An Unaccomplished Fate

Author: enigmaticblue

Rating: PG-15

Disclaimer: I don’t own most of these characters, and I’m not making any money off of the ones that are mine.

Summary: The sequel to Avocation and Under the Sun. Spike and Buffy’s relationship is on solid ground at last, but a new prophecy threatens everything they hold dear. The bonds of family and friendship will be tested, lives will be threatened, and the entire world will hang on the choice of one vampire.

A/N: Any resemblance to canon is pretty much accidental.

Chapter 31

“We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;/How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,/Streaking the darkness radiantly!—yet soon/Night closes round, and they are lost forever:/Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings/Give various response to each varying blast,/To whose frail frame no second motion brings/One mood or modulation like the last./We rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep;/We rise.—One wandering thought pollutes the day;/We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;/Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;/It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,/The path of its departure still is free:/Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;/Nought may endure but Mutability.” ~Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Mutability”

Buffy sat on the swing next to April; it was hard to think of her as just a robot now. She was grateful that Spike had gone with her to confront Warren about his girlfriend-bot, because April certainly hadn’t appreciated being dumped. Between trying to save Warren’s human girlfriend, and trying to convince his robotic girlfriend not to kill everything and everyone standing in her way to get to Warren…

Well, two heads were better than one.

“Buffy?”

“What do you think we should do with her?” she asked. “I mean, she’s not a person, but—”

Spike put a hand on her shoulder. “Take her back with us, I suppose. There’s no sense leaving her with that git, and a robot could come in useful.”

“Not if she insists on being with Warren,” Buffy countered.

“Maybe Willow could do something about that,” Spike suggested.

Buffy was about to agree when her cell phone rang. “Speak of the devil,” she commented, seeing Willow’s name on the caller ID. “What’s up, Will?”

“It’s Giles, Buffy.” Willow sounded tense and scared. “The Council took him.”

“When was this?”

“I don’t know. Maybe half an hour ago?” Willow replied anxiously. “Xander called. He’s on his way to Wes’ place with the map. Tara’s calling Quinn and her dad.”

“Someone is going to need to call Mom,” Buffy replied. “And pick Dawn up. She went to a friend’s house for the afternoon.”

“We’ll swing by on our way over there.” Spike broke into the conversation, clearly having heard what Willow had just said. “Tell Willow to sit tight and wait for everyone to get there.”

“I heard.” Willow spoke before Buffy could pass along the message. “Oh, and Wes is calling your mother now. We’re going to tell her to come here, too.”

“Good idea.” Buffy hung up the phone and turned to Spike. “Now what?”

“Now, we load the robot in the car, I grab the sword, you grab Dawn, and we kill every single one of those Council bastards.” Spike’s eyes glowed with unholy fire. “They’ve gone too far this time.”

Buffy agreed. Giles was the closest thing to a father she had, and if there was one universal law, it was that no one messed with the people she loved.

~~~~~

For once, Dawn felt entirely ordinary. Stretched out on a lawn chair next to Ally in her front yard, letting the sun bake her skin, she felt like any other California girl.

“Thanks for inviting me today,” Dawn said. “I was really bored.”

“I’m glad you could come.” Ally tilted her head to look at Dawn. “You’ve been pretty scarce lately.”

And with that one question, Dawn’s bubble burst. She wasn’t normal, and she somehow had to make up a story that would satisfactorily explain that she hadn’t been around because there were at least three groups who wanted Dawn dead, and Buffy didn’t want to let her out of her sight.

“There’s been a lot of family drama lately,” Dawn said vaguely. “You know.”

Ally pushed herself up onto one elbow. “I don’t know. Just because things are weird with your family doesn’t mean you have to ditch your friends.”

Dawn bit back a sigh, knowing that she was going to need a better lie if she wanted to keep what few friends she had. “It’s just—my sister has this creepy, stalker ex-boyfriend, and she’s worried that he’s going to try to hurt her family.”

“Seriously?” Ally’s eyes were wide.

Dawn tried to shrug it off. She was serious, but the crazy part was that things were much worse than that. “Yeah. It’s pretty nuts. Buffy and Joyce both want to make sure I’m safe.”

“I’m glad they let you come over, then.” Ally’s voice was hushed, as though afraid of being overheard. “Are they going to put him in jail?”

“I think Buffy just wants him to leave town.” It was the best lie Dawn could come up with on short notice. She pushed herself up, frowning when she saw a familiar black car coming down the street. “That’s my sister.”

Ally sat up, putting her long legs on either side of the chair. “I thought you were staying for dinner.”

“I was.” Dawn felt her stomach sink when she saw Buffy get out of the car. Buffy’s attempt at a pleasant smile came off more as a grimace, and Dawn knew it was bad. “Buffy? What is it?”

“It’s Giles, Dawn. We need to go.”

“Is he okay?” She was already gathering her things, knowing that this was no time to argue.

“We can talk about it in the car.”

Dawn pulled her t-shirt on over her bikini top and quickly shimmied into her shorts. “Sorry, Ally.”

“No, I get it. Be careful, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll call you,” Dawn promised, then grabbed her tote bag. She climbed into the backseat of Spike’s Mustang, and immediately asked. “What happened?”

Spike cleared his throat. “The Council grabbed him. We need to make sure you’re safe, luv.”

Dawn swallowed. “What does that mean, Spike?”

“It means that your spring break might end up being a little longer than planned.”

Dawn hugged herself, knowing that if anything happened to Giles, it would be her fault. She was the Key; she was the one the Council and everyone else seemed to want.

