Waiting on a Friend - Part Eight

 

NOTES AND SUMMARY: When last we left our heroes: Buffy went off to patrol; Wes and Dawn went to the bad-childhood Wyndham-Pryce home; Anyanka tried and failed to get to Giles and Spike, who were trapped in the St Pancras watercourse with the dead river coming back to life. This chapter: It's still Wednesday evening. You know where everyone is.

"Dust, why won't you!" Buffy snorted. She had taken out three of the remaining vamps in the Brompton Cemetery nest, but the oldest-- a tall demon who apparently had not heard that the 60s were over, judging by the Nehru jacket and love-beads he sported-- was proving more difficult.

The vamp managed to kick her across a row of tombstones, and she crashed hard against granite and grass. "What is your problem, girl?"

"That's 'Slayer' to you!" she said, then flipped back to him. Her boots drove into his neck. When he staggered, she jumped to her feet. After a quick twirl of the weapon to show off, she punched with her left and staked with her right. She was proud of that combination, actually. As the 60s reject poofed into the air, she added, "Only one vampire gets to call me his 'girl'. And you, dust in the damp, were not that vampire."

Ah, a very satisfying patrol. Couldn't wait to tell Wesley that no cruising men were harmed in the pursuance of her sacred duty this evening, hahaha Moo Guy. She tucked her stake into her long suede coat (miraculously with no granite or grass stains), took a deep breath--

And fell to the ground, caught unaware by a surge of Spike-fear and anger and bravado. He and Giles were in terrible trouble, she could feel it. Something had gone wrong.

Before she could even finish her thought, she was up and running for the hidden door in the graveyard wall. She had to get home. She had to save them.

***

Spike splashed rather moodily in the water which hit just above his knees, while Giles looked around the rapidly filling tunnel. "Here's a thought, Rupes. Why don't you find another bloody hidden door or some such? I don't fancy swimming to the Thames, must confess. 'Cause you know I'll have to carry your sorry, aged carcass."

"Bloody hidden doors don't just-- oh dear Lord. Oh dear Lord, Spike." Giles stopped short.

Casting a sideways look at his companion, he felt his undead heart constrict. A dark determination was gathering on Ripper's countenance, one that presaged bad, bad things. Still-- "Please, wanker. The 'oh dear Lord' riff don't exactly buck up the troops' spirits, know what I mean?"

Giles wasn't listening. He looked down the tunnel, then nodded grimly. "Right. We're trapped into whatever the Luviats called it--"

"The 'Lady's domain,' yeah--"

"Right. Okay." Giles started to wade forward. Spike sighed, flipped the tails of his tweed coat over the arm not carrying the briefcase, and followed. Giles continued, saying, "The Lady has shut us off from London proper, but we're in the space she controls. If we follow the original plan, find the Portal to the Fissure--" He broke off his words.

Oh no. Oh God no. "Giles, you're not, I mean, you're not suggesting we go through the Portal, are you?"

Never stopping the slow progress through the now thigh-deep water, Giles held up his hands. Spike could swear the git was murmuring an incantation, which he took as an affirmative to his question. Bloody hell. He splashed up and caught Giles's arm. "Rupert. Rupert, old man, we originally planned NOT to open the Portal. Because we don't have the slightest sodding idea of what's down there or how to get back up!"

Giles turned, and blue eyes met blue. Spike could read the anguished message clearly: oh Christ, Giles didn't expect them to get back up.

In a voice of razor-cut Dr. Bennet precision, Spike said, "Let me try to guess your thinking here. We're stuck in what looks damn like the St. Pancras River magically coming back to reclaim its course and its land, maybe more; this suggests that whatever destruction the Lady intends has begun early." Mouth tight, Giles nodded. "Further, our duty requires us to attempt to cock up said destruction, for the good of humankind if not the bloody world. Going into a fissure-thing we know nothing about is our logical first step in fulfilling our duty. One that does not include getting back home. That pretty accurate, mate?"

Giles reached out and gripped Spike's shoulder. He didn't say anything. Didn't have to.

Spike closed his eyes. The demon within rumbled at the idea of self- sacrifice, but it was a quiet protest, easily smothered. A much louder voice in his head screamed, Buffy love Dawn Buffy I'm so sorry oh God poor Anya Buffy so sorry oh God love-- then he forced himself to open his eyes and summon up what passed for a smile. "Thought so. Yeah, all right then."

