Chapter 1: The Curse

“Oh, bloody hell!”

With the epithet still rebounding around on the walls of his crypt, Spike cradled his bleeding hand, and cursed. It wasn’t long, however, before he licked his fingers, sucking at the sweet liquid that dribbled from his knuckles. He laughed bitterly. Stale crypt wall dust flavour. On the house. Or on the crypt. Or both.

God, he was confused.

He started pacing again. He knew that he’d been babbling. But he couldn’t help it. He felt another crazy urge to smash his fist into the wall.

He shouldn’t be feeling guilty. Bloody hell! Feeling guilty was for poofters. And a specific grand-daddy poof. ‘Sides, you couldn’t feel guilty without a soul kicking around, right?

Spike stopped, abruptly. That was a good point. Why was he feeling guilty without a shred of anything resembling a soul knocking about in him? Was he feeling guilty at all? If he wasn’t feeling guilty… what was that… stupid… thing that was bothering him right now?

No. He wasn’t feeling guilty. Just… uncomfortable, that’s all. Just a strange nagging feeling that maybe he ishould/i be worried about working with Adam. Maybe he ishould/i be worried about the extreme probability of Adam not holding out his end of the bargain. And a strange nagging feeling that maybe…

Spike let out another crazed laugh. “And what’d Dru think of me?” he muttered. “Feelin’ uncomfortable about doing the whole double-cross thing on the Slayer? She’d dance for bloody joy about it.”

And that only brought an uncomfortable image of Dru, dancing in Brazil. The last thing he’d seen before he’d left. Only it wasn’t with him, like it’d almost always been. With that stupid Fungus Demon git…

And that was when Spike gave up, and collapsed onto the dilapidated armchair he’d taken from the tip, and got drunk.

8 8 8

Buffy was fuming.

Not fuming in an I’m-just-irritated-and-will-get-over-this-soon way, she was fuming in a bad way.

Fuming in a Buffy get-out-of-my-way-or-I’ll-annihilate-you way.

The search for Riley had turned out futile, and had earned her a nice gash on her forehead and Forrest’s death. She couldn’t help feeling guilty about him, even though she had warned him repeatedly not to follow her.

Now, she was extremely angry. Mostly at herself, but also at her friends for deserting her. She didn’t understand how they could all turn on her like that. It had been so quick… and she had never seen such resentment in their eyes. The anger combined with the guilt to pave the way for an all-out Buffy fury, and that was what she was trying to work out.

So now, the Slayer was storming in the direction of the graveyard, about to unleash all hell on whatever crossed her. Not that she didn’t normally, but the dangerous, almost demonic glint in her eye actually scared away a group of fledglings who had been planning to ambush her. A newly risen vampire, however, didn’t get the chance. Normally, she just staked them as soon as she had the chance. But tonight the poor fledgling withstood ten minutes of her fury as she unleashed her pent up anger, every last bit of it, onto his broken body. To alleviate her somewhat guilt, it also happened to be a maths teacher who’d used to have a grudge against her.

Satisfied, Buffy continued, stalking westward. As she paused for a moment, one the group of aforementioned fledglings who hadn’t run away foolishly decided to jump her. Three others, following their hive mentality, followed. Buffy almost grinned.

“Just what I needed…” she announced as the three circled her. One lunged, and she sent a flying kick in her direction, their two bodies soaring through the air as the fledgling crashed onto the grass, Buffy landing nimbly beside her. As the two other vampires rushed her, she took them both down with a roundhouse kick, and then flipped gracefully, taking the first fledgling down. When all three had turned to dust, she beamed, the final tension seeping away from her.

“A little workout,” she completed her sentence. Satisfied that no-one else was around as she scanned the cemetery, she walked home, preparing for a long shower that would help complete her unwinding. Unbeknownst to her, the graveyard was not as empty as she’d thought it was. Two sets of eyes watched her as she went, unblinking.

“Wow.”

“She is angry,” the other of them noted. “A petty, useless, human emotion. But it is interesting. I want to know more about this anger and the Slayer. I want to know what caused it.”

“Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? After what he told us.”

“It makes sense, yes. But the Slayer does not make sense. That is what intrigues me.”

“What do you mean?”

“She is… different. Complex. More complex than I’d originally thought.”

“What do you mean?” he repeated. “She’s simple. She fights us, she kills us, and then, eventually, one of us gets smart enough and powerful enough to kill her. Then the next Slayer comes along.”

“No. I’ve been reading about the Slayer line. This one is different from the others. Unique.”

He thought of snorting in derision, but remembered the power of the being that stood next to him. Instead, he resolved to break it to him gently.

“All Slayers are the same, boss. They really are. This one will get killed off soon, just like the rest of them. The only reason she’s lasted so long is that she’s strong.”

“No,” he said stubbornly. “This one is special. But she is also weak. The anger she is displaying now is testimony to that fact.”

He sighed, shrugged, and gave up. “Have it your way, boss.”

It wasn’t an evil leer that crossed his face, nor the typical trademark sneer that the evil guys in all the movies seemed to possess. Instead, he simply smiled.

“Oh, I intend to.”

The two walked back casually towards the caves that led to the Initiative deep below the earth. As they negotiated their way through the labyrinth, the vampiric sidekick looked at him strangely.

“By the way, boss, what did you mean by ‘I intend to?’”

“Trust me,” Adam said simply, as he walked through the complex.

8 8 8

“You did know that that ‘eye of newt and tail of rat’ thing isn’t true, right?”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?” Bryan asked, annoyed.

“You know,” Mia waved her hands about vaguely. “That’s what they sing about, right? The witches?”

Her boyfriend looked at her blankly, and she sighed and gave up. “You know, when they used to curse people? Like, all those stories? They used to say stuff about the ingredients being newt eyes and rat tails and stuff like that.”

“And this has to do with this, how?” Bryan asked exasperatedly, gesturing at the small triangle they’d drawn in pig blood, with a candle at each of the three respective corners and a bowl of unidentified simmering objects in its middle. On either side of the bowl, two photos lay, a boy and a girl softly smiling out from them.

“Well, we’re cursing them, right? And we didn’t use newt eyes and rat tails, so it mustn’t be true.”

“Fine, whatever,” Bryan rolled his eyes. “Let’s just get this little thing over and done with. If Mom found out…”

“Oh please,” Mia pouted. “I thought you’d cleared things up with your Mom ages ago.”

“I thought I did too, but I had like, one candle in my room the other day, and she just went all spazzo on me.”

“Aww… poor little bad boy Bryan,” Mia smirked. “Not so big and bad as he puts out, huh?”

Immediately, with an almost feral growl in his eyes, Bryan was up. Moving almost inhumanly quickly, he slammed her against the wall of the basement, and then moved his hands so that they rested on the wall on either side of her head, trapping her.

“You will never talk about that incident again,” Bryan snarled, his voice low and menacing. “Do you hear me?”

Mia, however, was not put off. She’d been in situations like this before. Heck, this was why Bryan Cornwall, of all people, was her boyfriend. Her big, tall, handsome, strong, bad-ass boyfriend that everyone disapproved of.

“Depends,” she shrugged whimsically. “I could tell them about your fight.” She traced a finger lightly over a large bruise that decorated his jawbone. “How manly you are… and could be.”

As the two became more and more entwined with each other, none of them noticed the flame of the three candles flare to the ceiling, somehow leaving it unsinged. As unexperienced as they were, and as caught up in the moment as they were, neither Mia nor Bryan smelt the scent of a curse gone hideously wrong.

The two photographs slowly burned.




8 8 8
(Okay, I’m sorry for it being short and disjointed. I’m going to sound desperate, but that’s because I am. Please review! Thanks. : ) )

Chapter 2: Ouch

8 8 8



Cassandra hummed quietly as she fingered her pen, smoothing the sheet of paper down as it attempted to answer the light breeze that swept her porch. She heard banging noises floating from over the wooden fence and sighed, trying to keep her mind focused. Unfortunately, unwanted images drifted up and she sighed again, frustrated.

The pen dropped from her hand. There was no point in writing now. The only thing she could write when she knew that Mia and Bryan were at it again was insults, and that generally didn’t go down too well. Besides, it was a waste of paper.

“Hey. What’s got you all frustrated?”

Startled, Cassandra shot upwards, crashing into a hanging pot-plant that promptly fell of its hook and spilt its contents over her head. She tripped over the edge of the porch and landed sprawling on the lawn, covered in dirt. Immediately, her face went flame red, contrasting heavily with her black hair as she heard a low chuckle. Someone sought her hand, and she was pulled upright.

“Well, the next time I disturb you in one of your reveries, I’ll make sure to call an ambulance first.”

“Daniel,” Cassandra didn’t dare look at him in mortification. “I’m sorry…”

“To have made a scene,” he finished, grinning at her. “Hey, don’t stress. Now get inside, and have a shower.”

“Okay,” she smiled slightly. “But I have to get this cleaned up first.” She gestured at the mess she’d accidentally made.

“But I have to get this cleaned up first,” mimicked another voice from over the fence.

Their heads snapped up, and Daniel scowled at the couple lounging on the wood, tangled up in each other’s arms, but thankfully, presentably dressed. “Get lost, Mia.”

“Are you telling my girlfriend to get lost?” Bryan asked menacingly,

“Since when did you lose your hearing, doofus? Yes, I am telling your girlfriend to get lost.”

Before Bryan could say something macho, Mia finally decided to comment on Cassandra’s appearance. “Been rolling around in the dirt more than usual, have you Cassandra? Of course, considering most of your relatives live in it, hardly surprising.”

Even Bryan froze as the words came out of Mia’s mouth, and Mia herself was a little shocked. But the look on Cassandra’s face was devastating.
Finally, the silence was snapped. Carrying herself with an air of quiet dignity that none but Daniel had ever seen before, Cassandra turned around and faced them fully.

“Mia, that was beneath you,” she stated icily. With that, Cassandra belatedly walked into the house to take Daniel’s previous advice.

The three stood outside for awhile, in stunned silence. Eventually, Bryan broke it.
“Aren’t you going to even go after your girlfriend you idiot?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Daniel glared daggers at him. “Now, really, Mia. Get lost.”

He turned and stalked into the house after his best friend, and left Mia and Bryan hanging on the fence, now both looking and feeling ever-so-slightly foolish. They eventually looked at each other in the semi-darkness that now enveloped them, imagining the painful scene that must be unfolding inside.

“Ouch.”

8 8 8

Despite their predictions, Daniel was merely sitting on the floor as Cassandra, still dirt-covered, quickly seized her forgotten pen and paper and started feverishly writing. He flipped on the T.V casually like he had so many times before, knowing she just had to get whatever she had out of her.

The words poured out of her, and she couldn’t stop them. She didn’t want to stop them as they ran their course from her mind and soul along her arms to finally end at her fingertips, moving the pen back and forth as the poetry boiled out of her.

“Throughout the mist that Darkness shares with Light, the Shadows fall,
Their child in all ways but one, who answers both their calls,
Caught between their warring worlds, with Life and Death’s embrace,
Seeking praise on both their terms to only fall from grace…”

Her pen stopped moving. “Damn.”

“What is it?” Daniel leaned over and read her work.

“I… just stopped. It’s like I can’t write anymore.”

He surveyed it, silently. “It’s good.”

8 8 8

“You know, it’s so fun having Mia as my neighbour, d’you know that?”

“Well how do you think I feel about having Bryan as my neighbour?” Daniel laughed. “It’s definitely not all fluffy clouds and rainbows.”

“True. I still can’t believe the four of us used to be best friends.”

Cassandra was a comfortable half-meter away from Daniel as they walked to the disco/nightclub that they liked to call the Bronze underneath the silent moon, but she physically felt him freeze. He didn’t stop moving, but something within him got even colder than it had. A small ball of ice that lay buried in his chest that had just become a couple of degrees lower. She stopped, concerned, but he just laughed. It lacked the carefree ring of his earlier one.

“Neither can I.”

They continued, less talkative than before. As they walked into the Bronze, they heard two successive snickers, and Daniel rolled his eyes. Cassandra almost smiled. That one familiar gesture seemed to be all that was needed to make her lips quirk.

“D’you want a drink?” Daniel asked as they moved away from where Mia and Bryan were displaying their affection to the world.

“Wouldn’t mind one,” Cassandra admitted, already feeling the musical vibrations in the air pounding its way through her body. “But… uh…”

“You’d rather dance first, right?” Daniel finished the sentence for her, amused.

She laughed, suddenly, and it lit up her face. “You know me too well. Dance with me?”

“Of course.”

As a softer, less pounding song went on, the two spun around in circles, laughing as they danced. But halfway through the song, they heard a sudden commotion near the door, and the band went silent. It was an entire minute before they picked up the music again, but by then Cassandra and Daniel were already on their way to the disturbance. Unsurprisingly, it was their dear old ‘friends’ being accosted by someone who looked the mirror image of Bryan, only bigger, badder, and blacker.

“So, kid, are you ever going to pay me back?”

Daniel was surprised to see real fear in Bryan’s eyes. “Yes. Of course! I will. Just give me more time!”

The man let out an expansive sigh. “You see, kid, time ticks by… it’s been four weeks.”

“I will. I’ll pay. Please. Another week.”

The man looked thoughtfully at the boy whose neck he was still slowly squeezing. An idea lit his eyes, then, thoughtfully.
“Actually, maybe I’ll cancel your debt.”

He laughed at the look of hope in the boy’s eyes, and then squeezed harder. Bryan choked as his feet dangled a couple of inches from the floor.
“My boys haven’t been in a good fight for a long time,” he explained almost casually. “I figure the hospital bill will be about what you owe me, anyway.”

Just as he and his three burly friends were about to make good their threat, Cassandra stopped them. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t know how. Unconsciously, she stepped forwards.

“Let. Him. Go.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “Now who’s this, Bryan?” he mocked, even though he was a little surprised that anyone had stood up to him. “I thought your girlfriend was that little heap over there.”

Cassandra ignored the joke, but now she was feeling a little less certain of herself. “Let him go. iPlease/i.”

“Please?” he sneered. “Oh, that’s pretty. Maybe I will, then,” he dropped Bryan, who lay wheezing on the floor. “But what makes you think I still won’t take his debt out of his body, girlie?”

Daniel knew his friend too well. Saw the small waver before she replied, but then he was there.

“Because Bryan, Mia, Cassandra and I are going to walk out of that door,” he inclined his head towards the exit. “And you will not follow us. Bryan will pay you back, and no-one will have to go to hospital. Now, we’re going.”

With everyone still in shock, Daniel sighed, smiled his trademark smile, and grabbed Cassandra’s hand and Mia’s. Mia instantly pulled Bryan up, and they all filed out of the door.

But it wasn’t over yet. As they walked through the alleyway, Bryan recovered from his shock and yanked Mia’s hand from Daniel’s.

“What were you doing?” he hissed. “I had it perfectly under control, you wanker.”

“I’m not going to waste time arguing with you, Bryan,” Daniel shrugged instead. “But just feel grateful that Cassandra stopped big guy back there from kicking your ass.”

At the murderous look in Bryan’s eyes, Cassandra understandably became very scared. “Daniel, please. Let’s go.”

“You certainly do say ‘please’ a lot, don’t you? Polite little girl. Not going to stop us, though.”
All four of them spun around.


After the bashing in the quiet alley, away from the eyes of others, the four men seemed satisfied, and left. Not that they left without their own injuries, but four experienced fighters against four inexperienced kids hardly constituted as a fair battle. The ambulance had been called by a couple who had snuck into the alley for some sweet nothings and more physically related action. They’d all been taken to the hospital, where broken bones were set and large cuts were stitched. Bryan and Mia, who’d been at the back, hadn’t copped it as bad as Cassandra and Daniel. They were due to be discharged tomorrow. Cassandra and Daniel, however, would be staying for another week after complications due to slivered bones.

In the hospital bed, nursing his split lip, bloodied nose, and black eye, Bryan pondered a sweet and agonizingly painful revenge upon both Daniel and Cassandra for his humiliation, never stopping to remember how they’d stayed. And fought.
And that was when the idea of the curse came upon him.
And when he told Mia, her only word was an expected one.
“Ouch.”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Ouch.”

Adam raised his demon eyebrow, a habit he’d almost unconsciously copied from the bleached blond. “I take it that you approve.”

“Approve?” Spike snorted. “It’s…” he quickly revised his answer. “It… could be improved.”

“Really?” Adam asked mildly. “And how might that be?”

“The Slayer is going to know about this. And she’s going to do something about it.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. In fact, I count on it. The disks that you procured for her will decrypt in exactly seventy-two hours and give her the information.”

“You mean you’re actually going to let her know your plan? Doesn’t that, like, make it easier for her to stop it?”

“She has no choice in the matter. But when the time comes, she will be where I want her to be.”

Riley felt the urge to clench his fists, but nothing seemed to be under his control. For the moment, however, he knew that he could speak.

“You don’t know Buffy. Neither of you do,” he snarled. “She’ll see through your stupid plan and then…”

“Quiet,” Adam raised a hand. Spike watched in amazement as Riley, with a vein in his temple still throbbing, fell silent. The vampire could almost see the muscles in his hands attempting to work.

“Well, well, well,” he breathed, eying Riley. “What mojo did you work on him?”

“I did not ‘work’ anything on him, as you put it,” Adam snorted derisively. “I merely activated his chip.”

“His chip?” Spike’s eyebrow shot up, accentuating the slivered scar across it. “Well then. Chips all around, is it?”

Adam ignored him. “Go now. You have a job to do.”

“And when I’ve finished it, I will get the chip removed, won’t I?” Spike pressed.

Adam’s eyes gleamed faintly with what Spike warily decided to take as amusement. “Scout’s honour.”

As Spike left, however, he heard voices echoing along the passages, and quickly jumped into the protection of the nearest shadows that were available. Laughter ricocheted off the walls as two vampires passed him, oblivious of his presence.

As he listened to them discussing the hybrid demon/man/machine’s plans, a sudden realization came over him. With one quick glance backwards at the cave that contained Adam, who was now completely unaware of his presence and bent over his computers, the vampire’s eyes narrowed.
Oh yes, he thought. I believe I do have a job to do.

When he thought of what it would entail, he winced.

“Ouch.”

8 8 8

(Okay, I’m sorry if it’s not good enough. I’m going to sound desperate, but that’s because I am. Please review! Tell me how to make it better. Thanks. : ) )

Chapter 3: Reunion

8 8 8

Right now, Buffy hated mornings. It wasn’t bad enough that she’d woken up with what threatened to become a migraine, she’d also misplaced her weapons bag, and being without it made her feel ever-so-slightly vulnerable. Of course, she was the Slayer, but hefting a large axe in her hand always made her feel more comfortable. Not to mention that Riley was missing. Plus, she’d torn one of her favourite shirts when she’d stumbled out of Adam’s cave.
And she, Willow, Xander, and Giles still weren’t talking. The last thing she needed was a blond, bleached vampire to stumble up to her doorway, smoking from the sunlight.

“What in the Hellmouth are you doing here?” she hissed.

“Let me in!” Spike tried frantically to get past her. “Hello, I’m burning up here!”

Buffy pretended to ponder it. “And I should care… why? Mortal enemies, remember?”

“I’m here to help you,” the vampire exclaimed, stressing on the word ‘help’. Irritated by the dagger-like glare that she was giving him and her frosty attitude, he scowled. “Got that? I’m trying to help you!”

Buffy relented, but only because she knew that they were making a scene that she wouldn’t be able to explain to the neighbours. She threw him inside and then slammed the door behind her.

“As if I’d need your help,” Buffy replied coldly. “As if I’d ever need the help of an evil, soulless demon.”

Spike wanted to scream in frustration. A manly scream, of course. “Bloody hell, Slayer! I’ve helped you before, and if it hadn’t been for me, you’d be dead. Now will you bloody get off your high horse and listen to me? I’ve got the inside scoop on Adam.”

Buffy had been contemplating throwing him out into the sunlight for good until the word ‘Adam’ hit her. Quickly, without even thinking about it, she grabbed him by the collar and threw him into the living room, making him land neatly on the sofa, but still with his unneeded breath knocked out of him. Luckily for him, the curtains were still drawn. She stalked after the sailing vampire, glared at him, and then studied him, her arms crossed.

“Talk. Now.”

Spike groaned and sat up, sure that his back would become a massive bruise later. “Easy, Slayer. I haven’t eaten for three days now, you know. Had to come up with a bit of a plan before I came to you. A couple of excuses as well. For Adam.”

Buffy was about to remind him that he was an evil, soulless demon, or say something about him getting food later after he spilled, when she noticed his exaggerated cadaverous appearance. His eyes were sunken in their sockets, and his highly defined, delicate cheekbones seemed to almost sag in exhaustion. Surprising herself, she nodded curtly.

“I’ll get you some blood.”

Without waiting for a reply, she walked out to the kitchen to heat up some blood that her mother had insisted they store since the last time Spike had come around for a visit.

Spike stared in astonishment after the Slayer as she vanished. He hadn’t actually expected her to fetch him some food. All he’d wanted was some leeway before he started talking. He hadn’t been lying. After overhearing his fellow brethren’s conversation, he’d been shocked. Then he’d mentally berated himself. Then he’d cooped himself inside his crypt, furiously working out a plan. His first instinct, as hot-headed as he was, was simply to march to the Slayer and tell her everything. Then he remembered that there would be nothing to stop her from staking him after he admitted his allegiance with Adam unless he proved that he was serious. Thus, he used his moderate hacking skills to break into the Initiative. He wished that Red could have done it, but it would have defeated the purpose. Halfway through his research, he’d been startled by another of Adam’s minions, and had to concoct some rather implausible excuses to throw the demon hybrid off his trail.
The minute he finally thought he’d covered everything, he’d raced to Number 1630 on Revello Drive under cover of his usual blanket. It had only been when Buffy had thrown him onto the couch that he realized his exhaustion.

Now, he gave into it. Slumping down and finally relaxing, his eyes closed before he knew it.

Buffy almost dropped the mug of blood when she saw him asleep on the sofa. She quickly placed it on the coffee table before she did lose her grip on it, and then turned around. She violently pushed back the urge to shake him and demand answers, surprising herself yet again. Instead she leaned back and once more studied him.

His rumpled platinum blonde hair curled slightly as he lay, curled up in a loose foetal position. The roots were starting to show, as he’d not been able to tend to them while in his planning craze. His exhausted features were now somewhat at peace as he lay there. Lying there, a trusting expression on his face, he looked like an angel.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Buffy?”

Buffy almost cursed as she heard her mother descending the stairs. But Joyce was down before the Slayer could do anything about the vampire on the couch.

“Buffy, what’s…?” Joyce quickly stopped talking as she registered the scene before her. Surprise widened in her eyes. “Spike? Spike’s back in town?” she gasped.

“Talk about it,” Buffy muttered. “Being a pain in my…”

The look of surprise turned into one of injury. “But… he didn’t ring me!”

“What…?”

Buffy sat down in one of the armchairs, feeling her headache throb once again as she attempted to register the myriad of new information that had assaulted her so quickly in the last ten minutes. “What? Mum… did you say…?”

Joyce coloured. “What? I am allowed to keep my own acquaintances, Buffy. He’s a nice man, too.”

“He’s not a man, mum! He’s a vampire! You know… evil bloodsucking soulless demon?!”

“Now stop that,” Joyce scolded her daughter, who was gesticulating wildly. “You’ll wake him. Now get him his blanket, tuck him in, and then we should have a talk. In the kitchen.”

Almost sullenly, Buffy picked up the discarded blanket and walked over to the couch. Joyce watched with interest as she threw it haphazardly over him. It fluttered down to cover his face and leave his still-booted feet in the air. Despite herself, Buffy relented, dragging the blanket down and tucking the edge gently under his chin.

“Good,” Joyce muttered satisfactorily. “Now, we need to talk.”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Buffy looked rather ungraciously at the swirling cocoa she held in her hand. She watched her mother walk around the kitchen, smiling, half-talking to herself. “I’m glad I stocked up on the marshmallows.”

“Marshmallows?” Buffy asked, confused.

“The mini-marshmallows. Spike loves them.”

Buffy slammed her mug down, the remaining liquid sloshing over the rim and burning her. But she ignored it. “Okay, that does it! I want him out of my life, out of this town…”

“Buffy! Stop it! Honestly, you’re acting like a child.”

Joyce couldn’t help laughing over the incredibly sulky look Buffy gave her. “You are, you know.”

“Mum, he’s an evil, soulless demon!” she repeated again.

“And he also hasn’t hurt you lately, has he? Otherwise I would be hearing rants about how you were going to finally stake him.”

Buffy scowled. “The only reason he hasn’t is because of the chip.”

