Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Spike was looking for something.

He was in a graveyard, one that felt familiar, but he couldn’t have said where it was. Why couldn’t he remember? He always remembered a graveyard. They were all so distinctive. But he had to be here, there was something he was looking for, something he was listening out for.

It was completely silent, except for the grass crunching under his boots.  He needed to come this way, though, he had a reason—

He stopped as he suddenly heard what he’d been listening for. He took off in its direction, and jumped out in front of a group of teenagers. They screamed and scattered, but he was able to catch one and hold her still. She was screaming loudest of all, which was gratifying, but when he tried to bite her, he found he had a problem.

His vampire face wouldn’t come out. 

The girl stopped screaming as he just held her, baffled. Even with the chip he’d at least been able to look the part. He tried biting the girl anyway, but it wasn’t the same, and he whipped her around to face him. “What’s happened to me?” he demanded of her, and she just stared up at him, terrified, breathing heavily. 

“Don’t bother,” a voice said, and Spike looked up to see Buffy standing a few feet away. He stared at her, letting go of his captive, who instantly bolted.

Spike tried to move towards her, tried to say her name, tried to do anything, but he remained rooted where he was, begging her with his eyes to tell him something.

“It’s not for you anymore, Spike,” she said. 

He frowned in confusion and tried to understand what she was saying. “What?”

She began slowly walking away. “I don’t know what you were expecting,” she said, as Spike became aware of a noise that started gradually and then began rushing through his head, roaring like a thunderstorm. “This is what you’ve been fighting for!”

----------

Spike slowly blinked his eyes open, and then regretted it, because the thunderstorm in his head was even worse in the waking world, though now it wasn’t roaring so much as it was steadily pounding. And his entire body ached, and his limbs felt like dead weight, and when he heard somebody coaxing him to take the cup of water being offered him he wished heartily that he had the energy to tell them to sod off and leave him alone. 

But ignoring the figure at his side did nothing, because the water was still being forced to his mouth, and he reluctantly accepted it before lifting his eyes to see who it was. 

And then he stopped even trying to drink the water and just stared, and the cup was removed and he was pushed gently back down, but he didn’t take his eyes away from her face. He knew she couldn’t really be here, of course. Remnant from his dream, or wishful thinking, or someone who looked very much like her, of course, but not actually her. 

She wasn’t looking at him, and her mouth was set in a very determined line, but he could see tears hovering in them all the same. Well, that was no good; even if it wasn’t her he still didn’t like the thought of anything making her cry, and wondered what had caused it. She was holding a bowl of something in her lap, and was stirring it with what looked like a comically large spoon. Her golden hair was loose and falling all over the place, curling slightly to bounce off her shoulders, which it did as she suddenly looked up and brushed it out of her face. “Okay,” she said. “Neither of us are going to be happy about this, but we’re just going to endure it and not tell Xander, okay?”

And it was her voice, and it was her gaze, and she was right there, and the pounding in his head suddenly got so bad that he couldn’t help pressing his wrists to his eyes and crying out.

She grabbed his arm with a strength he’d never felt so keenly, and said warningly, “Spike, if the sight of me is going to excite you so much, I’m going to walk out of here, you got that?” 

Spike froze, even though the pounding still blocked out most other thoughts or sounds going on. She couldn’t leave. If she was here...he didn’t think he could bear it if she ever left him again. Of course she would, eventually, probably when he either died or proved he wasn’t going to. But for now…

He looked at her again, and then lifted one hand to touch the side of her head. Her eyes flickered shut, just for a moment, and if his mind wasn’t so confused he would have said that she leaned into his touch. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, and he lingered there until his hand became too heavy to hold up, and he let it drop down.

“Buffy,” he said, in a voice so weak he almost couldn’t tell it was his own. She just nodded; her mouth still set determinedly. She looked back down at the bowl and began stirring it again, vigorously, before she lifted the spoon out and looked up at him. “I’m really going to try to do this as cleanly as possible,” she said. “But, the only spoon I could find is bigger than your mouth. And…might not even really be a spoon. I washed it though, so, just try not to think about what evil and creepy things it might have been used for before this.

He could still see the moisture in her eyes, but she didn’t let any of them fall, and very calmly and assuredly held the spoon up to him. He took it, watching her face all the while, and vaguely wondered why she was giving him actual food. It tasted like a soup, a very lukewarm likeness anyway, or maybe it was ramen, though neither of those would have really warranted stirring. But he was barely paying attention to any of those things. He was watching her, and marveling at how much more grown-up she looked now. But her mouth would always have that child-like pout, and her eyes were as young and alive as when he’d first met her. And she looked the same, otherwise, he didn’t know how he could have doubted it was her.

The pounding was starting to become unbearable, and it was becoming difficult to keep opening his mouth and swallowing, but he didn’t want to stop. He felt himself fading back into unconsciousness, but he didn’t...he couldn’t risk her not being here when he woke up. She seemed to sense it, though, and set the bowl down. “What’s happened?” he asked, in a desperate attempt to keep himself awake. 

She scoffed. “You almost died, that’s what’s happened, and the fever isn’t helping. And you’re in the wreckage of the Wolfram and Hart med lab, in case you’re wondering. You were lucky to get a mostly intact bed and one IV stand. But there’s a nurse who survived who's been looking in on you.”

Spike really only registered one part of that. “But vampires don’t get fevers.”

Her face suddenly took on a very affectionate look, and even though she still didn’t smile, he felt he would have been happy if she never stopped looking at him like that. She reached out and began smoothing his hair. “I know,” she said softly. 

A blue blur entered Spike’s vision, and he managed to turn his focus away from Buffy to process Illyria walking up behind her. “You are susceptible to infections, now,” Illyria said. “You are no longer a half-breed.”

Spike stared, but couldn’t make sense of that at all, and turned back to Buffy. “What’s she on about?”

“Shh,” Buffy murmured, still stroking his hair. “Don’t worry about it.” 

And Spike really didn’t want to worry about it, and Buffy’s touch seemed to be calming the pounding, though it didn’t go away completely, and he couldn’t summon the energy to stay awake anymore, and so he let himself fall back into the darkness.

----------

The music in London nightclubs was a special kind of trashy, Dawn was starting to realize. Not that she was complaining. She was drinking the entire experience up, including the actual drinks, and it was starting to be a comfort to hear something that mind-numbing and let it wash away the world around her.

Or, as much as it could anyway. She felt a touch on her elbow, and whipped around, gripping its owner by the shirt collar. “Woah,” he said, raising his eyebrow. “You all right? I was only gone for a minute.”

Dawn closed her eyes and let go of his collar. “Sorry,” she said, and tried to say his name, but she couldn’t remember it for the life of her. “I just…” She opened her eyes and raised them shyly to look at him. “I didn’t like being left alone. What if it was someone trying to take advantage of me?”

He laughed, as gently as he could over the synthetics pounding away on the speakers, and placed her drink in front of her. “Based on that grip, they’d be foolish to try, Beth. If there is trouble, I’m glad you’re here to take care of me.”

She slipped her arm through his. “Think there will be any?”

Her seduction game wasn’t the strongest, yet, but it was all she had if she wanted people to illegally buy drinks for her, for the next couple months, anyway. Once she was 18, assuming she was still in London, she could buy her own, which was cool. But this was working so far. Lonely, mildly intoxicated guys didn’t need much seducing, as she was finding out. Of course she knew how to dress the part, which probably was helping. She tried to push the thought away of the one and only time Buffy had seen her dress like this, and grabbed her drink, smiling up at…whoever this was. Derrick? She was pretty sure it was something like Derrick.

He was ignoring his own drink, toying with the hair cascading over her shoulders, and she let him as she downed her own drink. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “You gonna let that gin go to waste?”

He pushed it over to her. “Can I tell you something?”

“Sure.” She took his glass without hesitation.

“I really hate hangovers. I don’t really do the whole clubbing scene anymore because of it.”

She raised her eyebrows. “And yet here you are tonight.”

“Well, that’s not to say I still don’t have one or two.” He laid his hand on hers. “And it’s worth it.”

She nodded. “Well, if you’d rather go get coffee or something instead, I’d be up for it.”

He grinned and kissed her, and she giggled and shoved him off, leading him outside where she kissed him again.

He looked at her in wonder. “Would I be entirely unoriginal if I said you were incredible, love?”

She laughed, and began swinging their linked hands as they passed an alleyway. Out of habit she turned just to glance down it, and was startled to see a man leaning there in a bright orange suit, like a showman’s outfit, or something. He was wearing a bowler hat and shoes that she thought only Charlie Chaplin had been allowed to wear. Actually, everything he was wearing seemed like something only Charlie Chaplin should be allowed to wear.

She looked him up and down in disgust, and turned away, but just as they were almost past him, he called out, “Not thinking of taking the Tube home, are you? Because I really wouldn’t.”

Derrick, if he was called Derrick, hesitated and looked back, “What was that, mate?”

“Ignore him,” Dawn said.

“You could do that,” the showman called. “I just think it would be tragic for your sister to come home and hear that little Dawn was mugged on public transportation.”

Dawn froze, which she realized was a mistake as soon as her companion asked, “Who’s Dawn?”

Dawn bit her lip, and then sighed. She turned to Derrick and smiled. “I’m really sorry,” she said.

“What?” he asked. “Do you know this guy?”

“I had a really great time,” she said. “And I’m going to miss that coffee, but I’m going to have to say goodnight now.”

“Beth—" he started, but she just kissed him and turned him gently away.

“But in all seriousness, I wouldn’t take the Tube home,” she said. “Get a cab.”

He looked at her in confusion, and then asked, “Could we do this again?”

“Found me once, didn’t you?” she smiled. “Goodnight, De—goodnight.”

He reluctantly turned away, and Dawn watched him go before turning an icy stare onto the showman. “All right, you just ruined my evening, so you’re going to give me answers right now. Who are you?”

“You think names are so important, do you?” he asked. “You couldn’t even remember his. It was Dale, by the way.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“And you didn’t even tell him yours,” the showman said, clucking his tongue. “Why not? He seemed like a sweet kid.”

“I don’t give out my real name, because I don’t need any of this getting back to Buffy,” she replied. “But you seem to know it, so…” she pulled a stake out of her purse. “We have a problem.”

“Mm,” he said, shaking his head skeptically. “Afraid you’d need something a little stronger than that to kill me, ducks.”

“Who are you?” Dawn repeated, still holding her stake poised.

He tilted his head and smiled. “Dagger.”

“That’s not a real name.”

“Names are just what you call yourself, you know that. I’ve got several, and so do you.” He stepped forward. “Key being one of them.”

“I don’t call myself that.”

“But you know it’s what you are. You may not open anything anymore, but do you think you couldn’t still unlock worlds of power? You could really be something, Dawnie.”

Her grip on her stake tightened, and she lifted her chin and tightened her jaw. “Not interested.”

“Of course you are,” he said breezily. “You’ve always been interested. Always wondered if you could be special. Always wondered if you could ever do anything your sister would be proud of.”

“My sister is proud of me,” Dawn said, but it was an effort to say it.

He raised his eyebrows. “Is she? She’s proud of you hooking up with random guys and getting them to buy drinks for you until you’re no longer a minor?” He paused and gasped. “Unless, of course, she doesn’t know about your little side project.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Dawn said, stepping forward. “Maybe a stake won’t kill whatever you are, but I bet it can get you to shut up.”

“No, no,” Dagger said calmly, backing up and raising his hands defensively. “Let’s not part ways uncivilly, sweetheart. I’ll let you go…but I’ll still be here. Whenever you’re ready to see what you can become.”

----------

Spike was raving, and Buffy didn’t know what to do. He’d been doing all right, lying pretty quietly up until now, but then he’d started whimpering, and now he was actually crying out, and tossing around. She looked at the tube in his hand, and then up at the IV stand that was feeding a drug into him. It appeared to still be connected, but this was how she had found him, and she didn’t know what it was or if it was doing any good.

She tried pinning his arms down, just to keep him still, but he struggled against her. His eyes were tightly shut, and he shook his head. “No,” he gasped, and Buffy was startled to hear a different accent to his voice. More refined, if she had to describe it. “Let me go, I have to…protect them. Watch over them.”

“Who?” Buffy asked, on the off-chance that he would actually answer.

“She told me to look out for you,” Spike said, and then he did fall still, and his face crinkled up as if he was about to start crying. “Not that it did any good. I failed, didn’t I? Failed her, failed you both, failed—”

“Spike, you didn’t fail anyone,” Buffy said gently.

He finally opened his eyes, but when he saw her he yanked his arms out from under her and began trembling. “Can’t hurt me,” he muttered, in his usual voice. “Just a bloody figment.”

“Okay.” Buffy turned to Illyria. “Angel said there is a nurse,” she said. “There is a nurse, right? Any idea where I could find her?”

“He’s dying,” Illyria said. “What good will a physician do?”

“He can’t be dying,” Buffy said slowly.

“I didn’t bring you so you could save him,” Illyria said. “I only thought you should be with him as he passes.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said, marching towards the door. “Well, I’ve lost him too many times to just give up now.” She reached the door and looked back, then stopped as she saw Illyria walk up to Spike. Buffy really wasn’t entirely aware who Illyria was, because she looked like no demon Buffy had ever fought, and she also seemed robotic, somehow, like the events going on around her didn’t matter. But she hadn’t left Spike’s side, and now she was reaching out to touch his head.

Buffy watched in fascination as Spike gasped and grabbed her wrist. He sat up and glared at her. “Touch me and I’ll rip your head off,” he snapped. “What sort of beastie are you? I can hurt beasties, you know. All right for me to kill demons. The chip won’t hurt if you’re not human.”

Illyria didn’t move except to turn her head towards Buffy. She kept her arm still as Spike continued to hold it in his grip. “He does not know me,” Illyria said.

“Should he know you?” Buffy asked. “He’s delirious.”

Illyria looked back at him. “He bears no affection for me,” she said. She spoke evenly, and Buffy thought she must just be imagining the hint of emotion in her tone.

“He bears no affection for most people,” Buffy said. “I wouldn’t take that personally.”

Illyria was silent, and then slowly her hair began turning brown and her clothes began to morph into something…more normal. Buffy frowned in confusion as the blue left her skin, and she looked like a completely human girl.

The girl bent over Spike, smiling at him, and reached out her other hand to his head. “Spike,” she whispered, in a much softer and higher voice. “Hey, I need you to calm down for me, okay?”

Buffy opened her mouth, but really there were no words that could possibly articulate her feelings, so she just closed it again.

Spike stopped tossing, and looked up at her, his chest aggressively rising and falling. “You need to be strong,” the girl said, moving her hand down to his cheek. “I know you can be strong. I know you’re someone worth saving.”

Spike swallowed, and let her wrist go before turning his head away. He lay still, and Buffy watched him shut his eyes. The girl backed away, and Buffy had to make several attempts before she could manage to say anything.

“What was that?” she finally whispered, and cleared her throat. “I mean, how’d you do that?”

“Winnifred Burkle,” the girl said, turning back into Illyria. “I took her body. I am therefore able to take her form.”

If anything, that made Buffy only more suspicious of her, and even more confused. “Oh,” was the only response she could think of. “So, I guess he bore affection for…her?”

“So!” a cheery voice broke out, and a tall woman with big glasses and brown hair in a long swishing ponytail brushed past Buffy. “How’s our former vampire doing? I heard some screaming, but you seem to have pacified him.” She suddenly turned back to Buffy, and Buffy realized she was a demon. She had pointed ears and speckles that looked like green freckles all over her skin. “Oh, hey, Buffy, right? I’m Innocence, Angel told me you were coming.” She spun on her heel again and walked over to the bed, as Illyria stepped back. “Will you open that drawer, please? I need another bag of Nixopolitan.”

“A bag of what?” Buffy asked.

“Nixopolitan.” Innocence nodded at the IV stand that was wired into Spike. “It’s a Wolfram and Hart original, so you couldn’t have known about it. I’m fortunate to have gotten any.”

“So it’ll help him?” Buffy asked.

Innocence hesitated, and then said, “It’ll help as much as it can.”

“Meaning?”

Innocence looked at Illyria, and then at Buffy. “What you need to understand, Buffy, is that when he became human, it likely cured a lot of wounds and diseases that the battle had given him. So you see that his injuries are healing rapidly, and they will continue to do so, but this fever…it’s also a Wolfram and Hart original, and it’s only aggravated by him now being mortal. The drug will help monitor his level of strength, but his illness is not something that can be cured through medicine. He’ll have to fight it off himself. And he’ll only succeed if he’s strong enough.”

----------

Andrew jumped up the minute Dawn walked through the door. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “I’ve been calling and calling!”

“Oh,” Dawn said, slinging her purse onto the table. “Yeah, I think my phone was on silent.” She started heading towards the kitchen, and Andrew followed her.

“You’ll never guess where Buffy is,” he said eagerly.

Dawn opened the fridge. “Where?”

“Guess!”

Dawn closed the fridge and opened a cupboard. "Los Angeles.”

Andrew blinked. “Um, how did you know that?”

“Wait, she’s actually there?” Dawn closed the cupboard, went back to the fridge and pulled out a carton of orange juice. I was just trying to guess the one place she wouldn’t be.”

“This blue demon who looks vaguely familiar came in a jet and took her to L.A., and I think it’s a Wolfram and Hart jet, which means it’s there already because they have really good jets, and Angel—”

“Have you heard from Willow?” Dawn asked casually. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in hearing why Buffy had suddenly disappeared to see Angel. But she was sure they’d get to that, and in the meantime, it was so much more fun to get Andrew riled up.

“What?”

“Her plane should be in by now,” Dawn said, pouring herself a glass of juice and walking back towards her room.

“Yeah, it is. Giles called, said he was gonna pick her up and bring her here. But, Dawn, Buffy and—”

“What about Xander, is he on his way?” Dawn asked.

The door opened and a blustering voice called out, “’Ello ‘ello guvna!”

Dawn smiled, but as she hugged him, she patted him on the back and said, “Don’t ever do that again.”

“Well you two weren’t exactly my target audience,” Xander said. “Where’s everyone else?”

“I don’t know, Xander,” Dawn said. “Where’s this girl you’re supposedly dating? What’s her name again?”

“Catherine, and I’ve explained this, Dawn, of course I want you guys to meet her, but I don’t want her to become a Scoobie.”

“Why?” Dawn asked. “You ashamed of us or something?”

“She’s normal, that’s why.”

Dawn nodded. “Right.”

“She is!”

Dawn snorted. “Good luck trying to keep those two lives separated. This, by the way, coming from someone who has watched every single Scoobie try and fail to keep their romantic partners out of the gang.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Xander said. “But seriously, where is everyone?”

“They’re on the moon,” Andrew muttered, folding his arms.

Xander looked over in mild interest. “Cool, I always wondered if there was a vampire camp up there, since the lack of oxygen wouldn’t really be a problem for them.”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “They’re not actually on the moon, you know.”

“No?” Xander asked. “You mean it was all a lie?” He put his hand over his heart and said, “You don’t think…the moon landing isn’t a lie too, is it?”

Dawn looked down and tried to hide a smile as Andrew glared at Xander. “Laugh all you want, but there is actually some serious evidence supporting that.”

“Uh huh,” Xander said. “Hey, did you pick up that package for Giles?”

Andrew scoffed. “Did I pick up the package?” He stood there with crossed arms, bouncing in annoyance, before admitting, “No, I forgot about it,” and racing towards the door.

Dawn looked at Xander with raised eyebrows as the door slammed. “I thought Giles asked you to pick that up.”

“It’s not anything important, it’s just a new book or something his friend is holding for him,” Xander said. “But I didn’t want to have to get off a plane and then go pick it up, so…I asked Andrew to do it.”

Dawn smiled and shook her head. “We can’t use him as a messenger boy too much, or he’ll catch on.”

“It’s just the hazing period,” Xander said. “You know how long I was the Pony Express?” 

“Apparently Giles still thinks you are,” Dawn smirked, as she headed towards the living room.

“Hence the delegating,” Xander said. “Say, Dawn, not that I don’t love the new look, but…” Dawn turned and he gestured towards her. “Well, actually, I don’t know yet if I can say that I love it.”

Dawn looked down and her eyes widened. “Jeepers,” she whispered, and ran towards the bathroom.

Xander followed, and stood outside the door. “Okay, that was kinda harsh,” he said. “It was only…mildly hookerish. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, I meant to change right away,” she called.

“So why do you dress like that if you’re hiding it from everyone anyway?”

“You really think they’d let me wear something this trashy?”

“You know that it’s trashy though, and you weren’t offended when I said as much, so what’s the big?”

Dawn opened the door, pulling her tank top down. “I’m not worried about you, because you don’t care enough to tell Buffy, and Willow or Giles would. And I don’t want Buffy to know, because…because I just don’t, okay?”

“You realize that you’re leading two separate lives then too, right?”

“I’m not separating anything, I just don’t…want to hurt Buffy. Can we drop this now?”

“Okay, okay,” Xander said defensively, as Dawn brushed past him. “I’m just saying, you shouldn’t have to worry about her approving what you wear. You could talk to her about it, I mean I know it’s hard for you with us being all split up and you having to graduate high school in a foreign country, but—”

“Xander?” she said, turning and almost causing him to run into her.

“Yeah?”

“Not really asking for a heart-to-heart right now.”

He bit his lip. “Right. Got it.”

----------

Buffy looked out of the little window that was still in the wreckage. She could see Angel taking care of the handful of demons that had survived, and she could see Illyria fighting with him. There were some others around that she couldn’t see as well, but she guessed they were his employees, the ones that had survived and not abandoned him, anyway. Part of her was itching to join the fight, and she was sure Angel would have been happy, and Spike was sleeping calmly in the bed behind her, so he wouldn’t have missed her.

But she knew she needed to stay here. She couldn’t have focused, anyway. She watched as Angel and Illyria took the last ones out, and then Angel seemed to be telling her something, before he began heading towards her piece of the wreckage.

She was waiting at the doorway when he walked in, and she threw her arms around him. He’d been looking almost nervously at her, but he smiled as he hugged her. “Buffy,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “Hey.”

She hugged him tighter. She always had to hold back when she was hugging people, but Angel was able to endure the full strength of her embrace, which she loved taking advantage of. “Is it over?” she asked quietly.

He smoothed the top of her hair. “It’s over. Bodies are taken care of, and everyone left alive is gone. Present company excluded. Might be a handful of demons scattered about, but they probably won’t last that long.”

Buffy pulled back, and slightly frowned when she saw his face. It wasn’t bleeding, but there were enough marks on it to suggest that it had been. She gently touched one of the cuts, and he winced slightly and turned away. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“No, it’s okay, I’m fine,” he said. “Really.”

“You’re not fine,” Buffy said. She tilted her head to the bed behind her. “You look worse than he does, and he doesn’t even have the vampire healing anymore.”

Angel was silent, and looked down. “Yeah,” he said finally.

Buffy watched him. Something had gone down. Well, an apocalypse, obviously, she knew that much. An apocalypse that Angel and Spike and their team had averted, but something else besides that had happened. Angel had given her an abridged version when Buffy had landed, but then he had to get to work cleaning up the mess. Buffy wasn’t used to that part. She’d always just sort of walked away after saving the world. Angel was actually dealing with the aftermath. But now he was here, and she needed to ask…

“I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to see me,” Angel said, suddenly looking up.

“What?” she asked. “When have I ever not wanted to see you?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Andrew said you guys didn’t trust me anymore. You know…because I work here now? If it helps, it looks like I’m out of a job now.”

“Andrew said that?” Buffy asked crisply. “Was that when I sent him here a couple months ago? Well, he can kiss that couch goodbye.”

“Said he couldn’t let the girl stay with me because I work for the wrong side now,” Angel muttered.

“His orders were to bring that Slayer to me,” Buffy said. “Because all Slayers are under my protection. But not because I didn’t trust you, Angel. I’ve always trusted you. I still do.”

He looked at her, and smiled. “Well that’s good, because I didn’t trust myself a lot of the time.”

 She smiled back, and reached out to take his hand. “You know I would have helped you in this battle if you’d told me about it, right?”

“Slayers are your jurisdiction, Buffy, and this fight was mine. Besides. If I’d failed who would have run the second front?”

She nodded. “Throwing those words back in my face. I see how it is.” But she was still smiling, at least until she heard Spike shift his position in the bed behind her.  

She turned to watch him for a second, and said quietly, “Explain it to me again?”

Angel’s grip on her hand tightened, and he gave a long pause before he said slowly, “There was a prophecy, called the Shanshu Prophecy. And the gist of it was that a vampire with a soul would play a pivotal role in the apocalypse, and, depending what side he fought for, he’d…be awarded humanity.”

Buffy turned back to look at him. “That’s it?”

“That was the gist. It was kind of complicated, and apparently I never had the correct translation of the full thing, but, that was all I needed to know.”

Buffy considered. “But it didn’t say who the vampire was?”

Angel swallowed. “No.”

“So it could have been you?”

Angel looked down again. “It was supposed to be me,” he said thickly. He quickly glanced back up. “And I’m not saying that out of bitterness, or anything. I mean it actually was intended for me, but I was blackmailed into signing my right to it away.”

“You can do that? It’s a prophecy, shouldn’t it defy any legal bindings?”

“Yes, I mean prophecies are predestined, and this cult who blackmailed me, they studied the prophecy more than I did. I think the signing was just a guarantee that it wasn’t predestined to be me.” He sighed. “Which means it went to the next available candidate.”

Buffy was still confused as to how Angel knew it was meant for him if it wasn’t predestined to be him, but she didn’t ask. Angel cleared his throat and said, “But it wouldn’t have been fulfilled if he…didn’t earn it. He still had to fill all the requirements, and I guess he did, though he probably didn’t notice when it kicked in. But he’ll notice the heartbeat. It’ll be unbearably loud, at first.”

Buffy nodded. “He’s probably going to wish he never earned it. That can’t be an easy transition.” She squeezed Angel’s hand. “But I am sorry…I know you wanted it, have been wanting it, for a long time.”

He peered into her eyes for a moment. “Well,” he said. “I’ve sort of been…offered something else. And if I choose to go it…I…it’ll work out for me.” He was silent for another long moment. “But it would be goodbye, Buffy. For real this time.”

“What is it?” she asked. “What were you offered?”

He reached out to fondle her chin. “I can’t tell you.”

She’d already guessed that would be his answer, but for some reason hearing it out loud made her eyes start welling up. Every goodbye with Angel was torture, but knowing this really was the last one…

“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“I think so.” He watched her, with an almost curious look in his eyes, and she wondered if he was waiting for her to ask him not to do it. But she found that she wasn’t even tempted. Their lives moved independently of each other now.  

But hell, she would miss him. She looked up at him, tears stinging her eyes, and kissed his cheek. He smiled sadly, and hugged her again, and she did the same, this time hugging him so hard she could hear even him wheezing, but she didn’t let up until she was good and ready.

“Goodbye, Buffy,” he said, holding her chin again.

“I thought you didn’t like those,” she said, but when he could only manage a half-hearted smile, she said more seriously, “Goodbye, Angel.”

He stood looking at her and caressing her chin for a long time before he wrenched himself away, but then stopped. “Oh,” he said from the doorway. “And don’t worry about Spike…transitioning. Keeping him alive might be difficult. But he’s got a talent for adjusting.”

----------

Willow was running. Hair slipping out of her tight ponytail, necklaces conducting an entire symphony as they clanged together around her neck. She looked behind her, only mildly comforted when she didn’t see anything too disturbing. She screeched to a halt as she glanced at the directory, but that wasn’t really important right now. She’d been in the Heathrow airport before.

She didn’t bother with the escalator and instead thundered down the stairs, suitcases banging away behind her. She saw one of her crystals slip out of a pocket but didn’t bother going back. She kept running, running until she got to baggage claim, and then rounded the corner and gasped.

“Giles!” she cried, throwing her possessions down and running into his arms.

He grunted in surprise as he caught her, but held her tightly. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You were running as if all hell is behind you, and if it is, you might have let me know before knocking the wind out of me.”

“Oh, well, a stewardess found a loose potion in the overhead and I didn’t want them to connect it to me.” She beamed up at him. “Got away with it, though. No angry mob of security guards after this witch, no sir.”

“And I’m sure the fleeing helped relieve any suspicions.”

“It’s an airport. People run all the time. Everyone knows better than to mess with someone who is running late for their flight.”

“Yes, well, there is something to be said for that logic.” Giles walked over to her cast-off luggage and began picking it up. “Have you any more?”

“Just one. I’ve been trying to make a bag that will carry everything, like in Mary Poppins , but I had to settle for just shrinking most of my stuff.”

“You shrunk most of your things and you still needed three suitcases?”

“Hey!” Willow protested. “These are all my worldly goods, you know. I keep having to tote them around the world and I keep not knowing how long I’ll stay in one specific location.” She hesitated, and then admitted, “Besides, the spell is still a work in progress. I can’t always control how much the item will shrink. Sometimes it gets so small it disappears, and other times it only goes down an inch or so.”

“I see,” Giles said. “I hope there’s no worldly goods you’re particularly attached too, then.”

“Well, I don’t mess with those. Anyway, I betcha you wish you had something like that when we were in Sunnydale. All those frequent trips from California to the mother country.”

“Coming to London is always easy, though. I still have my house.”

Willow nodded. “Worked out for you that Buffy ditched Rome, huh?”

“I’ll admit, I was glad when she decided to have Dawn finish school here. Makes the quarterly meetings much easier to commute to.”

Willow smiled knowingly. “You just like that they’re close enough to keep an eye on.”

Giles took off his glasses and cleaned them before speaking again. “They don’t need me to do that anymore, you know.”

“Oh sure, I know. And you know. And maybe they know, but you think Buffy didn’t consider your location at all when she decided to move here?”

“Well she has the power to reassign me anywhere she chooses.”

“A power she will never invoke. Just because you agreed to that with the rest of us doesn’t mean she will ever command you, in any way.”

Giles smiled, but only met her eyes for a second before looking away. Willow knew that was likely all she’d get out of him, even though there was something about his aura that begged further investigation. She’d lately been getting very into people’s auras. It was difficult to read one if she didn’t know the person very well, and even Giles was difficult. He would likely go all British and shut down on her if she pushed, but she was getting ready to do it anyway when he pointed at the conveyor belt, at a brown case with a large symbol burned into it. “That one yours?”

“How could you tell?” she smiled.

“Please, you think I don’t recognize the Seal of Andongni? I bloody well put that on all of my luggage, too.”

“I offered to do it for Kennedy once,” Willow said. “But, um, she…” she looked down. “Didn’t like there being a magic symbol on her stuff. Even for the noble cause of making sure the airlines would never lose it.”

Giles squeezed her shoulder. “Well, she seems pretty set on staying in Shanghai. I don’t think she’s going to have to worry about missing luggage.”

“Yeah.” Willow stepped forward to grab her case, but suddenly a man in a long brown coat swept in front of her and grabbed it first.

“Hey!” Willow said, and he looked at her in surprise. “Uh…I mean sorry, but that’s…actually…you know…”

He looked confused for a moment, and then said apologetically, “I’m so sorry, love, is this yours?”

Willow took him all in, with his boots and puffy shirt tucked into his black jeans. He looked like a pirate. And he sounded like, well, a dead vampire she could have named. His dark hair was greying, and she couldn’t really read his aura, but she would have put money on the fact that he was connected to the mystical world somehow. No wonder he’d grabbed her case. That symbol was probably on his stuff, too.

“Terribly sorry,” he said, holding it out to her. She took it without looking at it, and her hand brushed his.

And suddenly a pain shot through her, as if his touch burned her and her body was not happy about it. She blacked out, only for a second it seemed, because she didn’t remember falling, but she did see Giles instantly dropping to her side, and she noticed the stares of people around her. Not a crowd though, like there would have been in the movies. No one made any move to really do anything, and Giles whispered, “Are you all right?” as he quickly pulled her to her feet.

“Fine, yeah,” she said, though her swaying told a different story. She didn’t pay attention to that, though, and leaned on Giles’ arm as she looked around. “Okay…so where’d he go?”

Giles looked around as well. “I don’t know,” he said apologetically. “What happened? What made you…”

“I touched him,” Willow said slowly. “I was just thinking he must be supernatural, and then I touched his hand, and…” She angrily pushed herself up. “Bastard,” she snapped. “Either he did that on purpose, or he got scared of what I might do to him.”

“You think he did it on purpose?” Giles asked.

“Well it’s convenient that he grabbed my suitcase and fled after making contact,” she said. “He was right about one thing, though. If I see him again, he’d better be scared of what I’ll do.”

----------

“But, my little stella, I can’t bear this not seeing you.”

Buffy shifted the phone to her other ear and gave a quiet laugh. “Hon, you’ve lived for hundreds of years without seeing me, you’ll last one more day.” She glanced back towards the little room, the one that had mostly survived the wreckage. Out here she was still technically in the building,

“How is he? Your friend?”

“Oh you know, what can you expect after surviving a big battle? He’ll pull through.” She hoped her voice sounded optimistic enough. “But I am coming home tomorrow, okay? And I’ll see you then.” She paused, then turned and looked back at the tiny room that she’d stepped away from, but not too far away. She lowered her voice and said, “I love you.”

She almost gave a real laugh at his reply. “Oh, mi amore, my little beam of sunshine…” She knew that was likely to continue though, so she just said goodbye before hanging up. She turned to walk back towards the room, and jumped when she saw Illyria standing behind her. “My—Illyria, what are you doing?”

“You love another,” she said. It was a statement, but she made it sound like a question.

“What? Another?” Buffy looked at the phone. “That was my boyfriend. I’m dating the Immortal, you ever heard of him?”

Illyria tilted her head and stared down at the phone. “Yes.”

Buffy still was baffled by Illyria, but something compelled her to keep talking anyway. “I don’t call him ‘The Immortal’ you know,” she said. “Not to his face. He won’t tell me his real name, though, says it’s too difficult to pronounce. So I call him Lorenzo…” Illyria continued to stare at the phone, and Buffy drew in a breath and slipped it in her jacket pocket. “Anyway, did you need something?”

Illyria looked sharply back up. All her movements were jerky and precise, but Buffy was pretty sure she wasn’t actually a robot. There was a cut on her face that didn’t reveal any wires, for one thing. She didn’t answer Buffy’s question, but turned to look at the room, and then back at Buffy. “I brought you here to be with him,” she finally said.

“With Spike?”

“But you confess affection to a demon,” Illyria went on.

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “You invested in my love life now?”

 “Angel said you were someone Spike loved. That is why I brought you.”

Buffy pursed her lips and stared at Illyria for a moment. Then she turned away and looked out over the wreckage. “He did,” he said. “He did love me. But I don’t think—” she suddenly stopped, and frowned, lifting her hand to shade her eyes as she peered at something in the distance.

“He was pleased when he gazed upon you, he—”

“Shut up, Illyria,” Buffy said, squinting. The thing in the distance got closer, and Buffy put her hand down and spun back around towards the room. “Great. More visitors. Place your bets now, people, is she here to see me or the vampire she flirted with in both her body and mine?”

Illyria followed her. “He is not a vampire any longer,” she reminded Buffy. As if that fact would ever slip her mind.

“Or maybe she’s just here for Angel,” Buffy said, plopping back down in her chair and crossing both arms and legs. “Maybe she worked here, wouldn’t surprise me, to be honest. No one tells me anything about who from my past ended up working here.”

Illyria made no reply, but stood by Spike’s bed, staring at Buffy. Buffy eventually looked up at her and sighed. “What? What are you looking for, when you stare like that?”

“I must see to understand,” she said.

“Yeah, and what are you seeing?”

Illyria lowered her head. “I do not know. But the emotion coming off you…is pungent.”

“Wonderful,” Buffy said. “Another super-smeller.”

“It is the same as when I found you,” Illyria said. “When I bade you come. You reeked of it then, as well.”

“What, exactly?”

She tilted her head. “If I must give it a name, I would give it…fidelity.”

Buffy didn’t know how to respond to that, and she couldn’t have been more grateful that Faith decided to walk in at that moment. “Hey girlfriend,” Faith said, grinning, but when Buffy actually looked at her she instantly looked down, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I, uh…”

“What are you doing here, Faith?”

Faith nervously pursed her lips before looking back up, but she couldn’t meet Buffy’s gaze. “I got here a little before you did. Angel…asked me to come.”

“Angel’s gone.”

“I know.” She looked away. “He told me. I guess it was…bad. The fight, or whatever. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Buffy didn’t mean to look at Spike after she said that, but she suddenly realized how that looked.

And Faith noticed. “Yeah, I guess you were playing with your other puppy more anyway.”

Buffy could feel herself steaming as she glared at Faith, but she kept it mostly under control. She didn’t knock Faith out or stab her, so she thought she was doing pretty well.

“Sorry,” Faith said suddenly. “That was…insensitive, wasn’t it?” she sighed. “I’m trying to humanize guys, I really am, and they’re sometimes amazing and I love ‘em, but, well, if you want a pet, a puppy’s better than a snake something, you know?”

“Why’d Angel ask you to come?”

Faith looked down again, playing with her fingers, and was silent for a long time before she said slowly, “He called…asked me to come…to help with the battle. Said it was an apocalypse, and I was like, haven’t we done that scene? And he was like no, there’s at least one a year, where have I been? And I said well I was only really a free-range Slayer, like not in a coma and not in jail, for maybe a year and a half tops, so I only really saw the one apocalypse. And I saw a lot of people die, and he said this was one where I probably would, and he asked me to come anyway, and…” She finally looked up at Buffy, and Buffy saw a regret in her eyes she’d really only seen one other time. “I just…I told him I probably couldn’t get there in time and…” she gave a laugh to hide the wobbliness in her voice, and looked around. “And I didn’t. It’s not like I can just hop a plane, you know. But I…maybe could have made it. And now I wish I’d tried harder, is all.”

She fell silent, and Buffy found herself fighting an urge to hug her. And probably to punch her, too. But all she said was “I’m sorry, too. I know Angel was important to you.”

“Yeah.” Faith sniffed and looked up, grinning. “Anyway, heard your vampire was alive. And there he is, so, guess I heard right.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said quietly.

“He gonna be okay?”

Buffy reached her hand out and laid it on top of Spike’s. It was hot, too hot, and that was because of the fever, of course, but even if that went away his hand would always be warmer now than she was used to. But it was still his, and it was still so…soft, and she distracted herself with running her thumb over it until she realized Faith’s question still hung in the air.

“Yeah,” she said. Because he had to be, he had to…

She jerked her hand back and turned to Faith. “Where did you go?” She asked. “After…”

“The Hellmouth?” Faith shrugged. “Phoenix. At first anyway. Been roaming ever since…I’m kinda squatting in Nashville now.”

“No run-ins with the police?”

A smile twitched around Faith’s lips. “You wouldn’t have been able to hide me from them, Buffy. Not like I’ve been able to.”

“So you said.”

“I was right. Believe me, I was.”

“Maybe you were. I still would have tried.”

“I…I know.” Faith cleared her throat and tossed her head. “So, you still keeping in touch with everyone?”

Buffy nodded. “Yes. They’re all over the world, but they check in.” She paused, knowing who Faith was really asking about. “Robin’s in New York now, and yeah we keep in touch, but we…I mean my team figured if he wants to retire, he’s earned it.”

“Yeah, one Apocalypse stopped should be all that’s required for anyone who isn’t us, right? No rest for the Slayers of the wicked.”

Buffy looked up at her. “I know you didn’t retire, Faith. I know you haven’t stopped fighting the good fight.”

Faith went back to playing with her fingers. “Don’t know how you figure.”

“Am I wrong?”

“N-no.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I couldn’t resist patrolling if I tried. And there’s some kids…in Nashville…I kinda saved them once, and their mom likes it when I come over and babysit or whatever. She’s cool. She makes cookies.”

Buffy smiled, the first real one since landing in L.A. “That’s great. Really, Faith, that’s…awesome.”

Faith tucked her hair behind her ear. “Look, B, I—I want you to know I’m there for you, okay? I didn’t leave because I wanted to—”

“I know,” Buffy said gently.

“Because I sort of got it, when I was living in that house with you all, the whole friends thing finally made sense, and the Mission, and—”

“I know.” And Buffy genuinely didn’t know how Faith would take it, but Faith would just have to deal. She walked over and put her arms around her, and Faith did give her a look like she’d lost it, but stiffly hugged her, too.

“Okay,” Faith said. “So out of curiosity, can I pretend this never happened or are you going to report back to your group?”

Buffy sighed. “Why would I report us hugging?”

“I don’t know, but since we had no witnesses, I—” She suddenly looked up, noticing Illyria in the corner, and jumped backwards. “Frickin’ hell, Buffy, how long has she been there?”

“Oh, yeah, she does that,” Buffy said casually. “It’s okay, she’s harmless, probably, and she won’t tell anyone that we hugged. Not that I see why that’s a problem. You always hugged Angel just fine.”

“Low blow, B,” Faith said. “Okay, well, I’d better scram. It’s Apocalypse o’clock somewhere, right?” She turned and headed out the doorway.

“Thank you,” Buffy said, causing her to stop. “For being there.”

“Yeah,” Faith said. She didn’t look at Buffy, but turned her head slightly towards her. “You too.”

----------

Willow watched Giles carefully as they walked up to Buffy’s apartment. He was being British. Too British. So British it almost couldn’t even count as British anymore. It was like he was Buddhist monk now or something, with how little he was saying.

He was hiding something. He was perfectly entitled to hide something if he wanted, but, well, no, he wasn’t, he was hiding something and Willow wanted to know what it was. Giles raised his hand to rap on the door, and suddenly all thoughts of him flew out of her head as she swung the door open and cried, “Everyone better get over here and hug me right now!”

Xander was the first to oblige, almost before she’d even finished saying it. He lunged at her so quickly they almost crashed into Giles, who had to steady her as Dawn came to him and hugged him.

“Hey!” Willow cried, shoving Xander off of her and grabbing Dawn. “I thought I was pretty clear on calling dibs for the first Dawn hug.” She looked around. “Is this…all of us? Where’s Buffy?”

“Los Angeles,” Giles said.

He cleared his throat, but didn’t offer anything more, and Xander asked, “You knew that?”

“She called me when she landed, said she realized she hadn’t exactly told anyone she’d left.”

“Well, where’s Andrew? And the Immortal?” Willow pressed. “And, Xander, I thought we were pretty clear on the fact that I expected to see your girl here tonight.”

“He doesn’t want her to be a Scoobie,” Dawn said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh,” Willow said. She patted Xander’s arm. “Good luck with that, sweetie.”

“Look, it’s not that you guys are never gonna meet her, it’s just that I’d prefer it be at a frat party or a funeral or something…normal and organized and with other people.”

“Yeah, because demons never show up to those,” Dawn said.

“Dawn, I’ve been over this, can we just drop it now?” Xander asked. He looked at Giles. “The Immortal’s still coming, any minute now, probably, and Andrew’s picking up your package.”

“I see,” Giles said. “Good to know you’ve matured and can now rise above the little things. Such as sending the newest member on the errands you don’t want to run.”

Dawn and Willow snickered, and Xander gave a tight smile. “Ah, yes. Sarcasm. The clear indicator of a mature and well-rounded authority figure that we all look up to.”

“Um, you guys can come in, you know,” Dawn said. “You don’t have to just stand in the doorway.” She ushered them in and closed the door before she said. “I mean…not that we can really have the meeting we were supposed to have. But I think we have all the snacks anyway. Who’s up for potato chips?”

“I don’t know,” Xander said. “I feel weird. Buffy’s always here, it…it just feels weird. I mean what can we actually talk about that she doesn’t actually need to be here for?”

“I got something,” Dawn said. “There was a guy I saw tonight, outside…a place, and he knew me. And Buffy.”

“Hardly surprising, I’m guessing you two have reached A-list status in the underworld,” Xander said.

“What sort of man was he?” Giles asked.

“Oh my gosh, I don’t even know. I really, really need him to be a demon though, because no human should walk around dressed in a bright orange suit.” She paused. “Remember that demon who made us all sing and wanted me to be his bride? He was dressed kind of like that, but otherwise looked pretty human.”

“What did he want?” Willow asked.

She shrugged. “Me to come with him, I think. Don’t know why, but when I threatened him, he let me go.” She looked at Giles. “Said his name was Dagger, if that helps.”

“Sounds like a local gangster to me,” Xander said. “Though I don’t know why you’d be an A-lister to some random thug.”

“We’ll look into it,” Giles said. “Willow had a sort of similar experience, so, I suppose we’ll dive into research mode tonight.”

“Oh, please, can we?” Xander said.

Willow grinned. “Come on, Xander, it’s all we can do right now. Until Buffy gets back, I mean. Anyone…know when she’ll get back?”

“Oh,” Dawn said. “Yeah, Andrew tried to tell me something about her, but…um…” She looked at Xander helplessly.

“But…what?” Willow asked.

“I wasn’t really listening.”

----------

Outside Buffy’s little apartment building, Dagger leaned against a tree with his arms crossed, while a vampire sprawled out on the ground next to him, popping her bubble gum, which she was having difficulty doing through the fangs.

“Mine’s not in there,” the vampire whined.

“I told you that, Cleo, what do you want from me?”

She bolted up. “I want you to tell me when mine will be in there.”

“Not how the visions work, toots. It’ll be soon though. Very…” he stopped and tilted his head.

She grumbled. “Your Seer abilities are pretty selective, anyone ever told you that?”

“Shut up!” he hissed. “Someone’s coming.”

Dagger turned, saw Andrew walking up to the house, grabbed him and shoved him up against the tree.

Andrew let out a scream, but then saw the vampire. “Oh my gosh, Cleofax, you hiring muscle just to get at me now? I told you, sweetheart, it’s over.”

“What?” she asked.

Dagger leaned over and murmured, “This is your ex, Candy Cane.”

“Ohhhh, right.” She laughed. “Well, living for almost a hundred years, one ex is like a drop in the bucket, you know?”

“What do you guys want with me?” Andrew demanded, swallowing.

Dagger smiled and leaned his face closer, but then let go of Andrew, who immediately ducked out from under him. “Nothing,” Dagger said. “I’m not allowed to do anything with you. Go in, join up with your pally pals, but you just remember who you are in this. You got that?”

Andrew’s eyes betrayed his terror, but he puffed up his chest anyway. “You guys are in way over your heads,” he said, as evenly as he could. “Just you wait until the Slayer gets back!”

He took off running towards the apartment, and Dagger nodded. “Yeah,” he said. He looked at Cleofax, who stared blankly at him and then began giggling uncontrollably. “That will be a spectacle,” Dagger continued. “Won’t it?”

Chapter Text

Andrew burst into the house, panting as he slammed the door and leaned against it. Everyone turned to look at him, and Xander said, “You okay there, Spooks-a-lot?”

“Is something following you?” Willow asked, with more concern in her voice.

Andrew just kept gasping, and turned to see the Immortal sitting in a corner. He stood straight up. “What’s he doing here?”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s not a Buffy boyfriend unless there’s someone in the group who doesn’t like him.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” the Immortal said. “Truthfully, wouldn’t it be more concerning if everybody did like me?” He laughed, and the rest of the group laughed with him.

“No,” Andrew muttered. “Nothing’s following me.” He tossed Giles’ book on the coffee table and slumped down on the couch, before immediately perking back up. “Ooh, licorice.”

The Immortal stood up. “Well, as I was about to say, I know a bit more of Buffy’s mission than the rest of you seem to. She rang me, and tells me she’ll be back tomorrow.”

“But why’d she go?” Dawn said. “Some blue demon arrives in a jet, and Buffy takes off, just like that? I mean I guess if Angel called her, she’d…” She stopped and looked at the Immortal. “I mean, she’s totally over him, yeah, no way she’d just go at Angel’s beck and call, in fact usually it’s the other way around…aaaaand I’m not helping.”

“It’s all right Dawn, I know all about her relationship with Angel,” he smiled. “No, she would have said if it was him. She said it was a friend of hers.” He bent over the coffee table and picked at the veggie platter. “A friend who was wounded on the field of battle.” He popped a tomato in his mouth. “A friend she thought was dead.”

Andrew began violently choking on his licorice, but otherwise, the room fell completely silent. Eventually Willow took a breath and said, “Did she…say the friend’s name?”

He smiled and shook his head. “She did not, but that seems to be irrelevant to you all. You have a guess at who it is.”

“No we don’t,” Xander said quickly.

“Not really,” Willow added.

“Yeah, she’s had a lot of friends die, there’s no way we could know who—” Andrew coughed again before he could finish.

Giles looked at Dawn, and Dawn briefly met his gaze but then looked down, crossing her arms.

The Immortal looked around worriedly. “I’ve upset you,” he said.

“No, no.” Giles drew a deep sigh. “We’re glad she told you why she’s there. And it is true, she’s had to watch a lot of people die, and any of them who…actually aren’t is…”

“It’s Spike,” Dawn said quietly.

The room fell silent again, and Andrew was the first to move, grabbing the book he’d thrown and opening it, pretending to be fixated on the pages.

Giles cleared his throat. “Well,” he said slowly. “We won’t know that for sure, I suppose, until Buffy comes back or contacts one of us.” He looked at the Immortal. “She’ll be back tomorrow?”

He nodded. “She hopes by evening.”

“Well that makes sense, if she’s got a vampire in tow,” Xander muttered.

“You think she’ll bring him?” the Immortal asked.

“If she doesn’t beat the crap out of him for not telling her he was alive?” Dawn said. “Yeah, she’ll bring him.”

“Hey, did you guys know leprechauns did actually used to exist?” Andrew said, trying to laugh. “Yeah, they lived with the dinosaurs, and went extinct when they did, how weird is that, huh?”

Giles looked at him, and then back at the others. “Well, we should reconvene here, then,” he said. “Tomorrow evening. Although…really, we’ll need to find a better meeting place soon.”

“Yeah I feel like we’re going to start melding together if we have to fit any more people in this place,” Xander said. “I swear her last apartment was bigger.”

“It’s not supposed to fit all of you, it’s only meant for three people,” Andrew said, turning a page.

Xander turned. “Actually it’s just meant for her and Dawn, you just crash here more than she’d probably like.”

“Buffy doesn’t mind.”

“What’s wrong with your office? I thought that had a room adjacent to it,” Willow said.

Andrew shifted. “It’s cold at night.”

“It’s August,” Xander said.

The Immortal walked towards the door. “I’ll start thinning the herd,” he said, and gave a grand nod of his head. “I will see you tomorrow eve, my friends.”

He walked out the door, and Willow sighed. “That’s a tough act to follow, but I’m gonna say goodnight too, guys.” She paused, and then said, “Oh, wait, Giles, you’re my ride.”

“I’m ready, don’t worry,” Giles said. He looked at Dawn again and said lightly, “Come by tomorrow after school and we’ll work on researching your showman, shall we?”

Xander lingered only for a moment longer so he could walk over to Dawn, who was still staring at the floor with crossed arms. “Hey,” he said, touching her arm.

“Why didn’t he tell us?” Dawn asked stiffly.

“Because he’s a selfish prick, that’s why.” Dawn had no reaction to that, so Xander just hugged her. “I don’t know, okay? It does seem pretty unlikely that he wouldn’t tell Buffy, at least. But we don’t know, maybe he came back different, or soulless, or something.”

“You think he came back? That he didn’t just survive?”

Xander gave her a look and Dawn cast her eyes down again. “Yeah. You’re right. I know.”

Xander nodded. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “They—or she—will be back tomorrow night. And then you’ll have all the answers.”

----------

“I don’t know, Buffy, I don’t have all the answers,” Innocence sighed, as she replaced the Nixopolitan flowing into Spike’s hand.

“I don’t need all the answers,” Buffy said. “I just want to know if he’s gonna die if we move him.”

Innocence looked back at her.  “Where did you have in mind?”

“The jet. I want to take him back to London.”

Innocence hesitated, then looked down at Spike. “You feel up to that?”

He smiled weakly. “London, eh? With all that clean, restorative air?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “He feels up to it.”

“Fine,” Innocence said. “I guess a four-hour trip on a private jet won’t kill you any faster. And you’ll be out of this wreckage.” She stood up and turned to Buffy. “Want to help me look for a stretcher?”

Buffy followed her out into the debris that had once been the Wolfram and Hart building. She could see the area surrounding it was thrashed up, too, but Angel and his team seemed to have kept the battle pretty contained. Which again was something she’d never thought about. But if you had to do your own cleanup, setting borders was probably a smart idea. Sticking to them probably wasn’t easy, though, when you were also trying to win, and stay alive.

It suddenly occurred to her she didn’t ask Angel nearly as many questions as she should have. About the battle, and how it had started, and how they had won. Not that it really mattered, but she thought it odd that he hadn’t told her. When she’d landed, he’d just smiled at her, but then brusquely sent her towards Spike, saying he was probably dying, but he had a nurse on his case.

“A nurse who worked for the evil law firm?” Buffy had asked skeptically.

“She came when I came, it’s not like she’s got years of loyalty with the company under her belt. Besides, she’s a Zidverita demon.”

“Which means?”

“It means she’s biologically incapable of lying.”

And actually, that little piece of knowledge had been a comfort to Buffy. It didn’t really mean she trusted her, but she seemed safer than Illyria, anyway. Even if Illyria looked more human. Innocence had very pointed ears and speckles that looked like green freckles all over her skin.

But, she was trying to help, even if her boss and her job were gone. Buffy looked over at her sifting through the wreckage. She didn’t really trust the drug, but Spike’s fever had gone down, and at least he looked at her and knew who she was, now. That was something.

Innocence wandered over to Buffy and sighed, tightening her ponytail. “I mean we had all kinds of stretchers before, so we really should find one. But if we can’t, I’m wondering what we could use instead. I guess we only have to worry about getting him on the plane though, right? You’ve got friends to get him out when we land?”

“We?” Buffy asked. “You want to come?”

“Well yeah, he’s still my patient,” Innocence shrugged. “And I’ve got nothing here anymore. I figured the London branch would probably take me…I mean, if you’re okay with me coming.”

“Sure,” Buffy said. “Thanks.”

She grinned. “Don’t mention it, that irritating vampire definitely made life more interesting when he showed up.”

“When did he?” Buffy asked quietly. “Show up?”

Innocence considered. “A little over a year ago? The gossip was he just sort of appeared, in Angel’s office, literally out of thin air. Annoyed the hell out of Angel, but stuck around anyway.”

“I see,” Buffy said, still quietly. She turned away. “I’m gonna check over there.”

There were more questions she wanted to ask, but tears were burning the edges of her eyes, and she needed to get away as quickly as possible. She sniffed as she began rooting through a pile of stone, and then gave a sharp gasp as she uncovered a creature.

He was like a spider, in that he had eight arms and eight eyes, but his face and body were more human shaped. He had a large piece of stone piercing his stomach, and was convulsing in pain. He looked at her. “It’s coming,” he said. “Primeval, it’ll come!”

“Hey,” Buffy said. “Hang on a second.” She hovered over his body, and then realized she didn’t know if she even should help him. Or it. Or she, potentially. Was this a demon leftover from the battle? Or had it been working for Angel? Even if it had, was that a good thing?”

“Hang on,” she said again. “I’m gonna take this out, you ready?”

“No!” It screamed, gripping her arm. “It’ll just come; it’s already here, already walking the earth…”

“Something’s here?” she asked.

“Primeval.” The creature seemed to swallow. “There’s a link, I feel a link when my brothers are devoured. Few can stand to do that to us, so…I know…”

He was making no sense to Buffy, and also he seemed to think she had a lot more information about him then she actually did. Suddenly he turned and screamed, and something that looked like a demon pig lunged at Buffy, crushing the spider creature’s head on the way. Buffy’s eyes widened, and she put her arms up and grabbed the pig’s head as it bowled her over.

----------

Andrew woke up still holding Giles’ book. “Hey,” he said aloud. “Giles forgot to take his book.” He considered, and then said, still aloud, “Well, I guess he’ll pick it up when he comes tonight.” He sat up and looked around. Dawn appeared to have cleared all the snacks away, but when he walked over to the kitchen, there were still dishes.

Well, Buffy wouldn’t like that when she got back. He poked his head in Dawn’s room, but she wasn’t there. Typical. She was never around anymore. Of course, she was going to school still…but even if she’d skipped, she always had that card to play. Which was hardly fair.

He made his way back to the kitchen and found a banana. He began eating it while clearing away the dishes, and he propped up Giles’ book above the sink and began studying it some more.

It was actually very interesting. Besides the whole leprechaun bit, there was something about a demon spider race where only one female lived at a time—weird—and also a whole section on genies.

That part intrigued him the most. He’d always been fascinated with different types of demons, and how to control them. And genies, man, they were the ultimate demon slaves. Sure, they only had to do three things for you, but those three things could be anything!

He left the sink water running as he peered at an incantation, and began slowly sounding it out. He tried not to let his fingers drip on the page, but almost immediately he failed. “Oops,” he said, but continued leaning over the text. “Mingna, Ohaui, Shakami.”

He wasn’t actually trying to summon anything. You needed a lamp or a bottle or something for that, didn’t you? But he was surprised to see a little gold square appear next to the incantation. He touched it, and was surprised when some of it came off. He began scratching it, grinning, when a picture began appearing under it. It was like a lottery ticket. But better.

The picture was the symbol of a big red flower, and he stood and looked at it, feeling very pleased. It was as useless as most lottery tickets, but in all the centuries of this book existing had no one really ever said that incantation aloud? Or maybe they’d all pronounced it wrong up until this point.

“Eyes are over here, flaquito.”

Andrew whipped around, knocking a plate over as he did so. It fell to the ground with a crash, but he barely heard it. A woman was standing in front of him, with a big red flower holding up her dark hair, and a long fluffy white dress tied with a red bow.

“Woah,” Andrew said. “What—did I do that?”

“You summoned me, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said, a Hispanic lilt to her voice.

“Oh,” Andrew said. “Cool. Um, what—did I summon, exactly?”

She rolled her eyes. “And no one listens when genies complain about how stupid their masters are. You’ve been studying my page for nearly ten minutes.”

“You’re a genie?”

She crossed her arms. “Not what you were expecting, pollito?”

“No, I mean it’s just…um…” he swallowed. “I expected you to be more, I don’t know, oriental?”

“And he’s racist, too. Oh, you’ll be a fun one to talk about. Genies come from everywhere, I can’t help it if the Arabian Nights train left the rest of us behind. Caused a lot of stereotypes about us to be made, though.”

“How about the three wishes thing? Is that a stereotype?”

She shook her head. “That part’s true. Do I have to tell you to be careful what you wish for, or is that something you’re already acquainted with?”

“I wish for the complete set of the Harry Potter books,” Andrew blurted out.

She stared at him. “Well, as stupid wishes go, at least it was tame. You want just the seven in the series or all the future ones, too?”

Andrew’s eyes began to shine. “There’s…gonna be more than just the seven?”

“Calaca, it’s a successful franchise, and the author is still alive. You’re going to have canon lore coming out of your ears, and you won’t even want all of it.”

“Okay, first of all, I lived for almost half a year in Mexico, and I know you keep using different words to call me skinny, because that’s what everyone there called me, too.” Andrew said. “And second of all, there is no universe in which more Harry Potter is a bad thing. Unless of course we’re talking a Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones type deal, but that would never happen. But, even so, I think I’ll just take the seven for now.”

She shrugged. And then suddenly she wasn’t a beautiful Latino girl anymore, but had morphed into a giant rattlesnake, one that seemed to be split down the middle so that it’s spine could be seen, and spit out a boxed set of books. Andrew wanted to scream, but suddenly he started realizing this must be a dream, and screaming would neither be helpful or productive.

Of course if he wasn’t dreaming, that was still true.

And then, just as swiftly as she’d turned into a horrifying snake beast, she turned back into a girl, picked up the box set, and handed it to him. “So. What’s wish number two?”

He just took the set and stared at her, frozen.

----------

“I’m just saying he seems…distracted,” Willow said.

Xander shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “He didn’t seem that way to me.”

“Well maybe you weren’t paying attention, since you only saw him with the rest of us,” Willow said. “But I’m staying with him, and I’m telling you Giles is…somewhere else.”

“You don’t just think he’s worried about Buffy?”

“I guess it might be just that, but I don’t know why, it’s not like she went anywhere dangerous. And this was before he knew about Spike, anyway.”

Xander was silent. He looked up at the sky before remembering that he was walking down a street in London and should probably pay attention to where he was going. In a way he missed Africa, where you weren’t always having to skirt out of someone’s way. But he did like London a lot, too. It was like America but in reverse, though when he’d said that to Giles the first time he was here Giles had just looked at him with a mixture of disappointment and disgust and said nothing. But Xander stood by his assessment, because, it’s not like he was wrong.

He stepped around a puddle and finally spoke. “You don’t actually think it’s Spike, do you?”

“You’re telling me that wasn’t the first name you thought of?”

The first name? No, a different name had leapt to the front of Xander’s thoughts, but he knew, just like the rest of them, that objectively it was probably Spike. “I just don’t get it. Angel managed to get resurrected and now Spike? It’s a disconcerting day when you kill a vampire and he doesn’t stay dead.”

“Well, the soul thing is unprecedented. Maybe whatever afterlife there is doesn’t know what to do with evil undead monsters who ended up being…not so evil and monstery.”

“And apparently not undead.” Xander considered. “How many uns do you have to go through before the negatives cancel out and you’re just considered alive again?”

Willow giggled. “I guess technically we don’t technically know it’s him. Technically. But even though we’re all expecting it, I just wish we had a heads-up, you know? Before she gets here.”

“Yeah.” Xander kicked a can, and winced as it flew into some guy’s leg. He hurriedly sped up. Stupid London crowds. “So, hey, Giles, let’s talk some more about him.”

“Okay, so I think I’ve narrowed it down to when I was talking about Buffy, and he said something like she doesn’t need him to look out for her, or something, and then he got all aloof.”

Xander stared at her. “That’s where all this is coming from? This is a road well-trodden, Will, all that is already stuff we knew about him. Wants to be protective, but doesn’t want to smother. Wants to be needed, but wants her to be strong. Anya…noticed that a long time ago. It’s not new, and really, it’s not any of our business.”

“Well I know, but—”

 She was cut off by a demon jumping out from an alley and snarling at them, and on instinct Willow waved her hand and a green blast knocked the demon down.

The demon started whimpering. “Ow, ow, ow.”

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Willow said, dropping to her knees next to him. “Um, sometimes my magic can get a little, you know—”

“Willow, don’t apologize to the salivating creature that just jumped us!” Xander cried.

