Part One:

Buffy let herself relax in the comfortable warmth of her bed. The simple joys of being a Slayer instructor under the pay of the Watcher’s Council, she made her own hours, no more apocalypses, and no more Double Meat Palace. Now she could take the time to be a girl, a girl with supernatural powers that still had to go out and slay like she was back on the hellmouth at least twice a week. But unlike in Sunnydale no one would come with her when she patrolled. She refused any offer, even her new boyfriend.

Dawn had tried to get the younger slayers to shadow her when she did this, but they couldn’t keep up with her. No one could accept him, Him whose name would not be mentioned, or thought. In fact it was the only argument she and Dawn had since leaving Sunnydale, and one she knew Dawn would take up with her the moment she got up this morning. So Buffy let herself sink back into the blankets, and pray to god for a few more minutes of peace and relaxation before Dawn made her presence known.
Unfortunately God did not appear all that giving today.

“BUFFY!” Dawn screamed as she walked angrily into her sister’s room.

“Dawn good morning? So what’s for breakfast?” Buffy said in a cheerful voice hoping it would keep Dawn from making her now routine morning rant.

“Ohhh, no you don’t.” Apparently Dawn was not going to be dissuaded today.

“Is there anyway I can escape this today?”

“Is there any chance you will stop going out and taking unnecessary risks?”

Buffy sighed and pushed the covers off her body as she forced herself from the friendly confines of her bed. “Dawn there not unnecessary risks, I was the slayer for eight years. Seven of which were on Sunnydale. You know the hellmouth? I can handle myself better alone.”

“There are other slayers now Buffy. You don’t have to go out alone. You don’t have to be the one out there in danger.”

“I’m not in danger,” Buffy almost screamed.

“You arrogant….”

“Don’t finish that thought Dawn. I meant I am not in as much danger because of experience, training, and having stopped seven or eight apocalypses. I can take care of myself.”

“Don’t give me this I know what I’m doing crap. I see you Buffy. I see how you don’t even let the scoobies patrol with you anymore. Ohhh you go out with them, you’ve got your boyfriend. Everyone gets to see the happy Buffy, the free Buffy, the I am so happy please don’t ask me about how I really feel Buffy. You know what I think? I think every time you go out with the other slayers you have flashbacks?”

Buffy didn’t answer. She just glared at Dawn. Her eyes telling her she had gone too far this time, to close to the truth, and too much like him.

“I don’t think if you guys come with me that I’ll lose you. I know you can handle yourself.”

“I’ll buy that if you tell me right now you’re not praying I stop.” Dawn didn’t finish that statement. She didn’t add what both knew she was thinking. If I don’t stop just like him, he whose name neither she or both had spoken aloud in almost a year.

---

Spike, oh wonderful special lovable SPIKE! Andrew thought as he skipped down the street. He was still on a high from Spike and Angel’s visit. Although he still worried about Angel’s involvement with Wolfram and Hart, but his major concern was that Spike was no caught in Angel’s web. He didn’t understand why Spike had not come back to Buffy like a conquering hero. Sure the Immortal was great, but he was not Spike. Spike who had died for the world then came back, ahh Spike.

It was already Dawn, but Andrew had been out walking for over an hour. Rome’s streets had become drastically safer since Buffy had arrived, and chosen it as her place to train new slayers. If Buffy wasn’t going out then it was the younger slayers. So Andrew felt it was safe enough to go for a walk. He noticed he’d been doing this because he was afraid that he’d blurt out to Buffy that Spike was back. He knew Buffy and the others wouldn’t have believed him capable of it, and usually he wouldn’t be.

Still he was beginning to wonder if maybe he was doing the wrong thing. If not just because having Spike here would make him personally happy, there was Dawn who was the only member of the scoobies that he could talk about Spike with. Without knowing it Andrew found himself back out in front of the apartment he shared with Dawn and Buffy. He knew she felt guilty about the loss of the brother/sister relationship she’d had with Spike. He knew she would love a chance to fix that. Dawn. Oh how special thou art. How beautiful, how shinny, how great a…

“DAWN! Enough!”

Andrew sighed. Buffy and Dawn were clearly in the middle of their daily battle. Looking around Andrew just kept walking. Now back to thoughts of Spike. Maybe I could offer him a Boba Fett to get him back here? No that wouldn’t work, plus I lost my Fett in Sunnydale. Must think of something, Andrew thought. Even great watchers such as myself need sleep, and Buffy and Dawn’s fight keep getting earlier and earlier. I need sleep.

---

Giles swore very loudly as the phone he thought he’d unplugged. He’d never thought that putting the Watcher’s Council back together could possibly be more tiring then being a watcher on the hellmouth. He still he missed the closeness of the scoobies. The bond he had formed as they had battle in Sunnydale, and more specifically the daughter in Buffy that now seemed more distant then when she had died. He knew what had caused that distance or more specifically who, Spike.

She had forgiven him his attempted assassination of Spike in the file weeks of Sunnydale’s existence, but the closeness they once shared had become incredibly strained. Finally finding the phone, he swore one more time then answered. “Rupert Giles.”

“Giles, this is Cassandra. We have a problem.”

---

Buffy watched from the morning movement of the ‘Imperial City’. Rome had existed for more then two thousand years, and so the practices of the city had an almost timeless quality to them. Plus it meant she could avoid thinking about her argument with Dawn. Looking down at the street she could see Andrew coming back from his morning walk with a strange look on his face. She was probably just searching for anything to avoid thinking of the implications of her fight with Dawn.

Implications she was sick of Dawn throwing in her face. Still maybe she should talk to Dawn about him, okay come on Buffy you can say his name. Spike. Spike, her champion, the second lover she had left dead on the hellmouth. Or that her last words to both had been, “I love you.” She knew Angel had believed her, but…no she wouldn’t go there. That way led to badness, to the possibility he really hadn’t believed her.

That was a thought she refused to let settle in her head. She looked over the city one last time the view no longer a comfort from her thoughts. Just then as Andrew entered the apartment her phone started ringing. “Ahhh, the batphone signals the heroes to action!” Andrew said as he made a dash for the phone.

“Andrew, what have we talked about with the comic book references?” Dawn said as she took the phone from his hand.

“That men do not make strange, scary, and stupid comparisons to comic books no one beyond the age of twelve would read,” Andrew replied. Buffy almost laughed at how easily Dawn had taken control of Andrew. Heck, she could almost be his girlfriend…Oh god what am I thinking! Bad, bad, bad Buffy.

“Good Andrew. Now you may answer the phone. Normally!”

“What if it’s Xander?”

“Normally.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Buffy tried desperately not to laugh. Andrew whatever his problems did not deserve to be laughed at. I guess I’ll just go get ready for work, Buffy thought. But before she got more then a step she heard Andrew call out. “Buffy it’s Giles! He says he needs to talk to you, now!”

Part 2:

Andrew waited as Buffy listened to Giles on the phone. He wasn’t looking forward to another apocalyptic battle. He’d had his fill of those in Sunnydale. Or maybe he was just overreacting, maybe Giles just wanted Buffy to go collect another new slayer, or even better maybe Giles had found out about Spike’s return and decided to tell Buffy. Then he wouldn’t be blamed for Buffy finding out that Spike was back. Then they could go get Spike and bring him home.

Just then Buffy nodded, and slammed the receiver down. “Damn it!”

“Buffy?”

“Something is going on with Angel in L.A., Giles just got a call from the witches Coven. One of their seers say something bad happening in L.A. Dawn want you to get a hold of Xander see if he said Willow was coming into Rome this weekend or next weekend. Then go pick him up and get him over here, okay?”

“Gotcha.” Dawn said as she pulled out her cellphone, and grabbed the car keys. She was out the door before Andrew even realized she was gone.

“Andrew? Andrew!”

“Ahhh, yeah what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to call the most experienced of the other slayers, and get them here. If we are going into L.A. we are going in with numbers.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Walking away slowly Andrew began mutter to himself without really realizing it. “Oh, Spike Great Hero, what horrible evil has grabbed you now?”

To late he realized Buffy might have heard him, “What did you say Andrew?”

“Ahh, nothing. I said nothing Buffy.” Looking around quickly Andrew decided to make a dash for exit, and get out of the apartment. He moved quickly, with determination, and faster then when the highschool bullies had chased him to give him wedgies. It was a beautiful dash, worthy of poetry, and totally and utterly futile. Buffy was on him before he got more then a couple of steps.

“Andrew I don’t like liars. In fact I find interesting ways to punish liars, like say ohh making sure liars don’t get to be watchers? Now, I just heard you say something extremely creepy about Spike?”

No, I promised. I must be brave. Spike would be brave. I must not crack.“My lips are sealed. No amount of pain or torture or…”

“Tell me Andrew or I go get Dawn.”

“No! Please anything but that! Okay I’ll tell I’ll tell!”

Buffy just smiled.

---

Dawn sighed as she walked back through the entrance to the apartment. Traffic in Rome was a nightmare that made L.A. look easy. Even so it should not have taken her over and hour to get Xander back to Buffy. Of course how could she know that Kennedy and Willow would just then be arriving at Xander’s. She’d hoped that Willow would have dumped the motormouth young slayer by now, but it seemed the two were sticking together, Tara to Kennedy, what a drop off.

“Andrew?! Buffy?! I’m back.”

It was only then that Dawn realized that the lights were turned off. What the hell is going on? Dawn thought. Moving quickly to turn on the lights, Dawn gave the apartment a quick once over to see if something had happened as she was doing this Willow and Xander joined her in the Apartment. “Dawnie, how do you get up those stairs so fast? I mean are you sure no you have no slayer abilities.”

“Nagh, you’re just getting old Xander.”

“Old? Old! Blagh. I am Xander I will never get old.”

“Hey, Dawn where’s Buffy?”

“I’m not sure,” Dawn answered. Just then the loud sound of something banging caused everyone’s attention to head straight to closet. Moving quickly Xander and Kennedy opened the closet door expecting anything, or at least they thought anything. But in all probability no one expected to see Andrew trussed up in duck tape like a turkey.

“Dawn, I know Andrew is annoying but really keeping a guy like this is just cruel.”

“Don’t make me hurt you Xander,” Dawn fired back as she ripped the duck tape off of Andrew’s mouth, “Andrew what the hell is going on?”

“Buffy,” Andrew answered gasping for breath.

Showing some concern Kennedy was the next to speak, “What?”

“Andrew what happened to Buffy?” Willow asked.

“She’s gone.”

“What the hell?”

Ignoring Xander’s comment Dawn tried to get Andrew to focus on her. “Where did Buffy go?”

“L.A.” Andrew answered in between gasping breaths.

“So she decided to go see Angel?”

Andrew just shook his head. As much mysteries as seemed to be surrounding his current situation, he still had one more shock to throw at the scoobies. “No. Not Angel. She’s going to see Spike.”

Everyone just stopped. Silenced by what his words implied. Xander was the first to speak. “Oh, go-se.”

---

Spike spoke the last line of his poem. The one that more then a hundred years ago had be the impetuous for his turning into a vampire. ‘Effulgent’ he wondered how many people were sitting out there and going, ‘effulgent? That’s not a real word.’ Angel said live today like it’s your last. Already did that and I have no desire to replace that memory, to replace her. She may never love me, but I will make sure this world last long enough for her to find someone she can love, Spike thought, love’s bitch soul or no soul.