She sighed as she saw the questioning look on her mother’s face. Something in her wanted to keep her mother protected from all of this. But she knew now that Joyce was entitled to at least hear about her… contact. Buffy couldn’t bear to think of her mother and her ex-arch-nemesis as… friends. Quickly, she outlined all that had happened. Including, grudgingly, the times when Spike had helped them. Joyce listened patiently throughout, until she finished. Just before she was about to launch into a rant about Spike, she was stopped by the look in her mother’s eyes. Pity.

“So, what are you planning to do?”

“What am I planning to do? I’m planning to punch him until he wakes up, choke the information out of him, and then throw him out into the sunlight to burn.”

“Buffy!” Joyce gasped shocked.

Buffy grinned. “Don’t worry, Mum. I was joking.”

Joyce gave her ‘the look’.

“Fine,” Buffy admitted. “Maybe I’m not joking. I mean, the first two are perfectly reasonable, right? And the third one’s tempting…”

“Buffy, there will be no punching, choking, or throwing of guests out into the sunlight to burn in this house. Now you look tired, you should go back to sleep.”

“Oh, he’s a guest now? And you expect me to go back to sleep with him in the house? You’ve got to be kidding me! Besides, there’s a lot I have to do.”

“You only have afternoon classes today, though, don’t you?” Joyce asked, perplexed.

“Yes, I know,” Buffy sighed, frustrated. “But I have to meet up with Giles, Willow and Xander.”

“Oh, very well then.”

“Wait! I can’t leave you alone with him!”

“Buffy, I need to go to the gallery today, anyway.”

“Well I’m not leaving him in the house alone! He might trash it or something.”

Joyce was going to argue, but she could see her daughter was in full stubborn-Buffy mode. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she instead thought of a solution. “Fine then,” she sighed. “We’ll compromise. Why don’t you ring them and tell them to come here?”

“Okay,” she decided, her eyes clouding slightly as she remembered the reason behind their meeting, and the nagging feeling she’d had that had led to her calling it.

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There was a stony silence as the four of them surveyed each other. Buffy had closed the doors to the living-room, not wanting her friends to see the still sleeping vampire. As they stood in the dining room, discomfort hanging palpable in the air, Buffy broke the silence. She wished that someone else could have. That someone else could have just come to her and said that all was forgiven, and they could work together. But as always, it had to be her. She had to start somehow…

“Where’s Anya?” the words left her mouth before she could stop them.

Xander looked at her, coldness still in his gaze. “Despite all the fun we had last night, Anya decided not to show up.”

“And… and Tara didn’t feel welcome.”

Buffy had to stop herself from trying to flinch. It was time for her to get this over and done with. No more stalling. She addressed Willow first. It was almost automatic.

“Willow, who told you specifically that we were talking behind your back about you, Tara, and your magic?”

“Well it was horrible that you did,” Willow replied angrily. “I mean, I can do what I…”

“Willow!” Buffy tried desperately. “Please! Just tell me. Who told you?”

Willow grudgingly acquiesced, her nose crinkling slightly as she tried to remember. Her eyes remained stony when she finally replied. “Well, Spike, specifically.”

Buffy nodded grimly. It was just as she’d expected. Next, she turned to Xander.

“And you? Who told you that we thought you were useless and better off joining the army?”

“Well I knew you were thinking it,” Xander lashed back defensively. “You were all thinking it. Stupid Xander, who doesn’t go to college and can’t hold a job…”

“Xander! Just tell me! Who told you?”

Xander, too, had to stop and think. “Well, those weren’t exactly the words he said.”

Buffy could almost feel that slight tingle in her gut when she knew she had solved something. She felt a strange trickle of pride that was ridiculously out of place.

“And you? Giles? Who told you…?”

Buffy didn’t have to finish her question. Giles had caught on. “Well… I’m very stupid.”

“He’s been playing us,” Buffy explained. “He wanted to split us up.”

“So… that’s where all the stuff we said last night came from, right?”

“Of course,” Xander looked at them uncomfortably.

“I get it… but why?”

“You know, what I don’t get is that you actually listened to him,” Buffy commented, still irritated.

“Spike can be… quite convincing when he wants to be,” Giles tried lamely.

Willow almost immediately switched to apologizing mode. “Oh god, I’m sorry for the stuff I said last night, Buffy. I didn’t mean it, but I thought…”

“I think we all owe each other an apology,” Buffy grimaced. “We all said some pretty horrible things. And, I’m sorry. I hate that things have been strained between all of us.”

“It’s not your fault. Spike stirred up trouble. And I shouldn’t have listened to him. I mean Spike, of all people…”

“He’s not a person, he’s a thing,” Xander looked angry. “But yeah, I’m with you, Willow. We shouldn’t have believed him.”

“I guess I’ve got my own apologies to add,” Giles looked embarrassed.

Buffy shook her head. “It’s not your fault.”

“But he stirred up trouble so easily. It’s terrible that we all turned on you just because he said a few things.”

“I think that he stirred trouble up so easily because there was trouble to be stirred. We’ve all seemed to drift apart this year, guys. But I just want it to be like when we were in High School. You know… a tight group.”

“But you know, first year in college. It’s hard to keep the High School gig,” Willow tried to comfort her.

“But I want us to be close again. A tight group. I miss you, Will. And you, and you. I’m been so wrapped up in my own stuff this year, I’ve been a bad friend.”

“You’re the Slayer, Buffy. Your stuff is pretty crucial,” Xander laughed.

“No, I mean Riley,” Buffy blushed. “ And… Riley, mostly.”

“Well, I’ve been hiding stuff as well,” Willow confessed. “Keeping secrets.”

“Will, that’s not your fault. You were going through something huge.”

“I wanted to tell you, but I was scared,” Willow whispered contritely.

Buffy looked at her in horror. “Will, you can tell me anything!” she exclaimed with conviction. “I love you. You’re my best friend.”

“Me too, I love you too,” Willow smiled, finally, and they hugged each other. Before Xander or Giles had time to react, they were all being choked as an impromptu group hug took place.

Buffy grinned, headache and previous worries forgotten. “Let’s promise to never not talk again.”

“I promise,” they all echoed.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

When they all broke out of their embrace rather reluctantly, Willow looked thoughtful.. “Why would Spike go to the trouble of doing that, though?”

“He’s all dressed up with no one to bite,” Xander reasoned. “He’s got to get his yah-yahs somehow.”

“No. I think… no. I know that Spike’s working for Adam.”

“Spike’s working for Adam?” Xander exclaimed. “After all that we’ve done… nah. I can’t even act surprised!”

“Adam?” Giles asked, startled. “What makes you think that?”

“I found him wandering around in the caves below the Initiative. He kicked up a big fuss when I told him Adam was using them. Too big a fuss. And now this. Adam must be trying to split us up. We’re easier to take down that way. ”

“Well, why would Spike be working for Adam?”

“ ‘Cause he’s evil,” Xander groaned. “Come on, how many times did I tell you to just stake him?”

“Xander’s got a point, you know, Buffy. I know that you didn’t feel the need to stake him now that he’s been rendered, ah, harmless. But he’s shown now that he really isn’t.”

“I know what you mean, Giles. I probably should have, when I got the many chances to. Hell, I wish I had. We probably wouldn’t be in the trouble we are now,” she said bitterly.

“But?” Giles prompted, knowing there was always a ‘but’.

Buffy sighed for the umpteenth time that day. “He came to me today with some information. Important information. Made my headache worse by just being there.”

“Hang on a second, he came to you?! With some information? And now that we know he’s working for Adam, are you telling me he’s still breathing?”

Before anyone could correct him, he sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I know he doesn’t have to breathe. But you know what I mean!”

“Actually, he came saying that he had the inside scoop on Adam. With his information, we might be able to form a plan to defeat whatever he’s cooking up for us.”

“Already done, love.”

8 8 8

(Thank you to everyone that's reviewed! :) )

Chapter 4: Stress

I could tell she was wondering how long I’d been standing there by the doorway. Slayer must’ve been very preoccupied if she hadn’t sensed me. I smirked at her, and she shot a deadly look back at me.

Well, well, well… if looks were as sharp as stakes, I’d be dusted for certain. I was surprised, I’ll admit, when she stopped attempting to stake me with her eyes and actually scrutinized me. I didn’t really have any further time to think about it, though, when the Whelp rushed at me. What the…?

A part of me screamed at the foreign object lodged in my cranium that stopped me from blocking his attack. The rest of me took over and dodged like I used to. Hell, even though I wasn’t really expecting it, I was still fast enough. Angelus hadn’t meant to, but he’d trained me well. Pain, pain, and more pain made a good student.

The Whelp crashed into the wall behind me and crumpled to the ground, but he still got up again and rushed me again. Bloody hell, I swear that humans are not supposed to recover so damned quickly! But the Slayer was already there to stop him.

“Xander!”

He looked awfully surprised. I got to admit, I was too. Then again, I did have information… “Buffy, you just told us that he’s working for Adam. And you’re letting him live?”

Come on, did you expect me to let him make a mistake that I could correct? “Um, still dead, last time I checked.”

“Shut up!” he turned back to the Slayer. “Come on, let me stake him good and proper.”

Now that got me. I’d have liked to see the clumsy idiot try. “As if you could,” I scoffed.

“Shut up, Fangboy! I mean…”

Fangboy? Fangboy! I would’ve choked on that one if I was still alive. Who’d the Whelp think he was talking about?

“Xander, he’s got information. Valuable information,” the Watcher reminded him.

“Yeah,” I smirked, ducking behind the Slayer just in case the Whelp had a stake handy. “So you can’t kill me.”

This time all of the ruddy Scoobies glowered at me before they continued their little argument.

“Shut up!”

“Look, Xander, he’s just going to help us.”

Wow, I guess I should feel honoured, I thought sarcastically. The Slayer’s sticking up for me. Who’d have thought? Of course, the only reason she’s sticking up for me is because she needs me at the moment, but y’know…

“And how do you know this information?” the Whelp turned on me, ever doubting. “How do we know it’s real?”

“Because I can prove…”

Before I could finish, the Watcher cut me off. “That is a good question,” he looked at me, and I could almost feel those damned eyes staking me just like his Slayer had. Bloody hell, what was with these people and eye-staking? “How can we trust you? Especially after that little trick you pulled on us.”

“Look, you…”

“Yeah,” Red spoke up. “How are we supposed to listen to what you say now?”

“Well, you see…” I tried again, but this time it was the Slayer who interrupted me.

“She’s got a point,” the Slayer glared at me again. I was beginning to get awfully tired of that glare. “In case you haven’t noticed, Spike, you’re in a room with four people who can all very easily, and with great reason, kill you. Talk. Now. You’ve had your little sleep…”

“I would, but…”

“Whoah, hang on a second. He slept here!”

“Will you just…!” Okay, now I was getting really pissed off.

“It was my mum’s fault. He came in here and…”

I couldn’t keep it in any longer. Come on, who can blame a guy? I’d been standing there for the last five minutes, and none of them would let me talk!
“Bloody hell! Will you all shut up and listen to me!”

The Slayer glared at me again. I felt very, very tempted to tell her I could only take so many eye stakings. “Fine. Talk. Now.”

“Well I would, but all of you seem damned intent on cuttin’ me off every single time I start! So can I talk now!”

I received four bloody identical eye stakings. I wouldn’t even be normal dust at this rate. More like super concentrated molecules...

“Oh bloody hell,” I swore again. –Okay, have to calm down.-

”Adam came to me a couple of weeks ago and said he needed my help. He said that if I gave him what he wanted, he’d get this chip out of my cranium.”

“I knew it!” the Whelp cried. “You were planning to murder us all in our sleep!”

“Well, yeah?” Finally! It was my turn in this little game. I gave him a good one. “What of it? Hello? I’m evil, dammit! The Big Bad?”

Before he could reply, his last words hit me. Instantly, I felt wounded at his assumptions. “ ‘Sides, I wasn’t going to kill you in your sleep,” I snorted. “Would have been no fun.”

“Will you two get back on topic?” the Slayer demanded. “What did Adam want you to do?”

“You’ve already figured it out,” I pointed at her. “He wanted me to split you up, and get you where he wanted you to be when everything started. He also wanted me to give you those disks. Said that they would tell you what his plan was.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” the Watcher frowned. “Why would Adam want us to know his plan?”

“You’ll understand,” I said tiredly. Seemed like the little nap o’ mine had only taken the edge of my exhaustion. Stupid sleep. All I wanted to do was collapse on the spot and sleep for another century, but I knew that when I woke up, I’d either be dust or faced by a very brassed off Slayer. So I forced away the damned cloudy things that were beginning to cover my eyes. “Well, Red? Have they decrypted yet?”

“No… I haven’t had a look at them since this morning. I was still trying to figure it out. I think it has something to do with a hexagonic key code…”

“Whatever. It’s not important. It should be decrypting itself around…” I looked at my watch and grinned half-heartedly. “Now.”

“What do you mean?” the Whelp asked, puzzled. “What, is it programmed to self-decrypt?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying,” I rolled my eyes. Geez, did he need me to spell it out for him? “Do me a favour, Red, and set up your laptop.”

“How did you know I’ve got my laptop here?”

“I saw it outside in the hallway. Now will you just go and get it?” I never was that patient.

“Hang on a sec, Fangboy. We still haven’t cleared up why you’re helping us, when you so aptly pointed out before that you wanted to kill us.”

I felt all four pairs of eyes return to me accusingly. Bloody hell. I sighed, loudly, to portray my point. -I might as well…. Get the embarrassment over and done with.-

“I overheard some of his sidekicks talking,” I sniffed. I scowled at them as they appeared to fight the giggles. “What?” I demanded.

“You sound like Giles,” Red giggled.

I glared at her, and then continued. “Turns out that the walking Frankenstein was going to remove my chip… and my head along with it.”

The Slayer burst out laughing with the rest of them, and before I could stop myself, my insides twisted in hideous knots as I heard the familiar mocking tone in them. No-one seemed to notice when I shrunk back into a corner, automatically trying to hide. Over a century as one-fourth of the Scourge of Europe and what I suffered at the hands of Angelus would never erase that sickening, nauseous feeling that swamped me every time someone laughed at me like that. I'd gotten used to it with Angelus, Darla, and even my Dru, sometimes. My black goddess... even she'd laughed at me like that, sometimes. I consoled myself, thinking they were like that with everyone. Still hurt, though.

Actually, I was surprised I was reacting so badly to this. Normally, I threw back some cocky comment, smirked, or took out all of my hurt and anger on their dead body. Anything besides shrivelling up like I was now.

And I wasn't even capable of killing them all, now.All I could do was shrink in my corner, helpless, and wish that those glares everyone had been giving me had actually dusted me. I'm pathetic. Absolutely, utterly, pathetic. Make fun o' me, and if I care about your opinion, I'm dead. I'm deader than I already am. It just brings me right back to William, the Bloody Awful Poet.

I was surprised that I felt so strongly about the Scoobies' opinions. Who was I kidding? In fact, why was I reacting so badly? Big bad... big bad.. big bad... big bad... yeah, I was the big bad... big bad...

The words slowly brought me back to the reality. They were still laughing at me, but as I came back, the
Slayer broke off, and choked, “Poetic justice, anyone?” sending them all back into gales of laughter.

Later, I wondered why it was really so funny.

Anyway, those three simple words crushed me further into the dirt, just like three other words had crushed me a million times over my life and unlife. If it was possible, I felt even sicker. Eventually, the soddin' Scoobies’ laughter died down, and I finally registered that they were looking at me strangely, wondering what I was doing.

Somehow, I managed to speak, but the words came out more as a funny growl. “Not funny, Slayer.”

“Oh, I’m finding it rather amusing, Anyone else?”

I swallowed, and then forced an irritated look onto my face. “Look, we can play Laugh-at-Spike later, okay? Red, can you show them?”

“Sure thing,” she already had the laptop set up and on the table. I wasn’t the only one waiting impatiently as she typed in her password. I just wanted anything to distract me now from the mocking laughter still ringing in my ears. When she finally opened up the document, it was in the process of decrypting itself. She uttered an indignant snort.

“That is so not fair! I had it, I really did. It’s… it’s like when you’ve got the answer to a riddle or something, and someone just blurts it out!”

I wasn’t the only one who glanced at her, and she blushed slightly. She looked kinda cute when she did that… “I mean… Yippee! We’ve got the information.”

The Slayer was already scanning the document though. “Well… it says a bunch of stuff about 314 that we already knew, but also something about…”

“A Final Phase,” Red finished for her. “Something about Adam creating a race of cyber-demonoids. And a secret lab inside the Initiative. It doesn’t say where, though.”

Questioningly, they looked at me. I nodded. The feeling that I was going to vomit had already started to ebb away.

“Yeah. You probably don’t know much about it, but the Initiative’s overflowing. They’ve got three demons to a cell.”

“No, I’ve noticed it,” the Slayer replied, her eyes still scanning the screen. “Not as many nasty things I’ve had to kill while out on patrol. Riley told me the containment cells were flooded as well. Man, I’ve got to give this demon his do. He really thought this one out.”

“What do you mean?”

I answered. “Think about all those nice… what do you call them?” –Good old mental blanks…- “Ah, yes. Think about all those nice commando people runnin’ around in there. And the Demons. What if they could attack from the inside? What do you get, then, when you have ‘em all together?”

“Demons versus Soldiers,” the Whelp realized. “Massacre, massacre.”

“And a nice pile of body parts for Adam to use,” Red commented.

“Hit the nail on the head, you two.”

“Diabolical, and yet, really gross.”

“Does anyone else miss the Mayor?” the Whelp asked. “ ‘I just want to be a big snake’ ?”

“What’s this about a big snake?” I asked, interested. As usual, they ignored me when I wasn’t spouting out information or trying to kill them. Or just annoying the hell out of them…

“But I still don’t get why he would want Buffy to know,” the Watcher was squinting at the computer. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh, it makes perfect sense, Watcher,” I disagreed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he queried.

The Slayer cut me off before I could answer. “He wants me to know about his bad guy assembly line. He obviously wants me to go down there into the battlefield and stop it. Add the Slayer into Spike’s little equation. A lot more dead people and demons and body parts. Plus some choice body parts of my own… God, do you know how ewww that is?”

“It could be just me, but I don’t think hybrid Frankenstein guy is really going to care about the ‘ewww’ factor.”

“Stating the obvious much, Whelp?” I muttered.

“Shut up, Fangboy. But seriously, isn’t he worried that Buffy might kill, say, him?”

“No,” the Slayer murmured. “He’s really not.”

“Obviously,” I snorted. “He is one hell of a powerful guy, you know.”

“Shut up, Fangboy.”

“Oh come on, have a bit of originality, Whelp,” I prodded him, smirking. Well, well, I was feeling better already. “That’s exactly what you said two seconds ago.”

“Fine. Shut up, Deadboy Junior.”

-Deadboy Junior? Deadboy Junior! Deadboy? The Poof- “Hey, I am not…”

“Honestly, people, you’re all acting like children.”

I glared incredulously at the Watcher. Humph, glares all round today. I could tell he was trying not to smile, and ‘cos he was British, he was doing a fairly good job. “Yes, you included for all that you’re a century older than most of us. Buffy said something about a plan, and you said you had one. Would you care to enlighten us?”

I took a deep breath. This was it. If they didn’t like what me and my brain had concocted, I’d probably be dust. “Right. Sure. Got it. Let’s sit down.”

The things in my stomach weren’t butterflies. Really they weren’t. Big Bads didn’t have butterflies in their undead stomachs. They had… I dunno, actually.
They sat, rather warily, I noticed, but I didn’t. Instead, I paced around with characteristic energy overload. I had an incredible itching to go out and kill something to calm myself down.

Despite the blood the Slayer had brought me, my demon was itching for more. I ground my teeth and dug my nails into my skin. As the blood welled up, I could feel it retreat, mollified only for the moment.
I could feel their eyes watching me again, all gradually becoming annoyed.

Just before the Slayer opened her mouth, probably to demand answers, I found my voice and started spewing out words so fast they probably could barely understand me.

“Look, I know that you’re not going to like this, but the only way Adam is going to start his plan is if he sees the Slayer in there. Otherwise he’s just going to sit tight and wait until she comes. He’s bloody stubborn like that, you know.”

“Sounds like a certain peroxided vamp who happens to be standing right in front of us,” the Whelp muttered.

“Shut up, Whelp. I know you’re not going to like this, but Slayer, you’re going to have to go in.”

Even as the Watcher, Red, and the Whelp started protesting, I was surprised to see that she was nodding her head. “I thought as much. He seems to have a rather one-tracked mind, sometimes.”

“Talk about it,” I scowled. “Anyway, Red, here’s another disk for you to shove in your lil’ comp.”

She eyed it suspiciously, then replaced the other one. “What’s in it?” she asked as she opened it.

“The stuff I got when I hacked into the Initiative,” I explained, proudly. As a minor hacker, I hadn’t thought that I’d be able to do it. Took me long enough, though.As top secret as the Initiative was, they'd left a couple of loopholes... because they'd tried to protect it too much. Ironic, eh? “There’s a plan.”

The blueprint of the thing flashed up onto her screen, and I took a brief second to marvel at the resolution before moving on to what I was going to explain. “ ‘Kay, d’you see the electrical conduits?”

“Yep,” they all chorused. Except for the Watcher, of course.

I stabbed my finger at the ones that I’d studied. “See these? They look like they’re headed to nowhere. A place right behind 314. I’m bettin’ you all the smokes in the world that that’s the secret lab. Adam’s lab. The one for the Final Phase. That’s where he’s gonna be. Incidentally, that’s where dear Captain Cardboard is, too.”

I immediately regretted that last sentence when the Slayer slammed me up against the closest wall available. “What!” she demanded, shaking me. Damn, her little hands were strong. “Riley’s in there!”

“Calm down, Slayer,” I half-choked. “Adam’s not going to kill him.”

She released me, and I spent a couple of moments rubbing my throat and gasping for no apparent reason. Habit, I guess. “Bloody hell, Slayer! If you want me to talk, you’re gonna have to stop trying to kill me.”

She looked at me, her face unreadable. I was almost glad. If her face hadn’t been, I knew the look of absolute contempt that would’ve been on them. I knew it intimately. “If I wanted to dust you, you’d already be dusted.”

“He’s right, you know,” the Watcher coughed slightly, as if he was ashamed about sticking up for me. Again, I was surprised, until I heard his next sentence. “If we’re going to get information out of him, you’re going to have to restrain yourself.”

I sneered bitterly, surprising myself. Why should I care, after all? But then, it hurt if someone thought you were nothing. No matter who they were. “Thanks, Watcher,” I said sarcastically. “As I was saying, that’s his base where he makes all his lil’ demon/human guys. If he’s not there, he’s going to be in the caves at the back. They join.”

“So how are we going to get in there?”

I eyed her with a steady look. “Now, don’t stake me when I say this, Slayer. I’ve got the plan to get in. It’s not nice and safe and cosy, but I think it’ll work. The only thing I don’t have, though, is how you’re all going to kill Adam. You’re gonna have to work that out yourselves.”

She returned the stare. “Okay. We got it. Tell us your plan.”

I breathed deeply. Good. Very good. It was going good. They hadn’t staked me yet. One whole world of good. Oh bloody hell. I was talkin' like them already.

I quickly outlined the plan, finishing by reminding them that they still had to come up with something to beat Adam. I think I even surprised myself at that. Well, today was full of surprises.

If you’d told me a week ago that I’d band with the Slayer against my hope of salvation, I’d have laughed in your face, and if I’d been chipless, I’d have decapitated you. Probably played with your guts as well, before snacking. Just for the Big Bad image, of course. I'd make sure you were dead, first. I only do that kinda stuff when Angelus or Dru are around. Really. Seriously. You don't believe me? You just want me to get on with it?

Fine.

Anyway...but now? Not only was I doing that, I’d actually formulated a plan that didn’t seem as half-witted as my normal ones that even I had to admit didn’t generally work. And hacked into the government. And I never remembered having ever spoken so much. Surprisingly –that word was cropping up a lot- I almost felt… comfortable. Despite the bout of laughing previously. I knew my place here. And I knew them. And I knew that they would kill me if they had the chance. Yet I still felt comfortable.

Weird.

I was shaken by my thoughts as the Whelp looked strangely at me. He wasn’t the only one. I felt like a zoo exhibit.

“What?” I demanded, getting twitchy.

The Watcher looked at me speculatively. “Tell me again, Spike, why you are helping us? And why I, for one, am actually beginning to trust you?”

I smirked, but then I suddenly saw the stake in his hand.