~~~~~

Willow was very quietly freaking out. The Council had Giles—Giles—and she thought about what they had discovered in England, what Wesley’s father had told them. Maybe he’d remembered what they’d done, and the memory spell hadn’t worked right.

“Stop it,” Wesley said gently, kneading her shoulders. “This is the Council’s doing. We need to remember that.”

She heard the strain in his voice, too. “Why wouldn’t they come after one of us, Wes? You, or me, or even Buffy?”

“Giles has an infant son and a wife, as well as a Slayer.”

She twisted to look up at him. “You don’t think—”

“I believe it may be time to turn to plan B.” His voice was even, but there was something in his eyes that Willow didn’t like.

“What are you going to do?”

Wesley shook his head. “This is going to get bloody.”

Willow wished that she could protest, to tell him that it wasn’t going to be that bad, but she knew already that it was. It was going to be awful.

“They’ve stopped,” Xander announced. “They’re about fifteen miles east of us.”

A brief knock on the door announced Quinn’s arrival, followed closely by her father and Joyce. “We stopped to pick up Joyce and Thomas,” Quinn explained. “I thought it might be too dangerous for them to be alone.”

“Do we know anything?” Joyce asked, her voice strained with worry.

Willow shook her head. “We know where he is. As soon as everyone gets here, we can make a plan.”

A tense silence fell, broken only by the sound of Quinn and Tara’s murmurs as they quickly caught one another up on the situation.

Oscar sat down next to Joyce on the couch, leaning over to get a better look at Thomas. “May I?”

She hesitated, then handed the sleeping infant to the man. Oscar handled the baby with practiced ease, smiling when he got a deep chortle out of him. “He’s absolutely lovely, Mrs. Summers,” Oscar said.

“He really is.”

“Has he been sleeping through the night?”

Willow watched Oscar expertly distract Joyce from her worry. She supposed that they’d become friendly with Joyce having either Oscar or Quinn at the gallery with her most of the time. Oscar was relating stories of when his daughters were that age when Spike and Buffy walked in, followed by Dawn.

Spike was carrying a long object wrapped in black silk under his arm, and Buffy was carrying one of the duffel bags they routinely used to carry weapons. “Is everyone here?” Buffy asked, looking around, her eyes finding Joyce. “Mom? You okay?”

“Just—find Rupert.”

Buffy nodded. “Xander, do we know where they took him?”

“They’re about fifteen miles outside of town. I’m not sure where, since the map isn’t that accurate outside of Sunnydale.”

“If it’s fifteen miles out of Sunnydale; there’s not much there,” Spike inserted. “We’ll find it.”

Buffy nodded. “Xander, Anya, Quinn, stay here with Mom and Dawn. You don’t leave until we say so.”

“Hang on!” Quinn protested. “Why do I have to stay here?”

“You’re the one with a price on her head,” Buffy said. “They might hesitate to shoot someone else.”

“Not that I particularly want my daughter to go with you, but they won’t hesitate to shoot any of you, not these men.” Oscar looked apologetic. “They will have no trouble killing each and every one of you.”

“They’ll have more than a little trouble killing me,” Spike muttered.

Joyce looked alarmed. “But won’t they try to make a deal? Ask for ransom, or information, or something?”

Oscar shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Joyce. They’ll know how to get information out of him, and then they’ll act on what they find.”

“Which makes it imperative that we locate him as soon as possible,” Wesley put in. He pulled on a jacket over the dual pistols he wore. “Shall we?”

“Don’t we need a plan?” Tara asked tentatively.

Buffy smiled, and Willow recognized that expression. It was the one Buffy got when she was ready to do some serious damage. “We can’t make plans until we see what we’re up against.”

“Let’s go,” Spike announced. “We take out the Council gits, and then we can focus on Glory and the Knights.”

