Bewitched, Chapter 36/37

[thismaz]

Bewitched won the award for best series at the No Rest for the Wicked Awards. The judges' statement was: Oh my... let's get a thing straight! Everyone needs to read this story! Everyone needs to discover this author! To say that I am chuffed to bits, would be a vast understatement.

Thank you, again, to the kind person who nominated it.

And I got this -
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Thanks also to angelus2hot for the lovely banner

Title: Bewitched, Chapter 36/37
Pairing: S/X
Rating: Overall NC-17
Summary: Valentine's Day arrived and Dru dipped her finger in the brew, giving it a stir. That was two years ago and the fall-out is still falling, although it's almost finished now.
Word Count: 5,420
Betaed by sparrow2000 and DJ, for which, many thanks. Thanks also to Sparrow for conflabbing on plot twists and forms.
Comments: Are greatly appreciated, loved and cherished.
Disclaimer: here.

The prologue is here, with a link to the other chapters, or you can find the whole thing, in reverse order, in tags, or in the correct order, in memories. There's a menu of links on the right hand side of my main journal page.

If you were reading this story before it went on hiatus, after chapter 27, there is a recap post here with a link to chapter 28 and all chapters following.


Many thanks to katekat1010 for allowing me to use her original manip which you can find here.



Chapter 36

Giles was knocking at the door within twenty minutes and the girls were not far behind. Willow marched into Xander's living room with Buffy on her heels. "Oz is here?" she asked. "In Sunnydale?"

Buffy grimaced behind her back and Xander got the message. "Yeah, he is," he said. "He got back this afternoon."

"And he came here?"

"He went looking for you. He couldn't find you. He went to your dorm, first, but you weren't there." Xander could do the guilt trip, as well as anyone.

"I was back by six," Willow said in a small voice.

Xander's eyes fell on Tara, standing hesitantly just inside the door and the guilt trip rebounded on him. "Hey, come in," he said. Turning back to Willow he added, "We'll get him out. Somehow. We have to."

"Bloody right," Spike agreed.

"What I don't understand," Giles said, "is what he was doing out in the woods for the Initiative to catch him. I know he had a safe cage, before he left."

"Had some bad news, didn't he?" Spike said. "Needed to let it out."

Xander saw understanding dawn. "So you took him for a run and allowed him to get captured."

Spike's face tightened and Xander just knew he was going to lash out and say something unforgivable about Willow and Giles and what they should have done for Oz, years ago. He forestalled him. Sometimes he felt like the whole of the United Nations, crammed into one body. "Spike trailed them," he said. "He couldn't take them on without being captured himself, but he found another backdoor in the woods near East Mountain Drive, beyond Forestville and Pennine. They took Oz in that way. If Spike hadn't been with him, we wouldn't know that."

Giles stared at Xander speculatively. He glanced over at Buffy, standing with her hands clenched on the back of the sofa, Willow, who seemed to have belatedly remembered that she had a girlfriend who also had feelings and had gone to stand next to her, and Spike, leaning with deceptive casualness against the kitchen sink. "Okay," he said.

Willow placed a self-conscious arm around Tara's waist and left it there although Tara didn't reciprocate.

"So that's three entrances we know about," Buffy said. "The one in the Frat House, the one Spike escaped from, and now this. The one in Lowell House works with voice recognition. I don't think they'll leave the other two unlocked."

"They use a key card," Spike said. "But the one I stole doesn't work anymore."

Xander looked up sharply. "You tested it?" he asked.

"Yeah. Tested, failed, and had to clear out when it set off an alarm."

"So we need a valid card," Buffy said.

Spike came into the living room. "The hybrid, Adam," he said, "he's got eyes into the base. Saw it when I was up there. Rows of monitors showing all angles."

"Interesting," said Giles. Xander threw Spike an approving look. "Do you think he can do more than just watch?" Giles asked.

"Not a computer expert, am I? But there's a lot of knobs and switches for just watching. Thinking he might open the door for us."