Spike longed for the release, and comfort of the woman that had captured his heart. But like a walk in daylight it was something he knew he would never have. He wouldn’t have much more time. Soon he would have to go meet Angel and the others. Soon he would have to fight a battle that even if he survived would condemn him. The Senior Partners would have to kill them all for what they were about to do.

He had done terrible, terrible things in his life, but for the last couple of years had tried to make up for them. Yet, Angel was right. Their really was no redemption for the things they had done, and maybe just maybe when this was all over the Senior Partners or Powers that Be would finally let him die.

---

Buffy cursed the pain in the ass customs in New York as she began looking for a cab outside of LAX. That had almost caused her to miss her flight to L.A., and she was not going to miss this. Angel. Angel had to have been the one to convince Spike not to comeback to her. Oh, was he going to get a piece of her mind. Not that Spike would get off easy. No she would definitely make sure that Spike got an earful. How dare he not let her know he was alive? Did he not believe she cared enough about him to care that he was alive? Did he really not believe it when I said “I love you”?

Just then Buffy found a cab. But just as she was getting in the cab, Buffy could have sworn she heard a dragon.

Part 3:

Buffy just stared at the outside of the Wolfram & Hart building or where it had once stood. The building was now a large collection of dust and debris. What the hell happened here? Angel what the hell was going on? But the shattered building held no answers. Its secrets buried under tons of concrete and steel, and Buffy didn’t have the time or resources to begin to search through it. Are they all dead? No, Angel would not have made his last stand here. The Hyperion? Buffy thought.

The Cab was long going, and Buffy had no desire to wait for another one. So she ran. Moving with all the speed as a slayer she could. On the night Riley Finn had left her and Sunnydale behind Buffy had run across Sunnydale to try and reach him. Yet, she always felt that despite how hard she had run that some part of her had held back. Now there was no hesitation, all her body’s resources were focused on one objective, and nothing would get in her way.

Buffy ran through alleys, side streets, and over fences without slowing down. She didn’t avoid traffic, but instead simply leaped over it. She reached the Hyperion in less then twenty minutes a record she believed even for a slayer. The old hotel was dark with no signs that anyone was inside. Then she felt something. A dark presence like she hadn’t felt since Sunnydale. Could the first be back so soon? No, this wasn’t the first. The first didn’t set off her slayer senses, this was something else, or a lot of something elses.

Buffy slowed herself down, and began watching the shadows for any movement. Shit, I wish I had brought some back up, Buffy thought as she made her way into a dark alley behind the Hyperion. In all her life Buffy had never expected to see so many dead bodies, demon or otherwise in one place. What the hell has happened here? Before she could make another thought Buffy heard a soft moan from down the alley.

Moving quickly Buffy began pushing aside the dead bodies to find the one who was still alive. At that moment Buffy got the shock of her life. Lying there half burned, with many open wounds was Angel. “Angel?” Angel laughed.

“What is so funny?” Buffy asked. Angel tried to answer, but suddenly he seemed to be choking.

“Angel? ANGEL!” Buffy watched Angel die in front of her, too shocked to realize he didn’t dust, and that vampires can’t choke on their own blood.

“He is dead?”

Buffy turned and found herself looking into a woman in a leather body suit with blue hair. “Who are you?”

“Is it not human custom to answer a question before you ask one?”

“Angel is dead.”

“Then I am alone once more. I must find more demons to kill.”

“Well good for you, but I answered your question. Why aren’t you answering mine?”

“I am Illyria. I was once a god, now I am not. I do not deal with death well especially those Wesley considered his friends.”

“Wesley? Where is he?”

“He & Charles Gunn are dead.”

“Do you know where Spike is?”

“I tried to find him, but he is not here. I fear my pet is dead as well.”

“Spike is not a pet.”

Illyria said no more, and she was gone. Then Buffy saw something on a crate. It was covered in demon blood, but Buffy’s heart leapt as she saw Spike’s coat.
---

Xander wondered if he had ever been this angry at Buffy? How could she just rush off like this? Dawn was currently taking out her frustration on Andrew. Willow was talking with Giles to get a plane for them, and rounding up slayers to fight whatever was going on in L.A. At this moment though he had nothing to do, and for that he was grateful. Because then he wouldn’t have to say anything. Then he wouldn’t have to say how upset he was that Buffy kept getting her lovers back from the dead when the woman he loved was still in the ground.

How could he tell them that he was jealous of his friend, that he was angry with her because somehow death kept kicking her pet vampires back? Just then he felt someone’s hand on his shoulder. “You’re thinking about Anya,” Andrew said without a hint of it even being a question.

“Yeah.”

Andrew let his head drop for a second. “I do to.”

Xander had to smile. Andrew might be an annoying and recovering from a stint as a comic supervillian, but when it came to Anya, Andrew, was the about the only one he could talk to. The two said no more. They really didn’t need to. The most important things Xander had realized too late don’t take much to say.

---

Buffy wasn’t thinking. All Buffy felt was numb. When she been younger when she found the coat she would have turned and run from the alley. Now she moved Angel and Gunn’s bodies out of the alley, and into the Hyperion. Only now did she realize that just before his death Angel had become human. What that meant now that he was dead, she had no clue. She did know Spike was gone. He had fought for the salvation of this world before he had a soul, then gotten one for himself, and then died for this world but he didn’t get redemption?

Now she clung to his jacket like it was a life raft. She had realized until just this moment that he really hadn’t believed her. That he didn’t think she loved him, and so he had chosen to fight, to die, and never let her know he was back. He still thought he had to prove himself. Prove he…She couldn’t think anymore. She just cried. She cried over the body of her first love for the man who had become her true love.

She had not cried after Sunnydale because she didn’t want to believe that Spike had not believed her last words to him. Now she realized he hadn’t. He had loved her, and she had beaten him down for it. Broken him and used him. Even after he’d gotten his soul she had used him, and he had let her. But he had given up on her loving him. Accepted he could be no more then a tool to her, but that had not dimmed his love for her. He died for her, and instead of believing in her love. The love that had been there, but she refused to admit. Spike simply took it as a statement that he was done. A tool she no longer needed or would use because its function was over.

---

Staggering as far as he could from the blood loss Spike looked around for protection from the sun. He couldn’t remember much of the fight or how he’d gotten out alive…undead. All Spike knew was that for the second time in a year he was alone, and everyone he cared about was gone. At that moment for the first time since he almost…Spike staggered not just physically, but in his determination to keep going.

His right arm hung useless, dislocated, and broken. He hadn’t been this badly beaten since Glory, and his legs weren’t much better. Before he could stop himself his legs gave way and he feel to the bottom of the sewer. The force of the impact nearly knocked him unconscious. Just before he passed out he remembered the sight of Angel getting slashed by a sword, and the sudden realization of his restored humanity. Spikes last conscious thought was, “It wasn’t me, it is never me.”

Part Four:

‘Pain’

‘Release’

‘More’

Spike steadied his hand as the sharp piece of glass pierced his flesh. The pain offering a release that even booze couldn’t these days or at least on the days when he couldn’t find some demon to inflict his emotional turmoil on. ‘Guess the slayer in town is getting a little better at her job,’ Spike thought. Only have myself to blame for that, I guess. Spike leaned back against the wall of the small apartment in Chicago that he had been squatting in for the last six months.

At least he thought it was six months. He really didn’t give much thought to time anymore. Time only mattered when you had people to care about, and he didn’t have that anymore. Not since L.A. Now a year since the battle that had destroyed the only group of real friends he’d ever had, and that he had learned he would never get the reward of the shanshu prophecy. He would never be forgiven. He would never get the girl.

That thought triggered Spike to grab the glass again the pain flooding his system, keeping him from thinking, and from feeling the hopelessness of his life. What else could you call an eternity of playing second fiddle to Angel. If it weren’t so sad it would almost be funny, and he knew that just a few years ago had he seen another vampire in his position he would have killed him just for being so pitiful. I’m loves bitch, but no one loves me. At that thought Spike began to slice himself again.

---

A couple hours later Spike dragged himself out into the streets of Chicago. He’d been in Chicago before, and found the attitude of the people interesting. Chicago was a world unto itself here in the city that turned they loved a baseball that team that hadn’t been champions since almost before he was a vampire. That turned a killer in Al Capone into a city hero. That worshiped Walter Payton for a will that would never die. If there was a city that would fit Spike this had to be it. A city loved its dubious history, and in fact reveled in it while working to become something else
.
But Spike was far from the blonde terror of a vampire that had entered Sunnyhell eight years ago. His hair was no longer bleached blonde, and his beloved duster had disappeared in the mayhem of the battle in L.A. In fact right now Spike didn’t even have his name. In a twist of irony that even wasn’t really laughing at he was using the name of Randy. Hoping that he could stay just under the radar of the ‘Senior Partners’ and the Powers that Be.

Spike was starring out at the night skyline of Chicago when he heard the sounds of a fight in an alley a block away. Spike moved over the rooftops as if the fight had energized him like nothing had in awhile. On reaching the valley Spike saw six vampires surrounding a young blonde girl. A tall lanky vampire was talking, and doing his best to be intimidating. To bad Angel’s dead, bloke needs to learn what real intimidation looks like.

“Well, so little girl likes to think she’s a slayer. So tell me, does fighting vampires make you feel all powerful? To make you feel like more then the slut you are?”

The girl didn’t react. In fact she remained perfectly at ease, and Spike just smiled. Girl had balls he’d give her that. The other vamps were closing in, well looks like its time for me to make an entrance. Spike grabbed the side of the building to direct his leap right in between the girl and the tall talking vamp. Spike’s sudden appearance caused the vamps to stop moving. Too many right now to start talking, Spike thought. So he just smiled a thin smile, and dove at the tall vampire. The guy had no fighting skill, and Spike staked him in less then five seconds.

Two other vamps tried to grab Spike. Spike just stepped pulled up a crossbow and shot the one coming at him from the right, and hurled his stake at the one on the left. The girl and the last three vamps just watched in shock.

“Now either you all apologize to the nice lady for friend’s rude comments or you can all bloody well join him. So which of you three feel like being ash tonight, hum?”

Two vampires started to run the other decided to leap at run at Spike, and didn’t noticed the blonde reaching into her coat to pull out a stake. He was dust before he got half a step past her. The blonde turned to look at Spike only to find an empty alley. The blonde reached back into her coat to pull out a walkie talkie.

“This is Agent Sam Finn I need extraction. We may have a problem.”

---

Andy was running through the alley away from the lunatic who’d just killed his sire, and most of his friends. God, I was just turned tonight is it too much to ask that I get maybe one easy kill? One sweet nice taste of human blood? As Andy was having that thought he ran straight into something and fell back on his ass. “Jesus Christ. Whose huge ass just got in my…” looking up as he spoke Andy saw the two big demons standing over him. One was holding an unconscious brunette who looked pretty beat up.

Just then the guy from the other alley jumped appeared again. His fist launching into the first demon with a control and quickness that he’d never seen. The second demon dropped the brunette and went to help his partner. The guy managed to keep the two off him for a minute or two, but he didn’t have a weapon. Soon he was becoming the punching bag for the two big demons. Just then something metallic flashed, and one of the demon’s head fell to the ground.

The other demon roared. “Oh, did I forget to mention the sword I had with me? Damn? Now shut up and fight you bloody ugly bugger!”