Chapter 5: Let the Games Begin

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Cassandra lay in the hospitable bed, thinking again how utterly ridiculous the last week had been. They had actually caught the gangsters who were being tried for assault, but the thing that amazed her more than them being beaten up was the fact that she had stood up for Mia and Bryan.

They were enemies. Something was wrong here. Enemies do not stand up for enemies. Friends, yes. But not enemies.

Riiight…

Even more hideously ironic was the fact that neither Brian nor Mia had actually gotten really hurt, and they were the ones who’d started it off in the first place. Of course, they had suffered heavy bruising and a few minor broken bones, but as she remembered Daniel’s injuries, she winced. His femur had been broken in three different places. That was just… nasty.

Turned out that their attackers had been drunk. Alcohol, testosterone, muscle, and a sadistic nature really didn’t go well together.

She shifted, and winced as her own broken ribs exploded with pain. At least they were getting time off school. But it seemed so unreal. They’d heard of that particular gang and the beatings they dealt out to those who crossed them, but she’d never expected it to happen to her. She’d always thought the stories had been hyped up, as they had never been arrested, or even complained about to the police. They had confirmed her suspicions. It seemed that the leader had had a very bad day, a money deal with a rival gang leaving him with a substantial loss. They’d gotten drunk, and then they’d taken out the frustration on them.

Her parents would have killed her for getting into that situation if they’d cared, she thought bitterly. No, the only thing she was worrying about was money. The hospital bills were a problem. And another problem…
Guilt washed over her as she thought of Daniel again. It had been her fault. If only she hadn’t stepped in…
But then, Mia and Bryan would have had these injuries. Of course, she’d have preferred it if Daniel had remained unhurt, but it seemed that she couldn’t win, either way.

Sighing, she lay down again, thanking God that at least her legs weren’t broken like Daniel’s. Her arm had been snapped like a toothpick in the first assault. Everything was very bad, painful, and as she’d thought before, highly unrealistic. A few bruises she could understand, but why the gang had a penchant for breaking bones, she had no idea…

Cassandra only noticed the strange dizziness when the world swirled around her, and then turned entirely black.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Even I was surprised, I’ll admit, when Giles pulled out the finely honed stake. I was concentrating more on thinking about the seemingly half-baked plan that Spike had thrown together, and then realizing that it actually might work. Spike almost leapt backwards at the sight, and I moved to stop Giles. But then he started speaking again, and I fell back.

“Spike, this is your last chance. If you are lying to us, I’m offering you a quick death now. And if I find out that you’ve betrayed us again, I can almost guarantee you’ll wish that you’d taken it.”

A hint of the Ripper flashed in his eyes, and I could see that the vamp believed him. I half-expected him to admit that yes, he had betrayed us. But the sincerity with which he’d gestured, and babbled, and prodded at Willow’s computer kinda convinced me. Maybe I was just too gullible. And… damn, how did Giles manage to sound so Rippery, yet still so… British?

“I can assure you, Watcher, I’m not lying. Now put that thing away before someone gets hurt.”

“Tell us why you’re helping us then.”

Spike looked exasperated. “Oh bloody hell. I already told you. It’s because Adam was going to double-cross me,” his eyes flashed golden for a split second. “And I really hate it when people double-cross me. I’d also like to keep my head, thank-you very much.”

“What makes you think that we won’t take it off for you after this?” Xander asked. Typical Xander…

Spike smirked at him. “I’m not stupid,” he turned around to face me. “Slayer, unless you promise not to stake me or get in my way, I’m not helping you.”

“Haven’t I already made a similar promise?” I asked, slightly irritated.

“Making sure,” he shrugged implacably, that irritating smirk decorating his face. “I’m not going through all of this just so you can stake me afterwards.”

“We wouldn’t do that,” Willow started to reassure him. At my glare, she quickly back-pedalled. “Okay, maybe we would.”

“Well? Do you promise?”

I was tempted for a second to tell him we didn’t need his help and stake him, but I quickly suppressed it. In this fight against Adam, we needed all the help we could get. Grudgingly, I nodded. “Promise.”

He visibly relaxed. The tension that had filled him ever since he first came here slowly drained away, and he actually let out an audible sigh of relief. “Good. Okay, now you guys think up a way to kill Adam. I’ve done my bit.”

With that, he collapsed in a chair, and looked expectantly at us, waiting.

“Well then,” Giles started. “Let’s get on to Adam. How do we kill him?”

The answer came automatically to me. “Uranium-Cornium, his power source. We’ve got to remove it. It’s somewhere in his chest, near his spine, according to Riley.”

“Oh that’s great,” Xander threw up his hands. “Why don’t we get him to lie down so we can do some exploratory surgery?

“Well, what about magic?” Willow chimed in. “Some kind of uranium extractor?”

We all looked at her. She blushed. “Okay, well, I was trying…”

Giles broke the silence like he usually did. His glasses wobbled on his nose as he held up his finger triumphantly. “A paralysis spell!”

“Yay!” Xander exclaimed. “Now how do we work it?”
Giles flicked through the books on his shelves, until he found the one he was looking for. He thumbed through the pages until he found it, and then he frowned.

“Uh oh,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

Giles didn’t even look up as he continued frowning his very, very, British frown. “The problem is that the caster must be an experienced witch… within striking range… and the spell is in Sumerian...”

“And this is what you get when you take French in High School instead of Sumerian,” Xander joked.

“Geez, what was I thinking?” I laughed.

“So, no problem, then,” Xander reasoned. “All we need is combo-Buffy! Buffy with the Slayer strength, Giles’ multi-lingual know-how, and Willow’s witchy power. And me, of course, to hold all of ya together.”

We gave him the same look we’d given Willow, only this time, we didn’t have arched eyebrows. He mistook it anyway. “Yeah, don’t tell me, I know I’m full of helpful suggestions,” he grumbled sarcastically.

Giles pushed his glasses up. “As a matter of fact, you are.”

I smiled, and then I saw Spike studying me through half-lidded eyes. “What?”

He looked at me, matching my grin. “Well, when are we gonna get this show on the road?”

“Giles?”

Giles and Willow sat, poring over the book. At our question, they looked up briefly.

“Tonight.”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Nervous?” Willow asked Xander, fidgeting slightly herself. Anyone could see that she felt uncertain.
.
“No, I’m just full of that Kamikaze spirit,” Xander replied.

“Hey, I’m going to be here watching your back, you know,” Spike grinned cockily.

“Yeah. I’m sooo grateful for that,” Xander sniped back.

“Now now, Xander. Just because this is going to fail doesn’t mean we have to be so negative,” Giles commented as they finally reached the place they were going to split up.

“The enjoining spell isn’t powerful enough to take down Adam?” Buffy asked worriedly.

“Oh, it’s very powerful. And also extremely dangerous.”

They paused outside the caves, and then Spike nodded at Buffy. “Here’s where you leave us, Slayer. Get your abseiling stuff ready and get to the frat house. We’ll be in place in ten minutes, so I suggest you hurry.”

“No problem to it,” Buffy grinned. Then her face dropped, suddenly, as if in realization. Glancing at Willow, she nodded, slightly. Before Xander knew it, he was being hugged on both sides by both the redhead and the blonde.

“Xander, you know we love you, right?” Buffy asked, her eyes wide and shining.

“ ‘Cause we totally do,” Willow declared, hugging him to her even tighter.

Xander looked from one to the other, and Spike was pleased to note that a growing horror seemed to encompass him. “Oh God, we’re all going to die, aren’t we?”

“No, we just missed you.” Buffy hugged him again, and then reluctantly released him, only to turn on Giles.
“And you know, we… we love you too, right, Giles?”
Giles smiled down fondly at his Slayer and Willow, stroking their hair, even as a part of him was supremely shocked by such an open display of affection. “I know, Buffy, Willow. And I…”

He cleared his throat, but couldn’t seem to say it. Instead, he felt piercingly blue eyes bore through his back, and a exasperated sigh. Disgusted, he sighed, disentangled himself, and turned to look at his fellow, albeit dead, Englishman. “What is it?” he snapped.

“You lot make me sick,” Spike shot back. “Are you always with the huggin’ and oohin’ and ahhin’ before a fight? If I’d known, I would’ve ambushed you lot and you’d never have known it.”

“Shut up, Captain Peroxide,” Xander summed up succinctly. “Let’s go now, anyway. Before I stake him.”

“You’re right,” Willow said, shaking her head. “Okay, um… I guess we should get into our positions?”

“Yes, we should get ready,” Giles agreed. “Up to a quick run, Buffy?”

Buffy nodded, and sprinted away. “I’ll meet you in 314,” she called back over her shoulder.

Spike watched her run off, and then began leading the three others to where they had to be. He had examined the map of the Initiative extensively in those three days, but he’d also done some snooping around himself. No-one would find them, where they were. They’d be safe. It was almost as if Maggie Walsh had deliberately kept the small room adjoining 314 secret and sewer connections running underneath it for him.
As he lost sight of the last glimpse of gold, he felt his unbeating heart jump, and a cocky smile lit his face.
Let the games begin.

8 8 8

I still actually don’t understand what had happened to me during those days I’d spent huddled in my crypt, planning. I've never really planned that much, you know.Just jumped in, with a 'what the hell' kinda thing. I've never needed to plan. I just feel the thrill of the fight,whether I win or lose, it doesn't matter. Of course, I generally win. That's why I'm standin' here right now. But I've never really planned.

Think the only reason I did it this time was 'cos I knew if I didn't, I'd have a stake in my heart, and this time, I couldn't fight back. So, during those days,I think something just jumped on me, tackled me when I wasn’t looking. Damned unsporting, if you ask me. If you’re going to attack someone, you should at least give ‘em a fair warning so it’s a fair fight. I’ve got some sense of honour. Sure, I know I said I’d ambush them if I ever caught ‘em unawares and hugging, but d’you think I’d actually do it? There’s quite a lot of differences between what I say and what I do, you know.

Oh, you didn’t? Well then you’d better just wise up, then.

Anyway, I reckon I was so deep in concentrating on hacking into the Initiative that my demon and whatever had a little tussle while I wasn’t aware of ‘em. Giles calls it my heart. I call it ‘that stupid prick’ or ‘bloody conscience’, depending what mood I’m in. Sure, you lot can all yabber on about a soul being a bloody conscience, but I don’t think so. Remember? Soulless evil demon? D’you really think Angelus could turn into the great Poof if you just added a conscience?

A soul’s something deeper. Stronger. Sometimes it seems close, sometimes it doesn’t, no matter what you have. It’s something that’s so powerful, it’s hard to explain. It’s something that all the scientists and philosophers in the world can work on, but never will be able to categorize and file neatly away on their stupid bloody clipboards. They can make their theories, and if they want, they can do little experiments, but they’ll never get it exactly right.

Because it’s not meant to be gotten exactly right. It’s just supposed to be, without getting analysed and all.

Bloody hell, I’m soundin’ like the Poof himself. That’s it. I’m done for this session. Stupid prick! Talkin’ so nice and sweet just to know how this Big Bad ticks. You… you… stupid prick!

What, you’re insulted? Oh… you already know bits of the story? Pfeh, you don’t know half of it… wait… you’re actually tryin’ to help me? By writin’ all of this down? You’ve got to be kidding me!

Fine, fine, fine. Come tomorrow. And if I’m drinking, leave.

A/N (Thanks to anyone who’s actually reading this : ) I’m honoured. Please, Reviews! They make me write faster, and do a world of good to my sagging ego : ). I hope you enjoy this part. Thanks!)

Okay, Enjoy!

8 8 8

Hugged by his leather duster, Spike was proving he was a brilliant actor. Kicking his legs nonchalantly as he sat on the small table, he betrayed none of the roiling fear… no, not fear, he chided himself, nervousness. Yeah, just nervousness. After all, if Adam realized that he had been betrayed, Spike didn’t doubt at all that the torture Adam would inflict on him before staking him would surpass what the Initiative had done.

-And that’s bloody ironic, innit? Considerin’ Adam really is part of the Initiative… or used to be.-

The bleached blonde kept his eyes firmly trained upon the screen still showing the empty corridor, just like Adam. To his calculations, Buffy should be appearing right about…

“Well, this is must see T.V,” Spike smirked, unnecessarily pointing at the image of Buffy, accompanied by a large group of soldiers, walking down the corridor. “Look, there’s the Slayer. Now, I believe we have one chip to be out?”

“She’s alone,” Adam said satisfactorily, ignoring him. He silently perused the situation for a few more seconds, and then smiled. “Very well. Forrest?”

The human/demon hybrid stepped up, and grabbed Spike. If his heart was still beating, it would have been thumping impossibly fast. Possibilities whirled through his mind as he wondered what was going to happen next.

“… I will honour our agreement and remove your chip.”
Spike stared at him in amazement, wondering if teaming up with the Slayer had been a bad idea. But as soon as he saw the glint in Adam’s eyes, he knew he hadn’t.

“Take his head off.”

Forrest grinned viciously, slamming Spike against the computers, but he was prepared. He brought his right hand up, which had hidden his lighter, and Forrest reeled back, screaming as his eye was engulfed.

Freed from his grasp for a moment, Spike elbowed Forrest in the solar plexus and raced off to his next spot. Forrest started afterwards, but Adam just smiled.
“Leave him, there’s nowhere to run.”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Colonel,” Buffy tried, but she was cut off.

“You have some nerve, lady, waltzing into a government institution bearing weapons…”

Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes. “You haven’t checked me yet? Unarmed. And I’m trying to warn you. Adam is here, Colonel. In the Initiative.”

“Nice try,” he sneered arrogantly. “Every inch of this place is under surveillance. A tick or a mouse couldn’t come in here without us knowing it!”

“Including the secret lab?” Buffy asked innocently.

“Including everything!” he barked.

There was a silence as the Colonel stared at her for a while, then. She had to resist smirking at him as he looked around at all the soldiers surrounding them, and then back to her. “What secret lab?”

“The one that Adam’s been using,” she explained. “The one built for the final phase of the 314 project.”

At the blank look in the Colonel’s eyes, Buffy rolled hers again. “And you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“I know everything that goes on in here,” he declared rigidly.

“Oh really? Well, how do you plan to get close enough to Adam to grab his power source?”

He glared at her, pausing for a little while before answering. “Hit him simultaneously with multiple taser blasts, and incapacitate him.”

“Well, that’s right up there with duck and run,” Buffy snorted. “I’ve seen Adam hit by taser blasts. He feeds on it. So now you’re going to provide him with an all you can eat buffet?”

“You have some nerve telling me about my business…”

At that Buffy snapped. She’d put up with this arrogant, ignorant idiot for too long. “Your business? This isn’t your business, it’s my business! You, the Initiative, the boys at the Pentagon, you are in way over your heads! Messing with primeval forces you have absolutely no comprehension of!”

“And I suppose you do?” he sneered.

“I’m the Slayer,” she stated fiercely, feeling a strange sense of pride surge through her as she made her stand. “You’re playing on my turf.”

The Colonel stared at the five foot, three inch blonde Slayer. He wasn’t the only one who had suddenly felt power radiating off her in waves. Composing himself, he snarked back. “Up there, maybe. But down here? I’m in control.”

Ironically, at that exact moment, the lights went out, and the alarm fired.

“Colonel! All power is down! The Hostiles have escaped!”

Buffy merely leaned on the wall and watched, casually as the suddenly ashen man moved to the computers. “How many!”

The soldier gulped. “All of them, sir.”

“Colonel, it’s Adam. Get your men out of here, and let me go,” Buffy lost all of her nonchalance as easily as if a mask had dropped from her. “I’m the only one who can stop him!”

He glared at her again, ignorance and arrogance getting the better of him. “Alright men, hit the armoury. You, guard her. This girl is under arrest, understand? Everyone, follow me.”

Buffy rolled her eyes as the Colonel ordered the one paltry soldier to guard her. As soon as the rest were out of earshot, she quickly turned on him. Smiling as she felt the adrenaline rushing. Everything was dark, none of the doors were locked except for the ones to the outside, and there was a big, bad, demon ass that she needed to kick. Despite the warnings of the apocalypse that would come if she failed, Buffy was ready.

“Nice speech, Slayer.”

Even Spike’s presence wasn’t enough to bring her mood down, but now she moved into Slayer-mode, grinning wickedly. “Are we all set?”

“All pumped and ready to go,” he smirked. “Come with me.”

She rolled her eyes again, and followed him through the strange near-darkness of the Initiative corridors. Presently, they heard loud cries and screams, and a light ahead grew steadily brighter.

“I thought all the electricity was out,” Buffy whispered.

Spike scanned the far room with his vampiric eyesight. “I think good old Frankenstein thought that battles in the light would even out the kills… what with most demons naturally being able to see in the dark and all.”

“It’d figure,” Buffy frowned, but then the same grin was back in place. “Ready, Spike?”

“I’m always ready, Slayer.”

They leapt into the crowded room, battle-cries sounding in their throats. For Spike, he felt the fierce surge of joy as he waded through demons, unconsciously saving humans as he went. Bones snapped, muscles tore. With a savage scream of primeval rage, he separated a demon’s head from his body, all at once.

But the chipped vampire wasn’t the only one cutting a swathe of destruction. Buffy kept her wicked grin firmly plastered in place, moving like an acrobat as she went. As she felt the near hysterical laughter bubble out of her, she felt the selfsame fierce urge from deep within, and she gave into it. Spike’s scream mixed with her laughter as they each ripped apart their foes simultaneously.

If the soldiers of the Initiative weren’t so well trained, they would have stared, fixated, on the pair that were wreaking bloody devastation upon the demons they were fighting. Some, however, took the time to gape disbelieving at the raw strength and violence that seemed to crackle in energy waves around the two.
Buffy felt a pure force inside her that threatened to overwhelm her. It was…

Primeval.

888

Images swirled past her, but try though she might, when she tried to focus on them, they melted away from her. Ineffectively, she grasped for them, but they slipped through ethereal fingertips. Where was she?
Another figure, another image. A snake, rearing up as if to strike, but then it faded away again before she tried to determine the details.

And then another. Someone was screaming…

And then another. It was a glowing golden orb, glimmering like there was a soft internal fire inside. Inside, there were even more images, flowing together almost seamlessly…

And then something crashed inside her mind. The utterly horrific image of something so inexplicably, unexplainably, evil, that it sent her reeling. She crashed to nonexistent knees in this place as waves of nausea overcame her.

“Stop!” she forced out, hoarsely.

Instantly, everything slowed as if the images had been liquid that had instantly turned to ice. Shakily, she stood, and wondered if, in this place, she could retch.

“Okay,” she rasped. “What the hell am I doing here?”

A ghostly figure immediately appeared by her side.

Looking up through half-swollen eyes, she vaguely noted that he… she… it… seemed to be genderless. Clad in a long white robe, he/she/it merely looked down on her, and smiled.

“What is this?”

“This? It is an extension of your mind, only. It’s what you want it to be.”

“Okay,” she nodded slowly. “That makes some sense. But why am I here?”

“Magic shrouds you. Magic engulfs you. Magic flows through you. You’re surrounded by it, and it’s suffocating you.”

“Magic? You’ve got to be kidding me. Magic doesn’t exist.”

The he/she/it… being, she finally decided, just looked at her. “You know better than that.”

“No I don’t,” she retorted. “And what do you mean, anyway?”

“I mean what I mean. You’ve been cursed.”

“Cursed? There’s no such thing…”

“Where does your poetry flow from?” the being interrupted her impatiently. “Where does life come from? Where do paintings and art come from? Where does music come from?”

“I don’t know… inspiration?”

“Magic. Even in your dimension, it is powerful. It’s just that the vast majority of your race has failed to reach it.”

“My dimension?”

“Yes… soon, it will no longer be your dimension, however.”

The next words that burst out of her mouth surprised her. “Where’s Daniel?”

The mist that surrounded them parted, and Daniel, as ethereal as her, appeared. “What’s going on?” he asked calmly.

“What’s going on?” Cassandra asked in disbelief, still frozen in her shocked, bewildered state. “Is that all you can say?”

Daniel wanted to chuckle, but he decided not to.

Cassandra didn’t usually get flustered… okay, perhaps she did. But whenever she did, she was quite… funny…

“Now that the both of you are here, we may begin… begin… begin… begin…”

Cassandra and Daniel both turned to where the being had been, but he/she/it was gone, leaving in its place only an echo…

8 8 8

Hope you enjoyed :D.

Chapter 7: The Joining

8 8 8

Buffy snapped out of her homicidal rage with a gasp, noticing Spike’s unneeded inhalation next to her as they fought. Their eyes met, and then together, they looked at the huge fight that was still erupting around them. No… it couldn’t even be called a fight. It was an outright massacre. Something was…

“Something’s wrong, Slayer!” Spike yelled over the screaming. “That’s never happened to me before, and I’d wager it’s never happened to you either. ”

“Whatever happened, we have to get to 314 now!”

“I’m with you on that one,” Spike grumbled.

Scanning the room together, crouched down behind an army vehicle, Buffy swore. This room was larger than she’d remembered it. There was still a hundred metre stretch to go until the door, the red light above it seeming to almost mock them as they glared at it.

They’d only managed to reach halfway across the room before, in the strange killing craze…

What was with that, anyway?-

Spike’s voice drew her from her thoughts. “Slayer, we’re gonna have to make a run for it. Without being affected by whatever it was back there. Otherwise, we’re gonna stand a very small chance about making it to the other side.”

“Ready when you are,” Buffy replied.

Spike merely raised his scarred eyebrow, and repeated what he’d said to her previously.

“I’m always ready, Slayer.”

They took a deep, (for one, unneeded) breath, and then burst out of cover.

A raging Fyarl demon ran at her first, and she fended it off with expert precision. There was a small twist in her, as she smilingly remembered when Giles had transformed into one, courtesy of a small spell performed by his old friend, Ethan Rayne.

But this was not Giles. This was a demon, almost drowning in the primeval energy that seemed to be encompassing them all. And though she felt something within her twitch as it stirred from sleep again, she fought it down. No time… no time…

“Slayer, duck!”

She heard his voice, but she didn’t understand. The Fyarl demon had just toppled at her feet, so what was wrong? She'd already seen the next demon moving towards her, and she was moving to intercept it...

Spike roared suddenly, and before she could stop him, he was upon her, throwing her to the ground with a cry. Quickly, her mind flashed images at him. –The chip… it’s out… he’s gonna… that bastard! He betrayed us and…-

She bucked under him, surprised when he actually went flying. He cursed, holding his head. In the midst of the gunfire, she hauled him up, and was about to punch him, when she realized two things. One, he was crying blood from the chip’s explosion. Two, the leather duster he was wearing was wet with yet more viscous liquid, freshly sliding down the material. And she knew it wasn’t from the demons he’d been fighting when she found the wounds.

“What…?”

Spike groaned, and wavered, but still stubbornly kept his feet. “You silly bint!” he half-yelled. “Didn’t you see that stupid soldier-boy…?”

“You…”

In amazement, she realized what had happened, and the anger seeped from her, to be replaced by pure astonishment. “Can you walk?” sheasked.

Spike eyed the flashing 314 door, and winced, and for a flash, she could swear she saw his face crease in pain. Not physical pain, but something else. Then the mask was back again, and he was grinning cockily.

“Of course, Slayer,” he smirked. “A couple of soddin’ bullets can’t take me down. Don’t insult me.”

"Why?"

It was then that he finally noticed the bewilderment and suspicion in her eyes. Knowing the wrong words could get him staked, he wet his lips unconsciously, and tried to think. “Uh… Slayer?”

"Why the hell did you just save me when you've been trying to kill me for the last two years?"

Spike looked pointedly around them. “Let’s just kick Adam’s ass, Slayer,” Spike groaned. “We can talk about this later.”

He wasn't surprised when she shook her head stubbornly. "I'm not about to trust you with all of our lives without knowing what exactly your intentions are. Now why did you pull that little stunt?"

"Because you're my ally," Spike replied bluntly. "Now let's go, Slayer!"

Grudgingly she complied. “We need to have a talk later. But right now... we need to run to 314.”
He grimaced. “Got it.”

With practiced grace, the two hunters ran from cover, gunfire blazing around them. The same energy tried to envelope them again, but this time it was their own beating it back, resisting the urge to fall into mindless violence. Fire flamed all around them, electricity spasmed the air between them as tasers targeted demons, rendering them incapacitated. The two blondes seemed to have a fiery halo decorating them as they finally reached the already bloodstained door, smashed the last demon away from it, and quickly closed and barricaded it.

Giles, Willow, and Xander were already waiting, and they all inhaled sharply at the sight of blood staining Buffy’s white shirt from when Spike had been almost forced to half-lean on her. “Buffy, are you okay?”

“It’s Spike’s,” Buffy replied. “He took a bullet for me.”

