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We Will Remember Them by Lilachigh
 
Chp 5
 
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We Will Remember Them….

By Lilachigh

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon




Chapter Five

Somewhere in France: 1943


The sound of a baby crying echoed through the underground cells of the vast French chateau, unexpected, alarming and disturbing. Buffy flinched – this had to be so bad! - and banged on the prison door with clenched fists. “Joy! Are you in there? Can you hear me?”

“The whole sodding castle can hear you!” Spike said, sounding disgusted. He stretched an arm over her shoulder and waved a large, ornate key in front of her nose. “You should learn to use your eyes and well as your pretty little pink mouth, Slayer. The key was on a hook under the guard’s desk. Just where you’d expect it to be.”

Buffy glared, snatched it from him and turned it in the lock. “Stay here and keep watch,” she snapped.

“Whatever you say! Two Slayers in one small room is a bit rich even for my blood. And why is a kid in there? No one mentioned a baby to me.”

Buffy didn’t reply: she was pushing open the heavy door,
wrinkling her nose and trying not to retch at the fetid smell that rose up from the floor and hung like a foul mist inside the dark, damp cell. The baby’s cries had faded into whimpers and Buffy found she was whispering, scared of alarming it. “Joy? Slayer?”

“Who are you?”

The very English voice reminded Buffy instantly of Giles. She pushed the door wider and the light from the passage threw a pale yellow glow onto the girl lying on a narrow metal bed on the far side of the cell.

She struggled up onto one elbow, the other arm protecting the baby that lay against her breast. Long dark hair spilled in dirty tangles across her shoulders and a huge bruise disfigured one cheek. But Buffy could see that under the thin blanket, her feet were flat on the bed, ready to spring, every inch of her taut and prepared to fight.

“Hi, listen, we need to move – fast. My name’s Buffy, I’m a Slayer like you – “ She waved an impatient hand as she guessed what the next words out of the girl’s mouth would be – “I know. Don’t worry, you’re not dead! I’ll explain when we get out of here.”

Buffy knew that any other person in the world would have asked more questions, exclaimed, commented, argued. But Joy was a Slayer and she swung herself round to sit on the edge of the bed.

The baby whimpered again and Joy looked up at Buffy, something close to despair in her eyes. “She’s starving. I’ve no milk.”

“Oh! OK, we’ll cope with that when we get clear. Can you walk?”

Joy nodded fiercely, stood up and promptly collapsed back on the bed again. “Sorry! I had a rough time having her. I lost a lot of blood and I’ve been sick since.”

“What the bloody hell’s keeping you, Slayer?” Spike’s voice sliced through the dark. “That goon won’t stay in the kitchens eating his breakfast sausage and sauerkraut for long.”

Joy stiffened, her brown eyes widening. “Vampire!” She tried again to stand up and this time managed two steps before she fell forward and Buffy caught her. “Kill it! Stake it! Quick! What are you waiting for? It’ll take my baby!”

“No, it won’t. I mean, he won’t. It’s Spike. I mean, yes he’s a vampire, but he won’t hurt you or the baby. He’s been sent to help rescue you. We both have. Trust me.”

The light from the passage dimmed as Spike stood in the doorway. “Move it, Slayers! There isn’t time for a cosy chat. Hey, she can’t bring that kid with her! It’ll slow us down.”

“Touch my baby and you die!”

“Yeah, that’s going to happen, sweetheart!”

“Spike, she’s too weak to walk.”

The vampire threw an impatient glance over his shoulder. His sharper hearing had picked out the sound of footsteps and voices further back along the stone passageway. Before Joy could move, he’d crossed the cave and had swung her and the baby up in his arms. The English Slayer struggled violently for a second or two, then her head fell back against his shoulder and her eyes shut.

“She’s passed out, stupid bint! Take the kid, Slayer, before she drops the poxy thing.”

Buffy rescued the warm, kicking bundle from Joy’s grasp, easing the young mother’s arms away because, even unconscious, her grip on her child was frighteningly tight. She followed Spike out of the cell, shutting the door behind her as she left. Hopefully the guard wouldn’t realise his prisoner had gone until the next time they checked on her.

Spike was moving fast, his long stride eating up the flight of stone steps that led from the dungeons to ground level. Suddenly Buffy heard him hiss in pain, swirl round and step back towards her.

She could see immediately what had happened – as the vampire had reached the outer door, a ray of bright sunlight had beamed through the opening, lancing across Spike’s face.

“Sodding sun,” he grumbled.

“Watch where you’re going, idiot!”

Spike glared at her. “Oh, thanks for the tea and sympathy, Slayer. That bloody well hurt.”

“You’ll mend,” Buffy said ruthlessly and edged past him to peer out into the grounds of the chateau. “Sun’s way up. Now what are we going to do? You’ll never get across that grass to the woods. I’ll have to carry Joy.”

“If you think you’re going to leave me here – “

“Look – you need to find somewhere to hide, under cover, until the sun goes in. This is France – it can’t be sunny all day. It isn’t California.” She cast a glance back over her shoulder. All was silent behind them. Which, she thought fleetingly, was weird. This was all too easy. You didn’t just walk into a heavily guarded enemy encampment and wander off with their prize possession without anyone noticing.

Spike followed her gaze and said, with that uncanny knack he seemed to have of reading her mind - even when he didn’t know her – “It’s too quiet, isn’t it? Reckon it’s a trap?”

Buffy nodded. “Yes. But I can’t see why they’re letting us get this far.”

