How to Treat Your Lover (A(us)/S, Buffy) NC-17 43/?
Title: How to Treat Your Lover (Book 3)
By Tami (tabrandt @ hotmail.com)
Disclaimer: The characters from ATS / BTVS are owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Fox studios. This story is not meant to infringe upon anyone's rights, only to entertain.
BETA: Myself, lexa4227
Rating: NC-17
Pairing - M/M, Angelus/Spike, Angel/Spike
Timeline - ATS Season 3/BTVS Season 6-AU
Summary - While Angel is dealing with Wolfram & Hart constantly attacking members of his team, Spike, still hasn't completely forgiven Angel for the events in Book 2 and is feeling bitter that Angel abandoned him. Meanwhile, Buffy is back from the dead and depressed after being torn from heaven by her friends. Together they start a relationship of sorts. None of them could have anticipated the widespread consequences of this destructive affair.
Feedback - It would be appreciated. My plot bunny has been lagging lately.
Author's Note - This story came to me after watching how Buffy treated Spike in SMASHED - AS YOU WERE (BTVS, Season 6). I wondered how Angel would truly feel, if he really knew how Buffy mistreated Spike. Yes, Spike is the Big Bad, and he and Angel normally don't see eye-to-eye, but they are family nonetheless
Word Count: 9,478 overall
How to Treat Your Lover Soundtrack (Feel free to suggest a song/scene)
( Book 1 )
( Book 2 )
( Previous Chapters for Book 3 )
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Chapter 43: Step 3 - Estrangement (Part 10)
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel
“I gave you a new entertainment center for your birthday. Why did I have to come with you?” Spike whined as Cordelia pulled into her usual parking space outside the hotel.
“Don’t you mean that you gave yourself the new entertainment center in the guise of my birthday present?” Cordelia corrected him.
“It’s not like I can take it with me. Besides your TV was dated and that was on sale,” Spike said flippantly.
“Oh, so now you’re a cheapskate and I’m not worth the money at full price?” Cordelia raised an eyebrow.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it was the bloody thought that counts? It has a DVD/VCR combo and the best picture on the market today. The guy at the store said so!” Spike said defensively as he got out of the car.
“Was that sales pitch based on how well the football game looked on the screen?” Cordelia shot back as she got out and locked the car.
“No,” Spike pouted and mumbled, “Ice hockey.”
Cordelia gave him a look out of the corner of her eye as they walk into the hotel. When they got in, it was to find Fred and Gunn wearing a face mask and Gunn wearing a hairnet. They were both scrubbing the floor and the lobby smelled strongly of bleach and ammonia.
“What’s going on here?” Cordelia asked.
Gunn looked up and removed the face mask. “Angel said he wanted the floor clean of blood from the run-in with Wolfram & Hart and Holtz.”
“That sounds like the ponce. Ordering people around and then he disappears,” Spike scoffed.
“Get down here and help,” Gunn ordered.
**************************
Two hours later, Spike was helping Gunn clean one side of the lobby floor, his precious duster hanging up on the wall peg. Cordelia and Fred were on the other side of the room.
Looking bedraggled and shaken, Cordelia was reciting a speech, “I’d . . . just like to say thank you.” She drew in a deep unsteady breath. “You believed in me when no one else would. Even in my darkest hours you were there for me.” Tears started to well up in her eyes. “And that means more to me than you’ll ever know. She sniffed back the tears. “I guess what I’m really trying to say is - I love you. To all my fans,” She held up a scrub brush in a plastic-gloved hand. “This is for you.”
Fred applauded wildly. “Wow! That was just - wow! ’Cause . . . oh, and with the tears! I got chill bumps all up my arms.”
“Yup. That was the famous speech. Not that I’ll ever use it of course . . . unless they start handing out awards for Best Slime and Grime. Oh, I swear. The next time Angel decides to blow something up he’s cleaning his own scorch marks,” Cordelia complained.
Gunn, carrying a spray bottle and still wearing a face mask, and Spike walked over to them.
“Been practicing your Academy Award speech again, princess?” Spike teased. She gave him a smirk.
“Ladies, less yammering, more scrub,” Gunn said.
“My, Gunn, don’t you look sterile,” Cordelia grimaced at the sight of the vampire hunter.
Gunn removed the face mask. “Couple more hours of sniffing that industrial cleanser, I think I might be.”
“One of the many perks of being a vampire. I don’t breathe,” Spike commented.
“Hey, I don’t suppose you ladies wanna trade jobs?” Gunn asked hopefully.
Cordelia appeared to seriously think about it, “Ah, hmm. Scrape up Wolfram & Hart’s entrails off floor. Hmm, Fred?”
Fred nodded agreeably and gave Gunn a sympathetic smile. “You’re screwed.”
Cordelia chuckled and went back to scrubbing the floor. Gunn leaned closer to Fred and asked, “Wes back yet?”
“No,” Cordelia answered before Fred could. “He’s still at the store picking up some more extra-strength ‘ick’ remover.”
Gunn saluted Fred with his spray bottle and returned to the other side of the room. Spike stayed rooted to the spot when he felt a familiar tingle down his spine. He looked up at the staircase to see Angel coming down slowly, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
“Well, well, guess who decided to join the living,” Spike sneered.
Angel looked up at the mocking tone and was met with Spike’s eyes glaring daggers at him. Last week they couldn’t keep their hands off each other . . . spell or not. Now Spike couldn’t stand to be in the same room. Angel didn’t need the link to know that. He could feel the animosity come off his mate in waves.
“Spike,” Angel acknowledged. “What are you doing here?”
“Cordy’s birthday, pouf,” Spike scoffed. “I told you I’d stay until it was over.”
“Yeah, but I just thought you meant in town. I wasn’t expecting you to come back after the holiday disaster.”
“I don’t know,” Spike shrugged. “I thought it was going fine until some Neanderthal decided to turn into a caveman and use me for sex.”
“Use you?” Angel’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Use you?! You practically jumped me.”
“I--” Spike looked thoroughly disgusted. “I never jumped you! You nearly leapt over the dinner table to get to me! You’re the one that’s using me because you can’t have that Slayer bitch.”
“If I wanted Buffy then I wouldn’t be mated to you now would I?” Angel shot back.
“The only reason you are mated to me is because you were too insistent on that damn Sire claim to control me that you instigated it. Now I’m stuck with your poncy souled ass on my tether for eternity,” Spike argued.
“Fuck you Spike,” Angel growled.
“No thanks. You’ve already done that in more ways than one.” Spike glanced at the other members still on their knees cleaning Angel’s mess up off the floor. Gesturing to them, he added, “And you gone from ordering me about to making them clean up after you.”
“Don’t you dare bring them into what’s going on between us,” Angel glared at the younger vampire.
“What exactly is going on between us, Angel? You know, besides your soddin’ ego. Because if you don’t know, I can tell you,” Spike raised a brow.
Angel stood on the entrance landing and crossed his arms over his chest as he scowled at Spike. “What’s between us then?”
Spike used his hand to indicate a height short than himself. “A couple of little, deadly, blonde things that you put ahead of me and dropped in my lap to baby-sit so that your bloody conscience can be at ease; had me bouncing around between cities like a boomerang at your beck at call. Don’t give a soddin’ hell about me. You even ran to the Slayer’s side the second she got back from the dead and then left her with me. God, I hate you!”
Cordelia pulled her rubber gloves off and picked herself up off the floor. “All this arguing is giving me a headache. I’ll be right back, going to go find some aspirin.”
When she was out of sight, Angel’s stoic face changed and he whispered to Fred, “Does she know?”
Just then Wesley burst through the door behind Angel carrying two bags. “Where is she?”
“She just went to the bathroom. Here, let me get that,” Spike said, all anger from a moment ago was now gone. He grabbed the bag Wesley carried sideways on his arm and set it down on the reception desk. Removing the bag and plastic lid, he used his Zippo to light the candles as Fred took the other bag and added it to the presents hidden behind the desk.
Cordelia came out of the bathroom to find Gunn and Wesley holding a cake with six lit candles and a picture of a female superhero imposed on the icing. All five of them broke into a pathetic version of ‘Happy Birthday’.
“Oh you guys!” Cordelia exclaimed with a grin. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“Don’t just stand there,” Gunn said anxiously. “Blow out the candles girl.”
Cordelia took a deep breath and blew the candles out to everyone cheering.
“Did you make a wish?” Fred asked as Wesley and Gunn put the cake back on the desk.
“I sure did.” Cordelia looked around as if expecting someone to appear. “Ah, Jude Law was a little busy, huh?”
“Oh, how disappointing for you,” Wesley said in mock sympathy. “Well, I guess you won’t be wanting the presents we . . .”
“Oh, wanting!” Cordelia cut in, “Wanting presents.” When the three of them disappeared, she turned accusing eyes to the two vampires who stood shoulder to shoulder, Spike with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “YOU! You two started that fight as a ploy didn’t you? You knew about this all along! Does this mean you guys are really made up?”
“Not exactly,” Angel replied.
“We called a truce until this is over. But that doesn’t mean we’re always congenial,” Spike added with a glare at Angel.
Angel shifted awkwardly on his feet then pulled a small box out of his pocket. “Um, ah, I-I got you a-a little something.”
When Spike scoffed at the small velvet box, Cordelia smacked his arm and took the box. “Oh, Angel . . . you didn’t have to do that.”
“Well, I’m a champion,” Angel replied with a nervous chuckle. “We do important stuff. Hey, and who’s more important than . . .”
Just then, Wesley, Gunn and Fred ran back with their presents. “You have to forgive the wrapping. Some of us seem to have fostered a strange addiction to Scotch tape,” Wesley said. They were each carrying a big, wrapped box with large bows on top.
Spike leaned closer to Angel and whispered, “Laying that champion thing on pretty thick aren’t you? What did you buy her anyway?”
“Earrings,” Angel mumbled.
“And you mocked my gift of a necklace for Dru for Valentine’s Day,” Spike teased which earned him an elbow to the ribs.
“Oh, what a cruel dilemma,” Cordelia’s voice faltered as a vision hit her. At first it was a jolt and then another flash hit her like a punch to the gut. She stumbled backwards, dropping the velvet box.
“Cordy?” Fred asked.
“There’s a teenager, a girl, she . . . she . . .” Cordelia was suddenly thrown backwards into the glass doors of the weapons cabinet and collapsed amid the shards.
Angel and Spike ran to her side as she lay motionless on the floor. Wesley, Gunn and Fred clustered around her.
“Is she alright?” Fred asked anxiously.
Cordelia opened her eyes and sat up. “I’m fine - you guys. I’ll be okay. I’m just . . .”
She turned to see all of the guys gathered around her body . . . lying a few feet away. Cordelia stared at herself in shocked confusion. “Dead?”
“Oh no,” Fred exclaimed, a hand over her mouth.
Angel lightly slapped Cordelia’s face. “Come on, Cordy, wake up. It’s all over. Come back to us.”
“I haven’t gone anywhere,” Cordelia said. “Angel . . .”
“Come on, princess. Wake up,” Spike urged.
“Angel, is she . . .?” Wesley started to ask.
“No!” Angel and phantom!Cordelia yelled.
“I’m not?” Cordelia asked in surprise.
While Spike tried to revive her, Angel felt for a pulse. “She’s still breathing. Her heart’s still beating.”
“Yes! But . . . if I’m not dead then . . .” Cordelia was puzzled by her own predicament. If she wasn’t dead then what was she?
“She’s just in some sort of trance or coma,” Angel unknowingly answered her question.
“Coma?” Spike echoed.
“Like hell I am!” Cordelia yelled indignantly.
“Let’s get her over to the couch,” Angel said.
Spike stood up as Angel picked Cordelia up in his arms and put her on the couch.
“Okay, I get it. This is some kind of bizarre birthday present you guys cooked up,” Cordelia commented but no one answered her.
Fred saw the bottle of prescription meds on the floor where Cordelia had collapsed and she picked it up.
“All right. The joke’s on me. Now put me back in my body!” Cordelia yelled.
Glancing at Cordelia, he turned to face the others. Spike stood nearby. “It was a vision wasn’t it? I mean, she just started saying something about a girl . . .”