“I wasn’t salivating!” The demon protested. He sat up, feeling the cluster of small horns on his grey head. “Am I percolating? Tell me honestly.”

“What?” Xander asked.

“Is he bleeding,” Willow translated. “Probably don’t actually have blood in you though, huh?” She pulled the demon’s arm and helped him up. “You’re not though, no.”

“Oh.” The demon said. “Good.” He began snarling again, wrenched his arm away from Willow and pulled a knife out of his belt, pointing it at them. “Then you’re going to come with me.”

“You know, I can knock you down again right now if that’s what you want,” Willow said.

“And she can probably kill you, too,” Xander said. “Faster than anything you can do with that.”

“You don’t want to kill me,” The demon said. “And you don’t want to ignore me, either. I was sent to find you. I know where there’s a great treasure to be found, something you’ll all find of interest.”

“Ooh, is it candy in a van?” Xander asked.

“It’s a diary,” the demon scowled. “Of sorts. An apocalypse diary.”

“An apocalypse diary,” Willow repeated. She put her hands on her hips. “That doesn’t sound contrived at all.”

“It’s the real deal,” the demon said. “You’ll just need to pass a challenge, and it can be yours.”

“What would we do with an apocalypse diary?” Xander asked. “And what does that even mean, is the apocalypse the one writing it? ‘Dear diary, today I almost ended the world, and I would have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for these meddling kids.’”

“Idiot,” the demon hissed. “It’s a compendium. It’s a complete study, it’s…it lists every way an apocalypse can be started. Or stopped. And it’s an original, it’s not like it was sent to any publishers. There’s only one in existence.”

Willow still had her hands on her hips, and she began drumming her fingers against them. “What makes you think we’re going to fall for this?”

“Because you know you can kill me if I’m lying. And if I’m not lying, you know this is too valuable an article to let fall into…the wrong hands.” The demon’s pink eyes darted between both of them, and for a while they just stared at him.

Finally Willow turned to Xander, who caught her gaze and shrugged.

 ----------

Buffy gasped as she wrestled with the pig. She could feel its trotters digging into her, and the thought briefly flitted through her mind that these were her new jeans that it was tearing. Her blood would probably stain them, too, since she wouldn’t be able to get to a washing machine anytime soon. So many good articles of clothing she’d lost to her profession, and she mourned every single one of them.

But, okay, focus. It was trying to bite her, chomp her head off or something, and she could see its black tongue wiggling madly as she held its mouth open with her hands. It never stopped screaming, and she could barely fight the urge to let go and cover her ears.

But she resisted, and grunted as she kicked it off of her. She managed to roll away from it, and scanned her eyes over the debris. It charged her again, but she saw a long, rusty rod of some kind, and picked it up, skewering its head as it plummeted towards her.

The rod was wrenched out of her hand as the pig fell, and she looked at her hands and winced. Great, now there was rust getting into her bloodstream. She had a stronger tolerance for it, but it would still hurt until she flushed it out.

She wiped her hands on her torn jeans, and looked around. That demon had definitely been left over from the battle, but there weren’t anymore, it looked like. None about to charge her unexpectedly, anyway. She could see Innocence over by the jet, and so carefully picked her way through the rubble over to it. “Hey,” she called.

“Hey,” Innocence turned and smiled. “So guess what, we found a—” she stopped. “What happened to you?”

Buffy shrugged. “Demon. Slayer stuff. Handled it.”

“O—kay, well, anyway, I was all ready to give up on the stretcher thing, and then, there one was! So he’s on board, and it’s kind of a tight fit with the IV and everything, but I made it work. Illyria helped me take out some of the seats.”

The blue demon appeared in the doorway of the jet, staring at Buffy. Buffy raised her eyebrows as she climbed the steps and pushed past her. “Wow. It’s a good thing there’s only three of us. You only left the two seats, besides the sofas in the back.”

“I wish to come with you,” Illyria said.

Buffy looked at Spike, who looked calmly back at her from where he was lying. Buffy turned back to Illyria. “You what?”

“I enjoy beating Spike down. I would like that to continue. If he does not die.”

“Look,” Buffy said. “I’m glad you came to get me, and I appreciate you…watching out for him, or whatever, but I’m already babysitting too many demons on this trip.”

Spike stirred. “Buffy.”

“I’m sorry, Illyria,” Buffy said. “I just really don’t have time to figure out what your agenda is.”

“Buffy.”

She whipped her head back to look at Spike. “What?”

“Let her come, pet.” He closed his eyes. “Please.”

Illyria’s gaze snapped over to him and she tilted her head. Buffy glanced at her, and then at Innocence, who just shrugged helplessly. Buffy still had a very strong desire to say no, and yet, maybe because of the please, which she hardly ever heard from him, or the pet, which she feared she’d never hear from him again, but she could feel everything shifting inside her.

She sighed and looked at Illyria again. “Try not to be too creepy, okay?”

----------

This was not exactly how Giles had expected his day to go. With Willow and Xander arriving at his house, dragging in a protesting grey demon, who was now hissing and probably spitting everywhere right in his living room.

Giles sipped his tea and suddenly realized this was exactly how he should have expected his day to go.

“There’s only one in existence?” Giles asked.

“Yes, I told you.” The demon squirmed under the grip of his captors. “Someone’s been studying this, you won’t find this complete a study anywhere else.”

“Unless of course the one who wrote it made a copy, or transferred all the information into his brain, or made it all up,” Giles said. “It’s not official, so there only being one does not make it a selling point.”

“Fine,” the demon said. “Maybe whoever wrote it took precautions, but it’s still something you should want. It’s a compendium of texts, it would take any of you years to find all this information out.”

“Who did write it?” Willow asked.

“What?” The demon squirmed again. “Ow, stop gripping so hard.”

“Who wrote it? Who sent you?” Willow repeated.

“Doesn’t matter to you, and I can’t say, anyway.”

“Convenient,” Xander said. He sighed and looked at Giles. “So what do we think, is this legit, or should we toss this guy back into whatever hole in the ground he crawled out of?”

“Well I don’t deny this bears looking into,” Giles said. “Although it would be very foolish of us to just jump every time someone claims something like this exists.” He looked at the demon. “But you were willing to gamble your life on this, so either you’re leading us into a trap or you’re telling the truth.”

“Or possibly both,” Xander said. “Demons, you gotta love ‘em.”

The front door opened, and Dawn raised her eyebrows as she walked in. “Woah. And here I thought my chemistry test was going to be the exciting topic of the day.” The demon stared at her and stopped moving for a minute. She snickered as she looked at him. “So, what’s he offering?”

“He wants us to take this challenge,” Willow said. “To get some…complete listing of all the ways you can apocalypse.”

“Apocalypses for Dummies, huh?” Dawn nodded. “That would be helpful. Do we believe him?”

“Enough to walk into his trap, apparently,” Xander said. He turned to the demon. “Where do we need to go?”

----------

They’d been in the air for an hour already, and Buffy felt like the time was going too quickly. Not that she really would have wanted the full sixteen-hour flight, or however long Giles always complained the trip from Southern California to London was. But it was all starting to hit her, the leaving town on a whim, or half a whim anyway, flying halfway around the world and only telling her boyfriend and Watcher as an afterthought, and now dragging someone into all of their lives who had had a rocky relationship with them at best.

There were conversations she’d need to have, and explanations she was going to have to give, and she wasn’t looking forward to any of that. She was pretty sure they’d understand, and probably wouldn’t even really be that surprised, but there would be grumblings. And have-you-thought-this-throughs. And probably a fair number of distrustful looks thrown Spike’s way.

And the truth was that she hadn’t thought this through, not really. Not for more than two days, anyway. Because when she’d seen him, close to death in that wreckage, her first thought was that he’d be coming home with her, and she hadn’t wavered in that thought since. And now it was happening, and she was aware that she didn’t really know what to do with him, or what this might look like to everybody else.

But she also knew that even if she had all the time in the world to think about it, her decision would still have been the same. She knew it because of every other time he’d needed her help. Every other time he’d landed on her doorstep or fallen at her feet, or done something so stupid that it could only have been a cry for her attention. He needed her, and she’d be there for him. Even though, in all this past year, he hadn’t ever—

She quickly drew a deep breath and wrenched her eyes away from his stretcher. She’d been sitting in one of the remaining seats, while Illyria sat unmoving in the other one, but now she walked to the back and shrugged her jacket off, plopping down on one of the sofas.

She let her head fall back, and let out another huff as she stared at the ceiling. The rumbling of the jet reminded her that they were going too fast. Three hours, and then she’d have to face them all. It wasn’t enough time.

She could hear movement from the front, and had a pretty good guess of what was happening, but she didn’t turn her head until Spike was there, standing in front of her. “Hey,” she said softly. He didn’t respond, and her eyes scanned his shirt and boots, which he hadn’t been wearing when they loaded him onboard. “I see you found your clothes.”

He just watched her for a moment, and then held his hand out expectantly. She gave a smirk as she reached under the sofa and pulled his duster out. “This one’s different,” she said. “What happened to your old one?”

“Lost it,” he said briefly, as he pulled it on. He sat next to her, knees apart, clasping and unclasping his hands between them.

“I should probably tell you you shouldn’t be out of bed,” she said.

“Are you going to?”

She shrugged. “Just did. Do with that what you will.” She didn’t tell him that she herself never stayed in a hospital bed if she could help it. She always wanted to get up and start stretching her legs. “How are you feeling?”

He took a very long time to answer, looking down at his hands, which were still fidgeting. She watched him closely, and could see his jaw and forehead tense, as if he was working something out. He was getting ready to ask something.

“Buffy,” he said at last, and opened and closed his mouth. He swallowed. “Buffy…”

She was pretty sure she knew where this was going. “Yeah?”

He swallowed again. “I’m…I have a pulse.”

She reached forward, laying her hand on his wrist. “Yep. You sure do.”

He nodded, slowly, for longer than she thought he needed to. “So,” he said. “Not dreams, then. Sodding thundering in my head really is the heartbeat.” He turned to look at her, and she could see tears rimming his eyes. “How many times can a man change, Buffy?”

“Hey,” she said in a gentle voice. She leaned forward and raised one of his hands to his chest, and then raised his other to hers. “I’m not saying being human is easy, but it’s a pretty common affliction in this world. And see? We’re the same now. Same heartbeat. Same struggles. If I can get through it, believe me, you can, too.”

He swallowed for a third time, staring at the hand on her chest, before she let go of his hands and he let them fall back between his knees. “When did it happen?”

“I don’t know,” Buffy admitted. “Sometime during your battle…sometime before you were knocked out, I guess.”

He took a breath and gave kind of a resigned sigh. “Well, I’ll certainly be taking more stock in prophecies after this.”

He fell silent again, and Buffy continued to watch him, until they both heard Innocence gasp, and turned to look at her.

She came from the cockpit, sliding the door shut behind her. “Spike, what the hell do you think you’re doing? I’m spending a lot of that precious drug on you, and you just turn your back on it?”

“Bloody thing wasn’t even in my hand when I woke up, it’s hardly my fault.”

“Well,” Innocence huffed. “You’re just going to have to get it in a much less efficient way, then.” She pulled a case off of a shelf, and opened it to reveal a syringe.

Spike watched her for only a second, dutifully putting out his arm when she asked for it, but then he turned to Buffy. “You live in London, now? What happened to Rome?”

“Gave it a shot, didn’t like it. London’s got more resources, and it’s closer to Giles, anyway.” She paused, and then gave him a funny look. “And actually, there was a night where I went to a club, and…I got a weird feeling. Like I was being watched.”

Innocence stood up. “Better get used to me, Spike,” she said. “I’m gonna be coming over here a lot to do that again, until you decide you like it better in your bed.” She turned and walked to the seat next to Illyria.

“Being watched?” Spike asked. “You are the Slayer, love. One of many, but still, I wager somebody’s always got an eye on you.”

“Well,” she said slowly. “Yeah. That’s all I thought it was. Even though I was pretty sure it was my vampire sense.” She paused. “Even though I was pretty sure it was my Angel-and-Spike vampire sense. Silly of course. Spike was dead, and Angel far, far away. Supposedly didn’t even know where I was.”

“He kept spies on you,” Spike mumbled.

She shoved his shoulder. “You jerks! You were watching me, and you couldn’t have come over to say hello?”

“Well you were looking a bit preoccupied, pet.”

Buffy’s lips twisted, as if she was trying to bottle in her anger. Maybe she was. “You never told me you were alive.”

He looked over at her, and she was honestly completely unprepared for the amount of pain she saw in his eyes. She’d expected guilt, apologies, and yes, pain, but this wasn’t that. It wasn’t fair, the things that look of agony was doing to her heart.

And then, before she could decide what she was going to say next, he swung his legs up onto the sofa, pushed himself closer to her, and wrapped his arms tightly around himself, laying his head on her shoulder.

She had no idea what to do with this. This type of thing was unprecedented in their relationship, and so she had no past experiences to draw on for help.

But he saved her from having to speak. “I’m sorry,” was all he said.

It wasn’t enough, it didn’t even come close to the realm of cutting it, but the tone behind it spoke volumes more than the meaning. She found herself sighing and running her hand through the curls just above his forehead. “Your hair’s getting wild,” she said after a while. “Seriously, how frequently do you have to slick it back?”

He gave a grunt that could have been a laugh, and tilted his head slightly to look up at her. “You still dating him? The Immortal?”

Buffy tried to keep her face neutral. “His name is Lorenzo.”

Spike scoffed. “Like hell it is. Probably just lets you call him that so you have something to scream while—”

“Stop—that sentence right now,” Buffy said. “There is no…screaming. We’re taking it slowly. And like Spike is your real name. I’m okay with letting people redefine themselves, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“You have someone make sure it’s not a love spell?”

Buffy’s attempts at neutrality broke as she smiled. “He doesn’t do spells, Spike.”

“He’s bad news, you know.”

“Everyone always loves to tell me that when I’m dating somebody. And I really thought you of all people would trust that I know what I’m doing.”

 That shut him up for a while, like she figured it would, and she kept fiddling with his curls until she realized she probably shouldn’t encourage this. “You hungry?” She asked.

“No.”

“Well, that’s not true, you’ve essentially got a newborn digestive system, and you haven’t had much since.” She reached for her jacket and grabbed inside the pocket. “There wasn’t a lot of food lying around, but I did find a smashed-up vending machine.” She handed him a Snickers bar. “I’m sorry it isn’t more…well, I mean I have more of those. But I’m sorry it’s all I have.”

He took it and began eating it, very slowly, and although he was silent the entire time, Buffy wondered if he was savoring the taste of it. Making it last. She wasn’t entirely sure if they had had chocolate when he was human before—they must have, she realized—but it still would have been a long time since he was able to enjoy it. And Snickers definitely hadn’t been around back then.

When he was finished, he shoved the wrapper in his pocket and again crossed his arms tightly around his stomach. “Little Sis staying out of trouble?” he murmured suddenly.

Buffy blinked. With all the thoughts he was probably trying to keep in order, she found herself surprised that Dawn had entered them. “Um, yeah, for the most part. Top of her class, which I kinda don’t get, because she never was in California. But, turns out she’s got kind of a genius in her.”

He closed his eyes and snorted. “I could have told you that.”

He didn’t ask anything else, and she didn’t offer any other information. She found herself not really sure what to do with her hands now that she wasn’t playing with his hair, but he didn’t seem to notice, and she was pretty sure anything she tried to do with them would just be more awkward than was necessary. So she kept them in her lap, and stared up at the ceiling again, and wished for just a couple more hours to be added to this trip.

----------                           

“So,” Andrew said, as he began flipping through one of his new books. “How do you become a genie? Are you like, born with it, or are you cursed, or what?”

“No, it’s a job. It pays the bills, you know?”

“Really?” Andrew looked up. “So, like, anyone could become one?”

She sniffed disapprovingly. “Not you, if that’s what you’re asking. You have to have something, and chico, you don’t have it.”

“Oh.” Andrew paused. “I thought it was like a curse because it’s like a life of slavery, isn’t it? You have to do what other people tell you, even if they’re horrible and what they’re asking is stupid.”

She shrugged. “No different from any other job dealing with customers. And it’s not slavery, because I get paid. We just use the word “master” as a slur, to be honest.”

“Wow.” Andrew paused. “But like, I could ask you to do anything .”

“You could. And I could advise you in what not to ask for, but you won’t listen to me and I’m tired of giving that spiel, anyway. But, world domination, oodles of currency, girls to fawn over you, that’s usually what people go for.”

Andrew suddenly began fidgeting. “World domination?”

“Of course. I mean, again, not the smartest move in the chess game, because inevitably someone will take you down, but if you think you’re up to it, ask away.”

Andrew looked nervous. “I don’t really…do well with being in charge.”

“No one is who wishes that, because otherwise they could just get there themselves.”

“Yeah, but I don’t really think I want that, anyway.” He sighed in exasperation. “This is hard, I just wish that—” Suddenly he stopped and bit his lip. He looked over at the genie, who smirked at him. “I’m—guessing you have to take me pretty literally with that word, huh? Like a vengeance demon?”

She nodded. “I’m like a vengeance demon too, you know. Only I sort of help people enact vengeance on themselves. Seriously, this isn’t going to end well for you.”

“Why, because you think I’m going to ask for some cosmic anomaly? My first wish was just a set of books!”

“Some of which don’t exist yet. You may think you’ll keep that to yourself, but you have something from the future, and you think you won’t find ways to use that to your advantage? I grant that in your case the worst thing you’ll do is either spoil the ending for everyone else or just place bets on which characters will die because you already know, but you could do worse. Selling copies just before they’re released. Walking up to the publishing company and demanding hush money. Every wish is a cosmic anomaly.”

He stared at her. “How can you immerse yourself in such wanton chaos and evil?”

She shrugged. “I’m a demon. Where I’m from this is considered an honest living.”

The coolness of all of this was not lost on Andrew, and if she hadn’t shut down his dreams of becoming a genie, he would have signed up to be one right then and there. But she was starting to make him feel sick, mostly because he knew he wanted it. He did want to take the power, even though he knew he’d have no idea how to use it. And since when did just wishing for a set of books a couple years early throw the entire earth off its axis?

“Okay,” he said. “Well, then, thanks for stopping by, but I don’t really want my other two wishes.”

She laughed, and it was a beautiful and merry laugh, but also one that somehow made him feel even sicker. “Oh, thank you for that, I haven’t heard that in a very long time. No, see, miho, you have to use the wishes. You won’t be rid of me until you do.”

“What if I wish you to leave?”

“All right, you got me there. But your third wish would still be granted the next time you used that word.”

Andrew threw his hands in the air. “So what am I supposed to do? No wonder no one’s ever read that incantation before.”

“Oh, they have. The thing where you have to uncover my symbol appears every time someone new reads it.”

“Oh.” Andrew crossed his arms and flopped down on the couch. “Well I wish I could tell whoever did that that they should really put that in the fine print.”

He was startled to see the genie turn into the half-dissected snake monster again, and spit a creature out. “Wait! I didn’t say ‘wish’ did I?”

“You did, actually,” she said, when she was back. “And now I’d like to introduce you to my boss.”

----------

Dawn looked skeptically at the front of the diner. It was run-down and so drab that anyone probably would have barely noticed it was there, but still, as evil lairs went, she thought it was pretty lame. “The challenge is in here?”

“It’s a loyalty challenge,” the demon said. “Not anything physical. Besides, this is neutral territory.” He looked pointedly at Xander and Willow. “As in, not a trap?”

Willow stepped forward and reached for the handle. “Woah,” Xander said, grabbing her arm. “Will, what are you doing? Aren’t you gonna blast it down or something?”

“Uhh.” She looked at Dawn and Giles. “Do you want me to? I mean I would have if it was locked, but—”

“It still might be a trap,” Dawn pointed out.

“Um,” Willow said. “Okay.” She waved her hand and the door opened, revealing darkness inside, but enough sunlight poured in to show that it really was just an old, abandoned diner. Some chairs were stacked on tables, but most were just sitting askew or were knocked over.

The demon wrestled out of Xander’s grip and walked inside. He flicked on a light switch, and one single bulb sputtered to life. He turned to look at them. “Well, standing out there isn’t very productive, now is it?”

Giles looked at the others and nodded, and they walked in. Immediately a small metal ball flew down from the ceiling and reached out four spindly arms, pricking each of their arms with a needle.

All four of them cried out in protest, and Willow glared at the demon and gripped his collar with both hands. “Okay, what the hell was that?”

“Calm down, it was just a little insurance, okay? It’s over now.” The demon led them to a table in the middle of the room, which was really three tables pushed together, with one chair on each side. “Go on, have a seat, and I’ll show you the diary.”

Dawn leaned over to Giles. “Okay, this is bad. Like, we-should-leave-now bad.”

“I know,” Giles said. “I know, all of this seems shoddy and not worthwhile, but sometimes demons like this do have what they say they have. The Books of Ascension spring to mind.”

“Not exactly what I meant,” Dawn muttered, but she sat down in a chair just like the others.

The flying metal ball came forward again, this time holding a book in its arms. It was roughly two feet tall, with a blank, red leather cover. It looked very tattered and worn, with papers sticking out all over the place, but Willow wasn’t convinced. “Let’s see inside,” she said, and waved her hand, but nothing happened. She looked at her hand, and then up at the demon, eyes blazing. “Is that the insurance? That I wouldn’t be able to do magic?”

“No,” the demon said. “There’s a spell on this place that makes you not able to do magic. And you can’t see inside the diary.”

“Wow,” Xander said. “You ever see a kid trying to do magic tricks and they tell you to turn around while they do something real quick? This whole thing is exactly like that.”

“You’ll notice a piece of paper in front of you,” The demon said. “You will use this paper to write down a name of one of your team. And I don’t mean just the people in this room. I mean, you know, one of yours. One of your little gang. Two or more unanimous votes, and that person dies where they stand. And you get the book.”

“What?” Dawn demanded, jumping up. “That’s the challenge? That’s the stupidest thing I ever—”

“Spike counts as one of yours,” the demon said calmly.

Dawn slowly sat back down. “So it’s true,” she said. “He’s alive.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Xander said. “We’re not writing down anyone’s name to get killed.” He stood up as well. “Come on, guys, let’s get out of here.” He stormed over to the door, but when he reached for the handle, it disappeared.

“I should probably let you know about the insurance now,” the demon said. “My drone friend took samples of your blood, and now you are bound here. Until you write a name.”

Xander stared at him, and the faces of the other three went white.

“I don’t know what you’re all squeamish about,” the demon said. “I’ve given you the name you need. And this challenge is designed so that you won’t have to know which of you sealed his fate, and Buffy doesn’t even have to know you were the ones to let him die. You all thought he was gone already, and the way I hear it none of you were very fond of him.” He leaned his fists on the table, staring into Dawn’s eyes. “So what’s one measly vampire when you could save generations of humans?”

----------

Buffy wanted to be mad at Spike. She had plenty of reason to be, and part of her was, but the rest of her was really struggling. He was making it difficult by leaning so heavily on her shoulder, of course, but all she had to do was roughly push him away and he’d probably get the message.

But how could she? He was so mellow right now, and clearly still pretty out of it, because no way would he have clung to her uninvited like that otherwise. He knew she’d never have let him before. She didn’t know why she was letting him now.

Okay, so she did know why. Because in spite of all her desires and attempts to be mad, all of it was overshadowed by the fact that he was here; he was alive, and he was here . She still had a thousand questions, and would expect a thousand apologies from him, and there would likely be a thousand things to work out, but he was here now, and really, that was the big takeaway.

She glanced down and could see him falling asleep, and that made her heart flutter more than she’d have thought. He looked so trusting and helpless like that. Like a puppy. Not that she’d ever thought of him as a puppy before. That had been Faith’s comparison, and weird as it had been at the time, Buffy could see it now. She watched him, waiting until his eyes finally closed, and when she was sure he was out, she wrapped her arms loosely around his chest and rested her cheek on his head. There would be plenty of time to be mad at him later.

----------

“This is your boss?” Andrew asked, looking skeptically at the demon that was now slinking around Buffy’s apartment. He was going to get in so much trouble for this. The demon looked like a pile of red slime, and he kept oozing, endlessly, like a chocolate fountain. He looked at Andrew and said something, but it was all garbled, and not even English. And then he made his way around the room, climbing up the walls and up the ceiling and all over every piece of furniture.

Oh, Andrew was going to be in so much trouble.

“Wait,” Andrew said. “I wished for the guy who put your Scratcher thing in there and didn’t put any warnings in the fine print. No way this is him.”

“No, no it is. He actually can do a lot of clever little things like that. One of the sharpest and most diabolical minds in any of the local dimensions. That’s why he started his own genie business.”

“Okay, well he’s tracking…guck all over Buffy’s apartment. Get him out of here.”

The demon made its way over to the couch and settled, sprawling out all over it. “Hey!” Andrew said. “That’s where I sleep!” He stepped forward, looking down when he heard a squelching. “Great, now I have demon discharge all over…” he stopped when he realized it was sizzling, and smoke was starting to curl off the sludge. “Hold on, is this…is this stuff toxic? Like, burning through whatever it touches toxic? Like in RoboCop ?”

“I guess so,” the genie said. “In this world, anyway.”

“Get him out of here,” Andrew said again, and then remembered. “Oh, that’s right, I forgot, I wish—”

“Hold on.” The genie sighed. “There is actually one little clause I have to tell you about. If one of your wishes is to reverse a previous wish, you have to be extremely careful and specific in your phrasing, because otherwise it tends to shift the world into an alternate reality. Not that I won’t do it, just that I have to tell you that first.”

“Are you kidding me?” Andrew screeched. “I don’t know what kind of phrasing is going to not send the world into an alternate dimension! I didn’t even mean to summon you, okay, I just wanted to say some of the words, and then I wanted to see if I’d win a free fortune telling by scratching that thing, or something. And now you’re here and Buffy’s gonna be really, really mad and she might not let me stay here anymore, and I hate staying in my office because the other Slayers don’t even pay attention to me. And it was cool and everything when I got the books, but now you’re saying that might have drastic consequences and turn me into a super villain or something. I thought I was dreaming at first, but this is becoming a nightmare. I wish I was dreaming, and this whole genie debacle was just my subconscious trying to warn me.”

He stopped, panting for breath, then winced as he looked up at her. “I used the ‘w’ word again, didn’t I?”

She nodded, but she looked impressed. “Yeah, but you managed not to throw your reality into another dimension. Well done, güero . It’s been fun.”

She turned into a snake monster again, and that was the last thing Andrew saw before he woke up, still holding Giles’ book. He hastily flipped it open to the page on genies, tore it out and threw it into the kitchen sink, turning on the garbage disposal.

Which would probably clog up the drain. He was going to be in so much trouble.

----------

Dawn rapped her pen anxiously on the side of the table and looked around at the other three. They were all staring at their papers, but while Willow and Xander were looking pretty blank, Giles had a worried frown that seemed to be deepening by the second. Which Dawn understood. He was the one who’d said they should come in blindly, and now here they were, and what had they expected, anyway?

Xander’s head suddenly snapped up. “Remember that year we all got really into Survivor ? I’m gonna make a bold statement and say that their Tribal Council is much, much…more atmospheric than this one is. I mean seriously, would it have killed anyone to have some tiki torches and palm trees?”

The other three all looked at him, and Dawn suddenly felt such a wave of love for him. She looked down and scrawled out a name, and watched as the others did the same. The demon gave a smirk as he picked their papers up.

“Dawn,” he read as the first one. “Xander. Will—” he suddenly stopped as he read the last one, and looked up at them, blinking in shock.

“Okay, that’s it, right? We passed, we did it, we wrote a name?” Willow jumped up and ran to the door. “Hey, look! Door handle!” she wrenched it open and ran outside, and Giles stood up and began following.

“How—how did you do that?” The demon sputtered. “I know there’s only seven of you, but the odds of only writing down one of each name were too slim to—”

“We wrote our own names, Rocky,” Xander said, patting his shoulder as he walked by.

Dawn grinned at the demon as she walked by, and he reached out and grabbed her arm. “But how did you know to do that?”

Dawn stopped and looked back at him. He was looking so earnest and confused, and not that she felt sorry for him at all, but she did feel like lording it over him a little bit. “Xander’s Tribal Council comment,” she said. “He said once that he wondered if anyone on Survivor ever wrote their own name, just to get out of there. For the rest of the season we began speculating which of them were actually relieved to be voted out just so they didn’t have to play anymore.” She gave a smug grin. “Cool book, though. Shame we couldn’t get it, but I mean, you know, if it is real, we’re going to get it away from you eventually.” Now she was just blowing hot air, and she knew it. “But if I ever see your face again, I’m going to punch it in,” she warned him.

And just like that, something changed in his face, and he gave a wicked grin. “I’m a demon, maybe I’d like that sort of thing.”

Her face changed, too, but her look was one of disgust. “Ew,” she said, slamming the door behind her.

Giles sighed and cleaned his glasses. “Well, that was an adrenaline rush I could have done without.”

“I thought you liked those,” Xander said. “All that playing with death stuff, isn’t that where Ripper comes from?”

“Yes, but not Giles the Watcher. You’re confusing me with Ethan Rayne.” He looked around. “I am sorry, I feel responsible for this. I should have researched it more thoroughly.”

“So Ripper won out in this instance, it’s no big,” Willow smiled. “Besides, we really did get off easy. If he’s forbidden us from talking, for example? I don’t think I could have communicated telepathically with you if my magic was cut off. So, it could have been so much worse.”

“Well hey now,” Xander said. “Let’s not exaggerate. We’ve let a vampire loose on the world, remember.”

“Yeah,” Dawn said. “Now anything Spike does, or anything anyone does with him, happens because we let it happen.”

Chapter Text

Buffy’s apartment building was located in such a way where the front faced busy streets and shops that would eventually lead all the way to central London. But behind the building there was a lot of bare land that had been unclaimed, and Illyria had discovered this empty field when she came in the jet looking for Buffy.

And now the group was gathered here, waiting for the jet to land again. They were, for the most part, trying to look casual, but that was proving to be difficult when they were just standing in the middle of an open field, waiting for a jet that may or may not come in the next few minutes.

Andrew sighed and flopped down in the weeds. “Why do we have to wait out here?” he asked. “I’m sure Buffy remembers how to get to her place from here. Why can’t we wait for them there?”

“It’s because we’d want to pick her up from the airport,” Willow said. “Only, this kind of is the airport.” 

Giles cleared his throat. “Besides, it will be best if we know—” He broke off and put his hands in his pockets. “Well, best to greet her as soon as she lands, yes.” He looked up at sky. The sun was starting to go down; they had probably twenty minutes left of daylight. If that’s what Buffy had been aiming for, she’d timed it well.

“Do we tell her?” Dawn asked. “About the apocalypse diary?”

“Well yeah, apocalypses are sort of her trade,” Xander said. “She’d want to know if there was a whole textbook on them.”

“If indeed it’s real,” Giles said. “Which we’re still not sure of.”

“But we can’t research it,” Willow protested. She sighed. “If I could have just seen inside it…”

“I think it was real,” Dawn said. “It was so specific.”

“But why’d he try to get you to kill one of your own?” Andrew asked. “Why didn’t he just try to kill one of you? Wouldn’t that have been easier?”

“I don’t know,” Willow said. “Is that easier?”

Andrew considered, then grinned and nodded. “Oh, I see. No, it’s not easier, because here we all are and no one’s killed us.”

“Hey, gang, heads up,” Xander said, pointing at the sky. “Thar she blows.”

The jet flew down towards a group of trees and settled behind it. Willow looked anxiously at Giles. “Do we go to it? Do we wait?”

“Let’s just…” he put his hand out. “Wait. I’m sure she’ll hold out until the sun goes down.”

He was proven to be wrong, however, when a couple minutes later Buffy and her entourage walked out from the trees. She was in front, walking purposefully towards them. Spike was immediately behind her, hands shoved the pockets of the coat which was flapping around his legs. The famed blue demon that only Andrew had seen was next to Spike, and another tall demon in a lab coat was tripping along behind them.

They reached the group waiting for them, and stopped. “Hey,” Buffy said. “Hey, guys.” She smiled at them, and it grew as she looked at Willow and Xander in particular.

“Buffy,” Giles said quietly. He smiled at her, but then looked questioningly at the sun which had yet to completely disappear.

“Oh,” Buffy said. “Yeah. Spike’s human now. I’ll explain later.” She looked around. “Um, where is—”

“Your boyfriend?” Xander asked, and shot an almost apologetic look at Spike, but he kept going. “Got caught up with a work thing, he said. He was very forthcoming with lots of affectionate apologies, which I don’t feel qualified to repeat. But he said he’d be by first thing in the morning.”

The demon from behind came forward and grinned. “Hi all,” she said. “I’m Innocence, I’ve sort of been drafted as nurse for him. I’ll be swinging round, once or twice a day, since that’s all the drug boosts he’ll need from now on.” She pointed at Spike. “You. Take things easy. I’d better be off, Wolfram and Hart can’t very well give me a job if I don’t show up, right?” She laughed, and skipped off towards the street on the other side of the apartment buildings.

A silence fell over the rest of them, with everyone except Buffy staring at Spike. He was standing as close to Buffy as he possibly could, and that was starting to ring old alarm bells in their heads, but this was…different somehow . He was pressed up against her, but his hands were shoved deep in his pockets, and his shoulders were hunched up.

“Okay, so you all wanna stop gawking at him now? He’s not a show pony,” Buffy said. She stepped forward, and held her arms out to Willow for a hug. “Gawk at Illyria, she doesn’t mind.”

Willow hugged Buffy, and Xander did the same. Buffy then turned to Andrew, who was grinning and holding his arms out expectantly. She rolled her eyes, but smiled and hugged him, too. “Hi, Andrew.”

“This is the girl who came to get you?” Willow asked, looking distrustfully at Illyria. “Why’d…why is she here?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “That’s a great question, honestly.”

“Who is she?” Dawn asked.

“She had nothing left in LA,” Spike piped up. “She’s here because I asked Buffy to bring her.”

“And I guess that is what we do,” Dawn said pointedly. “Take in the demons who have nowhere else to go.” She walked over to Spike, and put her hands on her hips. She gave him one of the coldest looks Giles had ever seen her muster, and she glanced at him up and down. But she broke when she saw him looking back with a gleam of affection in his gaze. She sighed. “Can I hug you?”

“If you must.”

She was stiff and awkward as she wrapped her arms around him, but in spite of his indifferent consent he grabbed her and held her in a bear hug, and she squeezed back, pressing her face into his chest. “I hate you,” she said.

“I know, Bit,” he said quietly.

“I hate that you didn’t tell us.” She squirmed. “You—your heart’s beating.”

He let go and stepped back, returning his hands to his pockets. “Noticed that, did you?”

“He’s actually human?” Willow looked at Dawn, and then Spike. “You’re actually human?”

“What did you think I meant?” Buffy asked.

“Well I thought you meant, he was human like, or something. Not full-on, doesn’t burn up in the sun, has a beating heart, human package. Did that happen when he came back?”

“Yeah, and how did he come back, anyway?” Xander asked.

“Guys,” Buffy said. “I said I’d explain later, okay?” Spike suddenly breathed in sharply through his nose, and his hand gripped her shoulder. She smoothly and subtly backed up against him so he could lean on her. “For now, I’ve been away from running water and actual food for way too long, so I’m going home.” She looked around at them all. “Yeesh, it’s gonna be crowded in there. We’re gonna need a bigger meeting place.”

“I was the one who said you should get three bedrooms,” Andrew reminded her.

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but that would be super convenient right now.”

“Wait,” Dawn said. “If Spike’s staying with us, then where—”

“My room,” Buffy said. “Because he’s still got a fever and stuff. I’ll take the couch.”

“What?” Andrew protested. “Where will I go?”

“You have an office,” Buffy reminded him. She turned and began leading the way back to her apartment.

“What about—” Dawn looked at the blue demon. “What’s her name?”

“Illyria,” Buffy said. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with her. Right now she just seems interested in protecting Spike. Like a watchdog.”

“She’s not a watchdog,” Spike said, at the same time Illyria said, “I am nobody’s cur.”

No one really had any response to that, and Buffy glanced behind her to see them all looking uncomfortable, either at her, or Spike, or Illyria. She grinned. “Guys, you’ve been all around the world dealing with new demons on your own, and trying to train hordes of young women into becoming…well, me, and this is what’s giving you the wiggins? I’m gonna figure this out, and you’re going to let me explain, and I still want to have the meeting that we were supposed to have, and it’ll all work itself out, okay?”

“Oh,” Andrew suddenly said quickly. “By the way, Buffy—”

“Ginger’s got another moving party going on,” Dawn said quickly.

Andrew frowned at her. “I was telling her that.”

“Well, I said it first.”

“Ginger?” Giles asked. “Who is—”

A girl stepped out of the apartment next to Buffy’s, and almost collided with the group. She gasped and then frowned. “Buffy,” she mumbled quickly.

“Hi, Ginger,” Buffy said, looking at the boxes lining the halls. “I know you own the building, but I think it’s kinda unfair to charge your tenants for your own personal moving service.”

“Well, that’s just your opinion,” Ginger said bitterly, ducking back into her own apartment. She looked at the group. “Having boarders will cost you extra.”

“Yeah, yeah, bill me,” Buffy said, waving her hand. She reached her front door and opened it, then looked back at the group and made a pouting face. “Stupid landlady. I could own this building, you know. She doesn’t look any older than I am.” She stared into the room, but hesitated, and then glanced at Spike.

He managed to smile, and was the first to walk in. “Okay,” he said. “Don’t need an invite anymore. Check that off the diagnostics test.” His smile fell as she walked in, however, and he hastily grabbed her shoulder again and winced.

Buffy put out both her hands to steady him, then turned to her sister. “Dawn, I think we still have a can of soup somewhere, could you heat that up? The rest of you guys can stay out here. I’ll be right back.” Then she looked at Illyria. “Except you’re probably gonna follow me anyway, so, come on.”

“Wait,” Andrew said, as he watched Spike and Illyria follow her. “Is he…actually not okay?”

“He’s fine,” Buffy said. “I told you, he’s got a fever, and the in-flight meal was, well, more in-flight, not so much with the meal. Now all of you, stay.”

----------

Innocence strode purposefully down the street, her heels clicking the pavement. She reached up and tightened her ponytail, allowing it to swish back and forth behind her as she passed an alleyway.

“And what’s a young thing like you doin’ out here all alone?”

She jumped and gasped as she peered into the alley, and then shook her head. “Dagger. Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Nope.” He pushed himself off the wall he’d been leaning on and fell into step with her. “Made first contact yesterday. Figured going back the day after would look a little…desperate. Say, do you do that startled thing for every guy to pop out at you or was that just for me?”

She gestured to her speckled face. “I’m supposed to be the Innocence. But people are going to be more scared of me than I am of them unless I act all, you know…”

“Innocent?”

“That’s the word.”

Dagger shoved his hands in his pockets and gave her a sideways look. “So. He’s alive?”

“He’s alive. McDonald pulled through.”

“Told you he would.”

“Uh huh,” Innocence said. “You’re damn lucky, too. You know how difficult it was to manipulate him into getting the amulet to Angel? And then the procedure itself, separating essence from body—”

“Yeah, I know, it was pretty convoluted. But you asked to make sure it couldn’t be traced, and it wasn’t.”

Innocence pursed her lips. “I’m still not sure McDonald even did it correctly. The bringing back part. I mean he was just an arrogant nobody, he probably brought more back than he should have. He wasn’t strong or centered enough to not screw it up.”

“Doesn’t matter though, bringing the vampire back to life was what mattered. So, have you killed him yet?”

Innocence threw him a withering look. “I can’t just kill Spike outright; I have to do it in a way that they won’t suspect I’m to blame.”

“Without lying?” Dagger barked a laugh. “You know I have nothing but respect for you, doll, but they’re gonna figure you out. You think a vampire can’t tell when he’s being—”

“He’s not a vampire.”

Dagger stopped walking, but then started again when it became clear she wasn’t going to stop. “What do you mean he’s not a vampire?”

She gave him a smug look. “My target’s human now, all basic and normal and pathetic. Shanshu was about him, not Angel. So, looks like you got that one wrong, oh great Prophecy.”

Dagger seemed to consider this for a while. “Well,” he said slowly. “Good. Vampires are annoying anyway.”

She groaned. “I swear, if darling little Entropy keeps popping that gum in my face, I’ll—"

“And also,” Dagger interrupted. “Now he’ll be easier to kill.”

----------

Buffy still wasn’t sure how she felt about Illyria hovering so closely over Spike, or what it meant that he’d vouched for her to come. But once he’d recovered enough to get into bed and eat the soup she brought him, and she went out to rejoin her friends, she found she was actually relieved that there was someone in there who, although not the warmest and most nurturing person, would probably at least alert her if Spike started going into cardiac arrest or something.

“So,” Giles had said, when she sat back down. He squinted at Buffy. “What the blazes, Buffy?”

Buffy took a breath. “Angel told me,” she said slowly. “That Spike just…appeared in his office one day. Like a ghost, and that’s what he was for a time, before they made him corporeal. And he also told me there was some prophecy about an ensouled vampire getting humanity if he saved enough people, and, well, Spike fit the bill. That’s…kinda all there is to it. Illyria only came to find me because there was a battle going on in LA that she was pretty sure Spike was gonna die in…and she thought I ought to see him first.”

They took it pretty well, considering, judging by their faces anyway. She supposed they word “prophecy” had helped with that. They all knew better than to argue with one of those.

“But why didn’t he tell you he was alive as soon as he came back?” Willow persisted.

“I don’t know,” Buffy said. “He just didn’t, Will, but he’s here now.”

“And that’s it?” Xander asked. “You’re fine with that answer?”

“No,” she said, hoping she’d be able to keep her voice at a steady volume. “No, believe me, he’ll still have to face the twelve angry men about that at some point, but he’s…I’m not gonna get a whole lot out of him right now. I’m willing to wait until he’s adjusted.”

“I bet he’s gonna be different,” Andrew said eagerly. “I bet his mind is reverting back to how he was when he was human before, and his personality is going to undergo all kinds of fluctuations until he discovers who he truly is, outside of man or monster.”

They all turned and stared at him, and he slouched lower in his seat. “I mean, wow, Illyria, what do you think her deal is?”

Buffy was wondering how to get them all out of there, because all she wanted to do was check on her invalid and go to sleep and take a shower …though probably not in that order. She yawned without thinking about it, but it worked in her favor because Giles picked up on it and began shooing them all out of there. Buffy tried to act sorry, making them promise to come back the following day, but she shut the door on them as quickly as she could.

Dawn was looking at her as she turned around. She crossed her arms, and said, “What if I don’t want him staying here?”

Buffy considered. “Well, I’d respect that decision. I’d make you be the one to tell him he’s being evicted, though.”

“Fine,” Dawn said, turning back towards her room. “He can stick around then. I guess.”

Buffy smiled.  

----------

Spike was awake, but it was a while before he was really aware of that. He could hear a voice, vaguely, and it was droning on and on, and clearly wasn’t about to let up any time soon. Spike slowly became aware of the ceiling he was staring at, and then the bed he was lying in, and then that the voice beside him was Andrew’s, who had clearly seen he was awake and decided that meant he was ripe for talking to.

“…even though he’s really stationed in Spain,” Andrew was saying. “And Kennedy’s in Tokyo, but we don’t really hear from her, ever. We assume she’s still playing the part of Slayer Extraordinaire because she loved it so much, but other than that, Willow says she’s really lost the mission. And Dawn really hated the Italian school, so Buffy moved them here for her to graduate in. And we’ve got kind of a headquarters in London, which is where I work, and Giles too, sometimes, and Buffy goes out in the field a lot. And—”

“Andrew,” Spike said finally. “Didn’t you lot go home?”

“Well, yeah, we did. Last night, anyway. But Buffy said we could come back in the morning.”

“Is that right.”

“Oh, and Buffy wanted me to tell you that she left you some clean clothes on the chair.”

Spike turned his head to glance around the room, but the only chair he could see was the one Andrew was sitting in. “On the chair?”

“Well,” Andrew said reluctantly, reaching to the floor. “She didn’t say that so much as I kind of noticed them…on the chair.” He placed a folded pile of clothes on the bed, and Spike pushed himself into a sitting position to look at them.

He touched the black shirt on top, but didn’t make any move to pick them up. “Anything else you think Buffy might want me to know?”

“Oh, yeah, your fever got pretty bad again last night, but it broke a couple hours ago,” Andrew reported. “Buffy actually looked worried for a minute there. And Innocence came and gave you a shot or something, but she’s gone now.”

Spike squinted at Andrew. “Just exactly how early did you get here?”

“Andrew!” Buffy scolded, as she walked into the room. “I said you could be here a few minutes!”

“Um,” Andrew said. “You didn’t say how few?”

“Out,” Buffy said, pointing, and Andrew hung his head and darted out of the room. She turned to the bed. “Sorry. You know how he is, with the huge crush, and the fanboying, and the general need to hear his own voice.”

“It’s all right,” Spike said. He watched her face closely. “I think I actually kind of owe him one.”

“You owe Andrew for something?” She asked. “What?”

He shook his head, and waved his hand vaguely. “Was a long time ago. My shadow about anywhere?”

“Illyria? Andrew chased her away. She couldn’t shut him up, and then she couldn’t stand him, so she’s in the kitchen now. Dawn’s teaching her how to make pancakes, or, trying to anyway.” She handed him a glass of water. “How are you feeling?”

He shrugged. “Noticeably human.”

Buffy watched him as he slowly sipped the water. Her eyes were running all over him, and for the first time in his life, he felt self-conscious about her looking at him. She’d seen every square inch of his flesh on multiple occasions, but he’d never felt so naked as he did now. “What?” he asked.

“How are you feeling otherwise? Are you in pain? Because you look mostly fine, and I want to know what’s wrong with you.”

“Got an illness I have to defeat on my own, don’t I?”

“You’re parroting Innocence,” Buffy said reproachfully. “And she’s not getting any vaguer.”

Spike smiled at the word, but he couldn’t answer her question. Couldn’t say that there was an ache that he could feel throughout his bones, and a dullness in his blood. He was supposed to have circulation now, but it still felt like his blood was simply sitting in place, making most moments difficult to crawl his way through, because of how sluggish and fragile everything felt.

But then came the other moments where everything felt normal…painful, but mobile at least. So he just shrugged, and said, “Not in a lot of pain, no. More tired than I’d like is all.”

It was an abridged version, but it wasn’t… vaguer than what Innocence had said. Buffy peered at him as if she wanted more, but clearly she wasn’t going to push for it.

She cleared her throat. “Look um…I know I asked you, back in LA, whether you wanted to come with me and you said yeah, but I guess that wasn’t super fair. Of course you didn’t want me to leave you dying alone in a pile of rubble and go off who knows where with my overly charming boyfriend.”

“Of course.”

“But I think I kind of assumed you’d just want a spot on Team Slayer again, and that wasn’t fair. So, uh, I just wanted you to know I don’t expect that, and when you’re all…on your feet again, and everything, you don’t have to feel like you need to stick around.”

He sipped the water, again, slowly, looking at her over the rim of the glass. “Wouldn’t I complicate things? With your mates, and what all?”

 “Guess it’s up to you whether you do or not. But I think they’re also wrapping their heads around the fact that you’re back in the picture, so, it’s yours if you want it, I guess.”

He looked down in the glass and nodded slowly. “I’ll let you know.” As if that was necessary. As if such a question needed even a second of consideration.

“Okay,” Buffy said. She paused. “Cool.” She paused again. “There might be pancakes if you feel like getting up.” She headed towards the door.

“Buffy?”

She stopped without looking behind her.

“I did…I did mean to tell you, you know. That I wasn’t—”

“Spike,” she said quickly.

He stopped abruptly. “Yeah?”

She turned back, and regarded him for a long moment. She seemed to be thinking of how she wanted to say whatever it was, because she parted her lips and held them that way before saying slowly, “I’m happy you’re here. I am. And, someday, I will ask you why you couldn’t so much as have Angel send me a text message letting me know you weren’t dead. But until then, you don’t get to explain yourself. And maybe I will decide I don’t want to know. And you will have to live with that, because you’ve lost your chance to tell me, got that?”

Spike was pretty sure if she’d staked him through the heart it wouldn’t have hurt his chest so much. But he didn’t dare let her see that, or she’d think he was trying to manipulate her. He just stared into his glass, swirling the water around. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I got that.”

She stood watching him for a moment, and then finally asked, in a softer tone, “Dawn really missed you.”

His head snapped up, and he looked desperately into her eyes. “I…I missed her, too.”

She gave a single nod of her head, and then turned back towards the door. “Good,” she said, and disappeared on the other side of it.

----------

Buffy heard a knock on her front door, and smiled when she opened it to see the Immortal standing there. His face lit up as he grabbed her head and began plying her face and lips with kisses. “My eternal summer,” he said in between them. “I absolutely could not wait another second to see you. Please forgive me for not greeting you when you first arrived.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have work things come up all the time, too.”

He stopped kissing her and looked at her. “Yes, and I fear I must ask your help with this one.”

She nodded. “Vampires?”

“Possibly, though I have little hope of finding them in the day,” he said. “It’s a demon clan, a large one that always seems to be growing. They’re lurking in that abandoned shopping center. The one by your Starbucks?”

“Oh, they’d better leave my Starbucks alone,” she said. She looked behind her. “Dawn! Make sure Spike’s good before you leave, okay?”

The Immortal looked worried. “Your friend, are you all right to leave him?”

“He’ll be fine,” Buffy said. “He knows I need to go where the demons are.”

Dawn came forward, holding a plate of pancakes and licking syrup off her fork. “Hey, Lorenzo.”

“Good morning, Dawn.”

“I’ll be back tonight, okay?” Buffy asked, reaching forward to kiss her sister’s cheek. “I love you. And remember, senioritis is not the boss of you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dawn rolled her eyes. “Totally could be, though. Willow says Giles is busy today, so I guess they’re not gonna try to come over until tomorrow.”

“You’re still coming straight home,” Buffy said, and grabbed the door, preparing to slam it behind her. “And Andrew, I’d better not hear that you hung around here all day!”

----------

Up in the city of Manchester, there was a little tucked away plot of land high on a bluff, that was wild and abandoned and rumored to have England’s entire population of cockroaches and spiders growing in it. But no one could do anything about it, because it was private property.

In the middle of the tall grass was a house that was easily older than the Victorian era. It was two-stories, and had an adjacent barn, not that the barn boasted anything exciting. A couple of chickens, one horse, occasionally a cat if one wandered by and decided to seek sanctuary.

Giles drove as far up the bluff as his car would allow, and then he walked the rest of the way up to the house. He reached in his pocket for a key, and turned it in the lock, stepping inside and locking the door behind him.

“Hello?” He called out, and, receiving no response, he walked up the flight of stairs and wandered all the way to the back, to the library, the largest room in the house and the only one with a bay window.

An elderly woman was sitting at the window, her thick white hair tightly twisted into a French braid. She was wearing a loose sundress, and a thin grey bathrobe which was threatening to slip off her shoulders. Her black flats were caked with mud, but she had them rested up on the window seat anyway.

She did not turn as Giles walked in. She continued leaning her chin on one loose fist, and remarked casually, “Did you know Tolkien made up his own languages? It seems a shame that no one ever put them into practice besides him.”

Giles slowly took a seat next to her. “I think he would have had to found a country in order to have his language make the syllabi.”

“Well, I want to found a country, then. Right here. You can be co-founder.”

Giles smiled, and reached out to touch her back. “Have you eaten anything today?”

“Was I supposed to?”

Giles’ face tightened, and he moved to stand up, but she grabbed his arm. “That was a joke, Rupert. Yes, I ate today.”

“Oh, right, of course.” He turned so he could see out the window, where one of the current cats was chasing a chicken. “Opal—”

“They’ve started, haven’t they?”

Giles made no answer, waiting until she’d turned and looked him in the eyes. “Who am I fighting?” he asked gently.

“They’re bad,” she said. “And they won’t—” she stopped and shuddered, closing her eyes. “Won’t hold back. They’ll manipulate you. Get you where it hurts. Stab you in the back, maybe.”

“How many?”

“How many have you seen?”

Giles paused. “Two, I think. Two that I know of. One confronted Dawn, one attacked Willow.” He paused. “Can I describe them to you?”

“I—” she leaned her forehead against the window. “I want you to. I want to help you. But I can’t—”

“I know.” He smiled and laid his hand on hers. “It’s all right. We’ll get there. I swear I’ll help you get there.”

----------

Once Dawn had left for school, taking Andrew with her and forbidding him to be there unless she or Buffy was, Illyria and Spike were the only ones left in the house. Illyria walked out to the balcony to see Spike, gripping the railing and looking down.

“You saturate yourself in the sun,” she said. “Though it has been your poison for over a century.”

“Believe me, pet, I am still having trust issues with it.”

“This world is no longer one you know,” she said. “You will struggle to learn the rules, and will be forced to grapple with the bondage of your mortal state.”

He gave a wry smile. “Got some experience with that, have we?”

“You endorsed me,” she said. “You requested my presence, though you have made it clear you desire nothing of me, and would gladly have nothing to do with me. I must surmise it is because you do not wish to walk in solitude down this path of alteration.”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself, Blue Lagoon. I had the Slayer bring you because I feel responsible for you, seeing as how your former caretaker kicked it.”

She lifted her chin. “I will suffer no being to have custody of me.”

“And I don’t. You’re free to walk out that door any time you choose.”

He didn’t look at her, but he could feel her eyes boring into the side of his head as she watched him. She said very little for someone so intelligent. How many thoughts were racing around in her brain? How many of them were due to emotions that she could never show?

“Your strength has returned,” she said.

She and Drogyn probably would have been great friends if they’d had the chance. She hardly ever asked a question, just made a statement and dared you to challenge it.

“It comes and goes,” he said. “But yeah, better than it was. Why?”

“I wish for us to engage in combat.”

He grinned, and pushed himself off the railing. “You’re on, love. As long as we don’t tell Buffy.”

----------

Buffy figured it out, of course, when she got home that night to see him with a split lip and the inability to rise up off the couch without falling back down. Innocence frowned at him when she came over, and asked him if he wanted to die. “Ugh,” she said. “Spike, what have I said about mixing the pain killers with the Nixopolitan? It makes your blood reek, which the rest of your company may not notice, but I’m the one getting up close and personal with it.”

“Oi,” Spike said. “For a nurse, your manners are somewhat lacking, pet. I don’t particularly fancy the scent of Xander’s new bird blending in with his, but you don’t hear me bellyaching about it.”

 Buffy and Innocence both stopped and stared at him, and he looked back at them in confusion. “What?”

“I didn’t tell you Xander had a girlfriend,” Buffy said slowly.

He snorted. “Didn’t have to, that girl’s covered in chemicals that would…” he faltered. “Hang on.”

“You still have vampire senses,” Buffy said slowly. She turned to Innocence. “Is that what this is? Is that…is that even possible?”

“Uh.” Innocence looked flustered. “Um. It shouldn’t…” she frowned. “I’m gonna take some of your blood to test, Spike, and uh, we’ll perform some other tests later to see if you really do have residual vampire powers, but for now…” She frowned at him again. “You’ll refrain from fighting if you know what’s good for you.”

 She swished out of the room, and Spike turned to Buffy. “What happened to Anya?”

 Buffy’s face darkened. “She...never left the hellmouth.”

“Oh,” Spike said quietly, and was silent for a moment. “Shame, that. I was looking forward to seeing her in a nursing home driving the orderlies off their rockers.”

Buffy smiled. “Yeah, she would have kept old age interesting.”

Spike was silent again, and then he said, “Maybe the humanity didn’t set in properly.”

“You mean you think you’re turning back?” Buffy tried to suppress another smile. “I know you’ve been a vampire longer than I’ve been alive, but even I know that’s impossible.” 

“Well, how else do you account for my being able to knock Illyria down?”

 “You knocked her down?” Buffy asked, in an impressed tone. “Isn’t she like a former god or something?”

“Yep.” He didn’t mention that he’d only knocked her down once, and even as a vampire that hadn’t happened very often. “Of course there’s no feeling in my right shoulder anymore.”

She didn’t meet his eyes, but he could see something shining in them anyway. And suddenly the knowledge that she’d spent the whole day fighting demons with the Immortal didn’t matter to him anymore. Because she was still proud of him.

----------

“Miss Rosenberg?”

Willow opened her eyes, but she was familiar enough with other worlds to know she wasn’t really awake. But she was lying in her bed at Giles’, and so she sat up and reached over to turn the lamp on.

A figure was standing in the middle of her room, and she scrambled out of bed when she saw who it was. “You!” she said. “You…well I’m not sure yet what you did to me at the airport, but it was something to piss me off, I’ll tell you that!”

“Hey, back it up a tick,” he said, holding his hands up. “I know, I came here to apologize for that.”

“For what? What was it? What did you do to me? Because I’m guessing it wasn’t just a warlock’s version of a prank handshake.”

“It was an accident,” he protested.

She scoffed. “Yeah, it felt real unintentional, especially after you were about to make off with my stuff.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I bet you knew you were grabbing my bag too, didn’t you?”

He sighed, and smiled. “Miss Rosenberg,” he began again. He was still holding his hands up, and he stepped cautiously forward. “I’m a warlock, yes…of sorts, and I could sense your power, as you could sense mine. And the way I do business with people is by…accessing their minds. Their subconscious.”

Willow stared. “People pay you to do that?”

“People with power, yes. It’s effective if you have something locked away in here you can’t get to yourself.” He paused, and said, “And I, well, I access them by doing what I did to you. The only difference is that you weren’t exactly expecting it…”

“You got that right, Buster.”

“Marcellus,” he said. “Or, the Storyteller. Professionally. And I didn’t mean to do it,” he added quickly. “I swear, I just…I was watching you, and I lost focus.”

“You lost focus. This is a mind-rape, you get that, right?”

“Oh, it’s nothing so bad as that, I promise. I can’t control you, and I can’t take anything away. All I can do is…unlock things. Show you things. And talk to you, of course.”

“Yeah, that’s really great and all, and if you need me to sign something saying I’m impressed, I will, but I’m not interested, so you should get out before I force you out.”

He hesitated, and she could feel herself losing patience. “What?” she asked.

“It’s…not as simple as that,” he said softly. “I can’t just leave. I reside in the netherworld; being on a physical plane is like trying to breathe underwater for me. I can’t leave you unless I have another host.”

“So find another host, I don’t get how that’s my problem.” She paused, and then said, “So you were waiting for me! At the airport. I didn’t see any other hosts around, did you?”

He looked uncomfortable, and cast his eyes down. “Please, just give me a chance until I’m summoned by someone else, all right? It doesn’t all have to be for practical uses, you know. You know lucid dreaming, right? I can make your dreams so real that reality will feel lucid. And I can show you powers about yourself you haven’t even unlocked yet, and I can…I can help you commune with the dead.” He’d slightly raised his eyes to hers. “I’m sure there’s people in your past that you wish you could talk to just once more?”

Willow stared at him, and she couldn’t see her eyes turning black, but she knew something was happening to them. She strode forward. “Okay,” she said in a low voice. “Maybe you live in my mind now, until I figure out how to evict you. But you don’t have to come to me. You don’t have to appear. You can leave me alone. And if you value any particle of your nether self, you will do your best to stay out of my way.”

“Oh.” He gave a bitter chuckle. “I get it. I’m unfamiliar to you and so you send me away, just assuming I’m an instrument of evil. And yet no problem welcoming others into your life. You followed that Morrest demon blindly for a supposed apocalypse diary. And you’re letting a blue demon of unknown origin crash with you best friend.” He walked right up to Willow and tilted his head down, frowning into her eyes. “She doesn’t look at all familiar to you? You never once considered whose body she’s toting around?” Willow had another threat on her tongue all ready to go, but she forgot all about it as she realized what he was saying. “It’s not just a glamor.” Marcellus continued. “She looks like that because it’s the real deal.”

----------

Buffy always had the craziest houseguests. He included himself in this generalization, and it wasn’t like he was going to stop, he just wondered if the poor girl had been prepared to entertain people in her personal space her whole life.

Xander walked into her bedroom to see Innocence coming out, and he saw Buffy sitting cross-legged up against the headboard, with a computer open in front of her. Spike was leaning on her shoulder, gazing off into the distance, fiddling with a blanket that was partially covering his legs.

And of course there was Illyria, lingering, hovering, either staring out the window or staring at Spike. She confused him most of all.

“Buffy!” Dawn called. “Can I wear your earrings?”

“Which ones?” Buffy hollered.

“The ones on the bathroom sink!”

Buffy thought about it. “Since when does school require party earrings?”

“Since I’m going to Sylvia’s birthday party afterwards!”

“You lose ‘em, you buy ‘em!”

Xander pretended to cover his ears. “This apartment’s like twenty square feet, you could have walked the three yards to each other?”

“I’m busy,” Buffy said casually. “But you know, with all their fancy promises of Google being faster and easier, I still think it’s more confusing than book-research.” She looked up in horror. “I’m becoming Giles.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t be too concerned about that,” Xander said. “But the minute you start lusting after tweed, give me a call. I’ll come over and snap you out of it.”

“You can count on it.” Buffy sighed and slammed the laptop shut, stretching out her legs and arms. “I give up. If anything about Dawn’s showman or Willow’s pirate is there, I can’t find it. How’s your research going?”

He shrugged. “Same, in the sense that it isn’t. And I wasn’t going to face you until I had a different answer, but you wanted me to look at a window?”

“Yeah.” She looked apologetic. “One of the corners of the kitchen window is…loose or something, and there’s a raccoon who's been trying to pry it open for a couple nights now.”

“You sure it’s a raccoon?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure. Something trying to break into my house, you’d better believe I get up and go see what it is. But I’m not gonna slay a raccoon. I just want him to be able to read the ‘no vacancy’ signs.”

“Hey, Spike, you remember that summer you went patrolling with us almost every night? And you showed me that plant you put around your crypt to keep out rodents and bugs and stuff?”

Spike turned his eyes to Xander’s in surprise. “Uh,” he said. “Yeah. Asnammide.”

Xander snapped his fingers and pointed at Buffy. “Boom. I mean only demons grow it, but I got some cuttings to put around your house in Sunnydale, and the demons were pretty happy with my human cash.”

“Cool,” she said. “I’ll look into that.” She paused. “Not that I think raccoons count as rodents.”

“You’re right,” Xander smiled. “I think they fall more into the insect kingdom.”

