Turned
by Bob Head
Part 4
[reviews]
Disclaimer: None of the characters below belong to me. All the BtVS/Angel people belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox. (Damn it!) I'm just trying to have fun.
Pairing: Buffy/Willow, of course.
Spoilers: A few general ones for Season Six and a few more specific ones for 'Once More With Feeling'.
Distribution: IKOLY, Wishful Thinking and the Immortal Slayer. Anybody else, just ask.
Rating: Still PG-13 for this part. Higher stuff will come in later parts.
Feedback: Yes please! frank_8281@yahoo.com
A/N: I know that many people don't like the musical episode of BtVS. I am NOT one of them. I liked it. The only part that I didn't like was that damn kiss at the end. So what if that kiss had ended... differently.
A/N 2: For the purposes of this little AU, the so-called Trio are not an issue so I'm just gonna ignore them.
Turned
Part Four
Buffy carried Willow to the sofa and just held her until the sobbing girl had calmed down enough to make sense.
"Okay Will, What is it?" Buffy asked, still holding Willow and stroking her hair. "I know it's bad, just... tell me."
Still sniffling, not looking at the Slayer, Willow said, "Spike did this... he did this to you on purpose."
Stunned, Buffy felt like the floor was falling away from her. "He... how do you know?" She asked.
Willow opened her hand to show Buffy the medallion. "This couldn't have been Drusilla's." She said. "Blocking charms only work for the person they're made for."
"Maybe he got them after..."
"No, he couldn't have, the rituals to make them take over a week to perform." Said Willow, "He had to have them... before..." the redhead looked thoughtful.
Drying her eyes, she asked, "You said 'them'. Did he have one?"
Buffy wasn't really listening, instead, she was remembering. Remembering her first moments as a vampire.
"Buffy, did you hear me?"
"What? Yes, yes he had one." Said Buffy distractedly, "He said they were a matched set."
~~~~~BtVS~~~~~
She'd been disoriented when she awoke. Her senses, already enhanced as a Slayer, now felt as if they were on fire! Sight, sounds, smell, touch everything! It was worse than when she had first come back from Heaven. For a long time, all she could do was clutch her head in agony. Then, slowly, as her brain began to sort thru the information overload she became more aware of her surroundings, and the hunger.
'Oh my god.' She thought, ' What the hell is happening to me!'
The cacophony of sensation began to subside. Drowned out by something worse. A gnawing, screaming, thing in her belly that made the worst pain she'd ever felt pale in comparison. Hunger seemed inadequate to describe it. Just when she thought she was going to lose her mind, she heard a beeping coming from the next room. What got her attention though, was the scent.
Sense memory, the head shrinkers call it, sometimes a sound or the texture of a fabric will conjure some long forgotten moment out of the past. But a far stronger and more effective trigger is smell.
Still struggling to understand what was going on, Buffy thought, 'I know what that is. It's the smell of warm blood fresh from the microwave.'
She'd last smelled it when Giles had let Spike stay at his place. He'd seemed to take a particular delight in the Slayer's look of disgust when the smell hit her sensitive nostrils.
"But this time...' She swallowed hard. 'Oh god! It's making my mouth water!'
Through a reddish haze, she saw a steaming coffee mug extended towards her face. With an enormous effort, she managed to tear her gaze from the red liquid within and look up at the bleached blonde vampire holding it.
"Spike, what's going on?" She asked, or tried to. She seemed to run out of air about halfway through the sentence as if her lungs had forgotten how to breathe!
"Drink," he said. "Don't try to talk. Your body won't remember how just yet."
He held the mug to her lips and what little control she had vanished as she drank greedily.
Without being asked, Spike went to warm more blood for the newly risen Slayer Vampire. The slowly spreading warmth in her stomach began to curb the ravening hunger and her head began to clear. As she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, she saw the blood and froze, remembering.
This time she took a gulp of air before trying to speak, "SPIKE!" she cried, rising on unsteady but quickly strengthening limbs.
As she moved into the main room of the apartment, Buffy realized where she was. 'Angel's old place, oh god, this is where we...'
Her thought trailed off as she saw Spike turning from the kitchenette and the smoldering spark of anger at what he'd done ignited into an inferno! Even before he'd fully turned around, she had crossed the room and backhanded him into a wall. Before he could slump to the floor, she grabbed a double handful of his shirt and slammed him back into the wall again.