In less then a minute the second demon’s head rolled off his body. The man’s clothing was torn, and he was walking with a limp over to the unconscious woman. Who the hell was this guy? Slowly getting to his feet Andy tried to back away into the shadows, and then find a way out of the alley. The guy didn’t seem to notice or care about Andy, all his attention was focused on the girl. Andy didn’t care, for whatever reason the man was giving him a chance to get away, and Andy was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

---

Spike tried to refrain from laughing as the vampire went running like a scared girl in a horror film. He really should have killed the stupid bugger for being such as disgrace to vampires everywhere. But the girl needed help. The damn Faryl demons really worked her over good. Of course they did a number on him as well. Not that it matter much to him. No need for the glass tonight.

Still the girl was breathing and her pulse was steady. Spike slipped the sword back into it holding place in his coat then slipped both his arms under the girl and lifted her up. As he made his way out of the alley to the sidewalk looking for a cab, Spike found himself walking straight into big old Chicago cop hassling a black kid. The man looked up at Spike and the girl as if they had some how walk off an alien ship.

“No I don’t need any help. Please just stand there looking like fucking idiot.”

The kid started laughing. “You got a smart mouth,” the cop said to Spike.

“And you are still dumber then shit. Now call the god damn Ambulance you bloody tosser!”

---

Angelic woke as to the sounds of an ambulance arriving, and a big fat cop arguing with a lightly brown haired man. The man looked almost as battered as her, and from her weeks of training with her watcher could tell he was favoring his left side. Did he fight the two Faryls that came after me? How is he alive? Remember his face. I have to remember his face.

“Okay, she’s stable. Get her out of here!” as a blonde paramedic reached back and closed the doors. She would wake at the hospital nine hours later, and her first thought was, “remember his face.”

Part Five:

Angelic waited quietly as the cops came for the second time to try and get more out of her then her name. She had told them who they could contact for her, but after that she had said nothing. She knew the cops wanted to help, but if the Faryls were still a live then asking them to help would be a death sentence. Plus there was too much she didn’t know about what was going on, and one thing she had learned in her time as a slayer was that when a mystery popped up. The best way to figure things out was to keep as few new people from popping in as possible.

The officer finally just gave up and left her. Just before the officer left the room a huffing and puffing man with glasses came running into her room. God her watcher wasn’t that much older then her, and he was still such a …

“Angelic of thank god you’re okay.”

The officer turned and looked at her. “Do you know this man, miss?” the officer asked.

“Yes, but sometimes I really wish I didn’t.”

“If I weren’t so glad you’re alive I would be really hurt at that lack respect," Geoffrey her watcher said with a sigh.

“Yeah right, and one of these wham, pow, straight to the moon.”

“Isn’t the man supposed to say that line?”

“There’s a man here?” Angelic asked mischieviously.

“Ha, Ha, Ha.”

---

Sam hadn’t really relaxed until she was back at the base with Riley. Too much field time had made keenly aware of letting your guard down before it was really safe. The fact that the Vampires knew her was troubling, but the brown haired man that saved her was worse. He had clearly been a vampire and a powerful fighter. So why had he save her? All the best information they had suggested both vampires with souls had died, although there were conflicting reports about Spike’s death. One saying he died in Sunnydale, the other said he died in L.A. with Angel.

Sam wasn’t sure what to believe, but she did believe Spike was dead. Yet, the vampire she saw tonight had the same confident, almost cocky stance as he fought those vamps. Definitely master vampire, she thought. He could be very dangerous if he chose to be. So do we have an ally or an enemy? Either way it was definitely something they need to know about this vampire.

“Sam, thank god you’re alright.”

“Yeah, well you know me all running off alone into danger without backup. Really know how to pick’em, huh?”

“What can I say I like strong women.” Riley said with a farmboy smile.

“And here I thought it was the blonde hair.”

Stoping the flirting for a second, Riley turned to business for a second. “Did you get the information about the Alcon demon from the source?”

“Yeah, free and clear on that.” Sam answered.

“So why the extraction call?”

“Five minutes after the trade I was jumped by six vampires, and then saved by another.”

“What?”

“Yeah, but I have a question for you, how sure are you that Spike is dead?” Riley's answer was a look of confusion.


---

Angelic felt the stiffness in her body after being in the hospital for three days, and having nothing to do. So what does she do the moment she is out of the hospital? Go and sit at her computer for six hours working on what she half remembered of the man’s face who rescued her. She focused on his cheekbones and hair, but most importantly those haunting blue eyes. Her watcher kept telling her to rest that this could wait, but something inside her wouldn’t let.

It was as if the slayer part of her would not let this go. She’d never felt anything like this before except maybe in the presence of Buffy Summers. The sense of power personified and almost larger then life was something a lot of new slayers had felt when meeting the elder slayer. She had this feeling that something powerful had directed her to meet this man, and that meant she need to make sure she remembered his face. Looking over the face one last time something came to her, something she wasn’t sure she could possibly have remembered.

“Geoffrey!”

Her watcher was at her side in seconds. “Yes, Angelic? Did you finish?”

“Yes. Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Now you find out who that is? And then we find out why I met him?”

“So you don’t think this was just random chance?”

“No. This…This was something more then chance.”

---

Willow shook her head, and concentrated on fixing the computer network she had set up for the Watcher’s Council. A complex world wide hardened computer network able to cross-reference ancient texts all in less then two years without help. Willow couldn’t even remember the last time she’d seen the sun. Giles really wasn’t paying her enough for this, but it was such a challenge that she really couldn’t turn it down.

Willow found it almost laughable that with all the watchers being trained, and all the new slayers she was still being called upon to explain technology like computers, printers, and the fax machine. That fax machine was invented back in the 1860’s just how hard is it too figure out? Willow sighed. So much of her frustration was wound up with her rapidly deteriorating relationship with Kennedy. They had been going out for two years, and were actually becoming farther apart.

Considering Willows dating experience was only three people, both of whom had left her abet for different reasons. Willow was not sure how to proceed. She really wished she could talk to Buffy about this, but the fun loving, friendly Buffy was gone. She rarely talked to anyone about anything that wasn’t related to her job or slaying. Her relationship with the Immortal had ended the same day she had returned from L.A. She hadn’t called him, and he didn’t call her.

Just then Willow heard a piece of equipment started to squeak. Not something else wrong. Turning her head to find the source of the problem, Willow started laughing as she saw the fax machine spit out a piece of paper. I really need to go home. Home means Kennedy and another argument. I’ll crash in Giles office. Getting up Willow went over to collect the fax. The fax was a beautifully done CGI image. A man with light brown hair, almost razor sharp cheekbones, and…ohhhh my goddesss!

Willow ripped the fax off the machine and ran to here computer. She scanned the image in, and then a few minutes later after altering the hair color and adding a few more details printed off a picture. The picture of man she was sure she would never see again. Could we be wrong twice? Could he still be alive?

---

Buffy watched the Sun rise. The five day this week she had gone without sleep, the two hundredth and sixtieth in the last year. Andrew’s confession of Spike being alive had begun a never ending chant in her head. ‘He didn’t believe me.’ She knew it concerned those who knew about it, but they said nothing. Of course if they did she would not listen. Sleep brought dreams, dreams of him, but they were not just him. The dreams were of his death. The one she had seen, and what her mind told her his second one had to have been like. How long had he battled in the alley? How long was he standing alone as Angel’s friends died around him? Did he ever ask how much will be enough? How much must I die before I will be forgiven?

She almost wished she had the strength to drink herself into a hole, but she couldn’t. So forced herself to remember everything because she knew nothing would make it go away. She remembered his confidence, his power, and unrelenting desire to kill her. She remembered his love and devotion both to Drusilla and then her. She remembered her abuse of him once he got the chip. She had beaten him down to the ground and all he had wanted to do was love her. Then finally he couldn’t take it anymore and he lost it and he tried to rape her. So he had gotten a soul for her. Then as she battled ‘the First’, he had believed in her when no one else would or could.

But through all of that she had done no penance for breaking him. Her desperate ‘I love you’ had fallen on a man who no longer believed she would ever love him. She might trust him; believe in him, but all as a fighter not as a man she could love. So to prove he would never hurt her, he would have to fight. He couldn’t stop or he wouldn’t be worthy to be her friend. Pulled back after saving the world he’d joined Angel’s final crusade. Dying for a woman and a world that didn’t know he existed. Still fighting, but now without hope. She hoped Angel and Spike were in heaven. She hoped they had been forgiven. Cause if they couldn’t be, then what about her?

---

Dawn watched Buffy as she stared out from her window. Buffy had on Spike’s duster, as if she ever took it off, Dawn thought. Standing there watching the city from the balcony with that coat on, Dawn knew what the other scoobies simply couldn’t see. That Buffy was broken. Her single saving grace as she had moved on from Sunnydale had been the belief that Spike did believe her when she said ‘I love you’. That he had to have lied to save her. That the world was wasn’t worth saving if she wasn’t in it. Now that was gone. Buffy was back to where she had been after Willow yanked her out of heaven, but this time there was no Spike to make her feel.

Her talk with Andrew, and her furious dash to L.A. had been an eye opener to the scoobies. They hadn’t realized just how much Buffy had cared for Spike until then. Still, Dawn didn’t think they were willing to believe Buffy had loved Spike. However, she knew Xander was concerned, but not enough at least that is what Dawn thought. The others had never understood Buffy since she came back. They always expected her to bouncy back from whatever happened. She knew that only Xander and she had figured out that it was Spike’s duster she was wearing.

Xander who after loosing Anya could see the deeply buried pain in Buffy’s eyes and understand. Xander who for once. Xander who knew that Buffy would never tell them why that trip to L.A. had hurt so much because how can you tell people that a man who had lived and died for his love for you had chosen death rather then facing her because he didn’t believe that she would ever love him. That even her confession of love in Sunnydale had been believed only as a comfort to a dying man?

Angel’s death had broken Buffy, but not even Angel’s death had killed her spirit this much. Angel had gone to hell knowing she loved him. Spike had died twice believing she would never love him. Still Buffy did not cry, or show any outward sign of her pain. She would not talk even with Dawn. Dawn knew why. Right now her pain was her own. Her last bit of Spike, and she didn’t want to let it go. Let him go. To finally lose the man who had been so important to her. The man who had taken all her abuse, and pain without asking for a single apology. All he had asked was for the truth, and she had denied him even that when he had denied her nothing.

So Dawn cried for both of them. For both Buffy’s and her own stupidity, for their foolishness, and for denying something that should have been so easy to give.

Part Six:

“Has this been confirmed?” Giles asked as he stared at the images before him.

“Well I confirmed that Angelic sent the image, but that it is one hundred percent Spike? No,” Willow replied without the stammer that had once hindered her.

“Then we fuel up ‘Watcher Air’ an Willow and I go confirm this is Spike,” Xander said with more exuberance then either expected. Xander’s shocking desire to go get Spike cause both Giles and Willow to raise a questioning eyebrow.

Giles took off his glasses with a sigh, and then answered, “First off please stop calling the private jet owned by the Council as ‘Watcher Air’; Second Spike has had over two years to return to Buffy it maybe possible that he has moved on, and does not wish to return.”

“I think he’s afraid.”

“Don’t give me that look. I see this from a different perspective then either of you. I know what it is like to push the one you love away out of fear. I also know the fear of trying to go back to the person you love after you disappear, and ask back into their life. You cannot possibly know how terrifying that can be, and I don’t think there is a snowballs chance in hell that he’s moved on, and neither do you. But that is beside the point. Right now the only way we get Buffy back is through Spike. So I say again ‘fuel up watcher air’ and let’s go collect the bleached wonder.”

