Author Restive Nature
Disclaimers: I do not own any of the characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel the Series. They belong to the almighty Joss and I just play with them for my own amusement before putting them away neatly.
Spoilers: Buffy Season Three "Amends"
Summary: A teenage girl with mysterious ties to Angel helps him with his Christmas Amends.
Chapter Twenty Imminent Un-rescue
"Dru thought you’d have more visions just because she told you to?" Angel frowned. It amazed him sometimes to realize just how deep Dru’s insanity went.
"She was very determined that way," Dylan shrugged. "You guys spoiled her too much." And Angel couldn’t deny the statement, although it was more complicated than that.
"Did you see anything then?"
"Pure darkness," she answered. "And of course, Spike."
"You saw Spike?" he was surprised. He hadn’t known obviously, that Spike would betray him. But the possibility should have occurred to him. And it really shouldn’t have surprised him that Dylan knew all this ahead of time. Hers was a strange, dark tale. Made stranger that he had lived part of it with her and could only appreciate the strength in her now.
"No,’ she shook her head. "I mean, Spike came to my room and took the blindfold off. I saw hi with my eyes, not-!"
"I get it," Angel held his hand up, chuckling lightly. "So, no more visions after that dream."
"Not about that, no," she shook her head. He filed that information away for later.
"Spike visited huh? What did he want?"
"Oddly enough, I never found out," she grimaced. "Dru came back before he could tell me."
*****
Dylan was semi-voluntarily locked in her world of darkness. Her senses were nowhere near as acute as the Vampires she lived with. So she left the blindfold on, unsure how Dru would react if she returned to find Dylan without it. Before, she would have been sure that Dru wouldn’t have cared. But now, this new Dru was frightening her. It was as if she was back at square one, small, frightened and having no idea if she were going to survive the night.
She faintly sensed movement outside her door. But there were no footsteps. That could only mean one person. Spike. The door creaked open slowly. Then it shut just as softly. Dylan held her breath, wondering if Spike had just been looking in on her, or if he’d come for a visit. She really hoped it was the latter, because she desperately needed someone to be there with her. And then she felt gently hands in her hair. The world exploded in front of her as the sharp light from the pinpoints of candles caught her unaware. She blinked a few times and turned her head.
"Hey pet," Spike greeted softly. "How long have you been trussed up like this?"
"The chain," she gestured to the wall, "for quite a while. The blindfold was a recent addition."
"I thought so," he murmured. He dropped the blindfold beside her on the bed and pulled his hands back. "I figured you might be getting peckish," he explained as he lifted the bag from his lap. Dylan smiled appreciatively. As she took it from him.
"Thanks, I was," she lied. Food was actually the furthest thing from her mind. But Spike had done such an uncharacteristically sweet thing that she couldn’t let it pass by without comment. She fiddled with the bag, unsure if she could stomach anything right then.
"So what did you say that’s got Dru all pissed?" he inquired casually.
"Uh," Dylan wasn’t sure what to tell him. Should she tell him a lie? Not really a good idea. It was a simple matter for him to just ask Dru. Unless the Vampiress was sulking. That was a definite possibility. But eventually, the truth would come out. "I told her that he would fail."
"Really," Spike smirked. That was definitely enough to rile his Princess up. "Wait a minute there. Was that just your opinion? Or did you… you know?"
"I dreamt it," she supplied.
"Bloody hell," he breathed. He grew thoughtful. He stared at her for a few moments, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "Listen, I’m going to tell you something, but you can’t let anyone know."
"Oh, I don’t know," Dylan was instantly wary. If Spike shared something with her, Dru might realize and even though the Vampiress had never done so, she knew that Dru had ways of making people talk.
"No, it’s a good thing," Spike insisted. But the sound of footsteps forestalled him. "Damn it all!" he snarled softly. He stared at her for a moment, before snatching up the blindfold. "It’s Dru," he hissed. Dylan nodded and he quickly affixed the strip of cloth around her eyes once more. As he did so, she carefully tucked the bag of food he’d given her behind the pillow she rested against. Once the blindfold was set, she expected him to leave. But she felt the odd sensation of his fingers against her hip. It almost felt as if he were digging in her pocket. And then his fingers were gone, and so was the rest of him.
She didn’t have to wait long for anything to happen. But it didn’t happen to her. She heard some many minutes later, Spike calling for Drusilla. Her footsteps, which were coming nearer to her room, stopped. And then the Vampiress turned away and went back the way she had come. But Dylan knew things were accelerating. Soon, he would try the ritual again. Dylan tried very hard to see if he would be successful. But her vision just couldn’t be forced. So Dylan waited. She eventually choked some food down. And near dawn, she finally fell asleep.
*****
"I don’t get it," Angel frowned. "What was Spike doing?"
"What do you mean?" she questioned, unsure what point he was touching on.
"After he blindfolded you again," Angel clarified.
"Oh," Dylan smiled in remembrance. "He was saving me." She didn’t elaborate.