It was a plan Willow couldn’t argue with.

~~~~~

Quinn was grateful that she’d managed to talk her way into the mission to rescue Giles. The last thing she wanted was to get left behind on a mission like this. Her dad hadn’t protested much, possibly because Joyce was slightly more comfortable with Oscar.

Besides, she hated getting left behind, no matter how important guard duty might be.

Right now, she was lying next to Wesley in the tall grass outside an abandoned building. It looked like it might have been an old service station at one point, but it was dilapidated now, and probably didn’t keep out the elements.

Spike had been the one to split them up—Tara and Willow to the north, because they were safer if they could work magic together. Spike and Buffy had split up, covering east and west respectively, which left Quinn and Wesley to the south.

She watched as Wesley brushed his jacket back from the twin semi-automatics he was wearing, and suppressed a smile. She’d heard stories about Wesley’s incompetence while with the Council, but whatever he’d been before, he was a badass now.

She heard the vibrations of a cell phone, and Wesley picked up. “Yes?”

Quinn listened hard, but she couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. Wesley snapped the phone closed. “The Council is alone on this one. Spike said there were half a dozen men—three on the perimeter, three inside.”

“Did they see Giles?”

Wesley shook his head. “No. They couldn’t get close enough. Spike wants us to take out the ones we can on our side of the building. We’ll regroup as soon as the perimeter guards are down.”

“Down, or dead?”

Wesley shrugged, his expression hard. “It doesn’t matter, as long as they can’t interrupt.”

Quinn thought about it, tallying up those she knew were part of the Council’s wet works team. “They’re all loyal to Travers,” she observed. “And they won’t stop until they reach their objective.”

“Very well.”

“Gunshots are going to give us away,” Quinn pointed out.

Wesley smiled. “I didn’t just bring guns.”

There was only one guard on their side of the perimeter, and Wesley ended up being the one to deal with him. It was made easier by the fact that the guard saw them first and had a gun pointed directly at Quinn’s head when Wesley threw his knife.

From the expression on Wesley’s face, it was at least partially a lucky shot, because it killed the guard instantly. Quinn relieved the Council operative of his gun and watched as Wesley pulled the knife out, cleaning it on the dead man’s sleeve before he stuck it back in his boot. “You alright?”

She nodded. “I’m good.”

They moved quickly and quietly towards the old building, staying low to the ground to minimize their profile. Quinn was cataloging threats and escape routes, trusting that Wesley was doing the same.

She was impressed by how he moved, Spike’s training showing through clearly. Quinn reached the building first, staying below the one window on that side. She crouched on the ground, her back to the wall, covering Wesley as he finished crossing the distance.

They both inched their way up the wall on either side of the window. Wesley had both guns in hand; Quinn had her favorite crossbow.

She heard the sound of wood splintering from the front, and Wesley broke the window with his elbow. Since he was wearing a leather jacket, it only made sense that he was the one to break the glass. Wesley fired off a couple of shots before he pulled back, and Quinn took his place. She could see one of the Council’s wet works team pointing a gun at the window, and she fired a bolt without a second thought.

The Council guy went down without a sound, and Quinn ducked down under the window again. “On the count of three,” Wesley mouthed.

Quinn nodded, and she watched his lips move, counting off at the same time that he did. Wesley wasn’t small enough, but she was, and on the count, she dove headfirst through the broken window, shielding her head from the jagged pieces of glass with her arms.

She rolled on her shoulder, coming up in a crouch and scanning the room. To her relief—or possibly dismay, she wasn’t sure—all of the Council wet works team was dead, pools of blood spreading under their bodies. As reported, there were three inside, and Quinn was almost disappointed at how easy it had been.

Almost, because Giles was tied to a chair in the center of the room, and he didn’t appear to be in good shape.

“Giles.” Buffy was at his side immediately, racing from the doorway. Quinn noted that Spike had gone through first, the ring making it much less likely that he would be hurt or killed.

Spike was still clearly on alert, and Quinn echoed his movements, even as Wesley entered the building, followed shortly by Tara and Willow.

“How is he?” Spike asked.

Quinn glanced over her shoulder from her position at one of the windows, checking for reserves they might have missed. As far as she knew, the Council had at least a dozen men on call to do their dirty work, which meant that only half of them were definitely out of the way.

“Alive, but definitely unconscious,” Buffy said definitively. “We need to get him out of here.”

“Wes, Quinn, get Rupert,” Spike ordered. “Tara, Willow, you have the rear. Buffy, you’re with me.”

Spike called out orders with the precision of a military general, and Quinn couldn’t help but fall in line. It made sense to put the most powerful in the front and rear, and she and Wesley were the weakest links, at least physically.

“Do you think this was all of them?”

Spike’s question was directed at her, Quinn realized, and she thought about it for a moment. “Best guess? These were the only ones they had in Sunnydale right now. That doesn’t mean there aren’t more on the way.”

“We’ll take care of them, too,” Buffy asserted grimly. “And next time, we won’t wait for them to strike first.”

Quinn was trying to think of a way to get the Council off their tails. There wasn’t anything she could do about the Knights or Glory, but maybe she could prevent the wet works team from coming back.

“I’ll talk to my dad,” she said. “Once the rest of the Council finds out what Travers tried to do, you may not have to worry about him anymore. This could just be the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

And if it wasn’t, Quinn would have to find something.