Giles blinked hard, then said in almost a normal tone, "Good fellow." He turned and started that water-impeded progress again, saying, "I suspect the Portal will be close; the Luviats wouldn't have had time to travel far, and they were sent by the Lady."

"Fabulous. Not a fan of this disgusting undead river, will be bloody glad to be out of it." The snark was automatic, superficial. He didn't think Rupes would be happy if he came out with what he really was thinking: that once upon a time, a right prat had said there was only death or glory and sod all else. That right prat didn't know how hard it was to leave love. But he knew now.

Well, bugger. If it wasn't one sodding thing it was another. Spike squared his shoulders and splashed dutifully after Giles.

***

Dawn stood at the window of Anya's darkened office, looking out at the Thames. The river was higher than at usual high tide, and she could just make out the water splashing against the boats tied up at Cadogan Pier. Usually you couldn't see that, she thought, then she crossed her arms to hold in the shiver.

"Dawn?" She looked back; Wes stood at the door, outlined in light from the corridor. He said gently, "Are you all right?"

"I'm not sure." She turned to look at the river again. It was as if she could feel the churning of the waves from here, as if she could reach out to touch the water and it would beat back at her with the same rhythm as her blood.

Wes joined her at the window. His voice was so soft, so soothing, it almost could calm the tide. "Tell me why you're not sure, Dawnie. Are you worried about Spike and Giles? Anya? Or just waiting for Buffy to get back?"

"All of those things. None of them. Lots of stuff." The wind rattled the glass, and Dawn jumped back from it. Away from the threat outside. "Wesley, you wouldn't make fun of me if I told you something creepy, would you?"

"You know I wouldn't."

She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. "The river's been calling to me all day, sort of. Like I know something's going on out there and I should be there right where it's happening. Not that it's the river itself, exactly? More like something working through the river."

He looked out at the Thames. She wondered if he was thinking she was an idiot or just displacing her fear (which was what the stupid social worker would have said). Then he nodded. "That sounds right, Dawn. We've never established just what your Key abilities would be, but perhaps you can sense disturbances in energy-patterns. That's what Anya was talking about. We haven't had quite the right conditions in Sunnydale, even with Willow's various adventures--"

"No, I felt something then. Not as strong, but I knew when Willow first summoned the magick tornado stuff? I think you're right." Dawn leaned her head against Wesley's shoulder. "Thank you, big brother. Now if you can tell me what to do with all these twinges, I'll love you even more than I do now."

He half-smiled. "That's a huge responsibility, Dawn. May I think about it for a minute or two?"

"Sure. But you're on the clock," she said. "I want Spike and Giles to come home."

He laughed a little, back in his throat, and she felt warm and untwitchy. Then she looked out the window-- a taxi was pulling up to the curb, and even before it stopped Buffy was out and moving. "Oh no. I'd bettter--"

"You go to Buffy and Anya," Wes said. She gave him a kitten-brush of the head, just to make herself feel better, then went to the door. When she looked back, he hadn't moved. He still stared out at the river.

***

Anya stared at her amulet, rubbed her fingers over it. Nothing happened. For all the powers she'd had, for all the powers she didn't think she wanted any more, she was helpless. If only she could get to him.

The front door slammed, and Buffy shouted, "What's happened? Tell me what's wrong!" Her feet pounded down the hallway, then the Slayer, all wild eyes and pallor, stopped at the study door. "Anya. What happened?"

She fought to draw enough breath to speak, not enough to scream her fear. "Rupert and Spike-- they're trapped somewhere, underneath. Wherever it was they were going, they can't get out. And I can't get to them."

Buffy sprang forward. Her fingers went around Anya's upper arms and dug in. "What do you mean, you can't get to them? You can teleport through millions of dimensions no one gives a damn about, but you can't get to Spike and Giles?"

"No." Anya accepted the pain of Buffy's grip, knowing she deserved it. Helpless, weakling... "It has to do with the Thames and its mother- dimension somehow. Something strong has shut down the access. No one can get in or out, unless this force lets it."

"Then make it let you in! Go get them." Buffy's voice was strong, but Anya could hear the same hysteria bubbling that she'd been trying to suppress for an hour. "Be useful for once, Anyanka."

"Buffy, no!" The cry came from Dawn, just coming into the room. The little sister moved fast, pulling Buffy away. "That's just wrong-- it's not Anya's fault."

"Yes, it is." Anya clutched the amulet even harder. As if clinging to dead magick would bring him, as if she wouldn't do anything to bring him home. "Giles wouldn't be in this trouble if we weren't getting married on Friday."

