Dawn had broken before Buffy got to bed. She and Angel had worked together to make her father's bedroom sun-proof, then Angel had gone out on an unnamed errand that Buffy decided she really didn't want to know about. He came back just before the sun came up and went straight to bed.
It was late afternoon, and Buffy was puttering around the apartment. Rosie was singing "Tomorrow" on the TV behind her, turned on more for its noise than anything else. Buffy considered changing the channel. After all, Rosie was a little too... normal for her. Oprah or--heaven help her--Ricki Lake were more her style. "Teenage Girls who Slay the Undead and the Vampires Who Love Them," she muttered. "My Boyfriend is a Vampire -- no, wait, I've actually seen that one."
She poked at the sandwich she had made, not hungry but knowing she needed to eat. Her mom was beginning to bring home pamphlets on depression and eating disorders, and if Buffy lost any more weight she was going to get dragged to a shrink or something.
The sound of a door opening made her look up. From the small kitchen she could look across the living room to see Angel standing in the doorway of the bedroom. "Morning," she said. "There aren't any curtains on the windows out here, but the sun'll be down in a couple hours."
"That's fine." Propping one hand high on the doorjam, he leaned casually and looked at her. "So, what's the plan?"
"Buffy shrugged and continued turning the rye bread of her sandwich into bird food. "Waring will come here, I'll act like I haven't made up my mind about going to Australia yet, he'll leave, you follow him and find out where he stashed my dad."
"Simple enough. What if he has your dad in a place other than where he's staying?"
"Then grab him and scare it out of him," Buffy snapped. Her eyes were furious, behind the glitter of tears. "Come on, you're the big bad vampire. You must have some fright tactics. Might as well use what we've got."
Suddenly, Angel grinned, the grin that Buffy had loathed and despised, Cryptic Guy to the max. Except that he wasn't Cryptic Guy any more, she knew him, and the grin didn't hide anything from her. "Pretty ironic. The Slayer using a vampire as one of her weapons."
"Yeah, well, we Slayers take what we can get." Dropping the flippant act, she abandoned her sandwich and came out from behind the kitchen counter. "I really didn't want to be alone," she confessed. "After Merrick died... that was the worst. There really wasn't anyone there for me, just the Slaying and the lying, and losing all my friends and getting kicked out of school. I needed someone right now. Anyone."
The grin winked off as though a switch had been thrown. "Glad I could help."
Ooops. Male ego alert. Damn, she hadn't meant it that way. Another thing she'd lost the knack of, finessing guys. "Look, you're the one who keeps saying that you don't want to be around me."
"I never said that!"
"Yes, you did! And what happened that night at the Bronze, huh? And what about all the phone messages I left for you? Obviously, you were there, and you were ignoring me."
"I wasn't ignoring you, I --"
"Yeah?" Buffy crossed the living room and put her hands on her hips. "You just, oh, accidentally erased all my messages then, right?"
"I thought we agreed --"
"We did. And it didn't work, remember?"
"But--"
"And another thing. What the heck were you and Giles doing, sneaking behind my back, trying to keep things from me? I'm the Slayer, I've got the right to know what's going to happen to me."
"Buffy --"
"I should--"
"Can I finish a sentence?" Angel finally demanded.
Buffy blinked. "Oh. Sorry. Go ahead."
"First of all, I want to be with you, but there *are* some facts we have to face," he bit out. "Second of all, I wasn't ignoring you, I just wasn't answering your messages. I didn't know what to say, and you sounded like you were having a good time with your dad. And I only knew about the prophesy for about five minutes before you barged in, so I hardly had any time to tell you. Blame Giles for that one, if you want, but he was only trying to help you. Anything else?" He was looming over her, glaring.
Buffy blew out a breath that fluffed her bangs. "Why are we fighting?"
"Hell if I know."
"I wanted you here," Buffy confessed suddenly. "You. I don't... I don't think I could have cried in front of Giles the way I did with you last night."
Did vampires blush? If not, Angel was doing a damn good imitation. "Oh. I'm... glad."
"Good." Okay, now what? "I, um... I was thinking I should call the police. You know, just so that when we get my dad back, it won't look so weird. He'll wanna know why I didn't if I didn't."
Angel nodded. "Wait until after sundown, so I can clear out. And wait until Waring's already come and gone. If he shows up when you've got the police here, he..."
"His phone call to sanity might get disconnected," Buffy supplied. She sighed. "Okay. If only the sun would set..."
"Believe me, wishing it down won't make it go any faster." Angel's voice was heavy with memories.