Her body beginning to remember the rhythm of breathing again, the Slayer growled, "Why? How?"
"Ac-accident." He replied through bloody lips. "Think Slayer! I haven't been able to drink from a human since the soldier boys shoved this soddin' chip in my head. When I tasted your blood something inside me snapped! I couldn't bloody stop myself."
Buffy flinched as the microwave beeped. "Yeah," Spike said, "go on, you need it."
She dropped him contemptuously to the floor. As she went to retrieve the steaming mug she spoke venomously, "Accident or not I should kill you for this Spike. And why the hell didn't your chip go off?" Absently she drank from the cup o' blood in her hand "Maybe Will and Giles can figure it out."
Spike laughed.
"What's so damn funny?" she said dangerously.
"You are." At her glare of warning, he added hastily, "What, you think you're just gonna walk up to your little Scooby Gang and say, 'Hi guys, got a slight case of being undead here, can you help me out?' Huh? The ones that don't immediately head for the hills..."
"Will try to stake me." She sighed.
"Yeah, face up to it Slayer, I'm all you've got now."
~~~~~BtVS~~~~~
'And like an idiot I believed him.' Buffy thought as she stood and stepped away from the sofa. 'Let him take me away from Sunnydale, from my friends, from Willow. And why? Was it because I was afraid of what they'd do? No. I let him because it was easier.'
Rage flared inside the Slayer Vampire. "You're not wrong, are you Will? The charm?" She pointed at the medallion still dangling from Willow's fingers. "It couldn't be something else?"
"No." Willow replied, "He murdered you." Shaking her head, "What I can't understand is how he got past the chip."
Buffy, in game face, turned to face the redhead. "I'll try and remember to ask before I kill him!"
Willow closed the distance to her best friend and pulled her into a hug. "When WE kill him, together."
For a moment Buffy stiffened, and then allowed herself to relax into the embrace. She drew in a breath that she didn't really need just for the scent that was uniquely Willow. The thudding in her ears took a moment to identify.
'Oh.' As she realized what it was. 'Willow's heartbeat. I've been hearing it since we got here, I just didn't notice it being so loud.' She focused on it and found she could separate the individual beats. 'If I listen just a little harder... Is that the sound of blood rushing through her veins?" She sighed as she nuzzled Willow. Her mouth opened baring her fangs. Just before she could tear open the soft flesh before her, Buffy realized what she was about to do.
"Oh god no!" she cried as she shoved Willow back, almost to the door. She could tell the wiccan was saying something but she couldn't hear her. All she could hear was the laughter in her head. Laughter that sounded very much like her own.
~~~~~BtVS~~~~~
Dawn and Xander stopped to rest and check the map about ten blocks from the hotel. The youngest Summers girl leaned against the side of a building, breathing hard while Xander examined the map.
"Are they still in the same place?" Dawn asked.
"Yeah," replied Xander, calculating distances in his head, "It looks like that's where Buffy's been staying cause they haven't moved since you mojoed the map."
'And blew up the hotel room.' She thought sheepishly. "So let's get going." She said gathering her share of the bags.
Grabbing her arm Xander said, "Wait Dawn, we're gonna need transportation." At her confused look he continued, "Look," he pointed at the map. "We're here and Buffy and Willow," tracing the route to the red and gold lights, "are way over here."
"So what?"
Xander sighed, "Dawn, that's over twenty miles away."
"Oh." Understanding finally Dawn asked, "Maybe we can take a cab?"
'Maybe not.' Thought Xander, searching through his pockets. "Dawn, how much money do you have?"
The youngest Summers pulled some crumpled bills from a pocket of her backpack. "Eleven dollars." She said, counting the money. "Why?" she asked suspiciously.
"Because," Xander replied, "I had Willow hold my wallet when we went into that club."
"So," Dawn said tiredly sinking back down onto the suitcase she'd been lugging, "You found Buffy, lost her AND Willow AND all our travel money, in one night."
"You left out the part where Buffy kicked my ass."
The two Scoobies looked up as a loud rumble caught their attention. Across the street, a train was pulling into an elevated station.
Xander, gathering his share of the bags, said, "I think we've found our ride."
TBC...