"Hmm, but we can't rely on it. However, it would be useful to find out more, for the future, if you could?"

Spike gazed at him blankly for a long moment before turning away. "Right," he said, "I can do that. Meantime, I reckon I'll go ask him to kill the lights and cameras tonight." He leaned his shoulder against the wall of the Kitchen walk through. "Create some chaos, as a gesture of good faith," he added with a derisive snort.

Giles ran his hand through his hair. "That might help," he acknowledged, "but we still need a way in."

"Ambush and mugging?" Xander suggested. Giles looked slightly taken aback, although Buffy nodded thoughtfully, but then Xander remembered something she'd said about their operating protocols. "Except, they travel in teams of four don't they? Can we do it?"

"No they don't," Spike said. "Last few weeks they've been sending their patrols out in pairs."

Buffy turned to him again and her eyes narrowed. "How do you know that?" she asked.

"Same way as I know that they're spread thin and they've been busy," Spike said. "They've specialised. The patrols spot a demon and call for backup. The retrieval team arrives. They take the prey and then go on to the next call. The wolf was just unlucky. He ran straight into a fully armed retrieval team."

Leaning forward over the back of the sofa, Buffy asked, "How come, if you've been tracking them so much, you're still walking around free?"

Spike's grin had a lot in common with a sneer. "Know what I'm doing," he said. "I'm not some mayfly-slayer. I was taught by the best and I've learnt more since. If they can't see me, they can't catch me."

Xander stepped forward and clapped his hands together loudly, breaking through their staring match. "Okay," he said. "Everyone sit down." He pointed at the seat of the sofa. "Buffy, there. Giles on the recliner, please. You two," he said, waving a hand at Willow and Tara, "Next of Buffy. Spike, get a chair from the kitchen."

For the first time since he got back an hour earlier, Spike gave him a proper smile. "Love it when you get all commanding, pet," he said.

Xander frowned at him. "Not helping," he replied. Looking around the room at his friends, who were all staring at him with varying degrees of shock, he clapped his hands again. "Come on, people," he said, channelling his inner Willow. "Sit!"

Hesitantly they did as they were told. Xander himself stayed on his feet. "Right," he said, once they were all settled. "Now, we are going to talk about this calmly, with no baiting, no insults and no diversions. We are going to go in there and we are going to get Oz out. Who knows what they'll do to him if we don't." He looked around. "Anyone got anything positive to offer?"

Half an hour later they had a plan, but it was almost two o'clock. They had four hours before sunrise, a little longer before it cleared the hills, since they were heading east, towards the campus and the National Forest beyond it, but it was still a tight schedule and Xander worried. It would be a relief to get moving.

Giles had brought weapons and they were in his car, so there was nothing to delay them. They were almost at the door when Willow rebelled against staying behind. "I'm going with you," she said.

As soon as the plan was formulated, Buffy had stepped back into her natural position as leader. "No," she said. "It's too dangerous, Will. Besides, if Spike can't convince Adam to cooperate, and I don't know why I'm trusting him, we need you to hack into the city's electrical grid. You're going to have to power down the Initiative."

"Giles can do that," Willow objected. "It's practically on my shortcuts. All he has to do is push delete and the whole town's in darkness. I can show him exactly what to do."

"Willow," Xander said, placing a careful hand on her shoulder. "We've covered all this. We need Giles and we need his car."

Spinning around and shrugging him off in the process, Willow turned to Tara. Looking at her beseechingly, she took her hands. "Please?" she said. "I-I can't just sit here. I need to go with them."

Tara gave an unhappy nod, but she also pulled her hands free of Willow's hold.

Willow's face crumpled slightly. "Thank you," she whispered.

Looking across at Buffy, Xander saw that she was going to cave. "Okay," she said. "You can back us up."

They waited while Willow drew Tara across to her open laptop and showed her what she would need to do to kill the power to the eastern sector of the town.