“And just how do you propose to ‘collect’ Spike as you put it?” Giles asked.

“I’ll take Willow.”

“Take Willow? Shouldn’t you be asking ‘Willow’ first?” Willow asked giving Xander a resolve look.

“Ahh, come on Wills, you can make sure that Spike comes with us without him or someone else ending up with a lot of bruising. He tries to make a break for it, and then does a little Wiccan kung-fu. Then we take Spike back to Buffy in a nice big bow.”

Giles threw his glass down to get the attention of the two scoobies. "Ah, well then I guess everything is just all perfect then. And so after ambushing Spike you're going to take him to Buffy, and then everything is going to be perfect? That is incredibly naïve. If Spike is afraid of confronting Buffy how do you think he is going to react when he is suddenly confronted by her? And then let us not forget Angel's possible influence on this whole affair."

"Angel? What would Angel have to do with this?" Willow asked suddenly confused by Giles comments. Xander and Giles looked met each others eyes knowingly.

"Spike's already afraid of facing Buffy, that she would never really love him. So he spends a year with Dead Boy Senior. Hell Angel's leaving her alone to let her live a normal life probably played right into his fear, made avoiding her seem all that easier."

Willow nodded in finally understanding what Giles and Xander were talking about. "So if we want to get Spike then we need to find him."

---

Andrew had spent the last year in a kind of nightmare, one that almost surpassed the last year in Sunnydale. Of course there wasn't any threat of death, but maybe that made it worse. Buffy hadn't talked to him since the night she made her heroic dash to L.A., but that wasn't as bad as Dawn. Dawn did talk to him although talk was a loose interpretation. She vented her anger on him. Blamed him, and on occasion hurt him. Then she would cry with him. Cry for Spike, and for the fact that love never seems to work out.
He knew Dawn was using him, but he didn't care. He felt it was his punishment for Spike's death. For not telling Buffy the moment he'd gotten back from L.A. about Spike being alive. Yet, as much as he wished it when he woke up in the morning, despite his dreams, nothing had changed.

Right now he was doing research about a demon. Slamming the book closed after finding nothing for the sixth time. He'd felt like he'd been demoted. Just then the door to his room opened, and Andrew heard someone enter. "I'm a little busy right now. Could you…" Before he could finish his sentence he felt a pair of soft lips on his.

"Dawn?"

"Don't talk."

----

Spike lit his cigarette, and inhaled in slowly. The cigarette helping to calm the shacking in his hands, and keeping him relaxed. The sane part of his head told him that he shouldn’t be out. That he should be inside so that his injuries could heal properly, but the other part of his brain told him that it wouldn’t matter. The part of him that needed to be healed would never be healed. He would never hold Buffy in his arms as she told him that she loved him. He would never be anything more to her then Angel’s replacement, and ally in a fight.

He could never fill the space in his soul that had been filled by Angel’s ‘Fang Gang’. Their outright acceptance of him as a champion, and that he could be their friend. The first anniversary of their death would be a nightmare for him, and he knew that booze would not be enough to make him forget that. So he was out again looking for a fight looking for release, looking to forget, and more importantly looking to find enough pain that he could sleep.

The fight with the Faryl demons had left him feeling sore and with bruises that hadn’t fully healed. Still he knew that despite the agony he was in now that allowing himself to fully heal that the emotional pain would be worse. Ahhh hell, Spike thought. Too many thoughts, too many memories, and none of it means a damn. Taking one last look out his window at the skyline of Chicago, Spike spun and grabbed his bottle of Jack Daniels. The bottle was half empty in a less then a minute.

Spike through the glass of whisky into the wall, and then tried to walk only to fall onto the floor unable to move. “Buggar!” he said shortly before passing out.

----

Xander looked across the expanse of O’Hare International Airport. Only now did the enormity of their problem hit them. This was not Sunnydale. This was a city with millions of people, and suburbs of millions more. Spike could be just about anywhere, and they had no clues to really find him.

Willow was following him, and looking exhausted from the flight from England. He knew was unsure of what they were doing. She wanted Buffy back, but she was as concerned as Giles that they didn’t know much about Spike’s feelings now. Xander was sure Spike hadn’t lost his love for Buffy, and all they needed was to grab him. Bring him to Buffy, and all would be back to normal.

Okay so maybe that was a little too on the optimistic side, but after all they had been through it really should be this easy. Not to say he was comfortable with Buffy and Spike being together, but he had lost Anya. He would not have Buffy go through that if he could stop it. No one would stop him, not Giles, not Willow, and not Spike himself would prevent him from completing this mission.

“Ahh, don’t you smell it Willow?”

“And what exactly are you smelling Xander?”

“The smell of action, of purpose, of…okay I really have no idea what I’m smelling, but we have vampire to hunt so get a move on.”

“Xander, I think we should go to our hotel and sleep for a little while.”

“Why?”

“Because otherwise you spend the rest of this trip dancing around Chicago in a string bikini.”

“Sleep, sounds great. Don’t you agree Willow?”

“Yeah, sleep sounds perfect.”

“Then first thing tomorrow the two of us go find the local Slayer and her watcher.”

-----

Willow looked over at Geoffrey and Angelic. She had to admit they were kind of shocked at the sudden arrival of her and Xander. Especially considering how Xander had entered the apartment with the emergency key Geoffrey had given the council, and found the watcher and slayer en fragrante delicto.

Not that she was necessarily against Slayer/Watcher romance, but still. In her mind she was seeing Buffy and Giles which almost kept her up all-night long. Of course she was trying to figure out how to find Spike. Ever since she had arrived in Chicago there was something she had sensed. A dark sadness that seemed to be a soul’s desperate cry that was somehow strangely familiar. It was as if she had heard such a cry before, but Willow wasn’t sure.

All she knew was that tonight she had to figure out a way to find Spike. All the locator spells she’d tried had failed to find Spike because they had nothing of his to focus the magic on. And leaving a message for Spike was not likely to draw him out. So how do they get him out in the open. I mean what could possible draw Spike out of the shadows? They couldn’t find Spike, not without him learning of their presence, so what to do?

At that moment Angelic and Geoffrey were getting up to begin training. “Good morning Willow,” Angelic said as she grabbed a sword. Willow just nodded a response

“Yes, a good morning Ms. Rosenberg,” Willow watched as Angelic and Geoffrey battled each other. Their swords sparking as they met, and suddenly Willow’s eyes flared.

“EUREKA!”

At that moment only Willow cared she had shouted out a famous quote in the history of science. Xander cared that a loud screeching Willow had woken him up, and Angelic and Geoffrey were looking at her as if she had just turned into a boy.

“EUREKA”

Xander smiled, “That’s great Willow. Now let your mouth tell us in more then one word what it is you are screaming about.”

“I figured out how to find Spike.”

“Okay. Willow its early could you please just use your mouth to tell us what your big beautiful brain has come up with? Okay?”

“Okay, well what is the one thing Spike cannot resist?”

“Buffy?”
“Good Guess, but besides Buffy.”

“Willow seriously just tell us okay. No more Q&A okay?”

“Okay a fight. Or more specifically a slayer in a fight. So all we need to do to get Spike is have Angelic in a fight.”

Xander clapped his hands together and spoke, “So lets just grab a vampire and have Angelic do a little Damsel in distress. Spike comes a running, and we got our vamp.”

Willow shook her head. “I don’t think that will be enough. I think we need to get a lot of vamps.”

“Wait are you suggesting we place my slayer in grave danger to draw out a vampire?” Geoffrey said in a very sarcastic tone.

“Well okay now that you put it like that it doesn’t sound like such a good idea.”

Then something strange happened. Angelic just laughed. “Okay, not a child here. I’m a slayer, and we have a mission. Spike saved me. I think I owe him something. So now lets try to figure this plan out a little better so, you know it doesn’t end up with getting ambushed by a seas of vamps, okay?”

-----

Angelic felt herself get a little worried as she approached the alley. Willow’s plan would work, but still she was a young slayer and the idea stirring up a Faryl demons nest. Especially after how badly they had beaten her not too long ago, but it would definitely bring Spike to them at a time and place of their choosing. I wonder if all Slayers feel as scared as I do before doing something this crazy. There are a lot of slayers now I could probably ask, but the only ones that would really know would be Faith and Buffy. And like many of the younger slayers the elder slayers were intimidating and hard to talk to.

Well I’m saving the vampire that loves you, and that you love so maybe this will let me get the confidence to talk to you without stuttering. Or maybe it will lead to my death. Yet, as she took each step towards the nest her confidence grew. Destiny is leading me this way, I can feel it, and now I have to know where it ends.

Part Seven: Schrödinger’s Cat

After waking up Spike wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep. Well passed out is the more appropriate term, but right now his body was feeling better then it had in weeks. And a part of him was incredibly angry at that, furious that he had allowed himself to loose some of the pain that he deserved.

To lose some of the burden he must carry to make him worthy of death once more. Heaven had rejected him along time ago, but now so had hell. He had no prophecy to look forward to, no happy ending, no rest. No hope. Not that he even remembered what that felt like.

All he wanted now was to make the demons pay for hell’s rejection of his damnation. Until they could give him a death that would stick, a death that would leave him free of Earthly memories, and simply provide him with the pain he knew was his fate in the afterlife.

----

Buffy didn’t know what to say. She was in shock more then anything. The thought of Dawn having any kind of sex had been a non-existent thought. So the sight of her laying nude covered only by sheets, and Andrew was almost more then she could take. The sight of Andrew clinging to her sister like a small child clings to its mother only added to her confusion.



Buffy’s first thought was tear the creep from her sister. Her fist was almost on its way before she could stop it. Before she could keep herself from venting her anger and rage on another, but looking at Andrew’s face for a second she saw Spike outside the Sunnydale Police Station. At that moment she stayed her hand, and turned to leave the room.


Buffy didn’t know whether to be angry or hurt, or maybe both at the two. She would never forgive Andrew for his sin, and that Dawn seemingly had, only made the betrayal seem worse somehow. But Buffy made no sound, and just left the two in Dawn’s room. Hoping to leave before her tears fell, before she could no longer keep the images of Spike from her mind. The images of a man to who love had not been a word, but a way of life.



Buffy made it to her room before the pain overwhelmed her before the tears erupted from her eyes like a river over a waterfall.


----



Geoffrey stared at the words on the page of the book he had opened before him, and after six minutes found he could still not read the words. His thoughts were focused to much on Angelic. Her attack on the Faryl demon nest had made him beyond concerned for his young slayer. Young Slayer, she was older then Buffy Summers when she had been called.



But Buffy Summers was probably the greatest slayer in history. More of a ‘force of nature’ then a slayer, she had faced demons, hell gods, the entirety of the Aurelius line, and the first evil itself. She had taken blows to her soul that would have destroyed a lesser slayer. He did not want his slayer to go through such pain, or have to make the choices Buffy had made.



He wanted to help her, guide her, and a part of him that he would never admit to, ever, wanted desperately to love her. And it was that part of him that could not concentrate, as he thought of Angelic going off with the purpose of pissing off a nest of Faryl demons. He hated waiting for her, hated that he had to stay behind, and he hated most of all that if she died tonight he would never have told her how much he loved her.

----

Spike stared out at Lake Michigan, its blue waters at night taking on an almost pitch black as if sucking in the darkness of the residents of the city. Spike did not wish that for himself. He had not come to Chicago seeking redemption. He’d lived too long, and done too much to receive that gift. The only brightness in his life had been Buffy and Dawn, but they were lost to him as surely as when in a century they would be no more then memory to this world and he would still be here.