Cordelia got excited at that. “That’s right! She’s in a house on Oak Street.” No one heard or saw her. “In the middle of Reseda. It feels like we have some time here, but --” She finally realized no one acknowledged her. “You can’t hear me can you?”
“What’s all the hubbub?” Lorne asked as he came down the stairs.
“Lorne! Thank God! You can hear me, right? ’Cause if there’s some weird, other-worldly thing going on you’d still be able to . . .” Her voice trailed off as Lorne walked right through her, never noticing her. “Oh. That’s not good.” Just then a black shadow passed overhead. “Did anyone else just see that?”
“Jumping Judas on a unicycle,” Lorne exclaimed. “What happened?”
“All we know is that she had a vision,” Angel replied.
“Or she’s stepped up her acting skills and doing a great impression of miming the dead,” Spike added.
“There is a lot we don’t know,” Fred said and held out the bottle of pills to Angel. “I think she dropped this.”
“No Fred!” Cordelia yelled. “Put that away. That’s not important.”
“Seltrex,” Fred commented.
“Oh God,” Wesley said to himself.
Angel read the label, but didn’t understand it any better than before. “What’s Seltrex?”
“Nothing!” Cordelia said. “It’s just . . .”
“Seltrex is a highly powerful migraine medication,” Wesley explained.
“Maybe we should get her to a hospital,” Gunn suggested.
“So they can do what?” Angel asked. His voice only hinted at the anxiety he felt. “Do what they did last time: strap her to a bed and tell us there’s no hope?”
“Angel is right,” Wesley said. “Seltrex is potent but it doesn’t cause catatonia.”
Angel looked around the room seemingly lost. Cordelia had a vision but they didn’t know exactly what it was. Somehow the vision sent her into a coma? How could they have missed this? How did they let it get this bad without noticing? Where the hell were his vampire senses when she was taking strong migraine meds for the visions? Where was . . .? Just then, he looked at Spike and his expression became dark and foreboding.
“You!” Angel growled.
Spike looked over at him from talking to Gunn about Cordelia. “Wot?”
“You’re the one that was living with her. How come you didn’t see this coming? Why didn’t you warn us that this was going on?” Angel asked in a menacing voice as he stalked towards his mate.
“I was sleeping on her couch. I wasn’t reading her diary or with her every second of the day!” Spike said defensively.
“A leopard can’t change his spots, Spike! You have a gift for getting into things where no one wants you to be. You couldn’t have gone through her drawers or medicine cabinet?” Angel challenged.
“There are three of us living in that apartment,” Spike snapped, starting to get angry at being accused of something he had no clue about. “You think I would find anything if he didn’t want it to be seen?”
“Denis is a ghost, work around him!” Angel yelled, and then gestured towards a comatose Cordelia. “Who knows what she saw? It could be something dangerous and we have no clue what it is or where to fight it! She’s in a coma . . . all because you developed a sense of respect. You, who never respected anything in your life!”
Spike’s face took on an indignant expression. “I respected Angelus! Though, now that I think about it, ‘respect’ may be too strong of a word. Tolerated sounds more like it.”
“That’s beside the point!”
“Then get to it already and stop giving me a lecture because you fucked up in raising me.”
“You could have rifled through her things and found out what was going on before it came to this. Why did you have to go and develop a sense of decorum?”
“First, you hogtie me with a Sire-Claim so that I don’t misbehave and now you’re upset that I like her enough not to pry into her private life?”
“Guys, I’m picking up some hardcore woo-woo vibes in the room. This ain’t medical, kids. It’s mystical,” Lorne spoke up, breaking into the heated argument.
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Fred said exasperated. “There is so much we don’t know. If Cordelia is taking a drug this powerful in secret, then the visions are probably doing a lot more damage than she’s been letting on.”
“This last one must have overloaded her,” Gunn commented.
“Don’t say last!” Angel and Spike yelled in unison. They looked at each other surprised that the other one cared just as much as the other did about her. “She’ll come out of this. She has to.”
“She will!” Cordelia stressed even though no one could see or hear her.
Angel glanced at Spike’s stony expression. He had hurt his boy again with words he couldn’t take back. They couldn’t talk this out. Not right now anyway, when one of their friends was in danger. Internally, he shelved his relationship with Spike until later to deal with the task at hand. “Okay. Look, if this is a mystical problem there has to be some kind of mystical solution.”
“There you go. Great idea,” Cordelia agreed.
“Gunn, you and Fred go to Cordy’s place,” Angel said.
“No! Bad idea!” Cordelia contradicted herself.
“Why not me?” Spike asked.
Angel glared at him as if to say: ‘You weren’t any help before, how can you be now?’ Picking up Cordelia’s body, he added, “See if she’s been hiding anything that could tell us what’s wrong with her. Wes?”
“I’ll hit the books,” the former Watcher answered before he could ask.
“Come on, Spike. You and I are going to have a chat,” Angel said gruffly as he carried his seer up the stairs.
“I thought that’s what we were doing, ponce,” Spike said as he followed Angel, leaving ghost!Cordelia behind in the lobby.
“Does nobody care that there is a girl in Reseda that is about to be fed to a no-eyed, three-mouthed monster?” Cordelia called out. A second later she heard whispering but couldn’t make out the words. “Message, I’ll leave a message.” She walked over to the reception desk and reached for a pen, but her hand went right through it. She tried again with the same results.
**************************
Angel and Spike took Cordelia to a spare room two doors down from Angel’s room and placed her on the bed. Once Angel had her settled, he rounded on Spike.
“What is going on with you?” Angel growled.
“Me? I’d say you were the one being all melodramatic over this,” Spike replied.
“Cordelia is in a coma!” Angel ground out.
“I can see that pillock!” Spike shot back. “Not much I can do about it. We’ll have to wait until Fred and Gunn come back with anything.”
**************************
Los Angeles, Cordelia’s Apartment
Gunn and Fred stood inside the door of Cordelia’s apartment facing a floating party hat and noisemaker, confetti floating down from the ceiling and a ‘Happy Birthday’ sign.
“I think phantom Denis was expecting the birthday girl,” Gunn whispered to Fred.
Fred gave a big smile and stepped forward. “Oh. Hi there. I-I know we haven’t been formally introduced . . . Actually, I’m not sure how to introduce myself to someone who is, you know . . . former. But, I’m Fred!” She reached out and shook the top of the party hat. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Fred, you are,” Gunn smiled and chuckled at her actions. “You are so cool.”
She stepped closer to him and whispered, “I think we should tell him.”
Gunn took a deep breath and moved forward. “Okay. Uh, you might want to . . .” He looked perplexed at Fred. “Do ghosts sit down? Okay, look. Cordelia had a vision. It’s bad. She’s in a coma and we need to search the house for anything that may have harmed her.”
When nothing happened, he and Fred took it as a sign to go ahead and search the apartment.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Fred said from the bathroom.
“What doesn’t?” Gunn called out from the bedroom.
“It’s all,” Fred looked through the medicine cabinet, “Normal. She shut the cabinet door.
“And that’s wrong?” Gunn asked from the doorway.
“No,” Fred replied and turned around to see Gunn standing there with one of Cordy’s bras in his hands. “What’s wrong is you picking through Cordy’s,” She flailed around gesturing at her chest. Gunn raised a brow at her. “Support . . . things.”
“What . . . this?” Gunn raised the bra. “Come on, you’re telling me that you never hid anything in your underwear drawer.
Fred gave him an indignant look. “I don’t know. I mean, for five years I didn’t even have . . .” she sighed in exasperation. “Can we not talk about my underwear, please? And put that down.” Gunn dropped the bra on a table. “I just figured that if Cordy was taking something serious like Seltrex, she’d have tried other stuff first. But there’s not even any aspirin in here.” She leaned closer to Gunn and whispered, “I think he’s protecting her.”
Gunn looked around the room and slowly moved back to Cordelia’s bedroom. “Phantom Denis? Listen, we would never ask you to betray Cordelia, but we need to see whatever it is she’s been hiding from us. I mean, unless you’re so hyped on the ghosting life that you want her to join you?”
After a moment nothing happened. Gunn heaved a sigh and dropped down on the end of Cordelia’s bed. It seemed as if that had pressed an eject button as a storage container slid out from under the bed. Fred and Gunn opened it to find it full of pill bottles.
“Hmm-mm,” Fred said. “You looked through the underwear drawer first, didn’t you?” They pick through the bottles and she read a few labels. “The date on this prescription is from a year ago.”
**************************
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel, Cordelia’s Room
Cordelia’s body lay on the bed. Angel sat in a chair, a hard look in his eyes as he held her hand. Spike had gone to get him a glass of blood while he watched over her. The more he thought about the situation, the angrier he became. How could she be this bad off and not tell anyone? How could she hide it from him or Spike? His boy was the most observant person he knew, how come he didn’t see what was going on?
“Look, I know you can’t hear me,” Angel said aloud. “But, there’s something I have to say.” He carefully laid her hand on the bed, afraid of harming her in his irritation. “You really piss me off, you know that? I thought we trusted each other. But you’ve been lying to us. M.R.I.’s and C.A.T. scans and it’s been going on for a year? Why couldn’t you let us in? Spike could have helped you. I could have helped you. I’m so furious with you right now.”
“You’re furious? I get body-jacked on my birthday and you’re the one that’s furious?” Cordelia asked in disbelief.
“Never thought of arguing with a coma patient as an effective way to bring them around,” Spike said as he walked in the door with two mugs of blood.
Angel glanced up in surprise as if he didn’t recall Spike being in the hotel. The look was there one second and gone the next. “Where’s Lorne?”
“He’s coming. He had to get a few things to prepare for it,” Spike replied, handing Angel a mug.
“Hope this works. Maybe it’s just a passing phase and she’ll snap out of it,” Angel said.
Lorne walked in with a rap of knuckles on the open door. “Knock, knock. How is she?”
“The same,” Angel replied. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Lorne said.
“For what? What’s he going to do?” Cordelia asked.
Lorne walked past her and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Although I’m sort of wishing I brought my helmet. Last time I tried this I got blown across the room.”
“I thought that’s what you were getting, mate,” Spike said.
“No I was getting myself a Sea Breeze to prepare myself for the possibility of being thrown,” Lorne said glibly.
Realizing what the empath demon was up to, Cordelia crossed her fingers. “Oh, God, please let this work.”
Lorne placed his fingertips on comatose!Cordelia’s temples and closed his eyes. “Cordelia? Are you there?” he asked.
“It’s me. Lorne, I’m here,” Cordelia replied.
“Cordelia?” Lorne asked again.
Cordelia’s eyes popped open. “Yes! One-seven-one Oak Street. Can you hear me? Lorne?”
Lorne dropped his hands and frowned at the two vampires who watched and waited with baited breath to see what would happen.
Looking between the Pylean demon and his seer’s body, Angel inquired anxiously, “What?”
“Cordelia’s not in there,” Lorne said sadly. “She’s just gone.”
“I’m standing right in front of you!” Cordelia yelled as she waved her hands in front of Angel’s face.
Angel sighed and rested his head in his hands. Spike squeezed his shoulder in sympathy. It was an uncharacteristic move given their current feud with each other. Angel raised his head. “No. This isn’t going to happen.” He shrugged Spike’s hand off and stood up. Advancing on Lorne he said threateningly, “I don’t care how many favors you have to call in. I don’t care how many gods you have to cross. You have a connection to the Powers That Be and you’re going to find me a way to talk to them. Understand?”
Lorne took a step back at the animosity in Angel’s voice. “A-angel honey, it-it’s not that easy. I mean, contacting the Powers is a muddy, not to mention dangerous, area. But this is a - this is a bit much to ask.”
“I’m. Not. Asking,” Angel growled. Lorne sighed and walked out of the room. Angel turned his glare on Spike daring him to say something.
“A little harsh on him, don’t you think?” Spike asked.
“What else did you want me to do, Spike? Cordelia’s body is lying in a coma. He just said her spirit was gone. It’s just a shell. Who knows where she is or what she’s going through?”