“What?” Xander gaped. “Hang on a second, this is Deadboy Junior we’re talking about…”

“We don’t have time for this!” Spike snarled, one hand still clasped to his side, stained red with mixed blood. “If you’re gonna save the ruddy soldier-boys, we’re gonna have to get started!”

“Since when did you care?” Xander demanded.

“Since Frankenstein decided to kill me,” Spike shot back bluntly. “Betrayal sucks, did you know that, Whelp? So I’m planning on squeezing every drop of satisfaction I can from seeing his face when this is over. Now let’s get going!”

“As childish as his reasons are, he’s right,” Giles glanced towards Buffy.

“I know. The passage should be…” Buffy scanned the room, and noticed a small crack in one of the corners. She and Willow moved immediately to it, shoving the strange contraption that blocked them from accessing the Secret Lab out of the way. She tested the corner, and opened it. It moved sluggishly but smoothly, almost blinding them as bright light poured into the darkened room. Buffy looked back at the four faces behind her, silhouetted. Half in the light and half in the darkness.

Just like her…

“Is this place okay to be Magic Central?”

“It should do,” Giles looked through the window at where the demons and soldiers were still battling it out. “It’s probably the calmest place anywhere.”

“Good,” Buffy looked at them all. “Now I want you guys to seal the door behind me when I’m gone. Giles, how long until the spell kicks in?”

“About five minutes.”

“I’ll have to move fast then…”

Buffy turned to go, but Xander stopped her, worry creeping into his brown eyes.

“Buffy, I still don’t like you going in alone.”

The only answer she gave him was one of her rare, enchantingly beautiful smiles.

“I won’t be.”

And then she was gone. They sealed the door behind her, and went to work.

888

“Begin… begin… begin…

You have been chosen,
Before the death of Time,
To follow the path,
And teach with song and Rhyme

Wisdom of the Ancient,
Follow bardic trail,
Companion to the Singer,
For Light to win, prevail

The First and Last have conquered,
Undo what has gone before,
Or else all Heart has failed,
And lost this endless War

This battle must be won
Though both sides may win and lose,
But the fighting must be done,
For the Heart to finally choose

Argue, lie, tell truths and hate,
Work against the other Fate,
Guide and save, protect and fall,
Die and live again for all…”

The last thought Cassandra had before chaos swept over her again was that whoever these people were, they had absolutely no sense of rhythm…

888

“Riley!”

Buffy almost leapt down the ladder to him as he sat in the strange chair, fixed in that strange position. “Riley, it’s me! We’ve got to get going, Adam’s already started…”

He looked at her in frustration, but she still didn’t comprehend. Then, his eyes widened, and finally getting the message, she turned around.

Maggie Walsh and the other doctor stared back at her, mottled and rotting flesh clashing viciously with their pristine, white labcoats.

Buffy fought the urge to vomit. No-one, no-one should be reduced to this mindless state…

“Riley, Riley, why can’t you talk to me?”

“He can’t talk to you because he’s not programmed to.”
Buffy whirled around to face Adam. He was studying her with the irritating half-smile that he always used.

“What, he’s programmed so he can be used in your little Final Phase project? Just like I’m supposed to be used? Sorry, I don’t take commands from other people. I’ve never been one to toe the line.”

“Oh…” Adam’s eyes darkened. “Kill her.”

Buffy was about to reply with one of her quips when she felt a strong arm encircle her throat and squeeze. With horror, she recognized Forrest… only he was… barely recognizable. Adam had sewn on the forehead and jaw of a demon, the stitches glaringly obvious, yelling at her that this cursed union was unnatural.

There was a glazed look on his eyes, and she realized that this wasn’t Forrest. Just a shell.

“I thought you’d never ask,” the Forrest/demon hybrid growled.

As Buffy frantically tried to escape his hold, the two zombies of the Initiative doctors picked up something that vaguely resembled a whirring scalpel, and moved towards her, eyes devoid of emotion. Finally, she managed to utilize her legs, smashing the zombies away and flipping Forrest over onto the table, smashing three glass beakers. With a roar, he threw her, her body landing with a thud on the floor.

Riley felt the chip within him now. Controlling him. But he could… “Buffy!”

Forrest turned, with a mad grin on his face. “Shut up, and watch me kill your girlfriend.”

Riley didn’t listen to him. He’d seen the beakers smash, and right now, an idea had formed in his head… if only he…

As Buffy, Forrest, and the two doctors fought it out, Riley took a deep breath and plunged the glass shard into his chest.

Forrest sneered as they held her down, the electric wire sparking above then. . “Is that all you got?”

“No!”

Riley stood up and disabled the zombies, pulling the tubes filled with blood out, with a triumphant smile on his face. Blood dribbled down his shirt.

“She’s got me!”

“Well, well,” Forrest smirked. “Look who’s come home to…”

Buffy sent him half-flying across the room, and then turned to her boyfriend. “Riley! I have to get to Adam, like...” she checked her watch. “Now. Are you able?”

“Go,” Riley said, wiping a slightly bloodied nose with his sleeve. “I’ll hold him off.”

And she was gone.

888

With the five candles arrayed in a five pointed star, they began. Blood still dribbled from Spike’s side, but it had been staunched somewhat by the thick bandages laid clumsily and quickly over it. He pushed away the aching pain, concentrating on what was happening.
Their faces gleamed in the candlelight. Strange shadows flickered across their features, throwing them into sharp relief. Spike had never really looked properly at the Scoobies before. Of course, he’d observed them. He always had. But never really looked at them.

Willow started, and as soon as she did, a strange force seemed to envelope them.

“Power of the Slayer and all who wield it. Last to ancient First, we invoke thee. Grant us thy domain and primal spirit. Accept us in the power we possess. Keep us mind and spirit joined, let the hand encompass us, do thy will…”

Willow paused, and then handed them their respective cards. In a clear voice, she spoke her lines. She seemed eerie in the darkness, Spike thought. So full of power and… and…

“Spiritus, Spirit,” she called.

“Animus, heart,” Xander intoned softly.

“Surufus, mind,” Giles incanted.

“Arrakis, blood,” Spike whispered.

Willow spoke for Buffy, placing the final card down as an ominous wave of foreboding swept over them.

“And Amanas, the hand.”

888

Adam smiled, watching all of the mayhem he had caused. The violence that was playing out on the scream appealed to his demon part. Fed it. His human and mechanical side watched, detached. Everything had come into fruition…

“Fun isn’t it?”

Adam turned around sharply, his face relaxing as he saw the tiny blonde slayer leaning on the doorframe. He grinned, this time, cruelty lacing through it. “I do appreciate violence.”

Buffy smiled; a deadly smile. “Good.”

With that, she launched herself at him, giving it all she had. After a few vicious backhands, however, he merely threw her backwards. She crashed into the wall with a thud, her breath knocked out of her. The spike came out of his arm as he thrust it forwards, but she twisted gracefully, breaking it against her knee. With a strong right kick, she sent him stumbling backwards slightly as she flipped herself upwards, brandishing the bone spike like a trophy.

“Broke your arm,” she grinned,

“Got another,” Adam smiled.

Buffy watched in horror as his right arm began whirring and clanking with mechanic energy, extending out into a…

-Oh god. Not a machine gun... couldn’t it just have been a puny revolver or something? Or better still, just a… something.-

“I’ve been upgrading.”

Buffy leapt towards the only cover that the room offered, behind a stack of computers. Bullets peppered the air around her, only narrowly missing. They never stopped. Gunshot after gunshot in slow motion…

888

“We are joined so that we may inhabit the vessel, the hand…

888

And just as Adam blew apart the stack of computers to leave Buffy open and vulnerable…

888

“We implore thee, admit us to the vessel. Take us NOW!”

................


Oh…




My…






God…




(Thanks! Read and Review, everyone. Please!)

Chapter 8: Fused

8 8 8

It felt like a river. A river that threatened to overwhelm us. We felt intrinsically aware of everyone’s minds. There were currents, layers to us all that we could dive through. We could see through our eyes, and knew at that minute, Adam had just blown away our protection. Surprisingly enough, however, we weren’t scared.

Raw power surged through us all, combined. We had never felt such strength. And such a perfect fit! The spell had warned that those who were not meant to enjoin would summon disastrous forces that would most likely destroy them. It had been a risk that we’d taken, but now that they had, we realized that we never should have worried. We were like five pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that neatly fitted together.

Time seemed to have frozen in this one second when we all joined. We felt memories sifting past, and out of curiosity, dived through them. To our surprise, images immediately washed over us in a quick succession. We learnt things that we’d never dreamed of. Dark secrets, laughter, and an infinite sadness and happiness…

888

“Xander!”

The eight year old Xander ran laughingly through the house as a similarly small and short Willow pursued him in vain. Jesse just sat on the sidelines and laughed as they ran around in circles. When Willow eventually burst into angry tears, Xander finally relented, and gave her back her doll.

Willow hugged her Barbie close to her chest. “That was mean!”

“But Willow,” Xander gasped, out of breath. “It was so funny!”

“You’re mean,” she accused. “I’m not going out with you any more!”

Xander’s jaw dropped. “But… but…”

“No buts,” Willow put on her youthful resolve face. “You stole my Barbie!”

888

“I’ll make her scream for me, Giles. You’ll see.”
The pain that set his body aflame was nothing compared to the agony of his mind. The thought of Buffy… almost like a daughter… succumbing… being broken by that… that…

“Fine, if you won’t tell me, then I’ll just have to…”

“No!” Spike “You can’t kill him, you stupid wanker. He’s the only one who can tell you about the ritual. Leave him alive.”

Angelus growled. “You’re overstepping your bounds, Spike. After all, you’re still Special Needs Boy.”

Spike smirked. “But I’m right, and you know it. Leave the Watcher alive. Can’t get information out of a dead body.”

Giles’ head sunk as exhaustion and agony washed over him. He was in the grip of three Master vampires, all cruel, and in their own ways, insane. There was no hope for him. He only hoped that Buffy would stop this…

But before he completely fell unconscious, Spike caught his eyes. And to Giles’ surprise, there was something in there. Not compassion. A demon couldn’t possibly be capable of compassion, could he? Just recognition, and a small hint of hope.

It was one of the only things that got Giles through the rest of that time.

888

It had hurt. Every second of it had hurt her, leaving scars so deep that even she couldn’t see them. But they were there, because she could feel them.

Deep. Throbbing. Painful. Forever.

Seeing that beloved face looking back at her, a face that she loved with all of her naiveté and youth and innocence twisted with mocking laughter had hit her so hard she almost hadn’t recovered. The months of constant fear had gradually worn down the barriers she had put up of denial. Denial had always been her number one defence mechanism. Denial that this… monster in front of her was really her Angel. Denial that Angelus and Angel were one and the same.

Denial of the fact that she still loved Angel. Separating the two in her mind as different entities. Waiting for Angel to come back. Just wishing it was all a dream.
And then the taunts came. The taunts, and Jenny Calendar’s death. Giles’ subsequent almost-death as he sought revenge. The sheer terror that had shorn into her heart at the thought of losing her watcher, tempered by the hatred and utter loathing she now bore towards Angelus.

And yet always separating the two in her mind. She still loved Angel, she would always love Angel… she could love Angel and hate Angelus at the same time… couldn’t she?

And then he was back.

The sweet, beloved face of Angel. Wisdom incarnate. Worrying, protective, brooding. Her Angel. And the mouth of Hell gaped behind him.

The instant that she shoved the sword into his gut broke her, and she had known it. Angel’s face contorting now in pain, betrayal, and surprise. It had hit her time and time again, harder than any blow any other demon could inflict.

Had to run away… run away…

From the harshness of her job that made her have to sacrifice everyone she loved.

888

The yelling above was so loud. So loud… even the bottles crashing against the walls couldn’t compete. Xander sat silently in his bed, trying to drown the screaming out with anything.

Star Trek discs lay discarded where he’d half thrown them in disgust at their uselessness to get his mind off what was happening upstairs. The computer was still blinking sleepily, but he’d long since turned the monitor off. Behind his dopey façade, Xander was an avid chess player. But now, even chess couldn’t take him away from what was happening.

And so, cross-legged he sat still, as if his silence alone could somehow drown out the voices above. A smile sadly danced across his face as he remembered better times. He travelled through his memories, sifting each one with infinite care.

Then one hit him.

Jesse.

It was this, and not his parents, that forced him to roll over and be sick all over the basement floor. And then sit, crying, until the voices died away, and he was left with only his memories, and empty platitudes that echoed around him like he was in a wind tunnel.

888

"Lu-mi-nous... no, no, uh, irra-di-ant... wait, that’s better…”

William sat on the couch, chewing his pen. Glasses perched precariously on his nose as he gazed down at the paper, wondering. Soft brown curls partially impeded his sight, and he pushed them away impatiently, still deep in thought.

“Sir?”

A Butler held out a tray of hors d'oevres, and his question stirred William from his reverie.

“Quickly,” William smiled eagerly at the confused man. “I'm the very spirit of vexation. What's another word for "illuminate?" It's perfectly perfect as many words go but the bother is nothing rhymes, you see…”

Obviously perplexed, the butler merely forced a smile, bowed, and moved off into the crowd to find someone else to serve. Slightly miffed at his inability to find a fitting word, William stared through the crowd, looking for inspiration.

He quickly found it when the object of his infatuation descended regally down the stairs, surrounded by a gaggle of dashing male suitors. William swallowed, transfixed, and then eagerly began to write. Quietly, he whispered one word under his breath as he wrote feverishly. “Cecily.”

When he finished, William stood and tried to push his way through the crowd to where she was standing, almost glowing in what he believed to be her almost dark and glowing beauty. As he neared, he heard snatches of their conversation.

“I've heard on good authority they're not human at all. Animals of some sort. Escaped from a travelling sideshow,” declared a foppish young gentleman.

“But wild animals would leave a trace of some kind. Tracks...” suggested his lady. She hung onto his arm like her life depended on it.

“Mangled bodies, indeed.”

“Charles! Don't be ghastly.”

“I merely point out that it's something of a mystery, and the police should keep an open mind…”

The crowd finally noticed him as he tried to enter their circle. Raoul Evans attempted a benign smile. “Ah, William. Favor us with your opinion. What do you make of this rash of disappearances sweeping our town? Animals or thieves?”

Caught unawares, William let the words spill out of his mouth ”I prefer not to think of such dark, ugly business at all. That's what police are for.” He eyed Cecily shyly.

She averted her gaze.

Could she be flirting?

William stared at her for another moment, feeling his heart leap in his chest, before continuing. “I prefer placing my energies into creating things of beauty.”

At that, Raoul showed his true smile, maliciousness tainting his handsome features. “I see. Well. Don't withhold, William.”

He snatched the paper from William's hand. The others, clearly looking to join in the fun, plastered on their own fake smiles.

“Please do. Rescue us from a dreary topic.”

In a panic, William almost dropped his glasses.

“Careful!” He cried, almost standing up for himself. But one glare from Raoul under heavy lidded eyes was enough to make him back down. Half contritely, he looked around for an excuse. “ The ink's still wet. Please, it's not finished...”

“Oh, don't be shy, William. Let’s see…” he cleared his voice. Quickly, he scanned it, smiling again as he chose what he deemed to be the part most able to make William squirm.

”Descending from yonder stair she comes,
My heart expands,
'tis grown a bulge in't,
inspired by your beauty,
Effulgent…"

Raoul broke off with a roar of laughter. “Effulgent? Well, William! Your vocabulary is certainly improving!”

There was a beat, and then everyone else joined in the mocking laughter. William felt his face almost physically crumble. Cecily, embarrassed, pulled away from the crowd to walk to a quiet place. William followed her hopefully, but still hearing each word spoken behind him.

“And that's actually one of his better compositions,” Raoul mocked.

”Have you heard, they call him "William the Bloody" because of his bloody awful poetry!” the lady laughed brightly. The play on words seemed to delight her.

”It suits him,” her partner snorted arrogantly. “I'd rather have a railroad spike through my head than listen to that awful stuff...”

Trying to ignore their drifting voices, William followed the object of his infatuation to a small room adjoining the main one. She sat on a small couch, looking rather bewildered. Crushed by the expression on her face, William moved closer to comfort her.

”Cecily...”

She looked up, but when she saw who it was, she angrily looked down again. “Leave me alone.”

Undeterred, William continued, fumbling. “They're vulgarians,” he comforted her. “Can't you see? They're not like you and I.”

“You and I?” She turned to face him directly. He swallowed at the sight of her beauty. For one second they were close. Intimate.

“William, I'm going to ask you a very personal question, and I demand an honest answer. Do you understand?”

He nodded, his heart in his throat at her words.
Cecily took a deep breath, and then began to speak in a rush. “Your poetry. It's… they're not… written about me... Are they?”

Still affected by their proximity, William groped for suitable words. “They're about how I feel,” he answered, lamely.

”Yes,” Cecily said impatiently. “But are they about me?”

William hesitated for a moment, and then lay his aching, beating heart out in front of her. “Every syllable,” he whispered.

“Oh, God...” Cecily turned away from him. William scooted around to face her, making a desperate, impassioned plea:

”I know... This is sudden. And - and, please, if they're no good, they're only words. But the feeling behind them... I love you, Cecily…”

She shook her head mutely, and interrupted him. “Please stop…” she said faintly.

He plunged on, regardless. “I know I'm a bad poet. But I'm a good man. All I ask is that you try to see me...”

“I do see you,” she murmurs, and he held his breath with the sudden hope that flooded through him. All to be crushed by her next words.

“That's the problem. You're nothing to me, William…”
She paused, and then continued. Truth flashed in her eyes.

“You're beneath me.”

888

Without his hat and coat, William tore down the street. Hot tears streaked down his face as he went, each step only accentuating the blind pain and agony in his heart. He ripped up his poem with each shuddering step, bumping into a group of three people as he went. In the midst of his pain, he threw away his English manners.

“Bloody... watch where you're going!”

He continued down the street, ripping up the paper into smaller and smaller bits. Already damp from his tears, they shredded easily under his raging hands. Then suddenly, his feet stopped. Slowly, the rage drained out of him, and he slumped against a wall.

A soothing, understanding voice came from nowhere:

“And here I wonder... what possible catastrophe came crashing down from heaven and brought this dashing stranger...”

The strange woman reached out, gingerly wiped away the last remaining tear from his face, and stared at him in understanding. “...to tears?

He swallowed. Several times. She was… beautiful. It was one of the first times any beautiful woman had ever paid any attention to him that wasn’t mocking or derogatory.

Finding his voice, he stammered out the only answer he could think of. “N… nothing. I wish to be alone.”

She shook her head gently at his words, laughing softly. “You've been alone too long.”

”What could you possibly know of me?” William asked in disbelief.

“I've seen you,” she replied, her pupils dilating. “A man surrounded by fools who cannot see his strength. His vision. His glory. That, and burning baby fish swimming all 'round your head.”

She stepped closer to him, even as he backed away, suspicion cloaking him.

“Th-that's quite close enough,” he told her. “I've heard tales of London pickpockets. You'll not get my purse, I tell you.”

She chuckled lightly. “Don't need a purse. Your wealth lies here…” She touched his heart with slim fingers. “And here.” She brushed her tips against his head.

He shuddered as she continued. “In the spirit and imagination. You walk in worlds the others can't begin to imagine…”

He was gone, now. Hypnotized. How could she know these things, he wondered. She stepped even closer, invading his personal space.

“Yes... I mean, no. I mean… Mother's expecting me,” he muttered incoherently.

She ignored him, leaning closer, whispering in his ear. “I see what you want,” she tantalized. “Something glowing, and glistening. Something effulgent. Do you want it?”

She guided his limp hand to her chest, and his eyes widened as he felt the distinct lack of heartbeat. Without thought, he spoke the words that would seal his fate.

”I - yes! God, yes!”

She smiled. As she vamp-faced, and bit deep into his neck, he felt a million feelings running through him, culminating in…

Pain.

Pain.

Shooting, utter, pain.

“Ow. Ow! OW! Ow ow ow ow OW-WOO!”

888

We saw all this, and more. We gasped in astonishment, but then the waves of wonder subsided. Of course we knew this. We had always known. We just grasped it when we joined. Caught the eluding feelings that had swum deep inside us. We knew of our childhood. We knew of our loves. We loved Anya, Angel, Jenny Calendar, Oz, Tara, Buffy, Willow, Xander, Giles, and Spike. We loved, and it was irrefutable. We loved together. Intense. A flame.

Drawing strength. Combining as we merged into the One. Forging an unbreakable bond between us as raw power rushed through conduits we never knew had existed.

All of this in a second.

Yet there was something to be done. Revelling in our joint power, we swam into reality, just as Adam pulled the trigger and hit the barrier we had erected…

888

“You can’t last much longer,” Adam sneered.

“We can,” we stated calmly in our joined voices. They fitted perfectly. Like a harmony. “We are forever.”

He merely smiled, and then fired at us. They hit an invisible energy shield that we had erected.

“Interesting…” he frowned slightly, and then fired again. This time, we merely changed the bullets into doves. It was a nice touch.

“Very interesting…” he grated out.

We now moved with a confidence none of us had ever felt. With a wave of our hand, his gun retreated back into his mechanical arm. We saw his confusion. Felt it. Felt anger and uncertainty as he stalked towards us.
We knew we could take him.

Easily.

We walked, no, glided towards him, each step radiating with our power. He swung at us as if in slow motion, and we easily evaded him. Then, we sprang into action. Each punch and kick we threw was timed perfectly. We had never felt this strength before. Not even when we were Called, or when we became a Vampire. Not even when we began learning magic or had become possessed by the spirit of a hyena. We dodged, twisted, and attacked with such wonderful grace, it was unbelievable.

We quickly backed him against the wall, hitting him again and again. We saw his surprise as we threw him on the floor and advanced.

“But how can you…?” he gasped in surprise as we spin-kicked him into the wall, and held him.

“You will never know the source of our power,” we chanted in unison.

And then we thrust our arm deep into him, and closed our fingers around his uranium-cortex, and yanked it out. He slumped to the floor.

“But yours,” we whispered as we held it in our hands, “is right here.”

“Buffy,” we heard Riley call us, but we ignored him. He wasn’t a part of this… besides, we still had one thing left to do.

“Amien den, coloura den, amien hular antruen den…”

Propelled by our magic, the uranium-cortex flew into the air, before coalescing power destroyed it utterly. We stood there looking at the space it had just vacated, revelling in our combined power.

“Buffy?” Riley asked again.

Then we ended the spell. Each fibre of our being screamed to stay united in this way, in this perfect fit. Love, acceptance, strength, power, understanding… we weren’t separate. We were one. Bound together for an eternity. It took an enormous amount of willpower to separate ourselves, and when we did, we all fell, gasping, into our respective bodies.

But not without something remaining within us.

We could feel it, just before we split apart. The potential. The bonds that had already formed, and only needed to be joined again.

And we exulted.

Because we knew we could get back to completion.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

As Buffy fell into Riley’s arms, Spike, Willow, Giles, and Xander collapsed with a sigh, the candles illuminating their exhausted features. They were open, helpless.

Prey…

A demon that had been crashing against the door for the last minute finally burst through, and launched itself at them with a primitive bellow. Exhausted as they were, they knew they could barely move, let alone defend themselves. In the split second they had, they readied themselves to die…

But then a blinding flash of light shone incandescent against the darkness of the room. They flung their hands against their faces to shield themselves against that beautiful light, even though part of them yearned to drink it in. The demon howled pitifully, backing away, but then the light vanished as quickly as it had come, leaving in its place two people.

They watched in awe as the two shook themselves, took in their surroundings with surprise, and then realized what was standing in front of them.

Realization took them, and as the demon rushed towards them, one stuck out a crutch. It fell with a thump to the floor, and before it could get up, the other delivered a punishing blow with an unused chair.

They looked at each other in fear.

“Now what?”

The demon was already beginning to stir, and in the compromising position the one with the crutches was in, he fell on top of it. It bucked him off, stood again, and threw him against the room. The other moved in as well as she could, but it merely batted her away like an insect. Looking around the room, it decided which of its six possible victims it should go for first, and decided on the crumpled body lying against the wall.

Looking rather defenceless.

The steel tip of the crutch batted ineffectively at the demon as it ran, but he managed to crawl out of the way. Luckily for him, this demon was more muscles than agility. Again, it tripped over the crutch. But that was all he could do midst his pain. He slumped, exhausted, as the beast started to rise again.

But in the time that they had bought, Spike had recovered enough to close his hanging jaw and leap on the demon’s back. With a swift crack, he broke its neck.

And then, looking at the two new appearances, he voiced what everyone else was thinking.

“Who the hell are you?”