Xander tried to still his fidgeting when he noticed that Spike had started to bounce on the balls of his feet.

Finally Willow straightened up and came back to join them at the door. With a sigh, Buffy visibly straightened her shoulders and to Xander's huge relief said, "Let's go."

For once the plan worked perfectly. After Spike split away from them, it took them an hour to locate an Initiative patrol on the edge of the campus, but once they did, it was the work of moments for Xander to step out onto the path immediately in front of them. "Hi, guys," he said cheerfully giving them a wave. Buffy came up behind them and cracked their heads together while they were still assessing his humanity status.

Together they stripped the two soldiers of their radio, keycards and guns, tied them up securely, gagged them and bundled them into the trunk of Giles' car, before he drove them all up to the top of Pennine, to the junction with Forestville.

When they got there, they tumbled out and gathered their weapons, then Giles drove away to lock the soldiers in Oz's old cage. Xander stood in the road and watched his taillights fade until they disappeared around a bend.

"Come on, Xander," Buffy hissed. Xander started and turned to follow her into the trees.

They reached the door and found Spike already waiting for them. "How did it go?" Xander asked.

"Took some fast talking, but he thinks I'm winning your trust." Spike replied, nodding at Buffy. "He's happy enough for you to get an idea of the layout. I reckon his plan's due to come together in the next few days. If he was capable of it, I'd say he was excited by the idea of you getting in tonight."

"Good," Buffy said. "So he'll leave us alone in there?"

"That's the idea, once he's turned off the lights and killed the surveillance. Here, pass us the card. I also know where to find the guy who can take us straight to Oz.

While Spike took the card from her hand and approached the door, Xander made a quick call to Tara, back at his place, telling her she could probably stand down.

Spike swiped the card through the reader. "Here's where we find out if he bought the story," he said. He pulled the door open and turned to grin at them. Xander felt a shiver of dread at breaking into a sophisticated military base with someone who was so obviously having fun. Edging inside, they walked cautiously forward.

They had hardly taken a step before the lights went out. A moment later, blue emergency lights flickered on in their place.

"He bought it," Buffy said.

Spike led them down the hallway until they reached a junction with a smaller corridor. "According to Adam, the barracks are this way," he said, turning to face them and jerking his chin to the right. They took the turn and pushed through a set of double doors.

It was immediately apparent that they were no longer in an operational area. A notice board on the wall advertised a softball tournament and a barbeque. The walls themselves were painted in pastel colours and the doors had no viewing windows. One open doorway offered them a glimpse of a kitchen and lounge area, with soft seating and a large screen TV, as they passed. It was quiet. So far from the holding cells, there didn't seem to be any regular patrols and the dayshift were obviously asleep in bed, while the nightshift were on duty. They only had to duck back around a corner once, when a sleepy-eyed tech in a lab coat crossed the hallway twenty yards in front of them, eating Ben & Jerry's straight from the tub as he walked.

The commander's bedroom was on the far side of the barracks, conveniently labelled with his name on a small brass plaque. They gathered around and Buffy kicked in the door.

Colonel McNamara was asleep, until the door crashed against the wall with enough force to wake the dead. Buffy and Xander burst into the room and crossed to the bed. They pointed their stolen guns at him while, from the doorway, Spike called, "Wakey, wakey!"

The Colonel jerked up on one elbow, automatically reaching for the handgun on his night stand.

"Hey!" Buffy said, waving her own gun in his face.

He looked up at her and pulled his arm back. Xander picked up the gun and stuffed it in his waistband. Noticing a keycard next it, he took that too and clipped it to his shirt pocket.

"You know who I am?" Buffy asked.

The Colonel looked from her to Xander and then to Spike and Willow in the doorway. "Yeah," he said.

Buffy smiled. "Then you know not to mess with me. Take us to Oz."

"Take you to where?"

"Don't play dumb. Take us to our friend."

The Colonel hesitated, looking at each of them again. "The wolf?" he guessed.