The front door slammed, and suddenly the partially closed bedroom door flung open, and Willow stormed in. But Xander couldn’t even finish exclaiming her name before she’d marched up to Illyria and grabbed her collar with both hands. “What are you?” she barked in Illyria’s face. “Where did you get that body?”

“Well,” Xander heard Spike mutter. “So much for hoping no one would notice.”

Willow slammed her against the wall. “Answer me!” she cried.

“You think to intimidate me?” Illyria demanded. “My very name has caused worlds to crumble, and you presume to frighten an answer out of me by brute force alone?”

“I can cause worlds to crumble, too,” Willow said. “If I chose. I don’t, but I could, so yeah, I think you could do to shake in your leather thigh-highs right now.”

Illyria grabbed Willow’s hands and shoved them off her, knocking her down. “Do not lay a hand on me again, vermin,” she said. “I do not harm you because it does not please me to. But I need only a whim to slaughter you where you lie.”

“I believe you,” Willow said. “I believe it, because you have the gall to walk around in some other girl’s corpse. So what did you do to Fred, huh? Because I knew her, and I know that’s her face, her eyes, her skin, her voice. Distorted though you’ve made them. So, where is she? Did you possess her? Or just eat her soul and take up residence, like a vampire?”

Illyria smiled, which was the first time Xander had seen her do such a thing, and he could have lived his whole life without seeing it. It was like watching a ghost smile. Or a cat, or something equally creepy. Things like this should just steer clear of smiling altogether. “Yes,” Illyria said. “Yes. I ate her soul. I wormed my way into her flesh and I gutted her like an animal. I burnt up her spark until she was no more and I took her shell as a trophy to parade in until such a time when I tire of it and seek a new one. I took the life of Winnifred Burkle with no more thought than if I had crushed a bug, and I made no move to even hear what this form went by until it was forced into my ears. And, witch, if I repeated my actions with your mortal temple, I should suffer no more grief than tearing a leaf from a tree.”

And Spike knew this? Xander looked over at him and opened his mouth, olive branch be damned. He thought he’d been doing a very good job, not finding a reason to jab at Spike but this, finally, was his reason to—

He stopped when he saw tears shining in Spike’s eyes. It wasn’t necessarily a new sight for Xander, but Spike had only ever cried in front of him before when he really couldn’t help it.

But Spike made no movement, nor did Buffy, and they continued watching, silently.

Willow stood up and lunged for Illyria again, but with one blow Illyria deflected her and again knocked Willow to the ground. She began marching towards the door, and Willow ground out an angry “Why?”

Illyria stopped. “You grieve for her loss,” she said. “And yet I sense no memory of you in her. I may only access her recent memories, and the affections for those at the top of her mind. But you are in neither.”

“I hardly knew her,” Willow said. “But she was…” she bit her lip. “She didn’t deserve this.”

Illyria slowly turned her head around. “The universe cares not for what any creature deserves,” she said. “And yet you all believe yourselves to be an exception.” And then she left.

Willow scrambled to her feet, but Xander put out and arm and caught her stomach. “Woah, hey, not that I would ever come between you in a fight, Will, but there’s nothing you can do.”

“She’s a demon,” Willow said. “Who murdered a human. And she’s proud of it.”

 Xander really couldn’t argue with that, so he let her go. “Just try not to get your ass kicked, okay?”

“Wait,” Buffy said gently. “Willow, I know you knew her, and it’s terrible, but where is this coming from?”

Willow whipped around on her. “I have to explain myself before killing demons now? I thought that was a debate we were done having.”

“We don’t kill harmless demons.”

“And how exactly is she harmless?” Willow asked. “Because she’s choosing not to kill any of us? How long will that last? No demon is harmless, Buffy, they manipulate and they bide their time, and they do exactly what they want to do, exactly when they want to do it.”

Buffy frowned. “Willow, you know that’s not a fair—"

“We know the reason you don’t want me to touch her, Buffy, and it’s because, once again, of your own personal feelings. Got a boyfriend now, but that doesn’t matter to the puppy curled up on your shoulder, the one you could never see as a threat even when he was one.”

Spike immediately started, and sat up and away from Buffy, who glared at Willow. Xander raised his eyebrows, and wondered if anyone would notice if he ducked out.

But also, he was still intrigued.

Buffy really seemed to be trying to kill Willow with her look. “There were so many things wrong in that statement I don’t know where to begin,” she said. “If and when there comes a time when Illyria becomes dangerous, I will take her out myself, and you know it. But because she hasn’t tried to do anything but cooperate since I met her, she will be found innocent until proven guilty. And I’m not stopping any personal vengeance, Will. She was a girl you met twice, and her friends included Angel and Wesley and Spike, you think they didn’t try and exact vengeance, too?”

“Letting Illyria stay with them,” Willow said. “Letting her live with them. Letting her come on a plane and be a houseguest with them? That’s a pretty funny definition of vengeance.”

“She was bluffing,” Spike said quietly.

Willow’s head jerked in his direction. “You don’t get to talk.”

“She picked Fred randomly,” Spike said. “And she didn’t consider it murder, she considered it survival.”

“Well, I consider it murder.”

“Because it was. Absolutely. But she was doing the only thing she knew how to do. And it left a mark. She couldn’t become who she used to be, and instead she was stuck with remnants of Fred’s memories and Fred’s humanity, and Fred’s friends looking at her like she’d taken the sun away from them. And now she’s a victim of her own creation. She can’t push the guilt down with her power and glory, because those are gone. She can’t ignore the guilt completely because she’s in a human body, and it’s woven into her. She doesn’t understand…so much of what she is and where she is, but she wants to. And I think…she wants to be better. She wishes she hadn’t chosen someone who had such an impact on those she…”

“Bears affection for,” Buffy said. She sighed. “No wonder you wanted her along.”

“So,” Spike said, leaning back on the headboard and closing his eyes. “She wasn’t going to hurt you, pet, she was just salting your shortcake. You touched a nerve, and granted she has a fair supply of them, but she saw where she could strike one of yours in return.”

Willow’s face was hard, and Xander expected any minute to see her eyes turn a different color as her rage flared up. But that didn’t happen. She stared at him for a long time, and then slowly stood up. She walked over to Spike, waiting until he opened his eyes to look at her.

“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” she said, in a voice that was calmer, but still hard. And then she flounced out of the room, and Xander heard her slam the front door behind her.

 ----------

Dawn was losing herself, drowning herself, drifting away to another world…and she actually had to try not to laugh when she had that thought. True, she was backed up against the wall and kissing a guy—whose name was Carlos, this time she remembered—and it was amazing, but it wasn’t rocking any worlds. She knew where she was, but she still wouldn’t have stopped for anything. He was kissing her like he needed her oxygen to survive, and she was having no problem giving it to him.

She wove her fingers through his hair, holding tighter, and heard someone near her drop a glass. Her eyes involuntarily opened, just a slit, and just for a second, but it was enough to ruin her entire evening.

Because how could you miss the bright pink suit over there in the corner?

She sighed and pulled away, smiling at him. He was looking kind of dazed, and she patted him on the shoulder. “I’m gonna get us some water, so don’t go anywhere.”

“Uh huh.” He swallowed. “Okay.”

She marched up to Dagger, but didn’t give him a glance as she grabbed him by one of his shoulder pads and began dragging him outside.

“What’s the problem, officer?” he grinned, and she slammed him against the wall, pinning her arm across his throat and yanking her stake out of her purse.

“You want to be civil?” she snapped. “Because I thought we were clear about me not wanting to see you.”

“Free country, noodle, I can hang out in a club if I like.”

“Okay,” she said. “I don’t have any proof that you’re a demon, but I’ve got a pretty strong gut feeling that you are. Which means I can kill you. And believe me when I say I have the experience to do it.”

“Oh, I know you do, sugar. But how can I leave you alone when I told you I’d be here for you?”

She pressed the dagger into his neck. “You said you’d be here if I wanted you. And I don’t. So stay the hell away from me.”

“Dawn,” he said gently, which only earned him another slam against the wall. “Oof,” he said, but kept looking at her gently. “I get it, you know. You’re hurting. You’re trying to find yourself; you’re dressing risqué and going out to find guys and get drunk because you’re lonely and it feels nice, and you can still keep up appearances at home.” He pushed forward and laid his hands on her forearms. “And I’m telling you that you’re just hungering for power, and I can help you find it.”

She delicately removed his arms from her, and stepped back. “And I’m telling you,” she said coldly, standing up as straight as she could, “That you don’t know me at all.”

She turned on her heel, her hair swishing around, and marched back into the club, making sure to keep out of Carlos’ line of side as she inched towards the bathroom. She locked herself in a stall and drew her legs up onto the toilet seat. She listened to make sure no one else was in the room, and then laid her head on her knees and began sobbing.

----------

The following morning, a very subdued looking Willow was standing on the other side of the door when Buffy opened it. “Hi,” she said.

“Hey,” Buffy answered.

Willow hesitated, and then said, “When I came over here yesterday, I didn’t actually intend to get all vengeancy.”

“What was that, Willow?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I’m just sorry, is all. And I thought I’d apologize to…” she sighed. “Illyria.”

Buffy smiled, and hugged her. “Proud of you,” she said. “Just don’t be offended if she doesn’t accept it. She’s not big on owning up to one’s mistakes, so if anything you’ll probably just confuse her.”

“I know. But I have to try.”

Buffy nodded. “She’s in the bedroom. I’ll be on the balcony if you need me.” She paused. “Hey, Will?”

“Yeah?”

Buffy wasn’t really sure how to ask, but she tried stumbling through anyway. “The prophecy,” she said. “The Shanshu prophecy, the one that made Spike human. Have you…ever heard of it?”

Willow shook her head and smiled. “Sorry.”

“Could you…look into it?”

Willow looked at her, and then nodded. “Sure. What are you hoping I’ll find?”

“Anything, really.” Buffy gave a laugh that really didn’t sound as light as she wanted it to. “Angel barely knew anything about it, other than what it would do. But the vampire powers lingered, and I just…I feel like there’s so much I don’t know. He’s human now, but what does that mean?” She looked desperately to Willow. “Would you just look into it?”

“Of course.” Willow nodded, and smiled again. “I’m glad he’s back, you know. For you.”

----------

When Buffy made it to the balcony, she saw Spike already standing there, again gripping the edge of the railing. He was looking up at the sky, where the sun was shining down on him.

“You’re developing a pretty close physical relationship with the sun, there,” Buffy said. “We’re gonna have to invest in some sunscreen.”

“It’s London, it’s not exactly like the sun is a common occurrence, pet.”

Buffy leaned over the railing with him, but she looked down instead. “Willow’s in there apologizing to Illyria.”

“I thought she might be.”

Buffy was surprised. “You did?”

“They’ve changed, your lot. Grown up, it seems. They’re being…it’s scary to think about, but they’re being halfway decent to me. Even Giles called last night, and not to check in with you. He was asking after me .”       

“You know why, right?” He looked at her blankly, and she sighed, because this was a topic she really was fine dancing away from. “You saved the world, Spike.”

“Like none of you have ever—”

“It’s different,” she said softly. “None of us have died doing it—well, aside from me, but I always came back.”

“So did I.”

“Would you shut up? I’m trying to sing your praises here.”

He did shut up, and she waited for the amused grin, but it didn’t come. She continued anyway. “And it’s different,” she said slowly. “Because of how badly they treated you before. They had lapses where they were friendly with you, and you helped them, and they helped you. But mostly they tried to kill you at every turn, and questioned every single time I made the decision to let you live.” She swallowed. She was not going to break. She was not going to refer to those last few terrible moments. “And then you ended up being the one to end it, to save us all, to spare any of them—or me—from having to die. It kind of shook up their opinions of you. A bit.”

He was looking down now, and he said softly, “Their opinions don’t matter to me, Buffy. They never did.”

“I know,” she said. “But, tough, because you’ve earned their respect, now. They may be loathe to show it, but it’s not like they can be all hostile to you when we’ve spent the past year thinking…” she stopped. “Anyway, I’m glad to see they all actually have a heart.”

Illyria walked out onto the balcony. She turned to Buffy. “The witch feels remorse,” she said.

“I know it,” Buffy said.

“She makes herself weaker by feeling such,” Illyria said. “It gives her enemies power over her, to know that she feels shame for her actions.”

“Didn’t tell her as much, did you?” Spike asked.

“I thought it would benefit her to know.”

“I’m sure she appreciates it,” Buffy said, smiling.

A faint knock from the front door sounded, and Buffy’s smile fell, and she looked anxiously at Spike. “That’s…”

“I know who it is. You and your boyfriend still looking for that vampire nest?”

“The demons are supposed to lead us to it,” she said apologetically. “I’ll probably be gone all day again. You’ll be all right until Dawn gets home?”

He grinned and nodded, and she smiled as well. “I’ll check on you when I get home,” she said. “If Willow sticks around, try not to let her get into any more fights. I’ll see you tonight!”

She danced off the balcony, and Spike followed her with his eyes, waiting until he could no longer see her before he let go of the balcony and let his legs give out under him.

Illyria dropped to his side as well, grabbing his arms just before he hit the ground. “You are supposed to be making progress,” she chided. “I will not be permitted to fight you anymore if you cannot hold yourself up.”

“I know,” he said, through gritted teeth, and crawled over to the patio seat, pulling himself up onto it. “You’d think if I still had vampire healing this process would be going faster.”

“You deceived her,” Illyria said. “You indicated you would not be troubled if she left.”

“I’m fine, I told you, my strength comes and goes, she knows that.”

Illyria looked at him for a long time, and he tried to stand up again, barely managing it as he gripped the railing. “Okay,” he said. “This isn’t gonna be comfortable for either of us, Illyria, but you may have to help me get back to the bedroom.”

“You should not have asked it of me,” she said, but she pulled one of his arms over her shoulders anyway. “Your mortal is much lowlier. You would have done well to request her assistance.”

“She’s not my mortal,” Spike said. “And she’s still the…she still has a job to do, and if she’s fussing over me, it maybe distracts her from that.” He peered into Illyria’s eyes, at those cold blue spheres which always made him uncomfortable. He glanced away. “Slayer doesn’t need me muckin’ up her life anymore than I have already.”

Chapter Text

It wasn’t as if there were no vampires to speak of in London. It was just that the absence of a hellmouth meant there was less of a chance of one jumping out at you when you were walking around at night. It happened, and Dawn knew how to deal with them, but you could risk having a guy walk you home, and not have to worry about what to tell him when you were inevitably attacked.

She actually enjoyed talking to this one, instead of trying to get him to illegally purchase her drinks. And that had worked out for her, because she could go home right away instead of finding a public bathroom somewhere where she could work on getting the alcohol smell out of her breath.

They wound their way up through the apartment building, and just before they entered it, Dawn sighed and slipped out from under his arm. “Thanks,” she said. “Really, this was really nice. I needed it.”

He smiled, but looked hopefully at her. “I thought I could walk you to your door?”

She shook her head. “No go. Even if my sister wouldn’t totally freak, there’s…we have a lot of people hanging around there these days. It’s like a zoo in there. You wouldn’t be able to breathe.”

He nodded, and leaned forward to kiss her. “Will I see you again?” he asked.

Most of them asked that, which Dawn really didn’t understand. Was she not playing the use-‘em-and-lose-‘em thing right? Although, she supposed since she never actually got to the using part, that could be a little unclear.

“I know where to find you,” she said evasively, which was usually the answer she gave. She disappeared into the building before he could ask follow up questions, and made her way to her door.

Before she stepped in, she pulled her long coat on, and buttoned it all the way up. She pulled some flats out of her purse and quickly changed out of her heels, and ran a makeup wipe once over her face, just to tone down anything that might need toning down. She was probably overdoing it. But the fewer questions about where she’d been, the better.

She opened the apartment door, and nodded to herself as she saw her zoo prediction had been right on the money. Buffy had been very excited that morning because she’d bought a food processor, and now she and Willow were trying to figure out how to work it. Xander was hammering something on that one window that a raccoon had been trying to climb through, and Andrew was talking very loudly and very quickly to Illyria, while Spike was sitting at the table with Innocence fussing over him.

Everyone seemed to be talking over everyone else. Buffy screeched as she turned the food processor on, because it made a loud whirring sound. “No!” Willow cried. “Buffy, the instructions specifically say if you’re going to have it on the highest setting you have to make sure there’s something in it! Like a garbage disposal!”

“I thought I adjusted it!” Buffy said. “Wait, which settings?”

“So, like, is Fred’s brain still in there?” Andrew was saying to Illyria, who was the only one standing silently, hovering over Spike as she watched Innocence distrustfully. “How many of her memories can you access? Am I in there? What did Fred think about me? Is this like in X-Men, when—”

“Leave her alone, Andrew, if she’s decided you’re not worth wasting breath on, then there’s nothing you can do,” Spike said, then hissed as Innocence injected him. “Bloody hell, woman, I’m not a whale for you to harpoon.”

“Then keep still ,” she said.

“Okay, try turning the dial to 11,” Willow said.

“These go to 11,” Xander said in an affected voice, and Andrew turned to him and gasped.

“Oh my gosh, have you seen that movie?” he asked. “Isn’t the little Stonehenge the funniest scene in—”

“Dawn!” Giles said, walking in front of her and momentarily distracting her from everyone else. “Hello! I thought you were coming home right after school?”

“Uh,” Dawn said. “Well—”

He waved her off. “No, it’s perfectly all right, I was just worried. You know that demon clan Buffy and the Immortal have been hunting the past few weeks? They were working with a gang of vampires, and we haven’t been able to track them yet. But they are nearby, so, just use caution when you’re out at night.”

He walked over to Xander, and Dawn just nodded to herself. “You got it,” she said to nobody, and began slipping past them to get to her room.

“Okay,” Buffy said. “I’m going to try putting the bananas in now.”

Dawn shut her bedroom door, which only blocked out a small percentage of the noise. She leaned against it and sighed. She’d been right about the other thing, too. They all made it so difficult to breathe.

----------

By the time everyone except for Xander had gone, Buffy had finally mastered at least some of the steps of the food processor. She got it cleaned and put away, and Xander came up to her. “All right,” he said. “No more critters prying on your window, now.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

Xander eyed the smoothie in her hand. “You’re still bringing Spike food?”

“I’m just glad I figured out how to make this. I think he’s still not comfortable with the whole, you know, chewing concept.”

“I thought he was doing better.”

“He was. He is, it’s just, when Innocence left he kind of…” she stopped. “I don’t know,” she said in a quieter voice. “I don’t know what’s happening with him. She still gives him those injections twice a day, but it’s been two weeks, and his health is still all over the place. Sometimes he’s all strong and cocky, the way I remember, and sometimes he doesn’t even have the strength to talk, much less stand. And sometimes…” She stopped, because she wasn’t sure if she should even be complaining about it. The way his accent dipped all over the place. The way he sometimes looked at her and leaned on her like she was his guardian angel, and other times regarded her like she had him chained up in a bathtub. Sometimes it was Spike, and sometimes it wasn’t. Andrew had been right about his personality going haywire, and she hated that he’d been right.

But Xander seemed to understand at least some of that. He nodded. “Well,” he said. “Good some of the time is better than good none of the time.”

“I guess.”

He nodded again. “Well, I’d better head out,” he said. “Promised Catherine I’d swing by tonight.”

Buffy grinned. “Why didn’t you just bring her already?”

“Well, why didn’t you bring yours? We don’t see him much.”

“He’s busy. Works a lot. I can sympathize with that.”

“Yeah, not like there would have been a lot of room for either of them to squeeze in tonight, anyway.”

“Xander,” Buffy said. “Don’t avoid the question. Do you really not want us to meet her?”

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve been over this, Buffy. You’ll meet her, okay? And you’ll adore her, and she’ll never shut up about you. I just…worry. I know that demons and danger find even people who have no association with us, but I don’t want her to be a bigger target because she’s one of the gang, you know? She’s…” he smiled. “Normal, and I worry about her.”

“I know,” Buffy said. “I get it.” She paused, and said, “Anyway. Thanks for fixing the window.”

----------

Spike was lying in the bed with his eyes closed, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t fooling Illyria. He really didn’t mind her watching him if she wanted to, but he knew if she thought he was asleep she would sometimes wander around the rest of the house, and right now, that would be preferable.

But she could sense breathing patterns and tense muscles just as well as he could, so he probably would just have to accept that she knew he was awake and therefore wasn’t going to leave him.

He heard her move towards the bed and stop, and, since he’d decided he wasn’t fooling her, he opened his eyes and looked up at her.

“My presence causes you discomfort,” she said.

He shrugged and turned away from her.

“You desire her company,” Illyria insisted.

“No. I don’t.”

“You may keep up your falsehoods, human, but if you wish to deceive me then you will have to put up a stronger front.”

He winced. “Don’t call me that.”

“It is what you are.”

 He said nothing, but closed his eyes in an effort to stop any tears from coming out. But he could feel them trickling out anyway.

Illyria began moving towards the door, and Spike’s eyes shot open. “That’s all it took to make you leave?”

“You need her,” Illyria said. “Even if you cannot accept it.” She opened the door, and Buffy was already standing on the other side. Illyria brushed past her without a word, and Buffy raised her eyebrows and shut the door behind her.

“What happened, did you two have a falling out?” she asked.

He didn’t look at her, but she was still everywhere anyway. Could still smell her, could still hear her blood pumping. Not as strongly, but still there. He hadn’t even realized that that was something inhuman.

Buffy set a glass of something on the table next to him. “So I hate to tell you this,” she said. “But this weekend Lorenzo and I are going to go and track down this vampire clan, and we don’t know how long we’ll be gone. And Dawn’s staying over at a friend’s house, so—” she took a breath, “Andrew will be babysitting you. And words cannot express how sorry I am that it’s probably gonna have to come to that.” She waited a moment, but when she realized he wasn’t going to say anything, she kept going. “And we are still trying to have this quarterly meeting thing where we all catch up on what we’re doing, but what’s actually happening is people are coming in at all hours. You may have noticed. Why is my house always Grand Central Headquarters?”

However she felt about him now, this had to be difficult on her. Some days she tried harder than others to be patient with him, and this was one of those cases, but he didn’t know how to make it easier for her.

“Where did you get the clothes?” he asked suddenly. As if that mattered at all right now.

She hesitated. “What?” she asked carefully.

“You had clothes. For me. More than one set, even if they’re all identical. And you had them the first morning I was here, so you didn’t go out and buy them. They were already here.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Yeah.” She didn’t say anything for a long time, just looked down at her hands, and then she handed him the cup from the nightstand. “Drink that,” she said.

He sat up and took it, but looked up in fear as she started walking towards the door. “Buffy—”

“I’ll be right back,” she promised.

He believed her, but he felt instantly lost when she walked out the door. He drank the contents of the cup, which he was pretty sure was meant to be a smoothie, but he only did it because he asked her to. He was drinking in small sips, but he’d still finished by the time she was back.

She was holding her laptop, and she closed the door behind her again. He was still sitting up, and he watched her carefully as she made her way over to him.

“Move over,” she said.

He slowly obeyed, and she sat up next to him, stretching her legs out, and drumming her fingers on the top of the computer. He laid back down, and her eyes followed him until they eventually turned back to the computer on her lap. He waited for her to open it, but she didn’t. She kept drumming her fingers on it, and then she said slowly, “There’s blood in the freezer, too.”

He really, really wished she hadn’t picked now to be so cryptic. Her games had been hard enough to figure out even when he was at his best, and now he didn’t think he had any sodding brain power left to try to decipher what she was telling him. “But I don’t need that anymore.” Yes, brilliant. Obviously. Obviously, he didn’t need that anymore.

She snorted, and some part of him did take delight in making her laugh. “Yeah, I know, you get subpar fruit messes to drink instead, now. But I didn’t know that when I bought it. Just like I didn’t know, when I bought the clothes, whether you’d even still be into wearing all black.”

Something was sort of dawning on him, and he marveled at how it was able to do so. “You bought those things when you thought I was dead?”

“Yep.” She bit her lip. “It’s not like I was hoping you’d come back. Or even that I was trying to get you back. It’s just, when I was dead, and then came back, I didn’t like how different everything was. But my room was still mine, and that was a comfort.” She paused, and then said, in such a low voice that he blessed his residual vampire hearing, “And every time you came to me before, it was a surprise. So I just thought, if somehow, in some weird, twisted way, you ever appeared on my doorstep again and needed my help, I wanted to be ready for you.”

The world stopped. It must have. There was no way it could just keep turning when such a thunderbolt came out of the blue. In fact, that enough probably would have been enough to start Spike’s heart beating if it wasn’t doing so already. He didn’t want to move, but he needed something to hide his face, because he was going to start crying and he didn’t want to scare her off.

He ended up turning his face into the pillow, and biting his lips to keep them shut. And then he did cry. The tears started coming with a vengeance, but keeping his sobs down was starting to cause an ache in his chest. He turned back and looked up at the ceiling, and she, mercifully, finally turned to her laptop and opened it.

He began breathing, raggedly, because it was either that or full on wailing, and he really didn’t like the idea of that. He tried keeping his gasps to a minimum, but she didn’t react. She pulled up a demon website and began scrolling through it, letting him get his tears out.

He finally, stopped, and turned on his side again. He stared the scalloped edge of her blouse, which was brushing the edge of his pillow.

“Do you hate me?” he said, in a voice more timid than he meant it to be. But if they weren’t talking about this past year, the year he hadn’t told her, he at least had to know that.

“Yeah, Spike, I keep blood stocked and black jeans on hand because I hate you.”

“That was before. Before you knew.”

Her hands curled up, and she looked away. “Is that what you think?” she asked. “That I hate you?”

“I don’t know what you think.”

“I don’t either.”

“You don’t know what you think? Or what I think?”

“Both. Neither—I don’t know. I’m just as confused as you are, okay?” She turned her head to look at him, but he kept looking at the edge of her shirt. “Why do you stand in the sun so much?”

It seemed like a random question, and Spike wondered if she already knew the answer. Because he certainly did.

“Because,” he said slowly. “Turns out becoming human isn’t all lilacs and kittens. It’s a full-time métier, and…” he swallowed. “And I keep…thinking…what if I forget the things that kill me? What if I can’t…remember to dodge bullets…or…I jump off a building because…” He realized that sentence could go on for a while, so he tried a new one. “There’s so many things to watch out for, now, and so many…human things to remember,” he murmured. His eyes flickered up, gazing in hers. “I stand in the sun so much because I keep waiting to see if it’ll kill me.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked angrily at her computer, and was silent for a very long time.

“Here’s what I do know,” she finally said. “When Illyria told me you were alive, I got on a plane to come find you almost before she’d finished saying it. And now you’re here, and you’re suffering, and maybe you’re dying, and I don’t know what I’ll do if that happens again. So, I’m here. I don’t want you to die. I want to help you get better, and I want you to fight for my cause again. But not if you’ve found your own cause to fight, and you’d rather be doing that. That’s fine, and I won’t be upset.” She considered, and said, “But that’s not a decision for tonight, anyway.” She reached out and ran one finger through the curls above his forehead, and his eyes involuntarily closed. He hadn’t slicked his hair back since coming here. There hadn’t seemed to be a point.

“Tonight I just need you to keep fighting for you,” she said quietly. “This mysterious illness you’re fighting…and whatever battles you’re facing with the becoming human thing…I want to be able to help you win, if I can. I can’t stay with you every night, but right now I have research to do, and no demons to chase, so I can be here tonight. So just go to sleep, Spike. I’ll be here.”

He wanted to believe what she was saying, but he couldn’t really be sure what she was saying. She wasn’t breaking up with the Immortal for him, yeah, he got that part. And she wasn’t…exactly repeating their night in that stolen house in Sunnydale. But, he got the impression that she was trying, the best way she could, to give him what he’d given her then.

And he could accept that.

----------

Willow was walking down the halls in her college, only everything seemed to be turned around. Buffy came out of one of the classrooms and rolled her eyes. “Willow,” she said. “You missed it.”

“Missed what?” Willow asked anxiously.

“Doesn’t matter now,” Buffy called over her shoulder. “Just don’t miss the next one!”

Willow pushed past the crowds and walked into one of the schoolrooms, where Buffy was standing at the teacher’s desk. She shook her head. “I told you, Will,” she said. “Don’t use magic to get here on time. It won’t end well.”

“But I didn’t get here on time,” Willow protested, but Buffy just pointed at the seats.

They were all full except for the one in the very top left corner. Willow made her way over to it, and then stopped when she saw who was sitting next to her.

“Hello, Miss Rosenberg,” Marcellus smiled.

She huffed and sat down. “I told you to leave me alone.”

“I tried. But this is a dream, and you put me here.”

“I did not.”

“You put everyone here,” he insisted. “The inclusion of Kennedy surprised me.”

“I can’t control what happens in my dreams.”

“First of all, you do. And you could control them even more. Lots of people do. But if you want to be able to see things that aren’t just in your mind? That’s where I come in.”

“What is this, your demo reel?”

“I told you, this is your dream, I didn’t make it.”

Willow glared at him from the corner of her eye. “What does it take to get rid of you?”

“I’m not really the problem, here. The problem is everyone else. Try to get rid of them.”

Willow looked around at all the students. “How am I supposed to do that?”

“Well if you can just make them vanish by looking at them, try thinking of a reason.”

A bell rang, which really didn’t make sense because they weren’t in a high school classroom, but it was effective enough to get all the students up out of their seats and out of the door. Buffy turned off the lights as she went out, and the room was only lit up by a dim glow from the emergency lights.

“Good,” Marcellus smiled. He stood up and began heading down to the center, and Willow followed him, for no better reason than she didn’t really want to be left alone in an abandoned classroom. “So,” Marcellus asked. “Why didn’t you kill her?”

Willow was startled. “Who?”

“The demon.”

“Oh. Illyria?”

“Fred,” Marcellus reminded her, looking back. “She was Fred first.”

“I know,” Willow said. “And, I don’t know, I think she’s kind of on our side, now.”

“Yes,” Marcellus said. “Yes, I know, I understand that it would look very bad now if you were to kill her. But what I meant was, when you walked in there, guns-a-blazing, why was there not any real blazing? A quick fireball to the chest and you wouldn’t have had to hear those horrible things she said about her victim. And your friends could have hardly blamed you, and I doubt even Spike would have been truly torn up about it. So why did you hold back?”

Willow reached the center of the classroom and frowned at him. “You trying to get me to kill someone on my team?”

“No, no,” he said. “No, who she is and whether you should have killed her or not is entirely beside the point. The point is, why didn’t you use your magic right away? You didn’t know what she might have done to you, and she did end up knocking you down, but you still didn’t retaliate. Not so much as an utterance to the gods. And I want to know why.”

“Well you heard Buffy, it doesn’t end well when I use magic,” Willow muttered. She hadn’t meant to say it, and she was prepared to defend her friend if the Storyteller attacked her, but he didn’t.

He just nodded, and said, “Ah.”

And then he was quiet, and Willow crossed her arms and leaned on the desk. She tossed her head, and finally looked at him. “Do you actually know how to talk to dead people?”

“Yes.” He nodded again. “There’s a medium world, that belongs to neither the living nor dead, so the spirit of either can…rent it out, so to speak.”

Willow snorted. “Wow. That sounds all kinds of dangerous.”

“Miss Rosenberg.” He stepped towards her again, and her instinct was to shrink back, but she let him gently grab her shoulders, just like he had the first time. “All magic is dangerous; you knew that from the start. But what your friends don’t understand is that it needs to be that way, or else that power would be cheap and common. You know what I’m selling, and you know that you can buy. You are one of the most powerful humans that has ever existed, and you know, I’m sure that you know, what would be too much for you to handle.”

----------

Andrew flopped onto the couch next to Spike. “I don’t think your pet demon likes me.” He looked up at Illyria who was hovering in the corner, glaring at him with, he thought, even more hostility than she usually gave people.

“She doesn’t consider herself my pet,” Spike says. “She considers me hers.”

“Oh.” Andrew considered. “Is that a euphemism?”

Spike just gave Andrew a look of disgust and Andrew sank back into the couch. “I’m bored,” he called out to nobody. “When are we starting this meeting?”

“We’re not,” Buffy said, walking by the coffee table, and kicking Andrew’s legs off so she could pass. “It’s not a meeting. Not really. I just want to let you all know what’s going on before I leave. Lorenzo is meeting me at the strip mall—”

“You mean shopping centre ,” Andrew said pointedly.

“—and we’ve taken out the demons, but we’re holding one captive that we’re hoping to interrogate.”

“So, what am I doing here?” Xander asked, popping some potato chips in his mouth.

“Well, I was hoping Willow would be here, too, because I wanted—”

The door burst open, and Willow rushed in, frantically twisting her messy hair into a braid. “Sorry, sorry,” she gasped. “I’m here, I was up late trying to research and…” she stopped and panted. “Anyway, what are we talking about?”

“Buffy’s about to go slaying with her boyfriend,” Andrew said. He glanced at both Buffy and Spike as he said it. He wasn’t really sure yet who he wanted to end up with whom, but he was going to enjoy the drama along the way. But both of them stared straight ahead with poker faces. Drat. Did they have to take the fun out of everything?

Dawn came out, holding a pair of Buffy’s shoes. “Can I borrow these?”

“I don’t think those’ll fit you,” Buffy said.

“Yeah but I can’t afford my own. I’ll make them fit.”

“Just try not to break any bones,” Buffy said. “Or, on a much more personal level, the heels.”

“Yeah, you know what they say, bones’ll heal, but an expensive broken shoe is forever,” Xander said.

“Anyway,” Buffy said. “Willow and Xander, I was wondering if you two would mind just keeping an eye on the apartment.”

“Hey!” Andrew said. “I’m gonna be here, you know.”

“And you don’t want a witch and a soldier helping you out?” Buffy asked.

“Xander’s not a real soldier, he just was turned into one on Halloween once,” Andrew said.

Everyone in the room turned to stare at him. “How do you even know that?” Dawn asked. “You’re the only one of us who wasn’t there.”

“Yes I was,” Andrew said. “None of you knew me, and…I didn’t exactly see any of you, and regrettably I didn’t turn into Darth Vader because my mom made my costume, but I remember it.”

“But that doesn’t explain how you know—” Xander started, but Buffy shook her head.

“You know what, I don’t want to know how you know what you know about us, you creep ,” she said. “Anyway, Xander is a soldier now. Not officially, but he was trained as one.”

“In Africa,” Willow said proudly.

“I know,” Andrew huffed. “I said he wasn’t a real soldier, and he’s not. I know he trained as one.”

“Then you’re not gonna argue when he comes over and helps in your fight against whatever evil may arise,” Buffy said. “Unless, Willow, you just want to do a protection spell or something.”

“I didn’t say that,” Willow said quickly. “I wasn’t suggesting that, did anyone miss how completely onboard I was with the whole coming over and looking in on Spike and Andrew thing? Magic isn’t always at the forefront of my brain, you know.”

“Buffy, I will actually be all right, you know,” Spike said. “Remember I have a hellgod who has decided to be overprotective of me. And if Andrew wants to hang around that’s his druthers, but I don’t need—”

“It’s a precaution,” Buffy said. “My house always seems to be a target, which is hardly fair, because I’m not the only Slayer anymore. But, demons seem to be elite, and nothing but the First Edition will do for them. If someone attacks, Spike, I want to know that you and Andrew are going to have help.”

Dawn emerged again from her room with a suitcase behind her. “Okay, I’m gonna be late, bye, love you,” she called.

“And you will be home when?” Buffy called.

“Sunday night, before Midnight when it’s not Sunday anymore,” Dawn repeated dutifully. “And yes I will call you and let you know that I shockingly didn’t die.” She made her way towards the front door, but stopped when she a banging and a shriek came from the hall. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Anyone else hear that?”

There were more shrieks that had definitely turned into screams by now, and Buffy now stepped towards the door, while Spike stood up and followed her. The others watched as she opened her door, and were greeted by a vampire grinning up at them.

“Well, hi!” she said. “Nice of you to open the door for me. Almost counts as an invitation, doesn’t it?”

“Ginger?” Buffy asked. “You’re a…you know what, I can’t even be surprised. Actually I’m more surprised at myself that I didn’t catch it.”

“So no invite, huh?” Ginger asked. “Totally not a problem.” And she waltzed inside.

“Buffy,” Spike said in a low voice. “I don’t think that’s the only thing you didn’t catch, love.”

He was looking out the front door, where screams and bangings could still be heard. Buffy jumped on Ginger’s back and wrestled her to the ground, but she looked up to see into the hall as well. Xander tossed a stake to Buffy and she again began wrestling with her neighbor, but the others crowded the front door and looked out into the hall.

Andrew was the last to look out, and what he saw terrified him, but he couldn’t look away.

There were more vampires. Running up and down the hall, pounding on doors or just kicking them down, and walking in an out of them with no invitations to speak of, or at least that’s what it looked like. They were beating the walls and even throwing lit matches into some of the rooms, and were whooping and hollering and cheering.

Andrew could only see down this hall, but the screaming was so loud he figured it must be happening all over the building. Some of the residents were fleeing, as the vampires no doubt intended, because none of them got very far, and were caught and devoured before they’d even reached the stairs.

And others, understandably, were just cowering in their apartments, still screaming, but even the ones who tried to fight back were dragged out and killed as well.

Andrew had been in a battle, and he’d witnessed the aftermath of a vampire massacre, but he’d never seen one happen in front of him like this. Not with so much blood, not with so much haste.

Oddly, the vampires seemed to be avoiding their apartment, but if Andrew had to guess, he would have said they knew the Slayer was here, and they really didn’t want to mess with her. Or maybe Ginger was the leader. He couldn’t believe Ginger was really a vampire. He’d borrowed sugar from her once, though in retrospect he wondered at her even having sugar. Maybe she’d stolen the apartment from the previous resident.

Which meant she’d killed…Andrew couldn’t look anymore. He closed his eyes and turned away, but Dawn and Willow and Xander had sprung into action, running around and gathering up weapons before plunging out into the fray. Ginger screamed as Buffy brought a stake down on her, but she managed to twist out of the way and it only caught her arm instead. Spike tackled her, but she easily rolled him over and grinned at him. Illyria pulled Ginger off of him, but she slithered out of her grasp and ran back out into the hall, laughing.

“What is this?” Buffy gasped, running her hand through her hair. She glanced down at Spike and helped pull him up. “What’s the other thing I missed?”

“This is your vampire nest, pet. They’ve taken residence here. Probably had a misdirection spell or suchlike cast over the place, to keep you looking elsewhere.”

Buffy reached into her pocket, but she fallen onto her phone and it had cracked. She winced. “Great.”

Andrew picked up the landline and listened. “No good. They must have knocked the phones out.”

“Well, we’ll need outside help,” Buffy said. “Andrew…”

“No!” He begged. “Don’t send me from your side, Buffy! Splitting up is always the worst plan!”

“I was just going to tell you to grab a weapon,” she said. “Because yeah, you’re with me, and we’re going once more unto the breach.” She turned to Illyria. “I’m going to need you to go find Giles.”

Illyria lifted her chin. “I wish to take Spike with me.”

“Spike can’t go traipsing about London at the moment, even if the alternative is to fight vampires,” Buffy said. She looked at Spike. “And speaking of, are you—”

He nodded. “I’ll be okay.”

“How is she supposed to find Giles, anyway?” Andrew asked.

“She found me,” Buffy pointed out. “And I was an entire time zone away.”

“More than one, even,” Spike said, with a teasing smile.

Illyria still didn’t move. “If he is to die, I would bear witness to it.”

“He’s not going to die, Illyria,” Buffy said. “He’s just not, however much you insist he will.”

“Go on, Blue,” Spike said gently. “I’ll still be here when you return.”

Illyria looked back and forth between them. “I go because it pleases me,” she said, and strode out of the apartment.

Spike nodded. “She always says that.”

“Okay,” Buffy said, drawing a breath. “My team seems to have decided that trying to kill them all is the best course of action. I’m not sure if there are any victims left alive, but, you two, I want you to follow behind me and search all the rooms to make sure.”

She walked to her bedroom and returned with her scythe, which Andrew took a moment to stare at because she very rarely brought it out. Spike seemed to have a reaction when he saw it, too, but she ignored both of them and tossed her head. “My boyfriend is really not gonna be happy that I started this without him.”

----------

It was a cave. Dagger did admit that the few of them who had actually cared had managed to decorate it nicely enough to look like a penthouse, and there were several smaller caves branching off from it, as well as an area in further underground, but it still was, for all intents and purposes, still a cave.

He didn’t like that this was what he had to come home to every night, but he bore it, by bringing as many useless and tasteful articles as he could find. It drove Innocence crazy, but it wasn’t like she could actually do anything to him.

He placed a lamp next to his favorite chair and sat down in it.

“There’s enough light in here to dust a vampire,” Innocence said, standing over him. “How many more of those do you need?”

Dagger lazily pointed in Cleofax’s direction. “Her Royal Entropy doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.”

“It’s pretty,” Cleofax said. She walked up and touched the tassels dangling from the lamp shade. “It’s all shiny.” And she promptly pushed it over and watched in delight as it fell to the ground with a crash.

“Hey!” Dagger sat up indignantly. “What was that for, you selfish halibut?”

“I wanted to see if it was still pretty all broken up.”

Innocence snickered. “You know I may have been wrong about her.” She then crossed her arms and kicked the foot of the chair. “So. Why didn’t you want me going to see my patient today?”

Dagger placed his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. “Because they’re going to be a little preoccupied today. Wouldn’t want you getting caught up and accidentally staked. Or turned.”

“They’re fighting vampires?” Innocence guessed. She shrugged. “That is the job of the Slayer. Why should I worry about that?”

Dagger shrugged. “I can’t see everything, you know. I just know it’s going to be a blood bath, and I thought you’d appreciate not having to be a part of it. Besides, I know how you feel about vampires.”

“What?” Cleofax asked. “What about vampires?”

“Oh, not you, sweetie, just the really effacious ones,” Dagger said, but he rolled his eyes behind her back at Innocence.  

“Oh.” Cleofax brightened up, and then thought about it. “Wait…”

“Well,” Innocence said. “That feels like a situation that needs checking out.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dagger said. “That’s not in my job description.”

“It is if I say it is,” Innocence argued.

“I did my part, I told you not to go there, so you’re damn welcome.”

A clanging noise came from the lower part of the cave, and a roar shook the walls. Dagger glanced behind him. “Why can’t you just send your pet?”

“Because I don’t think recon is really his strong point,” Innocence said crisply. “Fine, I’ll go.”

“But we have that thing,” Cleofax said. “The ritual thing. That’s today, right?”

“If everyone actually shows up,” Dagger muttered.

“I’ll be back by then,” Innocence said. She threw a glare at Dagger. “I still don’t know why Spike has his vampire powers. If he’s able to heal because I didn’t dose him today, then I’m transferring him to you, and I’ll be taking your target.”

----------

Xander was leaning against the wall, holding a bleeding shoulder, when he saw Buffy come up. “Hey,” he called.

“Xander,” she cried, running up. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah. My blood’s thinking of getting a time share, since it spends so much time on the outside of my body nowadays.”

“Buffy!” Willow said, running up with Dawn after her. They both had bleeding gashes over their eyebrows, but neither seemed to be bothered. “They’re everywhere, Buffy, over the whole building. We managed to get some of the residents outside, but, we’re still really outnumbered.”

“Never bothered her before,” Spike said. “She makes her living off of being outnumbered.”

“But they’re playing by different rules,” Xander said. “Why can they just go into people’s apartments?”

“Because she owns the building,” Buffy said in a slow voice, and closed her eyes. “All she had to do was invite any vampire in that she wanted.”

“We got out everyone we could find,” Dawn said. “But I think I saw some people being dragged down to the basement.”

“Wait,” Andrew said. “Now I know I’m about to say something a little less than brave, but, going down into the basement? We’ll be cornered.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “Maybe, but I think that’s where our fight is leading us, anyway. They’re not really attacking us up here anymore.”

“And maybe we can corner them ,” Willow said cheerfully.

“There’s some more,” Xander said, pointing towards the stairway. “And I think they’re dragging someone with them.”

Buffy nodded, and choked her hand up on her scythe. “Basement is, then.”

----------

Giles had been devoting the day to research, but even he was starting to feel the strain after six hours and nothing more than a few cups of tea in him. He wandered out of his library and down the stairs, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes, before turning towards the front door. Retrieving donuts would not be a simple trip, and it was a little harder to justify eating them when he didn’t have a herd of high schoolers around him, but, it wasn’t as if there was anyone here to criticize.

He opened the door and blinked in surprise at the sight that greeted him. A cab was perched on the end of his road, and the driver’s seat was open as the driver himself appeared to be shouting at…Illyria?

Giles began hastening down the road, and their words became clearer.

“You can’t just leave me high and dry love, this isn’t a blooming free-for-all,” the driver shouted at her.

“It was once an honor just to bask in my presence,” Illyria informed him. “Serving me should be compensation enough.”

“Look, I appreciate that you’re baked, but if you don’t hand over something monetary pretty soon, we’re gonna have a problem.”

“Now, now,” Giles said quickly, huffing as he caught up to the car. “She is…definitely baked, and she’s not used to taking cabs.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, tucking a few bills into the man’s hand. “I am sorry about that. Thank you for bringing her.”

He glared at Giles, but just grumbled as he got back into the cab and drove away.

“I did not care for him,” Illyria said. “He smelt of gasoline and rotting eggs.”

“What are you doing here?” Giles asked. “What are you doing here, Illyria? Why is no one with you?”

 “The humans stayed behind to battle the vampires,” Illyria said.

“What vampires?” Giles asked. “Buffy found her nest?”

“They have taken residence under her roof.”

Giles closed his eyes and pulled of his glasses to clean them. “Of course. We knew they were nearby, and yet Buffy and Lorenzo’s search was getting nowhere. We should have known they were in that apartment building.” He put his glasses on and looked at her. “Did Buffy send you?”

“She gives credence that you will be her savior.”

Giles couldn’t resist a pleased smile, even though he said, “Well, I’m sure that’s not quite how she put it. I presume they knocked the phones out.”

“Yes.”

Giles nodded. “Well,” he said. “It’s a shame we didn’t keep that cab, though I don’t think he’d fancy taking you on as a passenger again. But I’ll call for another one.” He looked back at Illyria. “She didn’t really use the word ‘savior’?”

“You seek flattery while your comrades are likely drowning in their own blood.”

“Right, yes, of course.” Giles turned to the phone. “Time is of the essence, as usual.”

----------

Getting the humans out was easy. Almost too easy. The vampires did attack Buffy and her crew, but they seemed more interested in doing just that, attacking, rather than keeping their hostages. Andrew stood by the door, making sure they all got out, but just as the final one was escaping, Ginger appeared in the doorway and grabbed the girl’s throat.

The girl screamed, and Ginger smiled as the door to the basement shut behind her. There was a sound of it being locked and bolted, which worried Buffy. She hadn’t been able to escape from a war bunker door before, and this didn’t look all that different.

“Well,” Ginger smiled, as she threw the girl down the steps, who screamed and then fell silent as her head fell against a box. “This worked out so much better than I thought it would.”

“You can’t really expect this to end well for you,” Buffy said. “Do you know how many years my gang has been slaying yours?”

“Yes,” Ginger said, nodding. “Yes, that had occurred to me, which is why I thought of something to give my gang a little bit of an advantage.” She paused, cocking her head as if waiting, and then a low humming was heard, which quickly grew louder, until it sounded like a large bee was buzzing all around them. “There is is,” Ginger grinned. “See, the beauty of this being just a room that no one is supposed to live in or hang out in is that there’s no ventilation. No outlets. No doors, except the one that’s just been barricaded. It really lends itself to…not having a steady flow of oxygen. And I had a buddy of mine fix up a vacuum thing that just…takes it out even faster.” She walked slowly up to Buffy and brushed the Slayer’s neck with her fingertips, and whispered, “In an hour this room will be equivalent to trying to breathe through a plastic bag.”

Buffy grabbed Ginger’s wrist and swung her sythe at her, but Ginger just laughed and dodged out of the way, as three more vampires attacked Buffy. The rest of her team was similarly attacked, and it was easy to kill them at first, but there really were a lot of them in here. It was a pretty big storage room, and there were always more boxes that they were hiding behind. But Ginger was right, and the oxygen leaving the room was making everything extremely difficult.

Buffy’s scythe was grabbed out of her hand and tossed aside, and she had to make do with just her hand-to-hand combat until she could sidle over to it. “Willow!” She cried. “Can you get that door open?”

Willow paused, and tried, but though she was able to hold off her vampire attackers with one hand, she shook her head. “There’s a magic barrier surrounding the door. I can undo it, but not…not quickly.”

“Well, you’d better start now then,” Buffy said, and dove for her scythe. She grabbed it and tried to jump to her feet without the use of her hands, but she immediately crashed back to the ground. The effort made her chest feel like a hole had been shot through it. “Actually sooner than now, if possible.”

----------

Giles kept glancing sideways at Illyria as they sat in the cab together. He’d accepted what Buffy had told him about her, but really, he knew very little, and he hadn’t seen much of her. He certainly had never been alone with her. She was sitting, ramrod straight, with her hands on her knees, just staring forward. She was definitely alive, definitely aware, but he wondered what could be going on in her head.

He cleared his throat. “So,” he said. “You were working with Angel?”

It was brusque and a little on the awkward side, but it was the nicest way he could think of to ask what the hell she was doing on their side now. She was an Old One. He knew what that meant. Not her specifically, but, they didn’t generally go around fighting the good fight in little teams.

She cocked her head at him. “I slaughtered his enemies. All of mine were already dead.”

“I see.” He didn’t, but she was rather difficult to talk to. “But there was a battle, yes? One that you and Spike were in? The one where Spike became human?”

She continued to stare at him. “We were not alone.”

“No, of course not. Angel was there, too. And…I suppose there were others.”

“There was Charles Gunn,” she said. “There was also Wesley. But they are dead.”

Giles decided if he needed to know who Charles Gunn was, he would get a clearer answer out of Spike. But Wesley…

“Wesley is dead?” Giles asked. “Buffy never told me. I suppose she didn’t know.”

Illyria cast her eyes down, and she turned her head to face forward again. “I would rather have died in his stead,” she said. Her tone was even, which contradicted with her words, but Giles was surprised to hear it.

“So you were close to him,” he said, and then another thought struck him. “And now you’re protective of Spike.”

“He is the only one left.”

“Yes,” Giles said. “Yes, I suppose so.” He turned his head away, but continued to glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “But I don’t see how that would matter to someone like you. You, who are independent, you who were mighty, you who lost a friend in that battle. You could leave, could regain your former glory, and yet you stay, playing nursemaid to a common human.”

He sounded suspiciously like Wesley in that moment, and, if he could have known it, that alone stopped Illyria from throwing him out the window right then. But she continued to face forward, and merely said, “I do what I desire. When I no longer see fit to stay with Spike, I will go.”

“I’m sure that’s true,” Giles said.

She didn’t reply.

----------

Spike was not enjoying this at all. He was barely getting used to the sensation of breathing as it was, but now he found he’d gotten very attached to it, and to have the ability being slowly robbed of him was terrifying, to say the least.

That and he knew his body was going to give up on him. When he’d sparred with Illyria, he’d been running on adrenaline, but he had crashed pretty hard afterwards. And staking vampires to save his life was a good adrenaline boost, but his limbs were getting much too heavy, and every breath felt like he was scraping a rake over concrete.

And it wasn’t just him. He could see Dawn sitting up against a crate, and she was swinging her arms at the current vampire attacking her, but she made no move to get up. Xander killed his final one and just dropped, and Buffy had to come and stake Willow’s because all her concentration was focused on breaking the barrier. And Andrew…he could still hear a heartbeat coming from the boy, but it was very faint. He’d been lying there for a while.

Dawn finally killed hers and slumped against the crate. Spike looked around for any more, and it was a good thing there weren’t any, because just turning his head made him feel so dizzy that he dropped to his knees and keeled over, laying his head on the cool ground and willing the world to stop spinning.

He watched Buffy drag herself over to the door and begin punching it. Willow suddenly gasped and cried weakly, “It’s down…Buffy, it’s…” before she dropped as well.

Spike closed his eyes and tried not to move, tried to not have to breath, but he could hear his own heartbeat starting to race with panic.

And then he smelled it. There was one vampire still in the building. And he could tell who it was without even looking at her.

Ginger grabbed the back of his neck and forced him into a sitting position. “Well, well,” she said. “William the Bloody. I was a big fan, you know. Wanted to be just like you, killing Slayers and all that. Word was you got a soul, and now humanity?” She spat in disgust. “But, I can make that all change. I can turn you back, to what you were.” She put her lips by his ear and murmured, “Don’t tell me you haven’t been craving it. That you haven’t missed being a monster. At the very least, it’s better than dying by asphyxiation, isn’t it? Such a mortifying and frightening way to go.”

Spike was too exhausted to fight her, or even tell her to rack off, and that was actually scaring him. He always could summon an insult. But if she was going to do it, he was powerless to stop her. She might very well turn him, and he…well, it looked like he was just going to sit there and take it. He only hoped Buffy would have the good sense to behead him before he woke up.

And then he sensed her, his Slayer charging at Ginger. He opened his eyes, but a new fire had seemed to arise in Buffy, and even though they tussled for a moment, Buffy was the victor, and she swung her scythe to take of the vampire’s head.

And then she dropped it and fell. She was still trying to breathe, opening her mouth wide and gulping at whatever was left.

And then she managed to roll over so she could see his face without raising her head. “Spike?”

He was sitting up against a crate, still trying not to move, and she continued “You wouldn’t have actually let her turn you, right?”

Spike couldn’t answer, couldn’t possibly tell her that if she hadn’t swooped in to be his savior right then, he had accepted that he was plunging right back into hell.

“You would have resisted drinking her…pushed her away…or something?” Buffy persisted.

“Believe me…pet,” Spike gasped. “More afraid of being turned again than…than I am of dying.”

She dragged herself over to him, and he thought she was trying to sit up next to him, but she couldn’t summon the energy. She just closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry that your…being human is what’s…causing you…to die.”

Was he dying? He hadn’t even noticed that part. What he had noticed was that she was dying in front of him, and that was a sight he didn’t think he could endure. His head lolled to the side, and suddenly he lifted it and tilted it curiously, staring at the door. “You got one of the hinges off.”

“Huh…” she barely mumbled the word, still laying perfectly still.

His lungs must have found an untouched pocket of air somewhere, because he pushed himself forward, grabbing Buffy’s hands and pulled her into a sitting position. “Red got the barrier down, yeah? And you…you’ve already broken part of the door. All we need…all we need is a crack, love. You’re a Slayer…got lungs of bloody titanium…you can give us that.”

She moaned, and her head slumped against his shoulder. “I don’t think…”

“Yes you can,” he said. “Hey.” He lifted her chin, and stared into her half-lidded eyes. “I need you to fight for you,” he whispered.

She blinked, blankly, like she wasn’t really awake. But she suddenly gave a ragged sigh, and crawled up the steps towards the door. And then she began banging on it, slowly, laboriously, and it didn’t look like her efforts would accomplish anything.

But he believed in her. His head fell back against the crate, and everything started going black, but he wasn’t afraid. He knew she could do it.

----------

Dagger was still lounging in his chair, but he opened his eyes when Innocence walked into the cave. “Are we feeling enlightened now?”

“You were right,” Innocence said. “Vampire attack, got ‘em holed up in the basement, threatening to take all their air away. Gripping stuff. Has anyone else shown up yet?”

Dagger snorted. “Guess who has yet to make an appearance?”

Marcellus stepped forward. “Well, I’m here, for all my pains being on time are good for. If I don’t get back to Willow soon, you’re going to find yourselves sans Storyteller.”

“He’ll be here,” Innocence said. “How is that going, anyway? With Willow?”

Marcellus began pulling on a pair of brown leather gloves and holding his hands up to see how they would look. “She’s cautious, naturally. But she’s getting there.”

Cleofax had been thinking about what Innocence said, and she suddenly asked, “Aren’t they all going to die if they don’t have air?”

“Ooh, and she’ll take ‘Duh’ for $1000, Alex,” Dagger said. “But no. They’re not going to die in there. It wouldn’t be fitting for them. If we are to fight them, then they have to be better than just suffocating in a basement. Their deaths will have an air of renown.”

----------

 The apartment building was very quiet when Giles and Illyria finally entered. The scent of blood was very strong, however, and there were several bodies lying about. But there were signs of wounded people being dragged to the basement, and Giles followed that trail. He stopped when he saw the door. Bolted and locked, but on the other side, the hinges had been destroyed, and the bottom corner was bent in.

“Help me,” Giles said quickly, grabbing the corner. He immediately saw he wouldn’t be able to budge it, but Illyria grabbed it as well and managed to shift the door enough to wrench it from its frame. She shoved the door aside, and hurried down the steps.

But Giles saw Buffy first, lying right behind the door, her knuckles bloodied. He dropped at her head and lifted her just so that her head was in his lap. He placed his hand under her nose and sighed in relief when he detected breathing. “Buffy,” he said, stroking her hair with one hand while shaking her shoulder with the other. “Buffy, wake up.”

She opened her bleary eyes, and then stirred. “Giles.”

He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms protectively around her head. “Buffy I think I don’t want you being a Slayer anymore.”

“Everyone else okay?” she murmured.

Giles looked up. “Illyria?”

“They will live,” she said. “They do not seem to have made an attempt to save themselves, but they still breathe.”

She was crouching over Spike, who had opened his eyes and was grinning at her. “These idiotic humans,” he said. “Can’t escape even when it’s right in front of them, can they?”

----------

Later, when it seemed that the paramedics and fire trucks were finally getting ready to leave, Buffy made her way over to Giles.

“I guess I’ll need somewhere else to live,” she said.

“Yes,” he mused. “It’s a shame, I thought this apartment was very pretty. Even if it was full to bursting with guests all the time.”

“I was thinking your house,” she said.

“Of course, you know my doors are always open to you until you find…”

“No.” She looked up at him. “I mean…I think we should move in there. All of us. Not forever, just…until Xander moves in with his girlfriend, and Spike recovers from his…sicky thing, and I can actually afford a nicer apartment for me and Dawn. And Willow’s still sort of spacey because of the whole Kennedy thing, and Andrew hates sleeping in his office.”

Giles hesitated. “You want us all to live there? Like in Sunnydale? Because as I recall, tensions ran a little bit high when we were so involved in each other’s…personal space.”

She bit her lip. “Obviously it’s a huge favor. I was just thinking…we still need to have our meeting, and there are still things here that need figuring out. Like Dawn’s and Willow’s stalkers. And the Slayer organizations are doing fine on their own for a bit.” She paused. “Totally up to you, but again, it wouldn’t be forever. Just until we figure our lives out.”

Giles smiled. “It’s a big house, I think I could squeeze you all in. I wouldn’t mind at all. But if you’re thinking we’ll be safer from attacks…”

“We won’t be,” she said. “But innocent people died in this building because Ginger was trying to get to me.” She sighed. “And I’d like to reduce that in the future. Xander is right. Demons come after me, and use whoever is near me or close to me to get my attention. I don’t blame him for wanting to keep his Catherine as far away from this as possible.”

Chapter Text

Willow was flying. At first she’d been worried it would be a similar experience to when she was going to see Rack every time she could…and that was something she was determined never to get addicted to again. Rack’s power had been quite a high, where she couldn’t tell what was real, she didn’t know how to come back, and the hangover was hell.

But this was different. It was like being on a rollercoaster, and stuffing your face with chocolate, and lying in a hammock with a cool summer breeze all at once. It felt amazing. And none of her friends had to cast critical eyes in her direction, because she was doing absolutely nothing to alter reality, nothing that would affect any of them, including herself, since she could wake up and it would be like it never happened. It was like going to Narnia inside her own mind.

However, being asleep and far away in another dimension meant she didn’t notice the cup of water stirring at her bedside, which trembled on the table for a while before flying off and crashing to the ground.

----------

“I call this bedroom,” Dawn said, running towards the one right by the front door. “I’m not walking up an obscene amount of stairs just to get to my bedroom.”

“Because you haven’t been doing that your whole life or anything,” Buffy said.

“Exactly,” Dawn said. “Never again. I want to be able to crash as soon as I walk in the front door.”

“And this has nothing to do with how easy it will be to move your boxes into it?” Buffy asked, dropping the box she was holding into Dawn’s arms.

Dawn caught it and set it down, kicking it into the bedroom she’d claimed. “As the person helping me, I think you’d be grateful for that.”

Xander groaned as he brought another box in and set it down. “For someone who’s not a big reader, Buff, you seem to pack a lot of books.”

“I can’t help it,” she said. “I’ve been conditioned by Giles to never throw a book away. Every one of those is either one of my mom’s or a school book.”

Xander looked at her in disbelief. “Those didn’t all burn up?”

She shook her head. “I had some of my stuff from Sunnydale put in a storage facility, to make room for all the Potentials. I didn’t think I’d lose the house, but, turned out sending that stuff to LA was worth the money.”

“And it was also worth shipping them here?” Xander wheezed.

Spike walked through the front door and easily picked up the box, while Xander leaned on his knees and panted. “Seriously?”

Spike gave him a smug look. “I’m the debilitated one, here, mate, so I really don’t know what to tell you.”

“You still have vampire strength,” Xander pointed out.

“Yeah, and still bedridden,” Spike reminded him.

Xander looked at him skeptically. “You don’t look all that ridden in bed to me.”

“Not yet.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “You’re a pig, Spike. And since you’re so determined to prove your machoness, you can take that up to my room. It’s upstairs, by Giles’.”

Spike smirked and shifted the box as he headed towards the stairs, with Illyria following. Spike was walking around more now, and Illyria constantly trailed his footsteps. He barely even seemed to notice it, but the rest had come to think of her as his loyal dog, even if both Spike and Illyria had forbidden them from saying it out loud.

----------

Andrew followed Giles, pacing around his library. “If you have a lead on these guys, I think you should let the rest of us know.”

“I don’t have anything concrete,” Giles said patiently. “I said I might have a source, and I told Buffy I wanted to wait to have the meeting until after I’d visited said source.”

“They’re stalking Willow and Dawn,” Andrew reminded him. He paused as they passed Giles’ desk, and he sat in the chair and put his feet up on the desk. “I mean yeah we only know of the one time, and neither has complained of a second attack, but I think you should tell us everything you know.”

Giles absently tapped Andrew’s shoes as he studied the book in his hand, and Andrew frowned as he put his feet down. “I don’t know what my source knows,” Giles said. “If I did I wouldn’t need to contact them.”