“I’m not arguing that, Angel. I want her back as much as you do. You’re not the only one that cares about the people in this team. Stop acting like you’re the only one that lost her.” Spike turned on his heel and walked out of the room leaving Angel to scowl at his retreating back.
When Angel fell asleep while watching over Cordy, Ghost!Cordelia went over and sat down on the chair melting into Angel’s body as she positions herself in synch with him. Suddenly, Angel's head came up and he exhaled slowly as he stood up. When he picked up a permanent marker from the nightstand, he knocked over a glass sitting beside it. Moving slowly, he started to write: 171 OAK on the wall above the bed. As soon as she was in Angel’s body, something yanked her right back out. Angel collapsed on the floor.
Wesley walked in just as Angel picked himself up off the floor. “Angel, what are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” Angel replied as he looked around for the cause to explain the situation. “I had this dream that, uh . . . Cordy was here. She was trying to tell me something. It may have been important, not sure now. It’s weird.”
“Yes, well, Fred studied Cordy’s latest CAT scans,” Wesley frowned at him. “The news isn’t good. The tests show widespread neuro-electrical deterioration.”
“She’s dying?” Angel surmised.
Wesley nodded. “I’m still working on the mystical aspect: trance states, astral projection . . . spiritual possession. But so far I haven’t been able to . . . Why don’t you take a break? I can watch over her.”
Angel left the room and went downstairs to see Gunn, Fred and Spike huddled around Wesley’s desk. Going into the office, he leaned over the desk and asked, “So what did you find out?”
Fred laid a page down with a picture of a brain scan. “That was from eight months ago. The red spots are what they call hot areas or what you’d expect from a healthy, functioning brain. This one,” she laid another down over the first one, “Is dated one month ago.”
“Cordy’s doctors couldn’t explain it,” Gunn added.
Fred moved the print, revealing one that was mostly green and yellow. “See, green is a cold color, usually signifying dead areas of the cerebrum. Normally you wouldn’t see a scan like that . . .”
“Unless the person was a cucumber,” Spike added.
“How could we not know?” Angel said as he looked between the two prints.
Just then, Lorne stumbled into the room, moaning and holding his head. His clothes were torn and his left horn is dangling by a thread. “Oh, for the love of God, somebody get me a Sea-Breeze.”
Fred dropped the scans on the desk at the sight of the empath demon. “Lorne! What happened?”
“I can’t really talk about it,” Lorne groaned.
“Then how the hell are we supposed to find them so we can kick their asses?” Gunn asked.
“No, I mean I can’t talk about it,” Lorne clarified. “They cast a spell. I went down to the lo . . .” He tried to describe it, but his speech became garbled. “See?”
“Did you get the information?” Angel asked anxiously.
“Oh, why yes, Angel. My horns should grow back in a couple of days,” Lorne said sarcastically, “So kind of you to be concerned.” Angel and Spike stared at him expectantly. “Well, they didn’t say I couldn’t write it.”
Lorne held out a piece of paper and Spike snatched it. He was about to read it when Angel seized it and headed for the door, ignoring the indignant sound that came from Spike. The blonde vampire was about to follow him with the intention of stealing the job away from his Sire when Lorne’s words stopped him.
“Angel, all kidding aside, this isn’t something to be taken lightly. Only a champion can deal with the conduit. And even then you have to la-argh arr . . .”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Angel said as he walked out the door.
“How come there are no jobs for us little people? Why the bloody hell am I even here?” Spike sighed as he threw up his hands and went back to examining the scans of Cordelia’s brain.
**************************
Sunnydale, the Summers’ Residence
Dawn was asleep in bed with a teddy bear beside her when Buffy walked in fully clothed in a turtleneck, jeans and leather jacket. She watched Dawn from the doorway for a moment before sitting on the bed and gently waking her up.
“Hey,” Buffy said softly.
“What time is it?” Dawn asked sleepily.
“It’s late. I wanted . . .” Buffy stopped for a moment and Dawn frowned. “I love you. You know that, right?”
Dawn sat up, alarmed at the strange faraway tone in her sister’s voice. “What’s wrong?”
“I know I haven’t been everything I should be . . . everything Mom was . . .” Dawn looked stricken at Buffy’s tearful words. “. . . But I love you. I always will.”
“Why are you talking like this? Buffy?” Dawn asked anxiously.
“There was an accident, in the woods,” Buffy said shakily. “A girl . . . she was hurt. I hurt someone.”
“Oh my God,” Dawn said shocked. “Is she all right?”
“No,” Buffy sniffed, trying to hold back the tears. “I’m sorry.” Dawn hugged her. “There’s something I have to do. I have to tell what I did. I have to go to the police.”
Dawn pulled away from her as if she were burned, “The police?”
“Dawnie, I have to,” Buffy pleaded.
“But . . . what’s going to happen?” Dawn asked.
“I don’t know,” Buffy shook her head.
“They’ll take you away, won’t they?” Dawn asked, near tears herself.
“I don’t know,” Buffy repeated.
“No, you not,” Dawn sneered. Buffy looked surprise at the accusing tone, “You’re never here. You can’t even stand to be around me.”
“That’s not true,” Buffy said in disbelief.
“You don’t want to be here with me. You didn’t want to come back. I know that. You were happier where you were,” Dawn cried. “You want to go away again.”
“Dawn . . .” Buffy said helplessly.
“Then go! You’re not really here anyway,” Dawn said accusingly before she jumped out of bed and ran out of the room.
**************************
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel, Cordelia’s Room
Spike was sitting at her bedside watching over her. He was still angry at Angel’s blasé attitude over him being there. His Sire had become ambivalent about him ever since that mistletoe spell ended at New Year’s. Maybe he should just go back to Sunnydale. It’s not like Angel would miss him. He couldn’t stay at Cordy’s apartment forever. A girl had to have her own space. He remembered that much from his relationship with Drusilla. Whenever she felt hemmed in, she’d take off to fuck knew where and when she got lonely, she came back. Besides, he had furnished the Crawford Street Mansion with all his creature comforts. After Cordelia came back from wherever she was, he’d leave.
Spike was shaken from his thoughts with a soft rap of knuckles on the door. He looked up to see Fred standing there.
“Is Angel back?”
“No.”
“Damn it,” Spike cursed.
“There’s a phone call for you downstairs,” Fred said.
“A phone call? Angel called the hotel? Why didn’t he just call my cell?”
“It’s not Angel. It’s a girl, sounded kind of young. She seemed anxious to get a hold of you.”
“The only women I know that want me that badly are here in this room,” Spike replied.
Fred gave a small smile at the compliment. Spike stood up and walked past her on the way out. He stopped long enough to say, “Watch her?”
Fred nodded and Spike left the room to go down and answer the phone. When he got to Wesley’s office, Gunn was sitting at the desk going through everything they had on Cordelia’s mystical coma. A corded phone receiver was sitting on the desk.
Spike picked it up, “This better be bloody important.”
“Spike?” a small fearful voice said.
“Dawn? What’s going on?”
“It’s Buffy. I think she’s . . . something happened. She’s gone to turn herself in.”
“What? What happened?”
“She said that she killed a girl on patrol. She went to turn herself in to the police.”
“Balls!” She would be just that stupid.
“Spike? Are you going to stop her? I can’t, she won’t listen to me,” Dawn said.
“How do you know she didn’t do it?”
“I know her, Spike. She’s a slayer, but she’s not a murderer. She’s not Faith. She wouldn’t kill a human,” Dawn said matter-of-factly.
“I have important things to do here. Cordy’s --” Spike started to say.
“Spike, please. I heard that Angel told you to protect her. Well, she’s about to turn herself in for something she didn’t do.”
“You don’t know that for sure. Maybe she went off her bloody rocker finally and tried to be the Big Bad,” Spike countered.
“Spike! You aren’t listening! She didn’t do this!” Dawn said adamantly.
“Dawn, I have a more pressing issue at the moment. Cordy’s in a--”
“She’s the Slayer, Spike. You can’t have two slayers in prison and let the Hellmouth go unprotected,” Dawn stressed.
“Fine! I’ll come up and look into it. But if this is a bloody prank ’cause the Slayer’s on a PMS binge or some other bollocks, then I’ll --”
“Thanks Spike,” Dawn sounded relieved before she hung up.
Spike hung up and cursed a blue streak.
“I take it that it was nothing good?” Gunn surmised.
“The bloody Slayer’s gotten herself in trouble. The bint must be a walking sign asking for it. Her sister wants me to go up and see what I can do to help her,” Spike explained as he unconsciously pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.
“Do you need a ride back up there?” Gunn offered.
“Gotta pick up my stuff at Cordy’s before I go,” Spike said. “You sure Fred’s going to be all right alone?”
“Lorne’s here. He can stay with them until I get back,” Gunn said as he jumped up to get his coat and keys.
**************************
Mystical Chamber of the Powers That Be
“Its pleas are pointless. Her path is chosen. We will not interfere,” the Voices whispered.
“The visions are too much,” Angel stressed. “She’s not strong enough to handle them.”
“Obstinate. It speaks and does not listen,” the Voices whispered.
Angel spun around, yelling, “No, you’re not listening! Cordelia is not a champion. She’s a rich girl from Sunnydale who likes to play superhero. She doesn’t have what it takes to do this! Don’t the Powers get that? Stop whispering and listen to me, damn it! She’s weak. You’re killing her! She’s unconscious, and she’s alone. Who knows if she’s in pain?”
“It is angry. It is afraid,” the Voices whispered.
Angel sighed. “I’m more afraid of her dying than she is. What is that?”
**************************
Sunnydale, Crawford Street Mansion
Spike and Gunn burst through the door of the mansion carrying Spike’s hunting gear and duffel bag of clothes. The hunting gear was deposited in the hall and the clothes were tossed in the laundry. Spike stopped in the kitchen to fix a glass of blood.
“Do you want anything to drink, Charlie-boy?” Spike asked as he punched in the time on the microwave.
“Nah, could use the bathroom though,” Gunn replied.
“Down the hall there,” Spike gestured in that direction and called out, “I did offer to drive back.”
“No thanks. I’d like my baby to be in one piece,” Gunn yelled back before shutting the bathroom door. Spike waited with a smirk on his face until he heard Gunn yell out, “Hot damn! This bathroom is fit for a king! It’s bigger than my whole apartment!”
Spike chuckled as he took the glass of blood out of the microwave and drank it.
“So, you off to save that girl from whatever it is she’s gotten herself into?” Gunn asked when he came back to the kitchen.
“Have to. ’S part of the deal. I play nice and keep the slayer alive and my grand old Sire doesn’t send me to a dusty ending,” Spike explained.
“I think Angel’s past caring about that. I don’t think he’s going to dust you over Buffy’s issues anymore,” Gunn said.
“Oh-ho! You don’t know Angel as well as you think you do. He and the Slayer had the most forbidden love of all loves. Makes Romeo and Juliet look like a Sesame Street production.”
“Yeah, well . . . good luck with that,” Gunn smirked. “I got to get back to the Hyperion before Angel gets back and wonders why no one’s manning the phones. Or something, can’t really tell with him these days what he’ll be pissed about.”
“I’m mated to the son of a bitch and I still have no clue. Word of warning though, mate: if you feel like you’re walking on egg shells around his moods, knock him one. ’S what I do.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Later,” Gunn waved and walked out the door. A few minutes later Spike heard the truck sputter to start and Gunn drive off. He sighed as he collected a few stakes and a new pack of cigarettes before heading out the door himself.
**************************
Sunnydale, Alley behind the Police Station
The police station was busy with the shift change as the day shift left and the night shift entered the building. Across from the building was an alley in which Buffy appeared at the mouth, walking slowly.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a thick British accented voice said behind her.
“The right thing,” Buffy said as she kept walking.
Spike’s steps sped up behind her before he suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back into the alley. He spun her around and tossed her to the ground.
“Sorry, luv, can’t let you do that,” he said as she got to her feet.
“I have to tell them what happened,” Buffy insisted.
“Nothing happened,” Spike stated flatly.
“I killed that girl!” Buffy said.
“There is no girl,” Spike said.
“Yes, there is! I’ll show them,” she said.
