Under the Sun

Author: enigmaticblue

Rating: PG-13

Archive: Sure, if you already have my stuff. If not, just ask.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters herein; Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and other lucky folks do. Of course, I'm not the one making money off of them.

Summary: Set after Avocation in an alternate S4 where many events of canon get thrown out the window. This one won't make any sense if you haven't read the previous story.

A/N: The title comes from Ecclesiastes, which most people know from the phrase, "A time for everything, and a season for everything under heaven." Really, this story is based on the entire book, which is probably my favorite in the Bible. It talks about making the most of what one has now, and while some find it depressing, I love it. If you've got the time, I'd really recommend you read the whole thing.

Chapter 30

"Woe is me, woe is us, my dearest:/we wanted only love, to love one another,/but among so many griefs it was fated/that only we two would be so hurt./We wanted the you and the me for ourselves,/the you of a kiss, the me of a secret bread:/and that's how it was, infinitely simple,/till hatred came in through the window./They hate, those who did not love/our love, nor any other love: those people/wretched as the chairs in an empty room—/till they were tangled in ashes,/till their ominous faces/faded in the fading twilight." ~Pablo Neruda, "Sonnet LXII"

"I know it's your birthday, Buffy," Giles began, "but I don't think this can wait."

Buffy shook her head. "It's okay, Giles. This year was better than last, anyway."

Her Watcher winced, knowing exactly why that was. "I didn't get much from Ethan," he admitted. "The demon world is talking about the Initiative, and there are rumors about something called '314,' but he didn't know more than that."

"Why would he even want to tell you about something like that?" Xander asked from the couch, Anya perched next to him. "He seems more of a trouble-maker than someone who would, you know, actually care."

"Ethan worships chaos," Giles replied. "That would seem to suggest that whatever the soldiers are doing represents a threat to order for him to get involved. As to why he came to me, I imagine he didn't believe that I would have the chance to pass along the information."

"Isn't that what the Initiative is about, though?" Willow asked. "I mean, from what Buffy's said, they're all about the order and discipline, so he'd be against that, right?"

Wesley shook his head. "There's a balance to be maintained. The Slayer is part of that; the Initiative, on the other hand, is playing with forces they know nothing about."

Buffy nodded. "Okay, so I've got Spike's vote for waiting to see what happens. What about you, Giles?"

"I'm going to agree with Spike," he replied. "This is our best chance to get information. Be careful, though. Spike might be able to watch your back when you're out on patrol with them, but if you're in the lab when they try something..."

"Bad news," Buffy agreed. "What about losing the tail? It wouldn't be that hard."

"No," Wesley said firmly. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Giles nodded. "If you lose them, they'll be that much warier in the future. The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to make sure they're underestimating you."

Xander grinned. "Yeah, that hasn't happened before."

Buffy wasn't nearly so happy with that idea. "That means Spike stays away, since he doesn't want to risk them recognizing him."

"It's probably better, Buffy," Willow said encouragingly. "They won't know to expect him the way they might if they saw him with you. All they know is that your boyfriend is out of town; they don't know he's an invulnerable vampire."

"He's your secret weapon," Xander said. "It always works better if it's secret."

Buffy sighed, glancing over at Wesley. "Will you see him soon?"

"I imagine so," Wesley replied. "Although, we haven't made any plans."

Buffy nodded. "You'll let him know what's going on?"

"Of course," he said. "I don't think the rest of us need to worry about being watched, at least for the moment."

They all left soon after, but Buffy stayed behind to talk to Giles. "What happens when the Initiative does come after me? It's not like I can spend the rest of my life on the run."

"There are a few people I can talk to," Giles said quietly. "I have friends I still trust on the Council, and I think they ought to know about this. Even though you're not working for them anymore, I think they'll regard the Initiative's interest in you as infringing upon their territory."

"I'm nobody's territory," Buffy objected, although her tone wasn't angry, merely weary.

Giles' eyes were concerned. "Buffy—"

"I'm just tired, Giles." She summoned up a smile for him. "It's been a long couple of weeks—or months."

"I'll do what I can," he promised. "But Buffy, be careful. If Spike is right, and they're getting ready to do something, you can't afford to let your guard down."