With a tense nod that indicated how close to losing her cool Buffy was, she snapped, "Get dressed," and waved the gun again.

The Colonel could obviously read body language too, because he sat up and swung his legs out of the bed. Xander picked up a pair of pants from a nearby chair, checked the pockets and threw them over to him. The Colonel caught them and stood up to put them on.

Xander and Buffy took a couple of steps back to give him space and to stay out of reach if he tried anything. Xander was pleased to see that Buffy didn't relax. He agreed with her. The Colonel was playing along, but he'd jump at any chance to challenge them and take their weapons. He really didn't know what a slayer was.

Having done up his belt, the Colonel was looking around the floor. Buffy brandished her gun again. "You don't need shoes," she said. "We're not going outside." He frowned but shrugged and, following the implicit order from the waving gun barrel, preceded her to the door.

Back in the corridor, Buffy swapped her gun for the crossbow Willow had been hugging to her chest. "I don't like guns," she said and she certainly handled the crossbow with a confidence that she had not shown when she had a firearm in her hand. Xander saw the Colonel notice the change in her demeanour and smiled.

They resumed their journey with the Colonel in the lead, Buffy holding the crossbow to his neck. Xander and Willow brought up the rear, while Spike walked next to the Colonel. It was a nerve-wracking walk, especially when the Colonel tried to lead them around a corner and Spike stopped them.

"Ah, ah," Spike said, shaking his head, his voice light and chiding. "You're lying. That's not the way to the cells."

The Colonel's face showed no expression while he considered Spike and after a moment he nodded and continued in the direction they'd been going. "You won't get away with this," he said.

"Can't tell you how many times I've heard that one," Spike retorted. He grinned and Xander knew with absolute certainty that he was about to let his face shift.

"Spike!" he hissed. "Behave!"

Spike turned to look at him and gave a theatrical pout, but he didn't go into gameface, so Xander called it a win.

They'd walked the length of three more corridors, past numerous offices and labs, when they reached a pair of double doors and the Colonel stopped.

Spike took a couple of fast paces, ahead of Buffy and the Colonel. He peered through the round window in one of the doors. "In there?" he asked, looking at the Colonel. "I'll know if you're lying."

"Yes," the Colonel said.

Spike stepped back. Xander laid a hand on the small of his back and he shot Xander a look that said, 'Bugger off, I'm fine', which Xander didn't believe for a moment. But Buffy was already pushing the Colonel through the doors, so they had to follow.

The long white hallway beyond the doors was lined on both sides by rows of cells, all as brightly lit as the corridor, all full of one, two, or even three demons. Many sat listlessly on the floor, as far back in their cages as they could get. A few paced back and forth, like caged tigers. Some roared with rage at the sight of the humans walking past and jumped forward to crash into the clear wall separating them from the corridor, only to ignite a flash of electricity and fall back.

The Scoobies moved forward slowly, searching each cell. Seeing how crowded they were, a new dread rose in Xander's gut. The chances that Oz would have a cell to himself seemed unlikely. He speeded up and, in his fear and eagerness, pulled a step ahead of Buffy and her hostage.

They were about one third of the way along the rows when the doors at the opposite end of the corridor crashed open and a squad of fully armed Initiative soldiers burst through. In less than ten seconds they were staring down the barrels of half a dozen professionally held assault rifles.

"Hold it!" one of the soldiers yelled.

The Scoobies froze. "Stay back... or I'll kill him," Buffy shouted in return and to the Colonel, added, "Tell them to pull back!"

With the point of a crossbow bolt pressing firmly against his neck, at the base of his skull, the Colonel caught the eye of the soldier in front and gave a small nod. Slowly the soldier lowered his rifle, signalling his men to do the same, but they didn't leave. It looked like they were going to have company for the rest of their visit. Buffy started forwards again and Willow, Spike and Xander followed.

Xander hadn't recognised a single one of the occupants of the cells, so far. "Are any of these demons peaceful?" he whispered to Spike.

