Fic: Like Old Times, But Not
Title: Like Old Times, But Not
Creator: drizzlydaze
Rating: PG
Setting: NFA
Word count: 840
Prompt: To eat is good. When it comes up again, it is bad.
A/N: Second part of the reunion verse that started in Chapters.
Standing in the open door is a blonde woman Buffy has never seen before. “Hi,” she says. “Buffy, right?”
“Um, yeah. And you are…?”
“A friend of a friend. Nina Ash.”
“And this friend is…”
“Angel. Look, there’s not much time and there’s really big trouble brewing down in LA and it took me an age to track you down-we need to go.”
It only takes a moment to get this Nina Ash checked out, her LA apocalypse and relation to Angel-girlfriend. Angel has a girlfriend-because the newly formed Council is uber-efficient. Nina sits as Buffy makes the phone calls, paces a little, picks up things and puts them back down. “Okay. Okay. Angel is a moron,” Buffy says when she’s finally done, turning to Nina. “Is he set on suicide or something?”
“You got the whole story, then. I only have bits and pieces, so you probably have more of an idea than me.”
Buffy isn’t so sure about that, because Giles seemed like he was holding something back when he told her what was going down in LA. But she doesn’t say anything to Nina. “Yeah. I got it covered. I guess you’ll, um, house-sit for me while I’m gone,” she says reluctantly. It’s a small comfort when Nina doesn’t say anything stupid like wanting to go with her to LA, since it’s obvious she’ll only get herself killed and Buffy would refuse.
All of Buffy’s calls to LA go unanswered, even the ones to the Slayers stationed there; something’s obviously blocking their signal. Her IMs and emails are ignored, which means the Internet is down too. They forego a plane ride, opting for a mass transportation spell from Willow and the wiccans-there simply isn’t time, even though those left behind will have to clear up a lot of cardboard boxes left in the Slayers’ wake (“Rule of magic transference,” Willow had said. “Put something from A to B, and something comes back from B to A.”).
So Angel’s back to properly fighting Wolfram and Hart, which is definitely of the good-working from the inside was much too risky, too tempting-but she has to wonder when he got so rash. He’s plunging the entire city into Hell, and while Giles’ sources are limited, he said he was certain on that count. Doesn’t sound like a very good plan; doesn’t sound like a plan at all. Unless there’s another amulet stashed away somewhere to save the day. Another Spike to burn.
Slayers in teams of three rematerialize in different parts of LA, while Buffy appears near Angel as promised. It’s raining, very atmospheric. And Angel’s slicing through a dragon. “Right on time,” she mutters. “Hiya, Angel. Glad to see you’re not all evil.”
“Kinda… busy…” he grunts, hacking off the dragon’s horn. If he’s surprised, he’s doing a good job of hiding it. Or maybe it’s just the imminent danger of burning to death.
Buffy swings herself up on the dragon and holds it in place by its remaining horn. A blast of fire shoots straight at Angel, who jumps into the air with a burning sleeve and brings his sword slashing down between the dragon’s eyes. The sword sticks in the dragon’s thick hide. Angel uses the hilt as a lever to clamber onto its neck with Buffy, seizing the hilt once more and pulling it towards himself, into the dragon’s skull. There’s a keening from the dragon as Angel shifts the blade within the dragon, and there’s some disturbing squelching too.
The dragon thrashes, flails, falls dead with a final burst of fire fifteen feet wide.
A brief respite.
Angel rips off his burning sleeve and throws it onto the ground. “Slayer backup?” he says, eyes surveying the battlefield.
Buffy checks him for injuries as she answers. “Of course. But no witches to spare. We’ve got some stuff going on in Europe too.” Major burns from fighting the dragon, but nothing too dire. “We’re fighting the fight, but you owe us mucho answers once-”
She stops, because she finally looked up, saw the battlefield Angel was seeing. The destruction wider than any apocalypse she’s dealt with because from this high vantage point off the dragon’s back, the city is getting ripped apart. Not like Sunnydale; there are still people here. Innocents. None evacuated.
And suddenly she isn’t so sure Angel isn’t evil. She pretty damn certain he’s suicidal, though. Maybe given up. Go out with a bang.
Slayers are doing pretty well with the demons. Buffy hops down from the dragon, quickly followed by Angel, and they join the fray below. Scythe time.
Slash, stab, skewer, slice, gotta watch out for Angel, slay, spear-Spike.
Spike?
Buffy freezes for a split-second, then dices up the demons lightning-quick. Then she leaves Angel to take the lot that’s left and runs to the wall.
Because Spike’s there, leaning against it, shuddering and red but alive.
And she knows it’s not an illusion because there are guts spilling out of his open body.