full 3/4 1/2   skin light dark       
 
Love, Keyness and Impending Marriage by Ariel Dawn
 
Chapter 15: Uninvited
 
<<     >>
 
Disclaimer: Joss owns ‘em, I just play.

Author’s note: Beta’d by Bloodytearsoflife.
___________________________________
Chapter 15: Uninvited

“So he knows that we know?” asked Tara as she and Dawn made dinner that night.

“Pretty much,” Dawn shrugged. “I didn’t really keep it a secret. He just doesn’t know what we know.”

“Do you think he’ll press the matter?” asked Tara as she peeled carrots.

“I think I want him to try,” observed Dawn with an evil gleam in her eye. “I think Spike wants him to try too.”

“Just as long as he doesn’t decide to ruin Buffy’s engagement party,” observed Tara. “I think that Buffy would kill them both if that happened.”

Dawn nodded to that.
___________________________________
It was nothing like Anya’s engagement party was. There were no fun games or demon food. In Buffy’s experiences of bridal showers and engagement parties, she’d run the gambit. It was time to try something new.

They had a dinner party. The Summers’ dinning room was decked out in Joyce’s fine china, crystal glasses, and more forks and spoons than Dawn knew how to use. Tasteful Sinatra was playing in the background as Tara and Willow placed serving platters of food on the table. Each place setting had a card, fourteen in all. It was a tight squeeze but Buffy had made it work. Nothing was getting in the way of this dinner.

Of the fourteen people around the table, Buffy had to think that Nate was the one the most out of the loop. By now, Molly had heard most of the stories that involved the Scooby crew and various hangers on. But Nate was out of the loop. He had been awkward when he was introduced to Hank and Caprice, who had driven in for the party. They hadn’t been to Sunnydale since last Thanksgiving. The awkwardness arose from the fact that Nate didn’t know if Hank knew about Spike being a vampire.

That would make most people awkward.

It wasn’t a surprise that Nate was still not happy about the master slayer marrying a vampire, but he wasn’t willing to cause a family incident by outing Spike to Hank.

Spike glowered at Nate for the pre-dinner part of the evening. Buffy expected that. No matter what she said to allay his fears that she wouldn’t run off and marry Nate, he still had this seething hatred and jealousy for the watcher.

Dawn passed through the living room with a tray of canapés, batting her eyes at Andrew playfully as she kept the tray just out of the nerd’s reach. Andrew had been paying lots of attention to Molly for the last few days, and Dawn wanted his attention back on her, even though she would never have admitted it. Andrew was hers and here he was conversing with the other slayer, again.

Amy and Xander talked politely, while Xander glared at Giles and Anya openly flirting with each other. Hank and Caprice twittered to themselves about some secret between them, while Nate tried to make conversation with the bride and groom to be.

It was hard to make conversation with people with whom you had nothing in common but work, especially when work was a taboo subject.

Tara and Willow came out of the kitchen to announce that dinner was served, only to be cut off by the doorbell.

Buffy and Dawn simultaneously groaned, each of them thinking it was something or someone else.

Buffy thought it was Angel, coming to crash the party and demand that Buffy come to her senses.

Dawn thought it was Graham coming to crash the party and demand information.

Dawn was right.

Throwing the front door open, Dawn glared at her ex-boyfriend and started drumming her nails against the wood.

“WHAT do you want?” the teen asked. “It’s Buffy’s engagement party. You aren’t welcome.”

He made no attempt to be apologetic.

“I was wired when I went into the school Dawn,” he noted factually.

It took a second for the information to sink in. Dawn’s face went from anger to worry.

“We are here to take you all in,” said Graham. He pushed the door open further so that Dawn could see the various vans and armed personnel that were assembled on the lawn and street.

“You asshole,” she blurted before slamming the door in his face.

Dawn turned to her family standing in the living room.

“What do we do?” asked Caprice worried, grabbing her husband’s hand.

“Run!” said Dawn moving towards the closet door. “We have to get out of here!”

The worried looks on all the faces of Buffy and Spike’s guests confirmed her need for the suggestion to leave the house.

“How can we all get out without them knowing about it?” asked Xander. “I mean it’s easy for Buffy, Dawn, and Anya, the rest of us, not so much.”

“I can hold open a portal for a few of you to get into Arashamahar,” noted Dawn.