“Show them what? There’s no body. Dawn told me what you said. I followed your normal patrol route and there is no body. What are you going to show them?” Spike asked.
Buffy’s expression turned to anger when she realized what he was saying. “What did you do?”
“Just what I said,” Spike growled. “I checked your route but there is no body there. Maybe you were hallucinating?”
“I was not hallucinating! I saw her. She was dead and I killed her!” Buffy yelled at him. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Saving you from making the biggest mistake of your life apparently,” Spike grumbled. “I didn’t want to come, but Dawn called me and told me what fool thing you were up to.”
“Well, she shouldn’t have. It’s none of your business. Now get out of my way,” Buffy said as tried to move around him.
Spike shoved her back. “It’s not your call. You aren’t going anywhere. You’re going to go home, climb into that fluffy bed of yours and forget whatever you thought you saw,” Spike instructed.
Across the street, Spike heard a cop outside say, “Where’d they find her?”
“The river. She washed up half a mile from the cemetery,” a second cop replied as two more uniformed officers rushed out towards a cruiser. Another police car zoomed past the alley with its lights flashing and sirens blaring.
Spike and Buffy glared accusingly at each other.
“Unless you did something like touch her, there isn’t anything to connect her to you,” Spike said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“It wasn’t your fault!” Spike yelled.
“I killed her!” Buffy insisted.
“Even if you did, it was an accident. It just happened,” Spike growled.
“Nothing just happens,” Buffy spat and started walking towards the police station when Spike grabbed her arm.
“You’re not going in there,” he said.
“I have to do this. Just let me go.”
“I can’t. Angel told me to watch out for you and I’m doing that. If you go in there now, I can’t protect you from anyone . . . including yourself.”
“Screw Angel,” Buffy sneered. “He’s not here. He hasn’t cared for a while. He has no say in what I do with my life!”
“He does care! Why the hell would he send me back after he destroyed the Gem of Amarra? Or when you came back from the dead? Have you ever asked yourself why he would tether me and send me back to look after my enemy?”
“He’s a vampire. He probably gets some perverse kick out of it. Now, let me go!” Buffy tried to shrug him off. When he wouldn’t release her, she hauled off and punched him in the face. The power behind it threw him back into a couple of garbage cans, against the wall of the next building.
“Screw you and Angel. Just go back to L.A. and leave me alone,” Buffy said and started to leave again but a game-faced Spike suddenly grabbed her from behind and threw her several feet back, down the alley.
“You are not throwing your life away over this,” Spike growled through a mouthful of fangs.
“It’s not your choice!”
“Why are you doing this to yourself?” Spike asked. Why did she and Angel both have to play the martyr? Why did everything have to be a sacrifice? Why did he even care whether she turned herself in? He should be in L.A. with Cordelia and Fred and Gunn waiting for Angel’s return with any news from the Powers on her condition. He shouldn’t be here doing this.
“A girl is dead because of me,” Buffy said tearfully.
“And how many people are alive because of you? How many have you saved? One dead girl doesn’t tip the scale. If, in fact, she was even dead to begin with,” Spike countered.
“How can you . . .? There isn’t a karmic chart! She may be just another body to you or Angel and that band of lunatics he works with down there. But up here on the Hellmouth death is real and it has nothing to do with redemption. Now, get out of my way!”
“They aren’t lunatics! Gunn’s a vampire hunter, Fred’s a beautiful physics major, and Cordy’s in a --”
She didn’t give him time to finish before she threw a punch at him which he blocked at the last minute only to be hit with a right hook in the jaw and another punch to the stomach.
“You can’t understand why this is killing me, can you?” Buffy cried.
“Why don’t you explain it?” Spike asked as he delivered his own punch to her face as payback for her attack.
She hit him a few more times for good measure. He allowed it for a while until she hit the tender spots one too many times and shoved her back, causing her to stumble but still keep her footing. That was when she kicked him in the shins.
“That all you got, Slayer?” Spike taunted. It seemed the best thing to do. She’d fight him, get all her angst out, maybe tire herself out and then he could probably talk some sense into her.
She hit him hard, throwing him back on his ass. She sat on top of him and starting laying punches over and over. “You don’t have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You’re dead inside! You can’t feel anything real!”
“Yet Angel has a soul and acts like a bastard. You think he felt anything? You think he’s so fucking pure? He’s not! He may have a soul, but he’s still a vampire, pet. The soul only gives him a way to care about what he’s doing. It doesn’t stop him from doing it. He didn’t give up being a vampire for you. So, get him off that pedestal you have him on or I’ll really do it for you!” Spike said as he punched her so hard she fell off him and onto the sidewalk, scraping her palms on the pavement.
Spike rolled to his feet and reached up to touch the tender area around his eyes. He watched her warily as she got to her feet, but she still blindsided him with a fist to his jaw again. She threw another punch but he blocked it.
“Angel’s good. He has a soul,” Buffy said petulantly.
“Yeah, yeah, he’s good and has a soul. He’s still a fucking vampire. He can still do damage and has. If you only knew about half the things I’ve seen him do down there, that we’ve done. The soul gives him a conscience. It doesn’t make him a saint, Buffy. No matter what his name implies,” Spike sneered.
Buffy gave him a horrified look before punching him so hard he flew back against the wall opposite the trash cans and slumped to the ground. She looked at him in dismay.
“Buffy?” Spike asked cautiously.
Ignoring him, she turned and walked out of the alley towards the police station.
“Buffy!” Spike yelled after her as he staggered to his feet.
Being thrown into the wall was going to hurt later. When he saw that she was too far away to stop her without drawing attention, he walked back to his car at the other end of the alley and drove back to the mansion.
Back at the police station, Buffy walked into the building. Various officers and other people were milling around. She paused, noticing an officer behind the front desk, on the phone.
“No, no statements. Not until I get confirmation,” the desk sergeant was saying.
“Excuse me, I need to . . .” Buffy started to say.
The officer paused in his phone call and said, “I’ll be with you in a sec.” He pushed a button for another phone line. “Sunnydale P.D. Yeah, the phone’s ringing off the hook here.” Buffy turned away, uncertain of what she was about to do. Getting cold feet, she took a few steps away before she heard the officer say, “Listen, you got an ID on that body yet? Yeah? Okay, shoot. Katrina . . . Silber. S-I-L-B-E-R. Got it.”
That name triggered a memory of meeting Warren and Katrina a year before when Warren’s robot girlfriend searched Sunnydale trying to find him and Katrina was there demanding to know who Buffy was and why Warren was keeping secrets from her about other women in his life. “Warren . . .” Realizing she didn’t murder anyone, she walked out of the station without another word.
The desk sergeant hung up after he got the information he needed and looked up. “Now what’s the problem, Miss . . .” When no one was there, he shrugged and went back to his paperwork.
**************************
Sunnydale, Crawford Street Mansion
Spike slammed the front door closed and locked it. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch before switching on a lamp beside it. He used the remote to turn the TV on to some innocuous program and headed directly for the bathroom and the whirlpool tub. He knew there was a reason he had the thing installed. However, he didn’t think he’d be using it to soothe injuries he received from the Slayer.
Spike turned on the faucet and put the stopper in the drain. Unclipping his cell phone from his waistband, he set it aside and undressed before going over to the cabinet under the sink to retrieve some bubble bath. He refused to admit that he was a poof like Angel. It didn’t matter that the bottle said that it was Lavender and Mint fragrance.
He poured a dollop in with the running water, capped it and put it back before climbing into the huge tub. Leaning back, he groaned and relaxed as the rising water lapped at his aching body. When the tub was full, he used his foot to shut the faucet off.
**************************
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel
Gunn had returned to the hotel an hour before Angel stormed in, angry that the Powers still refused to help Cordelia. He looked up when Angel came in.
“Goddamn Powers are good for nothing. We’re on our own. Where’s Spike?” Angel asked as he leaned against the reception desk.
“Uh, something happened and there’s been a change of plans,” Gunn said uncertain with how Angel would take the news.
“Something happened? Did Cordy die?” Angel sounded worried.
“No, she’s still in a coma. But, Spike had to go back to Sunnydale.”
“Cordy’s in a coma and he just decided to go back to Sunnydale! I knew it! Can’t trust him to do anything,” Angel growled and punched the support beam that anchored the desk to the floor and ceiling. “I leave to do an errand and he skipped town!”
Gunn raised his hand. “In Spike’s defense he didn’t want to leave. Someone called and he went up there to help. Something to do with your ex-girlfriend.”
“What could be so important with Buffy that he left Cordy alone?” Angel asked angrily.
Gunn shrugged. “I don’t know. But, the way he tells it, you made her his number one responsibility. So, he’s up there dealing with it.”
“Ohhh, just wait until I get a hold of his undead ass,” Angel grumbled, taking out his cell phone and punching in Spike’s number so hard that Gunn thought he’d break the buttons. Angel turned away and was stomping up the stairs when Spike apparently picked up. All Gunn heard was, “Where the fuck are you?” before Angel disappeared upstairs completely.
“I am, the fuck, past my lily white arse and up to my neck in Lavender and Mint,” Spike spat in answer.
“Lavender and Mint, what the hell?” Angel growled.
“Your girl took a bit of her anger out on me and now I’m soaking in a tub!” Spike clarified just as irate at his Sire.
Angel’s brows drew together in rage. Holding out the phone he screamed, “You fucking dick! Cordy’s dying and you went back home to take a bath?!”
“You know what? I rarely agree with anything the Slayer says, but she’s right. Fuck you, Angel!” Spike yelled back and punched the power button, clicking the phone off.
“Spike? Spike?” Angel asked when he didn’t hear his mate’s voice anymore. “Spike!”
Angel snapped his cell phone shut and pocketed it before going into Cordelia’s room and sitting next to the bed. It was hopeless. He didn’t know how to fix this. The Powers That Be weren’t any help. They never were when they needed to step in. Just when Angel slumped back in the chair looking defeated, Cordelia’s body arced back and she screamed in pain. Angel glanced up, unable to believe that she had woken up and was moving. He rushed to her side just as the rest of the gang came running, alarmed at her scream.
“What happened to her?” Fred asked as she came in from her bedroom on the same floor.
Cordelia sat up on the bed, gasping for air she thought she’d never breathe again, and opened her eyes. Angel caught her up in a hug.
“I thought we’d lost you,” Angel said gratefully.
“Angel,” Cordelia gasped. Then, she remembered what had happened in her coma vision-dream and felt her head for any foreign objects. “No horns,” she smiled and then checked her backside. “No tail.”
Angel looked confused at her and then looked at the others, but they were just as dumbfounded by Cordelia’s behavior.
Cordelia scrambled up out of bed and stretched as if she had been asleep and not in a coma. Angel took a suspicious look under the pillow, but came up empty on clues before slowly following her.
“It feels so good to be solid again,” Cordelia said.
Angel joined the team as they pivoted to watch Cordelia in her odd behavior.
“Cordelia?” Wesley asked perplexed by this turn of events. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“When? I’ve been so . . . Oh!” Cordelia said. “You mean the vision downstairs. No, I had a vision, but it’s been taken care of. There was this actress, and a one-armed guy.” They looked at her strangely. “Never mind, it’s a long story. But right now, we have to solve my vision.”
“The one you just said was taken care of?” Lorne asked confused.
“No. The one I’m having right now. There is a young man in a park in Glendale. Uh, somewhere near a pond. There is a demon waiting for him. He’s red with four, no make that five horns,” Cordelia explained.
Angel looked at the others to see if they saw what he was seeing and then looked back at Cordelia. “Um, Cordy?”
“What?” she asked unknowingly floating about a foot off the ground.
**************************
Sunnydale, Crawford Street Mansion
Spike was sitting on the couch watching TV when a timid knock came at the front door. He groaned as he tossed the remote to the side and got up to answer it. He padded across the cool floor and threadbare hall runners.
Unlocking the door, he opened it slightly. “Yeah?”
He focused on his visitor when he didn’t receive an answering greeting to see Buffy standing on his front porch. She looked lost to him and in need of someone to talk to. Before she could say why she was there, he stepped back and allowed her to enter before he shut and locked the door again.