Spike snarled as he kicked a stone gargoyle, cracking it. The numbing effects of the pain where lasting less and less, and his body could not take much more. Spike felt the growing desire to just walk into the sun hit him for at least the tenth time that day. But he had been rejected by heaven and hell twice already. He didn’t want to face it happening again. Turning away from his view Spike began to roam over the tops of buildings looking for a fight.



Less then fifteen minutes later, Spike heard the sound of fighting, and took off like a thoroughbred at the sound of the gun. He was there in less then a minute, and found himself looking down on a strangely familiar scene. The Chicago Slayer was hurt and surrounded by demons, Faryl demons to be precise. Looks like those buggars couldn’t leave the little slayer alone, Spike thought. She’d taken down two, but there were six more and the young slayer was hurt.



Spike didn’t have to even think he just threw himself off the top of the building. Slicing through the air like a knife as he landed softly right behind one of the Faryl demons. Stepping forward Spike just reached up and snapped the Faryl’s neck. The other demons and the slayer just turned and looked at him. “Oh, I’m sorry was I not supposed to get involved?”



“Stay out of this vampire! This is not your battle,” Spike just laughed at the comment then fired a snap kick into the nearest demon sending it flying backward, “Not very good at following orders.”


Spike knocked the Faryl demon back. Knocking it off the young slayer before it could hurt her. The young slayer was dazed, but not injured as badly as he had originally thought. How the hell did she find me? Spike wondered. Just then the second Faryl demon’s fist slammed into Spike’s side sending him flying into the alley wall. Spike felt the ribs snap and break with a sickening sound that reminded him of a cereal Dawn used to like to eat.

Then strangely the Faryl demons stopped moving as if something was blocking them. Spike wished his left eye wasn’t swollen shut; especially now that his ribs were screaming every time he moved any part of his upper body. Spike forced himself to grit against the pain to get on his feet. Before he could get up, he felt someone approach him, and grab his hand and pull his arm. Spike screamed. “What the sodding hell do you think you’re doing you…” Spike didn’t get to finish.

“Shut up Dead Boy Jr. We ain’t got time for you to be all whiny, so do that stiff upper lip thing you Brits are so good at or I call Giles and make him take your British license away.”

Spike wanted to curse Xander, or maybe just beat the shit out of him to teach him how much his painful yanking of his arm hurt. The two struggled back up towards the opening of the alley when Spike realized that Xander had not come alone. Standing there clearly concentrating hard was Willow. No wonder the Faryls’ stopped. Red must have cast a spell.

“Wills any chance you can conjure me a team of oxen because right now I could use it. I think Dead Boy Jr. here has packed on a few pounds.”

“Xander…I…really…don’t…have…time…right…now,” Willow said through clenched teeth.

But before anything else could happen Willow’s spell wavered, but it wavered only for a second. Most demons would never be able to move fast enough to get anything through quick enough before Willow could recover, but Spike was never one to play the numbers. A slick steel knife cut through the air like a sniper’s bullet straight for Willow. Spike pushed off Harris, and into Willow knocking her to the ground.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Spike said as he fell unconscious on top of Willow the knife gleaming in the night air of the alley. Xander pushed himself off the floor and rushed to the vampire and his friend.



“Willow are you okay?”



“Spike...can’t breathe…need air.” Xander gently tilted Spike from Willow so she could get up. Spike’s all blue eyes were now all white, and a knife handle was protruding out of his back.


“Willow this just got even worse didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

-----

Giles waited anxiously by the phone for word from Xander or Willow. He knew it would not be easy to find Spike. Still he had hoped for at least word of the search’s progress by now. Dawn’s endless questions about where Willow and Xander had gone to where becoming harder and harder to avoid. As was Buffy’s silence, and seeming not noticing that her friends had left.

Just then his phone began ringing violently. “Willow are you okay?” Giles answered as he had every call in the last few days.

Although it was Willow’s voice that answered there was something about it that conveyed almost grave concern. “I’m fine, but Spike…” Willow’s voice wavered at the vampire’s name, as she forced herself to recount what had happened in the alley and what they had found afterwards. Giles had nothing to say for the first time in a very long time; Giles had no idea what to even say.

-----

Xander hadn’t understood what Willow was saying at first. Even for him there was too many tears as she told Xander what Giles had told him. ‘The Curse of Remembrance’ A poison that on first dose would make your memories of emotional pain so vivid as it takes over your life. The poison forces you to mentally relive the worst moments from your life. However, since Spike had slipped into a coma meant that he had received a dose before, most likely in L.A. as he battled the armies of hell in a desperate battle against the Senior Partner’s.

Xander knew what Willow would tell him. That there was no hope for Spike, but he didn’t understand how she could say that. They were the Scoobies. They had saved mankind from destruction, he had forgotten how many times. They had beaten demons, vampires, gods, and the first evil itself. How could something so simple as a poison stop them now? To fail now would cause them to lose Buffy, and he was tired of losing people. So failure was not an option, and no one would convince him otherwise.

-----

Angelic stared at Spike and wondered at the blond vampire. So you are the legendary Spike? Lying on the bed in her Watcher’s apartment he seemed so small. Not much taller then her, but back on the streets he had seemed larger. The others were busy working on text, on the phones, on everything but the simple act of watching him. So she had taken that job. Partly to pay him back for watching her, partly because she hoped maybe she would find answers, and partly because she wanted to know how he was back. Because like all people she wanted to know the truth behind the mysteries, and right now that was him.

She had read so much about Spike. The holy terror that searched out slayers both for the challenge of the fight they offered, and for the glory of fighting them. But she could find no trace of that Spike here. She was sure that Spike had been dead for years. That the moment he had loved Buffy, and maybe from the moment he had set foot in Sunnydale his destiny had been altered. He had battled evil without a soul, and then gone to claim one out of shame and guilt. Then he had battled to save the world and give his life to save it. Then he had been tossed back, and gone to fight once more.

She wasn’t sure if he had survived or been sent back once more. Only Spike knew the answer to that, but Spike had staggered from the battle to Chicago. But from those battles he had arrived changed. And if she was confused by Spike then she knew he confused the Scoobies even more. As they had dragged him to her watcher’s apartment they had discovered the almost endless procession of bruises on bruises that had never truly healed. It seemed almost as if Spike had been out to cause himself pain, and that seemed so out of character that they had no explanation.

Part 8:



“He’s not getting better Giles, and if what you say about the poison is true then he might never get any better only worse. So I don’t see the risk in bringing him back?”



“If you bring him back then Buffy is going to demand to see him! Xander you have repeatedly argued that Buffy is feeling extreme guilt over Spike’s death. How do you think she will feel if you bring him back in that condition? Do you think Buffy’s sense of guilt will allow her to look at Spike, and not cause her an intense emotional pain? Bringing Spike here, now, could very well push Buffy farther away from us.”





Giles listened as Xander angrily threw down the receiver of the telephone, and stormed off muttering something Giles couldn’t make out. He heard Willow give a plea that was answered by a slammed door. A second later he heard another voice on the phone, “Giles, this is Willow. Geoffrey has done his best, but he doesn’t have the resources to take care of Spike here. Also, if Spike is to ever get better wouldn’t it be more likely to occur at Watcher Headquarters with all its texts?”



Giles sighed, “Willow, I’m just worried for Buffy. I don’t know how she will take this.”



“I understand, but Xander is seeing this as if someone had the chance to give him back Anya. He…I don’t think he can give up on Spike. In his mind it would be like giving up on Anya.”



“What do you think Willow?”



“Spike is trapped in his own mind. There are a couple things I would like to try, but I don’t want to do them here.”



“Alright, but I want you to keep an eye on Xander. I don’t want him breaking any of this to Buffy. Telling Buffy this could be very bad.”



Willow hung up, and Giles sighed again. Xander was acting with as much grief and loss as Buffy. He couldn’t see how dangerous this was. Buffy was his daughter, and right now everything inside him told him that he had to protect her. All the texts told him that the poison now making its way through Spike’s body could very well make death the more pleasant option. Turning around in his chair so that he was facing the door of his office he found himself looking into the eyes of Buffy Anne Summers.



“What shouldn’t we be telling Buffy?” In his mind all Giles could think was buggar.







Buffy wait coldly as she and Anna Lynn circled each other. Anna Lynn was a young slayer, and had shown a real attitude problem. She had been picking fights with just about every other slayer here, and now it was Buffy’s turn. The girl was little more then sixteen, and had decided she had learned enough to take on the eldest slayer. Buffy still remembered how Anna had spoken to her when they first met, “So you’re the great Buffy Summers. Kind of skinny aren’t you?”



She wished Faith were here. The other elder slayer was great with dealing with attitude problems, and had a connection to them that Buffy just didn’t have. Right now Faith was dealing with a ‘situation’ in Panama. What made it worse was Buffy knew why she wasn’t able to reach those girls. The part of her they could respond to, Buffy had locked up inside herself after L.A. She wanted to be able to put aside the grief and pain, but it was the one struggle the elder slayer simply could not win.



“Why are you waiting Buffy? Don’t think you can take a young slayer?” Anna Lynn threw a series of hard punches that Buffy avoided easily. Buffy said nothing. Anna seemed to look at Buffy’s silence as weakness. Launching into a furious series of roundhouse kicks and punches that forced Buffy to retreat backwards, Anna Lynn continued to mock Buffy who had not even thrown a punch yet.



Finally one of Anna Lynn’s punches slammed into Buffy’s jaw, Buffy dropped to the floor. “So that’s it? That is all you have Buffy? If that’s all you got then no wonder you couldn’t save your vampire lovers, or maybe you just decided letting them die was easier then breaking up with them?”



At that moment every slayer in the training room turned to look at Anna Lynn and Buffy, as one who looked at two trains heading straight for one another and couldn’t look away. Anna Lynn had thought she had bested Buffy. Buffy had merely been observing her, and now that was done. Buffy flipped herself back to her feet. “Finally decided to fight did you?”Anna said as she threw another punch.



Buffy just grabbed the girl’s fist and stopped it cold. Holding it just long enough to freeze the girl in place, Buffy shot a powerful kick up into Anna’s jaw sending her flying. Anna Lynn tried to struggle to her feet, but Buffy was on her before she could get up. Buffy grabbed her by her throat and slammed her into the closest wall. “Let me makes this clear Anna. You need to learn three very important things. One, you are no where near as good a fighter as you think you are. Two, you will never be better than me. Three, if you even come close to mentioning Angel or Spike in anyway again, I will give you the most horrible, painful death anyone has ever had. Then have Willow resurrect you to start it all over again. Nod if you understand.”



Before she could nod Buffy just started squeezing. “On second thought.” Her fist a vice on Anna Lynn’s throat cutting off the young slayer’s air; fear clearly evident in the young girls eyes, and Buffy was sure that she heard other slayers running towards her. As Anna began to hyperventilate Buffy tossed her to the floor. Then walked away, and began to head for Giles's office. Well I took care of the Anna problem, just probably not how Giles would have liked that I handle it.



As she entered Giles's office she saw him standing up with his back to the door. She wasn’t really trying to listen in on his conversation, but she heard it anyway. His voice was too loud for her not to. “Alright, but I want you to keep an eye on Xander. I don’t want him breaking any of this to Buffy. Telling Buffy this could be very bad.”



