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Future Sins Past by DreamsofSpike
 
Scheming
 
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*Stupid, stupid, stupid Buffy!*

The same taunting words echoed in her mind over and over as she carried the barely mentionable weight of the helpless vampire in her arms, down the deserted sidewalks of Sunnydale and toward her Watcher’s house. Not that Giles was going to be thrilled to see her bringing her injured arch enemy to him -- but she was fairly certain that he would take it a bit better than her mother would.

And, it would be easier to get an invitation for Spike from someone to whom she would not have to explain why he *needed* an actual invitation.

She frowned, picturing Giles’ face when he opened his door.

*Maybe,* she mentally amended with a little grimace. *Maybe not.*

She slowed her pace at that thought, satisfied that she was now far enough away from the mansion to be sure that she had evaded pursuit for the moment. Her eyes narrowed, her expression darkening with anger and hurt at that particular turn in the direction of her thoughts, and her steps took on a particularly stormy nature as she made the turn onto Giles’ street.

A faint moan from the semi-conscious vampire in her arms alerted her to the more forceful quality of her footsteps, and her frown deepened with annoyance. “Shut up,” she muttered almost petulantly. “I’m not exactly doing this with your comfort in mind, you know. You’re pretty much my prisoner, so don’t expect me to cater to you!”

But she *did* soften her footsteps, almost without realizing she had even done it, taking a subconscious care not to make the ride any rougher than it had to be for Spike.

Not that he noticed. He was unconscious again.

Finally, Buffy reached the front step outside her watcher’s little duplex apartment, and winced as she rang the doorbell, wondering exactly what time it was, sure that she was probably waking him.

Sure enough, Giles opened the door in a dark red bathrobe, his eyes full of that blank, confused look that comes from being awakened suddenly out of a deep sleep, and blinked at her a couple of times, as if trying to remember who she was, before the uncertainty cleared from his eyes -- and they slowly widened with shocked recognition.

“Dear Lord,” he gasped, his wide eyes searching hers, shaking his head in bewilderment. Then, at the silent, pleading expression on her face, his eyes narrowed again and he lowered his head with a weary sigh as he rolled his eyes and muttered, “Bloody hell.”

***********************************

It only took a few well-placed words from Buffy, and a single good look at the vampire’s pitiful condition, for Giles to grudgingly offer the necessary invitation to allow Buffy to carry Spike inside. After all, it didn’t look as if he would be able to do any damage any time soon.

Buffy laid him out on the sofa, still wrapped in nothing but the sheet she had draped around his body, and sat down in the living room with her Watcher to explain what had happened.

The problem was, she hadn’t thought until just that moment of what other things she would have to tell him, to make the story make sense. All she had thought was that with a vampire prisoner in her arms, there was only one person she could turn to who could even begin to understand the situation -- her Watcher. She hadn’t really considered the possible ramifications of going to Giles with this.

But it was too late for it now, so she simply took a deep breath and launched into her explanation, hoping she could get through it with minimal humilation.

Of course, the way her life was lately -- humiliation was becoming a relative term.

“So -- let me be quite sure I understand this, Buffy,” Giles sighed, stifling a yawn as he leaned back in his chair and pressed a hand over his eyes momentarily, clearly still fighting off the sleep he had been so rudely pulled from. “You followed this vampire minion’s directions to the mansion, and Angelus and Drusilla were inside -- but you didn’t try to fight them?”

“No,” Buffy shook her head, not quite meeting her Watcher’s gaze. “I wasn’t sure I could take them both on my own, not after patrolling all night already, and I thought it’d be better to try to catch them alone -- separately.”

Giles looked up at her again, a slight frown creasing his brow as he studied her face. “So you -- ran and hid. Instead,” he surmised quietly, flatly.

Buffy felt her face color with embarrassment at his rather unflattering assessment of the situation, and she answered defensively, “Well, I thought it was better to play it safe than to get killed being reckless! I mean, where would that leave the rest of you if I got killed doing something stupid? And besides -- now that we’ve got him to tell us about the ritual,” she waved a careless hand toward Spike as she spoke, “we might be able to get Angel’s soul back, and…”

“Angel’s soul should be the last matter for your concern at the moment!”

Buffy blinked in stunned silence at the sharp rebuke in her Watcher’s interruption, and stared up in bewilderment at the severity in his dark blue eyes.

“Think, Buffy,” he continued, his voice softening as he saw the hurt expression on her face, and he sighed impatiently as he explained more gently, but still with a sobering certainty in his eyes. “Think of what he nearly did to Willow -- what he *would* have done if you had not been there to stop him -- and what he will still do to all of us, the first opportunity that he gets.”

“I -- I know,” she began, her words faltering slightly, her eyes wide and downcast as she blinked back the unbidden tears rising there. “I know that, Giles -- and I’ll do whatever I have to do to…”

“No, you won’t, Buffy -- or you would have already,” Giles cut her off quietly. “If you get the chance to kill Angelus -- you must do so. That is all there is to the matter. Now, I understand that this is a difficult thing for you to hear…”

“No, Giles, you don’t *understand*!” Buffy snapped, standing up suddenly, her tears falling from her eyes with the loss of the fragile emotional control she had been clinging to. “You can’t say that you understand! Nobody’s asking you to go out and *kill* Miss Calendar for the good of the rest of the people you care about, are they? Nobody’s asking you to take the life of someone you love!”