By Tami (tabrandt @ hotmail.com)
Disclaimer: The characters from ATS / BTVS are owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Fox studios. This story is not meant to infringe upon anyone's rights, only to entertain.
BETA: Myself, lexa4227
Rating: NC-17
Pairing - M/M, Angelus/Spike, Angel/Spike
Timeline - ATS Season 3/BTVS Season 6-AU
Summary - While Angel is dealing with Wolfram & Hart constantly attacking members of his team, Spike, still hasn't completely forgiven Angel for the events in Book 2 and is feeling bitter that Angel abandoned him. Meanwhile, Buffy is back from the dead and depressed after being torn from heaven by her friends. Together they start a relationship of sorts. None of them could have anticipated the widespread consequences of this destructive affair.
Feedback - It would be appreciated. My plot bunny has been lagging lately.
Author's Note - This story came to me after watching how Buffy treated Spike in SMASHED - AS YOU WERE (BTVS, Season 6). I wondered how Angel would truly feel, if he really knew how Buffy mistreated Spike. Yes, Spike is the Big Bad, and he and Angel normally don't see eye-to-eye, but they are family nonetheless
Word Count: 9,478 overall
How to Treat Your Lover Soundtrack (Feel free to suggest a song/scene)
( Book 1 )
( Book 2 )
( Previous Chapters for Book 3 )
**************************
Chapter 43: Step 3 - Estrangement (Part 10)
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel
“I gave you a new entertainment center for your birthday. Why did I have to come with you?” Spike whined as Cordelia pulled into her usual parking space outside the hotel.
“Don’t you mean that you gave yourself the new entertainment center in the guise of my birthday present?” Cordelia corrected him.
“It’s not like I can take it with me. Besides your TV was dated and that was on sale,” Spike said flippantly.
“Oh, so now you’re a cheapskate and I’m not worth the money at full price?” Cordelia raised an eyebrow.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it was the bloody thought that counts? It has a DVD/VCR combo and the best picture on the market today. The guy at the store said so!” Spike said defensively as he got out of the car.
“Was that sales pitch based on how well the football game looked on the screen?” Cordelia shot back as she got out and locked the car.
“No,” Spike pouted and mumbled, “Ice hockey.”
Cordelia gave him a look out of the corner of her eye as they walk into the hotel. When they got in, it was to find Fred and Gunn wearing a face mask and Gunn wearing a hairnet. They were both scrubbing the floor and the lobby smelled strongly of bleach and ammonia.
“What’s going on here?” Cordelia asked.
Gunn looked up and removed the face mask. “Angel said he wanted the floor clean of blood from the run-in with Wolfram & Hart and Holtz.”
“That sounds like the ponce. Ordering people around and then he disappears,” Spike scoffed.
“Get down here and help,” Gunn ordered.
**************************
Two hours later, Spike was helping Gunn clean one side of the lobby floor, his precious duster hanging up on the wall peg. Cordelia and Fred were on the other side of the room.
Looking bedraggled and shaken, Cordelia was reciting a speech, “I’d . . . just like to say thank you.” She drew in a deep unsteady breath. “You believed in me when no one else would. Even in my darkest hours you were there for me.” Tears started to well up in her eyes. “And that means more to me than you’ll ever know. She sniffed back the tears. “I guess what I’m really trying to say is - I love you. To all my fans,” She held up a scrub brush in a plastic-gloved hand. “This is for you.”
Fred applauded wildly. “Wow! That was just - wow! ’Cause . . . oh, and with the tears! I got chill bumps all up my arms.”
“Yup. That was the famous speech. Not that I’ll ever use it of course . . . unless they start handing out awards for Best Slime and Grime. Oh, I swear. The next time Angel decides to blow something up he’s cleaning his own scorch marks,” Cordelia complained.
Gunn, carrying a spray bottle and still wearing a face mask, and Spike walked over to them.
“Been practicing your Academy Award speech again, princess?” Spike teased. She gave him a smirk.
“Ladies, less yammering, more scrub,” Gunn said.
“My, Gunn, don’t you look sterile,” Cordelia grimaced at the sight of the vampire hunter.
Gunn removed the face mask. “Couple more hours of sniffing that industrial cleanser, I think I might be.”
“One of the many perks of being a vampire. I don’t breathe,” Spike commented.
“Hey, I don’t suppose you ladies wanna trade jobs?” Gunn asked hopefully.
Cordelia appeared to seriously think about it, “Ah, hmm. Scrape up Wolfram & Hart’s entrails off floor. Hmm, Fred?”
Fred nodded agreeably and gave Gunn a sympathetic smile. “You’re screwed.”
Cordelia chuckled and went back to scrubbing the floor. Gunn leaned closer to Fred and asked, “Wes back yet?”
“No,” Cordelia answered before Fred could. “He’s still at the store picking up some more extra-strength ‘ick’ remover.”
Gunn saluted Fred with his spray bottle and returned to the other side of the room. Spike stayed rooted to the spot when he felt a familiar tingle down his spine. He looked up at the staircase to see Angel coming down slowly, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
“Well, well, guess who decided to join the living,” Spike sneered.
Angel looked up at the mocking tone and was met with Spike’s eyes glaring daggers at him. Last week they couldn’t keep their hands off each other . . . spell or not. Now Spike couldn’t stand to be in the same room. Angel didn’t need the link to know that. He could feel the animosity come off his mate in waves.
“Spike,” Angel acknowledged. “What are you doing here?”
“Cordy’s birthday, pouf,” Spike scoffed. “I told you I’d stay until it was over.”
“Yeah, but I just thought you meant in town. I wasn’t expecting you to come back after the holiday disaster.”
“I don’t know,” Spike shrugged. “I thought it was going fine until some Neanderthal decided to turn into a caveman and use me for sex.”
“Use you?” Angel’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Use you?! You practically jumped me.”
“I--” Spike looked thoroughly disgusted. “I never jumped you! You nearly leapt over the dinner table to get to me! You’re the one that’s using me because you can’t have that Slayer bitch.”
“If I wanted Buffy then I wouldn’t be mated to you now would I?” Angel shot back.
“The only reason you are mated to me is because you were too insistent on that damn Sire claim to control me that you instigated it. Now I’m stuck with your poncy souled ass on my tether for eternity,” Spike argued.
“Fuck you Spike,” Angel growled.
“No thanks. You’ve already done that in more ways than one.” Spike glanced at the other members still on their knees cleaning Angel’s mess up off the floor. Gesturing to them, he added, “And you gone from ordering me about to making them clean up after you.”
“Don’t you dare bring them into what’s going on between us,” Angel glared at the younger vampire.
“What exactly is going on between us, Angel? You know, besides your soddin’ ego. Because if you don’t know, I can tell you,” Spike raised a brow.
Angel stood on the entrance landing and crossed his arms over his chest as he scowled at Spike. “What’s between us then?”
Spike used his hand to indicate a height short than himself. “A couple of little, deadly, blonde things that you put ahead of me and dropped in my lap to baby-sit so that your bloody conscience can be at ease; had me bouncing around between cities like a boomerang at your beck at call. Don’t give a soddin’ hell about me. You even ran to the Slayer’s side the second she got back from the dead and then left her with me. God, I hate you!”
Cordelia pulled her rubber gloves off and picked herself up off the floor. “All this arguing is giving me a headache. I’ll be right back, going to go find some aspirin.”
When she was out of sight, Angel’s stoic face changed and he whispered to Fred, “Does she know?”
Just then Wesley burst through the door behind Angel carrying two bags. “Where is she?”
“She just went to the bathroom. Here, let me get that,” Spike said, all anger from a moment ago was now gone. He grabbed the bag Wesley carried sideways on his arm and set it down on the reception desk. Removing the bag and plastic lid, he used his Zippo to light the candles as Fred took the other bag and added it to the presents hidden behind the desk.
Cordelia came out of the bathroom to find Gunn and Wesley holding a cake with six lit candles and a picture of a female superhero imposed on the icing. All five of them broke into a pathetic version of ‘Happy Birthday’.
“Oh you guys!” Cordelia exclaimed with a grin. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“Don’t just stand there,” Gunn said anxiously. “Blow out the candles girl.”
Cordelia took a deep breath and blew the candles out to everyone cheering.
“Did you make a wish?” Fred asked as Wesley and Gunn put the cake back on the desk.
“I sure did.” Cordelia looked around as if expecting someone to appear. “Ah, Jude Law was a little busy, huh?”
“Oh, how disappointing for you,” Wesley said in mock sympathy. “Well, I guess you won’t be wanting the presents we . . .”
“Oh, wanting!” Cordelia cut in, “Wanting presents.” When the three of them disappeared, she turned accusing eyes to the two vampires who stood shoulder to shoulder, Spike with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “YOU! You two started that fight as a ploy didn’t you? You knew about this all along! Does this mean you guys are really made up?”
“Not exactly,” Angel replied.
“We called a truce until this is over. But that doesn’t mean we’re always congenial,” Spike added with a glare at Angel.
Angel shifted awkwardly on his feet then pulled a small box out of his pocket. “Um, ah, I-I got you a-a little something.”
When Spike scoffed at the small velvet box, Cordelia smacked his arm and took the box. “Oh, Angel . . . you didn’t have to do that.”
“Well, I’m a champion,” Angel replied with a nervous chuckle. “We do important stuff. Hey, and who’s more important than . . .”
Just then, Wesley, Gunn and Fred ran back with their presents. “You have to forgive the wrapping. Some of us seem to have fostered a strange addiction to Scotch tape,” Wesley said. They were each carrying a big, wrapped box with large bows on top.
Spike leaned closer to Angel and whispered, “Laying that champion thing on pretty thick aren’t you? What did you buy her anyway?”
“Earrings,” Angel mumbled.
“And you mocked my gift of a necklace for Dru for Valentine’s Day,” Spike teased which earned him an elbow to the ribs.
“Oh, what a cruel dilemma,” Cordelia’s voice faltered as a vision hit her. At first it was a jolt and then another flash hit her like a punch to the gut. She stumbled backwards, dropping the velvet box.
“Cordy?” Fred asked.
“There’s a teenager, a girl, she . . . she . . .” Cordelia was suddenly thrown backwards into the glass doors of the weapons cabinet and collapsed amid the shards.
Angel and Spike ran to her side as she lay motionless on the floor. Wesley, Gunn and Fred clustered around her.
“Is she alright?” Fred asked anxiously.
Cordelia opened her eyes and sat up. “I’m fine - you guys. I’ll be okay. I’m just . . .”
She turned to see all of the guys gathered around her body . . . lying a few feet away. Cordelia stared at herself in shocked confusion. “Dead?”
“Oh no,” Fred exclaimed, a hand over her mouth.
Angel lightly slapped Cordelia’s face. “Come on, Cordy, wake up. It’s all over. Come back to us.”
“I haven’t gone anywhere,” Cordelia said. “Angel . . .”
“Come on, princess. Wake up,” Spike urged.
“Angel, is she . . .?” Wesley started to ask.
“No!” Angel and phantom!Cordelia yelled.
“I’m not?” Cordelia asked in surprise.
While Spike tried to revive her, Angel felt for a pulse. “She’s still breathing. Her heart’s still beating.”
“Yes! But . . . if I’m not dead then . . .” Cordelia was puzzled by her own predicament. If she wasn’t dead then what was she?
“She’s just in some sort of trance or coma,” Angel unknowingly answered her question.
“Coma?” Spike echoed.
“Like hell I am!” Cordelia yelled indignantly.
“Let’s get her over to the couch,” Angel said.
Spike stood up as Angel picked Cordelia up in his arms and put her on the couch.
“Okay, I get it. This is some kind of bizarre birthday present you guys cooked up,” Cordelia commented but no one answered her.
Fred saw the bottle of prescription meds on the floor where Cordelia had collapsed and she picked it up.
“All right. The joke’s on me. Now put me back in my body!” Cordelia yelled.
Glancing at Cordelia, he turned to face the others. Spike stood nearby. “It was a vision wasn’t it? I mean, she just started saying something about a girl . . .”