8 8 8





(Hope you enjoyed. Please, R&R!)

Chapter 9: The Bloody Awful Aftermath

8 8 8

“The Initiative represented the government’s interest in not only controlling the otherworldly menace, but harnessing it to our own uses for the military. Once the prototype took control of the centre, however, it led to a 40 mortality rate. It was only through the work of a group of civilian insurgents, a deserter, and most surprisingly, a HST itself, that our losses were not total.
I trust you appreciate the irony of that, gentleman. They have taken the formal procedures of secrecy, and if they come out, we are prepared to put all legal power upon them, but somehow, I don’t think they will.
Maggie Walsh’s dream was brilliant, but in the end, unconceivable. Demons cannot be controlled. They cannot be contained. So burn it down, gentleman. Burn it down, and purge the earth of its sins.”

888

“Ow!” Xander yelped, hopping on one leg as Buffy stared on with grim satisfaction. “That hurt!”

“That was for lying to me about that time with Willow and Angel,” Buffy said, a steely note in her voice.

“What?” Willow demanded. She rounded on Xander, eyebrows raised. “What’s she talking about?”

Buffy glared at him. “He lied to me. You told him to tell me that you were going to restore Angel’s soul two years ago, and he just told me to kick his ass.”

“What!”

“Ow!” Xander yelped again, his bruised leg throbbing. “Okay, can you cut it out with the shin-kicking? I’m sorry!”

“And Willow! Were you… I mean, I know that you said you were scared about telling us about Tara, but…” Buffy gulped. “You were really that scared?”

“Of course I was!” Willow exclaimed. “I… I didn’t want you all to be looking at me in disgust. I’ve met homophobes before and… it’s just…”

“Hey, Willow. Maybe you’re not homosexual, maybe you’re just bi,” Xander said cheerfully.

“Maybe,” Willow smiled thoughtfully. “But if I was, during the enjoining spell, wouldn’t you have seen it?”

“This is… this is fascinating!” Giles finally managed to get the sentence out of his mouth. The Watcher’s face was lined with joy. “All this… Research! How did we see all that we saw? Why didn’t we see some things? Why…”

They spoke in unison, and Buffy wondered idly if it was an after-effect of the spell.

“Why did we see Spike like that?”

“Talking about me?” Spike asked quietly from behind them.

They jumped as they saw the vampire leaning against the wall. Before they could say anything, he began ticking things off on his fingers.

“Captain Cardboard’s got the wounded soldiers under control, sent ‘em to the hospital. He told me to tell you lot that he’s going to go straight to the Government. Hopes he can get out with a honourable discharge. The girl and the boy are in hospital too. Still unconscious. Adam’s dead. And an evil soulless thing like me should be getting back to his crypt. Right… uh… that’s it. I’m gone.”

As he moved to slip out of the door, he was yanked back by Buffy. She resisted the urge to slam him against the wall, and instead, steered him back into the living room.

“You’re going to answer a few questions, Spike,” Buffy tried hard not to let her voice be shaky. “And one of them is definitely going to be how you lied to us when we were enjoined.”

“What the hell are you going on about, Slayer!” Spike demanded.

“Talk, Spike,” Giles agreed, seating himself on the armchair. “I don’t understand either. The memories of us, they were all real. But yours? How did you fabricate them?”

As always, when Spike chose to let his emotions show, they were stunning indeed. First, confusion raced over his handsome features, then understanding, bewilderment, anger, hopelessness and finally, exhaustion ran over him in quick succession. He threw Buffy’s hand off him, knowing that doing so wouldn’t hurt her.

“You want to know?” he demanded harshly, glaring at all of the Scoobies. Willow and Xander stepped backwards, towards Giles on his chair, and even Buffy was tempted to retreat from whoever this new person was. In an effort to cover her… fear? she stood next to Giles. The four of them were arrayed in a semi-circle facing… This wasn’t Spike. Spike was cocky, arrogant, deadly, and beautiful…

Okay, where had she gotten ‘beautiful’ from?-

“You want to know?” he repeated again, pushing back the hysterical laughter. “Oh, all right then.”

He stalked towards Giles, and his demeanour was cloaked with such anger and violence that the staid Watcher almost shrunk back. He did at Spike’s words. “Take this down for your books, Rupert,” Spike sneered, his face full of crashing pain. “All those memories, every single bloody one of ‘em that you saw was real.”

Reaching out two hands then, he pressed his right palm on Buffy’s forehead, and his left on Giles’. Knowing that they all had to touch, Spike used his left foot to stand on Xander’s bare feet, and his right on Willow’s. They all gasped in unison.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Daniel?”

“Yeah?”

“You awake?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Have you noticed something?”

“What?”

“We’re healed.”

“Really?”

There was a silence. Then…

“That’s all you can say?!”

“Well, I could go on about how weird this is. Where are
we, by the way?”

“I’m not entirely sure… but I think it’s the Sunnydale Hospital.”

There was a beat, and then the two of the crept out of the hospital bed in unison and stared at each other.

“Where’s Sunnydale?” Daniel asked.

“UC California…” Cassandra answered. “And… um… I think I know what that guy was talking about.”

“UC California?” Daniel shook his head, trying to process the information. “How did we get from Australia to America?”

“That’s the thing. We’re in a different dimension. That’s what the guy was on about.”

“Dimension? Hang on a sec…” Daniel laughed. “You don’t really believe in that kind of stuff, do you?”

Cassandra raised her eyebrow. “I’d say that believing in things like magic and demons is a bit of a moot point considering what we saw.”

“Good point,” Daniel winced.

They stood in silence for a while, and then Daniel spoke up again.

“We’re in shock, aren’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“From that thing we saw… right? It… it… it put us in shock.”

“Yeah, why?”

“Have you noticed something?”

“What?”

“Sunnydale… I thought you would have noticed it first. We’re in… we’re in that T.V series you always rant on about!”

Cassandra blinked innocently. “Really?”

There was a silence. Then…

“That’s all you can say?!”

The two stared at each other again the half-darkness, laughed hysterically for a time, and then sobered.

“Oh God.”

“Yeah, well… I’m not sure if he’s going to listen to us. Considering I think his lackeys put us here in the first place.”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

They snapped out of it together with a gasp, furious emotions still pounding through their veins. Spike leapt backwards, breaking the contact, even though something in all of them screamed to keep it maintained. As he let go, his previous fatigue enveloped him again.

Facing the shocked assemblage, the deathly silence encompassing them all, he felt the exhaustion finally claim him as he fell to it. He spun around back to Buffy, and she saw the fatigue hooding his sunken eyes.

“So, now that you know the sodding truth about William the Bloody Awful poet, I’m leaving. No more questions. I’m tired, confused, and bloody exhausted, got it?”

Buffy nodded softly. “Got it.”

Surprised at her quiet acceptance, Spike stared at them all one last time, before disappearing with a swirl of his leather duster. Leaving them all gaping behind him.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

I really can’t explain what that day was like. Bloody impossible, it was. The Bloody Awful Aftermath.

Hmmph.

The thing is that we later found out that the memories we first shared with each other were ones we’d repressed. Don’t ask me why Red repressed that memory of her and the Whelp, but yeah. We’d hidden those memories even from ourselves. I, for one, had buried William the sodding Bloody Awful Poet so deep that I’d almost forgotten him. I’d locked him in a bloody cellar, tossed away the key, and muttered ‘Good Riddance’. Despite all of this, that one spell just unlocked all of the doors again.

Now can you understand my reaction of that day?

But it wasn’t only that. I needed to feel them again. We were brilliant, together. Fit like a jigsaw puzzle, just like you and your fancy words said. Most importantly, I felt accepted. You have no idea how much that meant to me.

Oh, you do, do you? Like hell you do. You’ve never been in one of those enjoining spells.

Oi, what’s with that look? You mean you have? But… but… they’re volatile! They could have killed you, you silly…

Oh, right. I’m supposed to be talking about that day.

Well, fine. I overreacted. The Scoobies and the Slayer were just the last straw, that’s all. I was still struggling with all of those memories, and then they had to come out and accuse me of lying. At the time, I bloody well wished that that’s what they were! Just… lies.
It would have made things a lot simpler.

But no… things can never be simple around the Hellmouth. Most importantly, things can never be simple around the Slayer and her Scoobies. But just the way they looked at me… I couldn’t stand it. I had to show them. And so I did.

When we joined, I felt like we were complete again, and I know for sure the others did as well. Wasn’t really that hard. I could kind of feel them as well, you know. That enjoining spell… I don’t think many people have tried it before us. They knew the thing was dangerous. And many of those evil guys never wanted that kind of connection with anyone else. Always wanted to stand alone. And the good guys probably never thought of using this kind of magic. It’s not black magic, no… it’s just volatile magic, that’s all. Probably thought the risks outweighed the benefits.

Now that I think of it, it was probably that spell that changed everything. No, scrap that. I’m willing to point the finger and declare the soddin’ Powers that Be started it all. Manipulated us into using that spell just so that everything would change. I guess we have to thank them, though. Right? I mean, otherwise things would never have happened this way.

Yeah, so what if I’m being sarcastic!

So, yeah. That was it. The Bloody Awful Aftermath. Just because I was still bloody tired, damned well confused from all of those memories, and really, really… I don’t know…

Vulnerable? You think I was vulnerable?!

Alright, fine. Have it your way. I was vulnerable. Come on, the good old Big Bad image that had lasted me for over a hundred years had just been shattered.

Wouldn’t you have felt a little vulnerable?

In any case, the exhaustion was what did us in afterwards.

That was when she came.

8 8 8
(Please, Reviews!)

Restless: Part I

8 8 8

Tara was lying on her stomach, resting her chin on crossed arms. Willow smiled from behind her. The air itself seemed to sing with contentment, and the warm feeling of protection and care. Love seemed to sing from every square inch of the two as they smiled at each other adoringly. Relaxed.

“I think it's strange,” the golden-blonde witch commented softly. “I mean, I think I should worry that we haven't found her name.”

Willow stopped her delicate work and frowned. “Who, Miss Kitty?”

“You'd think she'd let us know her name by now.”

“She will,” Willow replied confidently. “She's not all grown yet.”

“You're not worried?” Tara inquired curiously.

“I never worry here,” Willow whispered. “I'm safe here.”

As she said so, she resumed painting the Greek symbols once more. They flowed from underneath her brush like silk.

“You don't know everything about me.” Tara replied.

“Have you told me your real name?” Willow asked.

“Oh, you know that,” Tara smiled.

They paused, and Willow dipped the brush into the ink jar again and resumed painting on Tara’s naked back.

The blonde witch sighed and relaxed as the love poem curled across her skin, speaking so eloquently what the two felt. After a moment, she looked up at Willow again, earnestly.

“They will find out, you know,” she murmured quietly. “About you.”

Willow frowned, lines of worry crossing her forehead. “Don't have time to think about that. You know I have all this homework to finish.”

“Are you going to finish in time for class?” Tara asked.

“I can be late,” Willow shrugged.

“But you’ve never taken drama before… might miss something important,” Tara worried.

Willow merely smiled. “I don’t wanna leave here.”

Tara smiled even gentler this time, if it were possible. “I know, but you have to.”

Willow didn’t hear her…


“Well, you must have done something,” Buffy frowned in disapproval.

“No,” Willow stammered. “I never do anything. I'm very seldom naughty. I, I just came to class, and, and the play was starting…”

Nervousness swamped her. Buffy never acted like this… she knew she didn’t. Buffy never blamed anyone except for herself. It was something Willow worried about, but at the moment, she was so confused she didn’t know what to think. Adrenaline still pumped through her from whoever… whatever had tried to kill her.

Buffy straightened up. “Play is long over. Why are you still in costume?”

“Okay, still having to explain wherein this is just my outfit,” Willow gestured to her clothes.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Willow, everybody already knows. Take it off.”

Willow looked around, bewildered. Afraid. “No. No. I need it.”

Buffy rolled her eyes again. “Oh, for god's sake, just take it off!” she spun Willow around and ripped her clothes off.

Suddenly the entire classroom was filled.And the entire class was laughing.

“See?” Harmony giggled. “Isn't everybody very clear on this now?”

Willow felt lost. Broken. Instinctively she knew that they were laughing about her, and instinctively, she clammed up. Retreating into herself. It didn't stop the words, however.

“My god, it's like a tragedy,” Anya sniggered.

Oz whispered something to Tara. “I tried to warn you,” he gave Willow a disgusted look.

One look from those eyes still stopped her heart. But this one? It shattered her.

Anya was still giggling. “It's exactly like a Greek tragedy. There should only be Greeks.”

Despite her confusion and hurt, Willow knew she had to keep going. Shelooked around nervously, feeling her throat dry up as she found no friendly faces. “My book report. This summer I, I read "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." “

Xander leaned back in his chair to glance up at the ceiling. “Oh, who cares?”

Oz nuzzled Tara’s cheek while she giggled.

Desperately, Willow tried to go on. Xander's words echoed in her mind.

“This book ha-has many themes...”

But it was for naught. Something burst into the room and knocked Willow down, screaming. Growls and shrieks filled the air, but no-one helped.

“Help! Help me!” Willow cried desperately. “Help me!”

But no one did.

Willow’s eyes widened. Then the skin on her face wrinkled and dried, and her eyes slid shut.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Where are you from, Harris?”

The voice was breathy, almost sibilant in its tone. Xander, still kneeling on cold stone floor, felt the words come out of his mouth before he even thought.

“Well, the basement, mostly.”

“Were you born there?” the sibilant voice asked.

Xander nodded. -Everything in my life seems to lead to there after all, right?-

“Possibly.”

“I walked by your guidance counselor's office one time. A bunch of you were sitting there ... waiting to be shepherded.”

As the owner of the voice moved out of the shadows, Xander realized that it was Snyder. Confusion and alarm moved over his face, but Snyder spoke before he could.

“I remember it smelled like dead flowers,” Snyder whispered. “Like decay. Then it hit me. The hope of our nation's future is a bunch of mulch.”

“You know, I never got the chance to tell you how glad I was you were eaten by a snake,” Xander informed him, feeling his hatred for his former principal return.

Instantly, however, he regretted it.–Oops, shouldn’t have said that-

Snyder ignored the comment and sat up, perusing him intently. “Where are you heading?”

Xander shrugged. “Well, I'm supposed to meet Tara and Willow. And possibly Buffy's mom.”

“Your time is running out…”

“No, I'm just trying to get away,” Xander explained. A look of fear slowly crossed his face. Something was after him, of that he was sure. And... he wasn't sure if Buffy was going to help him. He wasn't even sure if Buffy was alive. “There's ... something I can't fight.”

“Are you a soldier?” Snyder demanded.

Xander shook his head. “I'm a comfortador.”

Snyder leaned forward, contempt dripping from his tone. “You're neither,” he quietly snarled. “You're a whipping boy. Raised by mongrels and set on a sacrificial stone.”

Xander only nodded this time. -Bullshit... and yet completely utterly right.-

-“I'm getting a cramp.”

The door shook. Louder, more insistently. Feral growls came from behind it. Xander only looked at it, a mixture of fear and resignation coating his voice.

“That’s not the way out,” he whispered.


“What the hell is wrong with you!”

Xander realized who it was as he saw that all too familiar figure silhouetted in the doorway above. “You won't come upstairs?” his father continued. “What are you ... ashamed of us? Your mother's crying her guts out!”

“You don't understand,” Xander said quietly. He felt drained, suddenly. Drained of everything he was. All the life and the jubilance and the pure exuberance sucked away by something he could not name.

“No,” his father spat, stomping down the stairs. “You don't understand. The line ends here with us, and you're not gonna change that.”

Xander kept his eyes fixed downwards, unable to look into his father’s eyes.

“You haven't got the heart.”

Suddenly, Xander’s father shoved his hand into Xander’s chest. Xander looked down to see the hand covered with rags. Fear raced across his face as he looked up, and met with wild, feral eyes surrounded by grey skin and dark, stringy hair. The person growled.

The hand pulled Xander’s heart straight out of his chest.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“I know you,” Giles looked into the distance as everything blurred. His voice came out as a whisper, and yet still, it echoed sullenly.

“Hey!”

Giles turned, and saw Spike standing near the edge of his crypt. “Come on!” Spike yelled again, gesturing “You're gonna miss everything!” With that, he turned and entered his home.

Giles entered the crypt bemusedly, noting the candlelight flickering on the walls, throwing into sharp relief Olivia sitting on a coffin next to a baby carriage lying on the side, sobbing.

“Don't push me around,” Giles said sharply. “You know I have a great deal to do.”

He saw in black and white a group of people with cameras, their attention obviously focused on the blond vampire, who was looking past them at Giles. He smiled cheerfully. “I've hired myself out as an attraction,” he grinned, striking a threatening pose. The people oohed and aahed, the cameras flashing.

Dimly, Giles could still hear Olivia crying in the background. “What, Sideshow freak?” he asked snidely.

Spike flipped up the collar of his coat, an aura of menace descending palpably on him. “Well, at least it's showbiz,” he shrugged as the crowd voiced their appreciation again. The flashes danced their way across his sculptured cheekbones, flashing against cerulean blue eyes that held amazing power.

Giles moved forward, bewilderment crossing his face as he looked between Spike and Olivia. “What am I supposed to do with all of this?”

“You gotta make up your mind, Rupes,” the vampire explained. “What are you wasting your time for?”

He posed again, and more cameras flashed, blinding Giles’ sensitive vision. “Haven't you figured it all out yet, with your enormous squishy frontal lobes?” he posed yet again.

Giles walked across the crypt. “I still think Buffy should have killed you.”

He watched in satisfaction as annoyance crossed the vampire’s face, and then headed out of the crypt, the sound of the cameras snapping merrily away behind him.


There was a sudden loud feedback as the microphone died and the band stopped playing. The last strands of music faded away, and confused, Giles got down on his knees and started following the microphone cord backstage. Carefully, he traced it to a large heap of tangled cord. Ferreting around in it, he pulled out his pocket watch on its chain, the shadows dancing across its metal as the hands ticked.

“Well, that was ... obvious,” muttered Giles.

The dark-haired creature who had been stalking them all was suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning, a weapon in its hand.

Giles gasped. “I know who you are.”

It crept closer…

“And I can defeat you ... with my intellect. I ... can cripple you with my thoughts…”

The creature grabbed his hair and put the weapon against his forehead, and slowly started scalping him.

“Of course, you underestimate me. You couldn't know…”

Blood slowly ran down Giles’ face, dripping from his forehead and staining his glasses.

“You never had a Watcher…”

8 8 8


(Please! Read and Review, everyone!)

Restless: Part II

8 8 8

Spike awoke with a jerk, sensing himself in the darkness of his crypt. It was cold… so cold… the candle flames seemed to dance around him in a mockery of a snowstorm, their flames pale blue.

“Cold?” he wondered aloud. “Since… when did I feel cold?”

A hundred years ago and counting.

Rolling out of bed, he slung on a shirt to cover his upper half. “Funny, slept with my jeans on, and upstairs, too,” he mused. “Don’t usually do that. In fact, I could swear that I didn’t… Bugger all…”

There was a growl as the crypt door banged, interrupting him as he wondered aloud. Instantly, he shifted himself into fighting position. Whereas before he’d been languid, almost like a cat stretching after a long resting nap, now he was tense and coiled, prepared to quickly spring into action. Too many demons had burst in from there lately, accusing him of siding with the Slayer. Whoever it was would be dead very soon…

As the stone door clanged again, however, Spike felt an unreasoning wave of fear wash over him.

“I can’t go there…”

He turned to move down the ladder towards the lower level. The rungs seemed slippery under his fingers, and he couldn’t pinpoint why. Usually, everything was cold and dry, in his crypt. And why couldn’t he see the candlelight flickering? Why were there more shadows than ever before?

As he reached the middle rungs, he felt the atmosphere around him seem to shift. Frowning, he jumped down the last four rungs, and when he alighted, he found himself staring at a very familiar living room.

Shock stilled his tongue for a second, before his reflexes kicked in. “What the soddin’ hell!”

He looked around, feeling a sense of unnaturalness seep into his very skin. The ladder had disappeared. Irrationally, he grasped at thin air and came away with nothing. A voice broke into his thoughts.

“William? Where were you? Oh, I’ve been so worried…”

“Mother?”

Disbelievingly, Spike slowly turned to greet the woman approaching. Tentatively, he touched her… heard her heartbeat under his fingertips. Smelt the blood rushing through her. A sudden joy lit his pale features, and he caught her in his arms. Without noticing it, one hundred years melted off his face. “Mother, you’re alive!”

“Why, of course I am,” she smiled, slightly puzzled. “Sit with me?”

He led her gallantly to the chair, where he curled up against her again as she knitted, touching her as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. He couldn’t. He could still feel a tingling at the back of his neck that warned him that this was completely unnatural…

Suddenly, a coughing fit wracked her. Spike sat up, alarmed, and immediately fetched a glass of water for her. Blood speckled her handkerchief when she brought it away from her mouth.

“Mother, should I call a doctor?”

She shook her head. “It’s passed, don’t worry. Come, sit by me again.”

He looked at her resolute face, sighed, and then sat next to her again, leaning back into the couch. His eyes closed as she began singing. This was so familiar… so familiar it hurt. And yet, it stirred in him a vestige of fear, and he had no idea why.

“Early one morning, just as the sun was rising,
I heard a maid sing in the valley below.
"Oh, don't deceive me, oh, never leave me,
How could you use a poor maiden so?"”

“That was beautiful, mother,” Spike murmured softly after the last strains had melted into the air. “Like always.”

“You really think so?” she asked girlishly. He patted her hand, and then realized something suddenly. He could no longer hear her heartbeat, and the skin beneath his own was cold. The whispers of fear and unease turned into full-throated roar, and he almost let it escape.

Instead, he leapt up. “M-m… mother?”

“ ‘The lark hath spake from twixt its wee beak?’ You honestly thought I could bear an eternity listening to that twaddle?” she demanded mockingly. Each word crushed him. He stared, dumbfounded. This
wonderful dream had turned into a cruel nightmare… one that had haunted him until he pushed the memory into the depths of his mind.

She continued talking. “I feel extraordinary. It's as though I've been given new eyes. I see everything. Understand...” she looked at him and frowned, “Everything.”

He backed away, disturbed, knowing and dreading what was to come. The feeling of unnaturalness increased. “Mother...”

“I hate to be cruel,” she sighed, before frowning again. “No, I don't. I used to hate to be cruel in life. Now, I find it rather freeing. Nothing less will pry your greedy little fingers off my apron strings, will it?”

Spike looked away, feeling tears begin to pool at the edges of his eyes. Helplessness washed over him. “Stop. Please,” he begged softly.

She ignored him, walking closer. Brushing him with her scent. “Ever since the day you first slithered from me like a parasite...”

He felt his undead heart clench, and the tears coalesced into a shimmering mirror against his will. “What… what are you saying…?“

“Had I known better, I could have spared myself a lifetime of tedium and just…” she sighed melodramatically, her voice hardening with a growl. “Dashed your brains out when I first saw you.”

She turned away from him, malice and hatred still tainting her voice. “God, I prayed you'd find a woman to release me, but you scarcely showed an interest. Who could compare to your doddering housebound mum? A captive audience for your witless prattle.”

Each word was a weapon. A weapon meant to hurt. Suddenly, he felt aware of everything. Every single detail of the horror leapt into focus. His mother’s hair falling down in the waves he knew so well from his childhood. The fury and violence of the demon behind the human mask. Her scent. The scent he knew so well. That spoke of comfort and nursery songs and love, but now smelt of death.

And most of all, her lack of heartbeat. The silence. Screaming out at him.

Spike straightened, and quietly spoke the same words he had spoken over a hundred times. With perfect clarity and confidence. “Whatever I was, that's not who I am anymore.”

She snickered, and walked even closer. “Darling, it's who you'll always be. A limp, sentimental fool. You want to run, don't you? Scamper off and cry to your new little trollop. Do you think you'll be able to love her?” she leant even closer.

“Think you'll be able to touch her without feeling me?”

He backed away again, but she only followed, touching his face and his body. “All you ever wanted was to be back inside. You finally got your wish, didn't you?” she spat. “Sank your teeth into me. An eternal kiss. “

He shook his head violently. “No. I only wanted to make you well. Mother, you were sick! Sick and dying…“

“You wanted your hands on me. Perhaps you'd like a chance to finish off what you started.”

He pushed her away, looking anywhere in this dreaded place of memories. At anything except for her. Looked for a doorway. Looked for the ladder. “I love you. I did. Not like this.”

“Just like this,” she disagreed, sneering. Moving closer to him. “This is what you always wanted. Who's my dark little prince?” She tilted her head upwards, trying to kiss him.