"Nah." Spike looked around. "It's like they've been out and dragged in every violent species with a grudge that ever hung around the Hellmouth. Oh bloody hell," he said, looking at the cage on their left. "Those two in one place is a fucking time bomb." He took a deep breath of air. "And judging by the tempers of the biggest ones, the sedative's not reaching them at full dosage anymore." He shot Xander a grin. "Maybe I should have mentioned that, eh?" Shrugging, he added, "Doesn't matter. When this place blows it's gonna be fun. Can we get ringside seats?"

From behind them, Willow hissed, "Will you two be quiet? We need to find Oz."

Xander didn't have to think up a reply, because at that moment he spotted Oz curled up against the wall of the next cell. There was another guy sitting next to him, who looked up as they stopped at the door. What was Riley Finn doing in a cell with Oz?

Riley took one look at them and gave Oz a nudge. "Oz," he said. "Your friends are here. Come on."

Oz raised his head. His eyes were blank and his lips were moving silently. Riley scrambled to his feet, bent over and gripped his hand. Oz focused on his face. "Right," he said, allowing Riley to pull him upright.

He was dressed in loose sweats, with a UC Sunnydale logo on the breast and hip. The legs were obviously too long for him and the way the roll-ups exposed his bony ankles and bare feet made him look small and vulnerable. The neck of the shirt sagged and his breastbones stood out starkly in the harsh light. Willow gasped, like she hadn't really believed he would be there, or maybe she'd merely hoped.

"Open it," Buffy ordered and turning briefly to the cage before resuming her watch on their guards, asked Riley, "What are you doing there?"

In Xander's limited experience, Riley had never been the laid back type, but even for him his expression was grim. "I tried to do the right thing. It seems like a court martial was too much trouble," he said.

For the first time since Spike had called him on his attempt to lead them the wrong way, the Colonel spoke. "You tried to release a potentially dangerous HST," he said.

Riley glared at him and snarled back, "And you were just looking for an excuse."

While this exchange was going on, Xander took the key card from Spike's hand and ran it through the reader on the wall. Nothing happened. He tried again.

"Come on, Xander," Buffy muttered.

"I'm trying," Xander replied. "It's not working." He looked at the card. Private Clyde Torres obviously didn't have sufficient clearance to open cell doors. Tearing the Colonel's card off his pocket, he swiped that instead. The door to the cell sprang open and Riley helped Oz out.

"He's been chanting, but he really needs to get out of here," Riley said.

The sound of multiple booted feet behind them caused them all to look around. More soldiers had arrived. Buffy gave the Colonel another prod with the point of the bolt in her crossbow. "Tell them to get back," she ordered, swinging him around to face the new contingent.

The Colonel lifted his chin. "Pull back," he ordered. The soldiers did so, but only as far as the doors. "How did you get in?" He asked Buffy, finally. Personally, Xander would have expected that to be one of his first questions, but the Colonel had probably been concerned with other things, like staying alive.

"Once we're out of here and safely away, we'll tell you where to find two more of your command," Buffy said. "If you try anything, you don't find them."

Xander held up Private Torres' stolen keycard for the Colonel to see, to prove her point. The Colonel nodded tightly.

Willow slipped past Xander. "Oz...." she cried.

Oz stepped forward and they clung to each other, but when Oz pulled away and staggered, it was Riley who grabbed him, bending over to get one of Oz's hands up around his neck, where he could hold it and so support Oz's weight.

"Let's go," Buffy said, starting to walk back the way they'd come in and forcing the Colonel ahead of her. Xander took up the rear, walking backwards with his gun aimed at the patrol who followed them, step for step.

Slowly, they made their way through the complex, one group of soldiers retreating in front of them, the other shadowing them behind.

Xander judged they were about halfway back to the entrance when Riley said, "Turn here. The elevator up to the house is just around that corner. It's only been two hours; I doubt they've got around to revoking my access."

Buffy threw him a swift, appraising glance before she nodded and turned her attention back to her hostage. "Okay," she said. "Lead the way."