“But you’re acting like this meeting is going to be some big Council of Elrond,” Andrew said. “It’s not, it was just supposed to be an in-person check-in, and since we’re all living here now, I don’t see why we can’t just do more than one of those.”

“I’m sure we will,” Giles said. “But research on these demons is getting us nowhere, so there really is nothing to discuss until we actually know something.” He closed the book shut with one hand and looked at Andrew. “I haven’t seen you hitting the streets and digging up any lowlifes that might have info on them.”

Andrew squirmed. “That’s not my job,” he said. “You said I could only do the boring file work. And sometimes rounding up Slayers. Which, by the way,” he said in a louder voice, standing up again and following Giles’ pacing, “is completely unfair. Everyone’s all over Spike, now, it’s not like any of you have been doing your jobs, either.”

“You’re right,” Giles said.

“And so I think that I should be…” Andrew stopped. “Come again?”

“I said you were right.” Giles looked up at him. “We are busy with this new problem, and we have only given you grunt work. So, you’re officially promoted.”

Andrew gaped for a moment, and then grinned. “Really?”

Giles nodded. “You’ll get your own department, and you’ll assign Slayers to run the other departments in our absence.”

“Wow!” Andrew cried. “That’s really…I mean, Rupert, I just want to thank you for trusting me with this, I know there’s a lot of other people you could have—”

“And that also means I’ll be sending you out in the field. Think you can handle that?”

Andrew stood up straighter, and lifted his chin. “Well, I do have a pretty good handle on the good cop bad cop routine.”

“Ah, yes, and which one are you again?”

“That’s not important,” Andrew said. “Do you want me to go dig up some lowlifes?”

“Do you know any?”

Andrew smiled knowingly. “I may know a guy. Who knows a girl. Who knows a guy. Who knows a demon. Who knows a—”

“Excellent,” Giles said. “Off you go, then, and you might want to take a Slayer or two with you.”

Andrew looked torn between deciding if he was being dismissed or being sent on an important mission. He finally settled with a scowl, but he slid off the chair and hurried out the door.

----------

Illyria watched Spike as he sat on Buffy’s bed, looking down and clenching his knees. “The Slayer forbade you from performing any toil.”

“I know, and then she asked me to carry a box of heavy books to her room.” He looked up and grinned. “The fickleness of women.”

“I used to punish the arrogance of my slaves with death,” Illyria informed him.

“Yeah, well, you may not have to in this case.”

Illyria sat down next to him. “You still struggle. To become human.”

“Been there yourself, haven’t you, pet? You know what it’s like.”

“I did not play this foolhardy dance with death at every turn.”

He snorted. “Beg to differ. I seem to recall you nearly exploding with power.”

“I allowed my power to be removed.”

“‘Allowed’ may be a bit of an exaggeration.”

“Why do you linger in her dwelling?” Illyria suddenly asked. “You need not take to her bed any longer. You have one that belongs to you.”

Spike tilted his head to look at her. “Sometimes your choice of words baffles me, you know that?”

“I wish to see it.”

“Well, black pot, what about yours? Pretty sure Watcher Boy has a spare corner for you somewhere.”

“I do not require such trifles.”

“Such trifles as a bed?”

“I prefer to stay where you are.”

Spike slowly nodded. “You still want to watch over me. Even though I’m fine, look at me, I’m not going to die on you like everyone else.”

“Your strength continues to ebb and flow like the sunshine of a treacherous fair day in spring. I would have you stay in my sight.”

He squinted at her. “Do you even sleep, Illyria?”

Buffy suddenly wandered into the room, and her eyes fell on Illyria first, sitting next to Spike. But she turned to Spike next, and her cold look turned into one of concern. “You okay?”

“Fine.” He smiled. “Just trying to see how much sound travels in this house. You can hear everything going on in the kitchen in this room, so, there will be no midnight snack parties that you’re not aware of.”

“Okay.” She paused. “I’m sorry I made you carry that box.”

“I’m the one who picked it up, Slayer. You didn’t make me do anything.”

“Well, I should have made you stay in bed,” Buffy said.

He grinned, and shook his head. “Like I could get any repose with you lot trudging about. I told you, sound travels in this house. “

“Well,” Buffy sighed. “Last day, hopefully. It’s so much easier to move when everyone is kinda just living out of a suitcase anyway.”

“Except for you and your sodding book collection.”

Buffy looked down at the box and sighed. “I wish it was in my programming to get rid of them. I really don’t want them in here, and it seems like a waste of effort to try and find a bookshelf to put them on when I’m only going to not read them and then pack them back up when I leave.”

Spike tilted his head to look at the box, and slowly opened one flap. “I could take them off your hands.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “You want my books?”

“Gotta occupy myself some way, in this stage where I’m too weak to be useful and too healthy to want to lie around all day. Yeah, I’ll hold ‘em until you shove off from here.”

“Cool,” Buffy said. “Thanks.”

Spike bent down to pick up the box again, and Buffy lunged for it as well when she saw what he was doing, but Illyria beat them both, lifting it with even more ease than Spike had, and marching out of the room with it.

Buffy looked after her. “Look who’s suddenly all eager to be useful,” she said bitterly.

----------

The Immortal’s face noticeably brightened when he saw Buffy walking towards him the following morning. “My little piece of heaven!” he cried, and immediately launched onto her, decorating her face with kisses.

She giggled. “Really, Lorenzo? Here, in front of everyone?”

Lorenzo looked around. “It is a public street, but I see no one we know. But it matters not, the whole world must know that I have the Slayer as my own.”

She grinned. “There are more than just me, you know.”

He waved his hand. “Imitations of the real thing. They all come from you, anyway, do they not? They are your bloodline?”

“Um…” Faith had once said something similar to her, when discussing why it was that no one had been called after Buffy had jumped off Glory’s tower. But Buffy really, really didn’t like to think of it that way. “I don’t really know,” she said. She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, though. You’re not the only one who thinks of me as, you know, the one and only.”

“Yes, I would think your friend has the same viewpoint as I.”

Buffy shot him a quick look. “So you do know who Spike is.”

He nodded slowly. “William the Bloody and his penchant for Slayers is known to me.” He looked away, and said apologetically, “I…I did not wish to say anything that would drive a wedge either between you and I…or you and he.”

“It’s okay.” She shrugged. “You said you knew Angel, when I talked about him, and Spike was kind of always hanging out with him at the time. I sort of guessed you’d know him too.”

“I have no ill feelings towards him,” the Immortal said quickly.

Buffy decided not to say that Spike certainly did have ill feelings. “I know,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it. “And that means a lot. Because he is a very dear friend of mine.”

He smiled, and laced his fingers through her other hand, bringing both up to his chest. “Something troubles you, my dove. You wished to meet with me for a reason, though you know I had plans to visit you tonight.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said slowly. “Tonight may actually not work out. That quarterly meeting of ours that everyone’s gathered here for? We’re having that tonight. Finally. Hopefully. And not that I wouldn’t love to have you around, but…”

“But it is for those who are a part of your Slayer organization. Fret not, my sunflower, I understand.”

“But there was something else I wanted to ask you,” Buffy said. “I wanted to know if the name ‘Dagger’ means anything to you.”

He wrinkled his brow. “Dagger? A rather common word for someone to take as their title.”

Buffy shrugged. “Some demon in an orange suit approached Dawn and said that was his name. We don’t know if he’s a threat, necessarily, but, all research on him is coming up empty.” She watched his face carefully. “So, no? Not ringing any bells?”

He looked mournfully at her and shook his head. “A thousand apologies for not being of more use.”

“Hey.” Buffy smiled and shrugged. “No big, it’s not like anyone else is coming up with any answers, either. Whatever I’m facing, they’re doing a pretty good job of covering their tracks.”

----------

Giles was slumped on the floor, panting. He saw his glasses lying just in front of them, and used one shaking hand to reach for them while pushing himself up with the other. He carefully placed them back on his nose, and could feel a trickle of blood running down past his left eye. He glanced up at Opal, who was glaring coldly at him, pointing a sword at his throat.

“You can’t help me,” she said calmly.

“I told you,” Giles said hoarsely. “That I wasn’t going to push you. And I won’t.”

She instantly crouched down and grabbed his hair with one hand. “You’ve been coming here for weeks, saying you’re not going to push me, but always asking me, always asking .” She shoved him away violently enough that he fell back to the floor, and she stood back up and began angrily pacing, swinging her sword for emphasis. “You can’t take back what they did to me, Rupert. You can’t change who I am, and who I was. I will always be the Shadow, however tightly you lock me up in here.”

“You’re not,” Giles gasped. “They failed. They didn’t get you, and you cast them out of your mind. They cannot reach you now.”

“They are still reaching me. They are reaching me through you. Every time you reference them, I feel them…” She dropped the sword and gripped her head with both hands. “I feel them coming back. I cast them out, but I can invite them back in. Is that what you want, Rupert? You’re toying with me, using me as a weapon, just like they did!”

“No,” he murmured, carefully rising to his feet. “No. But if we defeat them, even you cannot invite them back in.”

She looked at him and screamed, a loud, bloodcurdling scream, which made the chickens outside start squawking in fear, and made Giles tense his shoulders up. But he strode forward, grabbed her shoulders, and shoved her down onto her window seat. “Fight it, Opal!” he said sternly. “You can tell me what I need to know. I know you have those memories; you haven’t locked them away. You can tell me what I’m fighting, and you can do so without joining their side.”

“I can’t !” she screeched.

“Yes, you bloody well can!” he replied. He sat next to her and gripped her shoulders, peering into her eyes. “You don’t have to answer anything that requires you to think too much. I’m just asking you surface level questions. What are their names? How many are there?”

She inhaled sharply and pushed his arms off, and then grabbed his shoulders and threw him down. She tore her thin bathrobe off, and hopped off the seat. She glared at him, and then straddled him, and punched his face.

He cried out in pain, but grabbed her wrists again, pushing until he was able to sit up.

She stared at him angrily, but the anger in her eyes was being rapidly replaced by tears, and finally she let him go. Her head slumped towards her chest, and her legs splayed out behind her. She covered her face with her hands and gave a frustrated cry, and he, ignoring the dizziness that was threatening to knock him out, crawled over to her and took her into his arms. She fell limply against his shoulder, and started sobbing. “It hurts,” she wailed.

“I know.” He rubbed her back carefully. “I know.”

----------

Spike’s room was the only one of the front side of the house that had a balcony. Giles’ bedroom on the opposite side did as well, but it faced the back. Spike wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up with what he would’ve assumed to be coveted real estate, but, maybe the rest of them didn’t fancy the idea of flocks of pigeons waking them up in the morning.

But Spike was completely grateful now that he’d ended up in this one, because just as he was stepping towards the door leading out, he saw Innocence coming up the front path.

“Bloody hell,” he sighed, and quickly turned on his heel. He nearly bumped into Illyria who had come in through the bedroom door behind her, and gripped her forearms. “I’m not here,” he said urgently, and brushed past her towards the little staircase at the back of the house which led to the attic.

He sprang up the stairs with what could have only been residual vampire agility, and shoved the door open. But before he could close it, he nearly jumped at the sight of a very guilty looking Dawn, who was scrambling to hide a bottle.

Spike raised his eyebrows and closed the door probably harder than was necessary. “Well well,” he said. “What did I just stumble into, nibblet?”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing up here?” Dawn snapped.

“I believe I asked first.”

“You nark on me and I’ll tell Buffy you didn’t stay in bed.”

Spike slowly strode forward, and held his hand out. “Give me the bottle, Dawn.”

Her eyes flashed. “I’m the one who took it out of Giles’ cupboard, you can’t just take my spoils.”

He chuckled. “Well, it’s extremely discourteous to not offer to share. Even with someone you think is your enemy or who really shouldn’t be here. And I’m neither.”

“No, I think you’re the second one. You didn’t answer my question.”

“Neither did you.”

“Didn’t have to, you saw the bottle.”

Spike stopped in front of her, still with his hand out, and Dawn pouted with a death glare that frightened him more than she would ever know, but she took the bottle and put it in his hand. Spike smiled, sat down next to her against the dusty old trunk that Dawn had perched herself against, and studied it.

“Didn’t realize you and Mr. Daniels had such a close personal relationship. How long has this affair been going on?”

“I’m not actually a day drinker you know. I just…” She pursed her lips. “I’m practicing not getting drunk.”

Spike raised his eyebrows and lowered his head so he could meet her gaze. “You’re sitting in the attic in the middle of the day drinking so as not to get drunk?”

“Yes…no, I—” she sighed. “This really isn’t any of your business.”

“S’pose it isn’t.” Spike twisted the cap off the bottle and lifted it to his lips, eyeing Dawn as she turned away. “You sure this really is for practical reasons and not any kind of sorrows drowning?”

“It’s not sorrows drowning,” Dawn replied automatically.

“Well, that’s good, because I reckon I’d still need a few days before I could put out the porch lights of anyone who dared toy with you.”

Dawn very unsuccessfully tried to hide a smile, and Spike beamed in return. “You held your own in the vampire attack pretty well,” she said.

“Yeah, you really tend to discover strengths you didn’t know you had when fighting for your life.”

Dawn finally looked back up at him, and then she squinted. “Spike,” she said knowingly. “Are you hiding from your nurse?”

Spike choked on his whiskey. “Hiding? I may be many things, bit, but I’m not some cowering rabbit.”

“Oh my gosh, you totally are hiding!” Dawn crowed.

“It’s self-preservation, love,” Spike protested, waving the bottle in her face. “If that bint would stop sticking needles in my arms, I’d be a hell of a lot better.”

Dawn nodded. “Yeah, I used to be terrified of needles. I don’t know how you just let her stick one in you twice a day.”

“Can handle the pain just fine,” Spike mumbled into the bottle as he raised it to his lips again. “I just don’t appreciate how it throws me for a loop so much afterwards.”

Dawn nodded again, and then sat in silence, staring up at the one tiny window that was letting in a shaft of light. “I want to show you something,” she said. “But you tell Buffy and my promise to light you on fire still stands.”

Spike froze at those words, and slowly put the bottle down. “Dawn…”

“Forget it,” she said, waving her hand. “I forgave you for that ages ago. Probably around the same time you died saving the world, and also when Buffy was subsequently really…sad every time your name came up. She probably forgave you a lot sooner than I did.”

“You know I wouldn’t…”

“Hurt her again?” Dawn said. “Yeah. I know. We all know it, in case you wondered. We were a little afraid you might scare her boyfriend off and try to claim her as your own, but, you didn’t, you’re staying a gentleman, and she’s still with The Immortal.” She bit her lip, and said, “And I can’t speak for them on this point, but, I’m happy you’re here. Like…” she drew a breath. “Like really happy. It was…I just sort of always thought you were going to be there, you know? Like no matter how mad I was at you, you were always out there to come be there for me if I needed it, and it was…bad every time I remembered that you weren’t.”

He’d been waiting for her to again bring up the fact that he’d let her go an entire year like that, thinking he was dead, but she didn’t. Which was good, because after the rest of that he didn’t think he could have borne it. He just slid closer to her and nudged her shoulder with his. “This is why we don’t drink in the daytime,” he said. “I’m cutting you off.”

“Already did, you idiot.” Dawn laid her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him. She gave him a light squeeze, and he laid his hands on hers and nestled his cheek onto her head.

“I missed you, too,” he said softly.

She snorted. “Duh. Of course you did.” She pushed herself back up and took a breath. “So. Now that I’ve completely guaranteed you aren’t going to wig out and tell my sister, can I show you?”

Spike narrowed his eyes. “You right crocodile.”

She smirked, and then lifted her shirt to show her midriff. Spike raised one eyebrow as he looked at the tattoo there. “Well, I still think it’s less appalling that getting snockered in an attic.”

He wanted to wig out, as she put it. He wanted to rush to wherever Buffy was and shout in her face that Dawn was going around getting tattoos before she was even eighteen and what the hell was Buffy doing not noticing things like that. But he also found himself in admiration. For someone who had just claimed to have a needle phobia, she’d apparently sucked it up long enough for someone to etch an ornate, dark and twisted key into her abdomen.

“Yeah.” Dawn slowly brushed her fingertips over it before lowering her shirt again. “I got it in Italy, right before we moved. It was totally legal there, which I was planning on telling Buffy as soon as she found out. But now I just have to make sure I don’t get injured or spelled or captured any time before I turn eighteen, and she legally can’t punish me anymore.”

He nodded. “Adulthood’ll look good on you, bit. Already does.” He thought for a moment, and then added, “Of course I’d be cautious of what you have branded onto your flesh. Everything is a demon insignia these days.”

“Not this one. Looked it up, thoroughly, for an entire week beforehand. I thought of that too, you know, I’m not a complete idiot.”

He smiled and tilted his head. “Well look at Watcher Jr. over here.”

She scoffed, and muttered, “Yeah, that’ll be the day.”

“What, Giles never broached the topic with you? How could he not, you’re an obvious choice. Not still holding out hopes for the African wonder, is he?”

Dawn sighed. “Officially, we’re all Watchers because we’re all training and recruiting. Sort of. I mean I give fighting lessons sometimes, but a lot of the work happens when I’m at school, and Buffy and Giles and even Andrew usually cover everything on the weekends and stuff. It’s not like I care. I like research, but I do enough sitting on the sidelines. I don’t want that to be my official career.”

Spike tipped the last of the whiskey into his mouth. “What do you want, then?”

She shrugged. “Nothing comes to mind.”

“Nothing?”

She shifted. “No.”

“You’re telling me you’re not harboring a single dream in that noggin of yours that’s not being fulfilled?”

“No!” she snapped, and quickly stood up. “Why would I want to, anyway? You’re all bigger and more important and experienced than me anyway. I don’t want any part of this, I don’t want anything to do with you!” She hesitated for a moment as if surprised with herself, and then she flew to the attic door, wrenching it open and pounding down the stairs.

Spike just stared after her for a moment before he jumped up and followed her. “Dawn!” he cried, once he’d reached the bottom of the stairs.

And then he saw Innocence, who was leaning against the opposite wall, tapping her heeled foot impatiently. “Spike. Nice of you to join us.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Spike informed her.

She nodded. “I can’t lie, Spike. I can’t tell you that I believe you.”

----------

Opal was still lying in bed, where Giles had left her, when came in with a tea tray. She was lying very stiffly, her head just slightly turned where she could see through her window.

Giles sat down on the edge of the bed. “You can sit up now,” he said, in a gentle voice.

She moved, just barely, sitting up only enough so that she could take the teacup offered to her and sip it with minimal effort. “I think you should bring your Slayer when you come to visit me,” she said.

“Oh, Opal, now you’re just being hurtful,” Giles said, smiling. “I can handle you well enough.”

She eyed the cut on his forehead. “That’s not the point.”

“Having a Slayer here would be worse for you,” Giles said. “You know that.”

She sipped her tea. “I wish I’d been brainwashed.”

“No, you don’t. You really don’t.”

She gave a slight smile. “It’d be easier than remembering. It’s humiliating, you know. Watching myself lose control. Knowing I could stop, if only I was strong enough. If my Jekyll wasn’t too lazy to do something about it.”

“Jekyll really had no control over Hyde.”

“But I do, Rupert, I’m not two separate people, and I don’t have a disorder…”

“Of course you do.” The teacup was trembling in her hands, so Giles quickly took it away and set it on the table beside her. “It’s PTSD, plain and simple. No, you’re not being triggered, you’re not bipolar or schizophrenic, you’re not Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but you…what you are, and what they did with that, it’s going to leave its mark on you. It just is.”

She let herself fall back against the pillow. “I don’t want to be the Shadow.”

“And you never will be.” Giles took her hand in both of his. “You escaped. You fought them, and you won.”

She was quiet for a long time, letting Giles stroke her hand, before she finally turned her eyes back to him. “Ask me.”

“Ask you?”

“I can give you answers now.” She swallowed. “But I can’t think too hard about them on my own, so you’ll…have to ask me.”

He nodded. “How many are there?”

“S…seven.”

Giles considered. “Do they have names?”

“Yes.” Her brow wrinkled. “Many. Names, titles, species. Some of them are truly nameless, and only go by what the others call them. Some have lived for a very long time, and they’ve gone through so many changes that what they were originally is forgotten.”

Her face was still wearing a worried frown, and Giles wondered if he should stop. But he might never get another opportunity like this. “Who are they?” he asked.

She quickly shook her head. “Too broad. Ask something more specific.”

“All right.” He thought again. “Is there anything they go by that I could…maybe research?”

“I don’t know. Their titles, maybe. But I…there are two leaders, and I don’t know anything about them. Just the other five.”

“What are they?”

“The Prophecy,” she said, and immediately coughed, like it hurt her to say. “The Primeval. The Entropy. The Storyteller. The…the Shadow.” She paused, squeezing her eyes shut tight. “They’ll find someone else,” she said. “To be the Shadow. They may have done so already.”

Giles waited until she opened her eyes again, and gave her a warm smile. “Thank you,” he said. “I just want to ask one more thing, and then we can stop for today. Will you be all right?”

She nodded, and he said gravely, “What is it they’re trying to do?”

----------

Cleofax was bored, and she was slowly starting to understand why vampires didn’t hang around in London as much as they used to. People knew better than to travel anywhere at night but in brightly lit places, surrounded by people.

Which is why it was surprising when a short gray Morrest demon crashed into her. She didn’t want to eat him; his blood would taste like sewage, but she put out her hand and grabbed him anyway. She tilted her head to look at him. “Do I know you?” she finally asked.

“No,” he said nervously. “Nope, I’m nobody you know, just two ships passing in the night, and I know you don’t wanna bite me, so if you could just let me—”

“Irwin!” she said suddenly.

He winced, and shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“No, you are, I swear! Hey, you know they’re all pretty upset with you on account of you almost letting the Slayer’s pals walk off with the Apocalypse diary and everything.”

“I…don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do.” She flashed her fangs as she grinned. “This is gonna be great. I don’t get to bring wanted fugitives to the boss very often. You’re really gonna bump up my street cred, Irwin.”

----------

“Of course they’re trying to end the world,” Buffy said. “I barely even registered them as a threat, and I could have told you that. It’s what all the kids are doing these days.”

“That’s…probably actually true,” Xander said. He leaned over the back of Andrew’s chair and grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl on his lap, ignoring Andrew’s squawk of protest. “And they’ll probably be the ones to succeed. Demons should stop trying to be so hip.”

Dawn was listening, she really was, but also she was bouncing her knees impatiently as she sat cross-legged on the floor. She eyed the door. Giles’ house was big, but she thought she had figured out a strategy. The upstairs living room was right by the staircase, and the staircase led directly into the downstairs library, which was very tiny and really just another office. But it had a back door, so if Dawn could just pretend she was going to the bathroom…

But no, the reason she’d come at all was because she didn’t want to bother with explaining her absence. She’d have to wait until they all went to bed, or at least stopped paying attention to her.

That shouldn’t be too difficult. None of them were doing that anyway. Xander was pacing and stealing snacks, Giles was leaning over the back of Willow’s very tall armchair, Buffy was sitting on one of the two sofas…well, slouching in it would be a better word. Spike was sitting at her feet, pressed up as close to her as he possibly could be, absently twisting a dangling braided cord from her skirt around his fingers. Andrew was sitting on the other sofa, leaning up against one arm of it, hugging his bowl of popcorn and looking nervously at Illyria sitting on the other side. But she was watching Giles, not paying any attention to Andrew at all.

“It’s not just that they’re trying to end the world,” Giles sighed, taking off his glasses to clean them. “They’ve been studying this, religiously, some of them for centuries. Those we’ve defeated before only had one plan in mind, one way they intended their specific apocalypse to go down.” He cleared his throat and looked down at the glasses in his hand, then appeared to decide they needed more cleaning. “The Seven have no such boundaries. They know every single way there is to end the world, and…they’re willing and able to go down the list until one of them takes.”

“Didn’t we have something like this before?” Buffy asked slowly, after a long silence. “A group of people who got together to end the world? The sisterhood of…Jam?”

“Jhe,” Giles said. “And yes, but again, that would have been just the one apocalypse.”

“They’ve been studying this for centuries,” Willow repeated. She looked up. “So the Apocalypse diary was real.”

“Looks like,” Xander sighed. “Damn. And it was right there.”

“We’ll get it,” Buffy said firmly. “We will. And if we don’t, well, I guess we just have to kill these guys first. The Seven, yeah?”

“That’s what my source says.”

“Ah,” Andrew said. “And who is this source again?”

“When it needs to be your concern, I will let it be your concern, Andrew,” Giles said. “It’s no one I can talk about at the moment.”

“Witness protection program,” Spike said, and nodded.

They all turned to him. “What?” Buffy asked.

He looked up in surprise, then turned to Giles. “Protecting someone, aren’t you, Rupes?”

Giles gave a small frown. “What makes you think—”

He shrugged. “Their little clique is doing a good job of staying hidden. If they knew someone out there was spilling their secrets they’d be on ‘em right quick. Saw it all the time way back when. There was always someone who knew, but if you wanted the spring to keep running you kept your trap shut about who they were.”

“Witness protection program,” Buffy said. “I didn’t know demons understood that concept.”

“Wait,” Willow said slowly. “You said mine and Dawn’s…stalkers are part of this group.”

“That’s right,” Giles replied. “I’m still working on figuring out which two confronted you…unfortunately I could only get their titles, no descriptions or names, yet. Dawn, has yours approached you since that day?”

Dawn suddenly snapped to attention. “No,” she said. And then she hurriedly looked down. She’d said no. Why did she say that? It hadn’t been her intention to lie to him.

“And Willow, I presume you would have let me know if yours had returned?”

“Yeah, sure,” Willow said distractedly. “You’re sure they want to destroy the world? Like…all of them? Maybe they’re just…maybe they just like to talk about it, but they’d never actually do it.”

“I don’t know,” Xander said. “I mean if you’re that obsessed with something over hundreds of years, chances are when it comes down to it you’re not gonna shrug and put it off for tomorrow.”

“Actually, speaking of that,” Buffy said. “Why are they putting it off until tomorrow? Do they not know every way to end the world yet? Are they still trying to find more? Why haven’t they started with what they have?”

“Because not all seven of them were alive when this idea was constructed,” Giles said. “They’ve been waiting. But, I believe if they haven’t yet found their final member…they will very soon.”

Buffy nudged Spike’s head with her knee for him to move it, and stood up abruptly when he did. “Okay,” she said. “I vote that I go get this diary. Right now.”

“Now?” Andrew squeaked. “You don’t even know where it is! You have no idea how to find these guys, you don’t even know…”

“I’ll track down Dawn’s pursuer,” Buffy said. “Bright orange blazers aren’t the most subtle thing, demon or no demon. Someone must have seen him.” She turned to her sister. “Where did you see him again?”

“Dunno. I was walking home. He was in an alleyway.” At least that much was true. Ish.

“Okay, but where exactly?”

“You know that ice cream place with the really bizarre flavors? It was sort of by there.” Another thing that was also true. It was one street over, and even if Dawn had claimed not to like the ice cream when she went, she hoped it would pass as a viable place she would have been.

Buffy sighed. “Well, if that’s all I have to go on.”

“You’re actually doing this?” Xander asked. “Now?”

“Yeah, I figure I’ll take Lorenzo…no, wait, I told him I couldn’t see him tonight because I had this going on.”

“So?” Xander asked. “That was true, you did. And now it’s over, and you can see him.”

“Yeah, but I feel bad. Suddenly my night’s available, hope you didn’t make plans, you know?”

“You might take Illyria,” Giles said.

“Illyria?” Willow asked.

“ Illyria ?” Xander repeated.

“Why not? She’s a fighter, and maybe she can help track down a demon as well. I’d just…if you run across one of the members of the Seven, I’d feel better knowing you had backup.”

Buffy shrugged, and looked at Illyria. “You in?”

“Your friends are trying to dispose of me,” she said. “They know I will have no real purpose on this journey. You will not find what you seek.”

“And a staggering vote of confidence from the new kid,” Xander said.

“Buffy?” Willow said quickly. “I could…I might be able to do a locater spell. To find where he is, anyway. If you want. Or it might not work. Or…”

Buffy nodded. “Yeah, Will, I’d appreciate it. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work, though, I have a feeling if they don’t want to be found by magic, they won’t be.” She turned to Illyria. “Limited time offer, here.”

Illyria jerked her head towards Spike. “They think me a tool that they may use on a whim.”

He smiled, and shook his head. “Wouldn’t have suggested it if they didn’t think you could hold your own, pet. Besides, it’ll give you a chance for some proper action. Knocking me about can’t satisfy you nearly as much as it used to.”

Dawn caught the almost scandalized look that Buffy gave Spike, before finally deciding she wasn’t needed anymore, and slipped off with no one noticing.

----------

Innocence crossed her arms and leaned over to peer at the demon Cleofax had just thrown at her feet. “Well,” she said. “Irwin. I honestly thought you would have split by now.”

“I can’t just pack up and move every time someone threatens my life,” he snapped.

She gave him a swift kick in the stomach, and he instantly curled up and clutched himself, howling. “I don’t think you have anything to say to me,” she said.

He glared at her, and said through gritted teeth, “I did what I was told.”

“What you were told !” she cried, slamming her fist down on one of Dagger’s probably designer side tables, “Was to present them a challenge that would force them to kill one of their own.”

“And you told me not to push it. You said it would be easier to take them out before they all got together, but you said not to push it because it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, I see, you think that failing to kill one of their own was the mistake here.” She kicked him in the stomach again, which produced another howl. “The mistake was letting them know about the Apocalypse diary, you abysmal jackass!”

“They didn’t get it! They’re not even sure it was real!”

She nodded, then crouched down beside him. “Your challenge was good,” she said. “It was too good. In fact, it was almost impossible for any of them to get out of it completely alive, and even I was betting on the fact that they would have no trouble killing Spike for such a prize. And the fact that they did, that they walked away without even getting a peek inside it, that doesn’t save your miserable hide. It just guarantees that your death is going to be painful.”

She grabbed his neck with one hand and began squeezing, but before he could even start gasping for air, Dagger strode quickly into the room.

“She’s coming,” he said urgently. “Buffy, she’s gonna find us.”

“Now?”

“I don’t know,” he said anxiously. “I know she’s coming, and I know she’s going to find us. I just can’t tell if those are both happening…today.”

Innocence gave a frustrated grunt, and tossed Irwin back down. “Is it possible you have even a sliver of something helpful to add?”

“Well, she just finds the cave. We don’t have to be in it.”

“I am not leaving my pet behind, and we can’t take him now. So, we’d better make sure those events aren’t happening tonight.”

“I can do that!” Irwin whimpered.

Innocence slowly turned around. She gave him a cold glance and said in an even colder tone, “I meant it when I said you didn’t have anything to say to me.”

“But I can make up for it. I can get the Slayer off your scent.”

“How can you do that? She’s probably following a locator spell; it won’t take her long to get here.”

“I can. I know a witch. She can brew something up in a heartbeat.” He pushed himself to his knees, and looked pleadingly up at her. “If I make sure she doesn’t find you tonight, promise not to kill me?”

Innocence squinted, and took a couple of long, slow steps, making sure the click of her heels echoed after each step. She squatted in front of him, and said, “I don’t make promises lightly, you mewling washout.”

“And I wouldn’t say I could deliver if I couldn’t.”

“That I doubt.” She stood up. “But I do need this done, quickly, and I know that if you fail, I will make your death last for longer than you ever thought possible. And that I do promise.”

“But if I succeed?”

“If you succeed, you can run. And we will not hunt you down. But it would be in your very best interest to refrain from crossing paths with us again, because I cannot guarantee anything if you do.”

----------

Buffy was walking probably more briskly than she needed to, and her pace just kept increasing every time she looked at Illyria. She had no issue with Illyria. Demon on the road to redemption? She could deal with that. She was infamous for dealing with that. And Illyria was looking after Spike, and Illyria was a good source of backup.

But that didn’t make it any easier to look at her and wonder what it was about her that had bought Spike’s empathy. Because he didn’t sell that for cheap.

Illyria kept pace with her, and didn’t say anything until Buffy was almost running, as if running could make her thoughts fly away.

“You do not benefit yourself by causing yourself exhaustion,” Illyria finally said. “And I know longer have any power to protect you if you fall.”

Buffy did slow down, but only by a fraction. “Thanks,” she said bitterly. “Really glad I brought you.”

“I was opposed to the arrangement. It was you who insisted.”

“No, actually, it was Spike who insisted,” Buffy said, stopping suddenly and facing her companion. “And you listened to him. Just like you listened to him when I asked you to go get Giles. You may have your big speeches about…independence and how you’re nobody’s pet, but, you hang on to him. You cling to him as much as he clings to me, and he asked you to jump off a cliff, you’d do it as readily as if I asked him to do so for me.”

That last part may have been completely untrue and irrational, but Buffy was pretty sure Illyria wouldn’t contradict her.

And she didn’t. She cocked her head and stared at Buffy. “My presence disturbs you.”

Buffy gave a huff. “It’s not that I’m not grateful for what you’ve done for him. It’s that I don’t get why. Do you love him, is that is? Does he…does he love you?”

“I bear no love for humans. Or half-breeds.”

Buffy turned and started walking again. “Yeah. Guess that doesn’t really matter anyway. My second question does, though.”

“He bears no affection…”

“He bears no affection for you, yeah, I remember that part of the script. But then you changed, you turned into…what’s-her-face, and well, he seemed pretty happy to see her.” Buffy gave another angry huff. “It’s not any of my business…exactly, but if there’s a torrid affair going on under my nose, then I think it kind of is my business.”

She was surprised with herself for most of that. If it had been anyone else, she wouldn’t have been so forward, but Illyria was…easy, somehow. Like because she was so distant and closed, she therefore wouldn’t laugh, or tell the others, or really even judge her, probably. Not more than she usually did, anyway.

Illyria was quiet for a long time, before she finally said, “It is difficult to read what he felt for the Burkle girl. I know she had a strong love for Wesley, and Wesley alone. She viewed Spike as nothing more than a close comrade.”

Buffy felt her anger quickly dissipating. “Oh.”

“Spike admitted he loved her,” Illyria continued. “I presumed that he felt as Wesley did.” She paused, and then said, in an even slower tone than usual, “But Wesley revealed that there is more than one all-encompassing endearment. And Spike’s intimacy with her was nothing like Wesley’s was. His soul never blazed as a fiery inferno when speaking of her, as Wesley’s did.” She paused again, and then continued, “But whenever Spike spoke of you, ardor and yearning slid off of him so strongly that it would have knocked down any petty human, could they have smelled it.”

Buffy closed her eyes, but only for a brief moment. “Oh,” she breathed again. She waited to see if Illyria would go on, but clearly Illyria had said all that she felt needed to be said. “Well,” Buffy said carefully. “So why are you two friends then? Because he was probably pretty upset that you killed her.”

“I have no need of friends,” she said harshly. “And I will not try to understand the inclination of a newborn human. He protects me because I am familiar. I stay with him because I wish it.”

“And why do you wish it, exactly?”

“He has performed services for me. He has not lain any blame or disgust on me for stealing the life of the singular person in that establishment that he could find solace in. She gave him protection, she gave him unconditional strength and assistance, and yet he did not turn away from me.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said, hoping that if she ignored the tears forming in her eyes they’d just go away. “That’s what he’s like. Doesn’t care what you used to be like, or what you did in the past, he’ll forgive you and help you like nothing happened.” She looked down at her hands. “Like nothing happened,” she repeated.

“A human’s method of torture is confusing to me,” Illyria said.

Buffy thought she was following along pretty well, but this one stumped her. “What? What torture?”

“You know of his desire. You bore voracity for him, upon a time. Yet you continue being affectionate with your current paramour. It seems a persecution.”

The tears were back, and after she’d just managed to smother them, too. “I’m not breaking up with the Immortal,” she said softly. “I can’t. And yeah, you want to hear me say I was jealous of you and him? Of course I was, if a guy who spent so long loving you suddenly decides he’s over you, it hurts, whether you even wanted him or not.” She sighed. “And I’m sure this hurts him, and I can’t help that…he’s free to leave when he’s better, if he wants to…” She swallowed, and willed her voice to remain steady. “But he doesn’t love me, Illyria. Not like he used to.”

Illyria looked sharply at her, but didn’t reply. And she offered no counter argument, which made Buffy feel even worse, even if she wasn’t really looking for one.

But before any tears could actually fall, she was happily called out of it by the sight of smoke curling up from the distance. It was in the direction she was going, but as she ran towards it she found that she had to veer off further to the right than the location spell had pointed.

She kept running until she could see more of what was causing the smoke. The office building wasn’t on fire, exactly, but it looked like there was a giant lava fountain coming from the middle of it. Definitely not of the normal though, and the people screaming and pointing around it gave credence to that. Buffy looked helplessly at Illyria, who was studying it as well, cocking her head and darting her eyes all around it.

And then Buffy saw a man in a neon green jumpsuit trying to sidle past her, and she grabbed his collar and shoved him up against a lamppost. “What the hell did you do?” she asked.

He tilted his head at her and smiled. “Well, well. The sister. The Slayer. The legend.”

“This where you’ve been staying?” Buffy asked. “Because, setting up a giant lava lamp in the middle is a pretty quick way to get my attention.” She turned her head as the crowd gave a fresh scream and watched as the walls began to cave in. She turned back to Dagger, and glanced him over. Dawn was right, he looked human, but there was something demonish about him.

Dagger just shrugged. “So, it went off a bit early. Was supposed to wait until you got there.”

“And how did you know I was coming?”

He tilted his head the other direction, but for what purpose Buffy couldn’t fathom. “Oh, don’t tell me you haven’t been looking me up, sugar cube? I know there isn’t a lot, but, you can find anything if you dig hard enough. I’m the Prophecy. I know thoughts you’re going to have before you’ve even witnessed the thing that will trigger it. I can see the deaths of those you haven’t even met yet. I can—”

“He’s a Seer,” Illyria said.

Dagger’s eyes widened for just an instant, and then he shot Illyria a dirty glare. “And what are you supposed to be, queen of the bug people?”

Illyria didn’t react, much to Buffy’s relief. She pulled a stake out of her pocket, and Dagger’s look melted to one of glee. “You know your sister tried the exact same thing? Girl’s got fire. But you won’t be able to kill me with that, toots.”

“Pretty confident for a guy who is still flesh and blood,” Buffy said. She slammed the stake towards his chest, but he raised his hand, and her stake collided with a barrier, strong enough to propel her backwards. Illyria lunged for his neck, but he reached upwards and make a yanking down motion, which apparently send a lightning bolt or something through her. Buffy scrambled to her feet, but Dagger held out his hands, and flames started dancing on top of both, which he hurled towards her. She braced herself for the scorch marks they would leave, but they didn’t actually burn when they’d made contact. Not her flesh, anyway. She felt a ringing sensation afterwords, that seemed to be shaking her blood and bones, as well as he head. She again dropped to the ground, and this time made no move to get up.

Paramedics and police had arrived at the building by now, and the lava flow appeared to be lessening, so whatever supernatural thing had made it, it was diminishing. Dagger looked over at them, and then at Buffy, giving a slight smile. “Well,” he said. “Been fun, Caramel Corn. We’ll have to do it again sometime.” And then he scampered off into the darkness, and Buffy gave a weary sigh as she pressed her forehead to the pavement.

Illyria was also still lying on the ground, but her eyes blazed after him. “He had best find a new lair far away from here,” she said. “For if I ever find it I will take it apart brick by brick, crushing them into dust and feeding them down his throat.”

Buffy managed a smile, suddenly glad that Illyria was here. “It’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t know he was actually going to have magic. Neither of us were prepared for that.”

----------

The following morning, Dawn was still trying to avoid everyone. She’d come back late, but Willow had still been up, and thankfully Buffy and Illyria had been attacked by Dagger, or else Willow would have likely demanded to know where Dawn had been. Also, apparently Dagger had magic, which was news to Dawn. She hadn’t thought, when he offered to show her her powers, that he actually had any idea what he was talking about.

But this morning everyone was still fussing over what had happened, what it all meant, and what to do now. It was exhausting, even though no one was really looking to her.

Dawn sat on her hands and pushed the porch swing with just the tips of her shoes. She totally could have taken him. Well, not now. But she could have.

“Ah, the beautiful younger Summers! Greetings, my lady.”

Dawn looked up and managed to give a half smile when she saw the Immortal walking up. “Hi, Lorenzo. You hear about Buffy?”

His face fell, and he nodded somberly. “If only she had requested that I come along with her, I would have gladly…” he shook his head. “But perhaps she would have only found me a nuisance.”

“Well, she’s still asleep,” Dawn said, sliding off the bench. “But you can go in. I have to get to school.”

“Dawn? Is there a reason you chose to spend your free morning away from the company of others?”

She stopped. She liked the Immortal; he was nice and she attributed the way he talked to having a thick Italian accent, and not because he was condescending. But though she’d really not spent a lot of time bonding with him, she did feel compelled to talk to him.

She glanced up. “They’re just…they all can be a bit much, is all.”

He smiled, encouraging her to keep going, and she sighed and did so. “They’re very sort of…set in their ways, and in their roles, and even though we’ve all been split up and they’ve been…redefining themselves, it’s like now that they’re back together they’re just like they always were. The Slayer, the Watcher, the Witch, the Vampire, and even Xander is a soldier now. And what am I? I’m the kid, the one who has homework to do, the one who needs someone to watch her if everyone’s gonna be out of the house.” She shrugged. “And, okay, that’s sort of an exaggeration now, because they include me and aren’t so overprotective of me anymore, usually, which is nice. But I’m still just…a nobody. Even Andrew just got promoted to running the head of a Slayer organization. I’m…there’s nothing special about me.”

He suddenly grabbed her shoulders and kissed both of her cheeks. “My little Bella, there is everything special about you! You must show them this.”

“I want to,” Dawn said slowly. “I want…I want to do magic. Like Willow, I guess, so it’s not unique, but that’s okay. I just…think I could be more than research girl.”

“So do magic! Become the greatest sorceress, dazzle all with your charms and spells!”

She giggled softly, then sadly shook her head. “They’d never let me. I said they weren’t overprotective? They do still have a let’s-not-let-Dawn-repeat-our-mistakes mentality. Nobody was a fan of Willow learning magic, and even though they’re sure glad to have her now, they wouldn’t want me going down that same path. Giles especially.”

He frowned, and shook his head. “You must make them believe in you, Dawn. You must fight them if this is what you so desire.”

“Yeah.” Dawn giggled again, running her hand through her hair. “That would be the smart thing, wouldn’t it? I’ll think about it.” She gave him a little wave, and said, “But I really do have to go to school now.”

----------

Innocence opened the front door, and saw the Immortal watching Dawn run down the front path. She slipped outside and closed it behind her. “Look at you,” she said. “Stellar boyfriend, buddying up with the little sister and everything. You really are the whole package.”

He turned to face her, and shrugged. “It’s not difficult. I’m the Immortal. Everybody likes me.”

“And everyone trusts me,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Amazing how that works out, isn’t it? Well, I’ll see you around.”

She began clicking her way down the front path, when he called out, “Innocence?”

She turned, and reached up to tighten her ponytail.

His eyes had narrowed, but he was giving a twisted smile. “It’s getting a little embarrassing that you haven’t killed the former vampire yet, isn’t it?”

Chapter Text

Xander didn’t know why his hands were sweating so much. He had no reason to be nervous, and certainly no desire to be so, either. This was nothing new, there was nothing uncertain about this. And even though he didn’t really think he had a type when it came to women, he definitely saw something in her that he’d seen in both Cordelia and Anya.

She had a knack of sliding herself in to any situation. Awkwardness be damned.

That had to have come from all the community theater she’d apparently done in high school. Because she didn’t get it from being a chemistry major.

His face lit up as he finally saw her skipping out of one of the college buildings. She beamed when she saw him, and he matched his grin, as he ran the rest of the way to catch up with her and gather her in his arms. Her curly black hair fell all over him, and he knew if she ever cut it off, he’d mourn the loss. He loved how it made him feel like she was latching on to him with everything she had.

She stepped back and tilted her head slightly to look up at him. “Are we actually doing this?” she asked, and then held up a finger. “Nope, actually, I just decided you don’t get a say. You change your mind and I will hack into your phone and call one of them to pick me up.”

He couldn’t hold his smiles in if he tried. “No, no, we’re doing this, as long as you’re still sure.”

“Of course I’m sure!” She tilted her head curiously. “Why, is there something I should know?”

“Well, other than the fact vampires are real?”

“It makes sense.”

“Or that magic exists?”

“I kind of suspected that anyway.”

“And that my friends consist of a Slayer and a witch and a Watcher and a ball of energy turned human and a former vampire and…Andrew?”

“Xander.” Her mouth was so little and upturned that it was hard for her to look serious, but she seemed to be making her best attempt as she put one hand on his shoulder and pushed her big glasses up with the other. “I’ve known all of this for months. I’m really going to be fine.”

He grinned again and kissed her. “Good,” he said, when he pulled away. “Because they are going to love you, Catherine.”

----------

Dawn stood in front of her mirror, turning the book on witchcraft Willow had given her over and over in her hands. She’d been given it at a terrible time, when her mom was in the hospital with a tumor everyone kept assuring her was no big deal.

It didn’t really have any spells in it, but it did tell how to do some things, and it told of the history of magic and what was what had piqued Dawn’s interest in the first place. It scared her, of course, but it fascinated her. And she wanted it not to scare her. She wanted to be as friendly and intimate with it as Willow and Tara had seemed to be. Of course Willow had lost control, but, she wasn’t anymore. She had a good grip on it now. And Dawn would be 18 pretty soon, it wasn’t exactly as if they could tell her not to after that.

She placed the book down and turned on her heel, marching towards her bedroom door. She could just ask if Giles would train her, right? Sure she’d have to endure a lecture on why the answer was no if the answer was indeed that, but it wasn’t like he would disown her.

----------

Illyria walked slowly around the room, examining everything with curious eyes, as if she’d never bothered to notice the shelves before and now suddenly they were the most interesting thing in the world. Spike was curled up, almost completely motionless, in one corner of the bigger sofa, watching her. “They’re just figurines, love,” he said, when she lingered for a particularly long time in front of a shelf with a row of cherubs. “Not exactly any Venus de Milo among them.”

She turned to him. “They are not idols of any specific higher being. They bear no power or insignia. They serve no purpose, and yet the old human surrounds himself with them.”

Spike just smiled instead of answering, and at that moment Buffy stormed in, heading straight for the couch and flopping down next to Spike with a frustrated sigh. He immediately straightened himself up and readjusted his position so that he could lay his head on her shoulder, and Buffy automatically leaned back against the couch so that he could do the same. “Willow hasn’t woken up yet,” she announced to anyone who cared, staring at the ceiling.

“She wiles away the hours of a great many mornings in her bed,” Illyria pointed out.

“I know, but it’s just irritating now because Xander’s bringing his girlfriend over—someone we’ve all been begging him to introduce us to—and Willow picks now to be the Mayor of Lazytown.”

“She has power,” Illyria said. “More than any of you know.”

“So, what, you think that’s tiring her out?” Buffy asked, and seemed to consider it. “I guess. Never bothered her before, though.”

“I miss your mum,” Spike said out of nowhere.

Buffy glanced down at him with a surprised look, which turned into a worried one as she pushed the still-loose curls away from his forehead. “Yeah,” she said carefully. “I kinda do, too.”

Spike had no follow-up to that, and Buffy’s anxious frown deepened, but she said nothing else, and let her hand drop. She looked up to see Illyria staring at them.

“He is not improving,” Illyria said accusingly.

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “You’re the one who was practically holding death’s door open for him. You said he was dying.”

“He did not die,” Illyria pointed out. “He continues not to die. And he continues not to make any improvement, either. I did not bring you to him so you could look on while he hovers between life and death.”

Spike managed a tiny smile. “You might want to watch out, Illyria, that’s dangerously close to concern.”

Buffy snickered, but only briefly, before she looked back at Illyria. “He will improve,” she said. “Right now the not dying is the improvement. Innocence says he just has to fight whatever’s keeping him down. But he’ll be fine.” She tapped Spike’s arm. “That was an order, by the way.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Spike said quietly, and smiled again.

----------

Dawn peered around the corner into the kitchen. Giles was alone, and setting up party things, which he’d initially grumbled at doing, saying they met new boyfriends and girlfriends all the time, there shouldn’t have to be a party just for that. But he was humming to himself now as he set out drinks and plates, and Dawn wondered if he secretly enjoyed Willow’s impromptu party demands.

But Dawn frowned as she watched him. “It should be more Halloweeny,” she protested.

Giles spun around to look at her. “I’m sorry?”

“Well, I mean look.” Dawn held up the napkins and waved them. “Pink and blue? It’s not a gender reveal, Giles, it’s just a get-together, and it’s probably the closest thing we’ll have to a Halloween party, so would it have killed you to be more on theme?”

Giles blinked. “I…hadn’t thought of that, I suppose.”

Dawn smirked. “Clearly.”

“Not to worry, though, I’m sure I do have some, ah, more on theme décor,” he said, heading towards the stairs. “Back in a tick.”

“Um, Giles?” She said quickly. “Could I…I wanted to ask you something.”

He stopped and turned back, concern immediately appearing on his face. “Of course, what is it?”

“Oh,” she said, somehow not expecting him to have been ready right then. “I didn’t…mean now. I meant later. After Catherine’s gone, you know?”

“Are you sure? We still have a few minutes before she comes.”

Dawn nodded, and smiled. “Yeah, it can wait. I just wanted to…give you a heads-up I guess.”

He clearly wanted to press the issue, and she watched him open his mouth for what was probably going to be a follow-up question. But Dawn was spared from having to ever come up with an answer for it, because they were both startled to see an entire shelf of dishes suddenly collapse and fall to the ground with a crash.

Dawn instantly wondered if it was her, which she again instantly banished as a silly thought. She didn’t know magic yet, it wasn’t like she had untapped powers that would spiral out of control when she was stressed without her knowing. She’d been spending way too much time around Andrew.

But she did stare at it and wonder what had happened, and Giles instantly strode forward, pushing Dawn behind him as he investigated.

Buffy ran in as well, with Spike and Illyria behind her. “What was that?” she asked quickly.

Dawn just pointed, and Buffy stared in just as much confusion as Giles and her sister. “What happened? The party hasn’t even started and we’re already getting rowdy?”

“It just fell.” Dawn shrugged. “Like actually. Damn, I wish I’d known magic existed when I was little. That excuse would have probably worked so much better if mom could have just chalked up my breaking stuff to a supernatural occurrence.”

“Well,” Buffy said. “Are you sure this was a—” She stopped as the pile of cups on the table flew off and hit her in the head. “Hey!” she cried, grabbing her head and whipping around. “What—”

She was cut off again as Spike grabbed her arm and pulled her down, a loose beer bottle narrowly missing her head. Giles pulled Dawn as well, and Illyria followed their example as the rest of the items on the table began hurling themselves into the air.

Dawn watched in disbelief as the loose items on the shelves also began flinging themselves off, sometimes just dropping to the floor, sometimes flying clear across the room, sometimes seeming to aim for one of them. “Okay,” she said, in a voice low enough to probably not be heard with all the chaos. “Definitely not me.”

----------

 By the time they’d reached Giles’ front door Xander was almost bouncing with excitement. “Now I’m not sure what you’ll find in there,” he said, as a last-minute warning. “I think they said they’d throw a party of some kind, but they also might all just be researching. And some of them are gonna be weird and probably rude, but, the more you get to know them, the more you realize they are extremely weird and rude.”

Catherine appeared to be trying to look serious again. She gave a solemn nod. “Got it.”

“Okay,” Xander said. “Catherine Russo, welcome to—” He swung the door open, and narrowly ducked as a dictionary flew out the door. “What the hell?”

Catherine nodded. “Nice,” she said. “Bringing your girlfriend to hell. What kind of a date is that?”

Xander peered inside to see books and trinkets and even plastic cups flying around. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Weird. Not really what I was prepared for.”

“No?” Catherine tried stepping in, pressing against Xander’s arm as he tried to hold her back. “You mean this isn’t normal for you guys? I thought this sort of thing was normal for you guys.”

“Well, it—” Xander considered. “It’s not what we’d like to be normal.” He stepped back.

“You’re not going in?” Catherine asked.

“No, it’s a cyclone of Giles’ personal belongings. I don’t exactly feel like taking a trip to see the Wizard right now.”

“Bet your friends are in there, though,” Catherine said, pushing up her glasses. “What if they’ve all got concussions, and you’re the one remaining survivor who—”

Xander sighed. “I knew there was a reason I haven’t introduced you,” he said. “I should have figured you’d gang up on me.”

She smiled sweetly, and he picked up a baking sheet, and handed it to her. “Hold that over your head,” he said. He reached for the dictionary, and she eyed it skeptically.

“If you do get knocked out,” she said. “Say hi to Glinda for me.”

“It’s a wide book, Cath. I think England has more words than we do.”

She shrugged, and clung to him as he stepped in. He was almost surprised to hear voices shouting from the kitchen, implying that some of them, at least, were still conscious. He made his way, holding Catherine’s hand tightly, and stared at the five people huddled under the table, three of them talking loudly over each other.

“Okay, if you guys didn’t want to meet my girlfriend you could have just said so!” he said loudly.

“Xander!” Buffy cried, waving. “Hi!” She waved at Catherine, too. “Sorry about this!”

“What is it?” Xander asked. “A ghost?”

“No, we’ve ruled that out!” Giles called. “It doesn’t appear to be targeting anything!”

“It’s just an earthquake without the actual quaking of the earth!” Buffy said. Her voice was sounding just the tiniest bit hoarse, as if she’d been shouting for a while. “But someone’s definitely doing it!”

“Where’s Willow?” Xander asked. “Is she trying to stop it?”

Buffy and Giles and Dawn looked at each other, and then Buffy looked up at Xander. “She…I don’t think she ever woke up?”

----------

Buffy honestly didn’t know how they all made it to up the stairs and to Willow’s bedroom without sustaining any injuries. Even though the storm seemed to be dying down a bit, there would still be a stray trinket flying out of nowhere, and there were broken dishes everywhere, even on the second floor. But they did all make it, and it had almost completely died down when she flung open her friend’s door.

Willow was still asleep, but there was virtually no mess in her room. Buffy looked around and saw that her closet door was tied with a rope, and the rest of the furniture had been emptied and cleared. She looked at Giles, and he had also noticed and was frowning.

Catherine raised her eyebrows. “She seems to have prepared for this.”

“Oh!” Giles said, suddenly delighted. “You’re a native!”

She gave him an apologetic look. “Native to Sicily, actually. But I’ve been living in South England since I was little. I couldn’t do an Italian accent if I tried.”

“But oh she has tried,” Xander said.

“Hermione’s right, though, this seems to have been planned for,” Spike said, touching the rope on the closet.

Catherine suddenly giggled, a sort of snorting sound that Xander stared adoringly at. “Did you just call me—”

“Yeah, I apologize for him,” Buffy said. “He’ll learn your real name, but it might take months of him paying attention.” She stepped up to the bed, and looked at Willow, lying on her back, perfectly straight and still, with her head tilting back into the pillow. She seemed tensed up, and Buffy grabbed her shoulders and began shaking her. “Will!” she said. “Willow, wake up!”

Willow made no movement, and Xander stepped forward and began tickling between her neck and shoulder. “Come on, Will,” he said, and gave a frustrated sigh when nothing happened. “Okay, so now I’m worried. That trick’s always worked.”

“Only because they were super close childhood friends,” Dawn hastened to reassure Catherine. “Not because they ever dated.” She looked at Buffy. “They never did date, right?”

“No,” Catherine said. “They didn’t. They had an affair, but they never dated.” She ran her fingers through her hair and smiled. “Besides, I know all about Willow.”

“Right,” Dawn said softly. “So people tell the people they’re dating all about their exes. Good to know.”

“Buffy if you still fancy throwing water over her, I should tell you I’d have no scruples doing it for you,” Spike said, when Buffy looked back at Willow.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Thanks,” she said. “But I don’t really think that’d be more effective than shaking, or…tickling her. I mean, maybe it’s a spell, so…”

She broke off when she saw Illyria stepping forwards, but didn’t say anything until Illyria put her hand over Willow’s nose and mouth.

“Illyria!” Cried about four different voices, but though Xander and Buffy jumped to stop her, there was no need to, because Willow began squirming under her grip, and when Illyria removed her hand, Willow began gasping and panting, and finally cracked her eyes open.

“Willow!” Buffy gasped, stepping forwards. “Are you okay?”

Willow looked at her in a panic, and her bloodshot eyes began darting fearfully around the room, but then she blinked and relaxed, and turned to Buffy with a weak smile.

“Yeah,” she croaked. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“We couldn’t wake you up,” Buffy said.

“Also you went all vengeful ghost on the house,” Catherine pointed out.

Willow looked over at her, and she suddenly struggled to sit up and smile. “Catherine!” she cried. “You’re here! Finally! He actually brought you!”

“I know, believe me, I’m marveling in the miracle too,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, it was inevitable, I should have done this a long time ago, yada yada,” Xander said. “But yep, everyone, this is my girlfriend, Catherine. And Catherine…well, I’m pretty sure you know all of them.”

She nodded. “I talk about you guys more than he does most days,” she explained to the group.

“Sorry again about you almost getting concussed when you walked in,” Buffy said.

“It’s okay.” Catherine shrugged. “Xander and I had a reservation at the Emerald City just in case.”

She was weird, but Buffy kind of loved that. She glanced over at Spike when she saw his head move, and caught him trying to smother his chuckles. So he liked her, too. Interesting.

Giles crossed his arms and looked at Willow. “So, you have any insight as to why my own house tried to kill me?”

Willow looked sheepishly at all of their faces. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah. That was…that may have been me.”

“Ya think?” Dawn asked.

“Did it actually extend to the rest of the house?” Willow asked anxiously. She looked at all of them in turn again. “Well…at least you guys look okay.”

“What were you doing?” Buffy asked.

“Nothing!” she said. “Well nothing…nothing I thought would hurt anybody. I knew stuff in my room was getting disturbed, but I thought I’d gotten it contained, and I just made sure there was nothing loose in here that would fly around.”

“While you were asleep?” Xander asked slowly. “You’ve been doing something…while you were asleep?”

“It’s not…it wasn’t anything bad,” Willow said. “At least, I didn’t mean it to be.”

“What was it?” Giles asked coldly.

She shifted uncomfortably, and took a deep breath. Then she looked at Giles. “The guy who attacked me in the airport,” she said slowly. “He’s…he used that to get into my mind. And we’ve been…sort of talking.”

“Talking?” Giles asked, and Buffy noticed that he didn’t call her out on the fact that she said she hadn’t seen him since that day.

“Yes. I mean, at first. He said he could show me how to…do some things. Control a dimension in my mind, see who I want and go where I want, stuff like that. It’s like dreaming, but everything being real and physical. But still in your mind, so, not affecting the outside world.”

“Except that it did,” Xander said. “It did affect the outside world.”

“Well, yeah, I guess it did today.”

“No, not just today,” Buffy said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You’ve been sleeping longer, Will, your eyes look like you’re seriously stoned, and you’ve had to clear your room out just so you wouldn’t get struck by something in the middle of the night.”

“I know.” Willow cast her eyes down. “You gonna tell me it’s dangerous? Because yeah, I’m getting that.” She looked back up, at Giles. “He’s a member of the Seven. Isn’t he?”

Giles was still looking very angrily at her, but he slowly nodded his head. “I believe he is.”

“Okay.” Willow took a breath. “Yeah, I…I kinda new he was shady, but I was pretty sure I could handle him. I…didn’t want to think he was…that bad of news.”

“So what happens now?” Dawn asked. “She’s got a Member living in her brain, how do we kill that?”

“Not prettily,” Spike said.

“I drive him out,” Willow said. “He can come out, because, that’s how I met him. And he can’t last long if he’s not in a host. He said. And he can only be in someone with magic, so, he won’t be able to jump into anyone else.”

“Are you sure?” Buffy asked, looking over at Dawn. “Because…”

“I know, there are magical beings in this room,” Willow said. “But no. Actual practicing magic powers have to be in them in order to be considered a host.”

“You can’t take him alone,” Xander said.

Willow raised her eyebrows and grinned. “Well, unless you know how to get into my brain…”

“I do,” Giles said suddenly. He looked at the faces turned to him and shrugged. “Well, I can. I know how. I could take any of you in, as well.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “All right. Field trip into Willow’s id it is.”

“Id it is,” Catherine said, and then slower, “Id it is. That rolls of the tongue in the best way.”

“Anyone who goes in will have to be asleep, though,” Giles said. “So, someone will have to wake us up.”

“Woah, hey,” Willow said. “I don’t see how this is any less dangerous than what I’ve been doing. I don’t want you all tramping around in there!”

“I’ll just take Buffy and Xander,” Giles said. “We did merge, once, remember, I don’t think this is all that much more invasive.”

Willow sighed. “Fine.”

Giles looked at the remaining group, and then turned to Dawn. “Well, it looks like it will fall to you to perform the ritual for waking us up.”

“I think I should be offended,” Catherine said. She looked at Spike and Illyria, and shrugged. “But, the other members of the injured party seem pretty badass.”

Buffy looked worriedly at her sister. But she did know that Dawn was really the best bet, so she just sighed and nodded. “So, we’re doing this? Now?”

----------

Xander rooted around in Giles’ barn until he found another cot. He passed it back to Catherine before searching again. “So,” he said. “You’re not an American.”

“You’re just realizing this now?”

“Is it a point of pride to have a barn instead of a garage? So as to be different from those damned Yanks?”

 “Oh, yes,” she said seriously. “It’s very important to us Europeans that you never forget our rustic charms. Weird that he doesn’t have a cellar, or a basement, or something though.”

Xander paused. “I could swear he does, actually. Which makes it even weirder that he’s storing stuff out here.”

Catherine watched him move a stone basin which had probably been a functioning fountain at some point. He groaned when he found nothing behind it, and began dragging it back. “So,” she said. “You’ve said Illyria’s name, and, well, it wasn’t that hard to place her. But I still can’t figure out who she is.”

“Yeah.” Xander began tossing a couple of saddles aside. “We’re all still trying to figure out who she is. But, whenever Spike brings a friend home, Buffy never seems to mind all that much.”

“Well, yeah,” Catherine said. “She wouldn’t. You said he thinks the world of her. That goes to a girl’s head, you know.”

