Chapter 8

Xander had improved immensely as a 'Slayer-Ette' over the last five years. His time in the field and his memories as a soldier had made him a formidable fighter and he knew he had saved Buffy's life more than once over the years.

But there's being able to kill the average vampire and there's dealing with one of the most powerful in history. One, according to Angel, who had been around for nearly 400 years and who had clearly been a favorite of the Master. One that had been brought back from the hell, then revamped and was, if anything, probably crazier before. And the one who had turned his best friend when they first met.

The part of him that was angry whenever he saw a vampire, the part that wanted a fiery vengeance, wanted to run at Darla and try and stake her right there. The part of him that had managed to survive for five years on the Hellmouth knew that this was exactly what Darla wanted. Was no doubt counting on.

He knew he had no chance in a fair fight against Darla, probably not much of one in an unfair fight. He knew that he had one real advantage over her. It was a dangerous game to play – he knew better than anyone that provoking a supernatural enemy could work for you or against you – but he also knew very well that Darla had a weakness.

"I guess we got off on the wrong foot," he said, trying to evoke the class clown that Darla had known.

"Don't tell me you're glad to see me," Darla said.

"I wish I could say I was at least surprised," Xander said, "but I guess that's what happens when you're as much of a monster as you are. Even hell doesn't want you."

Darla's smile deepened. "I've had time to get over that particular issue, Xander," she said sweetly. "Indeed, you might want to ask the board at Wolfram & Hart. At least you could if I hadn't eaten most of them."

"You know what they say about a broken clock," Xander said with that same smile. "Every so often, it's right." He paused. "It does kind of make me wonder why you're working for them again."

Darla's expression didn't change. Neither did her tone. Still, it took her two seconds to answer. He knew he'd scored a point. "You know what they say about the enemy of my enemy."

"Yeah, Buffy usually turns both of them to dust."

He'd meant it as a throwaway line, but this time he noticed her eyes flicker a bit. At that moment, Xander realized he'd just hit Darla's weak spot.

"I have a lot of old scores to settle," Darla said with her smile.

"Hey, you want to take Angel down, I'd cheer you on," Xander said cheerfully. "I never liked him. Bloodthirsty, soulless, completely clueless."

Darla seemed steadier now. Time to put her on her heels.

"I mean, the way Cordy tells it, when he knew you came back he spent weeks and months brooding over you. Everybody worried about what games you're playing with his head." Xander said cheerfully. "And seriously, no one thinks of the obvious solution."

"Which was?"

"Have him call Buffy." Xander hesitated. "Oh, that's right. No one bothered to tell you. Their love affair. Two whole years, angst, heartbreak, the kind of love that only two soulmates can share." He paused deliberately. "But who am I kidding? It's not like you'd know anything about that."

This time the blow was obvious. Darla clearly winced.

"I mean, seriously, the guy loses his soul, kills a bunch of her friends, and she still wants to save him." Xander said slowly. "I mean, it ended badly – she sent him to hell. But funny story, they actually sent him back. No evil sacrifice required. And after everything, they still loved each other? Honestly, it was kind of irritating."

The nasty tone in his voice that he had usually saved for Angel himself was clearly having an effect on Darla. "You don't know anything about what we have."

"Well, I know the first time he had to choose between you and Buffy, he chose you," Xander said. "Ouch. Too soon? I mean I know you and your bloodline are notoriously thick. I've met some of your descendants by the way. Interesting they're actually smarter or terrifying then you ever were." Xander paused. "I guess the rotten apple does fall pretty far from the tree."

Xander had slowly begun to back away from Darla who he could tell was getting angrier. "I will love putting your head on a pike when it was done."

"That would actually be more frightening had I not helped blow up a snake demon and beat up on a hell goddess while you were sleeping." Xander's clownish tone was all gone. "Honestly I've heard threats like this so many times that they've really lost all their menace. It's like shaking hands, at this point. And seriously, even if you do, it's not like Angel needs a reason to stake you. For him it would be like riding a bicycle."

Darla paused. "Or riding me."

That actually stalled Xander for a moment.

"I guess he didn't tell you about the last time I was here. He couldn't keep his hands off me."

