The Covenant

by jamies_lady

Summary: After the fight with the senior partners the scoobies gather in rome for a well earned break but an unexpected meeting leads to adventure

Chapter 12

It was not going to be a normal week. Buffy came out of the bedroom she shared with Spike to find Angel waiting for her in the corridor.

‘Buffy darling, I know that he’s controlling you with the claim, if you just let me take it over, I’ll protect you from him.’

‘There is no controlling and you’re not taking anything over.’

‘I’ll challenge him for it, I’ll fight for you Buffy, set you free, then we can be together.’

Spike was listening from the other side of the door, he wanted to interrupt but with the waves of anger coming from the slayer, he knew that it was safer to let her sort this out by herself. He hadn’t lived to nearly 150 years as vampire by being stupid.

‘Challenge him Angel and you face me. I will take you out without a second thought, especially if you keep this nonsense up. Spike is my friend,’ Spike’s heart fell at that but Buffy continued, ‘my lover and if he ever asked me, my husband. I loved you once, but you cared so little for me you gave me up not once but twice and your arrogance nearly cost us another apocalypse, trying to take out the Black Thorn, where do you get off with that over bearing pompous behaviour? You can come out Spike, we have slayers to train and I really need some violence at the moment.’

Nina had also overheard the conversation and clapped Buffy as Spike joined her, and the three of them headed off to the training rooms, leaving Angel speechless at the attack. He was only trying to help.

Buffy led the way to where a group of the senior Slayerettes were waiting for a lesson in hunting. Spike had offered to help, he really needed some violence. The presence of his grand sire was driving him crazy.

‘No staking the vampire, no staking the vampire, no staking the vampire, was all Buffy could say as she stomped into the room. All the younger girls took one look and gave her a wide berth.

‘Right: we’re heading off into the city tonight for a little bit of practise. There’s a nest of Vampires, just near a convent- cum- orphanage and they are waiting ‘til they get the chance to get in and cause mayhem.’ Spike remembered what it had been like as part of the scourge of Europe, the damage he’d done in such places along with his sire and grand sire.
‘We’re not going to let ‘em get so much as a sniff at the residents.
I want you girls really concentrating on what you’re doing, no messing, no day dreaming’. Spike threw a piece of chalk at Nora who was drooling over him as usual. It caught her on the head, waking her back up to the room and the lecture. Vi giggled. She remembered the early days when Spike trained with them in the graveyard back in Sunnydale, she and Rona had come off worse regularly until they learnt to concentrate. Now here she was one of the teachers. Life was weird.

The next few hours were spent in the workout room, Spike putting all the girls through their paces. The Necrotising glass ensured that he could run classes no matter what time of day. Angel joined him and putting aside their differences the two master vampires started fighting as a team. They had been a team for nearly a century and their familiarity with each other soon showed. The slayerettes were well out classed. Buffy heard the shouts and became intrigued. Spike and Angel rarely fought as a team and when Vi told her what was happening she had to see it. They were fast, scarily fast. Her fists itched to join in, to test herself against two of the best. Grabbing one of the plastic stakes from the rack, well she didn’t want to hurt them, she called the slayerettes off and to head for the benches running along one side of the room. Spike and Angel looked around as the girls melted to the sides to leave the main area clear.
‘I know you’re cross Buffy, but is the stake really necessary?’ Angel asked, a little scared.

‘Plastic, it stings but won’t kill you. Are you ready, boys?’ and with that she leapt up on to the balcony and the fight started in earnest.
Word soon spread around the school: everyone from everywhere ran toward the training room where the two blonds and the brunette were fighting no holds barred. They were very evenly matched; fist and foot flew as blows were traded. Buffy had a cut to her lip, but Angel and Spike were already sporting black eyes and bruises. Willow and Giles arrived to see Angel grab Buffy from behind and put her into a neck hold: in full game face he bent to take a bite when Buffy kicked straight over her head and hit him full in the face. Angel staggered back and shook his head to try and regain his senses. Then leapt in for the kill again and Buffy lifted the stake and he ran straight onto it, the stake hitting him in the heart.

‘Ow, that hurt!’

‘You’re dust, officially.’

Buffy turned to Spike and hit him in the back with the stake, gently, just to make the point.

‘I win. Now if I hear another word about Spike controlling me, or using me, or any other disrespectful comment, you and I will be back in here, and next time I’ll have a wooden stake dipped in holy water, do I make myself clear?’

‘Quite clear.’

‘Good. Now Giles, have any of my skills slipped?’

‘No, you are still a formidable opponent my dear, and against two formidable Master Vampires. I for one am glad that you are on my side,’ Giles noted. Then seeing the bruises and damage done to the vampires, he turned to Vi. ‘Could you get the losers a mug of the good stuff each? That should speed up the healing and ensure that they are fit for tonight.’

Vi ran off to get the blood and Willow helped heal Buffy of the scrapes and bruises she had acquired.




The raiding party left the house at sunset, heading straight for the orphanage.

They approached the building quietly, looking, feeling, searching for the familiar tingle of vampires. Buffy could feel two masters, and they both felt familiar, Spike and Angel. Buffy led the group of Slayerettes forward and signalled them to creep up slowly. She signalled for quiet and then gave the girls their surprise…

‘All yours, we’re sitting this one out.’ The girls looked at one another and then as one went forward.

It wasn’t a great fight, there were twenty or so vampires, none of them over fifty years old. Xander just sat on a wall and watched,
Spike remembered back to training the girls back in Sunnydale. There always comes a time when the trainee has to stand on her own legs, and this was the time for this lot. Graduation. Buffy sat on a high wall with Xander, just watching the girls. Angel wanted to get involved but was made to wait by a hard stare from Buffy.

‘We can’t always be there to protect them, they have to grow up sometime,’ she said.

‘Talking about me?’ he asked.

‘Not really Angel, you always see me as sixteen and in need of protection. I’m not that little girl any more, I’ve seen things and done things that no-one should ever have to do. I’ve had to send the man I loved to hell, I had to watch another one die, I’ve killed and plotted and planned, I’ve faced down the first evil and Dawn in a bad mood, I was given a sister, who I later find out is my daughter… my life has been mixed up from the time I was called, and one of the few constants has been Spike. He loves narky Buffy, slayer Buffy, bitchy Buffy and loving Buffy, and I love him.’

‘Time for me to let you grow up then, isn’t it?’

‘I think so. You will always be a dear friend but I love Spike, he is my present and my future.’

‘I think I’m beginning to understand that.’

Buffy turned back to watch the girls fight. ‘Julie’s dropping her shoulder a bit luv, we’ll have on work on that when we get back,’ Spike remarked. With his vampire hearing he’d heard every word spoken between Buffy and Angel, and felt content.