In a panic, Spike pushed her away, knocking her down. “No!”

She snarled, transformed into her vampiric visage, and threw him backwards. –I don’t remember it being like this-. He crashed into the wall and whimpered as he felt two ribs break and bury themselves in his heart. Dazedly, something told him he had died again, and yet was still living…


“William… there you are.”

Stinging pain enveloped his chest as he looked up through hazy eyes. Dimly, he heard the voice. It dripped with relief. Screwing up his eyes, he looked to the owner.

It took him a few seconds to realize.

“Cecily?” he breathed. She smiled at him. His voice bore all the reverence you would give to a goddess.
Confusion riddled him as he stared at her. She was… he gulped. Even more beautiful than he’d remembered.

“We’ve been looking all over for you! Your mother’s ill… in hospital…”

Despite knowing that this couldn’t possibly be, Spike grabbed her arm. “Where! Where is she? I need to go to her!”

“Oh William,” Cecily smiled kindly. “Why do you care? She hurt you. Hurt you so badly…” her fingers danced across his chest. He winced as pain shot from her fingertips to lodge deep into his skin,

Spike gaped at her. He knew that he looked like a fool, but he gaped at her nonetheless. Her words seemed to blur and echo as if she was at one end of a wind tunnel, and he was at the other. Shaking his head furiously, he caught her last words.

“…Stay with me. Read me your poetry.”

“Okay, something is seriously wrong here,” he growled, trying to collect his senses. “Where is my mother!”

“Your mother?” Cecily asked curiously. “No, it’s Drusilla who’s ill.”

“Drusilla!” Spike’s knuckles whitened even more, as images of his black princess assailed him. Pale face. Adoring smile. Wicked grin. Lustrous hair. “Take me to her!”

“But William… I thought you loved me,” Cecily looked hurt.

“First of all,” Spike said bluntly, shaking free of whatever spell her presence had seemed to place on him, his hand coming to clench down on her arm. “I’m not William. Not anymore. You were the one who changed that.”

He tightened his grip, and she screamed slightly. Perturbed, he let her go again, and then tried to change into game face. He was surprised when he couldn’t.

“Can’t you… love me like this?” Cecily looked at him again in hurt. She was beautiful in this light. “Why can’t you love me like this?”

Before he cold reply, Cecily’s face suddenly changed. Ridges appeared, and Spike recoiled from her as golden eyes flashed from between bony brows. “Do you love me like this?”

Spike merely gaped again.

Cecily sighed, and then changed into Halfrek. “Do you recognize me now, William?”

“You’re… you’re a vengeance demon…” was all Spike could stutter out.

“Well?” Halfrek twirled around, still in demon face and yet still wearing Cecily’s clothes. “Do you love me now?”

“I…” Spike mumbled.

“What’s wrong, William?” Halfrek moved closer, her skirts rustling as she went. She brushed up against him, and he shuddered.

“I-I…” he stuttered.

“William?”

“Wh… what?”

“You’re beneath me.”

Spike felt her lash out with demonic strength, tossing him halfway across the room to crash into a wall. His body cried out in pain as he felt another rib crack, and lodge straight in his heart along with the other two.
But that wasn’t the reason he was crying softly now. He hadn’t cried for a long, long time. He could barely remember the last… oh no, wait. When Drusilla had left him.

Speaking of which…

Suddenly, he was in a palace. Artificial lights danced as fireworks exploded into the night. People whirled around in graceful steps, ignoring the broken man leaning against a wall, clad only in jeans and a red, ripped shirt.

“And here I wonder... what possible catastrophe came crashing down from heaven and brought this dashing stranger...”

Spike slowly raised his head, tears shining from his eyes. “D… Dru?” he asked in disbelief and a naked hope and longing.

“To tears?” She reached out, and traced the lines, digging in with her nails. Spike winced as a trail of blood began to flow simultaneously, mixing in a liquid combination of blood and tears… his life.

“God Dru,” he stared at her, entranced. “I’ve missed you so much…” his voice cracked.

“Grrr…” she growled, suddenly standing up. “Too human! Naughty Spike! What’s happened to you? The stars… they said my black knight was here. But I see nothing but white!”

“No, I’m here, Dru,” Spike said soothingly, painstakingly standing up, mindful of his broken rib. “I’ll always be here…” he moved to hug her, but she stepped backwards.

“No!” she cried despondently, moving away from him. She knocked aside a candle holder, but still, no-one noticed. “No! Too human! Spike, my Spike… what’s happened to you? Your blood! It’s tainted…”

“What’s happened to me?” Spike cried, feeling anger surge in his undead heart. “You! That’s bloody well what! I loved you, Dru. I still love you! But as soon as Angelus got back… you never looked once at me! Always ‘Daddy this’ and ‘Daddy that’… and then I stopped the world ending for you! I stopped it for you, Dru, so there’d still be the stars and the soddin’ night to talk to! Still be the fight! Still be the humans and the fresh, sweet blood…”

Suddenly, she was dancing. Swirling in her red dress like the night of her birthday. He watched entranced as her hips swayed closer to his… and then stopped.

“No more dancing with me, Spike,” she hissed. “Not until you come back! Change! Too much change! What have they done!”

“Come back?” he demanded. “What do you mean?”

“Where’s my deadly little Spike?” Dru purred, tracing his chest with a sharp nail. It pierced the fabric and somehow eased the pain of his broken rib. “Where’s he gone? Can’t find him… the stars can’t find him either…”

“I’m here baby, right here,” Spike assured her. “It’s just the chip…”

“No!” Drusilla cried, and pushed him back with all of her vampiric strength. He smashed into the wall again, and this time he roared with agony as he felt three ribs break, and smash into his heart. He knew somewhere in his mind that this wasn’t anatomically possible, but through the haze of tears, the rest of his consciousness focussed on Drusilla, walking towards him now in the dress she wore when she first turned him.

“No! Too human! Too human…”

“You sound like the bloody Judge himself, sweetheart,” Spike managed to rasp out midst his broken tears before everything went black.


8 8 8



(Please, Read and Review! I'm sorry about the update wait, by the way. I was pondering where to go with Spike's dream.)

Chapter 10

Restless: Part III

8 8 8

“It’s not about right. It’s not about wrong. It’s about power.”

Buffy strode up to him, a nasty sneer on her beautiful face as he glanced up at her. The air around her seemed to grow heavier with her regal imperiousness.

“What are you doing here?” he choked, tears still sliding down his face, along with the blood that still flowed freely from where Drusilla had scratched him.

“Oh, I’m everywhere,” she laughed. “All around you… dancing.” She began moving her body sinuously to an unknown music, and Spike was instantly drawn back to the first time he had seen her, that night at the Bronze.

“Bloody hell!” Spike got up. “You’re not supposed to be here! Not in my head! Not in my heart!”

“These will not destroy you…” someone interrupted him.

“What?” Spike looked at the man, dumbfounded. Two cheese slices that had been cut in half dangled from his hands.

“These will not destroy you,” the man repeated again, smiling at him. “They’ll just cut you in half…”

He vanished.

“Oh, I’ll cut you in half alright,” Buffy drew his attention back to her. “I’ll do more than that.”

“Just try, Slayer,” he snarled, going into demon face, ignoring all of the physical and emotional agony he was suffering. “If it weren’t for this sodding chip, we’d see who’d win this!”

“But it’s a dance,” she smiled coyly as they moved into battle positions. “And you can’t win a dance. It just goes on and on and on… until the music stops.”

“So let’s fight then…”

“Uh, uh,” the Slayer skipped backwards. “The music hasn’t changed yet… but it’ll never end…”

Suddenly, they were back in his crypt, and darkness enfolded them. The only one candle remained alight. The rest had been blown out by chill gusts of wind coming in from the open door.

“Slayer?” he asked cautiously. He could feel her, hear her heartbeat… but where was she?

“Right behind you,” she whispered, and then struck with Slayer strength as he turned.

This time, he screamed as he fell backwards into the wall once more. The rest of his ribs had lodged into his heart, broken by her blow, filling his body with a sharp pain he hadn’t experienced for a long, long time. Not evenat Angelus' hands hadhe ever felt this pain.Even his Mother, Cecily and Dru hadn’t hurt as badly as this. He screamed again, a scream of utter desolation and agony.

He couldn’t even see her this time, but he knew that she moved closer to him, standing over him.

“You’re beneath me.”

He snapped.

“I know that!” he roared. “I bloody well know that! Beneath everyone! Always beneath everyone!”
He panted, curled up in a ball against the unyielding wall, and then sobbed quietly. “Go away.”

“Oh no,” she smiled. “I’m staying. I’m not leaving you. I’ll run away, but I won’t leave.”

He only wept harder.

“You know what, Spike?” Buffy asked, a sadistic tinge to her tone. “You’re nothing. Can’t be a man, can’t be a demon. Oh poor, poor little Spikey.”

Between tears, he snarled at her.

“Angelus was more a demon than you’ll ever be. And Angel more a man. Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Go away…” he sobbed. “Oh please, go away…”

Everything rushed in on him now, hitting his vampiric senses mercilessly. His pain, most of all. Shredded ruins of a once proud demon lying in a mixture of blood and tears. The stench of the crypt. He hadn’t really had too much time to clean it, yet. Just lighting the candles… he loved candles…

Her scent. A mixture of vanilla, roses, and danger. Her heartbeat, sounding in his ears, in time with the blood rushing along her veins. It sounded like music…
And then it was all gone. Spike felt an unnatural heat on his skin, and stood up in demon face. He tried to change back, but found he couldn’t. Then he opened his eyes, and almost screamed again as he realized that he was in the sunlight. In a cemetery. For the first time in over one hundred years… oh no, wait. Midst all of his pain, he smiled wryly. The ring of Amara…

“You don’t belong here, you know.”

He turned to see Tara walking towards him, her golden-brown hair wrapped in a loose bun at the back of her head. He suddenly realized that he’d been totally bereft of his beloved leather duster until now… it hung around his shoulders in an almost comforting embrace, yet he felt a strange urge to hurl it away.

“I know that, Glinda…” he turned to look up at her, realizing he was curled against the cemetery wall. It was so high…

“I know I’m not supposed to be here,” he laughed bitterly. “I’m supposed to be beneath… beneath…”
He scrabbled at the dirt, feeling it give way under his fingertips. Suddenly his chip fired, and he fell back with a howl.

“You don’t belong here, in the sunlight.”

“Yeah, I know. In the darkness. In my grave,” Spike spat.

“No, you don’t belong there either,” Tara disagreed softly.

“Where?” he demanded then, desperation overcoming him. “Where do I belong? I just want to be… I just want to find… somewhere I belong…”

The last word was almost a keening wail. Tara looked compassionately at the vampire who had stopped digging. “You belong in the shadow,” she whispered. “In the grey. In the shadow, until you finally choose.”

“Choices,” Spike snickered, choking on his own bile. “I always screw them up.”

“Don’t make mistakes with this one,” Tara warned. “It’s important.”

“Isn’t it always?” he sneered.

She merely smiled at him again. “You’ll be needing this.”

She handed him a card. He looked at the picture. A red river. One bank had life abounding on it. Flowers, trees, gentle swallows and deer. The other was barren, devoid of life. Charred and burnt, with twisted bodies lying in the ground. With a sudden catching of his breath, he knew that all of those bodies, and they stretched out for miles, were his victims. Then… why the life on the other side?

“Arrakis, blood,” Spike whispered.

“Yes, life,” she affirmed. “Here.”

He looked at the card. “But what am I supposed to do with this?” he asked empty air.

Tara had disappeared. He cursed, and threw the card down into the makeshift hole he had made. It immediately dissolved into a heady mixture that shone as it sparkled back at him. Crimson blood, and yet…

He hadn’t realized he was still crying, blood combining with tears to run down his face. A single drop dribbled down from his eyes to land in the strange, shimmering hole. Immediately, a wall sprung up.
It was different from the ones he’d been thrown against. Staggering to his feet, he looked up. He was in darkness, now. The wall seemed to block out the sun at this level. But the middle of the wall was grey, light filtering through cracks. At the very top, it was pure, blinding white. Life… the light…

Ignoring the pain of his body and all of the broken ribs, he climbed.

It seemed to go on forever. An endless scrabbling of pain and stone and even wood. The wall stared back at him, filled with memories. It was hard to find a grip. There were times when he fell, and it took all of his strength to pull himself back up again.

Suddenly, he heard a growl, and he was knocked sideways by a body. Before he could fall to the earth, the wall turned horizontal, and shifted into a greyland. Again, one side was in darkness, the other in light. He stood in the middle, his chest afire with excruciating pain, and something circling him.

“Vampire,” it hissed.

“Yeah,” he winced, feeling blood bubble out of his mouth. “I got that part about a hundred years ago. Who the hell are you?”

It walked from the darkness to the light, and finally, he could see it properly. A woman, clad in rags, with black dreadlocks shadowing her face. She held a stake in one hand, and a sword in the other.

“Oh great,” he threw his hands up in the air in disbelief. “Another Slayer, right? How many of you do I have to bloody well kill?”

With the sight of her primal power, he felt his demon respond, and the tears slowly dried. He snarled at her, and she responded in kind.

“Vampire,” she hissed again.

“Yeah, I told you,” he could almost feel his cocky façade returning, despite the pain and the tears and blood that were drying on his face. “I already knew that.”

“Vampires… evil.”

“I know that too,” he rolled his eyes. “Look, could we just get to fighting? You look animal enough, maybe I can hit you.”

She launched herself at him then, and he ducked and rolled, wincing. He knew he couldn’t take this fight. The little matter of all his ribs being broken and smashed into his heart played a rather large part of that.

“Vampire! Why do you help?”

“Help?” he asked, puzzled as she circled him again. “I don’t help. I kill. Me… the Big Bad, remember?”

She growled, and then attacked again, swift as lightning. Reflexes hampered by pain and emotional exhaustion, Spike was too slow. She knocked him to the ground and stood over him, one foot on his throat.

“You’re different.”

It was a statement, but he still shook his head. “Nup. No way. Same as any other Master Vamp. Powerful. Big Bad. I want to end the world, see. And kill all the Slayers. Got myself a reputation, after all.”

“You’re different,” she insisted.

“Geez, you’re a stubborn, procrastinating chit,” he forced out as her throat pressed harder. “Are you just going to stake me already? End my bloody pain!” The last words came out as a snarl.

“No stake,” she shook her head. “Only the blood. The dance.”

Before he could react, she brought the sword down and left a long, incredibly deep diagonal gash across his torso. He screamed as the blood flowed out. Vampires couldn’t die from blood loss, but he knew from experience that being drained of all blood made him go berserk…

Wait…

He felt a sudden lightness, and choked as he could almost physically feel himself turning to dust. Blood mixed with ashes and tears.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Where are my friends?” Buffy asked dangerously.

“You're asking the wrong questions,” Tara explained.

“Make her speak,” Buffy ordered.

The… cavewoman? Shook her head again.

“I have no speech,” Tara said. “No name. I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute ... alone.”

Buffy frowned with a sudden realization. “The Slayer,” she breathed.

“The first,” Tara agreed.

Buffy looked down at her hand, and realized she was holding a pile of Tarot shaped cards. As she looked closer, she saw Giles, Willow, Xander, and herself in the living room watching TV. Then, surprisingly, she saw Spike in the picture. He was laughing with them.

The mountains loomed behind her.

“I am not alone,” Buffy said softly.

The first Slayer shook her head, and Tara answered for her. “The Slayer does not walk in this world.”

“No,” Buffy looked her in the eye, a fierce pride in her voice. “I walk. I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back.”

The first Slayer lifted her chin in anger.

Buffy ignored her, and kept going. “There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones.”

Buffy’s eyes hardened. “Now give me back my friends.”

“No ... friends!” the First Slayer growled in a hoarse voice full of anger. “Just the kill! We ... are ... alone! No vampires! No friends! Just… alone!”

“Hold your enemies closer to you than your allies,” the words rolled off Buffy’s tongue. Then she made a face. “In fact, he’s not even my ally… okay, fine, he is… but he’s a mortal enemy turned ally… what does that make him…?

“No allies. Alone!” the First repeated. “Kill the vampires! No friends!”

A bald man leaned in between Buffy and the First Slayer, holding up two slices of cheese. He grinned and shook the cheese at Buffy, then vanished.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “That's it! I'm waking up.”

Before she could move, the First Slayer attacked her, pushing her to the ground and tried to bash her head on it. Dimly, Buffy realized that she could somehow hear African drums. She rolled the first Slayer off her and kicked her. They both leapt up, and then the First Slayer punched her.

Buffy fell backwards. The First Slayer tried to punch downwards, but Buffy rolled to her feet and kicked her in the back. She kicked again but the First Slayer ducked. Buffy punched. It was identical to the first one the First Slayer threw at her.

The First Slayer fell backwards.

They both stood, glaring. Faceoff. Buffy shook her head.

“It's over. We don't do this any more.”

In response, the First Slayer snarled and grabbed her again and they rolled down the flawless dune, clutching at each other and rolling over and over in a flurry of kicks and punches, before Buffy found her voice again.

“Enough!”

Buffy woke up on the floor, still covered by the blanket. She looked around quickly, and saw Willow, Xander and Giles sleeping peacefully. Groaning, she stood up, but then heard a growl from behind her. The First Slayer landed on top of her, bowling her over, bringing the stake down repeatedly in a frenzied rhythm of death.

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Are you quite finished?”

The First Slayer pulled back, surprised.

“It's over, okay? I'm going to ignore you, and you're going to go away.” Buffy sat up, and then stood, her eyes meeting those of the First Slayer’s.

“You're really gonna have to get over the whole ... primal power thing,” she tossed over her shoulder as she walked to the couch. The First Slayer stared at her in bewilderment. “You're not the source of me. Also, in terms of hair care, you really wanna say, what kind of impression am I making in the workplace? 'Cause-“

They woke.

8 8 8



(Did you like that? The end of the dream... finally. Please, Read and Review!)

13: Pancake Divination

“Um… pancakes, anyone?”

Willow’s shaky voice reverberated around the room, where everybody was still looking at the spot Kendra had vacated. An aura of wonder and amazement hung palpably over them, broken by Daniel stepping forwards to face Spike.

“Oh, and, just to set the record straight… I’m not a half-grown weakling. And we both got out of the nursery about twelve years ago.”

Spike snorted, finding refuge in sarcasm from what Whistler had said. “Oh, is that so? How old are you?”

“Fifteen,” Daniel replied softly.

“Exactly,” he smirked. “Half-grown weakling. You just proved my point.”

“Hey, lay off him, evil undead,” Xander defended him. “At least his heart beats.”

“He’s still a half-grown weakling.”

Daniel’s eyes flared angrily, but Cassandra stepped up put a hand gently on his elbow. “That’s Spike, and that’s Xander,” she informed him quietly.

“Here, how do you know my name?”

“Cool,” Xander looked pleased. “You know my name as well, huh?”

“How do you know everything?” Buffy asked. “We’ve never seen you before in our lives.”

“Maybe something Hellmouthy,” Willow suggested.

Giles sighed, and began to clean his glasses. “I suspect that there is a lot that you need to tell us. Frankly, I’m still quite tired from our encounter with the First Slayer. Willow, are those pancakes still on offer? Things might be easier to digest while we’re eating.”

“It’d make sense, wouldn’t it?” Spike snickered. “You can only digest if you eat, after all.”

Giles glared at him, giving him the famous look of librarians worldwide when they find people eating inside libraries. “I’m not in the mood, Spike. Whistler sent you for a reason, I believe. But that doesn’t mean I have to listen to your smart comments.”

“Whatever, Rupes,” Spike shrugged offhandedly, sauntering into the dining room, mostly everyone following. Willow immediately began sorting out ingredients on the island, not noticing the girl in the doorway until she softly cleared her throat.

“Um… I was just wondering, can I help?” Cassandra half-squeaked.

“Sure,” Willow grinned. “Here, help me beat up the eggs.”

They mixed in silence for a while, occasionally giggling over the argument clearly going on in the dining room. Eventually, Daniel slipped in as well.

“Mr. Giles thinks that we should call Tara and Anya here,” he said uncomfortably. “He said you knew their numbers?”

“Oh, of course…”

As Willow reached for the telephone, Daniel joined Cassandra. Soon, sizzling noises rent the air, filling the room with a delicious smell. The doorbell rang.

As Tara and Anya filed in, it suddenly struck Cassandra that she was still in shock. Barely a day ago, she’d been lying in hospital, her body battered and bruised, and a pessimistic view of the future. Now, however, she was in the land of dreams. These weren’t actors she was seeing. This was the real deal. She’d seen them last night, in the exhausting aftermath of a magical spell…

There was magic in this world.

The thought hit her hardest amongst all of her musings. The Powers that Be had sent them here for a reason. But she was still completely confused. What good could she do here?

Reality began to sink in. This was a world of magic, yes. But also demons and darkness and evil. She was standing on the doorway of the Hellmouth itself.
So not going to think about that.

It scared her. She looked at Willow and Tara, smiling and laughing together as they trooped into the dining room, and saw instead Tara shot, lying on the floor, blood oozing from the wound. I promise I won’t let that happen. Maybe this is why…

She saw Willow filled with dark magic, wreaking bloody horror across Sunnydale, and Warren, completely skinned in the throes of death.
Oh God… please may I be able to stop that from happening…

She saw Anya following them, kissing Xander when she reached him. But then she saw Anya, cloven in two by a Bringer’s sword.

She stayed and fought. She didn’t deserve to die. None of them did. I’m going to try…

She heard Giles’ voice rise over Spike’s in the room next door, and saw Buffy, crying, as Giles left for England. Saw everyone in the group rent apart.

I am not going to let that happen! Giles’ leaving triggered off everything else… or at least helped to…
With the realization slowly dawning on her of what she was supposed to do, she began to shake uncontrollably. Daniel looked alarmed.

“Cassandra, what’s wrong!”

“I’ll tell you later,” she gulped, forcing down the panic. He began to notice something else strange.

“Why are you putting chilli in this last one?” his eyes widened. “Why are you putting a lot of chilli in this last one?”

“Spike,” she explained, glad to escape further questioning. “His tastebuds aren’t exactly like ours, and I’ve already checked the fridge. There isn’t any blood.”

Daniel took a long and shaky breath. “This is going to take a lot of getting used to,” he muttered. “It feels like I’m in a dream.”

“I know,” she finally put the last, chilli pancake on a plate, and took them all in.

Everyone muttered words of appreciation, and Willow beamed. Cassandra managed a shy smile, and Daniel coughed uncomfortably. Golden syrup and honey were quickly emptied. But when she put Spike’s plate in front of him, he raised a scarred eyebrow.

“Why’s mine orange?”

Cassandra blushed. “Um… I know you like chilli. And I know your tastebuds aren’t exactly in full working order, so…”

He looked at her suspiciously as she blushed, and
then took a careful bite. Despite his attempt to keep his face sour and menacing, he failed, and a small smile lit his handsome features.

“Thanks,” he whispered, taking care that no-one else heard him but her.

“No problem,” she smiled shyly again, and then when back to sit with Daniel.

The Scoobies tucked in with relish, and even Spike was enjoying the chilli pancakes. He’d never really thought of this option before. He could actually taste it, which was definitely of the good…

Oh bollocks. I’m talking like them. I’m going mad… oh bloody hell… gotta go back to my crypt and think things through…-

“Now,” Giles’ voice shocked him out of his thoughts. “Would you care to tell us your story?”
Buffy looked at her seemingly unflappable Watcher in admiration. Right now, she just wanted to put her head under her pillow and stay there, preferably for the next couple of years. Too much had happened in too short a span of time for her to process it.

“Well… I don’t actually know,” Daniel took the lead after a quick glance to Cassandra. “We were in hospital one second, and then we were someplace else, and someone was talking to us.”

“I think it was probably a delegate of the powers,” Cassandra added. “They said a lot of things I didn’t understand at the time… and there were a lot of images that I kept seeing from this world. Then they spouted off this weird rhyme before they sent us, and that’s really all.”

“A rhyme, you say?” Giles leaned forwards, completely enraptured and in full Watcher-mode. “Do you remember it? It could be vitally important.”

“Not all of it, but…”

“You have been chosen,
Before the death of Time,
To follow the path,
And teach with song and Rhyme

Wisdom of the Ancient,
Follow bardic trail,
Companion to the Singer,
For Light to win, prevail

The First and Last have conquered,
Undo what has gone before,
Or else all Heart has failed,
And lost this endless War

This battle must be won
Though both sides may win and lose,
But the fighting must be done,
For the Heart to finally choose

Argue, lie, tell truths and hate,
Work against the other Fate,
Guide and save, protect and fall,
Die and live again for all…”

Daniel finished, and then saw everyone looking at him in astonishment, save Cassandra who was merely smiling. She’d long ago learnt of his phenomenal memory. “What?”