Xander decided to keep that information in his back pocket. "First of all, ick, and second of all, I happen to know what happens when he forgets his troubles and gets happy. He's more fun that way."

Xander looked at her. "Kind of makes me question your prowess in the boudoir."

Darla's eyes had turned yellow. By now Xander knew what he was going to do and he had to wave the red flag in front of this bull.

"It must be tough for you. You knew him for two hundred years and you're still sloppy seconds."

Darla lost any semblance of control and charged at him. But Xander had expected this and before he finished the sentence, he was running as if his life depended on it.

Which it very well might.

Xander knew that he had no chance of beating Darla. He certainly wasn't going to join her. Running away like a coward was a default move of his, but unlike most times he did it, he had a strategy in mind.

He had mapped the hotel layout before he came here and he was running to a very specific place. However, he was also gambling on two things: that his reflexes were good enough and that Darla's rage would dim hers.

"Come on, no whammies, no whammies," he muttered to himself.

"Stop!" he whisper shouted.

And a la Bugs Bunny, he stepped to one side.

Exactly two seconds later, Darla saw where she was going and hit the brakes.

It was too late. She went through the bay window.

He sent a thought to Willow. "Okay, you can come down now."

When she first met Buffy Darla had told her that bullets didn't kill vampires but they hurt like hell. Similarly, if you went through a glass window and fell five stories, it wouldn't kill you but it would hurt like hell.

More painful than that was what she heard next.

"Seriously Darla, who did you think you were? Wile E. Coyote?"

She pulled herself to her feet.

"I would have gladly stayed in hell another eternity rather than hear your voice again," she said to Spike.

"Feelings mutual, luv," Spike said, putting a cigarette in his mouth.

"Are you going to help me up or not?"

Spike looked at her cross-eyed. "Need I remind you that we spent twenty years hating each other's guts? Why spoil a good thing now?"

"Never mind," Darla had found the strength to get to her feet.

"Riddle me this, great-grandma," Spike said, lighting up. "What kind of hold does that ponce have over you lot? Was there something about the lout that you decided to turn him all those centuries ago? Was it that faith and begorra accent that took him all that time to drop?"

"I always saw something special in him," Darla said.

"And apparently, that hasn't gone away even after he staked you," Spike said. "Didn't you have an un-life before him? Does everything in the world have to revolve around that pouf?"

"Look I just heard that from that Harris five minutes ago. I'm not falling for the same trick twice in three minutes."

Spike looked up. "Considering how far the first one was, I should hope not. Of course, the Darla I knew wouldn't have fallen for it once. That's my line."

"What are you doing here, Spike? Other than gloating?"

"I am trying my hardest to figure out how great-grandmother keeps falling for the same trick. Why do you keep going after him? I hate him as much as you do, but why do you keep going through these elaborate schemes?" Spike shook his head. "That's the problem with you old school vamps. Just kill them and get them over with!"

"If you had been a little more patient, we wouldn't be in this mess," Darla muttered.

"You wouldn't be in this mess." Spike corrected. "I was fine with him out of the picture. Me and Dru were perfectly happy for a whole century until he lost his soul. Then he actually became more of a wet blanket and broke us up."

"Is that why you're here? I don't know where Drusilla is," Darla said.

Spike shook his head. "Unlike you, I have the capability to get over my exes. I also have the common sense not to let anybody own me. Which is why you just fell five stories, right?"

"Do what you do best, William," Darla said. "Just walk away and find some nuns to torture. Leave the real villainy to the grownups."

"And how many slayers have you killed?" Spike reminded her. "I was a quarter of your age when I took the life of my second slayer." He held out his duster. "That's where I got this lovely jacket." He looked towards the horizon. "Some of us do get better with age."

"What do you want Spike?" Darla asked.

"I'm giving you a chance to walk away," he told her sincerely. "I don't know why you decided to go another vengeance run with every group in the world that would like to see you turned to dust but trust me when I tell you it will only end one way. Find a dark little corner of the world, some place with nice people to eat, and just spend the rest of your second chance far away from LA. There's nothing for you here."

For the first time something very close to pain appeared in Darla's eyes. Then it was gone. "There's more going on here than just the Slayer's sister. More power than you could ever hope to comprehend. I'm not letting it go."