Xander gave her a pained expression, which was immediately mingled with a look of triumph as he spotted a third cot. “And that’s exactly what concerns me.” He wrenched the cot from behind a cabinet of gardening tools, and took one under each arm, lugging them back to the house while Catherine brought the third one. He turned his head as best he could to look at her. “Are you all right? With all of this?”

“All of what?” she asked, shifting her grip on the cot.

“This isn’t…like…weirding you out? The fact that in a couple minutes I’m going to be inside my friends’ psyche?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s giving me major heebs and jeebs. But also it’s really cool.” She grinned. “I got astral projection on my first go!”

“Is that what this is?” Xander asked.

She shrugged. “Close enough.”

“Okay, but it might be…weird.”

“Of course it will be weird.”

Xander stopped at the front door and turned to her again, struggling to open the door without dropping anything. “You don’t have to watch it. You could stay downstairs.”

“Are you kidding? You’re gonna have to chain me up if you don’t want me in there.”

Xander grinned at her, and she smiled innocently before reaching forward to open the door. “I do kinda wish you didn’t have to go in there, though. Like, what if you never come out?” She considered, and then said, “Mostly I wish I could go with you.”

“I wish nobody had to go,” Xander said. “I’m with you on the whole what-if-we-never-wake-up part. And the what-if-we-get-stuck part.”

Catherine shuddered, but she said, “Well, apparently cutting off your air flow is effective. You know, if tickling your neck doesn’t work.”

“Hey,” Xander protested. “We were like three when I figured that out.”

“Uh huh.” She grinned and collided with his shoulder. “That supposed to make it less kinky?”

----------

They set up in Giles’ bedroom, because Willow’s wasn’t big enough to fit three cots as well as the bed in it. Buffy was standing very alert, as if she could contribute to the preparation at all. It again gave her an uneasy feeling in her stomach as she watched Willow carefully instruct Dawn on what she had to do. Buffy trusted her, but it felt weird that she did have to trust her. What if something happened? What if the house caught on fire or vampires attacked or Andrew came running in with an urgent tale involving an entire herd of cattle trampling all over their Slayer headquarters?

Though she supposed that last one probably wouldn’t happen twice.

“I can do the first part,” Willow was saying. “But you’ll have to take over for the last part.”

“How do I know when to bring you guys out of it?” Dawn asked.

“I charmed the book,” Willow said. “So I have kind of a psychic link with it now. It’ll start glowing when I tell it to, and that’s when you can read the second spell.”

 Buffy crossed her arms and began drumming her fingers. She looked around the room, but still found nothing she could do. Giles was helping Dawn with her pronunciation, and Spike and Illyria were sitting silently on Giles’ chaise longue. Catherine was helping Xander with one of the cots that was being picky about standing up. Buffy sighed and sat down on one of the other cots.

“Got it!” Xander said, wiping his brow in exaggeration. “Giles, how old are these cots? Because you know nowadays they make ones that just snap into place.”

“Never had a complaint before,” Giles said.

“That’s because everyone from the 1800s is dead,” Xander said.

“I think we’re good here, too,” Willow said. She looked around. “You guys ready?”

Dawn came over to stand in front of Buffy, and Buffy stood up and hugged her. “You screw this up and you’re grounded,” she said.

“I won’t screw it up,” Dawn said, but she squeezed Buffy tighter.

Xander kissed Catherine and got into his cot. “If something happens,” he said, and looked around the room. “Well…Dawn will take care of you, anyhow.”

Willow and Giles laid down as well, and Buffy finally let Dawn go before settling back down.

“Buffy,” Spike said, and she glanced over at him. He was sitting on the edge of the chair, but his upper half was draped against the back of it. He was looking at her very calmly, which she appreciated. She didn’t know what she would have done if he’d tried to say goodbye to her.

She pointed at him. “Don’t move,” she said. “I don’t want to have to worry about whether you’re sparring with Illyria again while I’m in there.”

“We have discontinued that practice,” Illyria said. “He said five times was enough.”

“But if you don’t come back,” Spike said. “I’m going to find His Immortalness and punch his many living daylights out.”

“You’d better not,” Buffy said, and when he gave her an affectionate smile, she couldn’t help but return it.

“Okay, everyone keep still,” Willow said. Buffy closed her eyes and listened to her chant something in a language she didn’t recognize. Which was really any language except for English, so, it might have been French for all she knew. But that didn’t seem likely. At some point she heard Willow stop, and Dawn take over, in the same language and the same chanting rhythm. Buffy felt her head start swirling, and she felt her stomach drop as she levitated just the tiniest bit off her cot. And then everything began to get muzzy and distant, and she began fading, slowly, and then all at once, and then slowly again, until everything crumbled away to nothingness.

----------

When she finally opened her eyes, she was staring at a dimly lit ceiling that seemed vaguely familiar. Not that she had a good enough relationship with most ceilings to be able to just pinpoint which ceilings they were, but, there was also a smell infiltrating her nose that was very familiar, and that she was able to place in an instant.

She sat up, and took a good look around the Bronze. It was exactly like she remembered it. The original one, not the one that was remodeled after the troll attack. Which was good, because the remodeled one had memories of…

“Woah,” Xander said reverently, and Buffy turned to see him and Giles slowly getting to their feet. “Pinch me, guys, because I think I’ve been in a coma for the last six years, and this is reality.”

“It does feel rather real,” Giles agreed. “For a dream.”

“It’s not a dream, though, right?” Buffy asked. “Not really? It’s another dimension, the one Willow’s been hanging out in?”

“Where is Willow?” Xander asked, looking around. “Or can she not come in because it’s her own mind?” He considered, and then said, “Yeah, no need to point out the obvious. I just remembered she’s been hanging out here every night.”

Giles gave a worried frown. “Yes…yes she should be here. She must be, somewhere.” He began walking off to nowhere in particular, and Xander and Buffy looked at each other before following.

“Maybe she ended up somewhere else,” Buffy offered. “Maybe the guy she’s been talking to took her somewhere.”

“She wasn’t being controlled by him,” Giles said. “Everything she was doing was of her own volition.” He paused. “He was only manipulating.”

“He is a member of the Seven then?” Buffy asked. “For sure?”

“Great,” Xander said. “We managed to get through last year without having to stop an apocalypse, and now, oh look, everything’s coming up roses, because one is happening and my girlfriend’s getting a front row seat.”

Buffy suddenly gasped and grabbed his arm. “Xander, I love her! I really want to be mad at you for taking so long to bring her, but, then I’d never get to see her again.”

Xander blushed all the way up to the tips of his ears, but he was smiling broadly. “I know, she’s pretty swell. That laugh thing she does, where she doesn’t care how unattractive it might make her look?”

“She’s got inside jokes with you that she just will come out with like you know what she’s talking about,” Buffy said, as if she hadn’t only known her for about an hour. “She’s so daffy. I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks.” Xander was still beaming.

“So, you guys going to a Halloween party? Because if you do a matching costumes thing, please know that Willow and I will take many pictures and will tease you until you’re seventy.”

He shrugged. “Nah, Europeans don’t really get into Halloween as much as we do.”

“What?” Buffy turned to Giles, scandalized. “You don’t care about Halloween? You knew this, and you never told me?”

“Yes, because that was always on the top of the docket to speak with you about,” Giles sighed.

“The Immortal didn’t tell you?” Xander asked. “You weren’t pinning your hopes on going to a Halloween party with him?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “As if. Can you see him in some silly Joker costume?”

“Yes.” Xander looked her right in the eyes and spoke solemnly. “Yes I can. But seriously, Buff, you almost never bring him over. And I’ve brought Catherine now, so, in a bizarre twist of fate, you’re the hypocrite now.”

“He’s busy,” she replied. “Besides, you’ve all met him.”

“Yeah, and we all like him,” Xander said. “Do you know how many times that hasn’t been the case?”

“Andrew doesn’t like him,” Buffy pointed out.

“Well, I can’t be responsible for his terrible taste in men,” Xander said. “Because that guy is great.”

----------

The Immortal leaned his wrist on his cane, tugging his gloves on. “What do you mean you can’t see it?” He asked calmly.

Dagger shrugged. “I can’t read people’s minds,” he said. “I just can’t.”

“Well then what kind of a Seer are you?” the Immortal bellowed, swinging his cane through what was probably a very expensive vase. He watched all the pieces fall onto the ground, scattered like blue flower petals, as Cleofax shrieked with delight and dropped to the ground, running her hands over the cut pieces.

Dagger crossed his arms and stood with his legs spread apart. “You know of my abilities. You’ve known of them for a long time. I see what I am shown, and I don’t read people’s minds. I can’t change that, and neither can you.” He smirked. “And you also know you can’t touch me.”

The Immortal strode forward and stopped abruptly, again leaning on his cane. “Well,” he said evenly. “Then read the future. What’s going to happen to our Storyteller? Is he going to kill his target or will she kill him?”

The Seer lifted his chin so he could stare straight into the Immortal’s eyes. “They will destroy each other.”

----------

Dawn was pacing, which she knew was probably irritating, because she hated when anyone else paced in front of her. But she suddenly felt a lot of sympathy for them. Pacing was very necessary. Especially in times like this, when all she could do was wait. And she couldn’t even pass the time in any particularly interesting way, because she had to keep her eyes locked on the book. If she missed its glow, there might never be another. Or they might die. Time would run differently for them; that’s what Giles had told her. But, if they were using the conversion of dream time to real time, then what would be hours for her would only be a few minutes for them.

Or maybe that wasn’t how it worked at all.

Catherine was running her hands reverently over the books, while Illyria stared distrustfully at her. “I love these titles,” Catherine said. “ Gypsies Through the Ages . Newtology . The Classifications of Vampire Families ? This stuff is gold.”

“It’s full of bloody contradictions is what,” Spike said, frowning as he paged through the book that Dawn was staring at so intently. “It’s like magic is another blooming language.”

Dawn snorted. “It literally is, Spike.”

“I don’t mean a language like Latin, or Greek, because I can read those just fine.”

“Yeah. That book’s in Sumerian.”

“Broad as long, nibblet,” Spike growled, staring up at her. “The point is that there’s never a list of instructions, or warnings, or a chronicle of intended results in these books. Least not a lot of the time. It’s just a spell, hardly even a title in sight, so how’s anyone supposed to know it’s the one to do what you need it to do?”

“I actually was wondering that, too,” Catherine said. “And like, could you work a spell for other things, or could it only perform specifically what you need it to do in this specific situation?”

Dawn shrugged. “You read enough spells, you start to figure out the words that tip of what the spell will do. And you only have to worry about…side effects if you do it wrong. And that’s easy to avoid. Just don’t get it wrong.”

Spike looked up, and worry flashed in his eyes as he handed the book to her. “Amen to that.”

----------

The Bronze had been even more dimly lit than it usually was, with only one ghost light and a few blinking emergency lights somewhere, but now the room suddenly lit up as every light shone its brightest. Giles was the last to turn towards the stage, and he saw Willow standing on it. She was glowing very faintly, and even though she didn’t seem to any bigger, she stood as if she could overshadow the entire room. “Hey,” she said, in a low, sure voice. “Welcome to what I apparently dream about.” She gave a rueful laugh. “Because it’s not like anything traumatizing ever happened here or anything.”

Giles stared at her, and he knew his face was wearing a scowl that he rarely liked to bring out. But Buffy and Xander glanced around the Bronze again, even though nothing had changed. “This is your mindscape?” Buffy asked timidly.

“It’s a location in it. But it doesn’t have to be this.” The Bronze began to swirl in a mist, and when the mist cleared, they were in Willow’s childhood bedroom. The mists swirled again to reveal the quad of UC Sunnydale, and then the old Summers house. Giles was hit with a sense of loss as he smelled the familiar smells, down to Joyce’s perfume. He looked to see Buffy staring around her in horror before closing her eyes.

“Okay, so that was a trip-fest,” Xander said. “You can control what happens here?” He shook his head. “What’s been going on?”

Giles was glad he asked. He didn’t trust himself to speak yet.

Willow gave an unapologetic shrug. “He told me I could talk to Tara. That was what he opened with, anyway, but it wasn’t the only appeal. I can go wherever I want.” She began slowly walking down the steps on the side of the stage.” “Do whatever I want.” She made her way towards them, still slowly. “See whomever I want.” She looked at Buffy. “Remember all those times we played Anywhere But Here? I can have that now. And it’s real…real enough anyway. More than a dream, but not quite reality.”

“That’s why you’ve been waking up late,” Buffy said softly. “You’ve been here.”

Willow hadn’t quite closed the gap between them, and Xander stepped forward. “Willow…” he said, and then looked lost.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, I know what you’re going to say. It’d dangerous. It’s addictive. But I knew that going in, and believe me, I don’t want to lose control anymore than you want me too.”

“So you think you haven’t lost control,” Giles said in a low voice, trying to keep as calm as possible.

She finally looked at him. “I’m always looking to learn more magic. And he offered to teach me.”

“Your member,” Giles said.

She nodded. “Marcellus. The Storyteller.”

“Yes, my dear,” a voice said, an out stepped the elderly pirate-looking gentleman that Giles had seen in the airport.

----------

Spike could feel Catherine’s eyes on him, but he waited as long as he could before he couldn’t stand it anymore and looked up at her. “What?” Damn his illness. There was no way that came out as even mildly threatening.

“Your hair is cool,” she said unexpectedly. She looked at Illyria. “Yours too, actually.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Thank…you.” He looked at Dawn for help.

Dawn smirked. “Better enjoy it while it lasts, Spike,” she said. “You realize it’s gonna grow a lot faster than it used to, right? You’re gonna see roots more frequently than you’d like.” She sat on the foot of Buffy’s cot, pushing her sister’s legs aside. She rested her chin on her fist. “I see shaving hasn’t been an issue for you yet, though.”

He shook his head. “Only have to do that twice a week so far.”

“Yeah, well that’s gonna change, too,” Dawn said. “It’ll ramp up to twice a day if you still want people thinking your skin is made out of marble.”

He gave a pained expression.

Illyria walked over to sit next to Spike, and looked at Catherine. “I have ascertained,” she said. “The reason humans have lasted as long as they have. It is because of their insatiable desire to reproduce.”

Catherine raised her eyebrows as high as they would go. “What?”

Spike smirked. “Not the reproduction part they’re so keen on, love,” he said. “They just have messy chemical imbalances that make love a foregone conclusion.”

“Or we’re just the superior species,” Catherine suggested.

Illyria glared at her, and Spike reached his hand out to touch Catherine’s arm. “I really wouldn’t voice political opinions in front of the Primordium God-King, pet.”

----------

“Why, Miss Rosenberg,” Marcellus said, swaggering up to stand next to her. “I’m honored that you wanted your friends to meet me. But you know you could have just conjured them up for me to meet in your mind. It would have been the same.”

“Well,” Buffy said, somewhat calmed by the fact that his accent was almost just like Spike’s. She knew how to handle someone like that. “We kind of gate-crashed.”

He turned to her and shook his head disapprovingly. “Of course you did. The Slayer, you can never let people just… have things, can you? Even if the thing is harmless.”

“Harmless?” Xander demanded. “We almost died because of this thing. Don’t believe me, ask the flying dishes!”

“Well, of course, it’s going to take practice before she can fully control it,” Marcellus said calmly. “But I’m helping her along.”

“I’ll bet you are,” Xander said. “Showing her how unappealing being awake in the waking world is. She might as well be doing drugs with how out of it she is all the time!”

“Hey,” Willow said, frowning. “I am not out of it. I am completely…in it when I’m awake. I only come here when I was gonna go to sleep anyway.”

“Which is an almost constant occurrence now,” Giles said sternly. “You were never one for loafing about when there was something useful you could be doing, Willow.”

“Useful?” Marcellus asked. He turned to Willow. “You never told me they were just using you, love. That they were taking your gifts and twisting them to their own desires. I knew they didn’t approve of you. I never realized they think they own you.”

“Woah, hey, Mr. Manipulation, you wanna be a little less subtle there?” Buffy snapped. “Willow, can’t you shoot a fireball at him or something already?”

“If she wanted to,” Marcellus said. “But I wager she doesn’t. What she wants is to be left alone.” He looked at Willow. “And you know, if you do want them to leave you to your paradise…you can make that happen. You can control them , now. They made the choice to come in here. And now they’re all a part of the game.”

----------

A frantic knock sounded on the front door, and Dawn vaguely wondered how long it had been going on. They were far enough away that they wouldn’t have been able to hear the knocking if it was anything less than a banging.

Spike might have heard it though, because he could definitely hear it now and he was still showing no acknowledgement of it. Dawn was too engrossed in teaching Illyria Rock Paper Scissors to bother.

Catherine tilted her head towards the sound. “You want me to get that?”

Dawn sighed as Illyria pounded her scissors more violently than necessary. “No, I got it.”

When she opened the door she only caught a brief glimpse of the grey demon looking at her shyly, and before he’d even finished saying the word, “hi,” she’d grabbed him by his collar neck and was lugging him upstairs. She probably wouldn’t have been able to if he wasn’t moving of his own accord anyway, but still, she felt a sense of satisfaction that she was doing what she’d seen everyone around her do so often.

She marched him up to Spike. The demon was struggling and protesting in her grip, but not very violently. “So?” she asked. “What do I do with it?”

Spike looked at her in surprise, and then at the demon. “Well,” he said slowly. “What is he doing here?”

Dawn was disappointed. “You mean we’re not just gonna slit its throat?”

“What?” The demon squeaked.

Spike was trying to hide a smile, but Dawn had already seen it. “It’s a Morrest demon, nibblet, it’s probably harmless. Unless it’s working for somebody, so, we should probably find that out.”

“He is working for somebody,” Dawn said. “He told us about the Apocalypse Diary.”

“Yeah, and turns out that wasn’t at all what they wanted me to do,” the demon sputtered. “I got in a lot of trouble for that.”

Dawn narrowed her eyes at him. “You got a name?”

“Irwin.”

“What were you pounding on the door for?”

His pink eyes blazed as he looked at her. “I have information.”

“Do you. Because last time you were full of lies and…and cryptocrisy.”

This time Spike didn’t even try to hide his smile.

“That’s because I was working for them,” Irwin said quickly. “And then they tortured me and punished me and threw me out, and if I ever see them again they’ll kill me, so, I really would be grateful if you’d kill them first.”

“Well,” Dawn said. “We don’t need information from you. We’ve got four people over there hopefully finding something out right now.”

“About the Storyteller,” Irwin said, eyes darting back and forth between Dawn and Spike.

Dawn looked at Spike, and he met her gaze and shrugged. “Might as well hear him out.”

“Okay,” Dawn said. “You don’t have long, buster, so I want only true facts, and I want them quickly. Tell me what you know. Everything. Right now.”

Spike’s smile was so big he probably couldn’t have hidden it if he wanted to.

----------

Xander was starting to get uncomfortable. Buffy and Giles weren’t saying much, and Willow wasn’t saying anything at all. He knew, at least, that the former two were on his side, but Willow…

He looked at her. She looked the same, all normal and brown-eyed and red-haired, but he still had a sickening memory of looking at Dark Willow. He didn’t know if he could reach her then. He wasn’t sure he could reach her now…if she was already gone.

“Willow,” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle. “Will?”

She opened her mouth, and closed it again.

“You don’t want this.” Xander stepped forward. “You don’t.”

The lights in Buffy’s living room dimmed, and then shone too bright for comfort, and then dimmed again. She was wavering. She had to be.

And wavering was something. “Come on, Willow,” Xander said. “It’s not nearly as fun in here. Even if you get to hang out with us, we don’t get to hang out with you. And…and I really miss hanging out with you. I’ve had to do that for an entire year, and I’m having Willow withdrawals.”

“He’s having Will-drawals,” Buffy added helpfully.

The lights grew brighter at that, and Willow cracked a smile in Buffy’s direction.

Xander took another step towards Willow, and held his hand out.

And she stepped forward and took it, and as the Storyteller lunged for her, she put her other hand out and a ring of fire surrounded him.

But he stopped, and laughed, and breezily stepped through it. “Oh, Miss Rosenberg,” he said. “I’m the one renting this space out for you. I’m the one who showed you how to do this, you think I can’t do the same?” He spread his palms out and moved them in a circle. An orange ray spread from them, and knocked the others down. "Your powers have no hold on me .”

----------

“There are Seven,” Irwin said. He licked his lips and looked between Dawn and Spike. “Seven members, bent on destroying the world.”

“We know,” Dawn said.

“But there’s also seven of you,” Irwin continued. “And they’ve all been assigned to one of you. You’ve all got a member, and they’ve all got a target.”

“Seven of us?” Dawn pressed. “Who?”

He paused, and she crouched down until she was glaring into his face. “Who?” she repeated.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s seven in your group. Spike is one. The four of you who came looking for the Apocalypse diary are some others. Officially I don’t know that Buffy is one, but I have no doubt she is.”

“Why?” Dawn asked. “Why were they assigned to us...or we assigned to them, whatever. Are they supposed to kill us?”

“They need you for something.”

“Hey,” Spike said, giving as forceful a kick to the demon’s knee as he could. “If you’re only going to speak cryptically and in riddles, you needn’t have bothered coming, mate.”

“I’m trying to help you here!” Irwin shouted. “It’s not my fault I don’t know a whole lot!”

“But you were working for them, so you must know something,” Dawn snapped.

“More like they used me, and they were super tight-lipped around me, too. I could only pick some stuff up.”

“So,” Dawn said slowly. “They used you, and you went along with it, and tried to trick us into getting that diary, which, if we had, could have diffused their whole operation immediately. You got in trouble for that, banished and threatened, and now here you are, knowing very little, because you want us to get…revenge for you?” She looked at Spike. “Someone’s been taking notes from you.”

“The vermin feels ardor for you,” Illyria said, and Irwin whipped around on her and hissed.

Spike looked at Illyria in surprise. “What happened to you in that battle, Illyria? It’s like you suddenly think life is one long season of Change of Heart .”

She cocked her head at him. “Wesley opened my eyes to the emotions of others. I merely state what I observe.”

Catherine giggled. “Oh, that’s awesome,” she said. “Seriously, everything’s coming up roses. Dawn, a demon has a crush on you!”

“Not the first time,” Dawn said.

“Or the last, I wager,” Spike said.

Dawn crossed her arms as she stared at him. “Well, he can have ardor coming out of his ears, I still don’t get why we can’t just kick his ass right now.”

----------

Buffy had sort of forgotten that they were supposed to be asleep, supposed to be in a dream world, supposed to be not really here, and therefore not really able to get hurt.

But when the Storyteller’s latest beam of magic had surged through her chest and she had a brief moment of panic wondering if it would stop her heart, that was when she remembered. She turned to Giles, who had fallen on his head and now had very real blood dripping down his ear.

Willow was fighting him with blasts of her own magic, and Buffy did appreciate that she was trying to keep them safe at the same time, seeing as how they really could do nothing in this fight. Buffy stepped sideways until she could grip her Watcher’s arm. “How can he do this?” she hissed. “Hurt us?”

“The same reason that what Willow does in here affects the outside room,” Giles said. “We are in this dimension, halfway in spirit, halfway in physical. The same is true on the outside…our bodies are only halfway physically there.”

Buffy cried out as another beam waved through her chest, and she dropped to the ground next to him. “What can I do?” she asked, looking at him through gritted teeth.

He looked at her sorrowfully. “There is nothing you can do. He isn’t physically here, and no spell could make him so. Either Willow defeats him or…or she doesn’t.”

Xander crouched down beside them, clutching his stomach and toppling over. “It’s not looking good for her,” he gasped. “Look at him, he seems to be enjoying getting hit, the masochist. Isn’t it time to tell Dawn to rise-and-shine us?”

“If we leave he’ll still destroy her,” Giles said, but he looked over and stared at the Storyteller. “The power…” he said softly. “The power keeps him here. The power makes her able to be a host.”

Xander turned back to the fight. “But she can’t just stop the power!”

Buffy looked at Giles, waiting for him to name the loophole. But he just gravely shook his head. “She can’t stop the power,” he repeated. “She can’t stop the power.”

----------

“Look,” Irwin said impatiently. “You know how your Slayers have been overworked these past several months, and your group has had to be stretched out all over the world, trying to right them back up? That’s the Seven’s doing. They wanted you to be separated. They wanted you to not have back up.”

“We were separated anyway, trying to recruit and train them,” Dawn said. “We’ve been having quarterly meetings.”

“There’s been trouble happening in every corner of the earth and you know it,” Irwin said. “They wanted to distract your Slayer. They wanted to distract Buffy. To kill you all? Probably, eventually, but they’ve been biding their time, at least before you all got together. They need something from you,” he repeated.

Dawn rolled her eyes and looked pleadingly at Spike. “He’s tapped out, he’s started the program over.”

Spike nodded. “Well, that was a fascinatingly bootless errand. I wouldn’t kill him, Dawn, but if you wanted to throw him out on his face, I can’t say I’d be torn up about it.”

“The Apocalypse diary,” Irwin said hastily, as Dawn grabbed his neck and began dragging him back down the stairs. “It’s real, all of it, I swear, it was the real thing…”

“Yeah, we know , haven’t you got that through your head yet?”

“But they have it, they just keep it in their lair,” Irwin said.

She paused. “You know where that lair is?”

He looked ashamed. “They only brought me there blindfolded…”

She groaned, swung the front door open, and tossed him out. “I hope you have turned on them,” she said. “And we will kill them, so you will be avenged. But I’m pretty sure I made it clear what would happen if I saw you again, and that offer is being renewed. Don’t come back unless you have something useful to add.” She slammed the door, and spun back towards the stairs.

----------

Xander pushed himself to his feet. “Willow…Willow can’t you just chase him out?”

She shook her head, gasping, and he saw tears streaming down her cheeks for the first time. I can’t, I…but Giles is right, my power is what’s keeping him here. I can’t turn off the power, I can’t drive him out, I can’t defeat him….” She took a deep breath. “But I can get rid of it.”

Buffy and Giles hastily stood up. “Get rid of what?” Buffy asked.

“Her power,” Giles said, and his face softened for the first time since they’d woken Willow in her bed. “She has to give up her magic.”

Xander looked at her again. “She can…do that?”

Willow nodded. “I know how, too. But you’ll…have to distract him for me.”

“How, it’s not like we have any element of surprise,” Buffy said.

Several small, grey balls appeared in Willow’s hands, and she handed them off to her friends. “Smoke bombs. Should be effective enough.”

“Smoke bombs,” Buffy said. “We’re defeating evil with…smoke bombs.”

Xander looked anxiously at his friend. “Willow…are you sure? You sure you want to do this?”

She laughed through her tears. “Not about wanting. I have no choice.”

Giles hurled his first bomb, and although Marcellus was able to make the mist disappear almost before it had had time to burst up, it did stop him from doing anything else. Buffy threw hers, and Xander followed their example. They kept throwing, and Xander listened to Willow mumbled something under her breath.

Marcellus seemed to understand what she was doing, and he lurched forward, but a barrier of white light streamed from Willow, and blocked him.

He struggled against it. “You bloody idiot!” he screamed. “Think of what you’re doing, you’ll never be special again! You couldn’t give up the magic when you had it inside of you, how much worse do you think your withdrawals will be now? You’ll always suffer, always feel cut off…”

“Shut up Marcellus!” Willow said. “I’m…I’m…”

And suddenly she shot up off the ground, and Xander watched in horror as black smoke began pouring out of her orifices. She screamed louder and more painfully than he ever wanted to hear from her, and the walls of Buffy’s house began to shudder, and crumble into dust.

“You’ll regret it forever!” Marcellus cried. “Nothing will give you satisfaction again!” 

But Xander was pretty sure Willow couldn’t have stopped now, anyway. The black smoke pouring out of her began swallowing everything up, and Xander felt himself falling away, not exactly losing consciousness, but feeling that same muzzy mistiness as if he was.

----------

The house began shaking, and Illyria leapt to her feet. Spike looked at the four bodies and wondered if he was imagining that their bodies looked more transparent than they had. What he wasn’t imagining was the black smoke that started pouring out of Willow’s eyes and ears and mouth, just as Dawn walked back in.

Dawn screamed, and suddenly the smoke formed into a man, a man with greying hair and a brown leather coat. He stared furiously at them, and Illyria jumped at him and delivered a blow to his chin.

Spike realized after he’d jumped up that he was exhausted and if he’d had a shred of common sense at all he’d have stayed where he was. But how could he, when this bloke had just spilled out of Willow and was now beating on his shadow? He joined the fight with no thought to his aching limbs and screaming head, and instead just turned to Dawn and barked, “Wake them up! Now!”

Dawn’s hands were trembling as she ducked under one of the cots and began thumbing the book open, reading the spell that Willow had shown her.

Spike swung a punch at the man’s chin, and missed, which had him spinning around until he almost collided into Catherine. “What are you still doing here?” he snapped, shoving her towards the door. “Go downstairs!”

“I can’t,” she said timidly. “I think the dishes are all flying around again.”

Spike couldn’t argue with that, because he suddenly registered that’s where all that noise was coming from. “Stay out of the way, then,” he growled, probably unnecessarily, and jumped back into the fray with Illyria.

They both were hitting and knocking and throwing him, but, if he didn’t have his full powers out here on a physical plane, he still wasn’t weaker than either of them, and he managed to pick Illyria up and throw her against Spike, knocking them down. He sprang for the door, but Spike grabbed his ankle, tripping him, and Illyria immediately straddled him and went for his throat.

Marcellus grabbed her throat as well, again throwing her off of him, and he stood up and began frantically looking around, before Spike suddenly realized Dawn had stopped speaking, and Buffy was now standing up.

She made quick strides towards Marcellus, and her blow to his jaw was much more effective. He went down like a one-winged bird, and Buffy set her foot on his chest and pulled a dagger out of her belt.

But Xander slid off of his bed, and came up by her elbow. “May I?” he asked calmly.

Buffy looked at him in surprise, but handed him the dagger, and stepped away.

Xander looked at the Storyteller with disgust. He seemed to be fading as it was, because it was choking as if it was difficult to breathe. But Xander stared at him for a long time before he crouched down.

“Wherever you’re going,” he said coldly. “May you regret for eternity what you just made her do.”

And then he plunged the dagger into the man’s heart, and Marcellus let out a weak moan before going still.

Spike raised his eyebrows and gave Xander an impressed look. But Xander just dropped the dagger, walked over to Catherine, and took her hand, leading her out of the room.

Spike slowly clambered to his feet, and that was when everything landed. A wave of dizziness hit him, and suddenly he keenly felt every pain in his body. He sagged without intending to, and Illyria grabbed him and snaked her arm around his waist, forcing him to stand upright.

Buffy instantly turned to him. “I told you not to move,” she said, but then she shook her head. “You okay?”

“Always.” He cursed his knees for giving out on him right after he said that, and he grabbed Illyria’s shoulder with both hands.

Buffy’s eyes flickered to Illyria. “Take him back to his room, please. Now.”

----------

Innocence gave a bloodcurdling scream, and grabbed a sword, which she began hacking at Dagger’s chair. He considered stepping in, but decided he could lose the chair if it meant keeping his face.

The Immortal leaned on his cane and looked over at Dagger. “Destroyed each other. They certainly did. Seers really should come with a phrase book. It would be so much easier if I could know what you were bloody predicting half the time. Or any of the time, really.”

“You!” Innocence cried, turning the sword on to the Immortal. “You said she’d never do it. I always suggested she might just give up her powers, but nooo, Innocence, Willow’s too in love with her magic to do it, and too arrogant to realize she could never beat him with her power alone.”

“Innocence,” he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. “It’s no matter, truly. We knew one of us had to die, and he served his purpose.”

“So you’re not all that bothered then,” Entropy said, flopping down on the slashed chair and wriggling around in the pieces of cotton.

“Not this time,” the Immortal said. He looked Innocence in the eyes. “But it absolutely must not happen again. In the meantime, we must all keep our heads, yes?”

She rolled her eyes, but nodded. “Fine. I guess I’ll go see my patient.”

“An excellent idea. He is coming along nicely, I presume?”

“I didn’t even ask for him to keep sparring with Illyria, but one more fight and it’ll knock him right over the edge.” She paused before the cave entrance, and looked back. “Hey, Immortal, you gonna get Buffy’s hair soon or not?”

He strode across the room to find a chair that wasn’t destroyed, and settled himself down in it. “All in good time, my Innocence.”

Dagger raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t you been sleeping with that corn stalk?”

The Immortal leaned back in the chair, before casually shaking his head. “We haven’t gotten there yet. She’s gun-shy. Some jerk tried to rape her once, and now she’s sworn off intimacy with men.”

“That’s stupid,” Innocence said. “What, the high and mighty Slayer can’t handle a little rape?”

“Interesting that you can’t sweet-talk her out of her celibacy, though,” Dagger said.

The Immortal immediately rose again, and took a deep breath through his nose. “I can get her hair anytime, no need to do it when she might be suspicious of me. But you want me to get her in between the sheets? I can do that.” He strode out of the room, brushing past Innocence, and in the background Cleofax giggled madly.

----------

Willow had insisted that they still have their party, but after saying that, and after Xander had put his arm around her, she’d leaned on his shoulder and silently cried for the duration of it. She didn’t regret it—not really—but she felt as if she’d been completely gutted and was just walking around in a limp and empty skin. Everyone else was very quiet as they picked at their food, and sipped their drinks.

Willow heartily wished Spike and Illyria were there, which was definitely a first. But Illyria would have broken the silence, and Spike wouldn’t have stood for the awkwardness. But no, he’d had to fight when he wasn’t ready because of her…and Dawn had to perform a spell which might unlock doors in her head…and poor Catherine was probably traumatized, and the three that had gone in there with her had almost…

“Okay,” Catherine said finally. “But can’t you like…get them back? If it’s something you could just hand over, doesn’t that mean you could get some more?”

“It’s not as simple as all that,” Giles said gently. “If a witch—or really anyone with magic has their powers removed, it’s like cutting off a leg that will never grow back. Powers aren’t just something that can get moved around.”

Willow’s breath hitched, and Xander gave her shoulder a squeeze. “I’m proud of you,” he murmured into her hair. “That was a very brave thing to do.”

Buffy looked at Dawn. “And all Seven of them are targeting one of us.”

“That’s what Irwin said,” Dawn shrugged. “If we believe him.”

“Then I guess Marcellus was Willow’s member,” Buffy said. Her brow wrinkled, and she shook her head. “I don’t get what exactly his motivation was, though.”

Willow knew, and by the look on Giles’ face, he did too. But he mercifully continued sipping his probably very flat soda, and said nothing.

Marcellus had been trying to get her to never want to wake up, until her body gave up and died without her. And rather than a flat-out assassination attempt against a witch, it had been a very clever thing to do. And had almost worked.

Willow swallowed and buried her face in Xander’s shoulder.

“So,” Buffy said slowly. “We really need to figure out who the rest of the members are.” She paused, and said, “And there’s also the obvious question of which seven of us they’re targeting.”

----------

Later that evening, Dawn was sitting on the stairs, watching Willow in the kitchen. She was moving very slowly, but she seemed to be trying to give Buffy’s food processor another try.

She heard footsteps on the top step behind her and turned to see Giles.

He was watching Willow as well, and he said softly, “It will likely affect the rest of her life. She will always feel a great sense of loss.”

Dawn turned to face forward. “I can’t believe she did that.”

“I am rather surprised, myself,” Giles said. “And it truly is a terrible thing, but, if we’re looking for the silver lining, it is much safer for her. And for us.”

Dawn looked down, picking at the nail polish on one of her fingers.

“Oh!” Giles said suddenly. “I’d forgotten, Dawn, you had something you wished to tell me yesterday.”

She continued picking her nail. She eventually lifted her head, and drew a sigh as she watched Willow. “Nah,” she said. “It’s not important now.”

----------

“My golden ear of corn!”

Buffy wasn’t sure how she felt about that one as the Immortal planted his lips on to hers, but she giggled anyway. He came up with a new term of endearment every day; it wasn’t like they could all be winners.

Buffy kissed him, hard, and deeply, and then shoved him out the front door, which she closed behind her. And then she kissed him again, and let his hands tumble about in her hair as he bent deeper into her.

She finally pulled back, and he gazed at her delightedly. “Are you quite well, my dove?”

“Xander introduced us to his girlfriend,” she said. “Finally. And Willow…”  she stopped and cleared her throat, before grinning up at him. “I just want to be around you,” she said. “I want you in my life. To enjoy you while I have you.”

He gave her a broad smile, and clasped his hands around hers. “Shall we embark on a patrolling excursion? Before dancing our night away in a club?”

She tilted her head, smiling. “You know me so well.”

----------

Dawn’s seduction game wasn’t going so well, though that could be because she hadn’t tried. She glumly poked at the diet coke which was the only thing she’d been allowed to be served, and made a movement to just turn around and leave this hole in the wall, when a bright pink suit seated itself down beside her.

“And what’s wrong today, Candy Corn?” Dagger asked.

“Your face, in a minute, once I slam it into this table.”

He chuckled. “You know, I’d really love to see that. Unfortunately I know you’re bluffing.” He touched her shoulder. “But you don’t have to be.”

She tossed her head and finally looked at him. “I know who you are,” she said. “And I know what you’re doing. And Marcellus just tried it with Willow, so, why do you think I’d just turn around and fall for that crap?”

He shrugged, brushing her hair off of her shoulders. “Well, Willow was mucking about in some dangerous business. But, the way I hear it, all you want is the starter kit. You want to learn magic, and you don’t know how to go about doing it, and no one will teach you.”

“So?”

“So.” He waved his hand for a shot of whiskey, which he subsequently pushed in front of her. “So I can teach you.”

“Again, I’m falling for this crap why?”

He leaned closer to her. “Because you know you could be stronger than Willow ever was.”

Chapter Text

“Slayer.”

Buffy’s eyes shot open, but standing in front of her was not the person she’d expected. “Illyria?” she mumbled. “What’s—” she stopped when she heard water running, and jumped out of bed. “Where is he? What’s he doing?”

She didn’t need to wait for an answer, since the running water sort of tipped her off on the location, and she began hurrying towards the bathroom. “He will not acknowledge my commands,” Illyria said, as she followed. “He does not seem interested in preserving his mortal flesh.”

Steam was pouring out even before she’d opened the door. She coughed. “Spike, holy—” she coughed again. “Wow, anyone who said steam was good for your sinuses was clearly a vampire.”

Spike was bending shirtless over the bathtub, which was filling with water, and he was scrubbing his arms and chest in it. She stared in bewilderment, before she grabbed him by the back of his neck and wrenched him away. “Okay, I know vampires and pain are symbiotic, but boiling water actually really will hurt you now,” she said.

“It’s too cold,” he muttered, in the posh accent she’d hoped she’d heard the last of. He tried crawling back towards the bathtub, which was actually about to overflow, so she had to hold him back with just her leg as she reached over and turned the water off. He was shivering, and now he began whimpering. “Too cold,” he said again. “I have to…” he began fighting her, and either her knee wasn’t the best way of holding him back on its own, or he was still strong enough to push past her. Or both.

His fever was back. It had to be, and Buffy tried to fight a wave of panic. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him away from the tub. “Spike, boiling yourself alive isn’t helping. I know you’re cold, but—”

He looked at her. “No,” he said. “Not me. Too cold, have to warm her…warm her up…”

“Who?” Buffy asked. She looked back towards the door, and began gently pulling Spike towards it.

“My mother,” he gulped. “She’s going to die.”

Well, she hadn’t expected him to say that. She almost stopped, but she didn’t want to alarm him. Instead she continued leading him back towards his bedroom. “No,” she whispered. “No she isn’t.”

“She is,” Spike insisted.

“Spike,” she said softly. “I need you to go back to bed for me, okay?”

He suddenly stared at her, as if just noticing she was there. Buffy led him towards the bed, and he looked at it for a moment, before he climbed back in. But then he said again, “She’s going to die. She’s going to leave me.”

Buffy looked at his bedside table, as if there might be a response waiting there for her. Instead she saw multiple cups, and Buffy vaguely remembered telling Illyria at some point that Spike needed plenty of water. Clearly she was keeping him well-stocked. She picked one of them up and managed to get him to take it. She watched him slowly sip it, before she said, “Your mother loved you, Spike.”

She was just guessing that was true. But she did remember him saying once that they’d gotten along. Which in Spike language probably meant they were relatively close.

“She’s sick.” He shuddered. “Fever. Tuberculosis. Going to die unless I save her. Going to die unless I—” He let himself fall abruptly back into the pillows, and press the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Too cold,” he muttered. “She was too cold, after that.”

Wounds and memories that were long buried suddenly sprang to Buffy’s mind. No wonder he’d bonded with her mother so much. No wonder he said he missed her. No wonder he’d seemed to take it so hard when her mother had…

Buffy looked behind her towards Illyria. “There’s some extra blankets in that linen closet by my room, would you grab one?”

Illyria cocked her head, and for a moment Buffy thought she wouldn’t actually do it. But she turned abruptly, headed for the hallway, and returned with every blanket from the closet. Buffy watched as she came over and dropped them on her lap. “Um,” Buffy said. “Thanks.”

She lifted one of them, shaking it out, and then tucking it around the top part of his body that was still exposed. He struggled at first, but she pushed his chest down, and his arms were pretty much pinned down by the blanket anyway. He looked at her with bright fearful eyes, that suddenly blazed, and he frowned and said in a low voice, “Slayer.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said, trying to match his low, threatening tone. “Go to sleep, Spike, don’t make me stake you.” She stroked his brow to let him know she didn’t mean it, and his eyes watched her carefully, until they suddenly dropped and he went still.

But he was still shivering, and Buffy calmly stood up, and looked at Illyria. “There’s something wrong here, Illyria. Whatever happened to him in that apocalypse, it couldn’t still be the cause for this.”

----------

Spike hissed as a demon with long talons swiped at his stomach. He clutched the wound with one hand—not that he didn’t already have a dozen others—and lunged for the demon’s neck with the other, snapping it with one flick of his wrist.

 He whipped around as three small pig-like creatures bowled him over, but as he was tousling with them, he saw Gunn holding a small black grenade in his hand. Except that it was a slightly magic grenade, which Gunn didn’t seem to be aware of.

Or maybe he did. He was swaying on his feet, barely even able to keep his head up, and blood was freely gushing out of him in at least three places. Spike was almost sickened at the sight. Blood didn’t bother him, but did the wounds have to look like sodding geysers as they drained his friend? 

 Spike tried calling out to him, tell him that the grenade wouldn’t give him time to run away if he activated it, but he was still being trampled by pigs. He brought his fangs out, which he’d been alternating between using and keeping put away, and he bit at the pig’s throat, ripping it out.

Which was a mistake as a rancid black blood filtered into his mouth, but honestly he barely noticed by now. The pig’s blood was not the only demon fluid he could taste right now.

“You beasties want a taste of this?” Spike heard Gunn cry. “You don’t think you’re the only ones who can put on a show, do you?”

“Gunn!” Angel called, running for him. “Don’t pull it, you--”

He was too late, and the explosion knocked both vampires backwards, and left nothing of the horde of demons surrounding Gunn. It left nothing of Gunn, either.

Illyria stared, and immediately stepped forward, but Angel gripped her arm and pulled her back. “He’s gone, Illyria!” 

Spike made his way over to them, knocking down the couple of demons in his path, and saw the look of anger on Illyria’s face. “I told him not to let himself be killed.”

She knew enough of war to know that wasn’t how it worked. Which meant she was saying it out of grief. And for the first time since he’d known her, Spike felt sorry for her.

“He took a lot of them out,” Spike said. “He definitely lasted a lot longer than I gave him credit for.”

Angel picked up a sword and roared at the sky. The dragon mimicked his call, and began swooping down towards them. Spike and Illyria jumped out of the way as it neared the ground, but Angel stood still, watching and waiting, and finally jumping and swinging the sword at its neck.

He got it halfway through, which was enough to land the beast. Angel stormed his way over to it, hacking until its head rolled off, spewing yellow gobs of viscera and blood at him, which he paid no attention to. 

He turned darkly to the others. “Let’s end this,” he said.

----------

Andrew heard loud arguments coming from Spike’s bedroom, but they didn’t deter him. He pushed the half-open door as he stepped in. Buffy was standing defensively between Innocence and the bed, while Illyria was standing protectively on the other side. 

“I don’t know what you’re doing to him,” Buffy said. “But he’s getting better, then worse, over and over. So why is that? Why isn’t he just picking one? Are we stringing along the inevitable, or are you actually going to fix him?”

“I’m not a doctor, Buffy!” Innocence said. “I can’t perform miracle surgeries, and I’ve told you what’s wrong with him! He’s got--”

 “An illness that he has to fight off, yeah,” Buffy said. “He is strong enough to do it though, so what’s the hold up?”

“Why isn’t he picking one?” Innocence repeated. “Well the Nixopolitan monitors his strength levels, so, my recommendation is that I administer it more often.” Her eyes flashed as she stared at the bed. Andrew had made his way over to Buffy so that he could face the demon nurse, and he noticed her eyes briefly turned red. “Speed up the process.” She stepped towards the bed, and was thwarted by Buffy stepping in her way.

 “So!” Andrew said, trying to give a light laugh. “Ladies. How’s it going in here?”

 “Spike is dying,” Illyria said, when neither of the others answered him. “He has not made any progress since fighting the phantom, and his delirium has returned.”

 Andrew didn’t know why fighting should have knocked him down so much. Everyone knew he sparred with Illyria every time he could stand long enough to fight her. And he’d been fine after the vampire attack that had nearly killed him.

 “You know what?” Buffy asked suddenly. “I don’t think the drug is actually helping. I don’t think the injections are what give him his good moments. In fact, I think it’s the opposite. I think he gets worse after every one of your visits.”

 “He has also arrived at that conjecture,” Illyria pointed out.

 Innocence looked at Andrew, and he immediately got a sick feeling as he realized she was about to rope him into this. “Andrew,” she said sweetly. “Tell the nice Slayer not to interfere with my methods. I know you don’t want anyone dying.” She blinked her big eyes. “Don’t you think it’d be in your best interest to let me administer my drug?” She paused, and then added, “I know he’s your friend, too.”

 Andrew gulped and looked up at Buffy, but she was looking at Innocence, a confused frown beginning to form on her features. She tilted her head, crossed her arms, and then said, “You can’t lie...you’re so specific with your choice of words…”

 “Andrew,” Innocence said warningly.  

He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say what Innocence wanted him to say. He couldn’t help Buffy either, but she looked about to figure it out anyway.

 And then she did. Her eyes widened, and then narrowed again, very coldly. “You’re a member of the Seven,” she said in a surprisingly calm voice. “You’re Spike’s member. You’re here to kill him.”

----------

Spike was enjoying the tussle with the N’shrmath demon, but he hated how it was going to have to end. You couldn’t snap its neck, you had to reach inside and either crush its heart or rip it out. But when the demon landed him a good one on a nose he suspected was already broken, he growled with rage and plunged into its chest. 

And again, wasn’t so bad. He’d almost lost every feeling by now. There was so much death and pain and guts everywhere that it couldn’t really be noticed. 

He began flinging his hand to get as many chunks of the heart as he could off of it, and looked up at Angel, who was hacking away at a serpent that had wrapped itself around him, and looked about ready to break him in two. Angel finally managed to stab its head, and it loosened its grip. He stepped out, and then met Spike’s gaze.

“‘S not so bad, really,” Spike shrugged. “Pretty straight forward killings. Getting my soul was still harder than this.”

Angel looked around at the thousands of demons still crawling all around them. “Yeah. The demons really aren’t the problem. The problem--” He stopped to snap the neck of a vampire sneaking up behind him. “The problem will be once the three of us are dead, and the Apocalypse branches out. Right now their mission is still to take us out, but once they do…”

 “Then a woman scorned hath no fury,” Spike realized. 

 Angel sighed in frustration, and a couple of giant beetles sprang up and began attacking them. “I wish I knew how to get a barrier up or something,” Angel called. “I’d feel a lot better if I knew they’d stay contained.”

  “Shame the demon girl doesn’t still have her powers,” Spike called back, feeling a slight triumph as he killed his attacker first. “Portal on demand would be real handy.”

 Angel gave him a kind of funny look. “Well,” he said slowly. “They are, technically, still at Wolfram and Hart.”

 ----------

 Giles set the cup of tea down in front of Willow. She took it and smiled up at him. “Thanks,” she said. “I thought the smell of a library would be enough to clear my headache, but, well no offense, but it doesn’t actually have library smell in here.”

 He looked at her in concern. “You’ve had that headache all day.”

 “More like all week, yeah.”

He sighed. “Well, they won’t last, as I’m sure you know. But I can’t promise they’re going to stop soon, either.”

“I know.” She sipped her tea. “Anyway, I’m more concerned because I haven’t been dreaming lately. Like at all, not so much as an embarrassing being caught in school naked.” Shen looked up anxiously. “I’m not...I didn’t lose that ability, did I? Because dreams are the best part of sleeping.”

“I rather doubt it,” He smiled. “Dreaming is part of being human, and you still are very much that.”

Andrew burst in through the door. “Guys, come quickly,” he said, and then sniffed. “Ooh, is that Lime Tree?” 

“Andrew?” Giles sighed. “Focus?” 

Andrew fidgeted. “Uh, Buffy thinks Innocence is Spike’s member, and they’re sort of…” He stopped as they heard a crash from the other room. “Fighting to the death now!” he finished as Giles and Willow ran past him.

 ----------

 Buffy had grabbed her scythe, and she was glaring at Innocence as Xander and Dawn burst into the room, just after Willow and Giles had. Innocence had no weapon, but she was facing Buffy with her chin raised and a small, cold smile on her lips.

“You’ve been poisoning him,” Buffy said darkly. “You’ve been coming twice a day for more than a month, and you’ve been trying to kill him. Under the pretense of being a nurse.”

“Oh,” Innocence said. “You feeling betrayed, Buffy? I don’t know what you expect me to say. I was undercover this whole time, and the point was to not let you find out. So, you played your part perfectly.”

“And you played the innocent,” Buffy said. She strode forward. “And I’m going to make you regret that innocent act for the rest of your life. Which, fortunately for you, won’t be long.”

“And you are just…so wrong about that, Buffy,” Innocence said, backing up towards the balcony. “Because I live for the innocent act. Getting people to trust me, and watching their little confused hearts break as they realized they’ve been buying into a lie that I never told.”

Buffy screamed and launched herself at her, and Illyria vaulted over Spike’s bed and did the same. But both of them stopped, and watched as Innocence suddenly expanded in size, her pointed ears elongating, and four more arms growing on either side of her. She hissed at Buffy as she sprouted two massive wings, and used one of them to knock Buffy down, before leaping towards the balcony and jumping off it, flying off into the night.

Everyone else was pretty much rooted to their spot in horror, but Buffy scrambled to her feet and ran towards the balcony.

“Buffy!” Willow cried. “What are you—”

“I’m not letting her get away,” Buffy snapped. She grabbed the rail of the balcony and looked about to leap over it and follow Innocence on foot, but Spike suddenly moaned from the bed.

“Buffy…” he mumbled, and Buffy instantly froze, her head snapping back to look at him. She was breathing hard, and her eyes were bright as she stared at him, while clutching the balcony railing.

“You stay here,” Giles said quickly, and grabbed Willow’s arm, turning towards the door and rushing towards the stairs.

Buffy jumped as she realized what they were doing, and ran to the door to follow them.

Dawn barred her way. “Buffy, listen to them!”

“What are they gonna do, huh?” Buffy asked. “If they follow her they can’t win against her! Even before she turned into some giant moth thing!”

“But look,” Dawn said, urgently but more gently now. She pointed at the bed. “He’s…he might actually be dying, Buffy. Like, right now.”

Buffy was still breathing hard, and her face scrunched up like she was about to cry. She looked at Spike, lying still now, but that did nothing to comfort her. He was slipping away from her, and there was all that poison in him…

She looked at Dawn and Xander, and swallowed. She slowly walked over and took the syringe that Innocence had dropped on the bed. “Will you look into that?” she asked softly, handing it to her sister. “Tell me what’s in that drug.”

----------

The ground under the Wolfram and Hart building had split just enough for the building to tip over and halfway sink beneath the earth. And what was left up top was almost completely splintered or burned up by now. But that didn’t stop Angel from charging into it, with Spike and Illyria behind him, and it apparently hadn’t stopped the demons from infiltrating it, either.

 There was a group of particularly vicious Parasite demons waiting for them in what used to be the lobby, and Angel was concerned that they were wasting precious time fighting them when the remaining walls would collapse any second. Right now they could still make it to the med lab. And right now, hopefully, the canister that held Illyria’s power would still be intact. But if the rest of the building crumbled down around them, there wouldn’t be much any of them could do.

Angel grunted as three more of the demons jumped on his back, and he let his fangs loose as he snarled and tore at their heads.

“Angel?” Spike said warningly.

“Little busy!” Angel shot back.

“Stairs are going out, mate, the train to the med lab is leaving,” Spike said.

“Go,” Angel said, knocking down his demons as two more sprang up behind them. “Go!”

Spike pushed Illyria in the direction of the stairs and ran after her.

Angel tried just dragging the Parasite demons with him, but they weren’t having any of it, and kept blocking his way. He punched his fist right through one of their faces and snapped, “You guys aren’t supposed to be warriors! You’re telling me Merl really was just a coward?”

The demons didn’t answer, but kept beating him back, until suddenly in a swirl of black leather and white hair Spike had thrown his arms around one of their necks and twisted him around. Angel tore the head of his remaining one, and looked begrudgingly at Spike. “Thanks.”

Spike just nodded absently, looking back behind him. "Gotta move. No good waiting around to see if they send backup.”

Illyria was waiting for them at the top of the stairs, which Angel and Spike hastily ran up. They jumped off it and watched it crumble down past them, and Spike huffed. “No way back, then,” he said. “Powers had better still bloody be there.”

The building was wobbling very precariously by now, and sparks were flying off of every wall, and steam curling out of every doorway as the innards of the walls were ripped apart. There were still demons occasionally, flying or running at them, but most simply breezed past them and didn’t stop to fight.

Angel finally slammed into the door of the lab, punching it down. “Okay,” he said, and paused for a moment at the sight of the cabinets full of canisters. It was mostly still here, though a couple of the doors had been smashed and now there were canisters rolling about the room. But it didn’t look like any of them had broken.

Spike raised an eyebrow as he stepped in behind him. “Bugger. And I thought just getting here would be the problem.”

“Her canister is here somewhere,” Angel said, as he began rifling through one of the open cabinets. “And it’ll be labeled.”

Spike snorted. “I bet it will. Dewey decimal number and all. “Illyria, comma, powers of. Door 3, row 8. Probably be easier to just look up the index file, wouldn’t you reckon?”

“Just shut up and look, Spike,” Angel said. “It’s not a library book.”

“It will not aid you to find them,” Illyria said. “You cannot hope to utilize them.”

“Power is power,” Angel insisted, slamming the door shut and moving on to the next cabinet. “If whatever’s in there could open a portal once, it can do it again.”

“And if that can’t, maybe one of these other Christmas crackers can,” Spike said, crouching on the ground and picking one up. “Madeline from accounting’s ennui, for instance.”

The ceiling suddenly cracked, and millions of fuzzy brown balls began rolling out of it and down the walls.

“Bloody hell,” Spike gasped. “Angel—”

“Yeah, I know,” he growled. “Jiggers. We can’t stay here…one of those gets inside us and we’re out of the game.” He grabbed a handful of canisters from the door and took off for the exit. “We’ll just have to hope some kind of Power That Is somewhere is on our side.”

Spike grabbed a handful as well, but tripped on the way out. A curse died on his lips, though, as he picked up the canister he’d tripped on. “I think they are,” he said in wonder, and held it up to Angel. “And look at that, Illyria, comma, Powers of. Your staff are so bloody predictable.”

----------

Buffy sniffed and rubbed her nose. “Okay,” she said, and rolled up her sleeves as she approached the bed again. Her hands hovered over Spike and she tried desperately to think of what she had to do. “Well,” she said. “He improved after a while of not being injected, so I just have to get him through this patch, right?”

“Buffy,” Andrew said anxiously.

“He’s strong,” Buffy said, as if to reassure anyone who was listening. “He’s survived worse than this, he just has to hold on a little while longer…”

Andrew shifted from one foot to the other. “Buffy?”

“Yeah?” Buffy laid the back of her hand on Spike’s forehead and then reached for one of his multiple glasses of water.

“I knew he was alive!” Andrew burst out.

Buffy froze, and Illyria’s gaze snapped up to him. “What?” Buffy asked evenly.

“I saw him when you sent me to LA and I said I’d tell you but he begged me not to, said he’d take care of it, swore me to secrecy on the promise he’d bite my mother if I told, and—”

“He said he’d tell me?” Buffy asked.

Andrew nodded vigorously. “And I wanted to tell you, and I’m so sorry, Buffy, but I couldn’t just break a promise to a friend—”

“No,” Buffy said. She bit her lip, and shook her head, then looked up at Illyria. “You see what I mean?”

“This does not indicate the absence of love,” Illyria protested. “Merely that he would have no one tell you until he was ready to.”

“So you’re not mad?” Andrew asked.

“Not at you,” Buffy said, and then she even managed to crack a smile in his direction. “And you actually just proved yourself by keeping that big of a secret for that long.”

Andrew gave a small smile in return, and then Buffy turned back to her patient. “Okay,” she said softly. “Dr. Buffy, reporting for duty here. All I have to do is get him to hold on until the drugs wear off…and probably break his fever while I’m at it.”

Andrew frowned dubiously. “Do you know how?”

“Not even slightly,” she said. “But.” She looked up at Illyria, and then at Andrew. “It’s not like I can be any worse for him than she was.”

----------

They were standing in a still mostly-intact office, with Spike holding the door closed against any demons. He looked at Angel, who was turning the canister over and over in his hands. “Well?” he asked impatiently. “What happens now? We shoot that back into her coconut? Like Fred did with Lorne?”

“We can’t do that,” Angel said slowly. “You know why we had to remove her powers in the first place.”

“Yeah, I know, but I’m thinking that wouldn’t be the worst way to go right now,” Spike said. “’Sides, it would get the job done, wouldn’t it? Hasta la vista to all the demons?” He looked at Illyria. “You got a vote on the subject? They’re your powers after all.”

Her eyes looked hungrily at the canister. “I would gladly die if I would do so as the goddess I am meant to be.”

“That’s a yea vote, then.” Spike turned back to Angel. “Which makes you outnumbered, mate.”

Angel just frowned and shook his head again. “They can’t go back into her, Spike, it’s too dangerous. We don’t know how much of the rest of the world she would take out.”

“Then what was the point?” Spike cried. “What did you think you were going to do with them?”

Angel looked slowly up at Illyria. “Do you think you could control them if they’re outside of you?”

“My powers are not minions to bow before my command,” she said. “They do not move autonomously of me.”

“But it’s still power.” Angel tapped the canister to his forehead. “There is still the potential in here to do anything you could do. Are you willing to at least try?”

“You are a leader,” she said. “And you cannot conceive a better plan than this.”

Spike snickered, and Angel shrugged. “No, sorry, Illyria, it’s the only one I have.”

“That was not a query,” Illyria said. “It was merely an observation.”

Spike snickered again. “She’s serving you up, oh Scourge of Europe.”

“So you’ll try?” Angel asked.

She gave a stiff nod. “Do not expect it to succeed.”

“What should we expect?” Spike asked. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to know what she’d say.

Her head jerked towards him. “For your very flesh to melt like wax off of your bones.”

Spike nodded. “You know, not actually so bad, that.”

“Okay,” Angel said. He looked at the canister in his hands again, and then helplessly back up at the other two. “I don’t—exactly know what the best course of action for this would be.”

Spike smirked and shrugged, and Illyria just stared blankly. Angel sighed and looked out the window. “Randomly opening a portal in the middle of the street it is, then.”

Spike had follow-up questions, and opened his mouth to ask them, but Angel didn’t give him time. He jumped through the window, glass shattering everywhere, and landed on the street below. Spike rolled his eyes. “Drama queen,” he muttered, but followed him. Spike didn’t land as gracefully as he might have, and his ankle made a crunch as he crumpled to the ground. Well, that was just amazing. But he was fairly confident it wasn’t the only broken bone either he or Angel was sporting right now.

Illyria landed on her feet next to him, and stared down at him. “Get up,” he said sternly. “You do not benefit anybody by lying there and allowing the demons to devour you.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Yeah, thanks, pet. Wish I’d thought of that first.”

Angel grabbed Spike’s elbow and helped him up, before turning to Illyria. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I’m just gonna…kinda open the canister, and let you do what you see fit. Sound good?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer that. It’s what I’m doing, so…just try to make it work.”

Spike raised his fist and punched a vampire coming up behind him. He briefly glanced behind him to make sure the vampire was knocked out, before folding his arms and watching Angel.

But Angel was still hesitating a good long while, and Spike looked up at the sky. “Might want to hurry up, Father Time,” he said. “Sunrise is in a couple hours, and I’d really like to have all the demons herded in before turning to dust.”

“Yeah,” Angel said. “Yeah.” He took several quick breaths, and then squeezed his eyes shut and popped the lid of the canister off.

Blue and yellow electricity surged out almost before the lid was even all the way off, and the canister shattered in Angel’s hand. “Ow!” he cried, shaking his hand.

Illyria stepped forward and put her hands through the bolts of lightning. She screamed, but only once, and the electricity stayed where it was, hovering, dancing, sparking, but not leaving.

Spike’s stomach was grabbed by a Grox’lar beast, and he dragged his attention away from Illyria for a moment while he wrestled with it. He looked up to see Angel absently kicking away several small rodent demons, and as Spike pinned his own demon down, he again glanced at Illyria. Her face was strained, and she was screaming again, but she seemed to be succeeding in…something. She was bending the electric bolts, and they were getting brighter and shooting off more sparks, but they were listening to her. Spike’s eyes quickly scanned the debris and saw a knife that some demon or other had dropped. He seized it, and left it in the Grox’lar’s chest as he staggered back to his feet.

The light that Illyria was bending grew even brighter, too bright for Angel and Spike to look at without shading their eyes, but, with a final scream from Illyria, the light turned into darkness, and a massive black swirl appeared in the air.

It was howling, like an angry wind, but it was definitely a portal. Angel looked at Illyria. “Where does this lead?”

“A hell dimension,” she said. “One that only has an entrance. Not an exit.”

He nodded approvingly. “Perfect. Now all we gotta do is ferry these souls to the other side.”