He did so and a minute later they were crowding into the elevator, leaving the gathered soldiers helpless in the corridor outside.

Riley bent down and spoke into a grill in the wall and the elevator started to move.

Everyone stood silently looking at each other as they assended, until it stopped and the doors opened. Xander took point and got out first, checking that the coast was clear. It was.

He turned back when he heard a grating sound behind him and saw that Riley had opened the control panel and was ripping it off the wall, leaving a mess of wires.

The Colonel glared at him, but didn't move when Buffy released him and got out of the elevator herself, still covering him with her crossbow. Riley, still helping Oz, was the last to exit, edging out sideways to avoid spoiling her aim.

"You're a dead man, Finn," the Colonel snarled.

Riley's smile was more of a grimace. He let go of Oz for a moment, stepped back into the elevator and punched the Colonel in the face, causing him to stagger back against the wall. "You were planning to kill me anyway, Sir," he said, placing far too much emphasis on the title of command for it to hold any respect. Returning to Oz's side, he put his arm back around his waist and together they walked out of Lowell House.

Once they were all outside, into the relative safety of the blacked out campus, Xander breathed a sigh of relief. Near them, on the green, what looked like an impromptu party was in full swing. Shaking his head at the nocturnal habits of students and once again feeling decades older than any of them, he pulled out his cell phone and called Tara. After reassuring her that they were all safe he asked her to tell Giles, next time he checked in, that the planned rendezvous was a wash and they were on campus. They'd see him back at the apartment.

Switching his phone off and shoving it back in his pocket, he looked at his gathered friends - Riley was still holding Oz, who looked like he was on the edge of collapse, Willow was hovering nervously nearby. Xander could see that she wanted to go to him, but for whatever reason, was afraid to do so. Buffy looked impatient to be gone and Spike was standing in the middle of the path, as if he didn't have a care in the world and the sun wasn't threatening to rise on them very soon. "We need to get out of here," Xander said. "The elevator won't stop them for long."

"The blackout will slow them down," Riley said. "They'll have to check on the Colonel first." He gave a mirthless chuckle. "I think it's mostly me they'll be looking for now. But I agree with you, we do need to get out of here."

"Why were you locked up?" Buffy asked. "You're an officer."

"Politics," Riley replied, "Colonel McNamara came in last month..." the split second hesitation was almost imperceptible, but it was there, "when Maggie..." He seemed to have trouble continuing that line and this time his hesitation was obvious. Taking a breath he squared his shoulders. "I think he had history with her. He moved in and his faction's in charge now. I was on Professor Walsh's team. She picked me out of class, trained me, got me my commission. That puts me out of favour, now she's gone."

"So they locked you up with a werewolf? What happened to the brig? Are things totally out of control down there?" Xander asked.

"No, Colonel McNamara's keeping a lid on it, although the cells are full. Well, you saw. We've been busy and Dr Angleman's disappeared. I don't think he expected Oz to resist and it would have been too late for anyone to object by morning."

"Bastard!" Spike muttered softly, but Xander doubted it was the Colonel he was referring to.

Riley apparently heard him because he turned, seeming to see him for the first time. "You're, uh, you're Hostile 17," he said. Turning back to Buffy he asked, "What are you doing in league with a hostile?"

Xander stepped forward. "Listen pal," he said. "It's because of that hostile that you're not still locked up and getting turned as soon as Oz lost control. If you want to pick a fight, wait until we're clear and then you'll have to come through me."

He felt rather than saw Buffy step up to his back. "I can't believe I'm saying this. Again," she said, "But you'll have to come through me too."

Spike grinned. "Slayer-" he started, but Buffy cut him off. "Don't push it, Spike," she said. She sounded tired. Xander could sympathise. He was feeling the effects of the end of an adrenaline high, himself. "We're not friends," she said. "And I'll take you out in a heartbeat if you put one toe over the line, but for now you're on parole." She looked around. "Let's get back. We need to check Giles and Tara are okay."