“Well, I must say,” Giles immediately produced a pen and paper, and began writing notes down furiously. “Could you please repeat that?”

Daniel obediently repeated the poem, and Giles leapt up.

“Research,” he exclaimed excitedly. “We must go back to my apartment! I’ve never seen a prophecy like this before!”

“Do you want us to look it up on the internet?” Willow asked.

“Yes,” Giles nodded. “Xander, Anya, to the books!”

“Well, I’m not wanted,” Spike stood up abruptly and pulled his duster about him. “I’ll just go back to the crypt.”

“But i-it’s daytime,” Tara stuttered. “W-won’t you get b-burnt?”

“Sewer system,” Spike shrugged. “I left the manhole open.”

“You can stay here for the day, if you want,” Buffy felt the words coming out of her mouth.

He looked at her in surprise, but then shook his head. “No, it’s okay. ‘M hungry, anyway. No blood here.”

“Thanks for that wonderful observation, Peroxide boy,” Xander said scathingly.

“Well, of course, there is,” Spike grinned evilly. “But it happens to be situated in your body. Care to cut a vein, Whelp?”

Before Xander could reply, Spike had collected his blanket and run out of the door, smoking again.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Buffy was looking so obviously bored Cassandra had to look sympathetic. Anya and Xander were snuggling together on the pretext of both reading the same book. Even Willow and Tara were giggling by their computer. Giles was the only one reading animatedly.

Cassandra felt completely useless. And she could feel Daniel tense next to her. Suddenly, she had an idea.

“Is it alright if we explore the town?” she asked Buffy quietly.

“Sure!” Buffy leapt up, smiling cheerily, thanking the teenager silently for this opportunity of freedom. “I can show you around!”

“Not now, Buffy,” Giles said absentmindedly. “I need you to look over this. I’m sure Daniel and Cassandra would like to familiarize themselves with Sunnydale, though. Just don’t go near the old High School.”

Before anyone could object, Cassandra had dragged Daniel out into the warm sunlight, and out into the heart of Sunnydale.

“Where are we going?” Daniel asked, bewildered.

“To see Spike.”

8 8 8

(Well? Like that? Little button...)

Chapter 14: Shouldn’t be here

8 8 8

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The simple sentence floated through the crypt before they’d even taken a step inside, and Daniel started.

“How does he do that?” he hissed in her ear.

“Vampire, remember?” Spike appeared from the shadows, a smirk dancing across his features as Daniel got another shock. It widened slowly, languorously. “Or… did you forget?”

He recovered quickly, however. “I’m not afraid of you, you know,” he said calmly as they stepped inside and then shut the door, cutting off the beams of sunlight seeking to burn Spike’s pale skin.

“Hmph,” Spike turned away, and hoisted himself onto the sarcophagus again. “You are. A little bit.”

“How…?”

Spike tapped one slender, pale finger against his nose. “I can smell it. Just a little thread of fear, tightening around your heart, your lungs… you should be more afraid, though. Creature of darkness, I am. Evil…”

“Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that,” Daniel returned, as he walked around the crypt, looking intently at everything. “I thought you said that his crypt was really nice.”

“Pardon?” Spike sat up incredulously.

“Well, I like the candles,” Cassandra said quietly.
Daniel shook his head, half-amused, half-exasperated. Cassandra seemed to swing in between the two extremes of assertiveness and absolute shyness. It appeared she was in a the latter mood at the moment.

“Like candles, do you?”

She moved to one, and slowly reached out a hand, stroking the hard wax surface in awe. God, I’m an idiot, getting so excited over being in Spike’s crypt. I can’t believe I’m touching his candles…!

Oh God, that sounded really, really dumb.
Cassandra cringed inwardly, wondering if anyone present could read her thoughts, but both Daniel and Spike just appeared to be looking at her, rather amused. “S-sorry.”

“No need,” he threw his hands around expansively. “Touch all the candles around you want. Hell, I’ve got more downstairs. You like Paraffin?”

“Prefer beeswax,” she admitted.

“Got a stash of both. What scents?”

As Spike led them downstairs into his sanctuary, Daniel smiled sardonically as he watched Cassandra stroking various candles with awe. “How ironic you picked up on her favourite hobby so quickly.”

“Favourite hobby, eh?” the vampire cocked an eyebrow at him. “Collecting candles?”

“Yeah. She’s obsessed with them.”

“They’re pretty,” Spike shrugged.

Daniel slid a sideways glance at him, and then burst out laughing.

“What, Junior?”

“Junior?”

“Never learnt your names,” Spike kicked at a rat that had stumbled in from the sewer entrance. “Junior’ll do you.”

“Oops,” Cassandra mumbled, as a few candles toppled over. “Sorry!”

“Careful, Platelet,” Spike advised. “You wouldn’t want those things catching, would you?”

She almost knocked over more candles as she heard him, and had to try very hard not to flush with pleasure. Junior and Platelet. He’s already out with the pet names. That’s a good thing… right?
“Sorry…” she stammered again.

“No need. Just as long as you don’t give me a reason to bite your heads off. There’s nothing much to burn here, anyway.”

Cassandra leant back and studied the vampire thoughtfully. She remembered the Spike of Season Four. Then, his façade had barely even cracked. Cockiness and arrogance had enveloped him in a protective shield just as surely as his leather duster had. But now? She could almost sense he was confused, and was swinging between acting completely tough in his ‘Big Bad’ mode, and relaxing to let the thoughts chase themselves across his features.

“What are you looking at, Platelet?”

“You,” she replied immediately. “I can’t seem to figure you out. Never… never really expected you to help them.”

“Neither did I, until I found out Adam was going to dust me,” he replied shortly. He slumped against the wall. “Come on, go back to the Watcher’s, Junior, Platelet. Shouldn’t be hanging out with an evil, soulless demon.”

The bitter, self-mocking tone in his voice hit both of them. “If it’s okay, I wouldn’t mind staying here for a while,” Daniel said cautiously. “I’m kinda new to all of this, if you get me.”

Spike was still slumped against the wall with his eyes closed, only now he had a cigarette between his lips. “What, new to the world of demons and Hellmouths? I never would have thought that.”

“Surprise, surprise,” Daniel retorted, nearly matching the phenomenal amount of sarcasm that had dripped from Spike’s words.

“Huh,” Spike took a deep drag. “I like you. Better than the Whelp, anyway. Not enough guys ‘round here. We’re being swamped.”

“Pardon?” Daniel asked, startled.

Spike inhaled even more smoke, if it was possible, and it was only then that Cassandra realized his hands were shaking. He seemed to blurt out his next words. “Just that it’s good to have company ‘sides the Slayer and her Scoobies and the…”

They heard the crypt door bang open with a bang, and a hideous roar rent the air to shreds.
“… demons…”

Daniel leapt up almost immediately to run to Cassandra’s side, but Spike merely took another breath of cigarette smoke and sauntered up the ladder. Cautiously, they followed him… only to see Spike crash into the crypt wall when they finally reached the upper level, trying to keep to the shadows for protection.

Spike jumped to his feet, laughing, and they saw none of the hesitancy and sudden vulnerability that had swept over him before. Now, he was Spike the vampire, killer of two vampire slayers, and he was loving it.

“Come now, Kraggy,” he grinned. “That’s no way to great an old friend.”

“Friend?” the ‘Kraggy’ demon asked ominously as it stepped up even closer, sending a fetid wave of over-fragrant scent towards them. “You’ve allied yourself with the Slayer, Spike. We all heard about it, and now we know, because you’re stinking hide isn’t dead yet, and at least fourscore demons saw you in her house!”

“Well, a bloke has to keep his friends,” Spike stamped out the cigarette that had flown from his mouth at contact with the demon’s fist. “Their enemies, too. Ah… the good times we had…”

“No longer matter,” Kraggy’s eyes were slits. “You betrayed us, Spike. A lot of us were killed in Adam’s downfall.”

“Your fault for shacking up with the guy in the first place.”

“You did too,” the demon countered.

“Yeah, but when I realized that he was going to kill me, I buggered off,” Spike returned pleasantly. “You, of all demons, can’t blame me for that one.”

“You still didn’t have to ally yourself with the Slayer,” Kraggy shot back. “My brother died by her hand. I’m thinking taking your head off right now will go a long way to…”

He stopped.

He sniffed.

His eyes fell on them.

“Humans,” he growled. “You’re harbouring humans!”

Daniel deliberately placed himself between Cassandra and the tall, hairy demon. “Back off,” he enunciated slowly. “We were just paying a visit. None of this is anybody’s fault.”

The demon ignored him. “You’re harbouring humans? Even allying with the Slayer against us and betraying Adam, but this? Not even special…”

Kraggy obviously decided at that moment that he’d talked more than enough, and with a roar, rushed at them. Before they had time to react, he was upon them.
And it was one big world of “What the hell…!” to them when he went for Daniel and Cassandra.

She hadn’t know that she could react so quickly, but Daniel was still standing like an obstinate mule in front of the big demon barrelling towards them. And if he stayed that way, he probably wouldn’t live to learn the rules of life on the Hellmouth. Surprisingly, amazing clarity flowed through her. I’m not a superhero like Buffy, or a vampiric good guy like Spike. Therefore… best option is to duck and run.

Kraggy slammed into the same wall he’d thrown Spike against, and because of the speed of his run, it was over within seconds. Spike leapt, with his vampiric speed and grace. A few muffled punches, and Spike returned the favour and threw the demon across the room, to land in a puddle of sunlight. Somehow, Cassandra knew that it was deliberate.

“Get out of here, Kraggy,” Spike’s voice was completely cold and emotionless now, and she shuddered. “I’m letting you go now because of what happened to your family. But come anywhere near here again, and I’ll rip out your guts and strangle you with them. And you know full well that that’s a promise.”
Slowly, the great demon nodded, and then vanished outside.

Spike righted a piece of furniture that had been knocked over.

“Spike, thank…”

“Just go.”

“But…”

“Go.”

And then, his eyes hooded, he climbed down the ladder and vanished, leaving them standing together, chilled by the bitterness in his tone.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

How could I explain it to you?

Children.

Yeah, yeah, I know better now. Don’t soddin’ push it! But for Christ’s sake, I’d had almost enough! Whistler poppin’ round in the morning had been a big enough shock, an’ then those traitorous little words that seeped under my skin and prodded my heart to see if it still wasn’t beating. Thought I’d be able to relax in my crypt, I did. Figure it all out. Just who’d the bloody lot think they were? And, more importantly, who’d they think I was? After all, I wasn’t a bleedin’ white hat! Why were they foisting everything on me?

For that matter, I still don’t understand why everything happened the way it did.

That’s why I said those words.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Yeah. Really shouldn’t have. In a graveyard of a traitor vampire, on the Hellmouth… all of them. Just two normal kids.

Ach! I know, I know.

But for some reason, it made me slightly happier, see? Only ones to treat me like a human that day. Only Joyce and Nibblet… or at least the false memories of Nibblet, had ever done that before.

I’ll… just shut up now.

Don’t feel much like talking.

8 8 8

Chapter 15: Stormy Days

8 8 8

The second that Buffy said they were going to the beach to enjoy the brilliant weather, Cassandra knew that Dracula was coming.

And, of course, she had to wonder at the timing.

The days had languidly turned hotter, bathing Sunnydale in the heat that gave the small, deadly town its name. The sun beat down on them almost constantly, and whenever Daniel and Cassandra went to visit Spike, he complained about it. Loudly.

Cassandra often found excuses to drag Daniel to Spike’s crypt without the others’ knowledge. Despite Spike’s groaning, she understood Dawn when she had said she felt safe there. Spike had a way of spinning marvellous ghost stories that would leave even Daniel shivering.

After the initial burst of research brought on by their arrival, everyone had tired and bored of it except for Giles. When Anya pointed out the fact that since Daniel and Cassandra had brought the prophecy with them, it would be a fairly new one and therefore not documented, Giles deflated. As such, Buffy managed to get them out of the house to go on a shopping spree with Tara and Willow for clothes. It was decided that they stay with Giles despite his protests for the time being, although they really spent more time on Revello Drive with Buffy and Joyce.

As for Cassandra, she was in the literal seventh heaven. Buffy was her idol. Back on her own earth dimension, posters had adorned her walls and action figures had stood from almost every available platform, bought by money she had painstaking scraped together. She took some time to get over staring after Buffy adoringly with puppy eyes, and it took Buffy herself to joke uncomfortably that ‘you know, apart from the whole saving the world job, I am human’ to get her to snap out of it.

Daniel found everyone to be every bit as kind, intelligent, gentle, compassionate, understanding, and plain funny as Cassandra had described. He and Xander struck up a friendship almost instantly, Daniel matching his dry sardonic wit to Xander’s cheery one. He also had a mutual bond of growing respect with Giles. He admired the Watcher for his vast knowledge and acute insight, while Giles was forced to respect his cool-headedness and his uncanny maturity for his age.

Things had really been going quite well as they’d settled in, surprisingly. There had been no more visits from delegates of the Powers, and everyone accepted that Cassandra and Daniel had a part to play, even though Cassandra had somehow known that now was not the time to tell all that she knew. Somehow, she had to help them through without telling them about the T.V series back on her dimension. So they were like normal teenagers, hanging out with the Scoobies as they adjusted to this demon-filled, magic-run world.

When Olivia came, they moved to the guest room at Revello, and while Buffy patrolled, they laughed with Willow and Tara, or listened secretly to Joyce and Spike conversing over cups of hot chocolate. They also found that they had created identities that the Powers had thoughtfully provided them with.

That had been quite amusing.

“He’s an illegitimate child of my uncle’s sent to study here with my mentor… the librarian… Rupert Giles!” Xander protested. “Come on! That’s ridiculous! No-one’s going to buy that!”

“She’s my cousin?” Willow asked in disbelief. “I don’t have any cousins with black hair!”

“So why are they staying at my house if they’re your random relatives?” Giles complained.

Their identities also provided them with a place at Sunnydale Junior, Year 8. Of course, as it was the holidays at the moment, they didn’t attend.
Of course, this bliss couldn’t last forever.

8 8 8

Dracula had been at the start of Season Five. And Season Five was a year after Season Four. Not… three months.

Something was happening, and it was completely screwing up the time system that Cassandra had made up in her head. She’d thought that they’d at least have half a year to settle in to life on the Hellmouth. It was still hard, waking up in the morning in a foreign bed, one hand searching for a nonexistent alarm to shut it off automatically, one hand seeking the comfort that the soft toy monkey always lent her in the mornings.

As stupid as it sounded, she missed Cheeky.

Cassandra was one for meticulously planning, but she also knew that mainly, the only reason she did so was to further her procrastinating. And now…? Oh gods. This was dumb. She’d foregone the beach to go to Spike’s… and had suddenly realized something.
Dawn was coming today.

Oh Gods, Dawn was coming today!


Buffy did a victory dance in her beach sari. “Hah! Touchdown. Oh yeah! Go Team me!”

Riley laughed. “Anybody ever tell Team You the quarterback throws like a girl?”

Buffy caught the ball, frowning. “I do?”

Xander, Anya, Willow and Tara lounged on the beach, watching them. Xander sighed. “I'm exhausted just looking at those two. All the splashing and jumping and running... Shouldn't relaxing involve less exertion?”

”Absolutely,” Anya agreed, smiling. “Exertion can lead to sweatiness.”

”Which can cause the pain and heartbreak of stinkiness,” Tara chuckled. “Better to just stay put.”

Willow grinned at that. “I think we've just put our finger on why we're the sidekicks.”

They watched as Buffy and Riley approached, sprayed with water and sand and laughs. “What, Game over?” Willow asked innocently..

“Uh, Buffy slayed the football,” Riley threw the deflated ball aside.

“Where my burger?” Buffy queried.

”Yeah, man, I'm starving. Cow me.”

Xander sighed again. “The, uh, fire's not cooperating. It's comforting to know that I lack the culinary finesse of a caveman.”

Willow gestured at the flames. “Ignis incende.”

The beach fireplace burst in a sudden whoosh of flame, causing Xander to fly backwards in shock onto the sand. Buffy grinned admiringly as Tara and Willow shared a look. “Willow, check you out! Witch-fu.”

“It's no big,” Willow said modestly. “You just have to balance the elements so when you affect one, you don't wind up causing... “

A huge clap of thunder decided at that moment to interrupt as dark clouds dissolved out of nowhere, and began to pelt them with rain. Everyone leapt up, shrieking, and Xander and Tara began frantically gathering up their stuff to run to shelter.

“I didn't do it! I didn't do it!” Willow yelped.

8 8 8 8 8

“Spike! Spike!”

Spike snapped awake as the crypt door came crashing open. He growled irritably under his breath. When would Platelet and Junior realize that vampires slept in the day!

“Spike! Please!”

Not that he’d ever tell them he enjoyed these little visits. Oh no… he hadn’t seen the Scoobies for a looooong time. Not since that little incident when they’d accused him of lying. He wasn’t really too keen to face them again, either. But the relationship that was building between the three of them meant more to him than he’d care to admit. They’d come here when the Watcher was on another research spree. Cassandra would sometimes talk about candles, her eyes fixed on him full of admiring adoration. He’d scare them with his massacres when the candles grew dim. Daniel would lean back, observing with sarcastic comments how it amazing it was that nothing had been set on fire yet. Spike’d never told Daniel this, but the instant Kraggy had leapt in an knocked some realizations into his head and then started on the humans, Spike had begun to harbour a grudging respect. Not many boys his age would move so automatically to protect someone in front of a raging Jok’lar demon. And firm and unwavering loyalty always commanded Spike’s respect.

“Spike! Are you there?”

“Where else would I be, Platelet?” Spike started getting worried. He pulled some jeans on and a shirt before Cassandra came barrelling down the ladder.

“Oh, thank God,” Cassandra sighed, collapsing against the crypt wall. It was only then that he noticed she was completely soaking.

“What’s wrong, Platelet?” Spike asked.

“Buffy and the Scoobies are in danger!”

He looked at her incredulously. “And I should care… why?”

“Come on, Spike,” she pleaded. “I know you’ve changed. Giles told me the enjoining spell…”

“Giles knows jack all,” Spike retorted roughly, before climbing back into bed. “And you’ve got to remember Platelet, as much as I’m fond of you and Junior coming around, I owe the Scoobies nothing. Hell, if you told me they were all sitting around in the Watcher’s living-room with their throats ripped out, I’d probably dance for joy and then run out to enjoy the sight.”

Cassandra had, however, zeroed in one thing.

“You like having Daniel and I come around?” she asked shyly.

Spike groaned in frustration at his careless slip. “Argh! Alright, so what if I do?” he thrust out his jaw pugnaciously. “Maybe I just like the sound of your heartbeats and the rushing blood and the fact that, if it weren’t for this chip, you’d have been dinner ages ago.”

“Oh yeah,” Cassandra felt some of Daniel’s sarcasm seep into her. “Like you really talk to me about candles and scare us with ghost stories because you think of us as dinner.”

Spike opened his mouth, and then closed it. Then opened it again. “Nah, I’m just spooking you in anticipation of the fear I’ll taste in your blood. Makes it go down all smooth, you know?”

Cassandra shrunk back, suddenly wishing she’d gone to Revello Drive and gotten Daniel before she came. Spike was… scaring her.

“S-stop,” she stuttered softly. “Look, I only want your help because it’s Dracula.”

“Dracula!” he demanded in disbelief, and then began to laugh. She relaxed slightly. This was kinda how his reaction had been… hadn’t it?

“Dracula? Soddin’ poof owes me eleven pounds, he does. What’s this about my old rival?”

“You were… old rivals.” She remembered.

“Well, yeah,” he mistook the statement for a question. “Until of course, he got too big for us with his legends and his castles and his stupid gypsy tricks. Why?”

“He’s come to Sunnydale. For Buffy.”

“And I should help… why?”

Gotta keep up the Big Bad image. Gotta keep up the Big Bad image. Gotta keep up the Big Bad image…

“Because…” Cassandra cast around for an idea. Then her face lit up. “Because, if you’re old rivals, then you won’t want Dracula to kill Buffy! Because it’ll just prove he’s better than you, ‘cos you could never do it yourself!”

Spike narrowed his eyes at her. “Why do I get the sense I’m being manipulated, Platelet?”

She gave a weak smile of relief. “So, you’ll help?”

Spike snorted. “Of course.”

Cassandra ran and impulsively hugged him. “Thank-you! Oh, thank-you, Spike!”

“Only to show the bugger who’s boss,” Spike tried to sound sour, but failed. “Poncy bastard’s thrall doesn’t do anything on yours truly…”

He remembered she was completely saturated.

“Platelet… did you just run through the storm?”
She nodded.

“You are never, never, NEVER coming to my crypt when it’s cloudy again! D’you hear me, Platelet? Never! Not even if bloody SATAN is knocking around for a cup of tea!”

“B-but… why?”

“Are you bloody thick!” Spike half-roared. “Vamps can come out now! They could have wrung your pretty neck in seconds…”

“What, and you wanted to save that for yourself?”

Spike sighed. “Now, Platelet. You know I was joking. Look, you’d better go back to the Watcher’s, anyway. I’ll walk you back, to make sure no nasties will take a bite before I do.”

“Yeah, joking, huh?”

Spike laughed. “Y’know, you should really get away from Junior more. He steals all of your sarcasm.”

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

“Cassandra, good lord, what are you doing?”

“Standing out here and getting very wet, Watcher. What does it look like?”

“Spike,” Giles realized guardedly.

Spike sauntered in, pulling arrogance around him like his leather duster. “Found the crazy bint walking through the graveyard to my crypt,” he announced. “Think she forgot that vamps can walk under clouds.”

“Sorry,” Cassandra muttered, looking away.

“And what?” Giles was still shaken. Last time he’d seen Spike was… well… last time he’d heard of Spike was when Buffy came back, bloodstained, curtly telling everyone she’d fixed the problem. “You, being the all around good fellow that you are decided to escort her back?”

“Yeah,” Spike agreed with much aplomb. “And got something for that Watcher brain of yours to wrap around too.”

“And what might that be?” Giles shut the door. “Cassandra, you’re soaking. Go dry yourself off, won’t you? I’m sure you’ll find plenty of clothes around.”

Spike laughed at Giles’ sour face while Cassandra scampered off. “Let me guess, they all had a field day shopping… no, they used your money as well, didn’t they?”

“I should never have suggested it,” Giles sighed. “Anyway, what is it that you wanted?”

Clear, succinct. “Drac’s in town.”

Giles polished his glasses. “Pardon me?”

“Dracula’s in town. You know… the Count? The big guy? Surely you’ve heard of him?”

Giles didn’t even notice the sarcasm dripping from Spike’s tone. “Dear Lord. Dracula’s in Sunnydale? How do you know this?”

“Platelet brought it to my attention. Platelet. Y’know the bint you just sent off to get dry?”

Comprehension dawned. “You mean Cassandra? But how did she know?”

“I don’t know,” Spike realized.

Giles’ eyes lit up. “Kendra… they said something about… wait…

‘You have been chosen,
Before the death of Time,
To follow the path,
And teach with song and Rhyme’

Perhaps that’s what they’re talking about!” Giles exclaimed. “To teach with… uh… song and rhyme? Maybe they were referring to…”

“Why don’t you just ask her yourself when she comes down?”

“Yes… yes… I should…” Giles mused. “Do you know why Dracula’s here?”

“I would say that he wanted closure for the eleven pounds he owes me, but I know that’s not true,” Spike snorted. “All I know is that there’s been stories. I had a bit of a sniff around during the storm before Platelet came. Everyone knows Drac here, because of course, his legend is infamous…”

“Please, stay on topic.”

Spike glared at him. “I was getting there. Anyway, it’s been whispered that Drac’s spent the last couple of years hunting for the Slayer… ever since the Acathla incident. Came to Sunnydale while the Slayer was off wherever she was, but couldn’t find her. He’s probably tracked her down again to here. Chances are, it’s not to say hello.”

“Dracula’s hunting Buffy…”

“Shock, isn’t it?

Shock, isn’t it?
Yeah, it sure as hell was. NOT.
Cassandra drew the towel around her as she listened to the voices drift from below. And knowing with a sudden growing terror that she could potentially stuff this all up.

Spike never helped out with Dracula. Buffy had done fine all by herself. What if Spike changed that?
And what if it were her fault?

Suddenly, with a dizzying clarity, she realized that she could make or break everything. That was whoever the Powers’ spokesperson had been talking about. She was a seer in this world, or could easily pretend she was. And her lies, or her truths, would or could do something disastrous.