“He doesn’t have a life to take, Buffy.” Giles’ voice was quiet and steady, though his eyes were soft with sympathy as he tried to make her see his point. “He’s a vampire. His soul made him a force for good -- but without it, he is no different from any other vampire at the end of your stake any night in which you patrol. He is a monster -- a killer -- simply waiting for his chance to strike. And you must do your duty, and kill him if you can -- *as soon as* you can.”

“That may not be the only way,” Buffy insisted, her voice trembling dangerously as she shook her head in denial of what he was saying. “We all have made sure he doesn’t have invitations to our homes. He hasn’t managed to do anything more than leave threatening notes and stupid pictures in the past week, because he *can’t get in*, and we know enough to stay in at night…If Spike can tell us something about how he lost his soul, how to get it back…”

“And what about the hundreds of others in Sunnydale, Buffy, who don’t know enough to stay in at night?” Giles countered, his piercing eyes locking onto hers and refusing to let her hide behind her practiced argument. “What about the innocent individuals he feeds on every night, between now and the moment when -- *if* -- we figure out a way to return his soul?”

Buffy was quiet for a long moment, blinking back tears, as she slowly sat back down on the edge of the chair she had risen from so abruptly. She struggled for a moment, visibly, to regain control of her emotions, before finally answering in a cautious, measured tone.

“We’ll find the solution. Tomorrow. We’ll find out what happened with the ritual, and how to undo it.”

“Spike may be unable -- or unwilling -- to tell us, Buffy,” Giles reminded her gently, his eyes focused on the still form of the vampire on the sofa. “Remember, he risked a great deal in order to perform that ritual -- to restore Drusilla. If it is indeed the ritual that caused Angel to lose his soul, then it stands to reason it would be the reversal of that ritual that would return it. And I hardly think that Spike will be willing to…”

“I don’t care if he’s willing,” Buffy interrupted, her voice low and dark as her gaze joined that of her Watcher, locked onto the sofa across the room. “He’s going to tell us. I’ll *make* him tell us.”

Giles’ smile was gently mocking, with a note of bitter sadness to it, as he informed her softly, “You are talking about a master vampire, Buffy, one who according to history survived many years under the tutelage of the most sadistic vampire in recorded history. I daresay that what it would take to ‘make’ him tell you what you’re wanting to hear is -- well, frankly -- beyond your ability to do, my dear.”

He paused, his expression darkening slightly as he added almost under his breath, “At least, I should hope so.”

Buffy was a bit taken aback by those words, biting her lip uncertainly, a nervous frown creasing her brow. She had to admit, her Watcher had a point. When it came to throwing a few solid punches, talking a good game, and intimidating information out of some random demon or fledging at Willie’s -- well, she pretty much had the routine down pat. She could have them cowering, pleading, and whining out whatever information she was after in a minute, tops.

But her gut was telling her that Giles was right; Spike was not just another random fledgling. He had been the thorn in her side for the past several months, and was quite possibly the most challenging opponent she had faced yet.

After all -- he wasn’t dust yet, was he?

*************************************

Across the room on the sofa, Spike had actually been conscious for quite some time, though he still felt too weak from hunger, and sore from the rather bumpy ride over here, to actually move, and betray his consciousness to his captors.

Not that he would have wanted to, anyway.

Judging from the conversation that had passed between the Slayer and the Watcher, Spike was quite certain that the longer he could remain “unconscious”, the better. It did not seem as if things were going to be getting much easier for him, now that he was firmly in the hands of the White Hats.

He had been stunned to think that the Slayer would have taken him from the mansion, anyway, wondering with apprehension what exactly she had in mind -- and now that he knew, he was no less worried than before.

He had thoroughly researched that ritual, inside and out -- after all, there was no way he had been about to risk Dru’s safety by any little detail going wrong -- and he knew beyond all doubt that there was no way the ritual could have resulted in the loss of Angel’s soul.

Life -- yes.

Soul -- no.

In fact, he had rather hoped for the former result, which would have left his unlife a lot less complicated at the moment -- but Angel had still been undusted, and souled, at the completion of the ritual, of that much he was sure. He knew that he would have felt it, had such a change in such a close member of their family occurred.

What the Slayer wanted from him, he simply did not have to give.

And what was more, with that bloody chip in his head, he was completely helpless.

He had no doubt that he could convince the Slayer to get him some blood, to end this torture of starvation that his grand-sire had inflicted upon him; after all, he couldn’t very well tell her anything if he hadn’t the strength to speak, now, could he? But what good would his strength do him, if he couldn’t so much as defend himself because of the little mechanical gadget those pseudo-scientists had put in his head?

Of course -- the Slayer didn’t know about that yet…

His weary mind raced, trying to come up with a plan to use that lack of knowledge against the Slayer, to somehow trick her into giving him the chance to escape -- but before the plan could take shape, his exhaustion and hunger overcame him, and he felt himself slipping into sleep again.

But it didn’t really bother him at the moment.

*After all,* he thought before unconsciousness took him, *death by Slayer’s not as bloody awful a fate as listening to Dru going at it with that wanker right in the next room…think I’d bloody well take a walk in the sun over that again, any day…*

And he willingly surrendered to sleep -- unaware that his journey into the sunshine had already begun.
 
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