"And you'd know, huh?" Buffy asked softly. But Angel had already turned back to go into the bedroom.
* * *
Wishing or no, the sun did eventually set.
Buffy had assumed that Waring would show up at dusk, the way he had the night before, when the sun was gone but its light still lingered. But sunset dwindled into twilight, then full dark, and no insane Aussies were to be seen.
Buffy's dad was definitely going to need a new carpet for his apartment.
"Where is he?" demanded the edgy Slayer. "I'd've thought that he'd want us halfway to the outback by now. Is he trying to make me as crazy as he is? I --" Her head snapped around.
"What?" Angel asked.
"Something," she said, drawing out the word, deep in thought -- and concentration. "I think it's him."
Motioning for Angel to keep himself hidden, Buffy slipped out onto the tiny balcony, levering herself over the railing to drop into the backyard where they had met the night before. "Hey. You here? Waring? Come out, come out, wherever you are."
"Betrayer." The word was low, hissed, indistinct. Faint sounds of traffic blended with it, making it nearly impossible to figure out where it was coming from.
A layer of ice formed in Buffy's stomach. "Waring?" she asked again. Abandoning her earlier plan of trying to delay, put him off, she desperately tried to make him show himself. "I thought about what you said, and you're right. I'm the Slayer. I'm supposed to slay vampires. And --"
Instinct had her moving before her conscious mind realized she needed to get out of the way. The slight spatting kicked up dust. Great, all she needed. The crazy, kidnapping, Slayer-knowledgeable Australian stalker had a gun.
"What are you doing? You can't kill me. You need my help." She needed to get him talking, track him. A part of her knew that Angel was somewhere in the shadows, waiting to help her. She needed to get Waring to leave, to lead Angel back to her father.
"You betrayed me. You betrayed what you are. You are not worthy to be the Slayer."
"I don't know what you mean." Buffy fought to keep her voice calm. "I said I'd help you."
Another bullet, this one splintering the branch of a tree where her head had been a moment before. "You consort with demons."
The ice in her stomach became a deep freeze. "I don't know what you mean."
Her own voice answered her, tinny and recorded. "Come on, you're the big bad vampire. You must have some fright tactics. Might as well use what we've got."
Then Angel's. "Pretty ironic. The Slayer using a vampire as one of her weapons."
"You bugged the apartment."
"I needed to be sure you didn't call the police. You didn't. You called up a demon, instead."
Buffy felt her brain blank. She couldn't come up with a plan. "I'm still the Slayer," she said desperately, trying to sway him. "I still kill vampires. You still need me."
"You aren't worthy to be the Slayer," Waring said again. He stepped out from the shadows of the trees into a puddle of moonlight that gleamed silver on his hair and the gun in his hand. Pointed at Buffy. "'One Slayer dies, and the next one is called.' I must find that next one."
~Oh, great,~ was Buffy's completely inadequate thought. She had no cover, nowhere to hide. She could run for the condo, and Waring would disappear into the night, and she'd never see her father again -- at least not until Waring made good his attempt to call up the next Slayer.
If he didn't shoot her in the back before she made it to cover.
Between one heartbeat and the next, it was over. The gun clattered to the ground, thankfully not going off on impact. Angel had slammed Waring back against a tree, eyes glowing and demon face pressed up against the mortal's. Waring was gibbering incoherently, his hands flapping, helpless against Angel's greater strength.
"Angel." Buffy's voice was quiet. No command, no demand, just his name. He snarled for another moment, then slowly, reluctantly, stepped back, keeping his hold on Waring.
Waring's dark eyes kept flicking back and forth between Slayer and vampire. His short-circuited brain was obviously trying to figure out what just occurred there. He'd been caught by a vampire -- a vampire who looked like he would relish a banquet from down under. He should be dead. But he wasn't.
"You... he... huh... what?" The syllables came out on separate puffs of air.
Buffy stepped closer to him. "Angel's a special case. He won't hurt you."
"But I'd want to," Angel muttered.
"Hush."
"I don't understand," Waring said, his voice the bewildered wail of a child. "I don't understand."
Something in his tone, in his eyes, warned Buffy that Waring had slipped from loco to just plain crazy. He wasn't a danger anymore to anyone but himself. "Can you take us to my dad?" she asked quietly. He didn't respond. There really wasn't anything there to respond.
After a moment of searching through Waring's pockets, Angel came up with a key to a motel. "Let's just hope Waring stashed him there," Buffy said.
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