Spike shook his head with genuine regret. "I guess this is what happens when the child becomes the parent. Figuratively and literally. You'd better go. The ponce is going to be here any moment and he won't be as lenient as I will."

Darla was confused. "What are you doing here?"

"I made a promise to a lady. And I keep my word."

Darla would have demanded more but she sensed that Angel was near. She ran off into the darkening horizon.

"Hate to see you go." Spike muttered. "Love to watch you run away."

"Place is secure." Faith ran over. "There wasn't much left to clean up when we got here."

"Hard to blame them," Spike pointed towards the distance. "The big fish is getting away. You can probably catch her without breaking a sweat."

Faith considered it, then shook her head. "Probably gonna regret this, but Dawnie is the top priority. We have to follow the leads we already have."

"Thought as much," Spike said. "Better get inside. Time to regroup."

TEN MINUTES LATER

Angel shook his head. "I knew I should have staked her when I had the chance."

"When Dru showed up on my doorstep a few months back, I made this big show to Buffy that I wasn't going to stake her," Spike said sympathetically. "Truth is, I couldn't have done it any more than you could have staked Darla. For better or worse, they're the women who made us. We loved them for more than a century."

"I did the last time I saw her," Angel reminded him.

"And you've been regretting ever since she came back," Gunn countered. "Don't worry, she shows up again, I'll do you the solid. She give you anything, either of you?"

"I was too terrified of her to ask questions," Xander said.

"Don't knock yourself, you outfoxed her," Willow said approvingly.

"It was gonna be a long shot she was going to tell me anything," Spike said. "I was part of the gang for twenty years; I don't think we spoke more than once a year in that time, and it was never civil."

"I'm guessing that after China, you and Dru went your ways and she went hers," Angel asked.

"For better or worse, you were the glue holding us together," Spike said. "She didn't like me or Dru, she was more than happy to cut ties with us after you two finally called it quits. Truth be told, so was I. I'm guessing she went back to the Hellmouth to get back to her roots."

"Would you mind translating for those of us who didn't go to Sunnydale?" Fred asked.

"I think she was working with the Master when Buffy moved there," Willow told them. "From what Angel told me, he's the one who sired her."

Angel nodded. "She chose him over me. I guess they must have worked it out. Darla was always more in line with ritual than I was."

"You think that's why she's working with so many forces that would gladly see her staked?" Tara asked.

"The only thing she shared with me was that there was a lot of power involved," Spike said. "In any case, we should probably reach out to our ladies auxiliary and the ex-Watchers to figure out how things are going."

At that point, Xander's phone rang. "I'm betting that's Anya," he said. "Ahn."

"Xander! I've been trying reach you for the last half-hour! I was beginning to worry."

"You would have been right too," Xander said. "The forces of semi-darkness paid us their first visit but we managed to fend them off."

"Is anybody hurt?"

"No but there's been some structural damage to the hotel. Good thing I do windows."

Anya was off the phone. "That explains why Angel and Spike have been unavailable," she said, "You sent up the distress call."

This had been discussed before they had all separated. "Turns out we didn't need the help," Xander said. "But we were going to call you anyway because we need to figure our next steps."

"I don't blame you," Buffy was on the line. "We've got a lead on to who arranged to have Dawn taken in the first place. I was going to follow up on that while everyone else was going to find whoever was going to be responsible for – using Dawn. I was actually planning to give the name to Willow and Fred in order to follow up."

"Give me the phone," Willow said. After Xander handed it to her, she walked over to her laptop and began typing. "That's very weird."

"We've got a high standard for that, Red; you mind being more specific?" Spike asked.

"I think we may be on a parallel track," Fred told them. "The company this guy Martin said wanted Dawn, its address is a building that's been scheduled for demolition for three months."

"I don't know whether this is my military memory or just watching a lot of TV, but I'm guessing that it's a front of some government agency," Xander posited.

"Either way, you're right," Willow said. "Fred, you're better at math then me on this. I want you try and run a variation on the program."

Fred nodded. "Like what?"

"Run a formula reversing the numbers in the address, switching them with nearby streets and roads, that sort of thing," Willow said.

As Fred started typing Buffy spoke up. "There a reason you didn't do this yourself?"