Okay something is going on, and I really don’t feel like waiting. “What shouldn’t we be telling Buffy?”



Giles turned around to look at her and had the biggest deer in the headlights look she’d ever seen on anyone’s face.



-----



Dawn didn’t know how, but somehow Buffy knew she had slept with Andrew. That was the only thing that could possibly explain the fact that her sister had pulled away from her in the last few days. Not that she’d been feeling that great either. I can’t believe I slept with Andrew. The images of that night haunted her, and she refused to acknowledge why. She didn’t want to admit that she had used Andrew as Buffy had used Spike.



Dawn wanted to scream, but found she didn’t have the energy. Everything for the last year had been going so wrong. After the hell that was the final days of Sunnydale, the following year had been like heaven. Okay, maybe not heaven. There had still been problems between her and Buffy. Neither of them had truly dealt with Spike’s death or what they thought was his death. Buffy had also been extremely reckless when she patrolled.



However, excluding Spike, Buffy had allowed herself to be an open book to Dawn. Of course that had made Dawn even more determined to open up Buffy on the issue of Spike. Now that was gone. Buffy had withdrawn from everyone including her. Her sister had once again pulled into herself rather then deal with a world she had sacrificed so much to save. Dawn wanted to cry, but couldn’t find the energy. All she could do was sit and stare.



-----



Faith stared out at the Jungles of Panama and prayed desperately that they would find the demon they were looking for so she could go home. Home. That word was something Faith really wasn’t used to having, or at least not in the sense that most people take the word. Robin Wood had had also given her a chance to experience the joys of a real relationship. Robin Wood had done something for her that no other man had ever done for her. He had woken up something inside her that she hadn’t even realized she had been lacking.



In the two years they had been going out the only ‘real’ fight they had was over their reactions to the news from L.A. Robin had been infuriated that Spike had been allowed to return, and he was sure he had been in hell. Then that he had lost for a second time to avenge the death of his mother, by killing Spike.



Faith had nearly left him over that. She had always enjoyed a special connection to both Spike and Angel, and to hear anyone disparage either of them in front of her had been enough to almost send her over the edge. Even now it was a sour point between them.



Spike and Angel had set the example that she was desperately trying to live by. She knew she would never come close to measuring up to their shoes, but they proved to her it could be done. They had given her hope in a world that did it's best to take that from her. She would embrace that gift as her way of remembering them.



-----



Spike could feel the shattered bones in his legs as he stared up at the piss poor tower constructed by Glory’s minions. His mind was screaming at him to move. His arms struggled to move from his sides. I have to get up there. I have to stop Buffy. But his arms did not move, and he watched in horror as the portal opened. Then he saw her. Buffy. She flew from the tower into the open portal like the warrior she was. Spike could only cry as he watched her die again.



Reliving this horrible moment over and over again; trying to save Buffy, save Dawn, but nothing changes. Every time he fails. Every time she dies.



Suddenly she was there. “You think you love me? You let me die Spike. You failed to protect Dawn, and I died because of it. Is that the sign of a man in love?”



Spike tried to close his eyes, move his head, anything to keep himself from looking into Buffy’s eyes. “I’ll bet you enjoyed watching me fall didn’t you? Watching me give Doc his one good day?”



-----



Giles wondered at how much Buffy had heard. This was a situation he had hoped to avoid. After lying to her during Sunnydale’s last days in order to ‘take care’ of Spike, Giles had worked hard to make sure Buffy felt she could trust him. Now he was faced with the possibility of lying to her again, and he was torn. “Oh, that was Willow. I sent her on a mission to Chicago. She was just filling me in. So how was training today?”



Giles prayed that Buffy wouldn’t push any harder. “Training was fine. I dealt with Anna Lynn about as well as I could. Faith needs to come back quick, and Giles...”



“Yes.”



“That is one. As in the one and only lie you get to tell me. Lie to me again, and we are going to have a serious, serious problem. Do you understand me Rupert?” The look in Buffy’s eyes as she spoke was one of cold steel. A look Giles had been sure he would never see directed at him from his slayer, a look that terrified him almost as much as Angelus’s sneer.



-----



Whistler cursed loudly as he made the crossing from Earth to the higher plain. Oracles, couldn’t they make the portal a little smoother? He thought as he rubbed at his head in an attempt to release some of the horrendous pain that was there.



“Ah, good you have arrived,” the first Oracle said.



“Yeah, and it was not a very pleasant trip I might add. Care to explain why I couldn’t get this information in one of your everyday mind numbing visions?”



The male Oracle answered, “This mission requires greater explanation then visions usually allow.”



“Okay, so what’s up?”



“You must go to the slayer.”



“Which one? In case you didn’t notice there is a lot of them down there right now.”



“The eldest slayer. The one who stood guardian over the hellmouth.”



“Oh, that slayer.”



Whistler stared at the Oracle, and shook his head. “The slayer doesn’t like me.”



“That is irrelevant. She must be prepared.”



“For what? No offense, but if it is anything like the last time you guys sent me to see her, I think she’ll probably just kill me on sight.”



“The champion is slipping away. If you do not act there might be nothing left to save.”



“The champion? Angel’s been dead a year and took down the Circle of the Black Thorn. I think you guys might be a little late.”



“No, not Angel. His mission is complete. We speak of the other.” At that moment Whistler was hit by a vision. Images flashed before his eyes of Spike’s life over the last year, and what would happen soon. Unfortunately the Oracles seemed little concerned by the fact that the images being pumped into his head were also causing him an incredible amount of pain. Whistler dropped to his knees as he screamed.



“Wow.”



“Do you understand?”



“Yeah, but this…this is a tall sell. What if she doesn’t want to do this?”



“Then the only answer is death.”

Part 9

Rupert Giles had done a lot of things in his life. But staring into the cold eyes of the woman he considered his daughter, and trying to lie to her was among the hardest. The hardest was trying to do so again when his daughter in every way but blood caught him in the lie. “Buffy I…I don’t know if you are ready to hear this.”

Buffy began laughing hysterically. “Buffy what is so funny?”

“Giles…I have seen heaven, hell, and all that lies between. Just what could you possibly say that I could not handle. So don’t patronize me! If there is a decision to make in my life, I will make it. Not you. So tell me right now, what is going on?” Buffy’s words had started soft, but her voice had ended hard. Anger and a burning rage erupted behind the eyes of the eldest slayer like the fire of the sun.

“I sent Xander and Willow on a mission to Chicago.”

“Why?”

“To see if a rumor was true. To see if…To see if Spike had some how survived the fight in L.A.”

“You…You You kept this from me? How could you keep this from me?”

“Buffy you have been in a great deal of pain. If we brought this to you, and it wasn’t true, you would have been crushed.”

“You had no right.”

“I had every right to try and make sure that you did not go through unnecessary pain. That the idea that you had left Spike again…There are many things you can justly be angry at me for Buffy, but this is not one of them.”

“Alright, then tell me right now. Is Spike alive? Answer me Giles, IS SPIKE ALIVE!”

“Yes, but I don’t know if for much longer.”

----

Willow stared at Xander. He had not moved from his place beside Spike’s bed since they had moved him onto the plane. Willow stood up and went to his side. Hoping she could see whatever it was that he saw, or see whatever it was her friend was trying to do.

“Don’t say it Will.”

“Say what?”

“That this is pointless. That Spike might never make it back.”

“I wasn’t.”

“But you were thinking it. I know because I am too. I don’t want to. I so desperately don’t want to. I want to bring him back to Buffy because I would have done anything if someone could bring Anya back to me. But I think in doing that we may have done what no one else seems to have been able to do. We might be the one’s that kill Spike, and Buffy will never forgive us.”

“Xander, don’t you dare think like that. Spike has survived more then anyone could image, and he did it alone. Now we are here to help him. He is not going to die. Spike never gives up.” Willow said the words, but she couldn’t make them have the conviction that Xander or her needed.

She had seen Spike’s body. The endless stream of bruises that seemed to…Willow had never believed it possible for someone to give up on hope. The belief that they could be forgiven, but looking at the broke body of Spike she know believed she had. Whatever had broken Spike’s will to such a point she didn’t know, and she was afraid of finding out.

----

Buffy had run from Giles office. She didn’t care what anyone thought. She ran out into the daylight, ran as far from the council headquarters as she could before the contents of her stomach would no longer be contained in her body. Spike was alive. That was all that had registered in her mind for a long time, but then she heard him. She heard Giles talk about how Spike might not make it back to England.

Buffy wanted to cry, but her body would shed no tears. Her grief so overpowering that it would not let her cry.

You won’t die on me Spike. I won’t let you die. I won’t lose you , I won’t let you go, I won’t let you not believe that I love you.

----

Spike felt the coldness of the concrete against his knees using anything to focus against the pain of what had just happened to him. Those words, why those words! Of anything Buffy could have said, why that? “You’re beneath me.” Those words had haunted him for a century, the words that had turned a poet into killer. Now cut that killer as harsh as they had the poet, and all he could do was cry in pain.

Then for a second he was back in front of Cecily as the others laughed, and then he seemed to flicker back and forth between the two sides of his life. Those words repeating over and over again interspaced by the mocking laughter of long dead voices. And for one brief second both demon and man screamed in shared pain.

Part 10

Giles had never felt so afraid for his slayer. Buffy’s mad dash from his office after hearing about Spike being alive had unnecessarily confirmed the depth of Buffy’s feeling for the blonde vampire. Giles tossed his glasses onto his desk in frustration of how fate had conspired to create this situation.

Giles would have loved to think more on this, but fate again conspired against him as Dawn entered his office.

“Giles, have you seen Buffy? Faith is on the phone.”

“I’ll talk to Faith. Buffy has received some distressing news.” Dawn nodded then waited for Giles to elaborate, and when he didn’t she turned and left. Giles knew he should have felt bad for not telling her about Spike, but after Buffy’s reaction he didn’t want to inflict that on another member of the Summer’s family.

“Faith. No it’s Giles.”

“Giles? What’s going on? Where’s B?”

“Buffy needed some space at the moment. She learned something that caused her pain, and I have to say it is my fault.”

“I leave for a couple of days and everything goes to hell. What the hell did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything, but Buffy learned something that I don’t think she was ready to hear.”

“Enough with the cryptic, fill me in or get B on the phone.”

“Spike is alive,” Giles was sure he heard the woman on the other end of the phone gasp in shock. The rest of the story soon spilled from his lips, and as he listened Giles felt even more like a fool.

----

Buffy could only stare at the plane as it pulled into the private hanger. She truly didn’t know what would happen if she didn’t concentrate on what was happening moment to moment in front of her. She couldn’t deal with the fear, the longing, and the anger. The anger at Giles and her friends for hiding Spike from her. Also as hard as she tried a part of her heart wanted to be angry at Spike. Angry that he could doubt that she loved him, and that he would choose death over facing her, and angry that she had hurt him so badly he couldn’t believe she would want to see him.

It was hours later when she returned to Giles office. She kept her tears under control, but the pain was still incredibly raw. She listened as Giles explained in detail everything that had happened, and how they had found out. His body language told her, that Giles longed to reach out to her and comfort her, to help her with the pain she was feeling. But for everything in her, Buffy would not give him a single sign that any such offer would be anything but rejected. Once he was done with his explanation and excuses, he told her when the plane would arrive, and he would pick her up to go get Spike. So that was how she was here now.