“Souls being a subjective term,” Spike pointed out.

“It will not be difficult,” Illyria said. “They will come to us. They will be drawn to the evil. Only the very intelligent will understand what awaits them on the other side.”

“And even those will be drawn to us,” Spike said, and smiled at her proudly. “Look at you, Blue Fugate. Showing initiative and everything.”

“Yeah,” Angel said, looking out into the distance. “Initiative. Great.”

Spike and Illyria turned to follow his gaze, and the demons surged towards them anew, just as they had at the beginning of this whole battle. Illyria cocked her head. “Their numbers have not depleted.”

“Yeah, is there another portal somewhere that’s just spewing out more?” Spike asked. “Because this looks like the beginning of the night all over again.”

“Well,” Angel said. “This time, we actually have a chance.”

----------

Xander slammed a book shut and shoved it away from him, sighing as he opened another one. “This is all wrong,” he complained. “Buffy should be out fighting the demon, and Willow should be studying the drug, and you should be taking care of the invalid.”

Dawn grinned, peering into her microscope as she studied the drug. “And what should you have been doing?”

“Trying to kill Spike, obviously.”

Dawn snickered. “You must hate that you have to get him out of yet another predicament.” She turned away from the microscope and eyed his book. “I don’t think research will really get you anywhere, though. This is apparently an original.”

Xander hesitated, before slowly closing the book and pushing it away as well. “Oh.”

Dawn smirked and turned back to studying the drug, but after a while she asked quietly, “Were you tempted at all? To write his name down?”

Xander didn’t answer for a long time, and Dawn tried to focus on reading what she was seeing. “Yeah,” Xander said after a while. “Yeah, I was tempted. I didn’t know he was human then, though. But I…never would have done it anyway. And I knew that; I knew I wasn’t actually going to do it. Buffy really is the only one who would be able to kill him anyway…And she would have if she needed to. Because that’s what she does. She slays the threat.”

“Catherine’s probably safe from her then,” Dawn said reassuringly.

“I hope so,” Xander muttered.

“Huh.” Dawn suddenly pulled away, and then immediately bent down to look at it again. “Hand me that book…the one you were just looking at.”

“The one you said was useless?”

Dawn ignored him, and flipped it open, then turned to look into the microscope again. “It’s not actually a poison. Not technically, anyway. It’s just a whole mess of drugs…it’s similar to what they give Slayers during their…their uh…”

Xander leaned over to read the book. “Cruciamentum. You remember when Buffy lost her powers for a few days and then she had to fight the crazy vamp who stole your mom?”

“That’s what that was?” Dawn raised her eyebrows. “Yeesh, poor Buffy. Anyway, yeah, the stuff in the Nixopolitan is apparently a stronger version of that. It’s making him weaker, making his body less willing to try and get better, but Innocence was right. If Spike can fight it, he’ll be fine on his own.”

She tried to keep the hesitation out of her voice, but she knew Xander had picked up on it anyway when he said, “But?”

Dawn stared at the book, willing the effects of the drugs she saw listed to say anything else. “But they still are drugs, and if she gave him enough…he’ll slip into a coma, and…he won’t be there for very long.”

----------

So far, it seemed to be working. So far Angel and Spike and Illyria just stood at the gaping mouth of the portal, and the demons plunged headlong into it of their own accord. There were, as Illyria said, the smarter ones who got wind of it, but those were easy enough to fight when it was only them.

There still was a lot of fighting, but for the first time, Angel was beginning to see their numbers go down. There didn’t seem to be hordes of demons everywhere he turned, now. Which was good, because sunrise was rapidly approaching, and he and Spike would have to find somewhere to lay low.

And then Angel suddenly turned and saw a group of demons huddled together, chanting. He wasn’t familiar with their species, but seeing as how they were completely hooded and only a single horn could be seen protruding from the hoods, he probably couldn’t have identified them anyway.

“Hey,” he said. “What are they doing?”

“Attempting to close the portal,” Illyria said.

“Like hell they will,” Spike said. “’Scuse me, fellas.”

He began moving towards them, and then he stopped, and Angel saw why. The fuzzy little balls were back, swarming in a circle around the chanting demons. Angel felt his stomach lurch just looking at them, and he knew Spike was feeling the same.

“Jiggers,” Angel said. “I thought those things couldn’t be controlled.”

“They can be enchanted, just like any other demon,’ Illyria said. “They have been enchanted to protect the Wheatus clan.”

“Oh, is that who they are?” Angel asked, but then shook his head. “Spike,” he called.

“Yeah,” Spike said softly. “Yeah.”

“They are harmless to vampires,” Illyria said. “Why does—”

“Because they’re not harmless to us,” Angel said. “They eat souls, and they don’t just do it cleanly. They take parts of your humanity, and whatever’s keeping you alive, in the process.”

Spike shrugged. “So what, it’s not like my soul did anything it was supposed to do, anyway.”

“But—“ Angel didn’t know why he was doing it, but he strode forward and grabbed Spike’s arm. “You lose the soul, you’re not a contender for the Shanshu anymore.”

“Oh no,” Spike said sarcastically. “I guess that burden will fall to you then. However will I bear it? Oh, I know how. Cause I’ll be soulless, and it won’t matter, you git.” He strode forward again, and Angel wavered, wanting to say that it could only go to Spike at this point, but he chose not to. He let him go.

But it mattered…Spike keeping his soul mattered . Spike was very protective of it, and was still clearly fighting for Buffy’s sake. If he no longer had either, he would likely fall back into his old ways, and that was the last thing anyone in this scenario would want.

And even if Angel didn’t know all of that, he could smell tears burning in the back of Spike’s eyes.

Angel gave a frustrated sigh. “Stay here,” he told Illyria, and strode forward again, even though Spike had already reached the demons.

The Jiggers did latch onto Spike, immediately, and Angel heard him howl in pain, but he attacked the demons anyway. The Wheatus clan seemed to have no fighting skills of their own, other than struggling, and in spite of the brown dots swarming all over Spike’s body, he was able to dispose of the demons in a matter of minutes.

As soon as he did so the Jiggers scattered, and Angel leaped over the ones running towards him and ran to Spike. He was gasping, and covered in tiny red marks. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, which only left more blood than had been there before. He looked up at Angel and swayed, squinting at him in confusion. Angel put his hand out, and Spike backed up in fear, tripping on a brick and stumbling backwards.

“Hey,” Angel said. “It’s just me.” He looked Spike over searchingly. Was the soul still there? Had the Jiggers had time to finish taking it?

Spike’s eyes filled with tears, and he shook his head. “I don’t know you.”

“Well, then you don’t know it, but you’re the happiest you’ve ever been,” Angel said, with a wry smile.

He looked up at the sky, and saw the sun starting to rise. He looked back to Spike, and held his hand out again. “Come on, we have to get out from under the sun. Illyria can finish the job.”

Spike looked fearful, but he took Angel’s hand, and allowed himself to be stood up. And then the first ray of sun shone down on them, and Angel grunted in pain and yanked Spike into a convenience store that had part of the ceiling still intact.

But the sun was still shining on Spike, or seemed to be, anyway. He was looking at his hands, which had started glowing. Spike raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth, seeming to try to say something, but nothing came out. The glow spread up his arms, up to his head and down his legs. And then suddenly he looked up at Angel with a panicked expression, and launched forward into his arms.

“Angel!” He gasped, in what was one of the most anguished cries Angel had ever heard from him. On instinct he wrapped his arms around Spike, but immediately had to push him aside.

Because holding Spike felt like holding the sun. It burned him.

Spike fell to the ground, and the glowing became so bright that Angel couldn’t even really see whether Spike was still in there or not. And then a ray shot out of his heart that exploded the rest of the building around him, and Angel cursed as he darted out into the street, and found a car that he dove into. He ripped his jacket off and threw it over his head, and looked back into the store.

He could see Spike, or his head, anyway. The glow was gone, but he was still lying on the ground.

And Angel could smell Spike’s blood as his heart pumped away.

----------

Willow had run until her lungs felt like they were going to collapse before she remembered that she didn’t have her powers anymore, and if she actually did catch up with that giant moth…thing that Innocence had turned into, she’d probably be dead before she could count how many legs it had had. She stopped, abruptly, and Giles slammed into her.

“Wait,” Willow panted.

“What?” Giles asked, wheezing as he bent over and tried to catch his breath. “We’ll lose…we’ll lose her if we don’t…”

“What are we doing?” Willow asked. “We can’t do anything against her!”

“A Zidverita demon doesn’t have any magic, Willow. Just that transformation act, and that’s simply biological.”

“Well, she’s bigger than us now,” Willow pointed out. “And we didn’t…exactly bring any weapons, and I don’t have my powers anymore.”

“Oh,” Giles said, still gasping. “Yes, I…I suppose those are all good points. But if she’s a member, we can’t just…just let her get away!’

Willow couldn’t help smiling affectionately, but she shook her head. “Look around, Giles. She’s already gone. We’ve already lost her. We were crazy to think we could keep up on foot, anyway.”

Giles pointed. “I still see her. Perhaps we could just follow, see where she goes.”

Willow looked up. She wasn’t exactly subtle, a giant greenish moth against the stars. “I guess,” she said. “For as long as we can see her, anyway.”

“I know we really couldn’t have done anything,” Giles said, as they continued again, at a much slower pace. “I just…I thought I had to do something.”

Willow nodded. “Yeah, I know. We just wanted to spare Buffy from having to follow it. We wanted to spare her the decision to leave him.” She looked sideways at Giles. “It’s a really good thing none of us have a guilt complex or anything.”

----------

Everything felt quiet now. Angel wanted to say it was because Spike wasn’t talking, but Illyria wouldn’t appreciate it, and Angel wasn’t even sure he appreciated it. Because he sort of hated that Spike wasn’t talking. That he hadn’t woken up since he Shanshued.

Illyria had managed to close the portal, and had come looking for Spike and Angel. Angel had darted back to the wreckage of Wolfram and Hart, and Illyria had brought Spike, depositing him on the floor.

“Most of his wounds seem to have healed,” Angel said, for lack of literally anything else to say. “That’s good. For him.”

“If his humanity has been restored, it stands to reason he would have been cured of anything that would have killed his mortal form,” Illyria replied.

“Oh,” Angel said. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

More silence. Angel could see and hear that there were still some leftover demons outside, waiting to be eradicated, but he couldn’t do a thing about it until nightfall. And Spike had to go and be an unconscious, unhelpful idiot, just like always.

Illyria tilted her head. “But it did not cure everything.”

“No,” Angel admitted. “There was a panel or something from the ceiling that dropped on his stomach. You know, when he made the building explode.”

“He is dying,” Illyria said bluntly.

Angel closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

Illyria seemed to consider this, and finally she said. “If he is to die, I would have someone be with him.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” Angel said. “I can’t. Are you?”

“Someone he cares for,” Illyria said. “It…was beneficial to Wesley to see the Burkle girl in his final moments.”

“Oh,” Angel said. “Well, I don’t doubt Buffy would drop everything and run to his side to be with him, but, oh wait, she still thinks he’s dead.”

Illyria looked sharply at him. “Buffy.”

Angel narrowed his eyes at her. “Yeah,” he said cautiously. “He loves Buffy. But he’s made it clear he doesn’t want her to know he’s alive, and she’s on the other side of the planet, anyway.”

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Illyria said.

“That’s the one.”

Illyria turned on her heel and walked briskly away. Angel hastily followed her, but had to stop when the sun crossed his path. “Wait,” he said desperately. “Where are you going? You couldn’t possibly reach her in time, you don’t even know—”

“Your jet can arrive in Europe in four hours,” she called back. “And it is programmed to locate individuals. I shall return by sundown.”

Angel just stared after her helplessly, until he heard someone behind him say timidly, “Angel?”

He turned and looked in surprise at a Zidverita demon, wearing tall red heels and a lab coat. “Yeah?”

She reached up to tighten her long ponytail. “I’m Innocence…I actually was on your payroll before all of this went down. I was a nurse in your lab, and I’d like to offer my services to your friend over there.”

----------

Xander leaned on the doorframe of Spike’s bedroom and looked at Buffy. She’d gone into full nurse mode, and had been trying to break his fever as best he could.

She’d finally succeeded, but Spike hadn’t woken up since, and Xander could tell Buffy thought that was worse, that now she didn’t even have his screaming nonsense to assure her he was still alive and kicking.

It had been close to an entire day since Buffy had woken up to see Spike boiling himself alive in the bathroom. The rest of the house had heard that episode, part of it anyway, because noise really did travel in the house. But everyone knew, from years of experience, that if it didn’t sound like a problem that concerned you, you really had to learn how to sleep through it, and you would be summoned if you were needed.

And now there was nothing more they could do. Andrew had been assisting Buffy, but he was asleep in a chair now, and Illyria was standing on one side of the bed, just staring down at Spike. Buffy was sitting on the other side, and was gently tracing his face with one finger.

Xander wasn’t even sure if Buffy knew he was there. Or if she’d noticed when he’d arrived, she seemed to have forgotten. “Buffy,” he said gently.

She turned her head, and he saw tears streaking her face. She slowly stood up, and walked over to him, and then just fell into his arms. She wasn’t actively crying at the moment, at least he didn’t think so, but he still held her tightly and rubbed circles into her back.

“Dawn says if he doesn’t wake up in the next day he’s not going to,” Buffy said in a muffled voice.

Xander kissed the top of her head. “I know. But he has the best fighting chance now that he’s ever had, Buff. You’ve done all you can, and he’ll either get better now or…he won’t.” He cringed as he said those last words, but he hadn’t been able to think of any ending more appropriate.

And she just nodded, and then pulled her face back to look at him. “Where is she?”

“Dawn? Uh…” Xander didn’t really know how to answer that question. Dawn had been acting casual about this whole process, but when she’d come to tell Buffy about the Nixopolitan, and had actually seen Spike suffering the effects of it, her face had become very tight. She told Xander she had something she had to go do, and headed towards the front door, and when Xander had pressed for details, she’d just flounced out into the night without another word. “She had to run an errand,” was the strongest lie he could come up with.

“This late?” Buffy asked, scrubbing her face dry.

“Yeah…” He could see the hole he was about to dig, but he couldn’t turn back now. “Catherine…uh…wanted me to pick something up for her, and Dawn said she’d do it.”

He held his breath, but Buffy just leaned back against his chest and said, “Oh.”

Xander heard the front door open, and Buffy raised her head again and headed down the stairs, with Xander following her.

“Willow!” Buffy said quickly, and stepped forward to hug her, looking up at Giles as he closed the door behind them. “I’m…I’m glad you didn’t…” she had to stop, and Xander could see tears starting up in her eyes again.

“We saw where they’re hiding,” Willow said. “It’s the same place my location spell pointed last time, so, I guess whatever you saw go up in a lava burst was just a ruse. But, we’ve actually seen it, now. It’s a cave.”

“Did you see any of the members?” Buffy asked.

“Just Innocence,” Giles said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head quickly. “I’m just happy you’re back, I should never have let you go without me.”

“How’s…” Willow paused, as if she wasn’t sure how Buffy would react to his name. Which Xander understood. When he’d been dead before, everyone was careful not to say his name, for her sake. She hadn’t asked that of them, but they all felt it was the right thing to do. And if he was gone now…

“I don’t know,” Buffy said, not waiting for Willow to finish. “I…don’t know. Fever’s gone, but, all I can do is wait for him to wake up, now, because if he doesn’t soon, he won’t.” She swallowed. “Ever.” She gave a shuddering sigh, and then stepped back, crossing her arms and lifting her chin. “So. We know Innocence is one of the members, but we don’t know which one. And we know Spike is someone they’re targeting, at least.”

Spike counts as one of yours . Xander looked up quickly at Willow and Giles, who returned his look before they all glanced away. Fortunately, Buffy didn’t seem to have noticed.

“We four are definitely part of it,” Buffy continued. “And I’m willing to bet Dawn is the sixth. So, who is our seventh?” She looked around. “Any ideas?”

Giles shrugged. “Faith, perhaps?”

“Or Illyria,” Xander said.

“It’s not Kennedy,” Willow said bitterly. “That girl has lost the Mission.”

“It might be Andrew,” Buffy said.

“Innocence is a member,” Andrew said, suddenly, walking in grandly and leaning against the doorframe with crossed arms.

They all turned to look at him, and Xander raised his eyebrows. “Thank you, Captain Hindsight.”

“No, I mean that’s one of them. The Innocence. That’s who she is. One of the two you don’t have a title for.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. “And you know this, how?”

“Well, believe it or not, dear Buffy, Mr. Giles here asked me to dig up some low-lifes for info,” Andrew said, smiling smugly in Giles’ direction. “And don’t ever say Andy don’t deliver.”

“You found information on them,” Giles said skeptically.

Andrew shrugged. “I don’t have much. Just that. Innocence is the Innocence.”

Buffy gave a frustrated sigh. “If he dies, again,” she said, in a voice shaking slightly. “It will be because I was too stupid to see who was killing him.”

“It wasn’t just you,” Xander said gently. “None of us noticed.”

“Yeah,” Willow said. “Actually, we really should have, so I just really, really hope she was using a spell like Glory did, because it’s really embarrassing that not one of us figured it out.”

“It’s part of her innocent act,” Buffy said in a flat voice. “You heard her.”

“And a good one, really,” Giles said. “She knew you’d be distracted by his becoming human, and knew you wouldn’t want him to die.”

“And it worked,” Buffy said, softly. “Especially because he’s been so different…he keeps popping out with an accent I’ve never heard from him before, and he’s been…clingier.”

“Yeah,” Xander said pointedly. “We’ve noticed.”

“Well,” Giles said. “I suppose that can be attributed to the fact that he’s still adjusting, and therefore sometimes reverts to how he was back then.”

“And I called that!” Andrew said. “I totally called that.”

“And, Buffy, you’re likely just something he finds safe and familiar,” Giles went on, in a very gentle tone.

“Safe and familiar,” Buffy repeated. Her face began to crumple, and Willow strode forward to gather her up in her arms. As Buffy slipped to the ground, Willow followed, and frowned at everyone else, motioning them out.

Xander looked back to see Buffy full-on sobbing as she clung to Willow, and sighed.

“She really loves him,” Andrew said in awe.

“Yeah,” Xander murmured. “Someone really ought to tell her boyfriend.”

Giles smacked him across the back of his head, which he really couldn’t argue with, nor the fact that Giles grabbed both of their arms and roughly yanked them away.

----------

The vampire healing was kicking in, and Innocence had patched him up pretty well, but all that was doing was making Angel restless. He could only stand in the tiny room that made up Spike’s hospital ward for so long, and finally he ventured out into another piece of wreckage. It ended up being an even smaller space to pace in, because the sun was flitting through cracks everywhere.

But he stopped when he heard someone walk up behind him, and whipped around to see someone familiar. She tilted her head and smiled, her blonde hair falling across her face.

“Hello, Angel,” she said.

He swallowed. “Darla.”

She took a step forward, and he hastily took a step back. She looked pained, but just nodded. “I deserve that, I suppose. But, I am actually an apparition this time. I’m dead, I’m gone, there is no coming back for me.”

He swallowed again. “But here you are.”

“No,” she said. “Not really.” She stepped forward and put her hand on his arm, but it went through him. “See? Apparition.”

He didn’t say anything, and she smiled. “I don’t have long. And neither do you. But I was sent to tell you something…and it was decided you’d listen to me.”

He wanted to counter that, but he knew whoever had decided that was probably right.

“The Shanshu Prophecy,” she said. “Was meant to be about you.”

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Well, someone screwed up then.”

“No one screwed up. You gave it away. You signed away your right to it, and you opened the door for Spike, to be able to earn it if he could. It couldn’t apply to him before you did that.”

Angel wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “Oh.”

“But even though you could not be given that,” Darla said. “You have earned it. Your redemption, your right to humanity…you’ve earned a reward, dear boy.”

“Is it a silver medal?” he asked bitterly.

“It is the chance to become a higher being,” she said solemnly.

Angel was hit with a wave of dizziness, but he got over it the minute he remembered Cordelia. “No, thank you,” he said. “I don’t need to go through what—”

“It is not her higher plane,” Darla said gently. “It’s where I am. It’s where Buffy was.”

Angel looked up at her quickly. “And…where was that, exactly?”

She smiled in response. “Cordelia’s was a trap,” she said. “It was a manipulation, and of the higher planes it was one of the lowest. But this dimension is a place of rest for those who sacrifice themselves to save another.”

“And you qualified?” Angel asked. “Because Connor almost destroyed the world.”

“Connor saved you,” Darla said simply. “Buffy saved her sister, and the Powers have enormous plans for that child. Spike saved Buffy in the hellmouth, and he would have ended up where I am if his essence had not been captured in transit.”

“And me?” Angel asked.

“You saved Spike,” Darla said. She smiled. “You gave your prize to him. And all of those sacrifices were for someone the world still needs, and all of those sacrifices are to be rewarded with…a heavenly dimension.”

“So you want me to die,” Angel said.

“It is your choice. If you have anything here you would like to remain for, you may.” She hesitated. “But I will return at midnight, and you must have made your choice by then. If you decide to remain here, I can guarantee you nothing, either in this life or the next, other than the fact that you will die as a vampire. There is no other path to humanity.”

----------

Spike’s eyelids felt like they were being pulled shut, but the sunlight streaming in was enough to make him want to open them anyway.

That, and the mumbling. He could hear a voice in the corner, and barely turned his head to see his Slayer pacing in front of the door that led to his balcony. She was carving a stake, fairly violently, and she was yelling at it angrily, in a low voice.

“Stupid vampire,” she was saying, in a voice that he could barely perceive as wobbly. “If you’d just believed me, we wouldn’t be here, but no, you had to be the hero, had to go and get a soul, had to get resurrected, had to get humanity, had to keep messing with my feelings, didn’t you? I told you it was gonna hurt, why didn’t you just run away then? Told you I wanted you out of my life, why do you always have to know when I’m lying, why can’t you just, for once—”

“Buffy?” he asked, as soon as he could make his tongue form the word.

She instantly looked over at him, glaring furiously at him before she dropped her stake and knife and flew towards him.

She bounded on his bed and threw her arms around his neck, gripping him so hard he almost couldn’t breathe, but that was a small price to pay. He lifted his arms and held her back, as best he could, and oh, it felt like heaven to again be able to bury his nose in her golden hair.

But she seemed to compose herself, and sat primly up, wearing a perfectly neutral face. “So,” she said. “Um. Don’t mind me talking to myself like a crazy person.”

He lifted his hand, and ran the back of his fingers through the hair framing her face. “That’s okay.”

She seemed to consider something for a moment, and then screwed her eyes up at him. “You still have vampire powers.”

“Yep.”

“So vampire hearing…”

“You don’t have to fret over it, love. I know I was dying.”

She nodded, and coolly stood up off the bed. “Good.”

“Right then.”

But he couldn’t stop smiling at her, and after seeming to fight it for a moment, her face broke and she gave him a smile back.

She looked so happy to see him. And that made Spike feel more alive than anything thus far.

Chapter Text

A little blonde girl skipped happily next to her father, clutching his hand.

“Well, did you like the ice skating, princess?” the man asked.

“Uh huh!” the girl nodded her head confidently. “I like when they move like this.” She let go of her father’s hand and began spinning around on the sidewalk, dragging her feet as she mimicked gliding over the ice.

Her father laughed, and clapped. “That was fantastic!”

“I want to be one of those skaters when I grow up,” the girl said, taking her father’s hand again. She looked up at him hopefully. “Can we go see it again next time it’s my birthday?”

He scooped her up, and she giggled as he kissed her forehead. “Of course we can, Buffy!” he said. “Don’t we always?”

----------

“That’s Rachel, she’s in filing,” Andrew said, waving his hand in a girl’s direction. “And Tina here answers the phone.”

“Coffee, Andrew?” another girl asked, walking up to him and holding out a cup.

“Ah, Kimmy, my godsend,” Andrew said. “Black with three creams and four sugars?”

“Yep,” she said briefly, before she turned and walked away.

Andrew looked back towards Buffy and Spike as he took a sip. “That’s Kimmy. She fetches my coffee.”

“We noticed,” Buffy said. “And you can stop having her do that right now. You weren’t put in charge of a group of Slayers just so they could wait on you.”

“It’s an important job,” Andrew insisted. “Everyone else I’ve tried just tells me it isn’t black coffee if I put that much cream and sugar in.”

“Then you can just try getting your own,” Buffy said. She looked around at the conference hall they’d been renting. It was only one large room, but they’d brought in a good number of desks, and it was humming with activity. The girls at their desks were actually typing away, phones were ringing, a printer was being utilized somewhere near here, and the girls looked more confident than they had the last time she’d seen them. “But I do like the setup here.”

Andrew perked back up, and a delighted exclamation was on his lips, but then he cleared his throat and nodded sagely. “Thank you, Buffy. We’re somewhat proud of it.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “You’ve done a good job here, Andrew.”

He beamed and then gestured to an empty desk at the front of the room. “Then, may I invite you to step into my office so we may discuss a matter of importance?”

----------

Spike wasn’t sure why Buffy had asked him to come along. Apparently she, and Giles, visited this headquarters every so often, but Andrew really was in charge of it, and all their energies now were still focused on finding out more about the Seven. And Spike wasn’t really sure what to do in any of this. He’d never been part of a research party, not once, and there was precious little to fight, anymore. 

He didn’t know why he’d thought he could just slide right back into Buffy’s life. And he didn’t really understand why both she and Angel had seemed to give up their purpose in life for offices and councils and suits and ties.

At least Buffy didn’t dress like she was a corporate worker. And she still patrolled on occasion.

But she hadn’t asked Spike to come on those trips since he’d been here. He knew before it was because he was ill, or injured, or both, and he was fairly confident he knew the reason she still didn’t ask him even now. She’d never said, or really even implied, that it was because he was a human now, and therefore someone she’d have to watch out for, but…he knew. He remembered Buffy’s protectiveness over everyone less than supernatural.

He watched Buffy walk over to Andrew’s desk, and turned to the girl in filing. He walked over to her and asked “Rachel?”

She glanced up at him in mild interest, and then suddenly more interest as she realized who she was. “Hey,” she said. “Spike, right? What can I do for you?”

He hesitated, but then tilted his head and cast his eyes towards her computer. “Was wondering if you could dig up a Slayer for me. Reckon you’ve got all their names squirreled away in there somewhere, yeah?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Yeah. What’s her name?”

“Dana.”

Rachel’s fingers hesitated over the keyboard. “Dana? Dana Huera?”

He shrugged. “Never knew her last name, love.”

Rachel’s fingers still hesitated, but she asked, “And you want to know where she is?”

“Yeah, today, if possible,” Spike said, with a note of impatience, looking over his shoulder at Buffy. “So if you could just search her up before—"

“I don’t need to search her up,” Rachel said. “She’s here. In London. Mr. Giles knows of a coven here that is trying to take care of her. She’s locked up, and her mind is still scattered and they’re saying it probably always will be. But they’ve got her calmed to the point where she doesn’t violently attack anymore.”

Spike bit his lip, and leaned on the desk, looking earnestly into her eyes. “Tell me where I can find her?”

----------

Andrew laced his fingers together and laid them on his desk. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “I’ve been thinking, and you’re clearly impressed with how we’re running things here, and I believe it is time for this operation to take its next step.”

Buffy nodded and opened her mouth, but Andrew cut her off before she could say anything. “Now, hear me out,” he said. “It’s been a long time getting up off the ground, what with all the training and recruiting, but it’s happened now and it’s time for them to have a real office headquarters.” He then closed his mouth firmly, and looked at her in kind of a challenging way.

Buffy genuinely was impressed with how seriously he was taking all of this. He’d grown up, more than she realized. But she smirked, and raised her eyebrow. How far was he willing to take this?

“Well, here’s another thing,” she said. “How do I know you don’t have some ulterior motive in all of this?”

He looked genuinely startled, and she couldn’t actually tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Wh—like what?”

“I don’t know.” Buffy gestured vaguely around the room. “Like being surrounded by a bunch of young women at your beck and call, for example.”

“Buffy,” he said, and he suddenly looked so earnest that she immediately forgave him. “I know you didn’t like how I had Kimmy getting my coffee, but honestly, I really do love and respect these girls. I know they’re stronger than I’ll ever be, and I want...I want to help them. I want to help you.”

She nodded, and smiled at him. “I believe you, Andrew. I’ll talk to Giles about it.”

“Really?” Andrew asked, leaping up, and seizing her hand. “Thank you, Buffy, you won’t regret it,” he said, pumping her hand with both of his.

“Looks like she’s already starting to, whatever it is,” Spike said, suddenly walking up behind her. 

“Ah, Spike,” Andrew said. “You just caught us at the end of a business deal, one I hope will be very profitable for both sides. Would you two care to join me for donuts in the break room?” He waved his hand grandly over to a card table in the corner, where one lone box of donuts was sitting.

Andrew turned away from them, and Spike grasped her elbow. “Buffy?”

She faced him. “Yeah?”

“Look, I—” he glanced around, and then back at her. “I think I am gonna push off.” He was still holding her elbow, but he suddenly looked at it and hastily let it go. “You know, fight my own fight and all that?”

Buffy was caught off guard, but she tried not to let it show. “Oh.” Why had he chosen to tell her right this second? Right here, where she couldn’t exactly…well, not like she would have done anything differently even if they were alone. She was the one who told him she wouldn’t be upset if he made that decision. “Are…are you sure?”

He nodded, and flashed a quick smile. “Figure Illyria will probably go with me. Between the two of us we’ll have enough residual strength to suss out any particular nasties your troupe might overlook.”

Buffy crossed her arms, and nodded. “Okay…um. When?”

He shrugged. “Well, not in the present moment. Pretty soon though, I reckon. Not exactly like I have anything to sort out here.”

“Right.” She started after Andrew again. “Right.” She hesitated, and glanced back. “You know you’ve still got a member trying to kill you.”

“Yeah, and now I know what she looks like. Wouldn’t be the first time someone powerful was gunning for me.”

Buffy nodded again, and pursed her lips. “Well,” she said, with as much sincerity as she could summon. “I hope…I hope everything works out for you.”

He nodded in acknowledgement, and followed her towards Andrew, who was accepting another coffee from Kimmy, but suddenly he looked at Buffy and very guiltily shoved the coffee back. “Hey, don’t worry about bringing my coffee anymore,” he said. He reached out and barely touched her shoulder. “There was nothing wrong with you. I just think your talents could be better employed elsewhere.” He looked pointedly at Buffy. “Isn’t that right?”

Buffy rolled her eyes, but smiled. “That’s right, Andrew.”

“Buffy?” a timid voice said behind her, and Buffy turned to see one of the Slayers that Andrew had pointed out to her. She racked her brain trying to remember her name, and mercifully, she did.

“Hi, Tina,” she said. “What’s up?”

The girl was nervously clutching a cell phone to her chest, but she held it out to Buffy. “It’s…it’s for you.”

Buffy looked in confusion up at Andrew, and then Spike, but both of them just shrugged and watched her take the phone and hold it up to her ear. “Hello?”

“Buffy Summers?”

“Uh, yeah. Speaking.”

“My name is Felix Slater, I’m with the Met Police…I’m calling because we’d like you to come in and identify a body.”

Well, that was never a sentence she liked hearing. She felt herself grow cold as she clutched the phone. “What…what body?”

A silence, and then, “I’m very sorry, Miss Summers, but we believe it to be your father. Hank Summers.”

----------

“Come on, Xander, just give me a chance!”

Xander sighed, and looked Willow up and down. She was dressed in overalls and a paint-splattered tee, and he could tell by that alone how badly she wanted this. “Willow, I’m not doubting your ability in the slightest, but when Buffy tried to take an interest in carpentry, she ended up getting way fired.”

Willow tilted her head, and played with the hammer in her hands. “Are you saying you’re gonna fire me?”

“I’m just scared you’re trying to overcompensate,” Xander said gently. “And if it doesn’t go well, you’ll…you know…”

Willow looked blankly at him. “I’ll what?”

“Lose faith in yourself.”

Willow threw him an affectionate smile that he’d always thought was adorable, but also knew was slightly condescending. “Xander. I gave up my powers. I know it wasn’t because anything was wrong with me.”

Xander wasn’t convinced, and Willow seemed to sense that, because she kept going. “And I haven’t switched all my passions to carpentry, so if it doesn’t go well, I’ll just go to Illyria and ask her to train me in hand-to-hand combat or something.” She looked up at him with a pleading look he had absolutely never been able to resist. “I’m just looking for a distraction. Please?”

Xander did try to resist this time, but the more he stared, the more he knew he could never say no to that face. “Fine,” he said, delighting in how her whole face lit up.

Both their heads turned to look at the side table in Spike’s room that Innocence had broken when beating her hasty retreat. Xander shook his head in mock sadness. “Well, it’s looking pretty bad,” he said. “But I am not losing that leg. Not today.”

----------

She was shutting down. Spike hadn’t really been able to hear what was happening on the other end, other than who was calling her. But whatever they were telling her, it was making her shut down, and he needed to stop that right quick.

He grabbed the phone from her unresisting hand, and put it to his ear to hear an address being spoken. And then he heard, “Again, I’m very sorry for your loss,” and the phone clicked as whoever it was hung up.

Spike stared at the phone, and then shoved it back into Tina’s hand. Buffy turned and started walking away, and Spike winced. He knew what she was like when her world was shattered. She moved, like a ghost, not caring about anything or anyone besides the one driving thought in her mind, whatever it might be.

He sprinted after her, and caught up with her as she stepped out into the street. “Buffy!” he said, falling into step with her. “Pet, what did they tell you?”

“They think they found my father.” Buffy’s voice was perfectly even, perfectly flat, perfectly monotone. She stared ahead with wide, dry eyes and kept walking.

Her dead father, if those last words he caught on the cell were anything to go by. But he knew she wouldn’t refer to him as being dead if she could help it.

“Your father is in England?” he decided to ask instead.

“Not last I heard.” A frown began to appear on her brow, and, well, some emotion was better than no emotion. “So I don’t know.”

“Slayer,” Spike said. “Where are you going?”

“Morgue,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Police want me to identify him.”

“You planning on walking all the way there?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “It’s just a couple blocks over…”

“No, it isn’t—hey.” Spike slipped in front of her and grabbed her arms. She shrugged her shoulders and pulled her arms away, but he just grabbed them again. “Listen to me, love,” he said sternly. “And just calm down. If they want you to identify him, that means they’re not sure.”

“Of course they’re sure,” Buffy said, in a voice that was just starting to get a little higher. “He had a wallet on him, and a phone, and they can check DNA or something…they just want me to identify him for official reasons…I guess…and…” She roughly shrugged him off again and tried to start walking, but he frowned and gripped her shoulder, twisting her around to face him.

“Buffy, we’re getting a cab.”

“We?” she asked skeptically.

“We’re not walking from here to the bloody other side of town, all right?” She looked away, and he grabbed both of her shoulders and shook her gently. “All right?”

She hesitated, but then finally turned to face him again. “All right,” she said quietly.

He nodded, and carefully let go of her shoulders. “All right then.”

----------

A shadow fell across the table, and Irwin looked up at the girl standing and glowering at him. He gasped and jumped up, bumping the table and knocking his glass over. “Dawn,” he said hastily. “Look, this is a demon bar, and I didn’t seek you out, okay, so you can’t just—”

“Buy me a drink,” she said.

He frowned. “What?”

“Demon bars don’t serve minors, either,” Dawn said. “Not human ones, anyway. I asked, and the guy said it’s because they never know whose protection they’re under, and what kind of trouble that protection might cause for the establishment.”

“You’re…” Irwin squinted, trying to understand. “You want me…to buy you…a drink.”

“Yes,” Dawn huffed, crossing her arms. “I thought just asking you outright would be faster than me trying to wheedle one out of anyone here, but now I’m thinking I was wrong.”

“No, no,” Irwin said hastily. “Uh, what—what can I get you?”

Dawn shrugged. “Whatever they have that’s normal. As in, doesn’t contain any ingredients that were once part of a human or demon or really any creature.”

“Got…got it,” Irwin stammered, and hurried off to the bar, where he glanced at the selection that claimed to cater to humans and picked the first thing he saw. He hurried back, half expecting her to not be there anymore, and plopped her drink in front of her.

“Thanks,” Dawn said casually, and began walking away.

“Woah, wait a minute,” Irwin said, darting in front of her. “You can’t do that.”

Dawn raised her eyebrows. “I can’t do what? I told you to buy me something, and you did. I think that concludes any business we have together.”

Irwin glared at her. “I don’t think you’re doing this right.”

“I only came here because I didn’t know they would discriminate against under-age humans. You being here just worked out in my favor, since I threatened to kill you and all that.”

“So what do I have to say to make you stay and talk to me?”

Dawn slowly sipped her drink. “Was Illyria right?” she asked. “You got a crush on me or something?”

“Is that a problem?”

“Well, I don’t date demons, so it kinda makes it a problem for you.”

Irwin scoffed and rolled his eyes. “You don’t date anyone. You just sleaze around looking for chumps who will buy you a round. You think you’re too good for me? Because you’re not.”

He regretted saying it, sort of, because a look of hurt flashed in her eyes, before she downed the rest of her drink and shoved the empty glass into his hands. “It’s a hobby,” she said defensively. “It’s a way for me to blow off steam. It’s not something I’m proud of, and it’s not something I would do to or with anyone I cared about.” She tossed her hair, and swung around towards the door. “And I can’t help it if you chumps actually fall for the sleaziness.”

----------

When Buffy had found her mother, it was like the universe was mocking her. Showing her a perfectly normal picture of her mother—healthy and unblemished and lying strewn on her couch with no pain on her face because it had happened too suddenly to cause any.

That was what Buffy had found the most difficult thing to grasp. What do you mean her mom was dead, her mom was fine , look at her, she didn’t even need to wear a headscarf to cover her bandage anymore because she was fine , and there was a card from a gentleman caller asking to see her again like everything was fine .

This was entirely different. This time she was in a morgue, staring at the mangled face of her father, with a policeman on one side of her and Spike on the other. She looked at him for a long time, her face perfectly composed. Because this was easier. Violence and blood spoke a language that she was able to understand perfectly. There was no room for denial, no room for doubt.

She felt Spike’s hand ghost her shoulder. “Is it him, pet?” he murmured.

Buffy gave the tiniest nod, and Spike’s fingers pressed her shoulder.

The policeman by her side cleared his throat. “Would you like to hear what happened, now?”

“Okay,” Buffy said, but she wasn’t really sure she’d actually heard the question.

“He got a flat,” the man said, his tone slipping into what Buffy was sure was his business voice. “Going 95, or thereabouts, on a country road, and from what we can gather he hit a ditch in the road, the tire went flat and his car spun out of control. Ran off the side of a road and hit a tree…forensics team don’t think it killed him instantly, but he was dead by the time anyone got to him.”

Buffy could feel Spike tensing up behind her, and she was pretty sure he was about to tell the policeman off for showing so little tact. “Did he suffer?” she asked, before Spike could say anything.

“He…he likely wasn’t conscious post impact, Miss Summers.”

“Okay,” Buffy said again. She gave a sniff, just one, as if forcing herself to show emotion, and turned to face him. “What happens to him?”

“Well…you and your sister are his only remaining relatives. If you don’t want to claim responsibility for him, however, then I suppose we could…”

“No,” Buffy waved her hand vaguely. “I’ll take him.”

He nodded. “I’ll let them know to start drawing up the paperwork for you.” He gave a sort of bow with his head at her, and left the room.

Buffy wrapped her arms around herself, and began rubbing her forearms slowly as she walked out of the room and down the hall to the lobby. Spike followed, and she carefully avoided his gaze. She didn’t want the sympathy she knew would be etched all over his features.

A woman was sitting there already, and she looked up. Recognition washed over her face as she rose and said, “Buffy?”

Buffy had no idea who she was, but she just shrugged, and said, “Yeah.”

The woman was probably in her early 30s, and she had short hair that had been dyed a very deep shade of red. She gave a sort of bashful smile at Buffy. “I, um…he showed me pictures. Hank did. He was very…very proud of you.”

“Diane,” Buffy suddenly realized. “You’re his secretary.”

She gave a nervous laugh, and rubbed her head under her short hair. “Well, I haven’t been that for a while. But, yeah. I was living with him. But um…it’s been over between us, for almost two years. And as far as I know, Hank’s been living alone ever since.”

“You’ve been over for two years and they still let you know that your old flame was deceased?” Spike asked.

“I was his emergency contact. Guess he never changed it.” Diane turned back to Buffy. “This your boyfriend?”

“Oh,” Spike sputtered. “Actually, I’m just—”

“Yeah, he is,” Buffy said smoothly. There would be fewer questions that way. The policeman hadn’t asked, but Buffy was pretty sure he’d thought the same thing.

Spike’s head snapped in her direction, and then turned and looked at Diane with a smile that looked like it was trying to be polite. “It’s…it’s a recent development.”

“I’m sorry, Buffy,” Diane said. “For…all of it, really. But I hope you’ll understand if I…don’t go to the funeral.” She smiled. “I guess you’d probably prefer that anyway.”

“Um,” Buffy said. “Okay.”

Diane nodded again, and then lifted her hand to give it a little wave. “Really, I am sorry for your loss. Have a…nice day, you two.”

Spike glared after her as she left, and even though Buffy was pretty sure Diane had started that sentence without thinking, and then realized it would be too awkward to go back now, she knew Spike really wanted to go after her for her lack of tact.

And then he turned to her, and his look melted into that one of sympathy she really hadn’t wanted to see. But he didn’t call her out on the boyfriend thing, so she sank into a chair, which was really what she’d come in here to do.

After a pause he followed, sitting in the chair next to her. “You doing okay, Slayer?” he whispered.

She nodded, because there was no alternative. “I guess…” her voice caught, and she swallowed. “I guess I’d better call Giles now.”

----------

“Well,” Willow said, panting heavily. “I did it!”

Xander looked around the room. There was a hole in the wall, just next to Spike’s bed, so Xander was hoping if he moved the bed just a little no one would notice. Both he and Willow were covered in splinters and sweat, but he couldn’t deny it. The side table looked as good as new.

“It looks nice,” Xander said admiringly. “The table. You did a good job.”

Willow beamed up at him. “Good. This calls for victory ice cream.”

“Are you five?” Xander asked, but he didn’t argue as he followed her down the steps.

“No, I’m just craving ice cream a lot now. I don’t know why. Maybe the brain freezes distract from my regular headaches.”

Xander looked at her worriedly. “You’re still having those?”

She waved her hand vaguely. “They’re letting up, now. Really.”

“They’d better be. Bad enough you don’t have magic, you shouldn’t have to keep paying for it, too.”

“Well, I’ve been eating a lot of ice cream, so, silver lining.”

“Maybe afterwards Giles will have some more stuff for us to fix,” Xander suggested, and Willow whipped around on him with a horrified expression.

“No,” she said. “Oh, goddess, no. I’m retiring from carpentry forever.”

“I don’t know, Will, I think—” Xander stopped as they both walked into the kitchen. Giles was frowning slightly, twirling the phone cord grimly in his hands. “Giles?” Xander asked. “Did something happen?”

They all turned as they heard the front door open, and they heard a clicking of heels, before a pause, and Dawn came in barefoot, stuffing the offending heels into her bag. She looked around at all of them. “Yeesh, don’t you people have anything better to do then just stand around in a kitchen?” she asked, and began heading towards the fridge.

“Where have you been, Dawn?” Giles demanded. “I’ve been trying to reach you for nearly half an hour. They say cell phones are the future, but the moment you call someone, they immediately forget such a thing exists.”

She shrugged. “Sorry. Here now, though. What was so important?”

Giles face looked even more grim. “It’s your father, Dawn,” he said, in a very gentle voice. “I’m afraid he’s gone.”

Xander felt frozen, and Dawn looked the same, but Willow gasped, and immediately started crying. She rushed forward to hug Dawn, who continued to stand, rooted to the spot, holding the refrigerator door open and staring at Giles. “Oh Dawnie,” Willow cried, stroking the girl’s hair. “Dawnie…”

Dawn made no movement to hug her back, and Xander could only utter, “Poor Buffy.” He cleared his throat, and managed to ask, “Where is she?”

“She’s at the morgue with him now. Arranging for the funeral to be tomorrow, because…” Giles took off his glasses and gave a wry smile. “The only ones likely to attend are all living under this roof.”

----------

The Immortal did have a designated tunnel to use as a bedroom in their cave, but as he also had an apartment to bring Buffy home to, he rarely used this one. But when Innocence walked into it to see him tying a bow tie in front of a mirror, she found herself thankful for the little things.

“And what are you getting all spiffy for?” she asked.

“Funeral,” the Immortal replied. “Buffy’s daddy dearest drove into a tree. I hope she knows what an inconvenience this is for me. She thinks I’m flying in from Tasmania for this.”

Innocence raised her eyebrows. “Her father’s dead?” she considered for a moment. “That’s probably leaving her kind of vulnerable.”

“I expect so, yes.”

“Damn,” Innocence sighed. “Why didn’t we think of that? We could have offed him ages ago.”

“Mm,” the Immortal agreed. “We should have, before her vampire got all better. She won’t leave herself open now.” He finished tying his tie and turned to glower at her. “He stays out of my way, but I know he’s always there. He’s living in that house, bonding with her little sister…”

“Aww, are we jealous?” Innocence asked in a mocking tone.

He sighed. “Why couldn’t you have just done your job, Innocence?”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Only-one-who-hasn’t-gotten-her-damn-hair-yet.”

“The Prophecy hasn’t, either,” the Immortal pointed out.

She raised her hands. “Well, and don’t take this the wrong way, but he’s making more headway with Dawn than you are with Buffy. And he’s only been after his for a few weeks, and, guess what? He’s not even fricking dating his.”

“I’ll get it, Innocence,” the Immortal snapped.

A noise rattled from underground, and the Immortal turned his head. “What about you? Aren’t you supposed to be debuting that thing, yet?”

“Well, let’s make a deal,” she said sweetly. “You get her hair, and I’ll let my baby out of its playpen.”

“I mean it would be poetic to kill them all at a funeral, but—”

Innocence scoffed. “No, I’m not having my pet rush in there just to be slain. I need him to get their attention first. I need them to know the Primeval’s out there, so that he will become an even larger threat.”

----------

Andrew had never really cared for funerals. He never knew what he was supposed to say, to anybody, and any emotion he showed felt like the wrong one. And this funeral was so very small that he had no one he could really hide behind and gauge how a lay person might handle the situation.

He loved Buffy as much as any of them, but he hadn’t known either of her parents, and Buffy had never mentioned her father. Andrew hadn’t really been sure, up to this point, that she even had a father.

He decided Spike was probably the best person to hide behind, first because Spike had never met Buffy’s father either, and also because he was hanging back from the group as much as he could.

Because Buffy was leaning on the Immortal’s shoulder, and Spike was looking anywhere but at her.

Dawn also hovered near Spike, while Willow and Xander and Giles surrounded Buffy and the Immortal. Buffy had been calm throughout this entire process, and that was confusing Andrew even more. It felt weird to give Buffy space when she wasn’t even acting like she needed it.

Dawn was the same, but she was calm in a different way. Buffy’s pain could clearly be written on her face, even if she was acting cool and collected, but Dawn seemed downright apathetic.

“When’s the last time you saw him?” Spike asked, quietly, from behind Dawn.

Andrew was in instant admiration. Clearly Spike could find the right thing to say. Andrew would have to ask him for tips for the next funeral.

“I never did,” Dawn said curtly. “The last memory I have of him, I was still a glowing blob of energy.”

Spike wrapped his arms around Dawn from behind and set his chin on her head. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe the events were rewritten. Maybe we all have the memories because you actually were inserted in all our histories.”

Dawn just made a snorting sound and didn’t say anything else.

Everyone stayed until the burial was finished, another thing Andrew was pretty sure he could have gotten out of if the group hadn’t been so small. But he did finally spot a single tear sliding down Buffy’s face, and his heart suddenly ached for her. He really didn’t want to see her in pain.

They stayed awhile even after the gravediggers had left…well, it probably was only a few minutes, but it seemed as if everyone was waiting for Buffy to make the first move. Andrew looked up at her, and saw the Immortal twist his finger around a strand of her hair, then make a sudden violent sneezing sound, and yank.

Andrew looked around at everyone to see if they’d noticed, but the Immortal was immediately all apologies. “My sweet goblet of nectar…a thousand amends for such a crass display of…”

“It’s okay.” Buffy smiled, but it seemed forced.

“I do fear that I have a slight intolerance for dog hair…”

“I don’t think they allow dogs in cemeteries,” Andrew said suddenly, against his better judgement. He just knew no one else would call him out on it.

The Immortal turned and fixed Andrew with a warning glare. “Be that as it may,” he said. “I do not think the dogs themselves would heed such a rule.”

“Well, I think we’re about done here, anyway,” Buffy sighed. She looked at the Immortal. “Thanks for coming,” she said, clasping his hands. “But, I guess Tasmania awaits still, huh?”

He looked sorrowfully at her and swept the hair from her face. “My precious gem, I promise to return to you before the week is over. And then you may unleash all your grief upon me. Everything I have belongs to you. You may take me, and claim me for your own.”

Andrew could practically hear Spike’s eyes rolling behind him.

----------

Willow must have been becoming a Brit, because when they got home she insisted they have a reception, even if they were all living there anyway. She made tea and opened a platter of party sandwiches, and a bag of individually wrapped chocolates that had seemed crucial to buy at the time. She sat everyone down in the living room and when she made sure they all had a plate and a cup, timidly sat on the arm of the sofa next to Xander, and sipped her own tea.

But no one was saying anything, and Willow suddenly wondered if this had been a good idea. But she knew she needed to do it. They couldn’t just come home and leave it like that.

Buffy hadn’t said anything since saying goodbye to her boyfriend, and Willow could see it would fall to her to spark some light conversation. “Hey,” she said, as brightly as she could while keeping her voice respectfully low. “Did I tell you guys I fixed a table?”

“Oh, yeah!” Xander said, eagerly jumping on the topic. “That one in Spike’s room. You should have seen her…buzz saw, blow torch, the whole nine yards.”

“That’s wonderful,” Giles said. “Not that I had any special attachment to that table in particular, but it is a comforting thought that if something in this house breaks, it will be able to be repaired.”

Silence fell after that, and Willow sipped her tea nervously.

“Yeah,” Xander said, after much too long of a pause to continue the same topic. “She repaired it pretty good.”

Silence again, this time broken by Buffy. She stood up and mumbled, “I’m going patrolling,” before slipping her jacket on. She’d changed out of her funeral clothes as soon as she came home, and Willow wondered if she’d known she’d be heading out that night. Even if now it was only barely sunset.

“Hey,” Andrew said. “Rupert, did…did Buffy happen to mention getting an office building?”

“We’re getting an office building?” Dawn asked. “Why?”

“For the Slayers, of course, you can’t expect them to grow in an oversized classroom, can you?” Andrew asked.

Spike abruptly stood up, and silently walked away towards the direction Buffy had gone in.

“An office building?” Giles asked. “Those aren’t cheap, Andrew.”

“Not furnished ones, anyway,” Xander said.

“Well, if Willow’s into carpentry now, maybe you guys could just build one,” Andrew suggested.

Willow gave an uneasy laugh. “Oh, no, no no, Willow has officially retired from the carpentry business.”

“Well,” Giles said slowly, as if considering it. “It certainly would be much nicer than trying to get any work done in that loud and crowded conference hall…so I suppose it’s something we could look into.”

Andrew beamed, and sat back in his seat, crossing one leg over the other as he sipped his tea. “You made the right call, Rupert.”

----------

Buffy’s vampire senses didn’t go off anymore when Spike was behind her, but somehow she knew to turn around and see that he was following her anyway.

He slightly raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “Not intruding on your space, Slayer. Just itching for a good demon hunt is all.”

She gave as loud a sigh as she could and hugged herself tighter, quickening her pace just a tiny bit. She knew it wouldn’t deter him, but he’d better not be thinking he could get her to open up to him, either.

He didn’t say anything else, but he kept up, just behind her, and she let him follow her down the road of Giles’ large property, and out into the street which would eventually take them into the heart of London.

Buffy wasn’t really sure what to do now. She should have expected Spike would follow her out of the house, even though patrolling was almost a fruitless endeavor out here. There were vampires around, but usually you had to know where to look for them; they wouldn’t just jump out at you in a town with no hellmouth nearby. She shoved her hands in her jacket pockets and fiddled with the stake there anyway.

But she didn’t know what to do about the…the man walking behind her. She wondered if he’d let her get away with an entire walk of not speaking to him.

He probably would, and she wanted to punch him for that.

She could hear his coat flapping at his legs, and it sounded so familiar that for a very brief instant she slowed her pace, closed her eyes, and put herself back in Sunnydale, in the days where everything was always going wrong, but she knew he would always be there. As a friend or an enemy, as a lover or just another vampire. He’d always been there, almost as long as she had.

She stopped, and the flapping stopped as well. For someone who used to have innate powers of stealth, that jacket must have given him away more than once. She kept walking again, and heard him walking behind her. If he thought she was behaving like a looney, he didn’t comment on it.

Buffy was just starting to realize this whole idea of taking a walk was going to be pointless if there was nothing out here to stake, and her only companion was someone she wasn’t going to talk to anyway. She had almost turned to go back, when she heard something in an alleyway.

She took off running towards it, and was in time to see a large ram-looking creature with long tusks eating a cat like it was a bucket of fried chicken. Buffy took a moment to be disgusted before she pulled out her stake. “So,” she said to it wearily. “Not like I haven’t seen enough death for one lifetime, but I can’t just let an animal like you run loose.”

“You’re a Slayer,” the ram said in a growling voice, as he slowly put the cat down and backed up. “Heard your kind vetted the demons they set out to kill first. Made sure they weren’t actually knocking down anything nasty.”

Buffy just stood with her stake poised and said calmly, “Spike?”

“It’s a Herjer demon,” Spike said promptly from behind her. “And a feline’s just an appetizer for it. It’d eat you in a heartbeat, as well as any trollop dumb enough to be caught by herself walking home alone.”

“Good enough for me,” Buffy said, charging at it.

To her surprise, the ram bolted away from her, and it was able to leap away quite well for something so huge. Buffy let out an angry yell, and then began chasing after it.

The run made her feel better, but only slightly. Because she could feel like she was running away from everything, from all the mistakes she’d made, all the Slayers she was responsible for, all the messy torn-up feelings between her and annoying bleached blonde vampires…

But eventually she saw the ram dart into the wreckage of a building, and she had to stop running. She followed in after it with no hesitation, and she could hear Spike right on her tail.

What she somehow didn’t expect was that this building would be its lair, and that there would be a fair number of traps set. One minute she was ducking her head to avoid a sagging crossbeam, and the next she was crying out as she stepped into a net and was raised off the ground in it.

“Bloody hell!” Spike cried, and she was just able to make out the manacles that had clicked around his ankles, binding him to a large rock in the center. “I didn’t peg Herjer’s to be obstacle course aficionados.”

The ram laughed, though it sounded more like a guttural bleating. “Those traps weren’t even intended for you. They were intended for any trollop dumb enough to be caught walking home alone. I’d have thought a couple of experienced warriors like you would have known better than to just step into them.”

“Well I would have noticed them if I wasn’t distracted,” Buffy said, as she felt angry tears start to surge up in her. Was she really going to cry over being captured, as if she were some weak, ordinary girl? That just made her more frustrated, and she glared at Spike.

He looked at her in surprise, and tried to frown. “What, are you—are you blaming me for this?”

“Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?” Buffy burst out. “That’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Leaving me alone? Leaving me at the times I need you the most? You’re someone I put my absolute trust in, and you just abandoned me, so why, huh?”

The words were spilling out of her, and she wasn’t even thinking about them anymore. She refused to actually cry when she had an escape and a fight still to plan, however, and venting through words was the next best thing.

But Spike was staring at her, his angry look melting into one of utter confusion as he squinted at her. “What the bleeding hell are you on about?”

----------

Xander didn’t really expect the local public library to actually be holding a book that might tell about the Seven, but he didn’t argue with Willow. He was eager to get out of the house, and she seemed to be as well. Especially since after picking up the book she hadn’t called another cab, and just asked if he wanted to walk around for a while.

“I can’t believe she lost him,” Willow said sadly, after a long time of walking in silence. “I can’t believe she’s lost both of them, now.”

“I know,” Xander said. “I feel kinda too privileged having both of mine, still.” He shrugged. “But she’s welcome to them, if she wants ‘em.”

“Xander,” Willow scolded gently. “Don’t say that. I know our parents are kind of on the ignoring side….”

“The ignoring side ? Willow, they’re the freaking founders of Ignore Land.”

“…But Buffy and Dawn’s father left them, and they still loved and missed him,” Willow finished. “And they’re still sad that he’s gone.”

“Buffy is, at least,” Xander muttered.

“Xander! Everyone grieves differently, okay?”

“I know, I know,” he sighed. “And this is mine. I’m sorry that being super inappropriate is my way of grieving.”

“We’ll just have to be there for them a lot more,” Willow said. “It helps that we’re all in the same house, don’t you think?”

“Yeah…” Xander said. “How long do you think that’ll go on? It’s not a permanent arrangement for any of us, and I’d feel weird if it was.”

“He’ll probably kick us out at some point,” Willow agreed.

“Or statistically, we’ll kick him out,” Xander said, and was grateful when Willow pretended she hadn’t heard.

“Well, I don’t think it will be soon. Buffy can’t lose him too, and I’m sure he knows that.”

“Yeah, I guess we’d better let him know to retire and stay out of all danger. Buffy should invest in a cage for him or something.”

Willow looked like she was going to offer another point, but she stopped and gave a slight frown when the ground started shaking. Xander looked around in alarm, and started pulling her off the road and into a shop, but she resisted. “Wait,” she said. “It’s not an earthquake.”

Xander did stop, but he kept his hand on her arm, and looked around as the ground continued to tremble. “Well, there is a blaring presence of quaking earth, Will, so—”

He was interrupted by the sounds of screams, and a blast of fire came hurtling down the street.

Xander and Willow looked at the street, and then back up to see where it had come from. A large demon, something that looked vaguely like a monkey, if monkeys had snakes for limbs, was perched upside down on the side of one of the buildings. It blew another stream of fire from its mouth, but he aimed this one upwards, and then he leaped off the building and barreled towards Willow and Xander.

Xander pushed Willow behind him protectively, and felt a slight thrill that for once in his life he was able to do that. Even before meeting Buffy, Willow had always been the one standing up for him. But Xander pulled out the stun gun he had on his hip and aimed it at the demon. He fired at its head, but the demon was undeterred, and kept running towards them.

Xander didn’t exactly have a lot of weapons on him at the moment, so he just looked around until he saw a broken piece of pavement, and lifted it up, hurling it at the creature.

“What are you doing?” Willow asked, and he was sure he could detect mockery in her tone.

But the stone clipped the beast on the shoulder, and it swerved, avoiding them and instead rushing past. It kept running until it was out of sight, and Xander and Willow stared after it.

“Well,” Xander said. “Guess I won.”

----------

Spike had been stunned enough to forget that he was still chained to a rock, but the moment he remembered he reached forward and began trying to pry the manacles apart. But he kept his eyes on Buffy while he did so. “If you’re referring to me burning up in the hellmouth, pet, I didn’t exactly have a choice in that!” he snapped at her. He strained against the bonds. He definitely used to have enough residual vampire strength to be able to break them.

“You two can hash all this out later,” the Herjer demon said. “For now, though, I’ve got some questions. Not every day you get to capture a Slayer.”

“Yeah,” Buffy said bitterly to Spike. “You had to go ahead and die, I bet that was real convenient for you. Got yourself out of any guilt, or past misdeeds, didn’t you? Thought just because I had to mourn your loss I’d remember you fondly?”

“Oh, you’re one to talk, love. You jumped off a building and left us all behind to pick up the pieces. Didn’t have to try anymore, didn’t have to constantly question everything you did, no, you had it all figured out where you were.”

“Excuse me,” the demon said in an annoyed tone. “If you two could just hold your tongues for one moment—”

“You never understood me,” Buffy said heatedly. “You took whatever I gave you, but you could never accept what I was.”

“I could never accept what you were? Which of us was squeamish about getting intimate with a soulless monster?” He could see her squirming around in the net, and he glanced at the stake on the ground that had fallen when she was captured. He guessed she was probably reaching for the knife in her boot.

“Did you even care about Dawn?” Buffy asked, like she hadn’t heard him. “About my mother? About any of us?”

“Buffy, what—” Spike suddenly stopped as he realized something. He tilted his head. “Who are we talking about, love?”

“Now see here—” the demon started again.

“You were my whole world,” Buffy said, in a quavering tone. “I always looked forward to seeing you, and every time I did, I…I never wanted it to end. But you stopped trying to find a weekend to spend with me and Dawn. You missed one birthday, and then every one after that, you didn’t even try to come to my high school graduation…though that was actually good because I would have had to send you away anyway…”

“Can’t stop flapping your gums for one second, can you?” the demon snarled. “I’m trying to interrogate you here.”

“Shut up!” Buffy yelped, and sliced the net open and dropped from it. The demon growled and lunged at her, and Spike realized he’d again been neglecting to try and free himself.

But he got it now. Even if the barbs could have applied to him, which was an uncomfortable thought, he realized Buffy was speaking to somebody who wasn’t even there.

----------

Andrew had gone back to the Slayer headquarters, and it was just Giles and Dawn left, now. Giles had started clearing away the remnants of their impromptu reception, and he quietly looked back at Dawn and said, “Could you start washing the cups?”

She did it with no hesitation, but also washed them a little more forcefully than was probably necessary. He watched her, while finding ways to keep busy around her in the kitchen, before he finally said, “How are you doing, Dawn? Really?”

“I’m fine,” she said easily. “Really.”

“Dawn, you don’t have to pretend to be, you know. No one expects you to be…”

“Okay, but I actually am, though,” Dawn said, her hair swishing as she turned sharply to look at him. “You all are dancing around me like you just want to pour out your sympathies, and I seriously don’t need them. I’m really fine.”

“Dawn—”

“I never knew him, okay?” Dawn asked. “Even if my memories were real, I was little when he left, so I don’t remember a whole lot about him, anyway. And he hasn’t been in my life since, so he might as well have been dead. Seriously, this poses no change to my life.”