Buffy's face was grim. "I haven't let my guard down with them since my first visit to that lab."

~~~~~

"It's really good of you to help out," Willow said. "Wesley and I have been talking about doing permanent locator spells, but we've been having trouble with it. He thought it might be easier with an extra person."

Tara smiled, feeling warm inside; it was always nice to be needed. "I'm happy to help."

Willow made a face. "With the Initiative, we need all the help we can get. I mean, we've been outnumbered before, but this is bigger than anything we've faced. It's the government."

"I think we can figure s-something out," Tara replied, hugging her books tighter to her chest. "With the three of us working on it, it'll go faster."

"Let's hope so."

Tara was really enjoying being around Wesley and Willow. They were the first people she'd felt at all close to since coming to the university. The girls in the Wicca group were nice, but they didn't truly understand, and they certainly didn't see things as Tara did. Willow was the first person she'd met who did, and Wesley—

Wesley was the first man she'd felt safe around in a long time.

She wasn't sure how she felt about meeting their other friends, since there seemed to be so many of them, but Willow hadn't pushed, and Tara hadn't asked. She was just fine working with the two of them and not having anyone else know about her existence.

Tara liked staying in the shadows.

"Come in," Wesley said when they knocked on his door. "Do either of you want tea?"

"That would be nice," Tara replied, looking around his apartment with curiosity. There wasn't much in the way of furniture or pictures on the wall, but there were books—in bookshelves, in piles, scattered over every available flat surface.

"I hope you don't mind, but I got started without you," Wesley said, giving Willow a kiss in greeting. "I woke up early this morning."

"Less work for us," Willow teased in response. She passed a mug on to Tara and took the second. "What have we got so far?"

Wesley sighed. "The problem is still finding something to which to anchor the spell. It has to be able to withstand quite a bit in the way of magical energies, and I'd rather it be something inconspicuous. If it fell into the wrong hands..."

"W-what a-about m-making some sort of key to it?" Tara asked. "So only one or two people could use it?"

Wesley considered that idea, and then nodded. "I suppose that would work, but we would have to figure out who to tie it to."

"Xander," Willow said. "He's got military experience, and he's not patrolling or anything quite so much these days either. If something happened, he would probably be in the best position to let the others know."

Tara frowned. "What about a map? That's s-something n-no one w-would look at t-twice."

Willow grinned. "That's perfect. An ordinary map would be great."

"If we create the spell and key it to Xander, that would prevent the information from falling into the wrong hands," Wesley agreed.

"How do we do that?" Willow asked. "That's going to take a lot of power."

"Which is why it's probably a good thing that there's three of us," Wesley replied, giving Tara a conspiratorial smile. "As for the rest, it looks like we're back to researching."

The knock on the door startled all three of them, and Wesley rose to get it, stepping back to allow Spike to enter. "Spike!" Willow said, rising from the table.

"Hey, Red," he said, giving her a smile. "It's been a while."

"Yeah, shame on you," Willow replied, although her tone was light. "What are you doing here? Buffy said you were going to be her shadow."

Spike shrugged. "She's in class right now." He looked at Tara pointedly. "You haven't introduced me to your friend."

"Spike, this is Tara. Tara, Spike," Wesley said smoothly. "Tara's been helping us with various means to fool the Initiative."

Tara watched as he relaxed slightly. "Good to know. Did you lot talk to Buffy last night?"

"We all talked," Wesley said. "Buffy agreed not to do anything that would indicate she knows that she's being followed, and Giles is going to call the Council. He thought they might take an interest, particularly if the Initiative attacks the Slayer."

"I imagine they will," Spike replied. "Not that I'm a big fan of those wankers, but at least they seem to know when to leave well enough alone."

"How soon do you think they'll make their move?" Willow asked.

"Dunno," Spike said. "Could be today, could be a week from now. I imagine it'll happen when they decide the Slayer is more a liability than an asset."

"That might be sooner rather than later," Wesley warned, explaining what had happened with the vampire and Rof. "Riley seemed to believe her story, but that doesn't mean the others will."

Spike's expression was grim. "Thanks for looking after Rof, mate. He's—"

"Rof is someone I would much prefer to have alive," Wesley said. "Buffy was the one who did the real work, though; I merely provided the distraction."

"Well, nice work either way," Spike said. He glanced around at the books. "You lot need my help with anything?"

"Do you have some place to be?" Willow asked.

"Told Joyce I'd come by today," Spike replied.

Wesley smiled. "Go. I think we've got things covered."

Tara was startled when Spike met her eyes again; he'd seemed too preoccupied to give her more than a passing glance. "I appreciate you helping us out," he said sincerely. "We could use a few more allies to even up the odds a bit."

He left before Tara could frame a reply, and Willow turned to look at her. "What did you think?"

Tara shook her head, unsure what to think, other than she had never seen an aura quite like his before. "He seems really worried," she finally said.

"Yeah," Willow agreed. "I think he has been for a couple of months now."

Wesley came back to join them at the table. "Let's get started," he said. "The sooner we have this spell completed, the better off we'll all be."

Tara nodded, picking up a book, unable to shake the feeling she got from the vampire. He was either the scariest person she'd ever met—or the safest. It was an interesting combination to say the least, and she had the sense that it would be a very bad thing to be one of those soldiers at the moment.