"Los Angeles is bigger than Sunnydale," Willow said simply. "I could probably do the calculations myself in ten or fifteen minutes but Fred knows the city slightly better than I do and she can probably think of a variable or two I couldn't in half the time. And since time is clearly of the essence…"

"I get it," Cordelia spoke up. "Did you see any familiar faces?"

"One you've seen more recently than I had," Xander said. He was tempted to give a blow by blow on how he'd outsmarted Darla, but for a change he decided to exercise restraint.

Besides Cordelia, after admitting she was impressed that Xander had managed to outsmart this demon, turned her attention to Spike. "You know how loathe I am to give you credit for this sort of thing but you did call it."

"Believe me, I'm not thrilled about being right," Spike said. "Incidentally sorry about not saving you lot the trouble of having to deal with her again, but I figured that for the moment we need her undead and unbreathing."

Angel was actually curious to see if Spike had gotten anything worth a damn from his conversation; the irony that he was taking the rational approach was not lost on him. "She give you anything at all?"

"Nothing we couldn't already have guessed. What I still don't get is why all of these powerful people would let a wild card like her back into the mess. I mean, Wolfram & Hart wants her dead as much as you lot do, the Watchers would stake her before they talked to her and given everything we know about the Initiative, I can't see any military branch so much as parlaying with her," Spike shook his head. "There's still some part of this we're just not seeing."

"You've got a point," Cordelia agreed. "I mean if Darla just wanted to take vengeance on Buffy on her own, she'd do it. It would be an incredibly dumb move on her part, but she'd do it. I can also see her finding allies in order to do it. But not this ragtag bunch."

"Well, we may have part of the answer anyway," Fred said. "This was relatively simple as formulas go: two blocks up, one block left, and voila."

Everybody looked at what she had found. "Um, Fred, unless there's some kind of corporate sponsorship involved we're not seeing, I don't follow," Gunn said. "Why would a mall want to hire the forces of darkness?"

"Only if Sears has an outlet there," Cordelia muttered.

"Wait a minute," Willow said. "I think I know what she's talking about. What level it is on?"

"First floor, same as they were in Dallas," Fred said. "It's usually where the Army has their recruitment offices."

"You're telling me the government has a secret recruitment facility between a TCBY and a Neiman Marcus," Angel said doubtfully.

"Need I remind you that they managed to have an entire base underneath UC Sunnydale?" Spike told them. "And honestly, it's better camouflage. No one looks twice at those places unless there's a man in uniform outside."

"As espionage goes it meets the perfect standard. Hide in plain sight," Xander paused. "I think we know what we have to do next."

Willow nodded. "Start checking how deep the basement is."

"You think there's any chance that they're holding Dawn there?" Buffy asked.

"That's the other reason I started searching," Willow said. "Fred and I managed to hack the DOD data base about an hour and a half ago. Before the attack, I set up a program cross-referencing any connections with the Initiative that might still be open. Some have been shut down for a while, others still have firewalls up, but there were several that made the bells ring. And now that I think of it, it makes perfect sense."

"What are you talking about?" Angel said.

"Recruitment drives," Faith answered. "I get none of you in Sunnydale ever bothered to ask the question at the time, but something like the Initiative can't just spring up overnight. They had to have spent years putting it together."

Angel and Spike exchanged a glance. He knew they were thinking about that same thing – the military that had gotten them on that sub during the Second World War; had the government been working at it even then?

Xander had picked up the ball. "Well, the technology is one thing, but you're right. You can't just find that many commandos in Sunnydale in a matter of weeks. Hell, you probably couldn't find that many if you looked through all of California."

Buffy had never asked Riley how the military had recruited him for this particular mission nor how the government had sought him out again. Suddenly…

"Do you think he's involved?" she asked carefully.

Fred chose to speak up. "If he did, it was by accident." She was unusually careful with her words. "The monks, when they made sure that Dawn was always a part of your life, I'm pretty sure they didn't cover everything." She hesitated. "Riley remembered her. The government has no official record of Dawn Summers."

"I never liked Soldier Boy, but this ain't on him. It's on an ancient order not recognizing the modern world," Spike told her. "We all remembered here. The government would never have known she existed."

"He's right," Willow said. "We think they found out because of your mother's obituary. It's the first public record that Dawnie existed. The government would have noticed the discrepancy."