Giles had been preparing himself for a night of offering as much comfort to Dawn as he could, since he suspected Spike was out doing the same for Buffy. And he’d expected a bit of being closed off and indifferent, because she was still a teenager, and Summers women had a stiff upper lip about them that even Giles couldn’t always compete with.

But this was unexpected. This wasn’t Dawn just being too cool to cry. He hadn’t prepared himself for the fact that Dawn might truly be experiencing no feeling at all.

“Dawn,” he said. “He was your father.”

She shrugged. “He was Buffy’s father. Maybe he didn’t even have any memories of me. Maybe the monks didn’t feel like they needed to extend to him.”

Giles stared at her. “That’s not true,” he said thickly.

“Which part?”

She sounded so nonchalant, it almost made him ill. “Any of it,” he said. “All of it. He was your father, and your memories of him are real, and of course he had memories of you, too. You have birthday cards from him, don’t you?”

She scoffed. “Not real ones.”

“Stop that!” he said. “You’ve accepted who you are, Dawn, you know you’re human now. Why all the reminders that you weren’t always?”

She shrugged. “I’m not, like, all freaking out about it or anything. But I didn’t know him, and now I never will, end of story.”

Giles didn’t know what to do with that, but his mouth seemed to keep making words anyway. “But—”

“I’m going out,” Dawn suddenly announced, and brushed past him towards the front door, only stopping briefly in her room before slamming the door shut behind her.

----------

The Herjer charged at Buffy and tackled her to the ground. Spike finally just yanked his chains until they broke, and then leapt up and ran after the demon. Buffy succeeded in tossing the Herjer off of her, and then she jumped up and delivered a blow to its face.

It staggered, but shoved her, knocking her down. Spike threw himself at it, grabbing its neck with his arms and swinging around until he’d wrestled the demon to the ground. Spike knelt on its shoulders, and Buffy picked herself up and came running at it, before kneeling as well and plunging her small knife into its head.

It let out a horrific squeal and went limp. Buffy slowly put her knife away, but remained still, and Spike got to his feet and held out a hand to her.

But she suddenly sprang up, and ran at him, pounding his chest with her fists. It surprised him, but he let her get about ten blows in before grabbing her wrists. “Hey,” he said sternly. “What’s this all about then, love? What’s going on with you?”

She resorted to kicking him instead, not even with finesse, as if she was just a little girl who’d been denied something. “I hate you!” she screamed. “I hate you, how could you do that to me, how could you just die without even saying goodbye, how could you spend all those years pretending I didn’t exist…”

“Buffy,” Spike sighed gently, and although she fought him, he struggled with her until he’d succeeded in wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.

She gave up fighting him once he had, and buried her face in his chest and wept. He slowly sat down, letting her fall into his lap, and he smoothed her hair as he pressed his lips into it.

“I idolized him,” Buffy managed, in between sobs. “I loved him so much, and he—he never seemed the type to just…run off and leave me. Leave us.” She gulped, and sniffled. “He never…he never even called us after Mom died. And no one…no one told him when I died, and then they didn’t need to, but…but…”

“He never knew,” Spike finished for her.

Buffy nodded, and tried to calm herself, but her breath still came out in shaky, ragged gasps. “Last night I talked to Dawn…I said she could come sleep in my room if she wanted. But she didn’t even care, Spike, she said she didn’t care.”

“Rot,” Spike said promptly. “She cares. Nibblet loves her family pretty fierce, even the ones not officially related. Reckon she just wanted to save face.”

Buffy had no answer, and she pressed her face to his chest again. And her sobs died down considerably, and she went so quiet and still that Spike wondered if she would just fall asleep right there in his arms, in a run-down building with a demon body two feet away.

“You can’t leave,” Buffy finally said, in a very small, cracked voice. “Please, don’t leave me, Spike.”

He held her even tighter, disregarding the fact that she could probably feel his heart hammering away. “Okay,” he whispered. It would be just like watching her with Riley, all over again, but he’d managed then and he’d manage now. “Okay.”

----------

Even if Dawn hadn’t left the house in a matter of seconds, she probably wouldn’t have tried to spruce up for this trip anyway. Tonight wasn’t about playing the How-many-illegal-drinks-can-I-forage game. She had someone she was meeting, and she didn’t care what he thought of her.

He was easy to find, as she figured he would be. She just went to the same bar he always seemed to be loitering around, and the magenta suit was easy to spot in the crowd.

She made her way over to him, and he smiled at her over his glass. “Ooh, look at you, my little firecracker. You’re positively sizzling.”

“You try to hit on me again and I’ll kill you.”

“Wasn’t a flirt, sugarplum. You’ve got energy simply crackling off you today. Emotions must be running pretty high.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “Wanna tell me what happened?”

“You’re the Prophecy, yeah? You tell me.”

He smiled, and set his glass down. “Your father. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“I don’t c—” she started, but he raised his hand to stop her.

“I’m a Seer, Dawn, so don’t try to give me that emotionless husk nonsense. Brave front you’ve been pulling with all of them, but I can see what you really feel. Anyway, what I’m really interested in is why losing your father was enough to push you to come to me.”

Dawn pursed her lips at him. Again she wanted to remind him that he probably knew, and she shouldn’t have to tell him, but also she had no idea what he knew and what he didn’t. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I guess I just…I want a distraction from it. From him. People keep leaving, and I know I can’t prevent that, but I also hate that I just have to sit back and do nothing every time I maybe could have done something.” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “You can teach me, yeah? Show me some stuff?”

“You sure that’s what you want? Last time we met you made it pretty clear that you weren’t gonna fall for the same crap that Willow did.”

“And you said I could be stronger than Willow ever was.”

He shrugged. “Potentially. You do house some of the greatest power that has ever existed.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I’m really gonna enjoy lighting you up and see all the pretty lights you’ll make.”

“Uh huh,” Dawn said. “You do realize of course if you kill me you’ll have to face my sister.”

“Ah, yes, because our last meeting inspired such fear of her.”

Dawn shrugged. “Check the statistics. Buffy never loses.”

“Neither have any other Slayers. Until, of course, they did.”

Dawn glared at him. “We gonna do this already, or are you just going to keep doling out death threats?”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Ooh, my little enchilada. You will be a fun one.”

Chapter Text

Illyria grabbed Spike’s wrist and flipped him onto his back. He grunted in pain, but reached up to grab her ankles. She stumbled, but only for a moment, and hoisted herself back up, blocking his next punch as he sat up and swung at her.

She beat him down again, and he lay for a moment in the grass, gasping. She tilted her head and smiled in satisfaction. “You cannot hope to best me,” she said. “You never could as a half-breed. What chance do you think you have now?”

“I don’t fight for the victory, pet,” Spike said. “I do it for sport. For glory. Kill or be killed. It’s very exciting to see who will come out on top.”

She tilted her head the other way. “And yet it is much easier for you to die, now. Much easier for you to bleed, even to bruise. You do not fear me?”

Spike smiled, and shook his head. “You’ve done all you can to me, love.”

That seemed to throw her, and she hesitated, staring at him in bewilderment, letting him jump to his feet and punch under her chin. She went sprawling on the ground, and he smiled again, and held out a hand, pulling her up. “However,” he sighed. “One thing about being human is I also get hungry now…and it’s not an exciting kind of hunger like bloodlust always was.” He shrugged. “Shall we go see what passes for sustenance in this household?”

----------

“And it comes with—eleven different speeds!”

The brunette on the TV couldn’t have looked more nervous and unsure of herself as she demonstrated the latest in hair dryers. Her plastered-on grin faded briefly as she laboriously glanced at the device in her hand and slowly switched it to another speed. Then the grin came back, and she looked back up at the camera.

Catherine was pretty unimpressed. She would never have said she could make it big in the entertainment industry, but her community theatre years had at least seen her better trained than this bimbo on the infomercial.

“She’s holding it, like, way away from her face,” Dawn said skeptically. “You suppose it works better if it’s not actually aiming at her head?”

“Oh, guys, come on, you have to admire the artistry,” Xander said. “That dead look in her eye of someone who's definitely not paid enough…the slight tremble in her hand as she realizes this was maybe a huge mistake…that’s masterful stuff.”

“Call…today,” the girl said haltingly. “And you too can have one for only £19.50!”

“Have one what?” Dawn asked. “She hasn’t mentioned what the product is, not once.”

“I’m mad I did!” the girl ended, with an exaggerated wink at the camera.

The viewers snorted in unison. “Wow,” Catherine asked. “Did they not catch that slip in post-production?”

“She’s a vampire,” Buffy said.

Xander laughed. “Ooh, and a sick burn for the evil undead. Can you imag—” he stopped, and looked at her. “Is she actually?”

Buffy nodded. “100%.”

Dawn snickered. “That just made it like a million times better.”

“I can’t believe they let that air,” Catherine said.

“Well, she probably duped them, or threatened them at least,” Xander said.

“Hey guys,” Willow said, strolling in and glancing at the TV. “What’cha doin’?”

“Studying the long-revered art of how to not set yourself on fire with a blow dryer,” Catherine said. She looked at Buffy. “That’s why she was holding it so far away from her face, right?”

Buffy grinned, and nodded in her direction, which made Catherine light up inside. She loved it when she knew things.

“What about you, any exciting plans in the world of Willow?” Xander asked.

“Oh,” Willow said, casually, as if it really didn’t matter. “Well, I…I thought I’d try practicing magic today.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “Can you do that?”

Willow shrugged, still trying to make it look like she didn’t care. “I dunno. I figure, anyone can cast a spell, you know? I mean not huge ones, and even the little ones are better and more potent and predictable if you’re really powerful and experienced, and I think that’s all I lost. The power and experience.”

Buffy gave her an affectionate smile. “Well, if anyone can cast spells after having lost her powers, it’s you, Wills.”

Catherine noticed Dawn’s head jerk in their direction, and she gave them a tiny frown followed by an even tinier eye roll. Dawn slid off the couch and edged her way towards the door, nearly bumping into Spike as he poked his head in.

“Why don’t we have any sodding apples?” Spike demanded, louder than he probably needed to.

“I’m sorry?” Buffy asked patiently.

“Been more than a hundred years since I’ve had an apple, which should be an item in any decent household. But Giles has two bloody pantries and not an apple among them.”

“Then go grocery shopping,” Dawn said impatiently, and sidled past him and Illyria.

He blinked after her in disbelief, and then turned to the room, scowling.

Catherine was pretty sure she tittered first, and the other three followed her example.

Spike scoffed, but Buffy said, “Well, you are human now. You should know how to do that.”

“You can’t be serious,” Spike said, and jerked a thumb at Xander. “Isn’t he the page-boy?”

“No, I make Andrew do it now,” Xander said calmly.

“Good, we’ll send him then.”

“We could,” Buffy mused. “Only he’s at the Slayer headquarters right now, and he probably won’t be back any time soon. Our station in Brighton burned down, and he’s got his hands full trying to find room for them all.” She looked at Spike, then Xander. “So, you two are gonna have to find someone else to run errands, if you don’t want to just do them yourself.”

“There’s a grocery list on the fridge, Spike,” Willow said sweetly. “And Giles’ll pay for it if you let him know that’s what you’re doing.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “I really miss when I could just bite all of you,” he said, and then slapped the doorway and whirled around on his heel.

----------

Dawn closed the front door as carefully behind her as she could. She carefully let go of the handle, and breathed out a sigh of relief. Then she turned around and gave a small yelp when she saw the Immortal standing in front of her.

“Hello, my bright blue morning glory!” he said, beaming at her.

Dawn looked down at her shirt, which she would have said was a navy blue and not very bright at all, but she wasn’t really inclined to argue with him. “Hey,” she said, giving a quick smile and trying to look casual as she walked by him.

“Dawn, hold on a moment, sweetest.” Dawn looked back at him over her shoulder, and he smiled and asked eagerly, “Is your magic training in full force? Am I in the presence of one who will someday be a famous wicca?”

Dawn pursed her lips and turned away. “None of your business,” she said, but she kept her voice soft. She didn’t really want to be rude to him.

“What, you think I would ever betray your confidence?” He walked over to her and took her hands in his. “Dawn, as you are the sister of my sweet sunshine, so you are mine.” He bent down and looked into her eyes. “They refused you, didn’t they? And now you have sought out somehow else who has eyes for your potential?”

“Something like that,” Dawn muttered.

He beamed at her. “I think that’s wonderful. And with Willow so tragically bereft of her own abilities, you know the day will come when they look to you. It will be you to step forward, to make a grand gesture, to save the day and watch their admiring, adoring eyes turn to you as someone who took it upon herself to learn.”

Dawn giggled. “Yeah. Okay. Whatever.”

He released her hands and gave a nod. “You just watch.”

“You guys working on the site today?” Dawn asked. “For the new Slayer headquarters?”

“The site, yes, the site.” The Immortal nodded. “It is a truly magnificent plot of land, if I may be so bold.”

“I didn’t know you could do carpentry,” Dawn said, and then shook her head. “Which I guess was silly. You know how to do everything.”

He gave a gentle laugh. “I know which end of a hammer is the hammering side, but I must confess I shall generally stay on the sidelines with your sister. Planning, supervising…”

“Guarding the crafts services table?” Dawn grinned.

He gave a mock gasp and placed his hand over his heart. “Dawn! You cannot be suggesting I am only in this for the food!”

“Nah, I think it’s cool you found us a building,” Dawn said. “Anyway.” She lifted her hand. “Later, Lorenzo.”

----------

Giles heard Willow coming into his library before she even got there. He watched the doorway, watched her almost tiptoe inside, and then jump with surprise when she saw him sitting at his desk. “Oh hey—hey Giles!” she said brightly, waving. “What, uh…what are you doing here?”

Giles raised his eyebrows. “I work here. And it’s a library, I believe there was a time in Buffy’s life where she thought I actually lived in the library.”

“Right,” Willow said. “Library, that…that makes sense.” She paused.

“What are you doing here?” Giles asked.

“Oh, well with everyone going to see the new headquarters site, I thought I’d dive into full Research Mode,” Willow said. “You know, check up on the Seven, see if there’s anything we missed? Any…uh, books you can think of that might help?”

Giles took off his glasses. “You came in here for a spell book, didn’t you?”

She paused, a nervous grin stealing across her face. “Well—”

“Willow,” Giles said gently. “You knew, even before you gave them up, that losing your powers isn’t just forgetting how to do it and putting you back at square one. It’s giving up the part of you that is physically able to do it.”

Willow cast her eyes down and studied the carpet for a moment. “So…so should I not even try?”

Giles' heart twisted. “I didn’t say that. Just…try not to be too disappointed.” He stood up, turned, and pulled a book off the shelf, handing it to her. “Start with this.”

She looked at in surprise, then took it and looked up at him with a grateful smile. “Thank you,” she said in a hushed voice.

----------

The cage that had been housing the Primeval sat open, and Cleofax sat inside, petting its snake arms, which were chained and bound to the wall. Its head was free, though, and it blew fire and strained at its bonds, thrashing in an attempt to break them.

“Cleo,” Innocence groaned, sitting at a desk outside the cage and pressing a hand to her head. “Don’t get him all excited. I don’t want to tire him out.”

“It won’t tire out,” Cleofax said. She patted its head, and laughed as it snapped at her. “Ooh, Innocence, he’s trying to bite me!” She let her fangs out and snapped back at it.

“If it bites your head off, I can’t be held responsible,” Innocence said.

“I’m just riling it up,” Cleofax said. “You know, so it puts on a really good performance.”

Innocence sighed and stood up. “I should have assigned you to Willow,” she muttered. “Then maybe you’d be dead by now and Marcellus would still be alive.”

Cleofax looked at her and pouted. “That’s cold. I’m telling.”

“Telling who, sweetheart?” Innocence asked. She walked over to the cage and grabbed the bars, looking in at her. “The Immortal? It’ll only take a second for me to stake you, you think he can help you?”

Cleofax shrugged. “You’re about to set the Primeval loose on him, anyway, so yeah, he probably can’t help me if he’s dead.”

“The Immortal will not be the one to die,” Innocence said firmly. “Not today.”

“Well,” Cleofax said calmly, standing up and brushing her skirt as she walked out of the cage. “I won’t, either.”

Innocence glared at her. “No,” she said. “Not yet. You still have your part to play. But that’s still a while away, so, if you don’t want me to kill you, you’re going to have to—and I know this is difficult for you—you’re going to have to try not to do anything stupid before then.”

----------

Spike walked slowly up the aisles of the grocery store, feeling extremely out of place. He probably looked very out of place too, he realized. Well, he couldn’t help it if he still wanted to dress like a vampire. The fact that he’d stopped slicking his hair back probably sold the Billy Idol look even harder than usual, however. He kept his blonde curls tapered down instead of sticking up all over the place, but he knew he was still getting stares.

But then he glanced behind him at the blue, leather-clad girl walking behind him, and realized she was probably attracting even more attention than him. “You should want me dead,” Illyria was saying. “If you had not allowed me to come with you, I should have presumed you wanted me dead.”

“It’s a grocery trip, Illyria, you probably wouldn’t have had to presume that if I hadn’t let you come.”

“Not here,” she said, in a distasteful tone. “This continent. This life, that you allowed me to follow you into. We were not close, before.”

“No, and do you think we are now?”

“Angel and his people accepted me for what I was,” Illyria said. “They tried to help me.”

“Is there a point to this, Blue?”

“You hated me,” she insisted. “You hated that I took your friend.”

Spike glanced back at her. “News flash, love. We all hated that.”

“Then why do you not want me dead?”

Spike shrugged, and looked back at the items on the shelves. He was in the canned food aisle, and he’d been tasked to find pickles, but he decided that would be impossible and turned down into another aisle instead. Even if this one had all kinds of cake mixes and he didn’t think there was anything he needed here. “I don’t hate you, and I don’t want you dead. Don’t ask me why about the first part. But killing you won’t bring Fred back, and I’m not really into the revenge thing, anyway. I’m not much for living in the past.”

Illyria hesitated, and followed him in silence, before eventually saying again, “But you bore affection for—”

“Look,” Spike said impatiently, whirling around on her. “I told you I loved Fred, and I hate that you took her away. You’re not her, and I don’t keep you around as a reminder. I let you come to England because you and I have more in common than either of us would like to think, all right, pet?” He turned forward again, walking down another aisle. “Where’s all this coming from, anyway?”

“I have been thinking,” she said. “And I wonder that you do not send me away.”

He shrugged again. “Because that lot back at the house sent me on this God-forsaken errand, and you were the only one who volunteered to follow me. Why would I send you away?”

Illyria said nothing, and Spike squinted at the rows of peanut butter lining the shelves. “Bloody hell, how many types of this stuff do people need?”

“There are seventeen variations,” Illyria pointed out.

“It’s industrial panic is what it is,” Spike said. “And I haven’t a sodding clue which one I’m supposed to pick.”

Illyria looked over his shoulder, glancing at his list. “It is very unspecific.”

“Bloody right it is,” Spike huffed. He shrugged. “Well, guess we’re having seventeen different kinds, then.” He reached forward and began plucking one of every kind off the shelf.

“Woah,” a voice from behind them said. “Dude, that’s wicked cool.”

Spike turned around in surprise, and saw a teenaged boy with torn jeans and straight black hair on only one side of his head. The boy was staring at Illyria, and gave an impressed nod. “Your hair is a masterpiece,” he said reverently. “That’s awesome.” He turned and walked away, and Illyria’s gaze followed him, betraying nothing. Spike just shook his head, and began shoving jars of peanut butter into her arms.

----------

Dawn stood, holding her breath, every muscle in her body tense as she stared at the little green ball of light in her hand. She was focusing on it, trying to force every bit of concentration she had into it…

“That’s right,” Dagger murmured from behind her. “Now raise it up…off your hand…”

Dawn tried, but it hadn’t even moved before it sputtered and went out. She gave an annoyed groan, and kicked the stone wall next to her. She didn’t know why he’d thought it important to train in a cave, but, here they were. “This is basic stuff,” she whined. “Like, this is the first thing everyone in the movies learns how to do.”

Dagger rolled his eyes. “People who make movies don’t know the first thing about magic. It’s more difficult than it looks. It’s only the first thing because it’s a base for anything else you do.”

“Yeah, and I should have gotten it by now,” Dawn huffed, and plopped down on the floor.

“Yeah,” Dagger admitted. “You should have.” He tilted his head at her. “Maybe you should just quit, cream puff.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be my mentor? What kind of pep talk is that?”

He shrugged, and sat down beside her. “Mentor? I don’t know about that. You know who I am, Dawn.” He reached his arm around her and plucked one of her hairs off, ignoring her squawk of protest. “You know I’m the bad guy, here. You know who you’re fighting. Yet you come to me anyway.”

“I can handle myself,” Dawn said coolly.

He nodded. “I know you can. Because of the power.” He paused. “I’m supposed to kill you.”

“So why haven’t you?”

He chuckled. “You defy everything, Dawn. I have too much of a fondness for my own life to make an attempt on yours.”

Dawn nodded. “Well, that makes you smarter than any other villain I’ve faced.”

“Thank you.”

“Or it makes me super naïve.”

He grinned. “Don’t sound naïve to me.”

“That’s just the kind of thing a naïve person would believe,” Dawn pointed out.

“Well.” Dagger stood up and offered a hand to her. “Do you think you’re naïve?”

She took his hand, and held out her hand again. The green glow reappeared, and, slowly, shakily, it rose up off her hand. “I think I’ve weighed the risks. And I know what I want.”

He beamed at her. “You make me proud, girl.”

----------

The house being even mostly empty was a rarity in itself, and Giles had been looking forward to the afternoon by himself, with no pressing matters to attend to and no apocalypses to stop today.

That was the moment that the front door slammed, and he sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Yes, go ahead, all of you have a laugh up there. I brought this on myself for even daring to hope.”

He decided not to investigate unless he was actually called upon to do so, however, and opted instead to just sit in his library and pretend nothing was wrong, and that he couldn’t hear the slow step of someone coming up the stairs.

And even though no one in this house walked slowly, he was still surprised when he looked up and saw someone who should not have been there.

“Opal!” he gasped, dropping his book and moving around the desk towards her. “Bloody…hell, woman, what on earth…”

She was clutching the doorway, her braid only still intact at the top of her head. She had replaced her thin grey robe with a stiff, brown leather coat, and her face was spattered with blood.

Blood that didn’t have a wound anywhere to match it.

“Opal,” Giles said seriously. He held out his hand to her. “Whose blood is that?”

She stared at him, calmly, piercingly. “They’re letting me go,” she said.

“Who is?” Giles asked, trying to keep his voice calm, even though everything about this was confusing him. He took her hand, and she let him lead her down the stairs and into the kitchen. He set her down on a stool, and looked around for a cloth. But she didn’t answer his question, and he finally turned back to her and said, “You’re not supposed to be here, Opal. If anyone sees you here…”

“They will kill me?” Opal supplied.

“I don’t know,” Giles said. He held a cloth under the sink, and then turned to begin sponging her face. “Who are you thinking of?” She didn’t answer again, and he held the cloth away for a moment to stare into her eyes. “Opal. You need to talk to me, dear.”

“You can’t ask me things,” she mumbled.

“I will ask you things, and you’ll answer what you can,” he said firmly. He sorted through the questions in his head, which seemed to be multiplying by the second. “Whose blood is that?” still seemed like the most relevant one.

Opal pulled a knife out of her belt, and held it out to him. It had blood on it as well. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Opal said. Suddenly her eyes flicked up at Giles and she sobbed and bent forward, head in her hands. “I didn’t kill anyone!”

Giles took her hands, and leaned down, trying to look into her eyes again. “Why did you come, Opal?”

“Because I had to,” she choked out. “It was getting so loud…so crowded…and you weren’t coming for another two days.”

“Did you hurt anyone?”

She drew a gasp, and raised her head again. Then she shook her head. “Animals. No people…no people.”

Giles couldn’t be sure if that was true, but he turned and began getting her a glass of water. “How did you get here?”

“Took a bus.”

“That’s it? You just decided to get on a bus? With blood on your face and a knife in your belt?”

She nodded, and he nodded as well. “Who is letting you go, Opal?”

“They are.” She shifted. “They don’t need me anymore.”

“The Seven?”

She winced. “They’re removing the power. Removing the influence…it’s all passing through me, and I can see it all, I…” she squeezed her eyes shut. “The Key,” she said. “The Key is coming into its own.”

Giles handed her the water, and opened his mouth to ask her more questions, but he froze when he heard a bounding down the stairs. “Hey, Giles, I think I’m gonna head out to a magic shop, see if there’s anything I can—” Willow stopped as she entered the kitchen, and stared at the scene in front of her. “Oh…wow, sorry.”

“That’s all right.” Giles swallowed, wondering what lie he could conjure to get out of this. “Ah, Willow, this is…Opal.” Well, so much for lying. “She’s…well…”

Willow held up her hand and smirked. “Giles, it’s okay. You can have a lady friend over and not tell us. I just came to say I was getting out of your hair anyway.” She grinned at Opal. “Nice meeting you.” And then she skipped towards the door.

Giles breathed a sigh of relief, and then turned back to Opal, who was staring after Willow with a faraway smile. “What is it?” Giles asked.

“This is your home,” Opal murmured. “This is where your family lives.”

“Opal—”

“I know.” She turned her smile to him. “I can’t stay here, and I’ve put you in danger, but…there was something…something I had to…” she paused, considering, until slowly realization flooded her face, and she stared at Giles. “They’re doing it again,” she said dully. “Sending another of their members after…”

Giles felt a sick feeling in his stomach. “You’re seeing their plans?” he asked.

“They’re removing them,” she repeated. “But I see them as they pass. Briefly, and only the ones I knew…but I am connected to them. I am connected to the Primeval, and when he walks, I know it.”

“Is he walking?” Giles asked faintly.

Opal nodded, and looked at him fearfully. “He will go after your family.”

----------

It was old, and it was run-down, but it was so big and impressive looking, and the construction crew already bustling around was giving Buffy hope just looking at it. She drank it all in, the new building that would be her Slayer headquarters in London, and really the main building for all the others, and just breathed out a hushed, “Wow.”

The Immortal squeezed her shoulder. “I hoped you’d like it, my glorious angel. There I was, just coming home one day, and I chose a different route, and there it was! I knew it’d be perfect for you.”

“There’s a lot of work to be done on it,” Xander said. “We’ll almost have to rebuild it from the ground up.”

The Immortal’s face fell a tiny bit. “Yes, I do regret that I could not find one in better condition—”

“No, no, you mistake me, my good man,” Xander said quickly. “That’s a good thing. It’s cheaper than if we were actually starting from scratch, but it’s almost the same thing.” He rubbed his hands, and Buffy giggled at how gleeful he looked. “A carpenter’s dream.”

“Oh yeah,” Catherine said, sliding both her arms around Xander’s neck. “Everything’s coming up roses for you, babe.”

----------

Spike had no qualms opening his many jars of peanut butter in the cab on the way home. He stuck his finger into the latest one, licked it, and stared inside the jar. “Well,” he said. “It tastes exactly the same as the last three.”

“He called me a masterpiece,” Illyria said.

“Called your hair a masterpiece,” Spike corrected. “I guess a lot of kids take forever to pull off a coiffeur like yours.” He glanced at it shrewdly, and said, “Not that you had to do much to it.”

“It is an insignificant feature,” Illyria said. “I cannot bother myself with such trivialities.”

Spike grinned. “I don’t know that I would voice that opinion too loudly to this generation, pet.”

“Am I?” Illyria asked.

Spike shoved his purchases near his feet and laced his fingers behind his head. “Are you what?”

“A masterpiece.”

“Who’s masterpiece?” Spike asked. “A masterpiece means someone put a lot of effort into it, and now it’s something to be proud of.”

“I put effort into me. I made me what I am.”

Spike looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He tilted his head, and gave her a slow smile. I guess you did at that. I guess we all do. So, are you proud of what you’ve made?”

She stared at him for a long time, and then looked away, as if she was thinking about the question. Spike watched her as well, determined not to say anything until she’d answered him.

But she didn’t answer him. Instead she asked, “Where is your Slayer?”

“She’s not mine,” Spike said automatically. It was a phrase he’d repeated to her so often he barely even registered it anymore. “She’s at that piece of land they want to build their new command post on.” He squinted at her. “And you know that.”

“You wish to be with her,” Illyria said. “You wish to take her as yours.”

“And your superior intellect comes through for you again.”

“If you insist you cannot have her, then why do you stay?”

Spike pursed his lips and breathed in sharply through his nose. “Because she asked me to.”

Illyria gave a satisfied nod. “She desires you, as well.”

“Illyria, Buffy’s seeing someone, and she’d have dumped his everlasting ass if she actually desired me. You want proof, we can go there right now, and he’ll be there. Pitching in. Cozying up to the gang. Being what she needs.” He looked away.

“She loves you,” Illyria said softly.

Spike swallowed, and closed his eyes. “No,” he said weakly. “We have…too much of a history for that.”

“I watched her,” Illyria replied. “When you were dying. When she thought you would never awaken.”

Spike shook his head. “We have a history,” he repeated. “We have shared experiences. I like to think we have a bond but…it’s not close enough. And that’s…maybe a good thing. Maybe she shouldn’t love me. I had my chance, and so did she, and it…it didn’t…”

“I wish to go,” Illyria said.

Spike opened his eyes and stared at her. “What?”

“To the site. You said there would be proof. I wish for you to show me that she cares more for him than for you.”

“What—I didn’t actually mean …” Spike stammered.

“Others are there,” Illyria insisted. “It will not be strange if, after we have completed our errand, we also make our presence known.”

Spike stared at her, but he could feel the temptation tugging at his chest. “Fine,” he said. “But we won’t be leaving the car, you got that? It’ll just be a drive by, to see what she and the Immortal are doing.”

----------

Xander grinned as he poked the dirt with the tip of his shovel. “All right!” he said. “Breaking first ground, this is a very exciting moment. “Anyone want to say a few words?”

“Demon,” Catherine said.

Xander blinked in surprise at her. “What?”

“Demon!” she shrieked.

Xander continued blinking at her, but didn’t turn to look until he heard a loud roaring. His eyes widened as he realized it was the demon he and Willow had chased off the previous week. A monkey body, the size of a large dog, with snakes for limbs flying all over the place. The demon had leaped into the middle of the group, who all instinctively backed away from it. It was on fire, this time, and Xander somehow doubted it would be scared off from just a piece of debris. It charged towards the building, and began climbing up, hugging the sides like King Kong, before it turned and again roared at them so loudly that Xander felt the need to cover his ears.

“Woah!” Catherine cried. “That’s so cool!”

“Catherine!” Xander said, staring, as if surprised she was still there. “Get out of here! Go!”

“Cool?” Buffy shrieked. She looked at Xander. “Does she know that demons—”

“Yeah, yeah, but she’s like Andrew in the sense that they fascinate her first and terrify her second,” Xander said. The creature roared again, and Xander hunched his shoulders up, as if hoping that would be enough to block out the noise. “Catherine, go !” he said, shoving her away from the building and towards the street. “Get a cab or something!”

“What about you?” She demanded.

“Don’t worry, he’s going with you,” Buffy said. Her eyes were on the demon, and her gaze didn’t waver as she picked up a crossbeam, gripping it like a sword. “Xander?”

“Buffy, you don’t have to send me away anymore,” Xander protested. “I can help you.”

“Fine,” Buffy said. She sounded distracted, but at least she realized she didn’t have to be so focused on protecting him, and in any other moment Xander would have puffed up with pride at that. “But you need to get the rest of your crew out, too. Lorenzo, give him a hand with that?”

“As you command, my delicate flower,” the Immortal said. He gave a firm nod to Xander, who pushed Catherine towards the street again, and then began turning and directing the crew towards the street as well. They seemed pretty willing to go, those who hadn’t fled already, but most were just standing and staring in horror, or looking around nervously as if nowhere seemed safe.

 Xander looked at the building as he and Lorenzo corralled people. Buffy had charged at it, brandishing her crossbeam, and she began hitting the building with it. It was rickety enough to tremble under her blow, and the demon began tottering with it. “Come on!” she was shouting. “Get down here and attack me, you…you…” she hesitated, but only briefly, as she wondered what to call it. “You demon!”

It began hissing and spitting, which was almost worse than the roaring. It was a horribly unpleasant sound that was like nails on a chalkboard, making Xander’s skin crawl.

Buffy gave another blow to the building, taking a large chunk of it out, and that was enough to send the building slowly falling down. Xander knew he really shouldn’t be concerned with that, either, but it almost broke his heart to watch it crumble. Now they really would have to build from the ground up.

The demon leaped off the building before it started falling under him, and sprang towards Buffy with a shriek that sounded like glass breaking.

----------

Opal seemed much stronger than she had been in a long time, and that was starting to worry Giles. He’d ridden down with her into the city, but she’d insisted that they get out and walk the several blocks over to the site, and now she was walking with a strength and speed that he had a hard time matching.

“Opal,” he gasped. “What are you hoping to do? To warn them in time? You don’t even know how to kill this creature, perhaps it would be better if—”

“A slight warning is better than no warning at all,” she said firmly. “Your Slayer can find a way to kill it, but she will have a difficult time of it, if it kills her before she even sees it coming.”

“But it won’t kill her, will it? Unless it’s the member that was charged to, I mean.”

She turned and gave him a cold glare, without slowing her pace. “I do not know,” she said. “The assigning of members was something of a…game, I think. To ensure that their focus was only placed on one, to see who could assassinate theirs first. But none of them would pass up the opportunity to kill any of you, if it was convenient, and the Primeval is a mindless beast, who will attempt to destroy anything in his path.”

“Oh, good,” Giles mumbled. “Because there are no other creatures with that agenda.”

“They have to know,” Opal said, setting his jaw determinedly. “We have to warn them, we have to warn them, we have to—” She stopped.

“I told you we could just call them,” Giles said, taking advantage of her pause to lean over and catch his breath. “Why did you insist that we had to tell them in person?”

“Because we don’t know who else may have been listening,” Opal said, in a dull voice. “But perhaps we should have risked it. We are too late.”

“What?” Giles looked up, where he could see the top of the building that was supposed to be their new Slayer headquarters. There was a dark form on it, all on fire, and it was jumping off the building, which was slowly crashing to the ground. He stared, for only a moment. “They’re there,” he said softly. “Buffy, Xander—” he took off running, and Opal followed.

Giles saw Catherine standing on the edge of the street, and several crew members around her, who were either sitting, or crying, or pacing. They were looking very lost, but Catherine was standing apart from them, with folded arms, watching the building in the distance.

“Catherine!” Giles called, running up to her. “What is it, what’s—”

“Demon,” Catherine said simply, pointing.

“Yes, I can see that,” Giles said, and took a step towards it, but Opal grabbed his arm.

“You can’t go,” Opal said, still in a dull voice. “It’s going to kill them.”

He turned to her. “You can’t know that.”

She gave him a pained look, and he remembered how intimately she knew this creature. He stayed where he was, and watched the scene in the distance, standing perfectly still.

He believed in Buffy, but he didn’t know what was going to happen.

----------

It took Spike all of five seconds from the cab reaching the street to jump out of it. He’d told the cabbie to drive by casually, but he didn’t even wait for the car to slow. Illyria followed gracefully, and Spike barely remembered to toss a handful of bills at the driver before marching towards the site.

“You said we would remain in the vehicle,” Illyria reminded him.

“Yeah,” Spike said, staring straight ahead at the demon that he could see ravaging the site. “Well, the plan changed, because there’s a fire demon over there trying to kill my Slayer.”

“You said she isn’t yours.”

Spike didn’t think that really warranted a response, so he said nothing, and took off running as the shape of the demon grew clearer. He was vaguely aware of a handful of people standing on the street, far enough away not to be in immediate danger, but definitely close enough to die if things started going pear-shaped. He threw a disappointed glance at Giles as he ran past. “Get them out of here, will you?” he asked, in a tone that was asking why Giles was making no moves to do that already.

He didn’t stay to see if Giles listened, however, but kept on towards where the demon was lashing out. It was roaring, and hissing, but Buffy and Xander and Wonder Boy were doing their best to keep it from moving. Though really, Buffy was the only one doing anything other than shoving debris in the path, to keep it from advancing. She was actually swinging whatever was handy at it.

Spike dove into the fray, and she looked up at him in surprise. “Did you find your apples?” she asked casually.

“And seventeen types of peanut butter,” Spike said. “I may have left them in the cab, however, but I gave him our address, so here’s hoping he takes initiative.” He held up a giant metal sheet as a shield as the demon blazed past him. “So, where’d this beastie come from, then?”

“I wish I knew,” Buffy said, jabbing it with a rusty pole that had fallen from the building into her path. “But, it doesn’t really matter, all I have to do is slay it, right?”

“Well, some demons can only be slain a certain way, and I’ve never seen this kind before. Reckon you haven’t either.”

“It’s a Sulfur demon,” the Immortal said, suddenly appearing directly behind Buffy. “All you have to do is suffocate it. Put out its flames.”

Buffy looked at him, and nodded. “I can do that,” she said. She looked around, and pointed at a giant bin full of loose dirt and sand. “I just have to dump that on him. You guys think you could knock it over if I get this thing close enough?”

“I can do it,” Spike said, without looking at the Immortal. But he knew he couldn’t, not on his own, so he barked out, “Xander!” as he walked over towards it.

Xander looked at him, obviously seeing him for the first time, but jogged over to him without a word. They stood behind the bin, watching as Buffy yelled threats and taunts at the creature, keeping its eyes on her, and keeping it coming at her as she backed over towards the bin. Spike glanced at the Immortal, just once, and saw him hovering on the side, shouting endearments, and entreaties to be careful. Spike rolled his eyes, and looked back at Buffy.

“We’re putting its flames out?” Xander asked.

Spike nodded. “Supposed to kill the thing. According to Mr. Perfect, anyway.”

“Huh,” Xander said.

“Now!” Buffy called, as she beat the demon with her rod. It tried to shy away from the bin, but she beat it again, and it snarled, but stayed put. It lashed at her hand, however, scraping its teeth over her hand. She gave a groan of pain, and hit the demon again, causing it to fall.

“It’s just,” Xander said, as the sand began toppling over. “When Willow and I saw it the other week, it wasn’t on fire then.”

“When you what? ” The bin fell over, and the demon let out such a bloodcurdling howl as the sand covered it that even Spike was forced to cover his ears. When the noise had gone, Spike looked back up at Xander, glaring at him. “You two saw this thing before? And didn’t care to share with the rest of the class?”

“Well, it wasn’t a big bad at the time!” Xander protested. It just kinda ran down the street, I threw a rock at it, and it ran away. Also, not on fire.”

Spike threw a sharp glance at Buffy. Buffy approached the pile of sand and reached her hand out for it. “Buffy!” Spike shouted, leaping over to her. “Don’t—”

He was in time to push her out of the way, and a blast of fire came from the sand. Spike felt his arms and hands suddenly surge with pain as the fire scorched them, but he just bent protectively over Buffy. She stared at the demon, and then at the Immortal. And then she leapt to her feet. “Lorenzo!” she cried. “It didn’t work!”

“That’s because you can’t smother its flames,” Illyria said calmly. She’d been standing off to the side, dodging items as they fell towards her, but now she stepped towards Buffy.

Buffy looked at her. “You know what this is?” she asked, slowly, rising to her feet.

Illyria looked at it. “In my world it was known as Melusad,” she said. “It was rumored to be a legend, in my time, though I always knew it was somewhere, in some dimension. It is a pity. It should have stayed a legend. It was much more impressive, that way. It is a wonder it survived this long…it will eat anything, but can only stay alive off of a race of spider creatures.”

“How do I kill it?” Buffy asked.

“You cannot,” Illyria said.

Buffy blinked, and Spike said, “Oh, come off it, Smurfette, everything can be killed in some way.”

She turned her gaze upon him, slowly. The demon staggered slowly to its feet, and then turned eyes blazing furiously at Buffy. It was smoking, but flames still licked its skin, and were beginning to grow again. “It can be killed,” Illyria said. “Very simply. But you cannot do it, Slayer.”

“Oh, can’t I?” Buffy huffed. “Do I need to give you my resume? And remind you that I killed an Old One, and the First Evil, and—”

Illyria struck out and punched her face, knocking her backwards into Spike, who fell down with her. Buffy looked like she wanted to protest, but she was as surprised as Spike, and could only watch as Illyria strode confidently up to the demon.

Spike scrambled up first, absently reaching down and pulling Buffy up as well as he kept his eyes fixed on Illyria. “No,” he said, slowly. “She’s going to—”

“What?” Buffy hissed. “What’s she doing?”

“I don’t know.” All Spike knew was he needed to stop this, and stop it now. He strode forward, but Illyria had already reached the demon. The demon blew fire at her, but Illyria stood her ground, and leaped onto its back. Disregarding the flames surrounding her, she gripped the demon’s body with her legs, and used her hands to latch onto its head. It began wildly bucking, and roaring, trying to toss her off, but she just gripped harder. And then, with a bloodcurdling scream to match that of the demon’s, she suddenly yanked, tearing the demon’s head off.

An explosion seemed to come from the demon’s head as she did so. A blast shook the ground, scattering the debris of the building, as well as those still standing around, as if they were pieces of paper. Spike’s head knocked against the ground as he fell, and he could do nothing as the dizziness began to surround him, swallowing him up.

----------

Innocence squinted, but she still wasn’t able to see anything more than blobs from this far behind what had once been the building. “Do we still have those opera glasses?” she asked, holding her hand back, still squinting through the front window of the van.

She continued holding her hand out as she heard Cleofax rummaging around in the back. Eventually the vampire placed the opera glasses in her hand, and Innocence peered through them at the scene.

Cleofax bounded up from the back, hanging onto Innocence’s seat. “Well?” she asked eagerly. “Did Xander die? Did the Primeval get his target?”

“You know perfectly well my baby was only assigned one because we all were,” Innocence said.

Cleofax snorted. “Yeah, but if you sent him in Xander’s direction, the Primeval should have had no trouble getting him.”

“No,” Innocence said after a pause, disappointment in her tone. “No, Xander’s alive.”

“Oh.” Cleofax also sounded disappointed, but then she asked eagerly, “Did mine die?”

“Yeah, bet you’d like that,” Innocence huffed. “But I can’t…I can’t tell. I can only see mine, and Xander.”

Cleofax chortled in triumph. “So yours didn’t die either.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Innocence snapped. “That wasn’t the primary goal of today, and my baby did the best he could.”

“The best he could? There’s no way any of them should have survived that, besides maybe the Slayer! And now he’s dead, and we don’t have much to show for it, if anything.”

“But the important thing was to cause havoc.” Innocence peered through the opera glasses again, and could now see Buffy, and that they were bending over somebody. But she couldn’t see the body on the ground well enough to say who it was. “Keep them guessing on who we’re specifically targeting.”

“Uh huh.” Cleofax popped her gum, and Innocence clenched in frustration. “But now we’re down to five. And we haven’t seen the Shadow since—”

“The Shadow is coming,” Innocence said calmly. “Our time of waiting for him is over. He will change the game.”

Cleofax snorted. “I don’t know. I wasn’t all that impressed with him.”

“Trust me, he’ll turn everything on its head,” Innocence said. “That’s what he’s known for.”

“But I’m the Entropy,” Cleofax whined. “That’s supposed to be my job.”

“Honey, that’s your pastime,” Innocence said in disgust. “I already told you to be patient. Your job will come.”

----------

Spike didn’t black out completely, and his head eventually stopped spinning. He scrambled to his feet and immediately began scanning his eyes over the wreckage. He saw Buffy, who had a gash in her cheek that blood was freely pouring out of, but she was getting to her feet. He felt a wave of relief gush over him, and then turned and looked for Illyria.

He saw her, lying a few feet away, her body twisted, but other than that…she’d turned into Fred, and so had covered up the damage she must have sustained from the explosion. He hastened over to her, and crouched down beside her. “Hey,” he said.

She turned her head, and he felt a stab as Fred’s eyes looked into him. Not that they were her eyes…

“What are you doing?” he demanded gently, taking her in, wondering if he wanted his brain to pretend it was her, or not.

“Dying,” she said simply.

It was still Illyria talking. She couldn’t even smile at him, and he could read the pain in her eyes. He reached out, gently brushing the top of her head. “Why?” he asked, softly teasing her. “Gunn told you not to.” She just coughed in response, and he winced. “I meant why are you…” he gestured to her. “That?”

“I thought it would be more pleasant to you,” she said. “That you would be kinder to a friend.” She coughed again. “I am…sorry. I regret picking Fred. I regret that it hurt you all so much…and I regret that it hurt me.”

There was a pain growing in Spike’s throat that he had absolutely no idea what to do with. He shifted his position so that he was sitting beside her, and lifted her head onto his knee. “You killed Fred,” he said finally. “And you being in her body does not make me feel any kinder towards you for that.” She glanced away, and he brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “But do you think you aren’t my friend too, Illyria?”

Her eyes turned back to him, and he again felt a stab at Fred’s gaze. “You bear no affection for me,” she said.

He rolled his eyes, and smiled. “I know affection is hard for you to feel, pet. Makes sense you couldn’t tell when I bore it for you.”

“It does not matter,” she said quickly.

“Of course it does,” he said. “You just saved a lot of people’s lives, Illyria. And this marks at least the second time you’ve saved mine. So.” He poked her chest. “I know you bear affection for me too, in your own aloof way.”

She shifted. “Dying feels strange to me.”

“Yeah,” Spike breathed. “I know. But you’re dying a hero, you know. It’s gonna count for something, and I…I am proud of you for that.”

She cast her eyes down, and then quickly back up into his. “I did not make me a hero.”

He shrugged. “Well, someone did. Smart money’s on Wesley.”

“I…” Illyria looked away. “I loved him.”

“I know you did.”

“But he died,” Illyria said, in a toneless voice, which sounded so wrong coming out of Fred’s mouth. “He died, and you took over his responsibility of me.” She paused. “And you claim to be proud of what you see.” Her eyes flitted back up to his, almost shyly, and so very, very reminiscent of Fred. “So I am your masterpiece.”

Spike tried to reply, really he did, but his vocal chords absolutely refused to cooperate, and he just stared at her with tears taunting him in the back of his eyes. He took in a breath, and stooped down to kiss her forehead. He didn’t agree, he couldn’t, she wasn’t his, and he hadn’t made her. But all he managed to say was, “Will you still look like this when you go?”

“If you wish it.”

“I do.” Spike paused. “She had parents. I don’t know if they heard about her, but they’ll likely take it better if they have a body to mourn over, you know?”

Illyria just gave a brief nod, and closed her eyes. Spike cradled her to his chest with one arm, and carefully ran the back of his fingers down the side of her face with his free hand. He continued stroking her until he felt her go still, and then gently laid her back on the ground, and stood up, backing away, and staring.

A small warm hand slipped into his, and he briefly squeezed it. It was as covered in blood as his own was. “I’m glad you believe that,” Buffy whispered.

“Believe what?” Spike asked.

“That dying a hero counts for something,” Buffy said. “No matter who you were before.”

“Oh,” Spike said briefly. “I don’t actually believe that. Not in all cases, anyway.”

“Well, I do.” Her voice was firm and resolute, and she squeezed his hand again before letting go, and walking over to Xander and the Immortal.

----------

“This is your lady friend,” Xander said in disbelief.

Giles looked over at Opal, sitting on the couch. He sighed. “No,” he admitted. “No. Willow assumed she was, and I guess I was sort of hoping the rest of you would, too.” He looked around at Buffy, Xander, Catherine, and Dawn. “This is Opal. She’s…she’s my source on the Seven.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “This is your Witness Protection Programee?”

Giles gave a brief smile. “Yes. She—she was trained as a Watcher. The Seven…” he took a breath, and looked at Opal. She was much more lucid now, and nodded at him to continue. “She left the Watcher’s Council because she disagreed with their methods, and the Seven found her. Or—some of them did, anyway. They befriended her at first, and then tortured her. She was meant to be one of theirs.”

A silence fell across the room. “So she’s bad,” Dawn said bluntly.

Giles and Opal both winced. “No,” Giles said slowly. “She was a prisoner, she worked to escape, and now she has. She still has…a bit of psychological damage from what they did to her, but she’s been telling me what she knows. She…” he took another breath. “She wants to be free of their control. She wants them gone. And she succeeded in escaping, and they have chosen another to be their Shadow.”

Buffy slowly nodded. “So that…demon. It was a member?”

“The Primeval,” Opal said in a faint whisper.

Xander watched Buffy’s face. He knew he felt happy that another one was dead, but Buffy only said, “And what happens now? With her?”

“Nothing.” Giles shrugged. “You know about her now, but there is little change. She has a home, where she rests and recovers, and I look in on her, help her, and she tells me what she can. That will not change. She is in danger as long as she stays away.” He took her hand and helped her up, then looked around at all of them. “But I am glad you all know of her now.” He led her out of the room.

Dawn shook her head. “Whatever,” she muttered, and slid off to her room.

Buffy looked at Xander and Catherine. “You guys okay?” she asked quietly. “With…today, at the site and everything?”

“Honestly, I’m just sad we lost the building,” Xander sighed.

Buffy giggled. “Good. I’m just—gonna go check on Spike then.” She hesitated, and then went out.

Xander immediately turned to Catherine and began fondling her head and shoulders and face, staring deeply into her eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked frantically. “I never…I mean I didn’t ask, and we were all caught up with—”

She surprised him by laughing. “Xander, I knew what I was signing up for. Sure, I’m a little shaken up, but this is your life, and if you’re here living it, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Besides.” Her eyes shone. “It was a pretty impressive lightshow.”

Xander’s heart twisted, and he worried that she wasn’t taking this as seriously as she might have. “Well,” he said slowly. “Good. I think.”

“And also the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.”

He chuckled. “Oh, I wouldn’t give away that title just yet. But…for now…everything’s coming up roses for you, babe?”

She smiled, and leaned forward to kiss him. “Absolutely,” she said, as she pulled away.

----------

Buffy stopped in the doorway of Spike’s room. He was sitting on his bed, knees up, and hands between them, playing with his lighter. A lighter she hadn’t seen him use since he’d been back, and she couldn’t believe it had survived everything he went through. Unless it was a different one. He was leaning up against his headboard, looking away. But he must have known she was there.

She stepped into the room, and he only flickered his eyes briefly to hers before looking away. She waited for something…some half-smile, or defensive comment, or anything that would either put his walls up or dramatize his pain, but he did nothing. As if he couldn’t.

She grabbed a chair from a corner of the room, and slid it over next to the bed. And then she sat down, and looked at him.

His eyes flickered over to her again, and she saw him taking in the injuries on her face and hands, and the clumps of dirt that were probably still in her hair. She was noticing the same of him, but his injuries weren’t too extreme, and he at least seemed to have brushed himself off.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and left the room. She stared in surprise for a moment, but then she heard him in the bathroom, and the next minute he was back, sitting on the edge of his bed with a first aid kit. He reached out for the hand that had a good piece of skin scraped off the top of it, and she gave it to him.

She hadn’t expected that to be his reaction. Injuries were a part of her everyday life, and his, too. She’d always just patched herself up as little as was necessary, and he seemed to do even less.

“Did you find them?” Buffy eventually asked. “Her parents?”

Spike gave a quick shake of his head. “Not yet. Only because there are more people with her last name in the state of Texas than I imagined. Just a matter of time, though. Figure Red could give me a hand though if I keep coming up empty.”

Buffy didn’t say anything else, and she watched as Spike deftly and tenderly bandaged her hands, and then reached up to tape shut the cut on her cheek. She closed her eyes when he made contact with her face, and only opened them when she could feel he was nearly done. His eyes caught hers, and he finally gave her the half-hearted smile she’d been expecting.

Buffy held out her hands for the kit. “Your turn,” she said. He gave it to her, but didn’t look at her as she tended to the gash on his forehead, and then the burns on his palms. Buffy moved much slower than he had, and when she was finished she just sat there, staring at the kit in her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said, because she felt like she ought to.

Spike just gave a sad chuckle. “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.” He looked like he wanted to cry, but was holding back, so she scooted until she was sitting on the bed next to him, and put her arms around his neck, laying her head on his shoulder. He stiffened, and stayed that way, but gently laid his cheek on her head, and she didn’t move until Dawn came to announce that Andrew had brought back pizza.

----------

Willow had hung around the magic shop until they literally kicked her out at closing time. She was walking dejectedly down the street, hoping idly that she’d just see a cab somewhere and wouldn’t have to awkwardly stand around and wait for one. She stared down at her shoes, and focused on how they looked as she moved them.

Someone ran past her, colliding with her shoulder.

“Sorry—” she said on instinct, looking up at him. He froze, only for a second, and stared at her in as much horror as she did him. He immediately continued running, and she could only stare after him in open-mouthed shock.

She hadn’t seen him too many times in her life, and those had been brief as it was. But she knew it was him. The face of Ethan Rayne stood very clearly in her mind, and she knew that was his retreating back as he ran from her.

Chapter Text

There was a black mist everywhere, swirling around the room, bright with flying sparks and tiny flickering green lights. The candles, arranged in a circle in the center, were also flickering wildly, but they did not go out. Another scream was heard, and Innocence turned casually to the Immortal.

“So Dagger says Team Slayerette wants to get a Christmas tree,” she said. “You expect you’ll be roped into festive decorating?”

He gave her a scowl. “I’d find a way to get out of that even if it meant chopping off all my fingers.”

She gave him a condescending smile, and looked back at the center of the room. The figure in the middle then began screaming again, a scream filled with agony that just kept getting louder, and sounding more strained, until finally everything went quiet, the candles were blown out, and the black mist and sparks disappeared.

Innocence and the Immortal stepped forward, and looked at Ethan Rayne, on his knees, panting, and with blood and sweat streaming down his face and arms.

But he smiled triumphantly up at the Immortal, and handed him a worn sheet of parchment.

“There you are,” he said, gasping. “I’ve done most of the casting; all that needs to happen now is for the Key to read those words aloud. And the spell will be triggered.”

The Immortal glanced at the paper, then handed it off to Dagger. “Can it be broken?” he asked Ethan.

Ethan fidgeted, but nodded. “Naturally. Every spell, or curse, has an escape clause. But this one would need a counter-cast, and, presumably, everyone who will know how to do that will be under this spell anyway.”

The Immortal smiled broadly. “Wonderful,” he said, and looked at Innocence. “I knew waiting for our Shadow would be worth it. I never would have even considered trying to get that band of Slayerette misfits to work for our side without him.”

----------

Andrew looked up at the Christmas tree, where he’d just managed to get the lights working. He stepped back to view his work with a critical eye. “I just don’t like him, Buffy,” he said. “That’s all.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Okay, Andrew, I’m used to people not liking my boyfriends, and I don’t care how you feel about this one. But you hurt his feelings, and I’m gonna need you to not do that.”

Andrew rolled his eyes as well. “I probably only hurt his feelings because I’m the only one who doesn’t like him.”

“Well…” Buffy tried to think. “Spike doesn’t like him.”

Andrew snorted. “Yeah, wonder why, big mystery, we’re gonna have to call in Sherlock Holmes for this one.”

“Okay, so why don’t you like him, then?”

Andrew paled, and he finally looked up at her. “Uh…um…because you’re a big strong woman who don’t need no man?”

“Are we talking about Buffy’s boyfriends again?” Xander asked, walking in with a bag of ornaments. Willow had been aghast that Giles didn’t have any of his own, and she and Xander had been out raiding the stores for decorations. “Because that’s always a hilarious conversation. Hey, remember the time Spike pretty much collapsed at the doorstep because he’d just gotten neutered and couldn’t eat anybody?”

“Hey!” came a snarl from somewhere in the house, and a minute later, Spike stormed in. “I heard that, Harris!”

“Oh, I know, that’s why I yelled !”

“Yeah?” Spike asked, raising his eyebrows. “Okay, well how about the time you were so green around the gills riding in a camper that you couldn’t tell which way was up?”

“Hey, I was never her boyfriend, you don’t get to—”

“Neither was I,” Spike interrupted. “Not officially. Or, I know, what about when you accidentally invoked a demon that nearly had the whole population of Sunnydale dancing and singing their way to a charred crisp?”

“Right, because that’s at all comparable to the time I caught you exercising naked on your bed.”

A knowing smile curled up on Spike’s lips. “And the fact that you still think that’s really what I was doing speaks for itself.”

“Okay!” Buffy said quickly. “I don’t like this game anymore.” She quickly turned to Xander, and put her hands on her hips. “Xander, tell me you have news on the new site?”

“It’s a winner,” Xander said, nodding. “It’s near Piccadilly…it’s a little pricier than we’d hoped, but it’ll stay pretty well blended in. Giles said he’d go check it out tomorrow. You down to go with?”

“I’m there,” Buffy said, nodding. She kept her hands on her hips as she strode out of the living room. “All of you, be nice to my boyfriend,” she said firmly.

Spike snorted. “Still wears that badge, does he? You haven’t seen through his farce yet?”

 “I told you, I know what I’m doing,” she said. “And hey, guys? Next time you start throwing barbs at each other…” she looked behind her. “Just keep me out of the line of fire, kay?”

----------

Buffy was heading up to her room, when Dawn suddenly came out of the kitchen. “Buffy?” she asked nervously, twisting her bracelet.

Buffy looked back. “Yeah, what’s up, Dawn?”

Dawn worried her lip between her teeth, and then said, “Um, Kit’s family wants to take me and Carlos to Germany for Christmas?”

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “You’re still talking to them? I thought you lost touch after…you know…”

“After our high school blew up?” Dawn gave a brief smile. “I still talk to Kit sometimes…but she and Carlos are still pretty close. And Kit’s grandma has a big house in Germany, and Carlos is going to school there anyway, and…and I said it’d be a quick plane trip for me, so I kinda said yes already so can I go?” She blurted out.

Buffy hesitated. “Dawn, I—”

“Make way for the Secret Santa police,” Willow said, walking in and holding an upside-down Santa hat. She held it out to them. “Make your selections, please.”

Dawn rolled her eyes, and pulled a name out, stuffing it in her pocket without looking at it. Buffy eyed Willow suspiciously. “Willow,” she said. “You’re Jewish.”

“I know, but I’ve always felt better about Santa after Anya told us he was really a murderous demon, and not part of the Christmas holiday at all,” Willow said. She smiled, and held the hat out to Buffy. “So, pick your Secret Santa name!”

Buffy smiled, but pulled a slip of paper out, read Catherine’s name on it, and turned back to Dawn as Willow skipped cheerfully away.

“So can I go?” Dawn asked.

“And ruin Willow’s Secret Santa plans?” Buffy joked, but when she saw the serious look on her sister’s face, she sighed. “Dawn…I don’t know. It sounds really great, and I love that you still have friends from Sunnydale who want to hang out with you, but, Germany? By yourself?”

“I won’t be by myself,” Dawn argued.

“You know what I meant,” Buffy said. “I meant, no one around to protect you from the forces of darkness.”

“There’s a Slayer headquarters in Berlin,” Dawn protested. “And there’s always going to be forces of darkness around, it’s not like I’m never going to go anywhere.”

“I know,” Buffy said carefully. “It’s just that right now there is specifically a group targeting us. Someone specifically targeting you , and we have no idea where he is.”

Dawn shifted. And then crossed her arms. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I can take care of myself?”

“I know you can,” Buffy said gently. “And when this whole thing with the Seven is over…maybe you can do stuff like this.” She sighed. “But not this time. I’m sorry, Dawn.”

Dawn looked away, and stood with crossed arms, glowering at the wall. “Fine,” she said. “Whatever. But don’t expect any presents this year. The only person who gets something from me is my Secret Santa recipient.” She pulled the paper out of her pocket and frowned. “Damn.”

“What?”

“I picked your name.”

----------

Romania, 1895

The Immortal clutched his cane in one hand, and leaned on the railing of his private balcony, in the one inn that wasn’t burning before his eyes. He looked out over the fires, raging down in the streets below, and frowned in disapproval.

The world had come so close to ending, and all the Immortal had to show for it was a Romanian town that would just pick itself back up and be teeming with life in the blink of an eye. He scowled, and clenched his jaw.

“Sickening, isn’t it?”

The Immortal glanced behind him to see a tall Zidverita demon, her brown hair tucked up in a maid’s cap. He briefly wondered why a servant was daring to speak to him, even a demonic one, but, he was aware they were as much in admiration of him as the rest of the rabble.

“Ah,” he sighed. “It makes my very heart bleed so, to see—”

She let out a peal of laughter. “Oh stars above, you don’t need to carry on with that speech pattern in front of me . I know who you are, Immortal. You don’t have to pretend that you feel any sympathy for the torments below.”

He frowned at her. “Who are you, to speak so boldly to me?”

She clutched the balcony railing and looked out. “So much potential,” she murmured sadly. “Slayers really are the bane of existence. This world would be so easy to snuff out if she wasn’t around to protect it.” She turned to him with shining eyes. “But what if we could find a way to guarantee it would happen? Can you just imagine the lightshow? The pain…the chaos…” She closed her eyes and smiled, drawing in a deep breath. “The death?”

He looked at her skeptically. “I suppose you know of such a way?”

“Not in the slightest,” she said promptly. “But it must be out there. The end of the world is prophesized and feared so commonly that there must be a way to cause it. All we have to do is find it. And, of course, do it in such a way that doesn’t destroy this plane of reality, at least not without access to another one.” Her eyes shone again. “What do you say, your Immortalness, would you like to watch the world burn…all the way to ashes?”

He drew himself up stiffly. “I don’t form alliances,” he said primly. “I just work for myself.”

“Oh, I know. I’m a longtime admirer of yours. The Immortal, the man no one can resist. You can do anything, so don’t try and tell me the prospect of this doesn’t entice you.”

“And what about you?” he asked. “What makes you think you can achieve such a feat?”

“I’ve been known to get what I want,” she said demurely. “My name is Innocence.”

He chuckled. “Somehow, I don’t find that difficult to believe. That tender little maid look you’ve got going on? I wager people just love to trust you. They must spill torrents of secrets in front of you, or else trip over themselves trying to get you to cast them a favoring glance.”

“And then I betray them,” Innocence said, nodding. “It’s come to be my trademark.”

The Immortal regarded her for a long moment, and then nodded back at her. “So. You want to find the specific apocalypse that all the portents lead to.”

“It may take some time,” she admitted. “But, you know, there is more than one way to end the world. And I have hundreds of years in which to discover it, and unless you chose that name out of a sense of irony, I would guess that you do, too.”

A slow, amused smile spread across his lips, and he tilted his head at her. “You’re suggesting you and I form an alliance, then?”