Buffy and Dawn fell back a step. Dawn said, "You're getting-- Friday-- Anya, what are you talking about?"

It was so obvious, she couldn't believe she had to explain it. With a shadow of her old matter-of-factness she said, "Must be a curse on me, probably return vengeance again. Rupert wanted to get married while you were here, and I let him talk me into it and it was a secret from everyone but Spike what the party really was going to be, but I knew better. I mean, a wedding-- look what happened with Xander. And I love Rupie so much more, with all I am, so it's worse. This is never-get-better worse." She couldn't bear to look at their shocked human faces any more, and she buried her head in her knees again.

It didn't help. She couldn't help.

***

Cordless phone in his hand, Wesley leapt up the last two steps of the staircase, then into his room. Maybe this would help them. He had to be able to help them.

Yet he stopped himself, once there. Take a deep breath. Did he really want to do it? Even if a sad sick part of him wanted to, that wasn't the real issue. He had to help.

He bent down to pick up the crumpled card he'd left on the floor last night. The card with her name scrawled dark and hard across its surface, the Basil Street Hotel number underneath. His fingers smoothed out the paper; he noticed somewhat distantly how much they were shaking.

He clicked the phone on.

***

For the first time since her first moment of frightened realization, Buffy just stopped. She couldn't get to him. Her Spike might be-- No. Not going to think it. Summers denial was a powerful force for good, she thought, and she took Anya's hand. "Okay. Let's start from the top. You can't get them out of wherever they are."

Dawn said, "Buffy, you KNOW where they are. Spike gave you that reading material, remember?"

"Oh my God. He did give me something." Not that I read past the second page, she thought guiltily. "He and Giles were researching a thingy called the Thames Fissure. They were looking for a door or something under the British Library-- oh why didn't I pay more attention?"

"It doesn't matter, Buffy. The dimensional doors are shut." There was the patronizing tone that always made her want to smack Anya, Buffy thought. Stupid vengeance demon.

Then she felt Anya shaking, little tremors of distress that no condescending voice could hide. Buffy grabbed Anya's hands and said firmly, "Stop that. How many times have we saved the world? We certainly can save our two guys from their own Watcher idiocy. They'll be home for your wedding. And we'll make them pay for this for days and days and DAYS."

"There is another small problem, though. You didn't pay attention to the whole Thames-is-flooding-crying-blood thing, either?" Dawn coughed self-deprecatingly. "'Cause I can kinda feel the whole screaming-waters stuff. In a Key sort of way."

Buffy's head went down on her and Anya's clasped hands. She so didn't need this. She needed to take the other chair and shiver and cry and think about how she wanted Spike right now damn it and she'd told him not to go, she'd told him, she hadn't told him she loved him enough--

"All right here?" Wesley's soft voice pulled her out of the threatening fear-explosion. He stood there, dressed to go out, but with his arms full of files.

Dawn jumped up and went to him. "Wes, what are you doing?"

He spilled the files onto the couch. "I have to go out-- I have a lead, can't really talk about it now. But I called Imran Cumberbatch. He'll be here as soon as he can; until then you all can look through the Council files about the research project Spike and Giles are embarked upon. Maybe that can give us more clues, too."

Buffy looked at him. His eyes were sad, but there was a strange set to his jaw, an air of resolution. For the very first time she understood how different he was from the man she'd first known in Sunnydale. She said, "Hurry back, Wesley. We need all our family together."

***

"Hurry up, Giles," Spike gritted out.

Giles couldn't blame him; couldn't be easy to balance in a fast current of chest-high water, with a not-so-thin, middle-aged Watcher perched on your back. Nevertheless: "Shut your gob, Spike. I'm working."

They had found a spot in the tunnel so redolent of other air, other water, other worlds, that Giles had known immediately it was right. Now it was just a matter of unlocking the Portal, and managing to stay on top of Spike.

He closed his eyes and called up all connection to the spirits he could muster. A tingling began in his fingertips, and he framed a door with his hands. Red sparks flew, spitting fire then disappearing against the waves. Giles said "Open" in a language he hadn't realized he knew--

And they were falling through clay and stone, scraping themselves dry. Giles grabbed onto Spike's arm as they plummeted, and for the first time he allowed himself to think "Anya darling Anyanka darling Anya" before their world shifted with a loud and incongruous pop--

And he and Spike found themselves Below.

 

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