"And that's probably how Wolfram & Hart figured it out," Gunn reasoned. "Considering when they're not dealing in evil they're dealing in paperwork, this is the kind of thing they'd pick up on."

Buffy was inclined to agree. "Well seeing as at least two roads to Dawn lead to the military, I think it's time we direct some of our energy there."

"How many of us do you want to show up?" Angel asked.

"We still have to find this man performing the ritual," Faith said. "We need to redirect some of our forces there."

Buffy agreed. "Faith, Angel, Gunn, I want the three of you to go to the location that Morgan gave you for this guy Halston."

Faith looked at her watch. "While we were trying to save these three, she probably sent out a warning flare. She'll have extra security by now to meet him if she hasn't redirected him altogether."

"Good point." Willow said. "Baby, you should probably go with them. They'll need a spell-caster as part of the force."

Tara didn't disagree. "What about you?"

"I have a feeling I'm about to be called into action on at least one front," Willow theorized.

"Give the girl a gold star," Cordelia said. "We'll probably need you for tech support. I can't imagine breaking into a government facility is something we can do without some magic support."

"You want any more backup?" Spike asked.

"We need what amounts to a corporal's guard when we finally hear back from Giles and Wesley," Fred reminded them. "I'd better stay here as the fail safe and I have a feeling I'm going to need someone if…when the forces of darkness make their second attack. Somehow I have a feeling a vampire is at least the equivalent of Willow, Tara and Charles."

"I'm flattered you think so highly of me," Spike said. He looked at Xander. "Considering that your fiancée and all the women you care about are going to be breaking into a strategic reserve, I'm assuming you're gonna ask permission to rejoin your Scooby gang."

"That is either incredibly sweet, sexist or naïve, I'm honestly not sure which," Cordelia said.

"In any case, my answer would be no regardless," Xander said, surprisingly. "When Giles and Wesley finally get back to us, somebody's going to need to go out to figure out the next step. And you were the one who told us we can't afford to spread ourselves too thin."

"Speaking of which, it's been nearly two hours since we last heard from Wesley and Giles," Fred reminded them. "How concerned should we be yet?"

There was a long pause. "You have their last known location?" she asked Fred.

"Give them another hour. If you haven't heard back by then, send out a search party."

"Bear in mind, they are The Watchers," Spike said with a trace of his old sarcasm. "Rupert might just have forgotten to keep his phone charged."

SAN BERNADINO

In point of fact, Wesley and Giles had the presence of mind to turn their phones off before venturing into the shed. They were more than aware how difficult this process might be; the last thing that either of them wanted was for them to be betrayed by such a banal thing as their cell phones ringing.

Giles had been correct about the Watchers putting up wards regardless – their intellect had overridden their arrogance. However, it wasn't by much. The wards were complicated for most of the average magic user; but the amateur Watcher would have needed little trouble to get past them. It took the two of them little more than ten minutes to get through.

The larger problem, of course, was that the underground lair was fairly spacious. Giles had always suspected the Watchers had been fond of Doctor Who when they had been growing up and as a result most of their hideaways were bigger on the inside. The mansion had a spacious exterior; the interior was at least twice as large, and they had already found three secret rooms.

"Sometimes I wonder if the Watchers have modeled every building they reside in after the layout of Clue," Wesley said after they found their second secret passage.

"We should consider ourselves flattered they didn't have a conservatory designed as well," Giles agreed. "Does it seem strange to you that this place is completely empty?"

"Remember both who we work for and what we study," Wesley said. "But I'll concede the fact that the lights are on but nobody's home is rather bizarre. Travers would have at least left someone here to keep the home fires burning. How large a force do you think he would bring for this kind of operation?"

"At least four people. One of them would have to be in the higher-ups on the council," he said. "And they'd all be loyal to the cause."

Wesley nodded. "There's a vetting process for a mission like this," he remembered. "They'd bring a mage, someone from wetworks, and two scholars. And unless there's been a radical change since you and I resigned, they wouldn't bring any possible malcontents, particularly considering the 'delicacy' of this mission."