Cordelia got excited at that. “That’s right! She’s in a house on Oak Street.” No one heard or saw her. “In the middle of Reseda. It feels like we have some time here, but --” She finally realized no one acknowledged her. “You can’t hear me can you?”
“What’s all the hubbub?” Lorne asked as he came down the stairs.
“Lorne! Thank God! You can hear me, right? ’Cause if there’s some weird, other-worldly thing going on you’d still be able to . . .” Her voice trailed off as Lorne walked right through her, never noticing her. “Oh. That’s not good.” Just then a black shadow passed overhead. “Did anyone else just see that?”
“Jumping Judas on a unicycle,” Lorne exclaimed. “What happened?”
“All we know is that she had a vision,” Angel replied.
“Or she’s stepped up her acting skills and doing a great impression of miming the dead,” Spike added.
“There is a lot we don’t know,” Fred said and held out the bottle of pills to Angel. “I think she dropped this.”
“No Fred!” Cordelia yelled. “Put that away. That’s not important.”
“Seltrex,” Fred commented.
“Oh God,” Wesley said to himself.
Angel read the label, but didn’t understand it any better than before. “What’s Seltrex?”
“Nothing!” Cordelia said. “It’s just . . .”
“Seltrex is a highly powerful migraine medication,” Wesley explained.
“Maybe we should get her to a hospital,” Gunn suggested.
“So they can do what?” Angel asked. His voice only hinted at the anxiety he felt. “Do what they did last time: strap her to a bed and tell us there’s no hope?”
“Angel is right,” Wesley said. “Seltrex is potent but it doesn’t cause catatonia.”
Angel looked around the room seemingly lost. Cordelia had a vision but they didn’t know exactly what it was. Somehow the vision sent her into a coma? How could they have missed this? How did they let it get this bad without noticing? Where the hell were his vampire senses when she was taking strong migraine meds for the visions? Where was . . .? Just then, he looked at Spike and his expression became dark and foreboding.
“You!” Angel growled.
Spike looked over at him from talking to Gunn about Cordelia. “Wot?”
“You’re the one that was living with her. How come you didn’t see this coming? Why didn’t you warn us that this was going on?” Angel asked in a menacing voice as he stalked towards his mate.
“I was sleeping on her couch. I wasn’t reading her diary or with her every second of the day!” Spike said defensively.
“A leopard can’t change his spots, Spike! You have a gift for getting into things where no one wants you to be. You couldn’t have gone through her drawers or medicine cabinet?” Angel challenged.
“There are three of us living in that apartment,” Spike snapped, starting to get angry at being accused of something he had no clue about. “You think I would find anything if he didn’t want it to be seen?”
“Denis is a ghost, work around him!” Angel yelled, and then gestured towards a comatose Cordelia. “Who knows what she saw? It could be something dangerous and we have no clue what it is or where to fight it! She’s in a coma . . . all because you developed a sense of respect. You, who never respected anything in your life!”
Spike’s face took on an indignant expression. “I respected Angelus! Though, now that I think about it, ‘respect’ may be too strong of a word. Tolerated sounds more like it.”
“That’s beside the point!”
“Then get to it already and stop giving me a lecture because you fucked up in raising me.”
“You could have rifled through her things and found out what was going on before it came to this. Why did you have to go and develop a sense of decorum?”
“First, you hogtie me with a Sire-Claim so that I don’t misbehave and now you’re upset that I like her enough not to pry into her private life?”
“Guys, I’m picking up some hardcore woo-woo vibes in the room. This ain’t medical, kids. It’s mystical,” Lorne spoke up, breaking into the heated argument.
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Fred said exasperated. “There is so much we don’t know. If Cordelia is taking a drug this powerful in secret, then the visions are probably doing a lot more damage than she’s been letting on.”
“This last one must have overloaded her,” Gunn commented.
“Don’t say last!” Angel and Spike yelled in unison. They looked at each other surprised that the other one cared just as much as the other did about her. “She’ll come out of this. She has to.”
“She will!” Cordelia stressed even though no one could see or hear her.
Angel glanced at Spike’s stony expression. He had hurt his boy again with words he couldn’t take back. They couldn’t talk this out. Not right now anyway, when one of their friends was in danger. Internally, he shelved his relationship with Spike until later to deal with the task at hand. “Okay. Look, if this is a mystical problem there has to be some kind of mystical solution.”
“There you go. Great idea,” Cordelia agreed.
“Gunn, you and Fred go to Cordy’s place,” Angel said.
“No! Bad idea!” Cordelia contradicted herself.
“Why not me?” Spike asked.
Angel glared at him as if to say: ‘You weren’t any help before, how can you be now?’ Picking up Cordelia’s body, he added, “See if she’s been hiding anything that could tell us what’s wrong with her. Wes?”
“I’ll hit the books,” the former Watcher answered before he could ask.
“Come on, Spike. You and I are going to have a chat,” Angel said gruffly as he carried his seer up the stairs.
“I thought that’s what we were doing, ponce,” Spike said as he followed Angel, leaving ghost!Cordelia behind in the lobby.
“Does nobody care that there is a girl in Reseda that is about to be fed to a no-eyed, three-mouthed monster?” Cordelia called out. A second later she heard whispering but couldn’t make out the words. “Message, I’ll leave a message.” She walked over to the reception desk and reached for a pen, but her hand went right through it. She tried again with the same results.
**************************
Angel and Spike took Cordelia to a spare room two doors down from Angel’s room and placed her on the bed. Once Angel had her settled, he rounded on Spike.
“What is going on with you?” Angel growled.
“Me? I’d say you were the one being all melodramatic over this,” Spike replied.
“Cordelia is in a coma!” Angel ground out.
“I can see that pillock!” Spike shot back. “Not much I can do about it. We’ll have to wait until Fred and Gunn come back with anything.”
**************************
Los Angeles, Cordelia’s Apartment
Gunn and Fred stood inside the door of Cordelia’s apartment facing a floating party hat and noisemaker, confetti floating down from the ceiling and a ‘Happy Birthday’ sign.
“I think phantom Denis was expecting the birthday girl,” Gunn whispered to Fred.
Fred gave a big smile and stepped forward. “Oh. Hi there. I-I know we haven’t been formally introduced . . . Actually, I’m not sure how to introduce myself to someone who is, you know . . . former. But, I’m Fred!” She reached out and shook the top of the party hat. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Fred, you are,” Gunn smiled and chuckled at her actions. “You are so cool.”
She stepped closer to him and whispered, “I think we should tell him.”
Gunn took a deep breath and moved forward. “Okay. Uh, you might want to . . .” He looked perplexed at Fred. “Do ghosts sit down? Okay, look. Cordelia had a vision. It’s bad. She’s in a coma and we need to search the house for anything that may have harmed her.”
When nothing happened, he and Fred took it as a sign to go ahead and search the apartment.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Fred said from the bathroom.
“What doesn’t?” Gunn called out from the bedroom.
“It’s all,” Fred looked through the medicine cabinet, “Normal. She shut the cabinet door.
“And that’s wrong?” Gunn asked from the doorway.
“No,” Fred replied and turned around to see Gunn standing there with one of Cordy’s bras in his hands. “What’s wrong is you picking through Cordy’s,” She flailed around gesturing at her chest. Gunn raised a brow at her. “Support . . . things.”
“What . . . this?” Gunn raised the bra. “Come on, you’re telling me that you never hid anything in your underwear drawer.
Fred gave him an indignant look. “I don’t know. I mean, for five years I didn’t even have . . .” she sighed in exasperation. “Can we not talk about my underwear, please? And put that down.” Gunn dropped the bra on a table. “I just figured that if Cordy was taking something serious like Seltrex, she’d have tried other stuff first. But there’s not even any aspirin in here.” She leaned closer to Gunn and whispered, “I think he’s protecting her.”
Gunn looked around the room and slowly moved back to Cordelia’s bedroom. “Phantom Denis? Listen, we would never ask you to betray Cordelia, but we need to see whatever it is she’s been hiding from us. I mean, unless you’re so hyped on the ghosting life that you want her to join you?”
After a moment nothing happened. Gunn heaved a sigh and dropped down on the end of Cordelia’s bed. It seemed as if that had pressed an eject button as a storage container slid out from under the bed. Fred and Gunn opened it to find it full of pill bottles.
“Hmm-mm,” Fred said. “You looked through the underwear drawer first, didn’t you?” They pick through the bottles and she read a few labels. “The date on this prescription is from a year ago.”
**************************
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel, Cordelia’s Room
Cordelia’s body lay on the bed. Angel sat in a chair, a hard look in his eyes as he held her hand. Spike had gone to get him a glass of blood while he watched over her. The more he thought about the situation, the angrier he became. How could she be this bad off and not tell anyone? How could she hide it from him or Spike? His boy was the most observant person he knew, how come he didn’t see what was going on?
“Look, I know you can’t hear me,” Angel said aloud. “But, there’s something I have to say.” He carefully laid her hand on the bed, afraid of harming her in his irritation. “You really piss me off, you know that? I thought we trusted each other. But you’ve been lying to us. M.R.I.’s and C.A.T. scans and it’s been going on for a year? Why couldn’t you let us in? Spike could have helped you. I could have helped you. I’m so furious with you right now.”
“You’re furious? I get body-jacked on my birthday and you’re the one that’s furious?” Cordelia asked in disbelief.
“Never thought of arguing with a coma patient as an effective way to bring them around,” Spike said as he walked in the door with two mugs of blood.
Angel glanced up in surprise as if he didn’t recall Spike being in the hotel. The look was there one second and gone the next. “Where’s Lorne?”
“He’s coming. He had to get a few things to prepare for it,” Spike replied, handing Angel a mug.
“Hope this works. Maybe it’s just a passing phase and she’ll snap out of it,” Angel said.
Lorne walked in with a rap of knuckles on the open door. “Knock, knock. How is she?”
“The same,” Angel replied. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Lorne said.
“For what? What’s he going to do?” Cordelia asked.
Lorne walked past her and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Although I’m sort of wishing I brought my helmet. Last time I tried this I got blown across the room.”
“I thought that’s what you were getting, mate,” Spike said.
“No I was getting myself a Sea Breeze to prepare myself for the possibility of being thrown,” Lorne said glibly.
Realizing what the empath demon was up to, Cordelia crossed her fingers. “Oh, God, please let this work.”
Lorne placed his fingertips on comatose!Cordelia’s temples and closed his eyes. “Cordelia? Are you there?” he asked.
“It’s me. Lorne, I’m here,” Cordelia replied.
“Cordelia?” Lorne asked again.
Cordelia’s eyes popped open. “Yes! One-seven-one Oak Street. Can you hear me? Lorne?”
Lorne dropped his hands and frowned at the two vampires who watched and waited with baited breath to see what would happen.
Looking between the Pylean demon and his seer’s body, Angel inquired anxiously, “What?”
“Cordelia’s not in there,” Lorne said sadly. “She’s just gone.”
“I’m standing right in front of you!” Cordelia yelled as she waved her hands in front of Angel’s face.
Angel sighed and rested his head in his hands. Spike squeezed his shoulder in sympathy. It was an uncharacteristic move given their current feud with each other. Angel raised his head. “No. This isn’t going to happen.” He shrugged Spike’s hand off and stood up. Advancing on Lorne he said threateningly, “I don’t care how many favors you have to call in. I don’t care how many gods you have to cross. You have a connection to the Powers That Be and you’re going to find me a way to talk to them. Understand?”
Lorne took a step back at the animosity in Angel’s voice. “A-angel honey, it-it’s not that easy. I mean, contacting the Powers is a muddy, not to mention dangerous, area. But this is a - this is a bit much to ask.”
“I’m. Not. Asking,” Angel growled. Lorne sighed and walked out of the room. Angel turned his glare on Spike daring him to say something.
“A little harsh on him, don’t you think?” Spike asked.
“What else did you want me to do, Spike? Cordelia’s body is lying in a coma. He just said her spirit was gone. It’s just a shell. Who knows where she is or what she’s going through?”
