sunnydalealum | (no subject)

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It's not worth the effort, at this point, to make herself firmly visible.

Instead, Meg concentrates on making her voice as loud and solid and present as possible as she zips through the building, ignoring such petty obstacles as walls and floors and extremely surprised lawyers and mentally checking off sites of battle: "All out! Everybody out!" she shouts to Wells and Spoon, and "They're coming down, get ready!" to Buffy and the others in the lobby, and "We're all done, it's time to go!" to River and Spike, and "Find the others, get out now!" to Harth and Mel, and then back to the first group again, as fast as she can.

Everyone has to hear.

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There are no words in English, Canine, Greek, or yautja to express how little Spoon wants to follow that set of orders, but there are things even deeper than his hatred, anger, fear, and pain.

His love for his family is one of them, and so he stands down. He doesn't stop moaning, but he starts retreating again.

Tricia shakes off Jordie's support, scoops up the fallen silver knife, takes two seconds to be sure of her aim (and to be sure that neither Wells nor Spoon is likely to move into her line of fire), and hurls it overhand.

The knife sinks to the hilt in the gut of the girl whose crossbow bolt hit Kennedy. Tricia doesn't see it; she's already turning away to crouch next to Jordie by Kennedy's side, helping lift her.

They're nearly back to the cover of the fallen Christmas tree, and behind that they can probably make the doors.

Faith should be crying.

She feels like she should be crying.

She and Kennedy could never have been close friends. She didn't even always like Kennedy very much. But she loves all her girls, in a way she'll never talk about. A way nobody needs her to.

She's not crying.

She's standing. It's slow and hard, but she's on her feet, helping to cover their exit.

Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain.

Jordie is crying, tears cutting through the smudges of demon blood on her face, as she and Tricia carry Kennedy's body into the cover of the tree.

Buffy's not crying either, though. Right now she's standing where she can just see over the spreading branches, crossbow aimed and ready.

Wells will do the mourning later. Right now he's got to be the hard man, and that's all there is to it.

That's right, Spoon, you keep moving- look to the living-

Wolves supposedly pick off the weak and the sick and the old, but that's not entirely true. They hunt whatever animals they can catch, and sometimes that means the healthy and scared instead. Wells knows this, which is why he's seeing to it that the tail end of their line gets a retreat free of as much incoming fire as possible. He knows what to look for.

Beats thinking.

A quick headcount shows everybody from this team present: whole, wounded, and dead.

No one's getting left.

"We get out those doors," Buffy says tightly out of the side of her mouth, "get across the street, and call for our pickup. They're standing by. We need cover for one last rush."

"You heard the Slayer, ladies," says Wells to the nearest girls. "Grab Spooney's armour and boots and I'll get your backs on the way out myself."

He glances over at Spoon expectantly to see just how much he can expect from the younger werewolf at this point.

Since they're in a somewhat safer place Spoon takes the time to force himself back into the small, weak, fragile body that can speak to everyone else, "I'll go out last." he says quietly, when he can speak again, "Can toss one of these," a mine is lifted, "And get back to Milliways on me own. Stand out a bit, out there."

What with the naked and all.

Buffy nods at Spoon. "I think you'd better -- we're running out of anything else to throw."

Sharply, she adds "They're coming --"

The two Slayers carrying Spoon's armor and boots have to break into a run to stay clear of the advancing line.

And orderly or not, in the end the retreat has to devolve into its simplest form of Everybody Run For It.

Karine hits the door first, half-expecting it to be locked, and holds it open for the others when it proves not to be. "Come on, come on, let's go," she's shouting as they pour through.

The night outside is cold and crisp, and across the silent street there's a fence adorned with strings of colored lights.

Wells will start shoving people if he has to. There's been more than enough blood tonight as far as he's concerned, and he doesn't want any collateral damage once Spoon makes his pitch.

This is taking far too long.

Back from her last whirlwind tour of the building, Meg hovers and fidgets, as much as a ghost can fidget, and tries not to look at the girl and the spreading bloodstain on the floor.

There's not much else she can do - she's not solid enough to help, not now, hardly solid enough even to distract the guards with her presence.

And of course, thanks to Wolfram and Hart, she can't go out the door.

"Oi, curls." Spoon and Meg haven't been introduced, alright? "Lets go. We get back, you find me a bloody towel or some shite."

Then he stands in all his...scarred, naked, totally psychotic "glory" and heads for the nearest inside-door thinking Milliways thoughts as hard as he can. Once it's open he holds it for Meg and lobs his mine as far back into the building as he can manage.

"I'm going after him," Wells informs the last few Slayers as he sees them out the door. "I'll come join you girls soon as I've seen him right. I promise."

And with that he bolts after Spoon at breakneck speed.

The door slams behind Wells, Spoon, and Meg just as the explosive goes off.

In front of the fenced-in park across the street, the bloodied and bedraggled Slayers gather in a knot around Buffy, who's digging a cellphone out of her pocket.

"Will?" she says into it. "Now."

The eye-defeating flash of a successful transit spell fades into the sulfurous glow of fire from the Wolfram & Hart lobby.

Inside the lobby, the emergency sprinkler system is finally going, and fire alarms begin blaring a belated and desperate warning. The remains of the fallen tree are scattered across the room, charred and smoldering around the edges. Most of the velvet ribbon swags have been torn down and are burning with a sickly pale flame, already starting to die under the artificial rain.

Buried under one of them is a piece of melted plastic that used to be a holiday ornament: the words Y UR NEMIES BUR are still visible on its crumpled surface.

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