TITLE: Slayers and Werewolves and Harts, oh my! 2/?
AUTHOR: Claudine
EMAIL: claudine423@yahoo.com
PAIRING: W/G
RATING: PG
FEEDBACK: If I beg ???? :-)
NOTES: This is a future fic. Basically it's canon, assuming that Oz is related to Hart's in the way I mention. The whole "First" thing happened, Anya died, etc. But Willow is now with Giles. And I know it's a stretch, but these are probably my two favorite, though VERY different, shows. I just had to get them together somehow.
DISCLAIMER: Permission to use these characters relating to BtVS & AtS has not been given. Joss, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB & Mutant Enemy own TM and copyrighted them. Nor do I own the rights to Hart to Hart or any of the other stories/songs I mention. - I'm merely a humble fan havin' some fun. No infringement is intended. Say goodnight, Gracie.....
“Ok, so what’s the plan again?” Cordy asked as they approached the gate of a mansion in Bel Air. She was with Xander, but his eyes were on the road while she prattled away in the passenger seat. So much had happened between high school and this moment. After she woke up from her coma and found Angel and the gang working at Evil, Inc., she decided she needed to go and do her own thing. But her own thing brought her back to Sunnydale and back to Xander Harris. Though Buffy and the others didn’t know she was back, Cordy and Xander had been together for two months. They were keeping their relationship a secret until just the right moment presented itself. But it hadn’t. At least not yet.
“The plan is we get in there and get the Mnemosyne sphere before it does some serious damage. But Ethan can't know we followed him here.” Xander pulled over as soon as he saw the surveillance camera above the gate. He parked the car to the side of the road, behind a few bushes. “I just hope he doesn’t try and use it before we get inside. I mean, if he does, then he puts himself at risk, too – so he'll probably deliver it and then go and perform the spell somewhere that’s else....where.”
“But what if he activates it while we’re inside? Then we get zapped? And why did we follow him here? Aren't we just putting these people in danger?” Cordelia Chase always had questions.
"No," Xander said pointedly, "Ethan is putting them in danger - we are here to help."
"Whatever you say, Clark."
"What?"
"Clark?" Cordy assumed he got her jibe. "Kent?"
But Xander only shook his head as if he didn't get the reference.
"You know, Superman? Dweeb by day - superhero at....oh, never mind." She looked around the car, searching for a weapon of some sort. Force of habit. "So, wait, tell me again what happened and why, after we broke in to that antiques store last night, you let us come out empty handed? Why is that orb-thingy still in his possession?"
Xander took a deep breath. He loved Cordy - always had, but she wore him down sometimes.
“First of all, we didn't break in, I did - you just drove the getaway car. And second - I already told you - when I was in the store, Ethan came back in. And if he caught me there, I didn’t want him to find the sphere on me, so I put it back in the armoire where I found it, thinking I’d break in again and get it back tonight. But then I found out that he sold the armoire and was delivering it today.” He was shaking his head at his own stupidity. "I know he's got something planned, I just don't know what it is."
“Why didn’t you grab the sphere again when you snuck out?” Cordy was rehashing it as if it should have been a simple task: break in, find desired object, leave unnoticed. Not so simple, it turns out.
He mimicked her and mocked her with her own words, "Why didn't you just...I am not having this discussion again! Let’s look ahead, now, shall we. We can’t un-do the past.” Xander said. Actually, in their world, you could sometimes, but it took a trip to see the PTB, and nobody liked doing that.
“Well, we’ll just wait until Ethan leaves and then ask the people that live there to let us in to get something out of the armoire.” Cordelia made it sound so simple.
Xander pointed out the flaw in her plan, “Hi – Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so, would you mind checking inside of your fancy new armoire for a deadly sphere that sucks the memory out of any living thing it touches? I kinda lost it the other day after I stole it from Ethan Rayne when I broke into his store. Thanks…I’d really appreciate it. Oh and, by the way, you just did business with a pathetic, demon-worshipping, greed-driven man, I’d check your wallets and your souls to make sure they’re still intact.”
Cordy just shrugged. “We could vague it up.”
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Oz was pacing back and forth in the pool house at the Hart's mansion. He was at a loss. How was he going to explain Ethan Rayne to his uncle? At least the Hart's had already gone out, that was two less blank stares he had to endure. Maybe his uncle would understand and come up with an excuse to NOT let Ethan into the Hart's house. He decided he needed to do something, and quick, so he headed back inside. A man like Ethan Rayne could cause a whole lotta trouble in Jonathan Hart's life.
"Sure, c'mon in," Max said and released the button of the intercom to the front gate.
"Uncle Max, was that the furniture guy?" Oz closed the back door behind him as he made his way into the kitchen.
"Yeah. Soon as I let him in we can head out for dinner. I don't know about you, but I could eat a horse," Max said and smiled.