In her soul all she wanted to do was to take Spike into her arms and show him that she loved him. That he wouldn’t be hurt by her again, and that he wouldn’t be abandoned again. That he wouldn’t lose her like he’d lost Drusilla, and Angel no longer held that sway over her, or the Immortal or some other normal boyfriend. ‘Normal’ has once been her goal, her secret hope even when she was with Angel. She wanted to show him that ‘Normal’ meant nothing to her if she couldn’t have him. That no one had held her heart like he did.

Xander was the first off the plane. His face was fixed in a grim look of determination and of fear, and Buffy felt her heart sink. She would not be to late, her mind screamed. She would reach Spike and convince him that she loved him. She would not fail again.

----

Faith had wanted to reach her hand through the phone to get her hand around Giles neck. Of all the stupid, stupid things he could of done. Damn you Giles weren’t you thinking at all? Faith took a deep breath and calmed herself. It had taken a few more hours then she would have liked but now she and her team of Slayers were back on their way to England.

Faith knew she probably should have stayed, but she knew Buffy needed her know. For the last year, she was the only person Buffy would even remotely confide in, and Faith had a closure look at the pain inside her fellow elder slayer then anyone would have believed before the destruction of Sunnydale.

So she was on her way to England to be there in case Buffy needed her, and to be there in case the others did. To be there in case Spike died again, and Buffy decided to join him the only way she had left.

-----

Spike wasn’t sure what was going on. He wasn’t sure where he was anymore. He just knew he was chained to something. He was surrounded by a white light and everything more then a foot away from him was just black. Spike knew he was being circled by who or what he wasn’t sure. Then he hears a voice, Cecily? “Sweet William, sweet, sweet William,” the sarcasm in her voice almost make him sick, “all you wanted was love, and all I wanted was someone that was worthy of love.”

Cecily moves up and grabs his face in her hands. “William, you were never worthy of love not as man, not as a demon, and not as the abomination of demon with a soul. Ahhh, are you going to cry William? Are you going to be hurt? It’s the truth. Lets face it William you are the kind of pitiful creature a mother would have trouble loving. All you are to every women is convenient, a laugh, and perhaps a sad lesson about what you never want your sons to become. ”

Spike watched as Cecily left back to the darkness, her words cutting to open wounds both demon and man felt so deeply. Then he hears her soft murmur, and he knows who is coming. Her dark hair and blue eyes are as captivating for him as the day he first saw her in the alley in London. “Miss Edith told me but I didn’t believe. Did you think I could love you? I could love only Daddy. Daddy who is so strong, and so powerful, and so uncompromising. You are nothing but compromise. You were supposed to be my Dark Knight, but all you were was guard dog. A dog that never learned. Always thought you were better then you were. All you are is nothing, all you should be is ashes.”

Then as Cecily before her Drusilla slips into the blackness surrounding him. He has no doubt who is coming next, and both demon and man are terrified. Cecily and Dru’s words had cut him up, but he had dealt with his past with them. What was coming next he hadn’t dealt with. It was still to painful to raw, and so Spike knew it would be the most painful. Spike is not disappointed as Buffy enters his circle of light.

Spike expects her to speak, but instead she starts punching him. Her fists always did talk for her.

----

Buffy had ignored her friends completely as the council operatives on the plane carried Spike’s broken and unconscious body from the plane. Buffy had rushed for Spike the moment he was off the plane. She had always been his world, and now he would be hers. She would heal him, and then she would convince him that she loved him.

Buffy had sat with Spike on the way back to the Watcher’s headquarters. She would let no one else near Spike now. He was hers. She had carried him from the car and inside. She saw the other slayers and Dawn waiting for her, but Buffy turned away from them. Giles will deal with them. Buffy laid Spike down on her bed.

Just as she finished she heard a voice from behind her. “Buffy?”

Buffy turned around her eyes filled with the barely repressed angry she had felt for her sister since learning of her relationship with Andrew. “Leave now, Dawn.”

“Buffy please…I have to see him, please,” Dawn asked, her pain clear to see in her eyes and body.

Buffy would have none of it. “No! You made your choices Dawn. Go back to Andrew.”

Buffy slammed the door and walked back to the bed where Spike was resting. Please Spike come back to me. Please let me be able to make this right. Please don’t let me fail you again. Buffy pleaded in an almost prayer as she laid herself down besides Spike and cried herself to sleep.

----

Spike spit out the blood from his mouth after Buffy had punched him once again. Her silent assault had been brutal and how he was awake Spike didn’t know. The beating had seemed to take hours. Spike tried to prepare himself for Buffy’s next blow, but it didn’t come at least not how he expected.

“Now you look like I always prefer you look Spike. Blood, broken, and completely useless. You finally can show the world what you really are. Tell me Spike, did you really believe me down in the Hellmouth?”

Spike didn’t bother trying to look in her eyes. “No.”

“So you finally learned at least a little. You know I could never love you. I couldn’t love you in Sunnydale when I needed you. That’s all you were to me, something I needed because you were such a strong fighter. A tool, a weapon, and that was as far as my belief in you ever went. And now I no longer need you. I’m free. All you are to me is a painful reminder of a life I no longer have to live. You were right not to come to see me. I would have tossed you out on the street. Its too bad you are alive Spike because when you were brought back all you did became nothing. Now neither heaven nor hell wants you, and I never did.”

Just then everything around him changed. Spike felt himself be freed from the chains, and all Spike felt was a sense of falling. The falling ended as Spike felt himself slam into the pavement of a road. After Buffy’s beating the only thing Spike felt he could do was speak. “Let me die.” Spike asked softly.

But as always there was silence. Spike just laid down hoping someone would finally put him out of his misery. He didn’t care anymore. He wanted hell. Just then he felt a hand on his shoulder pull and felt himself get pulled to his feet. Only then did Spike realize he was standing outside the destroyed Summers house on Revello. However as shocking as that was what happened next shocked him even more.

“Get up Spike.”

Spike turned and for a brief moment his face shifted into his old smirk as he looked once again into the face of his grandsire. “Shove off peaches.”

Part 11

Spike stared at Angel and for a second wanted to embrace his grandsire. The memories of those last days in L.A. when they had been so close, but then the memory of the alley hit him. The knowledge that he would be eternally a second thought compared to the man in front of him. From Dru to the Powers that bloody be, and finally to Buffy; Spike would always be second to Angel. In that moment all Spike could see was red, and he launched himself at Angel. Spike’s fists connecting with the face that tormented him for so long, and would haunt him for far longer.

The problem was Spike simple didn’t have the energy for the fight, and in truth he didn’t even care. Angel got in a good punch which sent Spike flying, and Spike just let himself collapse to the ground. Spike couldn’t even bring himself to fight with Angel anymore. All Spike managed was to roll himself on to his side. Everything around him was spilling, and for a second he thought he saw Joyce standing in front of him. Joyce’s gentle hands holding him as her eyes looked at him with compassion.

If there was anyone besides Buffy who Spike longed to held by it was Joyce. Hoping he had finally made her proud to have called him her friend. If he could achieve that Spike knew he could endure an eternity of hell. Then very softly he thought he heard Joyce’s voice, “Hold on Spike. Don’t give up hope. Hope will give you love.”

Before Spike could answer Joyce was gone and Angel was standing over him ready to strike. When a bright white light flashed in front of Spike’s eyes, and everything froze. “Okay, enough with the testosterone boys. Geez I leave you alone for a minute and you two are at each other’s throats.”

Spike knew he had to be crazy. Not only was Angel here, but the cheerleader as well. “Cordellia?”

“In the flesh, okay well not the flesh, but you get the idea. So Spike how you been?” She said with a big smile then turned an angry glare on Angel.

“And you! What the hell do you think you’re doing? You know why we are here. You should know better.”

“He hit me first!”

“Well you probably deserved it,” She said as she rolled her eyes and turned back to Spike.

“So how are you feeling?”

“You mean besides the massive amount of confusion at seeing two people who I know are dead, in a place I know was destroyed over two years ago? Yeah I doing just great.”

“And you question why I hit him.”

“Not now Angel, or someone is sleeping on the couch tonight. Look Spike I know this probably seems like…”

“Like I lost my marbles again, and all of this just proves how crazy I am?”

“Yeah. But you aren’t crazy. You were hit with a poison. That poison sent into your deepest darkest nightmares.”

Spike just looks at Cordellia like she’d grown a second head. “I don’t know what you are talking…”

The images come rushing up behind his eyes. The memories hit Spike harder then one of Glory’s fists. The crushing overwhelming despair at the truth of the words from Cecily, Dru, and finally Buffy. “I remember.”

------

Willow stared at the desk in front of her and the piles of books on it, and for a brief second she felt like she was back in the old high school library. The connection to Sunnydale made her feel more hopeful about their situation. At that library the scoobies had been almost God’s, nothing could stop them, and nothing could destroy them. They had been connected like nothing else in her life, Willow thought.

The problem was as Willow’s highly logical brain told her, number one, we are not in that library, and we are not gods. The situation with Spike was looking more and more hopeless. Whatever poison had been used seemed to have no cure that they could find, and time was running out. Willow could not read auras as well as Tara could, but even she could see the weakening of Spike’s aura.

God Damn it, Spike’s a vampire! He should be stronger then this. I mean just a little blood and he should be awake and back on his feet. He always was before. Suddenly something in her brain tripped up Willow’s thoughts. Wait what was I thinking? Yeah Spike... Vampire…blood…wait that’s it! Blood. Slayer blood.

“Eureka!”

------

Spike stepped away from Cordy. Before Spike can do anything Cordellia speaks. “Spike you have to listen to me, okay? You have to focus. You can’t believe what those nightmares are telling you. They aren’t real.”
“Sure, they’re not real. Nothing here is real. I have dead people talking to me. I’m a vampire not stupid. Of course this isn’t really. All this is just in my head. Just going crazy again.”

“Spike shut up.”

“Angel behave. Spike shut up. You’re not going crazy, okay. The poison that was used on you attacks your mind with your worst fears as if they were real. If you give into them then you can end up in a coma, and your own private hell for as long as you live or unlive since you are a vampire.”

“And which part of that little statement explains you luv? Cause before this most of what I’ve seen doesn’t seem so much as fears as truths I’ve been ignoring.”

“If you believe that you really are an idiot.”

“Right cause what? Buffy is sitting right next to me right now professing her undying love, and the powers that be sent you here to save me from ending up in a hell of my own making? I think I’m going to go with the more likely, I’m losing my mind, and you two are just some more delusions come to torment me like ghosts to Ebenezer Scrooge.”

Angel slugs Spike in the jaw. “Why did you do that?” Cordellia asked.

“He needed it.”

------

Dawn tried to figure if she should knock. Buffy had kicked her out of the room the night before. Dawn wasn’t going to let Buffy do that again. She wasn’t going to be Buffy’s convenient little sister. Spike was her friend long before Buffy started screwing him into the ground, and before she decided she loved him. At one time she’d dreamed of them getting together, but instead of the stuff of dreams it had all become the stuff of nightmares.

After that one conversation right after his return to Sunnydale they had never talked. She’d threatened him, and he’d just accepted she didn’t want him anymore. He even came back from the dead and still believed she hated him. Now he was less then fifteen feet from her, and she felt like he was miles away. Dawn decided to risk Buffy’s wrath, and opened the door.

Spike was laid out on the bed with Buffy curled up against him. Streaks of what looked dried tears on Buffy’s face. However, what really interested her was the man Buffy was clinging to in a death grip. She placed her hand on Spike’s. “Please Spike. Come back. I’m so sorry.”