“I’m not arguing that, Angel. I want her back as much as you do. You’re not the only one that cares about the people in this team. Stop acting like you’re the only one that lost her.” Spike turned on his heel and walked out of the room leaving Angel to scowl at his retreating back.
When Angel fell asleep while watching over Cordy, Ghost!Cordelia went over and sat down on the chair melting into Angel’s body as she positions herself in synch with him. Suddenly, Angel's head came up and he exhaled slowly as he stood up. When he picked up a permanent marker from the nightstand, he knocked over a glass sitting beside it. Moving slowly, he started to write: 171 OAK on the wall above the bed. As soon as she was in Angel’s body, something yanked her right back out. Angel collapsed on the floor.
Wesley walked in just as Angel picked himself up off the floor. “Angel, what are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” Angel replied as he looked around for the cause to explain the situation. “I had this dream that, uh . . . Cordy was here. She was trying to tell me something. It may have been important, not sure now. It’s weird.”
“Yes, well, Fred studied Cordy’s latest CAT scans,” Wesley frowned at him. “The news isn’t good. The tests show widespread neuro-electrical deterioration.”
“She’s dying?” Angel surmised.
Wesley nodded. “I’m still working on the mystical aspect: trance states, astral projection . . . spiritual possession. But so far I haven’t been able to . . . Why don’t you take a break? I can watch over her.”
Angel left the room and went downstairs to see Gunn, Fred and Spike huddled around Wesley’s desk. Going into the office, he leaned over the desk and asked, “So what did you find out?”
Fred laid a page down with a picture of a brain scan. “That was from eight months ago. The red spots are what they call hot areas or what you’d expect from a healthy, functioning brain. This one,” she laid another down over the first one, “Is dated one month ago.”
“Cordy’s doctors couldn’t explain it,” Gunn added.
Fred moved the print, revealing one that was mostly green and yellow. “See, green is a cold color, usually signifying dead areas of the cerebrum. Normally you wouldn’t see a scan like that . . .”
“Unless the person was a cucumber,” Spike added.
“How could we not know?” Angel said as he looked between the two prints.
Just then, Lorne stumbled into the room, moaning and holding his head. His clothes were torn and his left horn is dangling by a thread. “Oh, for the love of God, somebody get me a Sea-Breeze.”
Fred dropped the scans on the desk at the sight of the empath demon. “Lorne! What happened?”
“I can’t really talk about it,” Lorne groaned.
“Then how the hell are we supposed to find them so we can kick their asses?” Gunn asked.
“No, I mean I can’t talk about it,” Lorne clarified. “They cast a spell. I went down to the lo . . .” He tried to describe it, but his speech became garbled. “See?”
“Did you get the information?” Angel asked anxiously.
“Oh, why yes, Angel. My horns should grow back in a couple of days,” Lorne said sarcastically, “So kind of you to be concerned.” Angel and Spike stared at him expectantly. “Well, they didn’t say I couldn’t write it.”
Lorne held out a piece of paper and Spike snatched it. He was about to read it when Angel seized it and headed for the door, ignoring the indignant sound that came from Spike. The blonde vampire was about to follow him with the intention of stealing the job away from his Sire when Lorne’s words stopped him.
“Angel, all kidding aside, this isn’t something to be taken lightly. Only a champion can deal with the conduit. And even then you have to la-argh arr . . .”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Angel said as he walked out the door.
“How come there are no jobs for us little people? Why the bloody hell am I even here?” Spike sighed as he threw up his hands and went back to examining the scans of Cordelia’s brain.
**************************
Sunnydale, the Summers’ Residence
Dawn was asleep in bed with a teddy bear beside her when Buffy walked in fully clothed in a turtleneck, jeans and leather jacket. She watched Dawn from the doorway for a moment before sitting on the bed and gently waking her up.
“Hey,” Buffy said softly.
“What time is it?” Dawn asked sleepily.
“It’s late. I wanted . . .” Buffy stopped for a moment and Dawn frowned. “I love you. You know that, right?”
Dawn sat up, alarmed at the strange faraway tone in her sister’s voice. “What’s wrong?”
“I know I haven’t been everything I should be . . . everything Mom was . . .” Dawn looked stricken at Buffy’s tearful words. “. . . But I love you. I always will.”
“Why are you talking like this? Buffy?” Dawn asked anxiously.
“There was an accident, in the woods,” Buffy said shakily. “A girl . . . she was hurt. I hurt someone.”
“Oh my God,” Dawn said shocked. “Is she all right?”
“No,” Buffy sniffed, trying to hold back the tears. “I’m sorry.” Dawn hugged her. “There’s something I have to do. I have to tell what I did. I have to go to the police.”
Dawn pulled away from her as if she were burned, “The police?”
“Dawnie, I have to,” Buffy pleaded.
“But . . . what’s going to happen?” Dawn asked.
“I don’t know,” Buffy shook her head.
“They’ll take you away, won’t they?” Dawn asked, near tears herself.
“I don’t know,” Buffy repeated.
“No, you not,” Dawn sneered. Buffy looked surprise at the accusing tone, “You’re never here. You can’t even stand to be around me.”
“That’s not true,” Buffy said in disbelief.
“You don’t want to be here with me. You didn’t want to come back. I know that. You were happier where you were,” Dawn cried. “You want to go away again.”
“Dawn . . .” Buffy said helplessly.
“Then go! You’re not really here anyway,” Dawn said accusingly before she jumped out of bed and ran out of the room.
**************************
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel, Cordelia’s Room
Spike was sitting at her bedside watching over her. He was still angry at Angel’s blasé attitude over him being there. His Sire had become ambivalent about him ever since that mistletoe spell ended at New Year’s. Maybe he should just go back to Sunnydale. It’s not like Angel would miss him. He couldn’t stay at Cordy’s apartment forever. A girl had to have her own space. He remembered that much from his relationship with Drusilla. Whenever she felt hemmed in, she’d take off to fuck knew where and when she got lonely, she came back. Besides, he had furnished the Crawford Street Mansion with all his creature comforts. After Cordelia came back from wherever she was, he’d leave.
Spike was shaken from his thoughts with a soft rap of knuckles on the door. He looked up to see Fred standing there.
“Is Angel back?”
“No.”
“Damn it,” Spike cursed.
“There’s a phone call for you downstairs,” Fred said.
“A phone call? Angel called the hotel? Why didn’t he just call my cell?”
“It’s not Angel. It’s a girl, sounded kind of young. She seemed anxious to get a hold of you.”
“The only women I know that want me that badly are here in this room,” Spike replied.
Fred gave a small smile at the compliment. Spike stood up and walked past her on the way out. He stopped long enough to say, “Watch her?”
Fred nodded and Spike left the room to go down and answer the phone. When he got to Wesley’s office, Gunn was sitting at the desk going through everything they had on Cordelia’s mystical coma. A corded phone receiver was sitting on the desk.
Spike picked it up, “This better be bloody important.”
“Spike?” a small fearful voice said.
“Dawn? What’s going on?”
“It’s Buffy. I think she’s . . . something happened. She’s gone to turn herself in.”
“What? What happened?”
“She said that she killed a girl on patrol. She went to turn herself in to the police.”
“Balls!” She would be just that stupid.
“Spike? Are you going to stop her? I can’t, she won’t listen to me,” Dawn said.
“How do you know she didn’t do it?”
“I know her, Spike. She’s a slayer, but she’s not a murderer. She’s not Faith. She wouldn’t kill a human,” Dawn said matter-of-factly.
“I have important things to do here. Cordy’s --” Spike started to say.
“Spike, please. I heard that Angel told you to protect her. Well, she’s about to turn herself in for something she didn’t do.”
“You don’t know that for sure. Maybe she went off her bloody rocker finally and tried to be the Big Bad,” Spike countered.
“Spike! You aren’t listening! She didn’t do this!” Dawn said adamantly.
“Dawn, I have a more pressing issue at the moment. Cordy’s in a--”
“She’s the Slayer, Spike. You can’t have two slayers in prison and let the Hellmouth go unprotected,” Dawn stressed.
“Fine! I’ll come up and look into it. But if this is a bloody prank ’cause the Slayer’s on a PMS binge or some other bollocks, then I’ll --”
“Thanks Spike,” Dawn sounded relieved before she hung up.
Spike hung up and cursed a blue streak.
“I take it that it was nothing good?” Gunn surmised.
“The bloody Slayer’s gotten herself in trouble. The bint must be a walking sign asking for it. Her sister wants me to go up and see what I can do to help her,” Spike explained as he unconsciously pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.
“Do you need a ride back up there?” Gunn offered.
“Gotta pick up my stuff at Cordy’s before I go,” Spike said. “You sure Fred’s going to be all right alone?”
“Lorne’s here. He can stay with them until I get back,” Gunn said as he jumped up to get his coat and keys.
**************************
Mystical Chamber of the Powers That Be
“Its pleas are pointless. Her path is chosen. We will not interfere,” the Voices whispered.
“The visions are too much,” Angel stressed. “She’s not strong enough to handle them.”
“Obstinate. It speaks and does not listen,” the Voices whispered.
Angel spun around, yelling, “No, you’re not listening! Cordelia is not a champion. She’s a rich girl from Sunnydale who likes to play superhero. She doesn’t have what it takes to do this! Don’t the Powers get that? Stop whispering and listen to me, damn it! She’s weak. You’re killing her! She’s unconscious, and she’s alone. Who knows if she’s in pain?”
“It is angry. It is afraid,” the Voices whispered.
Angel sighed. “I’m more afraid of her dying than she is. What is that?”
**************************
Sunnydale, Crawford Street Mansion
Spike and Gunn burst through the door of the mansion carrying Spike’s hunting gear and duffel bag of clothes. The hunting gear was deposited in the hall and the clothes were tossed in the laundry. Spike stopped in the kitchen to fix a glass of blood.
“Do you want anything to drink, Charlie-boy?” Spike asked as he punched in the time on the microwave.
“Nah, could use the bathroom though,” Gunn replied.
“Down the hall there,” Spike gestured in that direction and called out, “I did offer to drive back.”
“No thanks. I’d like my baby to be in one piece,” Gunn yelled back before shutting the bathroom door. Spike waited with a smirk on his face until he heard Gunn yell out, “Hot damn! This bathroom is fit for a king! It’s bigger than my whole apartment!”
Spike chuckled as he took the glass of blood out of the microwave and drank it.
“So, you off to save that girl from whatever it is she’s gotten herself into?” Gunn asked when he came back to the kitchen.
“Have to. ’S part of the deal. I play nice and keep the slayer alive and my grand old Sire doesn’t send me to a dusty ending,” Spike explained.
“I think Angel’s past caring about that. I don’t think he’s going to dust you over Buffy’s issues anymore,” Gunn said.
“Oh-ho! You don’t know Angel as well as you think you do. He and the Slayer had the most forbidden love of all loves. Makes Romeo and Juliet look like a Sesame Street production.”
“Yeah, well . . . good luck with that,” Gunn smirked. “I got to get back to the Hyperion before Angel gets back and wonders why no one’s manning the phones. Or something, can’t really tell with him these days what he’ll be pissed about.”
“I’m mated to the son of a bitch and I still have no clue. Word of warning though, mate: if you feel like you’re walking on egg shells around his moods, knock him one. ’S what I do.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Later,” Gunn waved and walked out the door. A few minutes later Spike heard the truck sputter to start and Gunn drive off. He sighed as he collected a few stakes and a new pack of cigarettes before heading out the door himself.
**************************
Sunnydale, Alley behind the Police Station
The police station was busy with the shift change as the day shift left and the night shift entered the building. Across from the building was an alley in which Buffy appeared at the mouth, walking slowly.
“What do you think you’re doing?” a thick British accented voice said behind her.
“The right thing,” Buffy said as she kept walking.
Spike’s steps sped up behind her before he suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her back into the alley. He spun her around and tossed her to the ground.
“Sorry, luv, can’t let you do that,” he said as she got to her feet.
“I have to tell them what happened,” Buffy insisted.
“Nothing happened,” Spike stated flatly.
“I killed that girl!” Buffy said.
“There is no girl,” Spike said.
“Yes, there is! I’ll show them,” she said.
