing more than an inconvenience.
"It was implied!" she shouts but he barely looks at her.
"For all intents and purposes I'm not here, Buffy. We've got a new operation and we need it close to the hellmouth," he states dismissively as he props the flashlight in between two tree branches and unholsters a walkie-talkie. "Squad leader: located Miller. No response is confirmed, soldier down. HST at large but asset acquired, over."
Buffy rolls her eyes as a confirmation crackles out of the headset and Riley over-and-outs.
"Fine by me, 'by all intents and purposes' I'm more than happy to pretend I didn't see you," she growls and starts to walk away. Let him march about with his stupid 'I have a mission and you're in the way' attitude. She doesn't have time for it. She's got to find Dru, kill Dru, and get back to Spike, and God explain to him that she had to put down his murderous eternal love. Or maybe not, maybe she just won't tell him and hold on to that awful secret for the rest of her life until the chip in his head short circuits and kills him, or he kills her who even knows, and in between she has to get home for some sleep before school starts again on Monday and study for that stupid history exam and meanwhile she can just cry on the inside about this whole horrible week.
Awesome.
How have I not had a frigging stress heart attack yet?
…That would sure solve a lot of problems…
She stops as his hand on her arm halts her.
Utterly incomprehensibly Riley's fingers have caught her round her forearm.
"I didn't say you could touch me," she says icily, glaring with venom at Riley who annoyingly doesn't even flinch underneath what she had thought was her most intimidating glower.
"I need you to come with me," he says without taking his hand off her.
Buffy raises a disbelieving eyebrow. "Um, no?"
He still doesn't move but his forehead furrows as something catches his eye. Something on her hand.
Buffy glances down and sees Spike's ring nestled against a knuckle. It's silver and chunky with a skull, and is so clearly not hers, and is so obviously Spike's, that her mouth starts moving to explain all by itself but no words come out.
She glances back up and sees a sort of regretful look on Riley's face. Like a decision was being weighed on the scales and now it's tipped the way he was originally leaning away from. It doesn't enter his voice however. "I'm going to ask you one more time to come with me," he says and the deadpan, emotionless quality of his voice fills her with apprehension.
"And I'm going to tell you one more time-uh!" She doesn't manage to finish the sentence as a stinging sensation stabs into her shoulder. She turns her head to see a large hypodermic needle that's penetrated straight through her jacket into the muscle beneath. "What-" she blinks in shock as Riley's thumb depresses the syringe and whatever liquid was in the canister floods her with an ice so cold that it numbs her whole arm and then the rest of her, pulling the world out from beneath her as everything turns dark. Darker even than it was before.