Dawn never saw Buffy wake up. Dawn never saw the anger that flared in Buffy’s eyes at the site of seeing Dawn next to Spike. All Dawn saw was Buffy’s fist as it slammed into her face. Dawn flew backward from the force of the blow. Trying desperately to clear her head before he enraged sister could free herself from Spike. Buffy’s fists were coming full speed judging by that first hit, and Dawn didn’t expect Buffy to cool down enough to pull the rest of her punches.

Despite all the training from Buffy and the Slayers over the last couple of years there was one thing that training could not do. It could not give Dawn Slayer powers, and so Dawn couldn’t clear her head enough to escape the enraged Elder Slayer. “I told you not to come in here, DAWN!” Buffy screamed as she forced her sister against the wall.

Buffy’s fist squeezed Dawn’s throat like a vice. “Spike doesn’t need someone like you near him right now,” Buffy’s words all carried the implication of further violence should Dawn say or do the wrong thing.

“And of course you get to make that decision, right? He was my friend. My best friend, and for 147 days he was the only family I had. He stayed when Angel, Giles, and the scoobies could because of their own grief. They all looked at me like I was the one that took you from them. All of them except Spike; Spike looked at me like I was what you died to give the world.”

Dawn felt her grip weaken at her words. Please let me reach her, Dawn prayed. Her prayers were not answered as Buffy’s grips tightened as she answered, “And you betrayed him.”

------

Buffy couldn’t believe Dawn had come back. Not now. Not when Spike’s live still hung in the balance. Not when she might not have a chance to make things right, or even more important lose the chance to try.

“You’re right I did. I betrayed him because my sister came back. My sister came back and used and abused my friend. She took his guilt and shame and hope and played with them to make her feel better. He made one mistake in a year of nothing but mistakes. But I stood by my sister, and he never talked to me again. He died and came back. He still didn’t talk to me. He still thought I hated him because apparently in his mind Summer’s women never forgive. They never make mistakes. Yeah I betrayed him, but you…you Buffy Anne Summer’s destroyed him. You destroyed him and he would still die for you.”

Dawn’s words cut into Buffy like a knife, and Buffy felt her grip on Dawn weaken. Her body screamed at her as she entered emotional pain that was as real as that inflicted by a battle ax.

“Don’t you dare talk to me about Spike. I know what I did, but one word from the man you’re screwing and all of this could have been changed. One word from Andrew and I could have tried to make up for what I did. You didn’t betray him Dawn when he came back to Sunnydale. You betrayed him when you decided to let Andrew into your pants.”

“You BITCH! This has nothing to do with Andrew. Andrew is your crutch. Your way of getting around the fact that you beat Spike so far down that he came back from the dead, and didn’t believe you’d even want to know he was alive. Or that I wouldn’t either. You should have staked him it would have been kinder. If either of us has no right to be here it is you. Hit me again if you want! Taking a beating for him is the least I can do, but I’m not leaving him this time.”

Buffy step back and considered her sister for a moment. The sent her fist flying. Dawn dropped unconscious from the force of Buffy’s impact. “Yes you are, Dawnie.”

Buffy picked up Dawn’s unconscious body and headed for the door only to have it fly open as Willow came running through screaming.

“Buffy! I have an idea! I think I know how to cure Spike!”

-----

Whistler rubbed his head desperately hoping to get rid of the painful headache that resulted from the dimension shift. Damn Oracles, Whistler cursed. Looking around at the location hoping it wasn’t too far from any major population areas. He still remembered how painful it was the last time when he got pulled into Oracles dimension by the powers. They really didn’t have a very good concept of location on Earth. They’d sent him back in Antarctica. He’d almost been too late to tell the Slayer what she needed to know before Acathla sucked the world into hell.

At least the world around him was green and not covered in snow. Now all he needed was to get to England, and keep the slayer from giving Spike Slayer blood. Otherwise things were going to get really bad. Not that they weren’t already. God Damn would it kill them just once to put me right next to the person I’m supposed to help instead of the otherside of the damn world.

Buffy stared at Willow’s shocked face as she finished her statement, and then stopped like she’d been hit with freezing spell. Buffy felt raw, confused, angry, and more then a little just. How dare she look at me like that! A part of Buffy screamed. I’ve saved the world more times then I can count. I’ve even saved it from her god damn it! She and all my friends have tried to control my life for so long, and because of them I almost lost the man I love! Because of them, I made him think I could never love him, and so he chose death over me.

Yet, even as that voice spoke another voice spoke. You just knocked Dawn out. You hit your own sister. You promised your mother you’d protect and love her, now look what you have done to her. You hit her to make her shut up because she was saying too much truth, just like you did with Spike. You got angry and you hurt her. I guess you do hurt the ones you love. Suddenly Buffy collapsed to her knees and started to cry.


-----

Spike struggled to get up, but his body still seemed like so much dead weight. Everything in Spike screamed to just rest. Spike realized he must have gone unconscious for awhile because Angel and Cordellia seemed to be having an argument. Spike almost wanted to laugh at the irony of delusions arguing while he was unconscious, but it really wasn’t that funny.

Spike thought he might need his vampire hearing to let him knew what was going on, but they were so load a deaf kid would have heard them.

“Angel we don’t have much time. The poison is weakening him a lot faster,” Cordellia said to Angel.

“How many times do I have to say I’m sorry. He’s just so difficult, and stubborn.”

“Not a good excuse,” Cordy shot back. The fire in her eyes made it clear to Spike why Peaches liked this girl. Or at least that was probably why since these weren’t really the cheerleader and peaches.

“Ahh, you know if you fight with the girl, you’re probably not going to get any later. You’re two hundred fifty years old, and you still don’t know anything about women do you.”

“I know more then you, William.”

“Both of you shut up!” Cordy made a sighing noise then all of sudden the air started to crackle and burn. Cordellia’s eyes suddenly became white and her whole being seemed to crackle with power. “I tried doing this the eyes way, but that didn’t work.”

Suddenly Cordellia’s arm shot out. Spike would have blocked it, that was assuming it hadn’t been moving faster then anything he’d ever seen before. Her hand was on his head before he even realized Cordy had moved. A large flash of white light hit Spike and seemed to absorb him for a second.

The last thing he heard was Cordellia’s voice saying, “So I guess we’ll do it the hard way.”

-----

Faith never felt more free then when she exited a plane especially when Kennedy was on board. She knew she would never take a human life again, but ohhh boy was Kennedy a temptation. She wasn’t sure what Willow saw in the girl. Personally she wished she could just beat Kennedy to death. Especially when Faith had told her team about Spike’s being alive and his current situation. All Kennedy had to say was, “So what? They calling us back to do paper, rock, scissors to decide which one of us stakes him?”

Faith’s mind had begun a chant of, “Ignore the rich bitch, Ignore the rich bitch.” It was the only way she kept herself from chucking Kennedy out of the plane. Focus on Buffy. She’s going to need you, and you don’t know what else has happened since the plane left.

“Faith! Faith over here!”

Once again Kennedy knew exactly the wrong thing to say, “Andrew? What’s he doing here? Must be Giles is way of making sure Andrew doesn’t end up in a hospital or probably a morgue.”

Faith wish she didn’t have to set and example because right now she just wanted to slug Kennedy so bad. Deciding to walk away from the girl, Faith walked towards Andrew who was standing next to a black sedan.

“Faith, Giles told me to come get you right away. The other girls will be picked up shortly.”

Faith nodded. She wanted to say something to comfort Andrew about what had happened, to tell him that it would be okay, but she couldn’t. What he had done hadn’t been evil in the strictest sense, all he had been doing was keeping his word to a friend, but by doing that he had caused so much unneeded pain. Yet, even for all her dark acts Faith could think of nothing in her experience that would let her reach him. Nothing to reach a man that hadn’t really done something wrong, but had been blamed for the consequences. All she had was pity, and she knew that was the one thing Andrew most likely didn’t want.

-----

For the ten minutes, Willow had tried desperately to comfort the fear and grief in her friend. Waited for her to gain any kind of emotional balance before they proceeded, but it was also her way of over coming her own fear. Willow had never believed Buffy would really turn on them, even when she’d tried to kill them under her belief they were just figments in her mind.

It was a spell, a manipulation, it wasn’t really Buffy. Buffy would never hurt them. No matter what they did, Buffy would never hurt them. Now she feared that wasn’t true, and she felt the pull of her magic. The pull of her dark impulses to fix this so Buffy would never hurt them and it was tempting. No! Willow screamed inside her mind. She wouldn’t use those dark magics on her friend. The dark magic just seemed to laugh, ‘why not Willow? You used them on Tara. The one you loved, so why not your friend?’

In that moment Willow remembered why she was here. I have a way to save Spike! I can’t have Tara back, but I can give Buffy back Spike and without Magic. “Buffy, please look at me, Buffy!”

Buffy looked up at Willow her eyes red and filled with pain. “I think I have a way to save Spike. I think him being back would more then make up for a little fight, right?”

Willow watched the change in her friend. The pain wasn’t gone, but pushed aside. The tears stopped as if they had never existed. Suddenly Buffy the girl was gone, and Buffy the Slayer was there. “Tell me what you need me to do Willow,” Buffy asked.

“Well that’s just it Buffy you don’t really need to do anything. Well, that is of course lie down next to Spike.”

Buffy looked confused. “How will that help Spike?”

Willow in an almost Xander like moment laughed, “Cause I can’t give him a transfusion of Slayer blood from across the room.”

Less then two minutes later, Willow watched as Buffy’s blood began entering Spike. For the first time since she’d seen Spike in the Alley in Chicago Willow began to have hope that they would all be okay.

-----

The white glow finally seemed to fade from Spike’s eyes. “Bloody Hell!” Spike said as he dropped to his knees in front of Angel and Cordy.

Cordy just watched as Spike tried to adjust from what he’d seen. It had to have been a lot like her visions used to be, and she understood the disorientation that could cause. Not that being in the head of a vampire with a soul that had give up on hope and love was much fun either. She reached over and grabbed Angel’s hand.

Whatever else may have happened between them Angel would never wish what had happened to Spike on him even when Spike was being his most annoying. Then it seemed that Spike’s eyes were clearing, and that what they had done had worked. Spike started to speak, “She lov…”

That however was as far as he got. Suddenly the calm seen of the front yard of Buffy’s Sunnydale home was rocked by a dark menacing wind. Cordy felt herself flying backwards into Angel knocking him off his feet, and a second later the two of them slammed into the Summer’s front door.

But as everything else crumbled Spike seemed untouched, unmoved, and then the darkest black Cordellia had ever seen seemed to envelope Spike. They she hears Spike scream out in a dead voice, “Not real. Never real. Only pain is real. Hope is just a lie.”

Cordy screams back against the wind, but her voice makes no sound. She tries again, but it is barely above a whisper, “God Damn it Spike! She loves you.”

Spike turns to look at Cordy and she prays he heard her and believed. Then suddenly the wind is gone as if waiting for Spikes answer. Cordy looks deep into his expressive eyes hoping that she had reached him but whatever fire had once raged there is gone. All she sees now is scorched earth, the charred remains left in a fires wake, and then she hears the once fiery warriors defeated voice, “Some things are just never more then dreams.”

“Spike please you can’t lose hope.”

Just before the blackness consumes him she Spike speak one last time. “Why?”