*****
The dreams began again from the moment she fell asleep. They were furious in their intensity. Over and over they replayed. She never knew a moment’s peace in that slumber. The call for blood was answered. Exultation shimmered through her, only to be cut short. The rush of pain anew as the sword returned home. Angelus was with her now, but he was no longer the one she wanted. She could see it in his eyes. The angelic one had fallen from grace. He was in hell now, with her.
By the time Dylan had finally woken up from the latest dream, she had no idea what time it was, or even what day. She felt dirty. The dreams had evolved very little from the original one. They were hell, pure and simple. Her heart constricted. She hadn’t been alone in her dreams. Angelus had undergone his own transformation. He had once again become the one that had dried a little girl’s tears. Taken care and sheltered her until help was found. The one that had sat with her in the hospital while she was scared out of her wits. She could have wept for him. Somehow, she knew, Hell wasn’t a dream for him, but now even more so a reality.
Belatedly, she realized that she was still wearing the blindfold. She pulled it from her, not surprised that it was soaked with her tears. She tossed it aside; wondering what she would be enduring next. She couldn’t allow herself to dwell on Angel now. She felt horribly for him, but she had her own survival to look for. That reminded her sharply of the food that Spike had brought her. She pulled the bag from behind the pillow and glanced in. She laughed softly. At the very top were her favorite caramel chocolate bars. Underneath was more junk food. Something that was convenient. Her stomach growled. So she pulled the likeliest thing from the bag. She knew her empty stomach wouldn’t tolerate the rich chocolate. So she chose the crackers. As she munched, she listened for clues. Voices and movement would indicate it was evening. Nothing meant the Vampires were asleep. And as she was still chained, she believed it to be day.
She brushed the cracker crumbs from her hands and stood to stretch. It was then that she felt something digging into her hip. With a start, she remembered Spike’s hands at her hip. She dug her fingers into the tight jean pocket and to her amazement, withdrew a small silver key. She stared at it. It was easy enough to recognize it. She’d seen this key almost every night for the past eight months. With excited but shaky limbs, she clambered from the bed. She swiftly unlocked the manacle from her ankle, stopping to rub it as blood rushed back in to the protesting area. She winced as the sensation stabbed at her like a thousand tiny pins. She was torn between thinking out a plan and just running like hell.
But if she was wrong, she could be running straight into a mob of angry, tired, and most importantly, hungry Vampires. So she held her enthusiasm back and moved cautiously to the door. She listened for a long time before deciding to ease the door open. All the quiet kept reinforcing her belief that it was daytime. She crept through the hallway, prepared for she believed anything. But all she found was emptiness. She finally made it to the main room. Completely dumbfounded, she glanced at the open doorway that led to the garden. It was night. So where were all the Vampires? Had they fled when Angelus failed in his end the world quest? There was only one way to find out.
She searched the mansion from room to room and found nothing. It was if they had all disappeared in one fell swoop. Dylan rejoiced a little until she came to Spike’s room. It had been stripped bare. Her lower lip trembled. She remembered how she’d made him promise many weeks ago now, that should Angelus threaten her, that he would kill her quickly. At the time, she’d looked on it as her only form of rescue. But he had done much better than she ever imagined him capable of.
*****
"So just like that, you were free?" Angel smiled. He much preferred happy endings, even though they were truly a rare thing.
"I was free," she nodded slowly. His face fell as he recalled what she had come home to.
"Was it really bad?" he whispered. "When you got home, that is?"
"Oh, no," Dylan smiled gently. "My parents were overjoyed to see me. The police had written me off as a runaway. But my parents weren’t so sure."
"What did you tell them?"
"Part truth part lies," she shrugged. "The truth, that I was carjacked and held against my will. The lies, that I was in LA at the carjackers crackhouse. They didn’t seem inclined to press much further than that. I told them that I couldn’t talk about it yet."
"I suppose not,"
"They wanted me to see a psychiatrist," she told him. "But they were killed before they could make an appointment."
"What happened after that," he wondered. It still rankled him that she was barely eighteen and all by herself. "Wait a minute. You just turned eighteen. Shouldn’t you have a guardian or something?"
She grinned sadly. "I was wondering when you’d cotton on to that fact. It’s amazing how much my mother’s and my handwriting are pretty much identical." He looked puzzled again. "I forged her signature. She did a lot of stuff online and like a dutiful, responsible person, kept all her passwords in her little filing cabinet upstairs."
"But weren’t the police aware that they had died?" he was sure that she had mentioned that.
"It’s amazing how quickly people in this town look away when enough cash is waved under their noses," she grumbled. "I had them reported as missing about a week after my birthday. And then the police claimed that they found them. So according to the legal stuff, I was of legal age and was able to inherit their rather sizable holdings. Most of it came from my grandparents. But hey, at least I’m comfortable. I have he roof over my head, get enough to eat and I’m still in school. It’s okay."
"No it’s not," he argued. "You shouldn’t have to be alone. No one should be."
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