It was judged too dangerous for either Riley or Oz to stay at either Giles' or Xander's places. Everyone met back at Xander's apartment, for the Scooby equivalent of a debrief. Giles made an anonymous call to the police, telling them where the two soldiers were locked up, once he had inspected Oz's injuries, and Xander set about gathering supplies.

Oz was suffering from tazer burns, already fading, and was exhausted, but it was the setting of the moon that relieved him of most of his distress.

Once the medical check up was complete Xander took a peacefully silent Oz and a broodingly silent Riley to the high school, where they set up camp in one of the less wrecked classrooms.

Standing among the scorched and broken remnants of his formative years, Xander asked Riley, "What are you going to do?"

Riley was unrolling a sleeping bag on the floor but he knelt back and considered carefully before answering. "If Adam really is planning a war..." he said, "They don't know what's about to hit them. I've trained with Buffy. I know what she can do and if she says she couldn't touch him..." He paused again and Oz and Xander waited while he occupied himself with setting up the kerosene camping stove Giles had dug out of a cupboard and donated to them. Eventually he looked up at Xander. "They're my men," he said. "Colonel McNamara's leading them into hell, but he's the commanding officer."

"He tried to turn you into a lab rat," Xander said.

Riley continued as it Xander hadn't spoken. "They'll follow him. Adam has to be stopped and he's unfit for command. What he did to me... he'll do it to others and I can't let that happen." He unpacked a few tins and packets of dried food donated from Xander's and Giles' kitchens, from a grocery bag and set them out in neat rows next to the camping stove. When he was apparently satisfied that they were correctly regimented, he looked up at Xander. "Can you leave me the radio?" he asked.

Recognising that that was all Riley was going to say on the subject, Xander nodded and handed it over. He turned to Oz. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked.

Oz had always got along with just about everyone, but he and Riley were about as different as two people could be. It didn't feel right to Xander, to leave him in Riley's morose company, although Oz seemed placid enough. "Yeah," he said. "I'll get some hair dye tomorrow and disguise myself as a student, or something." He was sitting back against the wall on his own bed roll, looking immeasurably better in his own clothes, than he had in Riley's sweats. "I had unfinished business," he said. "I've got even more now."

"So you're staying?"

"Yeah, I'm staying." He tugged his shoes off. "I'm going to sleep most of the day, but we'll see you later?" he asked.

It was a polite dismissal and Xander accepted it as such. "Sure, I'll come by. You should be okay here. Everyone in town avoids this place. Well, you know that."

Oz gave a weary nod and pulled open his sleeping bag. "Home, sweet home," he muttered, climbing inside.

Riley was heating water on the stove. "We'll be okay," he said sparing Xander a very brief glance.

Nodding in reply, Xander took one last look at the lump of quilted bedding that was Oz and left, heading back out into the bright morning sunshine.

He paused on the steps outside what used to be the main doors and gazed out at his town. It looked like an ordinary Sunday morning. An occasional car drove past; people heading to church, he supposed. A man walked by with his dog, obviously following some regular routine. It all looked so peaceful. With the sun shining down, it was almost impossible to believe in the threat that hung over them.

With a tired sigh, he turned for home. If they didn't come up with a plan soon, he didn't give much for the chances of Sunnydale surviving the culmination of Adam's plans, but that was a problem for later. For now, he pushed the thought aside and concentrated on the idea of his own bed and Spike, who would be awake and waiting for him.



Some bits of dialogue borrowed and adapted from episode 4.19. New Moon Rising

Chapter 37/37

Comments

[chaoskir.livejournal.com]

Nice art and wonderful and great new chapter!! I do love how they rescued Oz and that Xander and Buffy stand for Spike!! I don't want that this story will end but *sigh* I know, I know. Well, I enjoyed every chapter of this wonderful story.

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

Isn't it pretty?
Thank you so much. And thank you for your continued support. I have appreciated every comment you've left.