Giles knew that was exactly the euphemism Quentin Travers would use for the abduction and almost certain murder of a fourteen year old girl. He would make sure that none of the people involved had any moral dilemmas about this kind of event and would be capable of seeing the death of the Slayer's sister as part and parcel of doing business. Which led to the question neither of them could answer: Who was the mole?

"You were closer to the old guard than I was, Wesley," he asked. "What aren't we seeing?"

Wesley considered this. "When Travers and the Council came to discuss Glorificus, at the time you and Buffy were the only ones who knew that the Key was in human form." Giles nodded. "When they did their inquiry, did any of them have any interactions with Dawn herself?

"No," Giles said. "Joyce insisted. And considering the nature of the last time she interacted with the Council, I would have been inclined to take her side any way."

"You never told them the Key was Dawn Summers. There was no presence of the Council at Buffy's funeral. Given the circumstances of Buffy's death, however, even they might have been able to add two and two."

Giles couldn't disagree with that. "The problem is none of them knew what she looked like. We did everything in our power to make sure her identity was hidden from the Council."

"Then they would have needed someone who could provide identification," Wesley reasoned. "Someone in Dawn's life who would not have known of her true importance."

"That narrows the field a bit, but not by much," Giles acknowledged. "One of the teachers at her middle school, a fellow student, anyone could have told them who Dawn was. "

"And when she went missing, they would have gone to the police," Wesley said. "You know how ruthless are people are. They do not believe in loose ends."

"They're also not bloodthirsty enough to erase entire families or engage in memory wipes," Giles reminded him. "That would lead to a bigger mess."

"Not necessarily on the Hellmouth, but your larger point is correct," Wesley acknowledged. "They could check government records, but there's no guarantee the Order left much of a paper trail."

"And the old guard is still convinced photography and other forms of identification can be manipulated," Giles agreed.

"MMMM!"

Both Giles and Wesley looked around. Given the acoustics of this home, it was hard not to hear even a muffled shout. It was also hard to tell where it might be coming from.

"They'd make sure there was a place to hold her," Wesley said.

"Except I'm certain that it was a man who made that noise," Giles told them.

"MMMM!"

Louder this time. Whoever the prisoner was could hear them. "Check the walls. I'll check the floors," Giles said.

Both men knew what they had to do. They started banging on the surfaces, trying to find out which areas were hollow or hoping that they would know whether they were getting closer to this prisoner. Neither man dared ask for the prisoner to speak up; they were afraid he might not be alone – or if his guard was not human.

Eventually Giles found what he was looking for on the floor of the library. Whoever built this place clearly was a watcher, he thought. There was a panel that was just a slightly different tint of mahogany than the rest of the flooring. Gently Giles managed to lift it up.

Rupert Giles wasn't a man who was surprised by much. So what stopped him from immediately shouting out to Wesley was that he had found the prisoner or that said prisoner was bound and gagged in the kind of chair that the Inquisition would have paid good money for. No, what stopped him was the fact that he knew the prisoner, and that there was a horrid logic as to why he was here in the first place.

It was Jonathan Levinson.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

I've wanted a Darla-Xander scene for a while, considering that I'm pretty sure Xander's vampire evil attitude is entirely based on what Darla did to Jesse in the pilot. In this case, he also hit upon something you genuinely wondered why no one would have done during all of Season 2. Remind Angel who his actual soul mate was.

Two things. No Darla is not pregnant in this universe. But now Xander knows what happened between her and Angel in 'Reprise'. This will come back to bite Angel now, probably at the worst possible time.

I also wanted a Spike-Darla scene considering the only interaction we ever saw between them was in the Fool For Love crossover. Considering that the two of them never interacted in either episode, I wanted to hypothetically consider their history. Given that Darla barely tolerated Drusilla (and that Spike was essentially created as practically a gag on her part) I can't imagine the two of them ever liked each other over the twenty years they were together. I also liked the irony of the younger vampire speaking with wisdom to his ancestor – and knowing of what he spoke.

We always wondered just how the Initiative got its fighting men. In the next chapter we're going to get my theory on it. (And yes, I know the collective opinion the world had of Why We Fight. But we can't pretend that it's not irrelevant to this.)

Yes in this world Jonathan never becomes part of the Troika. Unfortunately as we shall see that doesn't mean he wasn't capable of attracting the wrong sort of attention.

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