Oz ignored the myriad of werewolf-related anecdotes running through his head. "Listen, I didn't want to say anything to the Hart's, but...this Ethan Rayne - he's not a nice guy. I know him from Sunnydale. He hurt some people I know - in a really, really bad way that I can’t elaborate on right now." Oz had no idea what else to say but tried his best. "Uncle Max, you can't let him in."
"What are you talking about? What'd he do?" Max took a puff on his cigar and then leaned on the counter.
"I really can't explain, I'm just..." Oz looked over his shoulder when he heard a car door at the back entrance. "You just have to trust me...please. He can't see me, he knows who I am, so I'm gonna go in the other room ok? But if he's here, uncle Max, it's because he has a plan - and it looks like Mr. and Mrs. Hart have a lot to lose." He didn't really give his uncle a chance think much about it before he left the room. "Whatever you do, don't let him out of your sight.
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"Why don't we just call Giles?" Dawn asked from the passenger seat.
"No!" Buffy was driving frantically, trying to catch up with the man they had just seen. Ethan Rayne. "We don't know if it was really him, anyway. And if it is him, I have no idea what he's doing. Ever hear of recon? We have to find a few things out before we call Willow and Giles."
"But Giles," Dawn didn't get a chance to finish.
"Giles nothing. You heard him - Willow's sick. We don't need to worry them about something that might be nothing. Let's just relax a minute, ok?" Buffy hated driving - she'd never been any good at it. Even coming up on 30, she still felt like a teenager behind the wheel. As she told Riley once - Buffy and cars were un-mixy things.
As they rounded a curve in the road Dawn noticed the moving van they were following pulling into a gated mansion. She also noticed another car parked on the side of the road. "Buffy, stop!"
Buffy saw the car, too, and slowed down. "That's odd. This is a nice neighborhood, why would somebody be lurkin-..." she realized that the car parked by the bushes looked familiar. "Oh, wait a minute..."
"Xander?" Dawn said. She immediately picked up her cell phone and called his.
"Oh, great," Xander said, reading the display on his phone. "It's Dawn." He looked up at the roof of the car as if he would find the answer to his next question, "Now what do I do?"
"Answering it would be a good idea." Cordy just rolled her eyes.
"We're kinda busy here, in case you haven't noticed." He gave into the ringing and answered, pretending that everything was fine. "Hey, Dawnie, what's shakin'?"
"Lurk much?" Dawn asked.
"What? Lurk?" He laughed. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just..."
"Sitting in a car in the bushes on a road in Bel Air?" Dawn asked.
“How…” Xander looked over his shoulder and nodded toward the car to draw Cordelia’s attention there. “What are you doing here?”
“Following someone we think is Ethan Rayne,” Dawn said, You?”
“Same.” He told Cordy what Dawn had said. “Only we know for sure that it really IS Ethan.”
“Ask him why they’re here,” Buffy said. But Dawn just shushed her.
“Listen, why don’t you and Buffy head home, I’ll take care of this. I’ll call you later and let you know what’s going on.” Xander clicked his phone shut before Dawn could respond.
“But….” Dead air.
“What?” Buffy asked, snippily.
“He said he’s taking care of it, though I’m not sure what ‘it’ is exactly.” Dawn went to dial his number again, but Buffy was already out of the car and on her way to Xander.
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Max stepped outside to greet the delivery man, who actually turned out to be Ethan himself. “Mr. Rayne?” Max asked, his voice gruff but unthreatening as he puffed on his cigar.
“Yes, and you are?” Ethan held out a hand to greet Max.
“Just call me Max. I take care of the Hart’s. You can put all that in the pool house.” He nodded toward the truck and smiled, but down inside he wasn’t sure if that was the right decision. His nephew didn’t want this guy anywhere near the house, but this was the best Max could do on two seconds notice.
Ethan smiled. “Perhaps Mrs. Hart would prefer if I left these items inside the house - she was rather excited about them. This armoire, in particular, was an extraordinary find."
Ordinarily Max wouldn’t have noticed every little nuance, but the situation was making him take notice – and Ethan Rayne looked like a man on the verge with his constant smiling and looking over his shoulder. “I’m really sorry,” Max said leading Ethan away from the house, “But she left me instructions. Whattr’ya gonna do?” He pretended he was merely a humble servant.
“Of course,” Ethan said. He opened the back of his van and unloaded the first piece on his own – an antique credenza. Though it was awkward, Ethan managed the item quite well. He then unloaded the pieces of the bed separately – all while Max watched from back door. By the time he got to the armoire he realized he was going to need help. He looked the old man up and down and decided against asking for help – the last thing he needed was for Max to have a heart attack and die in front of him. While he was still inside the van, he weaved a spell that lifted the armoire off the ground like it was riding on a blanket of air. He then leaned it against his dolly, giving the illusion that he was actually supporting this thing on his own. Ethan hoped Max wasn’t looking too closely.
Oz watched from a crack in the door as Ethan unloaded everything and then handed his uncle an invoice to sign. He just hoped that it was truly an invoice his uncle was signing because with Ethan Rayne involved, Uncle Max may have just signed a deal with the devil.