tarnished -- part three -- trekker |
Chapter Nine | |
Old Friends |
They settled for the night on top of the sleeping bags, under a sheet, curled closer together that night than they had in a while. Ethan stretched out along Giles' side, one arm around him, and drifted off to sleep quickly. Giles lay awake for awhile, looking up through the dark at the ceiling and counting Ethan's quiet breaths.
He'd never expected this, it had just happened, subtly, slowly, until one day he'd looked around and found himself in love. In love... and happy. Content.
He rubbed Ethan's back gently as the man slept. Strong, lean muscle, hard shoulder blades, Ethan felt so good under his hands. He loved Giles. Finally they'd managed to say it.
Giles found himself grinning in the dark. He was a lucky man.
Just then, the door to the office opened, and soft footsteps approached.
"Katie?" Giles said, looking up at the shape of her in the dark.
Ethan moved and muttered, but didn't really wake up.
Giles opened his free arm and, once again betraying his determination to treat her like an adult, said, "Come here."
She crept around quietly and scooted against his other side, two fingers tucked into her mouth like a much younger child.
He didn't ask if she was all right. It would be a stupid question. She spoke on her own a moment later.
"I miss my mom," she said. "And my kitty. And my house." She paused, sniffled, and said, "I'm being a big baby."
"Not at all," he quickly countered. "I miss home, as well. It's perfectly normal. It's even normal to be scared."
"I am. A little," she said, but then she added, with more enthusiasm, "But I liked fighting the demons."
He smiled, remembering the savage thrill of combat. "Yes, that can be fun, I suppose." He paused, then said, "Tell me about your cat."
She sniffled again, her fingers drifting back into her mouth and slurring her words. "His name is Todd. He's grey. I got him when I was five."
He kept her talking about home until she finally drifted off to sleep.
***
The next morning they woke up to the sound of one of the girls running down their hall, yelling for Buffy. Ethan groaned and muttered, "Oh, shut up, it's not the end of the world." Then he sat up a slightly and said, "Is it?"
"I don't know," Giles said, looking out into the hall. A moment later, two people, lead by a two very familiar figures, walked into the hall from the bank. Angel. Angel and his people. And-- Spike? It couldn't be--
Giles stood quickly and headed out into the hall, following Angel and his people until Buffy followed the girl out of her office and everyone stopped dead. It *was* Spike.
"Angel," Buffy said. Then her eyes widened more. "Spike?"
"Yeah, it's Spike," Angel said, quickly. "We heard the battle. Took us awhile to find you guys, though."
"But you're-- you're dead," Buffy said, still staring at Spike.
"Yeah, well, aren't we all?" Spike tossed out, offhandedly. He was staring at Buffy as though she, too, had just recently come back from the dead. Er, again.
"Uh, guys?" Angel said, "Shouldn't we be, like, plotting strategy?"
Giles, suspecting Buffy wouldn't be quite up to her usual standards of coherence, said, "And why should we trust you? Given that it was you who got us into this, in spite of our repeated warnings that you were on a very dangerous path."
The man in the back of the group, a young black man, spun around and narrowed his eyes.
"Who's this guy?"
"That's Giles," Angel said. "Giles, Gunn. Gunn, Giles, and can we please move on and start trying to fix this?"
"Oh," Gunn said, his body posture going on guard. Giles tensed at the display of hostility. "So," Gunn continued, taking a step closer, "You're the guy who wouldn't help when Fred was dying, huh? Nice. Been wanting to have a talk with you."
"Hey," Buffy said, before Gunn could get any closer, "It was my decision."
Giles met her eyes over the shoulders of Angel's team, then looked back to Gunn, who was looking between them, still angry.
"A decision which I supported," Giles said. "We made our position on your decision to work for Wolfram and Hart clear. That doing so meant you would forfeit our alliance."
"She was *dying*, you bastard. A girl, dying. And you were thinking of, of... affiliations?"
"We were right, weren't we?" Buffy said. "You caused this. All of this."