She smiled sweetly in return. “You think you can handle it?”

“What about your trademark of betraying people?”

“Well,” she murmured. “I think if you can break your own rules, I might be willing to do the same.”

----------

Willow swung her nearly-empty Santa hat, heading towards the living room on the bottom floor. Spike was there, sprawled in an armchair, holding a book, but he was squinting at it, and moving it slowly towards his face, and then away again.

“Hey,” Willow said, as she walked in. “What are you doing?”

He raised his eyes to her, almost scornfully. “Bungee jumping.”

“You’re moving the book back and forth,” Willow pointed out.

“Yeah, the light’s bad in here, so?”

“My dad did that for years before it turned out he needed glasses,” Willow said. She considered for a minute, and then said, “Hey, maybe you need glasses! You know, now that you’re hu—”

She stopped at the glare Spike gave her. “Wow,” she said, in a hushed voice. “If looks could kill, I think I’d be dead three times over.” She held her hat out. “Pick a name for Secret Santa?”

Spike glowered at her, but she was pretty sure he was still smarting over the glasses comment. He plunged his hand in to retrieve the last paper, and looked at it. “I don’t need glasses, all right?” he said, in a clipped tone.

“Who’d you get?” Willow asked, trying to change the subject even if that broke all the rules of it being a secret.

“Dawn,” he answered. “And I’ll have you know I can see fine, just not…” he shifted. “Not as well as I used to.”

“Right,” Willow nodded. “Vampire powers. But even with only residual powers, your sight should still be better than the average human’s, right? I mean assuming they aren’t going anywhere, which…” she stopped again when he looked away. “Oh,” she whispered. “Spike, are…are your powers diminishing?”

“I don’t know,” he said brusquely. “Maybe. A little. Not too unexpected, really, in fact it was more surprising to have even still had them at all. Just…slightly jarring, is all. But it’s no biggie.”

Willow sat in the chair next to his. “Well,” she said, shoving her hands between her knees and looking down at her shoes. “At least you’ve still got something.”

“Oh, chin up, Little Mermaid, you know neither one of us are defined by our powers. Or lack thereof.”

“Are you saying that to make me feel better? Or you?”

She looked up at him, and he narrowed his eyes at her. “You know I’m not above killing you,” he said.

“Right. Sorry.” She turned back to her shoes.

“You still striking out on the whole magic ordeal?”

She pressed her lips together, and nodded. “I knew what I was giving up, when I did it, but I just kept hoping there’d be a way…but I don’t know. And I don’t know if it’s worse now, or when I was trying to just refrain from doing it. It was…nice…back then, even through the withdrawals. Just knowing it was there, that I could do it even if I, you know. Couldn’t actually .”

Spike nodded. “Because at least you were in control then, or trying to be. Terrible feeling to just have it taken from you.”

She threw him a sideways glance. “You must have really hated that chip.”

He drew a breath, but he just shrugged, and leaned back in the chair. “Chip came out. Nothing lasts forever.” His eyes trailed over to her. “There’s lots of magic in this world, Willow,” he said. “I’m not saying you should keep spending your energies on something that probably won’t pan out, but…it’s not as if you’re never going to have any power again.”

----------

“That’s it,” Dagger murmured. “Now just…walk through the table, and…” Dawn stepped towards the table, but she’d only just passed her knee through the woodwork, when she stepped back and became physical again. She gave a sigh, and Dagger matched it.

“What is it with you today, Snickerdoodle?” he asked in exasperation. “You’re not focused, at all. Anything you’re doing is by accident.”

“Yeah,” Dawn said stiffly. “Well. Just family drama, nothing spectacular.”

Dagger pulled up a chair by the table and gestured for her to sit in it. She did, and he pulled up one as well. “What’s going on, chicken tender?”

“Okay, that one was lame,” Dawn said, smirking. She sighed again. “It’s seriously nothing. Buffy just said I can’t go on a trip with my friends, and that was a week ago, and I thought I was over it. I mean I was upset, but when your sister’s the Slayer, you can’t exactly go behind her back.”

“Why not?” Dagger asked. “I mean, if you want to go behind her back, what does her being the Slayer have anything to do with it? You have power, and you know she’d never harm you anyway, so what’s stopping you?”

Dawn considered for a minute, then shook her head. “No…no I’d better not. It’s just…I wish she could have just said ‘no, I want to spend Christmas with you, I don’t want you being with your friends instead.’ Not some crap about how I can’t take care of myself.”

“She said that?” Dagger tutted. “Toots, she’s just asking for you to run off with your friends.”

“I know, right?” Dawn smirked. “But really, it’s not like I wanted to go to Germany especially…I’m just afraid she’s gonna keep me locked away in a tower forever, you know?”

Dagger nodded. “Bet a spell would change her mind.”

“Yeah, the whole point of me coming to you for magic is so I don’t end up like Willow. Doing the stupid things she did.”

“Because she was stupid. And didn’t have a teacher. My spells have a satisfaction guaranteed policy.”

“Uh huh,” Dawn said.

Dagger stood up, and retrieved a book from the shelf behind him. He opened it, and pulled out a sheet of parchment, laying it down in front of her. “This one right here is pretty basic. All you gotta do is say the words aloud…and then she’ll have no inclination to stop whatever you do.”

Dawn looked at him skeptically. “Golly mister, it sounds perfect.”

“No need to be sarcastic,” he said.

“No offense,” she said, “But I’m really not about to take spell advice from you.”

He shrugged, and handed her the parchment. “Well, keep it anyway. For your darkest hour. It’ll make a darker one for everyone else.”

“You can’t just slip me spells and expect me to perform them for you,” Dawn snapped. But she reached out and took the parchment anyway, saying, as her eyes scanned the Latin, “Remember I’m the one with the power here.”

“Of course,” he said sweetly. “I guess I’m on your sister’s side, anyway. I understand why she wants to keep you safe under lock and…key.” He stepped behind her chair, sweeping her hair away from her shoulder, and leaned down to murmur in her ear, “All kinds of nasty things out there to get you.”

She whipped around, and he smiled broadly. “Now. Where were we?”

----------

The normal, peaceful business of Piccadilly Square was suddenly interrupted by a train of black vans careening down the street. They pulled up in the center of the square, and Riley Finn stepped out of the first one. He looked around, then turned to the group of soldiers that were filing out of the other vans. “All right,” he said. “You know your teams. Don’t harm any civilians, but don’t try to remain discreet, either. He can hide among them, and we can smoke him out if he sees us coming.” He looked around again. “This is where the trail ends, men, and we can’t let him start it up again. The prisoner is here in London. Let’s make sure he stays that way.”

----------

“It’s so beautiful,” Xander said. He waved his hands around vaguely, as the group walked up the front way of Giles’ drive. “It’s just…so beautiful.”

“Xander, sweetie,” Catherine said, linking arms with him. “We’ve all agreed that the new site is beautiful. But one of these times, you’re really gonna have to come up with a different adjective.”

“It’s decrepit,” Spike said bluntly. “There’s a word for you.”

“It’s really big?” Willow offered.

Xander looked at Buffy, ready to ask her opinion, although he already had seen her gush over the new Slayer headquarters site. But he wanted to hear her say it again.

But she didn’t seem to be listening, and her face was twisted with worry.

“Buffy?” Giles asked. “Something wrong?”

“She’s worried about Dawn,” Andrew pointed out. “You know, since Dawn’s being all cool-teeanger and doesn’t like going on field trips if everyone else is going.”

“Huh?” Buffy asked. “Oh…yeah, actually. I just don’t like leaving her alone.”

“Buffy.” Giles put his hand on his shoulder to stop her. “Buffy…I know. But she’s not…not a little girl anymore.”

“So that makes her not in danger?” Buffy asked.

“Of course not,” Giles said. “I just mean if any of the rest of us could stay alone by ourselves, she can, too.”

Buffy pursed her lips. “I’m still not letting her go to Germany.”

“No, and that I agree with,” Giles said. The group reached the front door, and Giles turned the handle. “But she seems to be respecting your decision on that front, anyhow.”

Catherine suddenly stepped back and looked shrewdly up at the house. “You don’t have Christmas lights,” she said.

“Cath!” Xander said. He didn’t know why he always ended up with girlfriends he had to apologize for. Though, in his defense, Catherine hadn’t seemed the type to blurt out something borderline rude in front of the guy whose house you were living in for free.

“I’m sorry?” Giles asked.

Catherine pointed. “On your house. You’re not lighting up the night sky with festive cheer.”

“Ooh, I think there’s some lights left in the barn we could use!” Andrew said. He looked pleadingly at Giles. “Can we put them up? Please?”

Giles shrugged. “If you feel so inclined. It isn’t as if anyone besides us will see them, anyhow.”

Catherine and Andrew hurried off to the barn, and Xander willed his cheeks to stop burning as he followed everyone else into the house.

Dawn was sitting in the kitchen, and she stood up as the group entered. “Buffy,” she said.

“Hey,” Buffy said. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Dawn stood uncomfortably for a moment, and then gave her head a slight toss. “Buffy…I think you should let me go to Germany.”

Buffy looked up at the eyes of everyone watching her, and then grabbed Dawn’s arm and pulled her over to the staircase. But they could still be seen, and heard, and Xander looked at Spike and Giles and Willow, who were making no attempts to hide the fact they were eavesdropping. So Xander stayed where he was, too.

“Dawn,” Buffy said. “We’ve been over this. You’ve got a demon gunning for you, and I don’t want you anywhere that I can’t protect you right now.”

“You can’t protect me forever, Buffy,” Dawn said, lifting her chin, and tossing her hair. “I’m gonna have to go out in the world, and you’re going to have to trust that I’ll be okay.”

“I do trust…look, right now, it’s just safer to stick with me, all right?”

Dawn huffed impatiently. “Buffy, it’s always safer to just never leave your room, but we can’t always do that! I’ll be fine on my own, I’ve even been…” She broke off suddenly, and her eyes turned wide.

“What?” Buffy asked, suddenly suspicious. “You’ve been what, Dawn?”

“Nothing,” Dawn mumbled. “Never mind.”

“Dawn—”

“Just forget it, okay? I don’t need you breathing down my neck, and I don’t need…I don’t need you keeping me as a prisoner!”

Buffy was silenced for a moment, and then said warningly, “You wanna know what being a prisoner feels like? You’re grounded. No leaving the house until after the New Year.”

“You’re grounding me?” Dawn asked in disbelief. “Buffy, you haven’t grounded me since I was like…actually, I don’t think you’ve ever grounded me!”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. “Well, you’ve still got a couple months before you’re an adult, and I had to ground you at least once before that happened.” She turned and started walking back to the kitchen.

“Buffy!”

“Dawn,” Buffy said, looking back. She sighed. “Please, don’t make this worse. I don’t want to have to confine you to your room, too.”

Dawn began breathing heavily, and then she straightened up, and marched into the kitchen, grabbing her backpack. “Well,” she said. “If you’re going to ground me, I’m going to sneak away. Just like you always did.”

Buffy raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, well a key part of that is not—”

Dawn whipped the parchment out of her bag, and uttered, “Exhibito horam meum mittam in eos dies me tenet.” A green light filled her eyes, and then vanished. The group stared at her in horror, but just as Buffy began sputtering, demanding to know what had happened, Dawn dropped the parchment, ran to her room, and yanked out a packed suitcase, before flouncing out the door and slamming it behind her.

----------

“Who’d you get for Secret Santa?” Andrew asked. He tried to snap open the ladder with a flick of his arms, but ended up stumbling and dropping it, almost falling with it.

“Can’t tell you,” she said demurely. “It’s a secret.”

“Cool,” Andrew said, grinning. “I like action figures and leg warmers.”

She swatted his arm. “You ruined it. But I already got your gift, anyway, and—” she paused. “You like leg warmers? Even I don’t like leg warmers.”

Andrew was about to reply, when the front door suddenly slammed, and Dawn began pelting down the road, dragging a suitcase behind her. “Woah,” Andrew said. “Dawn, what happened?”

She glared at them. “I’m going to Germany,” she said defiantly.

Catherine gasped, and Andrew and Dawn looked at the house to see a black cloud suddenly billow out of every window, door, and chimney, before it slowly faded away. Dawn wavered, but then frowned again, and continued running. “I’ll send you all a postcard!” she shouted.

Andrew and Catherine looked at each other, then dropped their lights and ran for the house.

----------

Giles looked after Dawn in horror, then glanced at Buffy to see his expression matched on her face. Buffy bent down, with shaking hands, and picked up the parchment, waving her hand to clear the last of the black smoke. “What…” she gulped. “What did she say?”

Giles opened his mouth, but Spike beat him to it. “She said, ‘my darkest hour is nigh. I cast the darkest day upon those around me.’”

Giles reached over and took the parchment out of her hands, as Catherine and Andrew burst through the front door.

“What happened?” Andrew demanded. “We saw the smoke, and Dawn, and—”

“Oh dear,” Giles said softly.

“What?” Xander asked. “What did she do? Did she just start an apocalypse?”

“Well, how the hell did she do that?” Willow demanded. “You need some kind of magic training to do that!” She peered over Giles’ arm to look at the parchment. “Right?”

“Giles,” Spike snapped. “What is it? What did she do?”

Giles cleared his throat, and reached for his glasses, but he decided cleaning them wasn’t going to be a strong enough distraction. He left them on. “Darkest day,” he said quietly. “It doesn’t mean…that today is a bad day, or the sun will disappear, or that an apocalypse was started. This spell…” he drew a breath. “Claims to turn those affected into their darkest selves.”

Everyone in the room stared at him, and he closed his eyes.

“Meaning?” Buffy asked quietly.

Giles opened his eyes, and dared to look around the room. “Well,” he breathed. “This isn’t exactly a group that can claim to have never had a villainous turn.”

“I haven’t,” Xander protested. “Neither has Buffy. Or Catherine.”

“Catherine and Andrew likely will not be affected, as they were not on the premises when the spell was cast,” Giles said.

“It doesn’t just mean the villainous turns, anyhow,” Spike said, swallowing. “Darkest selves…that means whatever the worst version of yourself was…” he glanced at Buffy. “Or even just when you were at your very lowest.” He drew a shuddering breath, then cleared his throat, and headed for the living room. He emerged with a blanket, and marched towards the front door.

“Spike!” Buffy called, hurrying after him. “You’re not actually…I mean, you’re not a vampire, anymore, so even if you’re about to get the mentality of one…”

“Remember Halloween, pet?” he asked, glancing back. “You know the one. Our first. I almost killed you because you were a helpless 18-century noblewoman. You didn’t just have the mentality of one. You became her.” He looked around the room. “That’s about to go down again, only the costumes this time are our pasts. And my darkest self was certainly not ‘getting-tortured-instead-of giving-up-the-Key’ vampire, and it wasn’t even ‘agreeing-to-help-a-Fyarl-librarian-who-pays-well’ vampire. William the Bloody is coming, love, and…and I…” He threw the blanket over his head and wrenched the door open. “Nobody invite me in,” he said, and slammed the door behind him.

Giles watched him, watched Buffy, and felt something rising in him, something dark taking over. But it wasn’t here yet, and something was tickling at his mind, trying to come out. He only hoped he could realize it before…

“Andrew,” Willow said, in a calm, low voice. “You’d better hide.”

“What? Why?” Andrew’s eyes were as wide as Giles had ever seen them, and they just kept getting wider.

“Because veiny Willow is about to come out, and I imagine she’ll be thirsting for nerd blood,” Willow said, still calmly.

Buffy began taking deep, anxious breaths, as Andrew pelted up the stairs. She looked at Giles helplessly, and he snapped into action. “Right,” he said. “Buffy, Xander, we don’t know what’s coming for you, so I suggest the three of us tie ourselves up. And Willow…” he raised his hands. “All I can think is to drug you.”

“Oh, Rupert,” she said, in a cold, deep voice, and he felt chills and past memories run all through his frame. He tentatively looked at her, and watched her hair turn black. “As if drugs could hold me down.” Her eyes turned black as well, and she swept her hand around the room. A blue beam emerged, and the remaining residents were knocked down. “I know the geek is here,” she said in a louder voice. “And maybe I will return for him later. If he doesn’t die when I destroy the world.” She waved her hand, the front door opened, and she stalked out.

Xander turned sharply to Catherine, standing frozen and helpless. He gripped her shoulders. “Cath,” he said in a raspy voice. “Get away from here.” She slowly backed up to the staircase, and ran up it as well.

Giles questioned both hers and Andrew’s choices to climb to the second floor instead of the barn, or even trying to get off the property, but he couldn’t really blame them. The Seven were still out there, which meant this was still, relatively, the safest place for them.

He opened a cabinet, and pulled out a set of chains, which he held out to Xander. Xander took them and shakily bound himself to a chair. Giles handed another set to Buffy, who began chaining herself to the staircase. Giles reached for a third set for himself, and then heard a low snarling behind him.

“What is this?” Xander asked. “Let me go, now! Let me go !”

Giles looked over at him, and saw Xander sniffing the air, with a curl to his lip that Giles recognized, but only barely. He was looking at Buffy, hungrily, his eyes sensually roaming up and down over her figure. “He’s a hyena,” Giles said softly. “That was his darkest self.”

“I know,” Buffy said, in a cracked voice.

Giles sighed, as he began chaining himself to the table. “Well, at least it wasn’t Dracula’s minion. And Ripper…will be violent, but I dearly hope I’ll know better than to try and conjure something idiotic.” He shook his head. “This is…it’s strange that it’s happening again…such a similar spell…”

“Giles,” Buffy whispered. “What will I turn into?”

“I don’t know, Buffy,” Giles said, looking anxiously at her. And he didn’t. She’d wanted to give up so many times in her past, but he didn’t think any of them necessarily qualified as her darkest self. Even the airhead cheerleader she’d claimed to be before she was the Slayer didn’t seem like it would count. “Your entire stance as a Slayer has been your darkest self, so all I can think is that you will become whoever you were…when you were at your very lowest.”

“How are we going to stop it?” she asked. “If…if all of us are under an influence…”

Giles hadn’t thought of that, and there was no time now. He felt the darkness in him rising, felt memories being rearranged, and then…he felt like a young man again.

----------

New York City, 1900

Innocence clasped her hands together and pressed them to her lips, looking pleadingly at the Statue of Liberty. “Come on, come on…” she whispered.

The Immortal chuckled. “Calm down, my Innocence. We have overlooked nothing. The Statue will melt, it will run over the city and into the harbor, and chaos will reign. And then we will be free to step in and unleash the rest of the demon hordes. The Slayer is far away, in China, and no one else can stop us.”

“Well, mob mentality is one of the strongest forces on earth,” a voice said from behind them. They both turned around, and saw a short, dark man, who had hands shoved deep into the pockets of his bright orange suit. He was rocking back and forth on his feet, whistling aimlessly.

Innocence stared, looked at the Immortal, and then drew herself as tall as she could, crossing her arms and looking down on him. “What the hell are you wearing?” She asked.

“Innocence,” the Immortal chided. “That’s hardly polite. We haven’t even met.” But he fixed the man with a cold glare, and said, “Though I hardly think we need any introduction. You know who we are?”

The man grinned. “Of course I do.”

“By reputation?”

“Not exactly.” The man nodded at the statue. “You’re jumping the gun on all of this.”

The other two stared at him. “What?” Innocence demanded. “What does that mean?”

“Oh,” the man said. “Yes…I guess that phrase hasn’t come into play yet. But it will. I can see these things.”

Innocence looked over his suit. “And that?”

“Will also come into fashion someday.” The man grinned again. “Of course it will then go out of fashion, but that’s hardly my fault. Listen, I know that you guys are season ticket holders to all the apocalypses, studying them and learning how to create them, and I think that is just groovy. But you’re thinking that your time will come soon, and I’m here to tell you you’re rushing things just a skosh. You’re not going to succeed. Not yet. Not without the rest of your crew.”

The Immortal raised his eyebrows. “And you, I suspect, think you’re part of that crew?”

“Damn straight. I, and four others besides you. Together, we are destined to be the Seven.”

“And why should we believe that?” Innocence asked.

“I’m a Seer, that’s why. I’m sure that’s not difficult for you to tell, dollface. I make prophecies, I study the ones others have made…it’s what I do.”

“You’re a bit unorthodox,” the Immortal mused. “For a Seer. Aren’t they usually instruments of the Powers that Be? As in, those who’d rather not have the world come to an end?”

He shrugged. “My gift, I do what I want with it. I like to enjoy myself, and I see so many ends of the world announced and forewarned that people just blissfully ignore. I’d love to see it actually happen, just to see the looks on all their stupid faces. And I’ve picked up a bit of magic, too, if that’s of any interest to you. Since I hear you’re not the biggest fan of using spells yourself.” He paused. “Okay, that I do know from reputation.”

Innocence looked at the Immortal, who was beginning to smile. “Come on,” she said, “You’re not seriously buying this crap, are you?”

“Do you have a name?” the Immortal asked.

“Do you?”

“We’re working on that,” Innocence said. “He’s calling me the Innocence just do he doesn’t feel left out when everyone calls him the Immortal.”

“And we’ll call you the Prophecy,” the Immortal nodded. “Just as soon as you predict something.”

“Okay,” the man said promptly. “You think your little alchemist friend is going to destroy the Statue of Liberty, and I’m here to tell you that the city of New York is rather fond of that particular symbol of freedom, and aren’t going to let him get away with it.” He cocked his head towards the streets below. “In fact, I think I can hear them clamouring for his blood now.”

Innocence and the Immortal looked, and saw the man they’d hired, who had sworn he invented a chemical that would turn the statue to liquid, being dragged through the streets. He had several assistants being dragged behind him, and everyone was screaming, and the police were fighting through the mob, as they grabbed the scientist and his followers, tossing them in the back of several buggies.

The Immortal looked at the man and grinned. He smirked back, and said, “If you want something besides “the Prophecy” to put on my nametag, you can call me Dagger.”

“Your fancy Seer abilities happen to know who the rest of our Seven are?” Innocence demanded.

“Unfortunately, no, I won’t know until they’re alive, and ready for us to recruit them.” He hesitated, and then said, “Well, one of them is ready. And that’s only because he’s a beast, a creature that has been on this earth longer than any one of us.”

----------

“Alpha team, report, over,” Riley said into his walkie. He knew there wouldn’t be any news, because they’d have reported immediately if there was. But he hated just standing and watching...

“Nothing, sir. No eyes on the prisoner. Over.”

“Damn it,” Riley sighed. He looked up at one of the buildings, which was majorly distracting with all the bright advertisements on it.

But he squinted, because suddenly he saw a flash that wasn’t quite...on the side of the building so much as on top of it. Was there...was that a person up there?

“Sir,” one of his men said anxiously, running over and handing him a pair of binoculars. “There...seems to be a disturbance. 12:00.”

Riley peered through the binoculars, and stared up at the person on the building. A girl, with long black hair whipping around her face...and her hands were spread out over the street. A yellow light seemed to flow from them, and he suddenly realized she was actually ripping up the street. Trees were being uprooted, cars were crashing, and she even had chunks of the road flying around. Riley was about to turn away, and then blinked and peered harder at her. “Willow?” he breathed. “Oh my gosh, Willow ?”

“Sir?”

Riley thrust the binoculars in his hand. “Stay here.” He pulled his walkie out, and barked “Graham! Come in, I need you to take over for me.”

“Where are you going?” came Graham’s static voice from the walkie.

Riley looked grimly up at Willow again as he began climbing into the driver’s seat of one of the vans. “We still have the coordinates for the Giles residence, right?”

----------

“Andrew!”

Andrew knew it was only Catherine, but he was taking no chances. He squeezed into a tighter ball under his bed, and closed his eyes. Maybe she would just go away...

The door creaked as Catherine walked into the room, and he saw her pink socks as she stopped in front of the bed. She bent down, and he saw her black curls tumble down before her face. “Andrew, it’s just me.”

“I know.”

“Come on.” She gripped his arm and tugged, and he sighed, and crawled out. “We have to stop this,” she said. “There’s no one else.”

“I know,” Andrew said again, whimpering. “Are...um...are any of them still here?”

She sighed. “Spike and Willow ran off, which you probably know. Giles I think was going to chain himself up, but he didn’t...have time, and he’s gone too. Xander’s restrained though.” She swallowed. “I almost wish he’d gone.”

“What about Buffy?”

Catherine tucked her hair behind her ears. “She’s here. But I’m...I can’t really tell what happened to her.”

Andrew followed Catherine down the stairs, where Buffy was still chained up. Andrew could hear Xander shouting and growling from the kitchen, but he didn’t pay attention. He looked at Buffy, who was sitting perfectly still, her knees drawn up to her chest. She was clutching the stairs railing with both hands, and pressing her face to it, as well. Her hair was covering her face, and he could hear her whimpering softly.

“Buffy?” Andrew asked, crouching in front of her.

She cringed at the name, and shook her head. She started scratching her neck with one hand, and whispered, “Not real, not real...”

“Oh.” Andrew stood back up. “I know what this is. It’s when we—I mean, it’s when a demon stabbed her, and made her hallucinate that she was in a psych ward.”

“That’s her darkest self?” Catherine breathed. “Thinking she’s...in...”

“Guess so.” Andrew looked at Buffy scratching her neck for a moment, and then looked at Catherine. Catherine was also staring at her, distantly, but with horror in her gaze.

Andrew waved in front of her face. “Catherine?”

She drew in a breath, and shuddered, looking at him. “Right, yeah...do you know how to fix this?”

“I can try.” Andrew looked around, and wandered into the kitchen, where he found the parchment. Xander lunged at him, and Andrew backed away hurriedly, bumping into Catherine.

Xander’s gaze turned to her. “Catherine,” he said sweetly. “You don’t really want to leave me here, do you? Where you know I might be in danger?”

“I might be in danger if I let you go,” Catherine said, but she took a step forward.

“Well,” Xander shrugged. “If you’re going to leave me chained up, maybe we could...”

Catherine gasped. “Stop!” she said. “Just—" She looked around, and found a dishtowel. “Forgive me for this.” She stepped forward to gag him, but he swiped a leg at her, tripping her up. She let out a scream, and Andrew picked up a chair, bringing it down on Xander’s head. Xander went limp, and Andrew quickly picked Catherine up and began dragging her up the stairs.

“Yeah,” Andrew sighed, as they headed towards Giles’ study. “He’s definitely not forgiving me for that.”

----------

Ripper strolled down the street nonchalantly. He could hear screams and smell fire in the distance, but he really couldn’t be bothered to care. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but it was delicious just knowing he had the power to do things that no one would be able to stop him for. He smiled and put his fist through a shop window, just for the hell of it. There was nothing particularly interesting there, but he picked up a chain bracelet and put it on, just to look like he’d meant to take that.

He looked up, and was mildly surprised to see a car pull up, and Ethan Rayne step out of it. “Well well,” Ethan said. “Ripper. It’s lovely to see you.”

“Ethan,” Ripper said. “Thought you were in jail?”

“Got out. Thought you’d turned Watcher?”

Ripper grinned. “Got out.”

“Of course,” Ethan said, with a slow smile. “Feel up to raising some demons, then? It’s been too long since you and I have engaged in that activity.”

“It has,” Ripper agreed. “Feels like forever since I’ve even…thought of doing so.”

“I thought you might say that,” Ethan replied.

Ripper tilted his head, and then gestured to himself. “This your doing then, is it?”

“Might have been. Fancy it?”

Ripper smiled. “It’s bloody brilliant.”

----------

Rachel felt for her key, and sighed in frustration when she came up empty. She put her hand on the door handle, and cringed at the thought of breaking it off. But, everyone would be back at the Slayer headquarters after Christmas, and the door would be fine until then. She snapped, and it came off in her hand, but there was no clicking of a lock breaking. Great, so it had actually been open, and now…

She sighed, and tossed it away as she walked through the door. And then she stopped. “Spike?”

Spike was standing in front of one of the windows, just behind the patch of sunlight pouring in. He had folded arms, and was staring out of it. “Bloody chaos out there,” he observed.

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed cautiously. She carefully stepped over to her desk. “There’s a sorcerer out there or something, tearing up the city.”

“It’s Willow,” Spike said casually. “Buffy’s sister cast a spell to turn her friends back into, well.” He cocked his head at her and gave a small smile. “Their less pleasant selves.”

Rachel slowly opened a drawer in her desk and reached for a stake. “So you’re a vampire again,” she said. She knew he was already. She had sensed something when she came in…she just hadn’t run into enough vampires to be able to label it as such.

“Very good, love.”

“And is this with a soul or without?” She lifted her hand out with the stake, and turned around, but he was there, slamming her wrist down on the table. She gasped as she stared into his golden eyes, and he grinned at her through his fangs.

“Think you already have a guess,” he said, leaning forward. “Slayer.”

----------

Catherine peered anxiously into her cauldron, but she kept stirring anyway. “There’s a lot of steam,” she said. “I can’t tell what color it is underneath.”

“Just keep going, you’re doing fine,” Andrew said. He was sitting on the floor of the kitchen, with several books strewn around him. He squinted at the parchment, and then grabbed one of the books. “Yeah, okay, I think this is it…I’m just sort of fuzzy on the ritual part. It says there needs to be a circle? Or a dome…or something?”

Catherine lifted her spoon out. “It’s white,” she reported, and closed her eyes in relief. “I got the math right.”

“Of course you did,” Andrew said soothingly, flipping through another book. “Oh! I see, it’s not a circle, exactly, all it’s saying is that—”

The front door burst open, and a tall man in a military uniform…or a spy uniform maybe…burst into the kitchen. There was only one, but Catherine let out a scream, that was only slightly quieter than Andrew’s scream. She gripped her spoon tightly, and Andrew cried, “No, don’t shoot, we’re innocent!”

Catherine rolled her eyes.

The man looked at them in confusion. “Who are you?” he snapped. “I thought that…” he suddenly glanced behind Andrew, and then asked, “Xander?”

“You know him?” Catherine asked.

“Yeah, I’m—”

“Riley?” came a voice from the stairs.

“Buffy?” he gasped. He dropped his gun, and ran to her. “They’re…they’re keeping you hostage?”

“Hostage?” Andrew squeaked. “No, there was…a spell…not performed by us! And we’re trying to break it.”

“What kind of spell?” Riley asked. He reached his hand out. “Hey, Buffy, can you look at me?”

Buffy shook her head violently, and backed away. “You don’t…” She gasped. “This isn’t real. I don’t belong here, I just…”

“Darkest selves,” Andrew said. “They turned into the worst versions of themselves. But I think I know how to break it, I just need…I need all of the victims to be brought back here. That’s what it means by circle; they all need to be gathered where they were when the spell was cast.”

“The victims,” Riley said. He looked sharply at Andrew. “And they would be?”

“Besides these two?” Catherine asked. “Willow, Giles, and Spike.”

Riley’s face grew very dark at the last name. “Spike,” he spat out. “He’s the gift that just keeps on giving, isn’t he?” He sighed, and stood up. “But I’m on it.”

----------

London, 1903

“You must be joking,” the Immortal said.

Dagger shrugged, and took a step closer to the cave entrance. “The beast is down there. I didn’t put it there.”

Innocence rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you two, it’s just a little cave.” She stepped into it and smiled, twirling her arms around. “And such a lovely one.”

“Forgive her,” the Immortal said. “She’s a demon. They thrive in such places.”

They could hear a bellowing from somewhere deep inside the cave, and Innocence led the others deeper into it, until she found a flight of ancient steps carved into the stone. They walked down, deeper into the earth, and found it. A great demon, with snake arms and a monkey’s head and body, writhing in chains that were so rusty they looked like they would break any second.

Innocence gasped. “Oh, you’re beautiful !” she cried. She laughed, and skipped up to pet it. It responded by blowing fire at her, and she jumped back, laughing again. “You poor dear. All alone, for all these years.”

“Well…” Dagger said, and then shook his head. “Never mind. I hope you have plans on how to move it, though.”

“Move it?” Innocence asked. “Why can’t we just move in here?”

Dagger and the Immortal looked at her in shock. “You want me to live in a dank cave?” the Immortal asked. “Like some…vampire?”

“It is rather uncouth,” Dagger agreed.

“We can set up shop on the top level,” Innocence said. “You boys can make it look presentable enough, I’m sure. And we needn’t be here all the time. Just enough so that we have clearly staked our claim on…” She looked at the beast again. “On it.”

“The Primeval,” The Immortal said. He tilted his head, and watched it as it bellowed. He sighed. “Well. I’ve dwelt in worse places. That Tibetan Monastery was really an accident.”

----------

Spike staggered backwards as Rachel delivered another blow to his chest. She punched him once more, and he dropped, but he grabbed her arms as he fell, pulling her with him. He wrestled her onto her back, and she tried scooting away from him, but she ran up against a wall. He hit her face a couple of times to stop her from moving, and then arched over her as she sat against the wall. She looked up at him through half-closed eyes, blood streaming from her forehead into them. “Did you ever find her?” she muttered.

“Who, ducks?” Spike asked, brushing her hair away from one side of her neck.

“Dana.”

Spike chuckled. “No, but maybe I will pay her a visit when I’m done here.”

“You do that,” Rachel murmured. “I bet she could still take you down.”

Spike hissed, and bit her neck. She screamed, but just once, and after a moment of drinking, he snapped her neck. He scanned her body briefly, then lifted her hand and yanked a silver ring off her forefinger. He rolled it between his fingers, looking at the swirls and leaves etched into it, and shrugged. “It’ll do,” he said, slipping it on his little finger. He stood up and wiped his mouth, then whipped around as he sensed a human approaching.

He raced towards the door, but stopped when Riley appeared. Spike snickered. “You just can’t let go, can you?” he asked. “I don’t really have much hope of you finishing the job this time, do you?”

“I’m not here to kill you, Spike,” Riley said grimly. His eyes fell on the dead girl in the corner, and a pained look crossed his face. “Even though I probably should. Fortunately, I know something that can take you down.” Spike snarled and charged, but Riley just held up a taser, and Spike gasped as he fell.

Riley sighed as he reached for his walkie. “I really, really hate you, you know.”

----------

Ripper looked delightedly into the portal. “Nasty demons, these,” he remarked.

“Mm,” Ethan nodded, leaning his head over the ground as well. “Yes, they do get very hungry for…lust.” He grinned. “Any brothels around here are about to get one hell of an awakening.”

“Ready then?” Ripper asked. He held his hands out, and Ethan took them. They closed their eyes, and opened their mouths…

And the next thing Ripper knew, he felt a dart in the back of his neck, and his vision started clouding. “No!” he shouted, as he saw the portal start to shrink. “Bloody hell, do you know how long it’ll take to reopen—” He dropped to the ground, and saw Ethan fall, as well. He looked up through his swimming gaze, and saw Riley, of all people, grabbing his arms and pulling him away. “I’m sorry, sir,” Riley said, wincing. “I really hate how I always have to be the bad guy when I stop you from your demon fraternizing.”

----------

Willow closed her eyes, letting the power completely take over. She was still holding the reins, but the power was so magnificent, so strong, that she let it have a lot of leeway over what it wanted to do. She was moving slowly only because she was relishing the destruction so much. It was so strong and beautiful and delicious, and she could have moved it faster if she wanted, but…

“Willow!” came a voice, faintly through the din. She hardly recognized the voice, but she opened her eyes and let the cloud about her calm for a moment.

She looked down, and saw she had actually been tearing up London much faster than she’d intended. She could see at least a dozen corpses from where she was, and blood and fire and water as far as she could tell. She picked out Riley in the crowd, shouting up to her.

“I thought you were after Andrew!” Riley called out.

Willow might have wondered how he knew about that, if she cared. But she didn’t, and shook her head. “He is going to die along with the rest of you. Why should I waste time on him?”

“Because if he dies with everyone else, he doesn’t suffer more than they do,” Riley said. “There’s no justice. No vengeance. Nothing special.”

Willow stopped, letting everything drop. “I’m trying to end your pain,” she said thickly.

“I know,” Riley said gently. “But don’t you want to ensure his first?”

Willow knew that he was trying to trick her into something. But he was right, and besides, there was no trap he could lead her to that she wouldn’t be able to escape. “Where is he?” she demanded.

“I’ll show you,” Riley said. “Just come with me.”

----------

Las Vegas, 1920

Dagger held the door to the dressing room open for the Immortal and Innocence as they walked in. He followed, and looked at the young blonde sitting at the vanity. She was rubbing rouge into her cheeks, and she casually looked over at them, and then back at the mirror. The mirror was, of course, covered with a cloth, but all the little lightbulbs around the edge were still on. “Y’all fans, or what?” she asked.

“ Fans?” Innocence asked incredulously.

The Immortal chuckled, and they watched as the blonde picked up a tube of lipstick, which she began liberally applying to her eyes. “I should probably call security, y’know,” she said. “But.” She slipped the lid back on the lipstick. “Only if I get really, really hungry.” She stood up from her stool, and her light purple robe did little to hide the bright red lingerie she was sporting underneath.

Innocence turned to Dagger and asked impatiently, “How exactly is a hooker going to help end the world?”

“Oh, I think that question pretty much answers itself,” Dagger grinned.

“I’m not a hooker,” the girl said.

“Well that’s good,” Innocence said. “Because I really wasn’t going to let her be called ‘The Hooker.’”

“No,” the Immortal said. He stepped forward and took her hand, which he proceeded to kiss. “She’s my little Entropy.”

“I ain’t no Entropy,” the girl huffed. “My name’s Cleofax. I’m a backup dancer. Not for much longer though, soon as they realize I’m way better than Dottie Chocolate.”

Innocence blinked. “I hate it here.”

“Aw, is she ruining your precious innocence?” Dagger asked. He turned to her. “Look, crumb cake, we need you as part of a ritual to end the world once and for all, are you in?”

There was a knock on the door, and the girl said, “Scuse me,” as she went to answer it.

Dagger heard someone on the other side say, “Your dinner, miss,” and the girl returned dragging a young man, bound and gagged. She sat down on a couch, and let her fangs fall as she bit into him.

Innocence turned to Dagger again. “You never said she was a vampire. Those are a dime a dozen, and they’re so volatile! What do we need her for?”

“I’m in,” Cleofax suddenly said. “You guys offer dental?”

Innocence rolled her eyes, but the Immortal just beamed at her.

----------

Riley wrenched the front door to Giles’ open, and bounded towards the kitchen. “Dark Willow is on the prowl,” he warned.

“Great,” Andrew said. He drew a breath. “Okay…none of them can be bound for this, so we’re just gonna have to hope none of them…”

Xander suddenly lifted his head, and glanced around the room. He looked at Catherine, and charged towards her, but Riley tackled him to the ground. Spike stood up as well, and looked at Buffy, who was cowering in a chair. “Slayer,” he grinned. “The real Slayer.” He moved over to her, slowly, and purposefully, and grabbed the back of her head.

She looked up at him, and Riley jumped off of Xander to go help her. But she suddenly looked at the vampire with a very lucid gaze, and said clearly, “Spike. Why did you do it?”

Spike blinked at her, and hesitated, and at that moment Willow sailed in, with fire in her hands.

Riley ripped Spike away from Buffy, and shouted, “Andrew!”

Andrew began reciting what was probably Latin, if all those months spent with the Scooby Gang had taught Riley anything. He was speaking very quickly, because Willow was descending on him. Xander had scrambled to his feet and again was going after Catherine, who was holding the cauldron in her hands. She gave a shriek, and used the cauldron to push Xander away from her, while Buffy rocked backwards and forward in her chair, whimpering. Riley heard a moaning from behind him, and turned to see Giles start to rise. Spike struggled in Riley’s arms, and slammed the back of his head into Riley’s nose.

Riley staggered back, dark spots flying about, but he reached forward again and grabbed Spike, throwing them both to the ground, where they started wrestling. “Andrew!” Riley shouted.

Andrew finished chanting, and cried, “Catherine, go!”

Willow grabbed Andrew and he yelped, and Spike finally bared his fangs and went for Riley’s neck, as Xander suddenly turned towards Buffy and began stalking over to her. Catherine dumped the contents of her cauldron in the middle of the floor, and a white cloud burst up, and floated through the entire house.

Chapter Text

Spike sat on the back porch steps, rubbing his face with both hands, just because he couldn’t think of anything else to do with them. Willow was sitting beside him, leaning against the railing, hugging herself and crying, making little whimpering and sniffing noises. He didn’t know of a thing he could do to comfort her, but he didn’t leave. Right now, she was the only one he could bear to be around. The only one, maybe, he even deserved to be around.

“You know what the worst part was?” Willow asked suddenly, in a broken voice. “That when I heard what the spell was, and I knew Dark Willow was coming…a part of me was excited. I wanted to have my powers back so badly that I could only see the silver lining.” She let out a sob. “Oh goddess, what kind of psychopath am I?”

Spike splayed out his fingers in front of him. He studied his nails for a very long time, before he said quietly, “I was terrified.”

“Yeah,” Willow said bitterly. “That’s the reaction of a normal person. The rest of them probably were, too.”

“No.” Spike’s face twisted, and he wasn’t sure he could explain. “Not…terrified for the evil I might do, or the people I might kill. Not primarily, anyway. I was just terrified. Of being a vampire. Of being dead.” He sucked in his breath. “And it’s not like I haven’t been having nightmares about reverting since I’ve been here, either. Makes sense I suppose, because I really could be turned again if I’m careless. But this…” The terror hit him again, and he closed his eyes, trying to stave off the dizziness. “There was no warning. It just was all there, all suddenly back.”

He suddenly turned his head, looking at Willow’s tear-streaked face. But she’d stopped crying, and just nodded. “At least you know you’re not actually like that, though,” she said. “I mean, the vampire part of you. That was always just a demon. My inner villain was 100% certified Willow.”

Her face contorted in such pain, and Spike didn’t know why he wanted so badly to make it stop. To make her pain go away.

“I did need glasses,” was the only thing he could think of to say.

She sniffed again. “What?”

“Before,” he quickly added. “When I was human before. Was always reading and writing too much by candlelight, according to everyone at the time. It damaged my eyesight.”

She stared at him for a long time, and then, an almost reluctant smile appeared on her face. “Really?”

He nodded. “Becoming a vampire fixed that little issue, naturally. But if my residual powers fade completely…I’m going to have a problem.”

She gave a small giggle. “Does Buffy know?”

He fixed her with a sharp glance. “Buffy can never know.”

Another giggle, but then her smile faded. “Do you…do you think they’ve gotten through to her yet?”

Spike winced, but he stood up, holding a hand out to her. “I don’t know. I say we go and find out.”

----------

Giles pulled off his glasses to rub at his eyes. “She needed an antidote last time?”

“Yeah,” Xander said dully. He was sitting on the couch, with Catherine perched next to him, but they were avoiding each other’s gaze. “Yeah. Willow got the poison from the demon, and mixed up an antidote. It didn’t involve magic, so she could technically do it again, only…” he spread his hands helplessly. “No demon in this case.”

“It shouldn’t matter,” Giles sighed. He looked back at Buffy, who had tucked herself into the corner of the front living room, as small as she could make herself. “She shouldn’t need an antidote. The spell should have broken for her.”

“So why didn’t it?” Andrew asked nervously. He dabbed at the burns on his arms with a cloth and hissed in pain. Catherine stood up without a word, and came over to help him.

“I don’t—” Giles turned at the sound of the door slamming open, and the Immortal charged in.

“Where is she?” He demanded anxiously. “Where is my dove of light, where is my perfect picture of a sunny afternoon?” He saw Buffy and gasped as he dropped to his knees in front of her. “Oh, my golden goose…”

Andrew seemed to consider that last one, and frowned.

Riley looked at Giles and raised his eyebrows. “The boyfriend?”

Giles nodded.

The Immortal reached out a hand to Buffy. She shuddered away from it, and a pained expression crossed his face. “Do you know my face?” he asked. “Surely you remember me?”

“I remember you,” Buffy gulped. “Lorenzo.”

“That’s right, lovely.” He smiled. “Do you know where you are?”

Tears started leaking out of her eyes at that, and he hastily stood up and backed away. “Oh! I have caused her pain!”

“It’s just a touchy question for her right now,” Riley said. “Because apparently, no, she doesn’t exactly know where she is.” He bent down as well. “Buffy,” he said. “I know you think you’re in…uh…”

“A psych ward,” Xander supplied.

“Yeah…that, but you’re not, okay? It was just a spell to make you think that. You know that, don’t you? That you were, or are, just hallucinating?”

“I’ve been in that place three times now,” she whispered. “It’s too much of a recurring theme not to be real. I must…be…hallucinating this .”

Riley frowned. “And the rest of your entire life where you’re not there means nothing to you?”

“Riley,” Giles said warningly. Riley didn’t say anything else, but stayed where he was, trying to stare into Buffy’s face. She wouldn’t look at him, but her head did turn briefly when she heard the back door open.

Giles turned as Willow and Spike walked in. Spike looked at the people surrounding Buffy and instantly took a step back, leaning on the doorframe.

“How’s she doing?” Willow asked.

Giles sighed, and shrugged. “The spell broke. That’s not the issue here. She’s just hallucinating again, thinking she’s imagining all this, wondering if she’s in a mental institution. We may need to start looking into whatever antidote you gave her last time.”

“She didn’t take the antidote,” Xander reminded everyone. “Not at first. Remember her whole trying to kill us thing?”

“She did what?” Riley asked.

“Interesting.” Giles looked back at Buffy. “That would have been darker than this, and yet…she didn’t revert to that. Perhaps the spell worked differently with her, and that’s why she can’t break out of it now. What stopped her? From killing you?”

“Something snapped.” Willow shrugged. “She’s stronger than us, and she had us all tied about, about to sic a demon on us…and then, I don’t know. She got over it. Maybe faced with the reality of us about to die broke her out of it.”

“Well, we’ll need a different plan than that,” Riley said. “I don’t think we should be risking any more lives today.”

----------

1987, Los Angeles

The Immortal pulled out a pocket watch and eyed it pointedly. “This warlock is taking all day to die,” he said.

“Yeah, Dagger, couldn’t you have been a little more specific with the time?” Innocence asked. She looked towards the door, hearing voices pass by it. “If we get caught, we’re going to have a very messy time of it.”

“Relax,” Dagger said. “I said he’d die today, and it’s almost midnight, so it’s about to happen.”

The man lying strapped to the cot seemed to take that as his cue, and he suddenly convulsed, and a gray mist rose out of him before he went still. The mist solidified in front of the group, and turned into the form of a middle-aged man, with greying hair, and a long brown coat.

“He’s cute,” Cleofax said promptly. “He looks like a pirate.”

The man stared at them suspiciously, and then almost immediately began dissolving into a mist again. “Hey!” Cleofax said, grabbing his arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

The man solidified again, and shrugged. “Sorry, love, would be delighted to stay and chat with you lot who I’ve never met before, but I have to find a magical host, or return to the netherworld. Longer I stay out here, weaker I become.”

“Right, got it, but first we need to talk to you about destroying the world,” Cleofax said.

“Why the bloody hell would I want to do that?”

“The real question is, why wouldn’t you?” Innocence asked. “Look, it’s Marcellus, right? You don’t live here, and you don’t need this world to survive. You’re from another dimension.”

“Yeah, and thus this one is not my problem. I don’t care what happens to it. Ta.”

He started disappearing again, but the Immortal stepped forward. “Marcellus,” he said, in a honeyed tone that made the mist take pause, and again turn into a man. “You’re a storyteller, right? You create fantasies for people and let them live them out until they die in them. Well, let me tell you this story. Seven demons, from seven different lives, seven different backgrounds and powers, all finally uniting to end this world once and for all in a blaze of glory. Our names would become those stories.”

Marcellus smiled. “Not in this world, they wouldn’t.”

“You think we wouldn’t be talked of in other dimensions?” the Immortal asked. “You’d be a celebrity, and everyone would always ask how you did it.”

“Tempting,” Marcellus said sarcastically.

“And also,” the Immortal said earnestly, “It would break down the barriers between this dimension and every other, and you could go where you please. I know you hitchhiked with this man here, and now you’re barred from your own dimension. But this way, you could go back.”

Marcellus tilted his head, and regarded him. “All right,” he said softly. “You have my attention.”

----------

The Immortal waited until everyone had filed out of the room, and upstairs to Giles’ study, before he knelt before Buffy again. He leaned forward and tried to kiss her, and she gasped, and lightly shoved him away.

“That’s not going to work,” a voice behind him said, and the Immortal froze.

He turned around, and looked at Spike in surprise. “No?” he asked. “I thought it would be a lovely fairy tale. Something true, to break through this curse. Remind her how she is loved, and that she wants to come back to me.”

“Then you don’t know her at all, mate,” Spike said. “Forcing yourself on you will just make her retreat further.” He stuffed his hands in his coat pocket and blushed as he turned away. “Trust me.”

The Immortal raised his eyebrows as he realized something. Really? This was too poetic. “You’re the pillock that tried to rape my precious rose?”

Spike’s head snapped back towards him, and he glowered. “That was a long time ago. I was a different man then.”

“Yes, of course. Just as, I’m sure, you were a different man back in Italy all those years ago.”

“So you do remember me,” Spike said. “I always figured we’d never exchanged words because you were too shy to say hello.”

“William the Bloody, how could I forget you? Your name was one of a legendary standing at the time, though, as my memory serves…” he smiled. “So was mine.”

“You defiled my girl,” Spike reminded him.

“Well, I certainly didn’t force myself on her,” the Immortal laughed. “As I recall, she was ready and willing.”

“And now you’re defiling another one,” Spike said.

The Immortal laughed again. “Your girl? The Slayer will talk about her formers when the mood strikes her, but I’m afraid you were never officially one of them. She was never yours.”

Spike smiled, irritatingly. “Didn’t have to be dating her for her to be mine.” He shoved himself off the doorway and made his way closer. “I know this is an act,” he said. “I know you don’t really care for her.”

The Immortal gasped. “Why? Because I have so many notches in my headboard? Everyone I’ve been with has been a gift for them, a treasure of the highest value. But this girl is the one I’ve been waiting for, and she has shown me what a true relationship is.”

“Keep talking, oh mighty Lorenzo,” Spike sneered. “I’m not buying this for a second.”

“No? You haven’t observed how everyone falls in love with her? Including yourself? I love her, Spike, more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I will not allow you to come between us.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Spike said casually. “I’ll try and remember that next time I almost die and she stays at my bedside nursing me back to health.”

“She would do that for anybody,” The Immortal said coldly.

“Hasn’t slept with you though, has she? Score one for the not-a-boyfriend. And of course, when I say one, I mean many, many more times than one.”

“You spooked her for the rest of us,” the Immortal snarled.

“Rest of us?” Spike blinked. “You imagine there’ll be more after you, even though you’re the one who loves and lives forever?”

“Shut up,” the Immortal said. He realized his façade was slipping, and he tried desperately to get it back under control.

“Why would I do that, when it annoys you so?” Spike grinned, gripping his belt casually.

“What do you think you’re going to accomplish by slandering against me? You came back into her life, and yet here she still is, with me.”

Spike shrugged. “I know you’re doing something. You’re a freak, a demon, who gets everyone to grovel at his feet. Not me, though. I’ve never been under your thrall.” He seemed to consider. “Wonder why that is? Even after all this time, and all our history, you still can’t get me to even give you the time of day! Must be losing your edge, not that I blame you. Immortality doesn’t exactly cover your mental faculties, or your looks. You’re slipping, mate.”

He’d been talking too fast for the Immortal to come up with any reply, and he leapt to his feet, anger flashing from his eyes. “Shut up !”

Spike thought for a minute. “No.”

The Immortal roared, and without thinking, picked up a lamp and smashed it over Spike’s head. Spike went down, and the Immortal stepped over his body, and stared down at it. “Innocence should have killed you when she had the chance,” he spat, and grabbed Spike by the collar, before dragging him out of the house. “Because now, you’re really going to hurt, vampire.”

 ----------

In the corner of the living room, Buffy stared out with wide eyes, blinking at the events that had just unfolded in front of her.

----------

In Giles’ study, the group was still discussing Buffy, though it was mostly Giles and Riley and Willow, trying to work out what to do.

The other three sat in silence, until Andrew leaned over to Xander. “Who’d you get for Secret Santa?”

“Seriously?” Xander asked. “Right now, that’s what’s on your mind?”

He shrugged. “Just trying to relieve the tension, brah.”

“Willow,” Xander admitted. He gave a tiny smile. “Been best friends our whole lives, and this is the first time I’ve bought her a Christmas present.”

“How’d you end up here, anyway?” Xander suddenly heard Willow say. He looked over to Riley, and noticed everyone else’s heads turning that way, as well.

“Uh,” Riley said. “We had…a prisoner broke out of our facilities, and we tracked him here.” He looked at Giles. “You know him, actually. Ethan Rayne.”

“Ethan,” Giles said. He raised his eyebrows. “You realize you had him right there when you recaptured me.”

“That was him?” Riley asked. He paused. “Are you sure?”

“How are you not?” Willow giggled. “You were there when he was arrested, and he’s your prisoner.”

“He looks different now,” Riley said slowly. “I haven’t seen him since they captured him…I mean I have photos, sure, but…I actually wasn’t the one actively looking for him.” He slammed his hands against a wall. “Damn it! And who knows where he is now?”

“I think he won’t go far,” Giles said quietly. “I believe he slipped Dawn the spell, and I think…he’s one of the Seven.”

“Ethan?” Xander asked. “Creepy Halloween costume Ethan? Band candy Ethan? Fyarl demon…yeah, you know what, this actually all adds up.”

“He’s the Shadow,” Giles said, in a distant tone. “Someone from my past…he’s who they picked to replace her.”

Catherine frowned and tilted her head. “Anyone else hear shouting below?”

They all quieted down, and heard a crash, and then the front door opened. “Buffy,” Riley said urgently, and ran towards the study door. He jerked it open, and headed for the stairs, but nearly crashed into Buffy in the hallway.

Xander had followed, along with everyone else, and he looked at her in surprise. “Buffster,” he said. “Hey.”

“Spike was captured,” she said calmly.

“What?” Andrew asked.

“By the Immortal,” Buffy said. Her tone was very matter-of-fact.

“Buffy?” Willow stepped forward, and took her face in her hands, studying her eyes. “Are you sure?”

“But the Immortal’s just so… nice ,” Catherine said.

“Yeah, are you sure it wasn’t the other way around?” Riley asked.

“Are you sure you aren’t hallucinating?” Xander asked.

“No, guys, I’m fine,” Buffy said, shoving Willow’s hands off. “It’s fine, I’m normal girl Buffy now, okay?”

“You are?” Giles asked. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Buffy said. “Something just clicked. And I really did see the Immortal knock Spike out and drag him away, and even if I hadn’t…” she sighed, and took a deep breath. “I’m going after him,” she said. “But there’s…something you should know first. About me and the Immortal.”

----------

When Spike blinked to consciousness, he found himself strapped to a table, with wires plugged into his chest and hands, in what appeared to be another sodding basement. He sighed. Someday he wanted to live somewhere that had no basements, at all.

He squinted as a light was turned on above his face, and then the Immortal was bending over him. “I don’t like getting my hands dirty, Spike,” he said. “I really don’t. And spells are undignified. But, in spite of such obstacles, I am sure we can find a way to make you suffer for getting in my way for 100 years and counting.” He tilted his head, and smiled. “And it’s so much easier now that you’re human.” Spike tilted his own head slightly, and saw the Immortal press a button on a switchboard. Bolts of electricity surged through his body, and Spike screamed as the Immortal chuckled.

“Spike, you made some accusations against me, which I should like to address,” the Immortal continued, once the electrocuting had stopped. “I take exception to the fact that you think I’ve ever defiled anyone. I’m a gentleman. And Darla and Drusilla were simply a couple of lonely vampires, and I was a comfort. I took very good care of them, and I never heard any complaints.”

“You’re a villain,” Spike gasped. “You don’t get your hands dirty, but you like to watch the world burn.”

The Immortal gave a slight frown, and his finger hovered over the same button he’d pressed before. “Hush,” he said. “Don’t let’s spill all the dirty secrets. Wouldn’t want it getting back to our girl, now.” He pressed the button, and Spike howled again.

----------

2000, Sunnydale

“Really?” Innocence asked. “And that worked?”

The Immortal nodded. “Of course. A couple autographed copies of my book, and now I own half of Zimbabwe.”

Innocence nodded as well. “Maybe you should write more books then.”

“I’ll have someone get on it,” The Immortal smiled.

They turned as the motel door opened, and Dagger stepped outside with them. He was wiping blood off his hands, and there was more on his face as he smiled at them.

“How’s it going in there?” Innocence asked.

“She’s conditioned,” Dagger said proudly. “Fighting it, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“How is she fighting it?” the Immortal asked. “She’s so very old.”

“Opal is a Watcher, that’s why,” Dagger said. “They’re trained in endurance. They’re trained... really well in endurance, and they can still be active long after their bodies are supposed to be shutting down on them. Her mind is strong, too, but even if she can resist spells, she can’t resist being driven mad.”

The Immortal clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep at it. She has the power and the will to become the Shadow. All she needs is the motivation, and the lust for darkness and destruction. She has those, too, so the trick will just be getting them on our side.”

“What about the boy?” Dagger asked. “How’s it going with him?”

The three stepped to the next door over, where the door was slightly ajar, and the window blinds were shamelessly open. Andrew was sitting in a chair, with Cleofax writing all over his lap, kissing every part of his head, while his hands were dancing all over her body. Dagger nodded. “Yep,” he said. “That boy’s loyalty is as good as ours.”

----------

The Immortal started fiddling with dials on his switchboard. “I’m not sure where you get off lecturing me for stealing another man’s woman,” he said. “You’ve been fighting for Buffy’s attention for months.”

“And I don’t know why you’re pretending to be so fixated with her,” Spike shot back, though his tongue was getting difficult to move, and he’d stopped trying to keep his eyes open. “I know you don’t care about her, and I’m not saying that to rile you. I’m saying that to let you know that I know—” he stopped, and something began piecing itself together in his throbbing head. He forced his eyes open, partially, and looked at the fuzzy blob that was the Immortal. “It’s you, isn’t it,” he said. “You’re the mystery member.”

The Immortal slowly came into focus, and Spike could see his smile. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” he said, and reached for the switchboard again.

And that was when the door came flying through the room, knocking over a cart and smashing a light somewhere. Buffy calmly stepped through the wreckage, and held a crossbow up to the Immortal’s head. “I’d walk away from that, if you want to go on being immortal,” she said.

The Immortal stepped away, holding his hands up. “My fairest princess,” he said, and then seemed at a loss for words. “How did you find me?”

“You’re gonna torture someone, maybe don’t do it in the basement of your apartment building,” Buffy said. “I didn’t even have a locator spell. This is just the first place I checked.” She looked around. “I didn’t know you had a whole evil lab torture setup down here. That is majorly icky.” She turned back to him. “You gonna let him go now, or what?”

“I would never have hurt him, my glorious angel—”

“Dunno, he looks pretty bad to me,” Buffy said. “And anyway, you can drop the fake boyfriend act, now, since I’m dropping the fake girlfriend one.”

“Fake girlfriend—”

“ Fake girlfriend?” Spike repeated, struggling to sit up, and ultimately failing.

“So, is he right?” Buffy asked, taking a step forwards so her arrow was pressed up against the Immortal’s chest. “You the mystery member?”

The Immortal was staring at her in open-mouthed shock. “You knew,” he breathed. “You knew I was playing you the whole time, how did you know—”

“Not the whole time,” Buffy admitted. “I was taken with you at first, just like everyone else. But, see, I don’t open my heart all that easily, and I fell for you way too fast for you to not have something suspicious going on. If it was an actual spell, it would have worked, because I’m really susceptible to those.” She smiled. “But you don’t like using spells, so point Buffy.”

“I’m not a member,” the Immortal protested. “I…I work for them. That’s all.”

“Uh huh,” Buffy said. “The Immortal. Title goes with the rest, and hey! We were only down one.” She pressed her crossbow harder into his chest. “You seem to fit the bill, Buster Brown.”

“If I was a member, you’d all be dead by now,” the Immortal said evenly. “Innocence is the one in charge, she just gives me my orders.”

Buffy regarded him for a long moment, before she nodded towards Spike. “Fortunately for you, I don’t have time to figure out if any of that’s true. So you are going to let him go, and we are going to walk out of here. And I give you my warning, as a Slayer, to get out of the country and go somewhere that I will never hear of any trace of you again. Because if I’m right…then the next time I see you, you’re gonna die.”

----------

Paris, 2002

Ethan opened his eyes, and started up out of his cot. He looked at the man in the long brown coat standing in his cell, and raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t worry,” the man in the coat said. “I’m not actually here. Not physically, anyway. This is your mindscape.”

“I’m not worried,” Ethan said. “Because I know who you are. The Storyteller. I’ve heard of you. I’ve researched you...as much as can be researched, naturally. I know you still need your seventh member.”

“And I know that you have desired such a position for a long time,” the Storyteller said. “And it must be your lucky day, because we just lost the candidate we actually wanted. You’re our second choice, but we still have to determine that you are fit to be the Shadow, our streak of pure darkness and evil. You have shown potential since the 70s.”

“What must I do?” Ethan asked.

“Get yourself out of this prison,” the Storyteller said. “There is no human alive who will help you, and you cannot do it on your own without supernatural help. Find it, and when you are free, come and find us.”

----------

Rescuing Spike had been at the forefront of Buffy’s mind, but now that he was at home, and she had been told about Ethan and the spell, she knew that was their next mission. Xander and Giles went off to look for him, and Buffy did the same with Riley.

“So,” she said, when they were walking along the street together. She refused to let this be awkward. “You’re all important now. A captain, huh?”

His eyes crinkled when he smiled. Buffy knew he had a couple years on her, but he shouldn’t be having lines on his face already. And yet there they were. “Captain Finn,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone, but I do say that on repeat to myself a couple times a day. Just waiting for it to sink in.”

“That’s really cool. So do you get a cool hat? And can you like, perform marriages now? And does everyone have to say ‘aye aye, Captain’ when they respond to you?”

He chuckled. “Yes to the first. I’m still working on that specific phrasing for the third. And I can do the second, but not from being a captain. I had to get certified to do so for this one mission where I went undercover as a minister.” He looked at her. “You’re pretty important too, from what I hear. We try to stay off of Slayer turf, but that doesn’t mean your name doesn’t pop up in nearly every city I turn to.”

Buffy grinned. “Yeah, but I don’t do a whole lot. Not anymore. They do the heavy lifting; I usually still just patrol and research the baddies.”