~~~~~

The last thing Buffy had wanted to do was to pay another visit to the Initiative's underground laboratory. She was supposed to be in class, and if Spike found out she'd put herself at this kind of risk, he'd probably have a fit.

There was no way she could get out of it without letting on that she knew they were suspicious of her, though, and she was with Riley. While the rest of the Initiative soldiers might be scary, Buffy was absolutely convinced that Riley was as straight as they came. He believed in what they were doing, and that their motives were good.

Buffy really didn't want to find out where his allegiance was if they tried to prevent her from leaving, but there was no way around it.

Walsh and Engelman were conducting the briefing on the Polgara demon, the evening's target, instructing them to capture it alive and not to damage the bone skewer in its arm. "Why aren't we supposed to damage this polka thing's arm?" Buffy asked.

All eyes turned to look at her. This wasn't the first time she had asked a question during a briefing, and while Buffy knew it was frowned upon, she wasn't going to let that stop her. If Walsh and the others were already suspicious, why fight it? She'd get as much information as she could, including the reasoning behind capturing this demon alive.

"It's important for our research," Engelman replied, his tone disapproving. "Now, can we move on?"

Buffy sat through the rest of the briefing, feeling increasingly anxious. When Walsh and Engelman dismissed the soldiers, Buffy took her opportunity to slip off, looking for anything that might give her a clue as to what the rumors about 314 had meant.

The Slayer watched as a man in a lab coat went through a door. She'd thought she'd gotten a tour of most of the facility, but she had never been down that hallway. It seemed like it was a good possibility that there might be something behind door number one that they didn't want her to see.

Moving quickly, she slipped through the door just before it shut and latched. The hallway she found herself in was just another featureless hallway with numbered rooms behind heavy steel doors, and while there wasn't a door number one, there was a room numbered 314. Buffy headed towards it, wanting to get a peek through the small window.

"What are you doing back here?"

She turned to see Dr. Engelman frowning at her. "What?"

"What are you doing here?" he repeated. "Only authorized personnel are allowed here."

Buffy put on her most innocent expression. "I had no idea," she said. "I was looking for the ladies' room. It's not down this hallway?"

"No, it's not," Engelman said. "This way, please."

Buffy had no choice but to follow him out the door and back into the large open area inside the laboratory. Seeing Riley, she said cheerfully, "You know, I think I'll just get Riley to show me back upstairs. I get so turned around in here."

She hurried over to him, feeling the doctor's eyes on her back, and Buffy knew that she was going to have to be extra careful when they went after that Polgara tonight.

~~~~~

Joyce ushered Spike inside. "I'm glad you could make it," she said.

"You call and I come," he replied.

She gave him a look. "How have you been?"

Spike wouldn't meet her eyes, unable to bear the reproach he knew would be there. "Alright."

"Don't lie to me."

The words were soft, and if Spike could have blushed, he would have. "It's been one of the worst weeks of my life," he said. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

He knew he sounded defiant and angry, but he really didn't care. Buffy might have been hurt by his behavior, but he'd been hurt by hers as well, and Spike refused to be the bad guy in this.

"Oh, William."

It was her tone of voice that had him looking up to see her face. Instead of rebuke, he saw nothing but sympathy in her eyes. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "It's just that—"

"Misunderstandings happen," Joyce said quietly. "I've been there myself, and there are always two sides to a story."

He looked down, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. "Yeah, well, I feel like I should have handled it better."

She sighed. "Come have some hot chocolate." Joyce put her arm around his shoulders. "You can tell me what you've been up to."

"Not much to tell," he replied. "Mostly I've just been following Buffy around, trying to make sure she didn't get hurt." Spike hesitated before saying, "Went to L.A. to get some information and advice. I think I got things straightened out. You were right about it taking time."

"Of course I was right," Joyce said, smiling. "When is a mother ever wrong?"

He gave her a sheepish grin. "Yeah. Should have listened to you sooner."

Joyce dropped a kiss on his forehead. "Just remember that for next time."

~~~~~

"She was snooping?" Walsh asked. "Did she see anything of importance?"