"We were at least *trying* to do the right thing, not sitting around on our asses--"
"Stop!" Buffy shouted. "This isn't helping."
"She's right," Angel said. "We need to... Look, I messed up, ok? I see that now. Can we start trying to save the world, yet?"
They lapsed into uncomfortable silence until Buffy finally said, "What do you know?"
***
As the higher-ups debated and glared at each other, Ethan wandered around the bank, and eventually back to their office. He found Katie still there, sitting at the desk in the big chair, her feet just barely touching the floor, drawing something on printer paper, with the heavy, ornate pen the banker had had on display on his desk. She had a flashlight aimed across the page. Bored, Ethan went over and sat in the chair on the opposite side of the desk and leaned in to see.
It was a horse, apparently. Or something like one. Maybe a dog.
"What's that?"
"Unicorn," she said, not looking up from her work.
"Ah."
She drew for a while longer, then, without looking up, said, "Hey, Ethan?"
"Hmm?"
"Are unicorns real?"
"They used to be. They were hunted to extinction in the Middle Ages, though."
She set the pen aside and frowned. "Stupid hunters."
He shrugged.
"Were they really magical?"
"Apparently," he said. "They still sell powdered unicorn horn on the black market. It's incredibly expensive, of course, and nine times out of ten it's fake. Usually narwhale tusk."
Her frown deepened and she looked down at her drawing, and for a moment, Ethan actually felt bad.
"Well, there's rumors there's still a few around somewhere," he said. "In Russia, and someone said they saw one in England a decade or so ago."
"Really?" she said.
"Well, it was only one witness. No one else ever confirmed it."
"How about dragons?"
"Dragons are all too real. Giles fought one once. And apparently there's one around here, somewhere."
"Really?" she sat up straighter. "Can we see it?"
"Can we? I'm not sure that's how I would have phrased that question. Given that if we do see it, it will probably eat us."
"But I'm a Slayer," she said, matter-of-factly, "I won't let it eat us."
"Oh, good. That's comforting to know."
***
"We'll need the army to create a diversion. But then we'll need a team to go in and close the portal," Angel said
"Ok, and how do we do that?" Buffy countered.
"Well, I don't *know* given that... look, we don't... we don't know, ok? That's... that would have been Wesley's thing." Angel continued on with obviously deliberate haste. "And frankly, we haven't exactly had time to sit down and crack the books, but you guys have Willow, so I figure you'll probably be better off in that department than we are."
"All right. Fine," Buffy said.
"Wait a minute," Willow said, "I don't know how to--"
"We'll figure something out," Buffy said.
"It shouldn't be too hard," Giles jumped in. "A standard banishment spell should do it. It would just have to be a... very large banishment spell."
"All right. So. We need a team to close the portal," Buffy said.
"Yeah," Angel said, "And to... um... slay the dragon. That's guarding the portal."
"Oh. Dragon. Great. That's great."
"Hey, we've slain a dragon," Xander spoke up. "We have experience with the dragon slayage."
"Oh, yeah," Willow said, "That was pretty cool."
"Yeah. Practically our finest hour," Spike said, "And everyone made it out free of third-degree burns."
Buffy looked at them in confusion. "When did you--"
"Uh," Willow said, "You kinda... weren't around."
"Oh. Yeah."
Giles spoke after a moment, to break the awkward silence.
"It... um... might be best to use a tri-point banishment spell."
Willow nodded. "I was thinking that, too."
"So... Willow, myself, and Ethan," he continued, carefully.
Buffy's gaze locked with his. Then she quickly looked away. But she said, "Yeah. Ok. If that's what you think's best."
This surprised him. He'd expected resistance.
"Good," Willow said.
"So, we'll go in, then," Buffy said. "My team and Giles' team. Will you be with us, Angel?"
"Yeah."
She nodded.
"All right, then. That's the plan. The army distracts them, we slip in, slay the dragon, close the portal, then we can all go home."
With that, the meeting broke up, and they all left to prepare their teams.
tarnished -- part three -- trekker |