Dammit!

8 8 8

(What'd you think? R&R :))

Chapter 16: Drac

8 8 8

Breathe… I need to breathe…

Dracula. Yeah, sure, Spike and Giles and Riley had argued and harangued over stupid moot points and then argued some more over others for the entire day. It had taken me a while to actually get used to seeing them all in the same room having what could be considered a civilized discussion. After Riley had initially erupted over Spike being there in the first place, he eventually calmed down enough to start the arguing. Finally, they came up with something none of them agreed on to give to me. A full list of Dracula dos and don’ts. And a little character study of him too. Yay.

But actually seeing the guy?

Breathing. Breathing good. Breathing means I’m alive.
Yeah, with the whole dark, penetrating eyes… I don’t think I lied very convincingly. Poor Riley. Mind you, he didn’t need to get a big case of the jealousies… right? I’m surprised Spike stayed silent. He of the running mouth and getting into trouble and me having to punch him thing. Of course, he did arch his eyebrow, and that in itself spoke volumes. It felt like he knew exactly what I’d felt. And those blue eyes of his did some penetrating of their own…

No! Dammit! Why am I thinking about Spike! And with the penetrating… eww…

Damn, I am tired, though. It’s funny, the last couple of nights, I haven’t been able to sleep. Even with Riley. I don’t know… but it’s like I’m… not… fulfilled? Like I’m a part…

Oh, right. The spell.

Anyway, for some reason, I believe I’m actually falling asleep now. It’s strange. Why can I sleep better without Riley? No… that’s not it. It’s just I’m so…

8 8 8

“You are magnificent…”

Oh god.

I cleared my throat. Bit my tongue. “I bet you say that before you bite all the girls.”

He shook his head, those dark penetrating eyes driving into my very soul. But what would he know of a soul? “No, you are different. Kindred.”

”Kindred?” I snorted. “Hardly, I…“

”Pull your hair back.”

The rest of it passed in a blur. I don’t know what I was doing. Yes, now I know I was under thrall, but it felt strange.

Everyone knows my will has always been my own, right? I listen to Giles politely, and then do what I want anyway? Well… that’s only partly true. I respect them. And I love them like hell. My friends… if it matters to them enough, I will change. Really.

But my will has never been subverted before. And it was wrong. It screamed inside me that it was wrong. Every muscle fibre wanted to stake the hell out of Dracula, no matter his stupid eyes.

Words drifted out at me.

”I have searched the world…”

Yeah, well, stupid idiot, I’ve been here all the while. Stop controlling me!

“I have yearned for you…”

And you don’t even know me. Sicko.

Hey, even I cringe at my thoughts sometimes. I know, I know… that just wasn’t funny…

“For a creature whose darkness rivals my own.”

What?!

“You have been tasted.”

He traced the scars that the Master and Angel had left. I always wondered why they tingled like that. The memories of the pain…

I finally got my mouth working. ”He was…“

”Unworthy... ”

And then the strongest compulsion of all. Do not fight. I think I knew somewhere that he’d said it out loud, but I heard it, reverberating in my head.
And then he bit me.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Being under thrall isn’t really all it’s cracked out to be. For the first time since the spell, I felt completely alone. Yeah, fine, I was in this floaty and generally comfortable place while I did weird things like cover up the bite when I wanted to go out and scream at Giles, Spike and Riley that all of their information and failed to protect me. I still didn’t understand why Spike was helping, but I wasn’t really complaining at that point. Not when he was the only one who noticed something was up with me and ripped the scarf off my neck two seconds after I stepped through the door.

“Well Slayer?” his eyes glittered dangerously. “What’s this all about?”

Riley immediately leapt up and glared accusingly at me. “That’s it! You’re under the thrall of the Dark Prince!”

“I am not under the thrall of the Dark Prince!” I protested.

“The hell you are,” Spike snorted before anyone could say anything else. “Let me guess, the bastard paid you a little visit last night and said some crap about how he yearned for you and then told you not to fight him because he knew that you wanted it?”

How does he do that?

“Something like that,” I muttered, before my mouth took on a will of its own. “It seemed a little more romantic.”

“Romantic?” Riley almost had a heart attack. “She’s really under his thrall, isn’t he?”

“No, I’m fine, Riley,” I took his hand, looking up earnestly at him. “Really, I’m your girl.”

He looked away from me. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be jealous. I mean, after that thing with Angel, how could I expect it not to transfer to…?”

“No! It is not a transferry thing!” I cried out. “It’s not that at all! I’m your girl, and I’m going to stay that way.””
Looking back at it now, I think we were both trying too hard at that point. Of course, I didn’t see it then. Xander made his offer, and then he took me to Dracula.

Then I tasted his blood.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

It was a silent scream in time to the heartbeat and the blood. The First Slayer… the… the hunting that Dracula and Spike had both called it. The… killing.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

And unbidden, words came to me.

Flying through the darkness with the staid unearthly grace,
Wrapped in pale nightfall and surmounted with cold lace,
Primeval in its hunting and primordial in strength,
Blood sprayed through the gleaming blade to run down metal length...

And my heartbeat kept drumming. Fell into the words and mixed like a rhythm to a beat.

Quintessential fire from the depths of demon spirit,
Exultation surging forth from all who fight and fear it,
Joined from one then rent inside to parley different sides,
Two leaders of two armies to forever fight in pride

Yet then the rules are broken in the hidden, priceless soul,
That single one that blazes bright though others burn to coal,
Proven once and then again past he they thought would be,
Never knowing what his worth until too late to see

Fire burning fire burning life and warmthandblood,
Fire burning fire to riseloyalty above,
Fire burning fire for the crimson sea of mud,
Fire burning fire most of all in deeper love

Crimson river, crimson tide,
Crimson love to those confide,
Crimson life and crimson soul,
Crimson blood and crimson fall

And with that, I felt everything return to me. And more. With a rush, I felt power so strong that I grasped at it hungrily with another gulp of blood.
And then, I sent him flying halfway across the room.

“That was gross,” I declared. “But thanks. Kinda broke the hold.”

He glared at me disbelievingly. “What is this!”

“My true nature,” I grinned. “Want a taste?”

“Come,” he hissed. “Come to me.”

“Look, I really think the thrall has gone out of our relationship,”

I moved towards him, but I hadn’t expected him to be so goddamned fast. He moved like lightning, punching me. I retaliated.

Left kick, swipe. Block. Punch, drive, spin kick, headbutt…

He battered into me, and my eyes rolled involuntarily from the pain. Why the hell hadn’t they warned me Drac could actually fight?

Oh wait. Spike had. Repeatedly.

He lunged at me again with an exultant, insane look in his eyes. I scissor-kicked him away and then leapt up, my blood rushing. I attacked as well as I could, landing at least eight stinging blows before he pushed me off balance again. The fierce energy lancing through me distracted me, and then I was crashed on the table, looking to see his fangs descending on me… and then promptly hauled away.

Spike.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Spike pulled Dracula off Buffy just as he was about to sink his fangs into her throat. He hissed, and spun around to face this new attacker. Spike merely smirked cockily.

“Well, well ,well. Old Draccy boy. Long time. No fight. Let’s correct that, shall we?”

“Spike,” Dracula looked surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“Laughing at your accent.”


Spike threw a punch, but Dracula blocked and kicked him hard in the gut. In a whirl of leather, Spike rolled and took the Transylvanian vampire down with him, ending up on top. Gleefully, he began hitting him.
“Remember” Punch. “That” Punch. “Eleven” Punch. “Pounds” Punch. “You” Punch. “Still” Punch. “Owe” Punch. “Me?”
Punch.

“Well guess what?”

Pu…

This time, Dracula regained his senses and clawed Spike in the face and threw him off. Spike sailed halfway across the room to crash into the wall. But Buffy had long recovered. Before Dracula could do anything, she grabbed him by the collar of his blood-red shirt and threw him into the opposite wall, finishing Spike’s sentence sweetly.

“I charge interest.”

Spike and Buffy’s eyes met across the room and they nodded. Together, they ran after Dracula as he leapt up, prepared to meet them. They tagged him mercilessly, one distracting him with a punch, and then the other sailing in with a flying kick, and both melting backwards out of reach before Dracula could retaliate. Slowly, they forced Dracula past the flickering torches to the fire that he had lounged by.

And that was how Riley and Giles found them. Moving in partnership to bring down one of the most legendary vampires the world had ever seen.
In desperation, Dracula faded into mist. Spike and Buffy’s eyes followed it as snaked through the air, almost invisible. Simultaneously, they broke into a run. Buffy detoured across to snatch up the stake on the table, so Spike got their first. As Buffy leapt, Dracula coalesced, only to find himself pinned down by his old enemy. Open for Buffy…

And then Buffy’s stake drove home.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Cassandra knew Dawn had come the instant all of the memories appeared. It was confusing mixed up with her own knowledge of what was happening. She wondered whether anything would change now that she knew…

“Hey Cassandra,” Dawn grinned. “When did you come?”

“Just felt like coming,” Cassandra shrugged. The memories lent her everything she needed to know. The first time she had stepped into Buffy’s house, Dawn had hidden wide-eyed on the stairs while listening to Kendra and Whistler’s exposition. She had stayed there as they’d all rushed out for research, but their eyes had met.

Later, after visiting Spike and somewhat subdued, they had unconsciously meandered their way back to Revello Drive, and were bombarded by a million questions. Daniel had groaned aloud and vanished as the two began enthusing about the latest boy bands. Cassandra suspected that he had gone to bash his head quietly in the basement. After they had gone down to check on him, the three had instantly struck up a fast friendship.

And all of those memories… fabricated.

“Wanna hang out?” Dawn gestured expansively to her room.

“Okay.” Anything to take her mind off what might have happened at Dracula’s estate.

They collapsed on the bed with a sigh.

“How are you? I haven’t seen you for a day.”

“Worried, as usual,” Cassandra laughed. “Dracula’s after Buffy.”

“Dracula?” Dawn’s eyes widened. “As in, the Dracula? All long hair and pale face and totally hot Dracula with the cool accent?”

“Just about,” she agreed. “Although I’m not so sure about the hot part… y’know, with the lack of body temperature and all,” she tried for a laugh.

“You know what I mean,” Dawn replied. “Damn, why do the hot guys always go for Buffy?”

Cassandra laughed. “Don’t stress Dawn. You’re really pretty.”

“You think?” Dawn asked hopefully, pushing herself off the bed and moving to the mirror.

“Yeah.”

“I wonder…”

“What are you doing here?” Buffy looked at them.
From downstairs, they heard Joyce’s voice clearly. “Buffy, if you’re going out, why don’t you take Dawn and Cassandra with you?”

Cassandra could only smile in amusement as they turned and at exactly the same time, let out a whiny. “Mum!”

8 8 8

(Well? How did you like that? Tell me!)

Chapter 17: Like a Cat

“Can’t we just say we had a late night?” Dawn tried hopefully.

They hadn’t even made it to Dawn’s room, where the two sleeping bags were assembled on either side of the bed. Instead, Cassandra and Dawn had fallen asleep together on the couch facing the television, while Daniel had finally surrendered to night’s call in the comfortable old armchair. Bleary eyed and half-awake, Dawn was pleading for their very lives.

“I mean, people like Janice do it all the time,” Dawn continued. “And the teachers let them!”

“Except you lot are not Janice, and I am most definitely not Janice’s mother,” Joyce rationalized. “Come on. Up to school. You’ve got twenty minutes before Xander comes.”

“Xander’s coming?” Daniel queried. “I thought… ah… he might not have gotten over his little experience.”

Dawn snickered and Cassandra giggled, remembering Spike’s view on the thrall Dracula had held over Xander, and the insect-eating madman he’d been reduced to. To say the least, his description had been rather colourful. Although, Cassandra had noticed, there seemed to be some sort of begrudging respect in Spike’s tone whenever he talked about ‘the Whelp’ now, that she’d never heard before when he was on screen. She’d already pieced together why.
The spell.

It all came down to the enjoining spell.

“Yes, Xander’s coming,” Joyce bustled around in the kitchen. “And he’ll be here soon! So come on, into your uniforms.”

With many a groan, Cassandra, Dawn and Daniel stumbled upstairs to Dawn’s room, ferreting around in the mess they had made the previous day. Daniel surveyed the room with a wry smile.

“Hey, looks like a cyclone came through.”

“Wait… and how is that different from the way everything normally is?” Dawn laughed.

As they finally threw everything together, and trooped downstairs, they heard voices from below.

“And this here’s for you, Mrs. Summers,” Xander said grandly. There seemed to be a new lilt to his voice, and Cassandra recognized it immediately.

Confidence. Power. Assurance.

“Why thank you, Xander,” Joyce sounded genuinely delighted. “This is so sweet of you! What’s the occasion?”

“As if I need an occasion to thank the mother of my best friend of all of the good care that she’s ever given us,” they could almost hear him wink.

“Thank-you,” Joyce repeated, beaming. “And I think it’s wonderful that you and Anya have such a beautiful place to live in now.”

“Hey,” the Slayer herself stood on the stairway, smiling. “Had a good night last night?”

They grinned back. “It was awesome,” Dawn enthused. “Movie marathon!”

“On a school night,” Buffy rolled her eyes. “But then, I can’t say anything, I guess. So… what movies did you watch?”

“Mean Girls, Mona Lisa Smile, and Legally Blonde,” Daniel groaned.

“My God,” Xander laughed as he appeared at the foot of the staircase. “How did you survive?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel replied honestly. “I think all feeling left my body half an hour in.”

They had to giggle at that, while Dawn playfully shoved him against the banister. “You didn’t seem to have too many problems with them while we were watching.”

“Appearances can be deceiving.”

“Hey,” Xander interrupted smoothly. “I hate to have to break off this conversation, but as I’m head of the School Express, I decree that you have five minutes to eat your breakfast before you’re off.”

“Five minutes?” Cassandra asked. “But we usually have to go straightaway when you’re here.”

Something seemed awake in her mind, and a startling image jumped into her mind of a demon with glowing lava seeping from below cracks in his skin.

Xander winked at her. “That’s why I came early to accommodate the movie-fest.”

The mental messages flying around the room almost made the air thicken as everyone silently gaped at each other. Xander never comes early.

“Okay, another apocalypse is on the way,” Buffy leaned against the banister as she reached the only conclusion possible.

8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

Sunnydale Junior was a medium affair, cloaked in sandstone and granite that belied the brick and wood within the solid walls. The library was nowhere near as large as the one that used to reside in Sunnydale High, but at least there was one. Cassandra had already spent several hours browsing through the books there, joyfully devouring them despite the nasty snickers behind her back about how much of a geek or a nerd she was. Their locker area coincided nicely with the corridor leading to the archive of books, making her, if possible, even happier.

Corridors interlinked the many standard classrooms, the buzzing of fluorescent lights accompanied by the click-clacking of high heels as secretaries, parents, and teachers ran around in a haphazard race to reach their next destination. Outside, the lawn stretched past a sports field, various leaning greenery lending gentle shade on crafted wooden benches. Brick finished off the outside in tessellated paths bordering concrete that snaked their way from the gym to the Science Block on the other side of the school.

However, there was no difference in the classes. Led by the same boring teachers that had once officiated at Sunnydale High and who recovered from the traumatisation several events had imposed on them, they were reduced to sleeping off the long lectures about safety interspersed by Mathematics, English, and Science.

They liked everything else. Really they did. Daniel and Dawn both enjoyed Maths, even though Cassandra loathed it. That was the only subject that they were divided on. But today, their normal Maths teacher Miss. Elliott was away. And the substitute was mangling the art of numbers.

“And so, if the parabola is upwards, it means that the equation must be positive. If the parabola is downwards, it means that the coefficient of the squared ‘x’ must be negative. Does everyone understand?”

When no one answered because half of them were asleep, Mr. Braxton assumed that they all understood and continued. As boredom seeped into students and turned off their brains, Daniel instead felt restless.
He didn’t want to admit it, but last night, between the movies, when Cassandra and Dawn had talked about common events on the Hellmouth, he had felt a chill creep down his spine, accompanied quickly by a rush of anticipatory terror. He hadn’t even seen Spike go into game-face yet, so he had no idea what they were talking about. And he’d seen ‘Kraggy’, but in the dark light of Spike’s crypt. And then, he’d been concentrating more on instinctively protecting Cassandra. Other than that, the only time he’d even seen a demon was the first day when they had clumsily avoided the demon and followed Buffy, Spike and Xander as they decimated the demon horde to save the soldiers. And then, he was still too busy being in a state of shock to really notice how strong, how powerful and how agile most demons were. And he’d never even glimpsed at the many plots groups of demons, it seemed, were hatching every day to end the world. Or this dimension, at least.

He looked around now. Dawn and Cassandra were swinging their legs beside him, leaning on their elbows. An identical look of pure boredom mixed with tiredness were plastered on both of their faces. He sighed, and wished for the bell to ring soon, even though the minute hand almost seemed to slow down to an inconceivable crawl the second he made the wish. Giving up, he slumped in his chair and closed his eyes.

If the three hadn’t been so out of it, they might have seen when a girl in their class turned around to study them. But more importantly, they would have seen her eyes dilating as her irises flushed pure onyx with eldritch flame.

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At first, Buffy never knew why she sometimes stepped out of the hectic frenzy of her life and into the cool hospital room to see its silent occupant. At first, she wondered if it was regret on her part. There were so many things she could have done differently. So many other paths she could have taken. But now, she knew that it wasn’t anything about regret. Okay, fine. Maybe a little. But mostly, it was about… realization. Connection.
Buffy sat on the empty chair next to Faith’s bed. The same chair that she always sat in. It saddened her somewhat to realize that she was Faith’s only visitor. Slayers. Always alone.

Except for when there are two of us, Buffy added silently in her head. But even then… so much can go wrong…

“Hey Faith,” Buffy spoke aloud to the prone body. She gathered the lifeless hand in her own warm ones, absentmindedly arranging Faith’s hair as she did so. She didn’t know why. “You know Adam? That crazy Frankenstein guy I told you about last time? Well… we beat him. First time I ever saw surprise on that sewn-together face of his. It felt really good. I mean, after all, we thought he was like, indestructible. You would have loved to faze him. He was… what did Giles describe him as? Ah yes. Unflappable. If anyone could have fazed him, it would have been you, you know. You would have had fun kicking his ass.”

Buffy paused, reliving the spell, before she continued. “We beat him using a spell this time. You know Willow. She’s getting better at magic now. It’s great. She’s got Tara to help her. She’ll be so powerful when she’s trained up. I guess she already is. And most surprising of all? Spike helped us. I couldn’t believe it. The memories that surfaced… afterwards, we accused him of lying. I think he was slightly hysterical by that point from exhaustion. He just got us together and showed us his entire human life. The thing was, Faith, we felt it all. We felt concerned and worried and helpless and afraid for his Mum. She was really sick, see? And we even felt Drusilla’s fangs piercing our… his neck. It was way out. Unbelievable.”

Buffy closed her eyes as she remembered William’s reaction to Cecily, and her heart ached. “Unbelievable,” she repeated.

She continued her way back to the present, as the clock counted passed half-an-hour, telling her sister Slayer everything that had happened. She finally found herself talking about Riley.

“I don’t know, Faith. Lately he’s been kinda distant. Ever since the Dracula incident two days ago. We explained everything about Dracula’s thrall. Spike even went so far as to detail Dracula’s favourite little games, but Riley punched him once and then stomped away. I wasn’t sure whether to follow him or not, and the most puzzling thing was why Spike seemed to be defending me. And they’ve both been patrolling as well. I don’t mind so much when Spike fights with me. I know he’s capable of taking care of himself, and lately, he’s even stopped a couple of stray hits that would have probably landed on me. But Riley? I know that I’m probably insulting his manhood, but I just don’t want him to get hurt. He’s still a human, no matter what crap the Initiative pumped into him.
You know, Faith, it used to be great when we went patrolling by ourselves, together. I loved the power of it. The feeling. I think you did too, didn’t you?”

Buffy looked at Faith’s face. Her eyes flickered in REM, and Buffy knew that somewhere, Faith was dreaming. Yet, she also knew that somewhere, Faith was also listening. Hanging on to her every word.

“I mean, our friendship didn’t mean that little to you, did it?” Buffy whispered. “I know I was harsh at the start. But I was more confused. There was like… this connection between us. We’re both Slayers, and besides Kendra, I’d never felt that same tingle. It was like you knew about the power inside of me that no-one had ever explained. And we just clicked. Patrolling was almost fun. But then you went away. I know that things were getting bad and you were confused because you killed that man… and I shouldn’t have pushed you so much about it. I talked with Giles afterwards, and he said that that was just your way of dealing with it…”

Buffy’s eyes suddenly caught the clock, and she gasped. It was quarter to three, and she’d promised her Mum that she would meet Dawn, Cassandra, and Daniel from School and then be picked up by Giles to go to the Magic Box.

“Damn it,” she cursed. “I’m sorry, Faith, but I gotta go. I’ll come back when I can, though. You know… coming here, talking to you. It grounds me. But… I know you’ll wake up.”

Buffy stood, and looked sombrely at Faith’s still form. “After all, I know something that the doctors don’t. And that is that you’re a Slayer. And a damned strong one. But before you were a Slayer, you were Faith. And you won’t give up. You’ll wake up soon, you know. And when you do?”

Buffy sighed, and then leaned over and kissed Faith’s forehead. She walked over to the door, and stared back.
“I hope you won’t be as confused anymore.”

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The shop was dark and silent. As Buffy entered, a shivery feeling ran up her back, and she instantly tensed. Slayer instincts. She’d ignored them before, and paid the price.

“Well, I think ‘odd’ just got upped to ‘bad.’”

”Hello? Anyone here?” Giles called out.

”Mr. Bogarty?”

They all looked at Tara, and she immediately looked down. “T-the owner,” she stuttered. “I-I come in here a lot.”

Willow advanced further into the store, looking around carefully. “Well, maybe this happened ... really late at night when nobody was... “ she tripped with a squeal.

“Will?”

“I'm fine,” Willow sat up. “I-I just tripped over... “

She rolled over and saw. And gulped. “Mr. Bogarty.”

Dawn gasped and moved forwards. “Is he okay?”

Buffy pushed her backwards firmly, sudden fear in her eyes. “It’s nothing you need to see. Nothing all three of you need to see. Dawn, Cass, Daniel… wait outside.”

“But…” Dawn protested, indignant at being excluded.

“Wait outside,” Buffy’s voice took a dangerous lilt.
As the Magic Box’s door closed behind them, Dawn swallowed. Silence seemed to hang around them as the shock settled in.

“He’s… he’s dead, isn’t he?” Dawn said, even though she knew that the others hadn’t seen him. “He’s… dead.”

“Yeah,” Cassandra replied quietly. “He is.”

“She always does that,” Dawn shook her head, a trembling in her voice. “She always shuts me out. But you know, I get more scared just…”

“Whatcha doin'?”

The three of them turned around with a gasp. A man stood behind them, unshaven and his tie loose. Something about the way he carried himself made them step instinctively backwards.

His eyes were insane.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, advancing
on them. “You kids can’t loiter. There's no loitering.”

He moved even closer, backing them up against a white van. The three of them physically started as they felt the cool metal behind their backs.

“That's why I'm a cat,” he explained, that same mad glint in his eyes. “Quiet. See, cat's in the cupboard…” he made a scratching gesture with his hands. “But they find you there anyway, and it hurts…”

Suddenly, he began sobbing noisily. “Please, make it stop! Make it stop…”

Before their shocked eyes, he turned, and terror lined his face as he began shrieking at himself. “Shut up! Shut up! They'll hear you!”

Dawn moistened her dry lips with her tongue. “Buff…” she shrieked as the guy put his finger on her lips. Cassandra reached out and grabbed Dawn’s shirtsleeve, pulling her onto the sidewalk again while Daniel remained frozen. Unmoving.

The guy wasn’t fazed. He moved even closer towards them, until a sudden realization lit in his eyes.

“I know you,” he exclaimed. “Curds and whey. I know what you are.”

He pushed Cassandra away onto the concrete and grasped Dawn by the collar. “You ... don't ... belong ... here.”

“No…” Dawn shook her head, tears starting to pool in her eyes. “Go… go…”

Daniel finally moved. He yanked the man off and pushed him away, extending his hand to Cassandra in one smooth move. He pulled her up, and then stood defiantly in front of Dawn and Cassandra, glaring.

“Get out of here,” he hissed.

The man shook his head violently. “None… none of you…”

For a long time after he vanished, the three stood there like that. Dawn in tears, Cassandra staring, stunned, and Daniel smouldering. Smouldering like fire and ice.

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