"No, I don't think so," Engelman replied. "I think I got there before she saw what was inside 314, but she shouldn't have been there in the first place. She's proving to be a liability."

Walsh nodded. "I believe you're right. She's supposed to be with the squad capturing the Polgara, but I think I'll put Agent Finn on that detail and ask Agent Gates to take Miss Summers with him. It's probably better that Riley doesn't know what we're doing."

Engelman frowned. "Do you think it's wise to try to bring her back in? Some of the men might object; she looks human enough, and—"

Walsh cut him off. "I'm not worried about that. There's a room right next door to Adam's that should hold her. I don't plan on keeping her alive for very long—just long enough to run some tests."

"And then?" Engelman asked.

Walsh smiled, although it didn't reach her eyes. "Then, I think I might have the perfect foundation for Eve."

~~~~~

Buffy knew something was up when she didn't see Riley anywhere. "Hey," she said, hoping her nerves didn't show in her voice. "Where's Riley tonight?"

"He took a different team," Forrest replied. "We decided to split up so we can cover more ground."

She smiled uneasily. "That makes sense."

It might make sense, but it didn't make her feel better. Out of all the soldiers, Riley was the one who had seemed the most open to her presence, and the most enthusiastic about her help. Graham had been almost as nice, although his stoicism rivaled Oz's, and so it was hard to get a read on him.

Forrest, on the other hand, was definitely the most hostile, and she didn't recognize any of the other guys on the squad. Although Buffy had proven her ability to take care of herself after the training exercise she'd participated in last week, that didn't mean she was comfortable with six to one odds.

Buffy tried to maintain her calm by telling herself that Spike was somewhere nearby, watching her back. Even if they did try something—and even if they managed to take her by surprise—she had no doubt that Spike would be there, making certain that nothing happened to her.

Too bad that thought didn't offer her much comfort.

"So, uh, do I get one of those?" Buffy asked, eyeing the blasters that each soldier carried.

Forrest raised an eyebrow. "I didn't bring an extra," he said, his tone cool. "I thought you usually brought your own weapons to the party."

"Yeah, of course I did," Buffy replied. "It's just that my weapons tend to be a little more lethal than yours."

He shrugged. "Then maybe you ought to let us take the first shot at the demon."

"Right," Buffy replied. That was fine with her; she was probably going to be too focused on keeping the soldiers from getting the jump on her to pay much attention to a Polgara.

They started their patrol, moving through the woods near campus, every muscle in Buffy's body tense. She couldn't sense Spike anywhere nearby, and that worried her. What if he'd gotten caught up in something? Or what if one of the other patrols saw him?

The snapping of a branch startled her, and she turned toward the sound, suddenly realizing that she had somehow lost sight of three of the soldiers. Buffy glanced over at Forrest, who had stopped moving. "What is it?" she whispered.

He smiled nastily. "It's the end of the line for you."

Before she could react, Buffy felt the electricity of the taser shooting through her body, and the sharp pinch of tranq darts in her left arm and right leg. She didn't even have time to wonder where Spike was before the darkness took her.

~~~~~

Spike had been keeping his distance from the small knot of soldiers. He'd overheard Buffy's conversation with the black man about weapons, and he knew there was a good chance that if they were going to attempt to capture the Slayer, it would be now.

He watched as the lead soldier stopped, and he could hear Buffy's question and the man's response. Spike rushed towards her, but he was too far away to prevent her from getting hit with the taser and two tranq darts.

Bursting into action, Spike knocked out the soldier with the taser by throwing him into a tree, and kicked one of the men holding a dart gun in the side of the head with a heavy boot. Forrest hit him with a blast from his high-tech weapon, but Spike just snarled, his face changing as he tackled the man, sinking his teeth into the soldier's throat. He might have been tempted to drain him, but the soldier's blood had a funny, chemical taste, and Spike spat it back out onto the ground.

At the last moment, Spike refrained from snapping the man's neck, settling for hitting him with a hard left hook to his jaw. The soldier went limp, and Spike made quick work of the remaining three.

Going to Buffy's side, he felt for a pulse, finding it slow and steady under his fingers. Spike gently felt for the darts, pulling both out, as well as the leads from the taser. He pocketed one of the darts, concerned that they might need to know what kind of chemical they'd used to down the Slayer.

For now, however, going anywhere that the Initiative might look was out of the question. Until Buffy was back on her feet again, they couldn't risk being seen. He cradled her limp body in his arms, heading towards his car.

Spike knew just the place.