“Here – hold your Slayer mate for a sec.” He swung Joy down from his arms and Buffy supported her as best she could, trying desperately not to drop the baby. Spike pulled off his leather flying-jacket, draped it over his head and strode warily up to the door.

Buffy flinched as she saw smoke rising from the skin on his hands as the bright sunlight bit into his flesh. She was about to say, “Be careful,” when Joy stirred and opened her eyes.

“My baby?”

“Safe. She’s safe. Listen, my name’s Buffy Summers. I’m – hey, I’m an American Slayer. The vampire is called Spike, in case you missed that before you passed out. We’ve been sent to rescue you and get you back to England.”

“What’s the vampire doing?” Joy stared with dread and hatred at Spike.

“Trying to see if there are soldiers outside the door. We reckon this rescue has been too easy. It feels like a trap.”

Joy nodded slowly and reached for the baby Buffy was still holding. “I’ll take her now. I don’t understand what’s happening, but you’re right; there’s no way you could have got me out of that cell so easily unless they’d known you were coming. The Resistance have been trying for months now.”

Buffy recalled all she’d ever read and seen in movies about the French Resistance. She knew they were the good guys who would cheerfully die for the cause of French freedom. “You were working with them?”|

Joy nodded. “Aurore’s father is Pierre Gastonet, the leader of the local group. He’s never seen his daughter. She was born inside the chateau after the Germans captured me. I have to get back to him, Buffy. I have to!”

“You’re going to England, Slayer, whether you like it or not, so you can forget your poxy French boyfriend.” Spike was back, pulling on his flying jacket, rubbing the burns on his hands. “There’s a whole bunch of Nazi goons outside. Trying to hide behind bushes and trees. We won’t get twenty yards from the door before they nab us. So now what? Got any more brilliant plans up your sleeve, Miss Yankee Doodle Dandy?”

Buffy stared at him. She was finding it so difficult to remember that this wasn’t the Spike she knew and loved – well, of course she didn’t love him! It was just that the cliché was worded that way. Knew and loved. Knew and got on OK now he was chipped would be a better way of putting it.

Knew and ached for him, would be even better, she thought, but pushed the memories of their love-making to the far depths of her mind. This vampire would never touch her in that way, even if she begged him, which, of course, was plain stupid because she would never do that. Ever.

But if only this was her Spike. She could have trusted him, relied on him to do what she asked, follow her lead. This Spike – she felt a wave of exhaustion and unhappiness sweep over her. All this vampire wanted was to get his lover, Dru, out of an English prison.

A suspicion that had been growing in the back of her mind now swam to the fore. “Why do you reckon the Germans have let us take Joy this far?”

Spike shrugged. He was rapidly going off the whole “Rescue a Slayer and free your girlfriend” plot. He reckoned he’d do better ditching the pair of them, returning to the plane and flying it back to England. He’d find some other way of rescuing Dru. He had friends in London, vampires who’d be willing to help – as long as he paid them - and there was always blood around during a war.

The Slayer twins could fight their way through the German army by themselves. He’d be sorry if the American one got shot – his thoughts came to a swerving stop. Why the hell should he be sorry if Buffy Summers got her autocratic, bossy self killed? No, he’d be thrilled, delighted. He’d write a bloody poem about it!

The English girl flung back her long black hair and hushed the baby who had started complaining again. “I have to find milk; she’s so hungry,” Joy said feverishly. “But I can guess what they want.” She bent her head to kiss the baby’s cross face. “They think I will lead them straight to Pierre and the rest of the Resistance fighters. They aren’t bothered about me or Aurore: just him. They don’t know I’m the Slayer. They think I’m Madame Gastonet, Pierre’s wife. That’s why I’m so important to them.” She winced. “They’ve been trying to force me tell them where he is.”

She touched the huge bruise on her face with tentative fingers and Buffy wondered why her Slayer healing hadn’t started to repair it already. Perhaps the blood she’d lost having the baby had slowed down the whole process.

Spike spun round, stared back down the passage, cursed and vamped out for a second or two. “Soldiers behind us now, Slayer,” he snapped. “We can’t go back, only forward.”

“Look, getting Joy out of here is what we’re supposed to do. We have to get into those woods somehow, Spike. Then we’ll play the Nazis at their own game. Let them think we’re leading them to Joy’s guy, then give them the slip.”

“Brilliant, Slayer. One small point – IT’S BLOODY SUNNY OUT THERE!” Spike shouted.

“Well, you should have worn a longer coat! It would cover more of you. Jeez, Spike, pathetic much.”

“Right, next time I go shopping in sodding Bond Street, I’ll be sure to remember what you say. In the meantime – ” He glanced at the small blonde girl in front of him. Tight top and trousers, nothing to use there, although even in the stress of the situation they were in, he had to admit she filled them out well!

But Joy – she still had the filthy blanket from her bed draped over her shoulders. One long stride took him to her side, then, without a word of warning, he pulled it off her, ignoring her weak yelp of anger.

“Sorry about that, but there’s no way you two are leaving me behind. My Princess is expecting me to save her.” He draped the blanket over his head, picked Joy up again as if she weighed nothing at all, kicked open the door and ran.

Buffy clutched the baby tighter, waiting for gunfire that never came. Joy was obviously right – the Germans weren’t interested in killing them, only in following their tracks, hoping for far bigger game.

She took a deep breath and followed Spike out, bent double to protect the little girl, running faster than she’d ever run before until the welcome shade of the woods surrounded her.

Tbc





















 
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