Buffy looked at her sister sternly. “And just when did you find that out?”

“I don’t think now is the time to ask that kind of question,” Dawn observed.

Buffy looked sceptically at her sister before nodding in compliance.

Anya hastily closed the curtains and turned back to the rest of the group. “Well let’s go already!”

Dawn grabbed her father’s hand and led him to the front hallway. Her hand on the doorknob, she turned back to the rest of the group. “Who else is coming?”

“Take Tara, Willow, and Amy,” ordered Buffy, clasping Spike’s hand. “Who ever else you can get through, take them too.”

Dawn opened the doorway, revealing a portal to Arashamahar. Her father gasped. Buffy ignored her father’s profanities as he tried to comprehend what was happening and pushed him and Caprice into the closet. Tara and Willow followed, hands clasped. Amy padded in behind.

“Andrew! Xander!” pleaded Dawn, using her free hand to beckon them towards the portal.

“Go you idiots!” shouted Anya.

Xander stepped through the portal, his eyes locking on Anya’s for a moment. Andrew stopped at the threshold and smiled up at his saviour. Gingerly, he rubbed her shoulder, as if he was trying not to cross over the line that Dawn had instigated.

“Next!” shouted Dawn.

Anya pushed Giles towards the portal. With a little reluctance Giles stepped through, his eyes also meeting with Anya’s for a moment.

“That’s it! I can’t hold it open anymore!” shouted Dawn.

“Go!” ordered Buffy,

With a nod, Dawn followed into the portal and shut the door behind her, leaving Buffy, Spike, Nate, Molly, and Anya standing in the living room.

“Basement?” Buffy asked as someone started to knock on the front door again.

“Basement,” agreed Molly. “What happens if they catch us?” asked the teen.

“Hideous experimentation,” observed Anya, as she herded the group towards the kitchen and the basement stairs.

“Really?” asked Molly nervously.

“Pretty much,” noted Buffy throwing open the door and leading the way down the stairs.

Safe for the time being in the basement, Buffy looked at the assembled group and sighed. “Anya? Can you…”

Anya shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“Get yourself safe then. Go to Angel’s, it’s the only place I can think of that’s safe.”

“What about you?” asked Anya.

“We’ll meet you there.”

Anya disappeared in a puff of smoke, just as Buffy heard the front door break down.

“Luv?” questioned Spike. “Are we gonna fight our way out?”

Buffy shook her head. “No need to be so heroic.”
___________________________________
Descending the basement stairs, Graham saw a flash of light, causing every single device his group had with them to start beeping madly. He stepped into the basement to see that the room was empty of the people he’d been sent to talk to.

Further investigation revealed that there was no trace of anyone in the house. Just the remains of a burned dinner.
___________________________________
Buffy, Spike, Nate and Molly walked into the Hyperion hotel, their unexpected arrival causing Buffy no little amusement as she saw Angel’s face.

“Buffy?” Angel questioned, looking up from a newspaper at the reception desk. Angel caught the glare from Spike’s eye and cleared his throat. “Spike?”

In other circumstances, Buffy supposed that this would be very awkward, but considering that she had just fled her home and sent the majority of the Scoobies into Arashamahar, she didn’t have time to feel awkward by being in the home of the vampire who had fought naked in her front yard.

“What are you doing here?” Angel asked.

“Hiding from the military,” she stated factually. “My house is probably a pile of kindling right now.”

“Is the Initiative back?” asked Angel putting down his newspaper and stepping out from behind the reception desk. “What do they want this time? And who the hell is he?” the vampire asked indicating Nate. “Where is Dawn?”

“Dawn’s safe for now, she’ll be meeting me here eventually. She probably needs to rest. He is Nate, Molly’s watcher.”

Molly waved cordially from her position behind Buffy.

“She’s a slayer?” he asked.

“Yep, and we are going to need some of your famous hospitality,” Buffy said sweetly.

“Because I’m an ex boyfriend?” he asked bitterly.

“No,” she responded. “’Cause you are my future grandpa in law.”
___________________________________
Dawn and company stepped out of Angel’s broom closet the next morning, looking weary. They all looked like they hadn’t slept at all that night. Xander was remarkably silent given the fact that he was standing in the same space as Angel for the first time in years.

Dawn looked terrible. As she shut the broom closet door, she collapsed on the floor.
___________________________________
tbc…



 
<<     >>