“Show them what? There’s no body. Dawn told me what you said. I followed your normal patrol route and there is no body. What are you going to show them?” Spike asked.
Buffy’s expression turned to anger when she realized what he was saying. “What did you do?”
“Just what I said,” Spike growled. “I checked your route but there is no body there. Maybe you were hallucinating?”
“I was not hallucinating! I saw her. She was dead and I killed her!” Buffy yelled at him. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Saving you from making the biggest mistake of your life apparently,” Spike grumbled. “I didn’t want to come, but Dawn called me and told me what fool thing you were up to.”
“Well, she shouldn’t have. It’s none of your business. Now get out of my way,” Buffy said as tried to move around him.
Spike shoved her back. “It’s not your call. You aren’t going anywhere. You’re going to go home, climb into that fluffy bed of yours and forget whatever you thought you saw,” Spike instructed.
Across the street, Spike heard a cop outside say, “Where’d they find her?”
“The river. She washed up half a mile from the cemetery,” a second cop replied as two more uniformed officers rushed out towards a cruiser. Another police car zoomed past the alley with its lights flashing and sirens blaring.
Spike and Buffy glared accusingly at each other.
“Unless you did something like touch her, there isn’t anything to connect her to you,” Spike said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“It wasn’t your fault!” Spike yelled.
“I killed her!” Buffy insisted.
“Even if you did, it was an accident. It just happened,” Spike growled.
“Nothing just happens,” Buffy spat and started walking towards the police station when Spike grabbed her arm.
“You’re not going in there,” he said.
“I have to do this. Just let me go.”
“I can’t. Angel told me to watch out for you and I’m doing that. If you go in there now, I can’t protect you from anyone . . . including yourself.”
“Screw Angel,” Buffy sneered. “He’s not here. He hasn’t cared for a while. He has no say in what I do with my life!”
“He does care! Why the hell would he send me back after he destroyed the Gem of Amarra? Or when you came back from the dead? Have you ever asked yourself why he would tether me and send me back to look after my enemy?”
“He’s a vampire. He probably gets some perverse kick out of it. Now, let me go!” Buffy tried to shrug him off. When he wouldn’t release her, she hauled off and punched him in the face. The power behind it threw him back into a couple of garbage cans, against the wall of the next building.
“Screw you and Angel. Just go back to L.A. and leave me alone,” Buffy said and started to leave again but a game-faced Spike suddenly grabbed her from behind and threw her several feet back, down the alley.
“You are not throwing your life away over this,” Spike growled through a mouthful of fangs.
“It’s not your choice!”
“Why are you doing this to yourself?” Spike asked. Why did she and Angel both have to play the martyr? Why did everything have to be a sacrifice? Why did he even care whether she turned herself in? He should be in L.A. with Cordelia and Fred and Gunn waiting for Angel’s return with any news from the Powers on her condition. He shouldn’t be here doing this.
“A girl is dead because of me,” Buffy said tearfully.
“And how many people are alive because of you? How many have you saved? One dead girl doesn’t tip the scale. If, in fact, she was even dead to begin with,” Spike countered.
“How can you . . .? There isn’t a karmic chart! She may be just another body to you or Angel and that band of lunatics he works with down there. But up here on the Hellmouth death is real and it has nothing to do with redemption. Now, get out of my way!”
“They aren’t lunatics! Gunn’s a vampire hunter, Fred’s a beautiful physics major, and Cordy’s in a --”
She didn’t give him time to finish before she threw a punch at him which he blocked at the last minute only to be hit with a right hook in the jaw and another punch to the stomach.
“You can’t understand why this is killing me, can you?” Buffy cried.
“Why don’t you explain it?” Spike asked as he delivered his own punch to her face as payback for her attack.
She hit him a few more times for good measure. He allowed it for a while until she hit the tender spots one too many times and shoved her back, causing her to stumble but still keep her footing. That was when she kicked him in the shins.
“That all you got, Slayer?” Spike taunted. It seemed the best thing to do. She’d fight him, get all her angst out, maybe tire herself out and then he could probably talk some sense into her.
She hit him hard, throwing him back on his ass. She sat on top of him and starting laying punches over and over. “You don’t have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You’re dead inside! You can’t feel anything real!”
“Yet Angel has a soul and acts like a bastard. You think he felt anything? You think he’s so fucking pure? He’s not! He may have a soul, but he’s still a vampire, pet. The soul only gives him a way to care about what he’s doing. It doesn’t stop him from doing it. He didn’t give up being a vampire for you. So, get him off that pedestal you have him on or I’ll really do it for you!” Spike said as he punched her so hard she fell off him and onto the sidewalk, scraping her palms on the pavement.
Spike rolled to his feet and reached up to touch the tender area around his eyes. He watched her warily as she got to her feet, but she still blindsided him with a fist to his jaw again. She threw another punch but he blocked it.
“Angel’s good. He has a soul,” Buffy said petulantly.
“Yeah, yeah, he’s good and has a soul. He’s still a fucking vampire. He can still do damage and has. If you only knew about half the things I’ve seen him do down there, that we’ve done. The soul gives him a conscience. It doesn’t make him a saint, Buffy. No matter what his name implies,” Spike sneered.
Buffy gave him a horrified look before punching him so hard he flew back against the wall opposite the trash cans and slumped to the ground. She looked at him in dismay.
“Buffy?” Spike asked cautiously.
Ignoring him, she turned and walked out of the alley towards the police station.
“Buffy!” Spike yelled after her as he staggered to his feet.
Being thrown into the wall was going to hurt later. When he saw that she was too far away to stop her without drawing attention, he walked back to his car at the other end of the alley and drove back to the mansion.
Back at the police station, Buffy walked into the building. Various officers and other people were milling around. She paused, noticing an officer behind the front desk, on the phone.
“No, no statements. Not until I get confirmation,” the desk sergeant was saying.
“Excuse me, I need to . . .” Buffy started to say.
The officer paused in his phone call and said, “I’ll be with you in a sec.” He pushed a button for another phone line. “Sunnydale P.D. Yeah, the phone’s ringing off the hook here.” Buffy turned away, uncertain of what she was about to do. Getting cold feet, she took a few steps away before she heard the officer say, “Listen, you got an ID on that body yet? Yeah? Okay, shoot. Katrina . . . Silber. S-I-L-B-E-R. Got it.”
That name triggered a memory of meeting Warren and Katrina a year before when Warren’s robot girlfriend searched Sunnydale trying to find him and Katrina was there demanding to know who Buffy was and why Warren was keeping secrets from her about other women in his life. “Warren . . .” Realizing she didn’t murder anyone, she walked out of the station without another word.
The desk sergeant hung up after he got the information he needed and looked up. “Now what’s the problem, Miss . . .” When no one was there, he shrugged and went back to his paperwork.
**************************
Sunnydale, Crawford Street Mansion
Spike slammed the front door closed and locked it. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch before switching on a lamp beside it. He used the remote to turn the TV on to some innocuous program and headed directly for the bathroom and the whirlpool tub. He knew there was a reason he had the thing installed. However, he didn’t think he’d be using it to soothe injuries he received from the Slayer.
Spike turned on the faucet and put the stopper in the drain. Unclipping his cell phone from his waistband, he set it aside and undressed before going over to the cabinet under the sink to retrieve some bubble bath. He refused to admit that he was a poof like Angel. It didn’t matter that the bottle said that it was Lavender and Mint fragrance.
He poured a dollop in with the running water, capped it and put it back before climbing into the huge tub. Leaning back, he groaned and relaxed as the rising water lapped at his aching body. When the tub was full, he used his foot to shut the faucet off.
**************************
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel
Gunn had returned to the hotel an hour before Angel stormed in, angry that the Powers still refused to help Cordelia. He looked up when Angel came in.
“Goddamn Powers are good for nothing. We’re on our own. Where’s Spike?” Angel asked as he leaned against the reception desk.
“Uh, something happened and there’s been a change of plans,” Gunn said uncertain with how Angel would take the news.
“Something happened? Did Cordy die?” Angel sounded worried.
“No, she’s still in a coma. But, Spike had to go back to Sunnydale.”
“Cordy’s in a coma and he just decided to go back to Sunnydale! I knew it! Can’t trust him to do anything,” Angel growled and punched the support beam that anchored the desk to the floor and ceiling. “I leave to do an errand and he skipped town!”
Gunn raised his hand. “In Spike’s defense he didn’t want to leave. Someone called and he went up there to help. Something to do with your ex-girlfriend.”
“What could be so important with Buffy that he left Cordy alone?” Angel asked angrily.
Gunn shrugged. “I don’t know. But, the way he tells it, you made her his number one responsibility. So, he’s up there dealing with it.”
“Ohhh, just wait until I get a hold of his undead ass,” Angel grumbled, taking out his cell phone and punching in Spike’s number so hard that Gunn thought he’d break the buttons. Angel turned away and was stomping up the stairs when Spike apparently picked up. All Gunn heard was, “Where the fuck are you?” before Angel disappeared upstairs completely.
“I am, the fuck, past my lily white arse and up to my neck in Lavender and Mint,” Spike spat in answer.
“Lavender and Mint, what the hell?” Angel growled.
“Your girl took a bit of her anger out on me and now I’m soaking in a tub!” Spike clarified just as irate at his Sire.
Angel’s brows drew together in rage. Holding out the phone he screamed, “You fucking dick! Cordy’s dying and you went back home to take a bath?!”
“You know what? I rarely agree with anything the Slayer says, but she’s right. Fuck you, Angel!” Spike yelled back and punched the power button, clicking the phone off.
“Spike? Spike?” Angel asked when he didn’t hear his mate’s voice anymore. “Spike!”
Angel snapped his cell phone shut and pocketed it before going into Cordelia’s room and sitting next to the bed. It was hopeless. He didn’t know how to fix this. The Powers That Be weren’t any help. They never were when they needed to step in. Just when Angel slumped back in the chair looking defeated, Cordelia’s body arced back and she screamed in pain. Angel glanced up, unable to believe that she had woken up and was moving. He rushed to her side just as the rest of the gang came running, alarmed at her scream.
“What happened to her?” Fred asked as she came in from her bedroom on the same floor.
Cordelia sat up on the bed, gasping for air she thought she’d never breathe again, and opened her eyes. Angel caught her up in a hug.
“I thought we’d lost you,” Angel said gratefully.
“Angel,” Cordelia gasped. Then, she remembered what had happened in her coma vision-dream and felt her head for any foreign objects. “No horns,” she smiled and then checked her backside. “No tail.”
Angel looked confused at her and then looked at the others, but they were just as dumbfounded by Cordelia’s behavior.
Cordelia scrambled up out of bed and stretched as if she had been asleep and not in a coma. Angel took a suspicious look under the pillow, but came up empty on clues before slowly following her.
“It feels so good to be solid again,” Cordelia said.
Angel joined the team as they pivoted to watch Cordelia in her odd behavior.
“Cordelia?” Wesley asked perplexed by this turn of events. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“When? I’ve been so . . . Oh!” Cordelia said. “You mean the vision downstairs. No, I had a vision, but it’s been taken care of. There was this actress, and a one-armed guy.” They looked at her strangely. “Never mind, it’s a long story. But right now, we have to solve my vision.”
“The one you just said was taken care of?” Lorne asked confused.
“No. The one I’m having right now. There is a young man in a park in Glendale. Uh, somewhere near a pond. There is a demon waiting for him. He’s red with four, no make that five horns,” Cordelia explained.
Angel looked at the others to see if they saw what he was seeing and then looked back at Cordelia. “Um, Cordy?”
“What?” she asked unknowingly floating about a foot off the ground.
**************************
Sunnydale, Crawford Street Mansion
Spike was sitting on the couch watching TV when a timid knock came at the front door. He groaned as he tossed the remote to the side and got up to answer it. He padded across the cool floor and threadbare hall runners.
Unlocking the door, he opened it slightly. “Yeah?”
He focused on his visitor when he didn’t receive an answering greeting to see Buffy standing on his front porch. She looked lost to him and in need of someone to talk to. Before she could say why she was there, he stepped back and allowed her to enter before he shut and locked the door again.